NEUE 10 | December/January 2012 by RELEVANT Media Group

GUNGOR | SHANE HIPPS | KARA POWELL | GEORGE BARNA | LEADERSHIP TRANSITION

THE MAGAZINE FOR LEADERS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH From the makers of RELEVANT | December/January 2012

THE YOUNG ADULT CHURCH EXODUS ( C AN YO U STOP IT?)

IS SMALL THE NEW BIG?

EMPIRE STATEOFMIND C A R L L E N T Z R E V E A L S WH AT ’ S W O R K I N G , W H AT I S N ’ T AN D WH AT ’ S N E X T FO R T H E M U CH - H Y P E D H I L L S O N G N E W Y O R K CH U R CH P L A N T

NEUEMAGAZINE.COM | ISSUE 10 | $4.95

REFOCUS HOW YOU MEASURE SUCCESS “The individuals, organizations and businesses that understand that how we choose to do things matters more than ever before will flourish.”

— President Bill Clinton

n How, Dov Seidman argues it is no longer what you accomplish that matters most, but how you do what you do. Through entertaining

anecdotes, case studies, cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields and revealing interviews with a diverse group of leaders, business executives and experts, the book explores how we think, behave, lead and govern our institutions and ourselves to uncover the values-inspired â&#x20AC;&#x153;howsâ&#x20AC;? of 21st-century significance.

CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS 8 Neues

FEATURES

32 Small Is the New Big | by Tony and Felicity Dale, and George Barna

18 Neue Info

36 Hillsong NYC | by Alisa Harris

22 Neue Church

42 Replacing You | Jonathan Merritt 46 How to Stop the Young Adult Church Exodus | An interview

Bethlehem Christmas Project Green Pastures

24 Neue Thought

Living in an Age of Religious Diversity by Eboo Patel Embracing a Theology of the Body by Matthew Lee Anderson

28 Neue Conversation Mark Landsman

with Kara Powell

50 Extreme Poverty Can be Eliminated | by Scott Todd 52 The Personal Lives of Professional Leaders | by Chuck DeGroat 56 Gungor | by Josh Lujan Loveless

30 Innovator

Blaine Hogan, Willow Creek Creative Director

58 Neue Recommends 64 Last Word

You Can’t Start a Movement

p. 36

p. 52

p. 32

p. 42 ACT. THINK. DISCUSS. In the following pages, we invite you to interact with the content we’ve assembled by acting, thinking and discussing. The prompts we offer at the bottom of each page are meant for both you and your team as you wrestle with the ideas shaping the future of the Church.

Favourite Christmas tunes recorded by the Hillsong team with an organic, fresh and folk-like sound. Order from hillsongmusic.com and receive a bonus music video!

ost people spend the first half of life establishing identity—rising, achieving and performing. But then,

inevitably, something happens that shocks us out of our comfort zones. We fall. In Falling Upward, Richard Rohr—

a Franciscan priest, speaker and best-selling author—says we can find grace and freedom in the challenges, mistakes and loss of control in life. Falling can actually be a stepping stone that moves us forward. Broader, deeper—upward.

IDEAS SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH From the makers of RELEVANT | December/January 2012 | Issue 10

PUBLISHER

Cameron Strang > cameron@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Director | Roxanne Wieman > roxanne@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Editor | Josh Lujan Loveless > joshl@relevantmediagroup.com Copy Editor | Ashley Emert > ashley@relevantmediagroup.com Contributing Editor | Ryan Hamm > ryan@relevantmediagroup.com Associate Editor | Alyce Gilligan > alyce@relevantmediagroup.com Editorial Assistant | Heather Meikle > heather@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Matthew Lee Anderson, George Barna, Tyler Charles, Tony and Felicity Dale, Chuck DeGroat, Alisa Harris, Jonathan Merritt, Eboo Patel, Scott Todd Senior Designer | Chaz Russo > chaz@relevantmediagroup.com Senior Web Designer | Tanya Elshahawi > tanya@relevantmediagroup.com Graphic Designer | Jonathan Griswold > jonathan@relevantmediagroup.com Production Designer | Christina Cooper > christina@relevantmediagroup.com Audio/Video Producer | Chad Michael Snavely > chad@relevantmediagroup.com Photographer | Julia Cox > julia@relevantmediagroup.com CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Bjorn Amundsen, Brandon Carter, Jeremy Cowart Web Developer | David Barratt > david@relevantmediagroup.com Web Production Assistant | Lin Jackson > lin@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Revenue Officer | Josh Babyar > josh@relevantmediagroup.com Account Director | Michael Romero > michael@relevantmediagroup.com Account Director | Philip Self > philip@relevantmediagroup.com Marketing Manager | Calvin Cearley > calvin@relevantmediagroup.com Circulation Manager | Stephanie Fry > stephanie@relevantmediagroup.com Customer Service Coordinator | Sarah Heyl > sarah@relevantmediagroup.com Fulfillment Coordinator | Tyler Legacy > tyler@relevantmediagroup.com Chief Operations Officer | Chris Miyata > chris@relevantmediagroup.com Communications Manager | Theresa Dobritch > theresa@relevantmediagroup.com Project Manager | Austin Sailsbury > austin@relevantmediagroup.com Finance Manager | Maya Strang > mstrang@relevantmediagroup.com Systems Administrator | Josh Strohm > joshs@relevantmediagroup.com

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NEUES WHY ARE

YOUNG CHRISTIANS LEAVING CHURCH? Six reasons the majority of today’s generation break up with faith After the age of 15, nearly three out of five young Christians will make a significant break from the Church, either for an extended period or for the rest of their lives. What is causing this exodus? Barna Group recently set out to determine the reasons for their departure, and found six common contributing factors. Many young adults call the Church overprotective. Whether it’s because of strict standards for entertainment or an ignorance of the real world, one out of four 18- to 29-year-olds with a Christian background believe “Christians demonize everything outside of the Church.” Somewhere between teen years and adulthood, people recognize the need for depth in their interests, activities and relationships. In church, that calls for mature, interesting messages and experiences. But today’s generation sees church as “boring,” unclear and shallow, and 20 percent go so far as to say God seems to be missing. Another contributing factor to young people leaving church is a perceived disconnect between faith and science. In an increasingly science-minded generation, the fact that 25 percent see Christianity as completely or mostly “anti-science” and 29 percent see the Church as out of touch with the scientific world often proves to be a deal-breaker— particularly for those entering scientific fields. Of course, sex was going to come up eventually; 40 percent of young Catholics find their church to be close-minded and judgmental when it comes to sexuality. With at least 80 percent of young evangelicals admitting to having premarital sex— and nearly one-quarter saying they want more freedom in life and can’t find it in church—it makes 8

IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU Taken together, these trends help illuminate why young people are leaving church: sense they tend to shy away from churches with conservative views of sex.* Tolerance, acceptance and inclusivity seem to be the new banners of society. However, young adults don’t always find these traits in their church. Many see Christianity as having an exclusive nature, and one-fifth compare church to “a country club.” Like all people of faith, young people doubt— unfortunately, many don’t think there is room for their questions in church. Thirty-six percent don’t feel safe to “ask their most pressing life questions” in church and admit they go elsewhere. As young Christians exit churches, a number of questions must be asked: Is it just a phase? Is their reasoning rooted in immaturity, or is the Church truly failing to meet the needs of today’s generation? Though the fault for this disconnect can’t be laid upon one party, the answers will likely be found when churches figure out a way to reassure young adults this crazy thing called Christianity is still worth committing to.

35%

THINK CHRISTIANS ARE TOO CONFIDENT THEY KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS.

31%

SAY CHURCH IS BORING.

29%

FEEL CHURCHES ARE OUT OF STEP WITH THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD WE LIVE IN.

29%

THINK CHURCHES ARE AFRAID OF THE BELIEFS OF OTHER FAITHS.

25%

DON’T WANT TO FOLLOW ALL THE CHURCH’S RULES.

24%

SAY FAITH IS NOT RELEVANT TO THEIR CAREER OR INTERESTS.

20%

SAY FAITH DOES NOT HELP DEPRESSION OR OTHER EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS.

*THINK: As with so many of the reasons young Christians seem to judge the Church, the tension is in marrying truth with grace—to demonstrate a way to show love and acceptance without compromising biblical and moral truth. It’s a classic pendulum swing between extremes from one generation to the next.

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NEUES

SEMINARIES ENROLL

CONVICTED PRISONERS

A REVERSEFLOW OFFERING One New Jersey church lets their congregants dip into the collection plates What if your church decided that, rather than collect an offering on Sunday, it would give an offering—back to those attending? It may seem odd, but it’s what Liquid Church of Morristown, N.J., decided to do. “We’re not a rich church. We don’t own a building. We don’t hold a mortgage, but we’re trying to teach our people to be rich in good deeds,” Pastor Tim Lucas explains. Liquid Church took the total amount of their

weekly offerings—about $30,000—and passed it out in collection plates full of cash-filled envelopes. The goal was that members would put the money to charitable use and meet others’ financial needs. The offering is part of a $90,000 “spiritual stimulus” the church is distributing to their community. “Our folks are showing God’s love by investing their money and muscle where the government hasn’t stepped up yet,” Lucas says.

Prison ministry isn’t always an outside-in approach. A growing “incarcerated church” is seeing the rise of imprisoned leaders—and seminaries training them. New York Theological Seminary selects 15 inmates of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y., each year to earn a Master of Professional Studies degree. The 36-credit hour program looks exactly like the work their classmates are assigned outside of prison. The commitment even asks residents to give up their weekday visiting hours. With 98 percent of prisoners expected to return home, the degree offers ex-cons a career path after release—though many begin ministry while still incarcerated. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary also works with the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola to provide Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees. Since 2000, the program has expanded to Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. In 2010, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary began conferring ministry diplomas in San Quentin State Prison.

“That these guys can find something positive, can find a way out of that darkness—this, to me, is worthy of great admiration and respect.” —Rabbi Douglas Krantz, NYTS board member

ARE PASTORS BOUND TO THE PULPIT?

Rob Bell and Erwin McManus among many ministers choosing pursuits outside of the church High-profile pastor and author Rob Bell found himself making headlines again when he announced he would be leaving his post at Mars Hill Bible Church. Turns out Bell had a lot going on in addition to his ministry—like writing and selling a TV show to ABC with Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse. The news prompted an inevitable amount of both protest and applause, but Bell isn’t the first pastor to pursue projects beyond the pulpit. Erwin McManus is at the helm of Los Angeles’ Mosaic church but also busies 10

himself creating commercials and selling luggage through his Temple line. Other pastors step down when they want to reevaluate their approach to church or embrace itinerant ministry, like TwitChange founder Shaun King’s recent departure from Courageous Church in Atlanta, Ga., or when Francis Chan famously moved to Asia. Regardless of how many support them, these leaders’ bold moves are bringing up big questions about the limits and the permanency of pastoral careers.*

*DISCUSS: What do you think? Do you view the pastoral calling as bound to the four walls of the church, or can it become a vocation outside traditional ministry?

NEUES

FAITH AND TAXES

Pastors have little patience for politics or the IRS in churches Politics and the pulpit have never mixed well, a truth that will only be magnified as campaigns for the next presidential election heat up. The majority of Protestant pastors, LifeWay Research found, don’t believe public endorsements are acceptable from the church platform. For the last election in 2008, less than 3 percent of ministers admitted to endorsing a candidate during a church service. However, while most pastors don’t plan to make any political plugs, they also don’t think the IRS should punish churches that do by removing their tax-exemption status.

LONG LIVE

PARLIAMENT

“The government should regulate sermons by revoking a church’s tax exemption if its pastor approves of or criticizes candidates based on the church’s moral beliefs or theology.”

Excluding your own country, what government in the world do you most admire? When America’s evangelical leaders were asked this question by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the United Kingdom was the clear winner. Leading with 27 percent of the vote, the U.K. was especially praised for its ability to pursue world peace while still supporting nations in the fight against terrorism. Twenty-three percent chose Israel as the most-admired, placing the nation at second. Paul de Vries of the New York Divinity School applauded Israel for its “vibrant democracy, committed to core biblical values, in a dangerous part of the world.” All the nations selected were strong democracies, most with prosperous economies, though none with an evangelical presence as strong as America. Other countries on the list included Canada with 19 percent of votes, Australia with 15 percent and Germany with 8 percent. NAE polled evangelical leaders on this subject based on countries’ consistent role in education, medicine and missions around the world. “Love for country and patriotism is a common characteristic of American Christians,” says Leith Anderson, the president of NAE. “We are also ‘world Christians’ who care about other nations and are open to learning from and blessing other nations.”

86% Disagree “I believe pastors should endorse candidates for public office from the pulpit.”

84% Disagree “I believe it is appropriate for pastors to publicly endorse candidates for public office during a church service.”

87% Disagree

DO THE CRIME, PAY THE TIME ... IN CHURCH

One Alabama town offers an alternative to a jail sentence: Sunday morning service We know Jesus forgives crimes, but He can also get people out of serving time for them. At least that’s the case for nonviolent offenders in Bay Minette, Ala. A new program called Operation ROC (Restore Our Community) allows those charged with misdemeanors the option to forgo their time in jail by spending time in church. After one full year of attending a church service every single Sunday, the case is dismissed.* 12

It costs $75 a day to house an inmate, so the program could save a good deal of money. But the greater goal is that it would save the souls of would-be criminals. “You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society but that will be an influence and a help to those around them,” says Pastor Robert Gates, one of 56 ministers participating in the program.

*ACT: As a church, how could you minister to those who are incarcerated or in halfway houses in your area?

NEUES

THE DECLINE OF DENOMINATIONS Nondenominational and interdenominational churches have increased in popularity in recent years, but many still cling to their denominational affiliation. LifeWay research asked pastors of 900 American Protestant churches why they think this is so important. Mainline denominations were more likely than evangelicals to see it as vital, as well as pastors who are older or have a higher education.* But whatever their reasons for believing denominations are valuable, the majority admit this won’t always be the case.

“Personally, I consider it vital to be a part of a denomination.”

“Our congregation considers it vital for our congregation to be part of a denomination.”

63%

77%

“I believe that the importance of being identified with a denomination will diminish over the next 10 years.”

76%

33% 24%

23%

Agree

Disagree

Sammy Rodriguez

Tara Russell

The Neue Podcast is a weekly conversation with ministers and thinkers shaping the future of the Church.

“So often there’s somebody right outside the door that’s desperately in need. The best way we can put love into action is by tangibly helping transform people’s lives.”

Agree

“I have a problem with culturally limited congregations. I think it’s not reflective of the Kingdom of God. I think it’s more about cultural preservation, it’s archaic, it’s myopia. ... It’s Kingdom culture that is multiethnic in its presentation. I think we should focus on a Kingdom culture church, and a Kingdom culture church is multiethnic in expression and trans-generational. And every church should strive for that.”

Rachel Lloyd “We have to change the culture that says it’s OK to buy sex from women. The demand reduction is critical. ... Then, we have to change our culture and the sexualization of young women and girls of color; we need to make sure young people who are growing up don’t feel like this has to be an option for them.”

Disagree

Dave Ramsey

Darren Whitehead

“If you’re already operating an organization, to go all the way into its heart and do heart surgery, it’s a major ordeal. You can shock the patient; you can kill the patient if you’re not careful. Yes, we need heart surgery if we’ve got an organization whose DNA doesn’t reflect our values, but we’ve got to do that on a gradual basis, and make it fun and make it friendly.”

“The Church was almost exclusively about [personal salvation], certainly the evangelical movement in the community. All about four spiritual laws, or evangelism explosion, or Billy Graham crusades, and it’s [about] getting people to pray a prayer. And now there’s been a reaction, and maybe dangerously close to an over-reaction, to try and stabilize the ship—but nobody is talking about evangelism anymore.”

Subscribe at iTunes. Search keyword “Neue.”

*DISCUSS: Are you part of a denomination? What do you see as the pros and cons of being under denominational leadership?

NEUES The morality of the death penalty has been debated for ages, but with the controversial execution of Troy Davis this past fall, the issue has received renewed and urgent attention in the States. The Pew Research Center found opinions on capital punishment often have deep-seated spiritual roots, and leaders of both the political and faith communities have spoken out on it. Can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty? Is punishing murder with death a scriptural ordinance? Whatever they believe, 19 percent identify religion as the top influence on their perceptions of capital punishment, 24 percent of which said their clergy actually comments on the subject. Here’s a breakdown of how key political and church groups see this life-or-death issue:

50%

78%

32%

61%

65%

62%

42% REPUBLICANS

AN OVERALL VIEW ON THE DEATH PENALTY

30%

UNAFFILIATED

16%

60%

26%

32% CATHOLICS

30%

Don’t Know

PROTESTANTS

Oppose

DEMOCRATS

Favor

INDEPENDENTS

TAKING SIDES ON THE DEATH PENALTY

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INFO

[HOW TO...] ... CELEBRATE ADVENT IN UNIQUE WAYS Wreaths and candles are great, but if you’re looking for a new way to celebrate the birth of Christ in the weeks leading up to Christmas, here are new twists on an old tradition.

Weekly Bonfires Have a weekly bonfire (or light a fireplace) and celebrate the birth of Christ with Scripture readings, silent reflection and singing (and maybe s’mores).

Wreath Giveaway Make wreaths for your neighbors. If they want to hear more about advent, use it as an opportunity to explain the meaning and significance of Christmas. If nothing else, it serves as a holiday decoration.

Advent Dinners Host a dinner each week that features cuisine from a different part of the world. It will help you remember that Christ came to save every nation and tribe.

Fasting The holidays are often a time for feasting. This year, once a week, consider fasting. Use this time to reflect on God’s gift to us in the form of Jesus Christ, and pray for those in your lives who don’t know Him.

… ESTABLISH AN ADOPTION MINISTRY Adoption has been a hot topic in the Christian community in recent years. Rick Warren and Saddleback Church helped draw attention to this issue by hosting a forum on orphans and adoption in 2010. Other churches and organizations, including the CAO (Christian Alliance for Orphans), have increased efforts to promote and support adoption efforts. But adoption can be a daunting and overwhelming endeavor. While organizations like the CAO are helping to promote adoption, the local church has an amazing opportunity to support members pursuing adoption. Adoption is expensive. For churches who can make this commitment, creating an adoption ministry could help offset some of the parents’ adoption costs. Host an

… HELP THE LESS FORTUNATE THIS CHRISTMAS |

evening when the adoptive parents can share their story and take up an offering during that time. As a church, match the funds from that offering, if you can. If your church can’t afford to make a financial commitment to adoptive families, your adoption ministry could still be focused on answering questions and directing people to outside resources (like the ABBA Fund, which offers interest-free loans to adoptive couples). Identify people in your community with a heart for children or adoption who would be willing to counsel those considering adoption. By formally establishing this ministry, your church would be making a statement about its support for adoption. And even that in itself can make an impact.

New and proven ways to help others

1. A New Christmas Wish List

2. Operation Serve

3. Coats, Hats and Gloves

4. Presents for the Poor

Compile a list of charities (Salvation Army, Angel Trees and Operation Christmas Child, to name a few) and encourage church members to include at least one of these on their Christmas wish lists. On Christmas morning they can open a box with a note indicating a donation was made.

During the holidays, people are often willing to donate money. Time, though, is in short supply. This Christmas, challenge your church community to volunteer with local charities—every week. Encourage them to schedule service commitments well in advance so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

It’s not a revolutionary idea, but giving warm clothing (coats, hats and gloves) is still a great way to touch lives this winter. But instead of working with an organization, consider going out into the cold to personally deliver these articles of clothing to those on the streets.

This year, take the time to wrap and deliver gifts to those in need. (Do not wrap anything not worth opening—no half-eaten boxes of raisins.) You may want to devise a system for marking what’s wrapped in each package to prevent someone from receiving three hats but no gloves.

… Cut From Your Crazy Christmas ToDo List Christmas is hectic. This year, be intentional about filling your holiday season with the most meaningful activities, and cut out those things that bog you down or stress you out.

1. GET A SHOPPING HEAD START Shop before December. Why not? Get it done in November and breathe easier.

2. SKIP SENDING CARDS …

... ESTABLISH A BUDGET FOR THE NEW YEAR Most of us have good intentions when it comes to making and sticking to a budget—but good intentions is often where it stops. Well, a new year is the perfect time for a fresh start. Before the holidays end, sit down with your financial information (and your spouse, if applicable) and sort through where your money went the previous year. Break it into categories, if that helps you (websites like Mint.com can also help set up ongoing budget assistance). Did you tithe 10 percent? Did you give to missionaries and charities? Did you pay off debts? Accumulate more debt? Start a college fund for your kid? How much money did you waste on things you didn’t need? This process might be discouraging, but use it as a catalyst for change. If you spend too much money eating out, create a monthly allowance for dining. If

you are tempted to go shopping, set a budget (well below the amount you spent the previous year) and avoid temptation by spending less time at the mall or your favorite online stores. If your debts continue to mount, take measures to make a dent in them this year. If necessary, try putting your credit cards in a drawer or safe—and leave them there. Set up regular contributions to your savings account or charities you want to support so you will automatically have less disposable income—which can prompt you to spend money more responsibly. Get rid of your cable or satellite, change your phone plan or pack a lunch more often instead of eating out. If you plan to go on a summer vacation, start saving for it now—and when summer comes, refuse to spend anything more than what you’ve saved. Find other ways to pinch pennies throughout the year. Then plan to repeat this process next year.

Send a Valentine’s letter and picture instead of a Christmas one. Why add stress to the season when there’s time afterward to send fun mail?

3. … OR WRITE THEM EARLY Write your cards in October or November so they are ready to send on Dec. 1.

4. BAKE LESS Just bake sugar cookies instead of sugar cookies, ginger snaps, chocolate-covered cherries, peanut brittle and popcorn balls.

5. BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT TIME Write a list of all your favorite Christmas traditions. Now schedule them into your calendar. Is your plan realistic? If not, deliberately pare it down.

6. PICK A CHARITY Choose one organization to donate your time and money to in December.

7. SIMPLIFY YOUR PARTY

... MAKE AND KEEP NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS Maybe you’ve given up on New Year’s resolutions. You break them anyway, so what’s the point, right? Here are a few new tricks to help you stay committed. Make a top 10 list. Write down the top 10 things you hope to achieve or work toward in 2012. View these as goals for the year—not something you have to accomplish immediately. Suggestions: lose weight, read 10 books, start a prayer journal. Establish rewards. Sure, achieving a goal is its own reward, but additional incentives don’t hurt. Establish a reward structure as you work toward your goal(s). For example, if you meet your goals, attend a conference, buy new golf clubs or take that hiking trip.

Establish penalties. Find a partner (a spouse or close friend) to hold you accountable. Establish a penalty if you break a resolution, and try to come up with a creative and redeeming one. For example, cleaning out the car yourself, doing 100 pushups or donating $100 to a charity. So even if you break your resolution, you’re still doing something worthwhile. Set the bar low. If you have a history of not keeping your resolutions, maybe you need to try to set easier goals. Instead of being discouraged by your inability to drop 50 pounds, consider setting the bar much lower (10 pounds, maybe), and then you can celebrate when you exceed your goal.

Let other people throw parties this year. Or, if you must host, simplify your event.

8. PARE DOWN TRADITIONS Poll everyone in your family about which traditions they enjoy most. Agree on three or four things you just won’t do this year.

9. OUTSOURCE GIFT WRAPPING Set aside money for Girl Scouts or another organization to do your gift wrapping.

10. BE REALISTIC Every event doesn’t have to be the “perfect Christmas moment,” but be present in the traditions you do celebrate.

neuemagazine.com 19

INFO

[HOW TO...] ... Get Familiar with A.W. Tozer

A.W. Tozer has been an inspiration to Christians for decades. Celebrated for his prophetic voice and his desire for an intimate relationship with God, his writings continue to challenge believers to embrace a deeper faith. Here is a snapshot of some of his most beloved works.

THE PURSUIT OF GOD One of the all-time classics, The Pursuit of God is filled with insights that compel readers to genuinely seek God. Never is Tozer’s pastoral heart more evident than in this short but robust work.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY Who is God? And how can we experience God’s presence in our lives? Tozer addresses questions like these in The Knowledge of the Holy, an exploration of God’s nature.

MORNINGS WITH TOZER: A 366 DAY DEVOTIONAL These devotions are excerpts from Tozer’s sermons. Challenging, compelling and insightful, Mornings with Tozer is, as the name suggests, a great way to start one’s day.

GOD’S PURSUIT OF MAN Seen as a prequel to Tozer’s classic, The Pursuit of God, this book focuses on God’s love for humanity and His desire for us to find salvation in Him.

... PREACH ON EPIPHANY Epiphany is not celebrated in every church. Some evangelicals (or even some pastors, for that matter) might not know what it is. Sometimes called “Three Kings Day” or “Twelfth Day,” Epiphany is celebrated on Jan. 6 and recognizes the manifestation of God in the person of Jesus. Some denominations or traditions associate the Magi with Epiphany because they represent the revelation of Christ as the savior for both the Jews and the Gentiles; other traditions celebrate Epiphany by focusing on the baptism of Jesus; still others commemorate Jesus’ first miracle when He turned water into wine.

Regardless of whether the emphasis is placed on one of these events—or all three—the message remains the same: that Jesus is divine and He came to offer salvation to all people, everywhere. A sermon on Epiphany should reiterate these truths: God sent Jesus as a divine savior for everyone who believes in Him, and God has been and continues to be active and engaged in this world. These truths are reinforced by the reality that God led the Magi to Jesus, by His public proclamation during Jesus’ baptism that Jesus was His son and by Jesus’ ability to perform miracles in God’s name.

THE PURPOSE OF MAN: DESIGNED TO WORSHIP One of the best books ever written on the topic of worship, The Purpose of Man asserts that worship is not just an expression of one’s faith but the bedrock of a believer’s identity—and the function we were created for.

“MANY OF THE BURNING THEOLOGICAL ISSUES IN THE CHURCH ARE NEITHER BURNING NOR THEOLOGICAL.”—Brenning Manning

CHURCH

A LOOK AT UNIQUE TYPES OF COMMUNITY

GREEN PASTURES SOUTHPORT, ENGLAND When the team at Shoreline Church in Southport, England, noticed the prevalence of homelessness in their area, they invited members of the homeless community to sleep in the church building. After local authorities tried to stop them, Pastor Pete Cunningham decided to find a more permanent solution. Soon after, the church purchased their first home and Green Pastures was born. What began as a small ministry housing two homeless people has sparked a movement in England, and nearly eradicated homelessness in Southport. The church buys homes with raised or invested funds and provides semi-permanent housing for members of the homeless community who are able to pay low rent with the aid of government grants. Dan Russell, Green Pastures’ lead fundraiser, says the key to Green Pastures is sustainability. “It’s not about just housing people, it’s about supporting people, helping them tackle the issues that caused them to be homeless in the first place,” Russell says, “Homelessness is as much about a mental state as it is about a physical state. You can have homeless people who are housed in a house but who are, for all intents and purposes, living like they were before. The Church needs to come around those people to lead them out of those troubles that they’re in, in the first place.” While the housing is technically temporary, Green Pastures does not provide tenants with a deadline for moving out. “Because homeless people come from an environment of having no security, we don’t set a deadline on them,” Russell says. “The properties we give to people we give to them on the basis that they are their home [as long as] they need it.” For the Green Pastures team, it is a fulfillment of the Great Commission. “Churches have been given the commission to go into the world and show that the Kingdom of God is here,” Russell says. “We can do that with our own hands and feet; that just requires people to let the love of God out to demonstrate that love to people who don’t even know God loves them.”

“It’s about supporting people, helping them tackle the issues that caused them to be homeless.” —Dan Russell, Green Pastures

BETHLEHEM CHRISTMAS PROJECT BETHLEHEM, THE WEST BANK The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the largest obstacles to peace in the Middle East today. The stakes are high, yet the unrest is a topic Christians are often quick to avoid. For Lebanon-born Ali Elhajj and the team of American, Israeli and Palestinian believers who make up the Bethlehem Christmas Project (BCP) team, apathy is unacceptable. The group travels to Bethlehem every December to distribute Christmas presents to orphans, children with special needs and kids suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. “I really wanted to do something to help the situation,” Elhajj says. “I ended up going [to 22

Israel and Palestine] and meeting with a lot of folks who were working on reconciliation. I came home and my wife and I were talking and we just said, ‘Instead of talking about reconciliation, wouldn’t it be great if we could put Israelis and Palestinians together and do something that’s positive over there?’ So we thought of the Bethlehem Christmas Project.” BCP seeks to open doors that have remained shut for years. “We do it in a way where we interact with Israeli and Palestinian believers. We’ll have Israeli and Palestinian tour guides, and we’ll spend a night where we sit in Jerusalem or Nazareth [talking] about hotbutton topics and [getting] to know each other,” Elhajj says. “The whole project is designed around bringing Arabs and Jews together and demonstrating the love of Christ both to believers and non-believers, and encouraging the Church [there].” While the area Elhajj and the team are based in is known for

its suspicion of “missionaries” and Christians, the children seem unaware of the diversity in a team of Americans, Israelis and Palestinians delivering presents. “People in that region love the United States but absolutely hate some of the things we’re doing politically. The children are just grateful we’re there because we’ve got Christmas gifts and there’s always a celebration. A lot of times the adults want to tell us about their lives. It’s incredibly joyful and incredibly gutwrenching at the same time.” For Elhajj, the trips to Bethlehem are the first step on a long road of recovery. “We tend to think the Middle East is synonymous with violence, and there is a real misunderstanding of Christianity there—it is a really mislabeled term,” Elhajj says. “We want to let our light shine and be salt and light in the world. You can’t expect people to know about Jesus if you’re not out there demonstrating Him, unless you actually go out there and do it.”

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THOUGHT

LIVING IN AN AGE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY EBOO PATEL WHEN I SPOKE AT WHEATON COLLEGE during a public conversation about Christian and Muslim perspectives on religious diversity, I was impressed again and again by the students who stood up during the Q&A session and shared experiences they’d had meeting deeply religious peers of other traditions. A few years ago, you wouldn’t have necessarily expected that from your typical student at an elite Christian college. But these students had made nonChristian friends through service experiences with the diverse Chicagoland community surrounding Wheaton, through mission trips or study abroad programs outside the U.S., or even just as high school students growing up in a religiously diverse America. These students seemed to understand being a Christian in the 21st century means being friends with people of other faiths. Cut to a few months later, to the seminary course on interfaith work and youth ministry I was teaching with a few evangelical colleagues at Princeton Theological Seminary. We kicked off with a role play: Imagine a student in your college ministry approached you because she had become friends

seems over-simplified when many Christians are having intense relationships. If, however, our scenario were a different topic—say, a student had experienced extreme poverty for the first time and wanted to talk to her pastor about how her faith speaks to that—I imagine the responses would have been distinctly Christian. Such a response would be grounded in a refined and nuanced theology of Christian compassion and social action, and would speak in terms of Jesus Christ, be laced with passages from the Bible and draw on examples from Christian history. We were challenging our Princeton students to come up with a “theology of interfaith cooperation.” It’s important to say “interfaith cooperation” doesn’t mean all religions are the same at the core, or our differences should be watered down. It also

A THEOLOGY OF INTERFAITH COOPERATION LIVES HONESTLY ALONGSIDE YOUR THEOLOGY OF SALVATION AND EVANGELISM. with a Muslim student on campus, and she was looking to you, as a Christian leader, to help her make sense of that friendship. The answers we got were kind, gentle and thoughtful. But they weren’t particularly Christian answers. The students didn’t talk about their relationships to Jesus and how that helped them understand their relationship to the religious other. They didn’t draw on the Gospels, thinking about how stories like the Good Samaritan might speak to religious diversity. They didn’t point to the Christian legacy of interfaith cooperation, like St. Francis’ relationship of interfaith dialogue and peace-building with Muslims during the Crusades. It struck me that many Christians still haven’t figured out how to flex the theological muscles that speak to that reality.* The default way of talking about other religions—strictly in terms of conversion— 24

doesn’t mean we don’t have real disagreements and exclusive truth claims that may come into conflict with one another. It does mean, however, that we have shared values in common, values that diverse religious traditions insist their followers act on, like mercy, compassion, hospitality and service. Interfaith cooperation begins with those values, asks what we can do together in the world based on those values and how we might build relationships through that work together. As a Muslim, I am called to care for those who suffer in my community, called to be a good steward of creation, called to seek justice and mercy wherever I go. As a Christian, are you called to care about these things? And if so, can we work together on them? A theology of interfaith cooperation lives honestly alongside your theology of salvation and evangelism, but also asks what in

your Christian faith—your relationships to Jesus, your understanding of the Bible, your knowledge of Christian history and tradition—speaks to why you might work together with people of other faiths on issues of common concern. As a Muslim, why do I care about Christians’ ability to articulate a theology of interfaith cooperation? First, I believe the only way I can make a dent in the issues my faith calls me to care about is if I work with you. And I suspect you realize you can accomplish more if we work together. Rick Warren once told me he started thinking about interfaith work when he realized the two most powerful forces in the countries where he does development work were the local church and the local mosque, and that they had unmatched social capital to solve the problems he felt called to address as a Christian. Second, I care because I believe if we are open to talking about what we really believe, we have a chance to counter the religious bigotry, ignorance and conflict currently dominating our media. Being around evangelicals makes me feel like I am safe to talk about my beliefs and represent my Muslim faith for myself, and also gives me hope we can build the kind of understanding that might actually counter the religiously motivated hate and violence tearing apart our world. As a Christian leader who cares about building the Church, why should you care about being able to articulate a theology of interfaith cooperation? Because many Christians—particularly young Christians—are asking hard questions about religious diversity and the Christian answers aren’t clear. For the Church to remain relevant in a religiously diverse world, Christian leaders must learn to articulate how and why Christians can relate to nonChristians in ways that aren’t just about conversion, and how and why such a response is deeply Christian. If every student in that auditorium at Wheaton was asking the same question, what does it mean that future Christian leaders are struggling to find a compelling answer?

EBOO PATEL was named one of America’s best leaders of 2009 by US News & World Report. He is the founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement.

*DISCUSS: Do you have friends of other faiths? How have you learned to both invest in those friendships and faithfully represent your worldview?

THOUGHT

EMBRACING A THEOLOGY OF THE BODY MATTHEW LEE ANDERSON IN FEBRUARY OF 2011, Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” announced her vision for a race characterized by “no prejudice, no judgment, but boundless freedom.” We were familiar with her style, but the manifesto of “Mother Monster” that starts the song provides a mythic creation narrative that gives her doctrine of radical self-acceptance a cosmic dimension. A few months earlier, Tim Ferriss released his latest best-selling self-help book, The 4-Hour Body. If Gaga’s message is self-acceptance, Ferriss offers radical self-transformation, suggesting a litany of tools to “hack” our bodies. We may have been “born this way” with respect to need for sleep and exercise, but that’s a trivial limitation hacking can overcome. For example, the book promises to help you “sleep two hours a day and feel fully rested.” Such are the contradictory cultural doctrines of the body. From one corner, we are encouraged to accept our bodies just as they are. From the other, we are told to remold our bodies through the force of our will with the help of our supplements. It’s easy to reject both narratives, as they both have fundamental flaws. By and large, evangelicals have done just that. Yet the more difficult and important task is to articulate “a more excellent way” of living in

of the Holy Spirit animates our actual, physical bodies with the same power that enabled Christ to rise again (Romans 8:11). The story is an affirmation of the body’s fundamental goodness. And it answers the two questions with which a theological account of the body is most concerned. For one, the Cross defines the shape that goodness takes in a fallen world. Gaga’s doctrine of boundless acceptance ignores the fallenness of creation and the need for the redemption and transformation of our bodily desires in Christ. What’s more, it provides a power of bodily transformation that is different than the anxious selfsculpting of Tim Ferriss. Sports, the arts, our work—seeing the body in light of God’s redemption and empowering grace simultaneously affirms each realm while establishing limits around them. Our bodies allow us to run and

THE GOOD NEWS CHRISTIANITY OFFERS THE WORLD MUST ALSO BE GOOD NEWS FOR HUMAN BODIES. the human body, a way that does not provide a blanket acceptance of desires because they are “natural” or treat our body as playdough in the hands of a selfcreator. The Good News Christianity offers the world must also be good news for human bodies. Given the massive confusion both inside and outside the Church over the meaning and role of the human body, pastors and leaders have a special responsibility to describe the way the Gospel shapes our bodies. In other words, a “theology of the body” is an indispensable aspect of our theological reflection as Christian leaders. That evangelicals have not worked out a holistic theological understanding of the body is something of a scandal. After all, the center of our message to the world is that God accomplished our salvation by taking on a human body, dying and rising again in the same body. And the indwelling presence 26

climb mountains and build, but for those joys to be permanent, we must recognize the body is “for the Lord,” a “living sacrifice” meant to be a sign of God’s love in the world. Embracing limitations is a distinctive struggle for Christian leaders. We are pushed to work harder and do more. Yet discerning how bodies work can help us embrace those limitations as gifts from God for our own good. No amount of body hacking or practice, for instance, would have made my skinny, somewhat clumsy body into one suited for professional sports. The promise we can “be whatever we want to be” is a useful story to motivate the young, but our maturity depends upon acknowledging the genuine biological limitations built into the fabric of creation. One of those limitations is sleep, a practice our culture either binges on or neglects. A theological understanding of

the body helps us see how our rest is enfolded into our faithful obedience to God, and will empower us as leaders to model a balanced, healthy life. At the same time, a theology of the body grounds an alternate set of practices that are forms of presenting the members of the body as “instruments of righteousness,” as Paul exhorts the Romans to do in Romans 6. Such practices have been given the name “spiritual disciplines.” But we might also call them the “embodied disciplines,” for they are ways of opening our lives to the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual disciplines—prayer, fasting, silence, reading the Bible, etc.—orient our bodies toward God, exposing how our normal practices have formed us in ways counter to the Gospel and reshaping our bodies so we can walk more closely in Jesus’ steps. Consider fasting. One reason we should occasionally abstain from eating is to present our stomachs to God, that we are empowered in such a way that our belly is not our god (Philippians 3:19). Or in prayer, we might hold our hands out as a way of presenting our arms and hands to God for His service. One visiting pastor in our church recently knelt as he prayed for the service, modeling for us the pose we shall someday all take before the throne (Philippians 2:10). Such postures are not for the purposes of sculpting our bodies, a la Tim Ferriss. Instead, they allow the love of God to retrain our bodies not for our own pleasure but that we might love others as He loved us.* At its core, a “theology of the body” shows how the love of Christ poured out into our hearts extends through the whole of our earthen vessels, enabling and empowering us to give ourselves to others as He gave Himself for us. Going more deeply into how the Gospel shapes our bodies will help you—and those you lead—cut through the confusion about how our embodied lives should look, and clear away false paths to that destination. We won’t arrive at the “boundless freedom” of Gaga, but by acknowledging our bodies belong to the God who made us, we will discover a more excellent way to follow Jesus on it.

MATTHEW LEE ANDERSON is the author of Earthen Vessels: Why our Bodies Matter to our Faith (Bethany House) and works at The Journey in St. Louis, M.O. He writes regularly at MereOrthodoxy.com.

*ACT: Evangelicals have often limited conversations regarding a theology of the body to sexuality—and the dos and don’ts surrounding that. Consider ways you can preach a more holistic approach to how Christians treat their bodies—from spiritual disciplines to sports.

CONVERSATION DIRECTOR

MARK LANDSMAN Mark Landsman is all about the untold story. As the director of several documentaries, including the TV miniseries 30 Days, featuring Morgan Spurlock, his goal is to share the unexpected. In his most recent work, Thunder Soul, Landsman tells the true story of the Kashmere High School Stage Band alumni as they return after 35 years to play a final concert for their beloved band leader, Conrad Johnson. Conrad Johnson changed what people expect from a high school band. Was it the music that struck people as groundbreaking, or was it the way he went about doing it? I think it was a combination of both. At the time, musically speaking, the bands were playing predominantly watered-down jazz. It was still big band music, but it was filtered through your traditional high school stage-band filter. Conrad recognized what was inspiring his young people. So instead of shying away from where they were in the present moment, he embraced it and he wove it into the fabric of their music so that their sound was not only their own, but it was completely unique—it was different than what anybody else was playing. The other thing that was brilliant about him in terms of his inspiration was that all the other bands were stationary while they played; they stood still while they played their music. [Johnson] recognized that his young people were literally being moved by their music, the spirit was moving them. He allowed them to choreograph very elaborate dance moves with their instruments. He brought the show, which was totally unprecedented at the time.

There was an obvious disparity going on between blacks and whites during this period. What role did race play, as this was one of the 28

only stage bands emerging out of the ‘70s? This was Texas in the dawn of the ‘70s, just fresh out of the civil rights movements. You have the Kashmere Stage Band being invited to play in Mobile, Ala. What role did race play in it? One would say, a significant role. A lot. But the beauty of what they did is that they transcended race. Their music really just moved people, and touched people, and inspired people of all backgrounds, of all colors. When they played, people would literally stand up and rush the stage. You had a spirit moving through this band that just transcended external forces at this time.

Part of the magic of the film was bringing this band back together after more than three decades. Were there any unique common denominators between these students that [Johnson] had mentored over the years? I think the common denominator was a reverence for their leader—a profound respect for who he was as a human being, who he was as a teacher, as a mentor, as a father figure. [Johnson] was a significant force in their lives, as much as their parents—sometimes even more so. It doesn’t matter what year they were in the band, it doesn’t matter if they were in the band for two weeks or two years—even now, 35 years later, they consider him to be an essential mentor figure in their lives, if not the central mentor figure.

*ACT: Watch Thunder Soul, narrated by Jamie Foxx, in select theaters now.

What surprised you about the result of the documentary versus what you set out to do? I have to tell you, honestly, that we literally built this bridge as we walked over it. The thing about working in nonfiction is that life is your screenwriter. None of us could have predicted the kind of twists and turns this story took and the ride we went on, emotionally and narratively. You can never predict that—that’s what makes documentary filmmaking so thrilling, and scary. You really don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have a script. There were so many times throughout the process where we were just so humbled by what happened. These people were all over the world, who was going to come for the reunion? Would they be terrible? Some of these guys hadn’t touched their instruments in 30 years—would they be good enough? It all was so mind-blowing in the way it unfolded. At every juncture in the movie, we would look at each other and say, “Higher hand.” Because it wasn’t me, it wasn’t you. Higher hand.

Thunder Soul Jamie Foxx produces and narrates the story of homecoming in Thunder Soul.*

INNOVATOR

BLAINE HOGAN CREATIVE DIRECTOR, WILLOW CREEK COMMUNITY CHURCH BY RYAN HAMM

probably goes without saying that the American church hasn’t always valued creativity as highly as it should. But that seems to be changing. Churches all over the country have creative teams, weekly church services are markedly more creative and conferences like STORY have injected new imagination into sanctuaries everywhere. One of the people at the forefront of this new creative revolution is Blaine Hogan, creative director for Willow Creek Community Church. Under his leadership, Willow Creek has become widely known for its arts ministry, videos and innovative experiences. But for Hogan, a former actor, the transition to full-time ministry didn’t come quickly—and it still doesn’t come easily. “I didn’t start out in ministry, and actually had never really considered it,” Hogan remembers. “I grew up Catholic in Minnesota but had a pretty broad background. I was always kind of exposed to ministry but never had any interest at all in doing it myself. Since I was 9 years old, I knew that all I wanted to be was a professional actor.” Which is exactly what he did. “I went to theater school and then was working professionally living here in Chicago,” Hogan says. “I was working steadily at one of the big theaters in town [and] had a very small role in a few episodes of Prison Break. At the time I had been flown out to New York to go meet with the producers of

BJORN AMUNDSEN

Wicked about doing a role in the Chicago production. It’s sort of a rarity for an actor to be making a living actually doing their art. Less than 2 percent of actors through the Screen Actors Guild are paying their bills through acting—that’s what I was doing.” At the same time as he was experiencing vocational success, Hogan admits he felt like his personal life was coming undone. “One day I deposited a check from 20th Century Fox that had a comma in it—the biggest check I had ever received in my life, and it was from acting. I got into my car, I drove toward the pier to do a show and I was just thinking to myself, I’ve done it. It was this beautiful day, it was August. At the very same time I had this feeling like, OK, well now what? What do I do now? I [had] this overwhelming feeling that I needed to take a break.” It was during that break from acting when Hogan made the decision to attend seminary—a place he never thought he’d be. “It just sort of bit-by-bit felt like that’s what I was supposed to do,” Hogan says. “So I was there for two years, not vocationally. People go there to become pastors or therapists, and I wanted to do neither.” That surprise step led to yet another unexpected twist in Hogan’s life: working for a church. Upon graduation, Willow Creek reached out to him to come work on their creative team. “At first I wanted nothing to do with it because I had [been] wanting to do a sabbatical, and then I just kept getting worked on,” Hogan says. “I thought maybe this was the next part of my story. So I signed on and have been doing that for three years.” But a desire for a true sabbatical wasn’t the only reason Hogan felt apprehensive about working for a church. Like many people, he feared how a full-time ministry position might negatively impact his ability to be creative—and honest—in his art. “I don’t think Christian artists—artists who are Christians—and the Church deal particularly well with darkness,” Hogan muses. “I have found in my own story and in other art that you can’t have light unless you have darkness. I think my fear is that it was going to be saccharine and watered down, and I wouldn’t be able to tell whole stories because we would want to get to the celebration too soon.” Despite his initial reservations, Hogan has discovered a niche at Willow Creek. In his time there, he’s made the church’s arts program one that creative pastors all over the world hope to emulate. His performance art piece at a Global Leadership Summit is proof. Combining video with music, stark typefaces and powerful drawings, the piece is unlike most “church art” you might have seen (you can watch it for yourself at: Vimeo.com/15715921). One of the unique challenges presented to a creative by a ministry job is the need to “be creative”

week in and week out. Creative teams in churches (or businesses) don’t have the luxury to wait for “inspiration” to strike—not when there’s a service, project or event just around the corner. “I think in the last six years I’ve really had to come to terms with what creating looks like on demand,” Hogan says. “As an actor, even though I worked consistently, I still would temp here and there. It wasn’t this daily act of creativity, it wasn’t this daily demand. As I started to move into work, particularly what I’m doing now, that fantasy of, ‘Oh, I’m just going to wait for inspiration’ is wiped away really, really quickly.”* Hogan says the idea that being creative and artistic is somehow a fun and “easy” job is a long way from the truth. He points to the common maxim that “creativity is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” “As I’ve continued my work at Willow—it’s hard,” he says. “There’s nothing about it that is easy. If I can sit down and start something, and I can be consistent about starting something, eventually the genius shows up. But rarely does it just show up to people who aren’t available. Being available doesn’t mean just laying in the grass looking at the clouds. For me, sometimes that’s writing, sometimes that’s running. I’m running, praying and hoping by the time I get back from my six-mile run, an idea will have come.” Hogan admits one of the most difficult tensions he’s had to face as the creative director at Willow Creek is walking the fine line between using

“MY GOAL IS TO TELL THE MOST INCREDIBLE STORY EVER.” technology and creativity to bring the Gospel to life but not letting those elements dwarf the Gospel. “There’s some really phenomenal mediums that may appear to be very entertainment-based. But the question I have to ask is, ‘Did the medium serve the content?’ ” Hogan says. “I think what starts to happen is that we get in these realms of needing 3D in our churches, or holograms in our churches and people aren’t asking why except for the sake of relevancy—it happens when we don’t think of the story before we figure out how we’re going to tell it.” For Hogan, the story has to come first—then you decide which type of medium is most fitting for delivering the story. He says churches often try to do it in reverse, to make the medium fit the message. “My goal is to tell the most incredible story ever,” he says. “You can use whatever you want to use, as long as you have a really great story you want to tell first. I think what ends up happening is the medium trumps the message because we want to be relevant, we want to be cool, we want to fit in. I just don’t care about that stuff. We’ve got the greatest story ever told; we just usually don’t tell it that well.”

*ACT: This week, actually schedule time just to be creative. Stay in your office—or your regular workplace—and avoid the temptation to “get inspired” with music or web browsing. Instead, make creativity a scheduled, intentional and regular aspect of your daily job.

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WHY THE FUTURE OF CHURCH

MIGHT BE MORE MINI THAN MEGA

BY TONY AND FELICITY DALE, AND GEORGE BARNA

During the late 1940s, when Mao Zedong came into power in China, the Communist government determined to purge the nation of the religion he believed was used to promote Western imperialism. Missionaries were driven out, and many Christians were killed or imprisoned. But rather than wiping out Christianity completely, Mao’s efforts simply drove the church underground. Despite the very real threat of persecution, imprisonment, torture and even execution, ordinary believers—primarily women and teenagers—left their homes to lay down their lives and preach the Gospel. Small gatherings of believers meeting in secret multiplied rapidly. Today the church in China is exploding, though not through large buildings and powerful preachers. It is estimated to have grown from 1 million believers in the middle of the last century to more than 100 million today. Currently, the simple church movement is developing rapidly in countries all around the world. And the West is not being left out.

THE SIMPLE CHURCH MOVEMENT In the 1970s, a handful of Christians in the United States began deliberately meeting in their homes,

mostly in reaction to the problems they saw in the traditional church. A decade or so later, another wave of home churches started. These early pioneers were convinced this was the scriptural way to meet. Both groups were dismissed as irrelevant by the religious world. But no one could have guessed what transformation would occur within the Western church in subsequent years. In the mid- to late-1990s, a third wave of simple churches began, and this group of people had a far more pragmatic outlook: “God is doing something remarkable across the world,” they said. “Could it be that He wants to do something similar here as well? Let’s follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and see what happens.” As it turned out, God was doing something here, too. Since it began, this current wave of church growth has gathered momentum until now the idea of simple church is generally accepted by much of the religious establishment as a viable way of “doing church.” Some denominations have started a simple church track, mainstream publishers are accepting books about the movement, and secular organizations are recognizing it as a true social phenomenon. Publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Time have even produced articles exploring the trend. The scale on which this is occurring would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. Studies in 2008 and 2010 by the Barna Group estimate that about 6 million adults attend some form of simple church each week. Somewhere between 10 and 15 million adults are estimated to visit a house church each month. Because of the incredible numbers of people involved, we have chosen to refer to this occurrence as a movement. The traditional resistance to these microchurches has dissolved rapidly in recent years. A national survey among the senior pastors of conventional Protestant churches—the “competition,” if you will, for organic forms of faith*—showed there is widespread acceptance of such forms of ministry. In that survey two-thirds of the traditional pastors (65 percent) said they felt house churches “are legitimate Christian churches.” In addition, threequarters of them (77 percent) said they believed that when people in house churches convened, they “genuinely worship God.” In fact, two-thirds of these pastors went so far as to admit that “a house church might be a better spiritual fit for some people than a conventional local church would be.” While pastors of conventional churches expressed reservations about the levels of spiritual accountability of organic church participants, there is certainly an openness on their part to the possibility that God can work in any setting where people’s desires and intentions are appropriate.

*THINK: Do you think of microchurches and established institutional churches as “competition”? Could they be merged in some way even in your own faith community?

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LEAVING THE LEGACY People are leaving traditional churches—or “legacy churches” as our friend Kent Smith likes to call them in reference to the values they have imparted to us—in vast numbers. Thousands of Western churches are closing their doors every year, never to reopen. Many pastors are leaving full-time ministry each month. At first glance this may appear to be a tragedy, and indeed, for many who make their living in ministry, it is a time of great stress and hardship. But is it possible something more significant is going on? Could the Holy Spirit be behind this shift? Could this profound dissatisfaction with the status quo actually be a Holy Spiritinspired recognition that the Christian walk is more than a monotonous duty? Could God be moving us outside the walls of our church buildings (and our homes) to where the pain and needs—and people—are so we can be channels of Jesus’ love to a world that is hurting and in desperate need? Those who are leaving the Church are not necessarily immature in their faith. Many, in fact, have had a long-standing walk with the Lord and have even been in church leadership. Although some people leave and do nothing, many are seeking to serve the Lord or work in the Kingdom in ways they found impossible within the four walls of the building. In his book The Present Future, Southern Baptist leader Reggie McNeal outlines the problem when he states: “A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the Church to preserve their faith.”

OLD AND NEW

THIS RE-FORMATION OF CHURCH AND SOCIETY I S N O T N E W. I N O N E SENSE, IT IS AS OLD A S T H E E A R LY C H U R C H O F N E W T E S TA M E N T TIMES.

This re-formation of church and society is not new. In one sense, it is as old as the early church of New Testament times. For the first two or three centuries after Pentecost, the church met mainly in homes, and laypeople were responsible for those meetings. The believers shared meals, prayed for one another and simply lived life together. A massive shift occurred when the emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in AD 321. Overnight it seemed, Christians changed from being a persecuted minority to a favored majority. Over the next few decades, church buildings were erected, a privileged clergy status was formed and the church service became the center of Christian culture. And for the past 17 centuries, church has been an event to attend. Most Christians go to a special place at a special time to watch special people perform. Once or twice a week, they sing a few songs, listen to a monologue, put money in the offering plate and go home. Is it any wonder many of those who are leaving traditional structures find themselves gazing longingly at the simplicity of New Testament home churches and asking, “Can I do that?” For many, the answer is proving to be yes. And the result is “church outside the box,” a small gathering of friends loving Jesus together and reaching out to the community around them. House2House speaks to this new movement. On a daily basis, House2House receives phone calls and emails from people all over the country. The most common comment goes something like this: “God led us to start a meeting in our home (or office or the local coffee shop). We thought we were the only ones with this crazy idea until we came across your website. Now we realize we are not alone!” No longer tied to special buildings, simple church is spilling over into homes, businesses, college campuses and coffee shops—anywhere life occurs. It is 34

being led by an army of ordinary men and women who are daring to believe in a God who unconditionally loves them and delights to partner with them in His Kingdom. The focus is no longer on professionals and programs, but rather on enabling every-member ministry. Instead of precious resources being used internally to maintain staff and buildings, they are now being used to fund missions and mercy ministries to a world looking for a relevant church. Perhaps one of the most notable features of this re-formation is the understanding that ordinary people can be trusted to listen to God and respond to His leading. We are no longer dependent on someone with special training or abilities to hear from God on behalf of the people. We all hear and obey God, and we understand the Lord Himself will build His church and grow His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). Please do not think this is a criticism of individual legacy churches. We personally owe a lot to the legacy churches of our formative years, and we are thrilled that one of our four adult children is still seeking God with his whole heart at a wonderful legacy church. We believe God continues and will continue to use legacy churches in remarkable ways.* But it does appear God is also doing something new. There is no location, no city or town to which one can travel to find the center of this movement. There is no superstar whose conferences we can attend. But all across the nation, the Holy Spirit is speaking to His people. And everyone seems to be hearing the same thing: church as we know it has changed. Many believe this current move of God will prove similar in scope and impact to the Reformation of the 16th century. Today, God seems to be saying we can be “church” in all manner of different and unusual ways. Many people are starting churches in their homes or places of work. Others are reaching out specifically to those who have never been a part of a legacy church— making disciples and bringing them together in vibrant communities where they can express their newfound faith in Jesus. We’ve found great liberty in following the principles of simple church—freedom from church politics, from a need to “perform” and from we-havealways-done-it-this-way tradition. In simple church, we no longer struggle to please people but are free to march to the Holy Spirit’s drumbeat. Liberated from endless meetings, we have time to get involved in our communities and to reach out to a world so desperately in need of the Lord. Many who object to the idea of simple church are using some of the same kinds of arguments used by those who opposed William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into the common language of the people—how can untrained and unqualified people run churches? But God is overturning these preconceived ideas, and the monopoly of the professional clergy is being broken as the Holy Spirit is putting the Church back into the hands of His (ordinary) people. To put it simply, simple churches allow ordinary men and women today to “be the church.” This is not a political revolution but a shift in spiritual understanding with the power to transform society. TONY AND FELICITY DALE helped to found House2House, a ministry and website providing resources for simple churches. GEORGE BARNA is the founder of the Barna Group and author of more than 40 books. He is the co-author, with Tony and Felicity Dale, of Small Is Big (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.), from which this article is adapted. Used with permission.

*DISCUSS: What do you see as the pros and cons of both microchurches and “legacy” churches? What do you think the two can—and must—learn from each other?

LEAD YOUR CHURCH FROM AN INTERNAL MINISTRY FOCUS TO AN EXTERNAL ONE Missional Communities examines the move toward the deconstruction of congregations into smaller Christian communities, offering insight on how to lead when these groups meet outside the sanctuary walls ... when church just simply happens. NEWLY UPDATED FROM REGGIE McNEAL:

Available Now www.JosseyBass.com

HILLSONG THE LINES ARE LONG. THE MUSIC IS (OF COURSE) AW E S O M E . B U T H O W A R E T H I N G S R E A L LY G O I N G FOR THE AMBITIOUS CHURCH PLANT? LEAD PASTOR CARL LENTZ GETS REAL ABOUT WHAT’S WORKING, WHAT ISN’T AND WHAT’S NEXT.

NYC

ON A SUNDAY LAST JANUARY, Meredith Anderson was supposed to go to church for the first time since she was 9 years old. Instead she was sitting in her New York City apartment, terrified. A practicing pagan since her freshman year of college, Anderson found her life spinning into a frenzy when she graduated and began to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. BY ALISA HARRIS “I was promiscuous. I was addicted to drugs. BRANDON CARTER I felt so empty. I felt like I was constantly grasping and getting nothing.” She found herself researching churches, and then she saw that an old high school classmate was also living in New York and back from a year-long mission trip. But on the Sunday Anderson was scheduled to meet her friend at church, she sat at home through the 4 p.m. service, jittery: “I don’t know if I’m dressed right—I’m wearing leather boots and a leather jacket. They’re going to think I look like a freak.” But she finally worked up the courage to take the subway to the 6 o’clock service. She was lost when she saw a stream of people her age, all rushing toward the same door. A guy standing nearby asked, “Are you here for church?” “I remember thinking to myself: ‘Really? These people—they all look normal!’ ” Anderson met her friend and sat down, confused by the hand-raising, not knowing the words to the songs. When the pastor got up to speak, he looked nothing like any pastor she had ever seen: “He’s wearing jeans and motorcycle boots and a v-neck, and the v-neck is so deep! What is going on?” But then he told the people why they raised their hands, why they sang, what prayer was and that he didn’t expect them to understand this foreign culture or even participate in it. She relaxed. She listened, and then found herself weeping uncontrollably.

PLANTING AN IDEA Hillsong NYC is drawing young New Yorkers like Anderson by the thousands. Since starting weekly services in February 2011, the church has expanded to five services with an estimated 3,000 people attending each

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week. Its mid-week services draw 600 people, filling creaking New York Episcopal churches on Wednesday and packing New York City music venues on Sunday. Their Welcome to Church Party is more of a cocktail party—minus the alcohol—attended by hundreds and held in a spacious studio space with big windows overlooking the Hudson River. The pastor whose deep v-neck shirt shocked Meredith Anderson is Carl Lentz, 33, who came from leading a youth ministry in Virginia Beach to launch a church that draws actors, models and millionaires. Lentz is vibrant, charismatic and, yes, given to clothing ensembles that make even the hippest of pastors look dowdy. He wears baseball caps in church and tweets about his Biggie Smalls T-shirt. But despite the frenetic energy he shows onstage and the flurry of excitement surrounding his venture, he is focused and intense. Lentz was raised in a Southern, Christian home, with a dad for a pastor and three sisters who all ended up working in ministry. “When I hit high school there wasn’t a church I connected with at all, anywhere,” he says. So he decided to strike out on the journey of faith alone, without a church community, but his faith didn’t survive basketball stardom in college at North Carolina State University. On one visit home to Virginia Beach during school, his parents dragged him to church, his heart was opened and Lentz says he was “radically saved.” He transferred to The King’s University, a Pentecostal college and seminary in California, and then he found out about Hillsong Church. Pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston started Hillsong in 1983 in Sydney, Australia. Now it has four campuses in Australia and eight more across the globe, from London and Paris to Kiev and Cape Town. The Houstons have launched Hillsong TV and Hillsong International Leadership College, as well as annual conferences that draw thousands and a music label with albums that soar to gold and platinum status and songs that are sung in churches worldwide. 38

“Hillsong is such a gripping movement,” Lentz says. It was when he arrived at Hillsong International Leadership Conference for pastoral training that Lentz says everything just finally started to click with “the church thing.” His American view of spirituality started to shift. Lentz’s creed is, “Love life, love God and love people.” American Christians, he says bluntly, are “really bad at loving life.” They bring a diligence and reverence to faith, he says, but also a joylessness. “Everything is rules, everything is regulation. Everything’s overly spiritual. Everything’s dogmatic. Everything’s theological. Everything’s complicated. [Australians are] really good at loving life and through that, fantastic at loving people.” Lentz saw Hillsong uniting love of God, life and people and he thought: “That’s what I want to live. That’s what I want to be a part of.”* Then he found someone to help him live it. The first time Lentz saw Laura Brett, a pretty girl with long, straight brown hair, he called his mom and said, “Mom, I saw my wife.” Now Laura is the mother to Carl’s three children—Ava, 7, Charlie, 5, and Roman, 2— and his co-pastor at Hillsong NYC. Lentz manages to mention her hotness with frequency, both onstage and off. For instance, “My wife is going to encourage you, and I’m going to stand behind her because it’s a great view.” Joel Houston, son of Brian and Bobbie Houston and a leading member and songwriter of the multi-platinum band Hillsong United, would also end up playing a significant role in Lentz’s life—and, later, at Hillsong NYC. Houston and Lentz met shortly after Lentz arrived in Australia and, despite seemingly opposite personalities (Houston admits his laid-back personality and Lentz’s intensity didn’t quite gel at first), by the time Lentz left Sydney to return to Virginia Beach, the two had become best friends. “It’s really a God-breathed relationship, and it always has been,” Houston says. In 2001, the day before Lentz left Sydney, he and Houston were sitting on a beach when Lentz mused, “I wonder if your dad is ever going to do anything in the States.” Joel said he doubted it, but if he did it would have to be someplace with a significant influence— someplace like New York. “If your dad ever does something in New York, we’re going to do it,” Lentz said. So they made a pact—if Hillsong came to New York, they would lead it together. Houston and Lentz kept in touch over the next several years as Lentz moved with Laura to Virginia Beach and took over a struggling youth ministry in his old hometown. In December 2009, Houston and Lentz met in New York to catch up. The two were sitting in an alley while the snow fell, hunched over a computer listening to a song Houston wrote, when Houston said, “My dad wants to do Hillsong New York City.” Lentz asked when and who would lead it. The answers: “Now,” and, “Me and you.” Lentz told his pastor he was resigning and moving to New York—before he even knew for sure he would lead the church, just so he could be part of it—and he and Laura packed their house and moved to New York City in March of 2010. When Brian Houston asked Lentz to pastor the church with Joel serving as the creative director, Lentz said he would—“in a New York minute.”

EMPIRE STATE OF CHURCH On a Sunday morning in October, young people stream into a concert venue, going up stairs and through halls lit in a lurid red, past tables advertising Bible studies and into a room that was filled

“FOR US, WE JUST DO CHURCH HOW WE LIKE IT. WHEN I GO TO CHURCH, I WANT TO GO TO THE BIGGEST MEETING WITH THE MOST PEOPLE AND THE CRAZIEST MUSIC. … THAT’S HOW WE’RE WIRED.” —CARL LENTZ

with the sounds of NOFX and Old Man Markley the night before. As the time reaches 10 a.m., the crowd rises to its feet and the screen in the front of the room flashes images of Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Empire State Building in New York City. The music builds to a thundering climax as nine band members take the stage and people gather at the front of the stage, raising their hands. As the worship band sings, Holy are you God / Holy is your name, the drums crescendo and the stage floods with light. Lentz walks onto the stage in a white T-shirt, black tuxedo jacket, tight black pants and a long necklace. “We’re singing about the most uneven, unjust trade of all time,” he tells the congregants, with the music playing softly in the background. “You bring all your chaos, and He gives you peace. You bring your sick body, get yourself into His presence and in exchange you get healing.” It’s the first of five services that day, squeezed together as closely as possible since the venue is costing them $15,000 for just five hours. The second service will start 15 minutes after the first one ends, and the last will start at 8 p.m. at another music venue eight blocks away. Everyone sitting in the

*THINK: Have you ever felt like your sense of duty or obligation has strangled your love of life? How does loving life ultimately impact the way you are able to love God and people?

chairs had to check the church’s blog the Thursday before to find out when and where they were going to meet—one of the logistical challenges of having a growing church in New York City. Lentz jokes that they’re going to give their leaders GPS bracelets so the congregation can always find them. “Our church has never been in a better place. Where else can you get a Bacardi bat in the house of the Lord?” he asks, pointing out the bat painted on the wall of the balcony above. “I think we should drop the disco ball every once in a while.” Lentz preaches a sermon about “church in the wild”—a message saying Christians must leave safety and security to enter the chaos of the world. The sermon is peppered with amusing stories— the time he accidentally took his daughters to see “Inglorious Barstools” (as he euphemistically puts it) instead of Up, the time he walked around with his baby daughter’s spit-up on his shoulder all day without realizing it. But it’s also fervent. “Stay in the chaos,” he urges his congregation. “You are not going to crumble. It’s not going to kill you. It’s going to bring greatness out of you.” He exhorts them to be authentic and transparent: “Even your scars tell a story. Please stop hiding them.”

T H E R OYA L R OYA L Check out TheRoyalRoyal, a band made up of Nathan Finochio, one of the lead worship leaders at Hillsong NYC, and his brother Gabriel. www.theroyalroyal.com

He draws from three texts, one of them Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. He notes that olives grew in the rocky soil and draws the metaphor that we grow in rocky soil, too. “The place where there is the most pressure in your life, that is where God wants to use you.” He yells that people need to understand the “flip-side of the salvation coin.” “If you want to see great things in your life,” he says, “you will see greater opposition. If you want to see people get healed, you’re

going to see some sickness. If you want to see people get freedom, you’re going to fight some bondage. If you want to see people find life, you’re going to have to stare death right in the face.” Lentz delivers his sermon with barely a glance at the iPad holding his notes, but with careful rhythms and cadence that echoes oldfashioned Southern preaching: “People want the promise without the problem. They want the breakthrough without the battle. They want the clarity and the calling without any of the confusion.” Toward the end, he tosses off his jacket and a guy walks onstage with smears of paint on his shirt. “If you’re dealing with somebody who has brokenness,” Lentz says, giving the guy a hug and letting the paint rub off onto his shirt, “you’re going to walk away and there’s going to be brokenness on you. You see somebody who is dying of diseases and you’re always around them, it’s going to be on you.” His voice begins to break when he says, “Jesus had you all over Him, not because He had to but because He chose to.” Each sermon Lentz gives ends with an altar call. The Monday after this particular service, Lentz says they saw the most decisions for Christ so far in a single day—224 that Sunday and 783 that month. Lentz and his team employ an unorthodox followup process with those who are saved at their church—that is, they don’t follow up. “If you get saved at our church, here’s what I say: ‘We’re not going to come find you. We’re not going to give you details. We’re not going to pray with you. We’re not going to give you a Bible.’ … We believe we start your relationship with Jesus, but us coming at you, we believe, in the long run is going to hurt you. If you really met Jesus tonight, you will find us. Here’s where we will be.* If you come here we’ll give you a Bible. We’ll take your name. We’ll give you everything.” Those who criticize his approach to follow-up, he says bluntly, probably don’t have many people to follow up with. His words mirror one of his recent tweets, when

*DISCUSS: What is your immediate reaction to Lentz’s words regarding follow-up with new believers? What are the pros and cons you see to this approach?

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after tweeting the number of people who came to Christ at a service, he followed up with: “If u tweet me about ‘discipleship’ or ‘follow-up,’ save it. That response is the problem, spectator.” It was during just such an altar call that Meredith Anderson began weeping uncontrollably. “I just felt like God was welcoming me back,” she says. “One moment I was here and I’m terrified, and one moment I never felt more at home and never felt more welcome and never felt so much hope in my whole life.” The woman sitting behind her rubbed her back as she sobbed. Someone prayed with her and told her to buy a Bible immediately. Anderson deleted her drug dealers’ numbers from her phone. She told her boyfriend she was committed to purity until marriage and was still open to dating him if he was OK with that. “He was no longer open to dating me,” she smiles wryly. She joined a Connect Group—a small fellowship group—and now leads a group herself. Lentz describes his leadership philosophy as “deposit, withdraw”—meaning he will give to people before he takes.* He believes this fatherless generation trusts no one. If a leader, he says, comes in “yelling forcing, demanding … you will lose people my age and my generation behind me. If you haven’t earned the right, you’re not going to get any fruit from people.” Lentz also says if he doesn’t know you well enough to rebuke you or ask something from you, “I’m going to suck it up and take the loss. We’d rather build great people at the expense of church than build a great church that has people who are expendable.” Nathan Finochio, one of the church’s worship leaders and co-leader of the band TheRoyalRoyal, met Lentz and Houston when he was writing an article for a magazine in Canada. When they started Hillsong NYC, he uprooted his life in Toronto and moved, despite missing small-town living. Finochio describes Lentz’s leadership style as “very, very, very nurturing” and “intensely personal.” “As a leader—and I say this wholeheartedly—for all his charismatic gifts and ability to preach and speak the word,” Houston says, “he is equally as passionate and effective and has strong gifts as a pastor and as a discipler.” Houston says Lentz would frustrate him by walking in late to a movie or showing up late to meet him, only to find out the real reason behind Lentz’s tardiness. “He walks in halfway and he’d, like, led the clerk to Jesus,” Houston says. “You find out he’s run across town because a guy he’s been discipling has fallen back into his drug habit. … I’ve seen him drive eight hours in the night to be with a guy he’s led to the Lord because he’s going through a marriage thing. He’s the kind of guy who, if I call him and I’m having a hard time, he’s at my doorstep.”

Mission, with the bride cutting people’s hair and feeding people a few minutes before they performed the ceremony with homeless filling the chapel pews. Although many church planters have lately emphasized the importance of listening to your city and building a church specific to your time and place and

THE HILLSONG WAY In Australia, Hillsong Church has built up a labyrinthine network of outreach ministries: Street Teams help with neighborhood improvements and outreach to homeless people; Hillsong SAFE offers community seminars and personal development programs to people recovering from sexual abuse; Hillsong Health Centre offers community health care; Hillsong CityCare Centres offer drug and alcohol abuse counseling and emergency food relief. While Lentz understands the motive behind this type of approach, the Hillsong NYC team is taking a different direction when it comes to community outreach and service. Lentz is instead building on what is already in the city. “I think it’s preposterous to come into a city and tell the city what it needs.” Instead of building his own homeless ministry, a Hillsong group volunteers weekly at the Bowery Mission—a homeless shelter that has been a New York City landmark since 1879—for a program that addresses hunger prevention, food stamps access, gang-prevention, youth development, parenting classes. Lentz says his team helps existing established organizations that already know exactly what the city needs. And when it comes to the controversy of whether to give homeless people “handouts” or more long-term assistance, Lentz says his church will “err on the side of grace every time” by doing both: “We’re going to give them a handout and a hand up.” One couple held their wedding at the Bowery 40

*ACT: Who is someone who could really use you “depositing” into their life right now?

“I THINK IT’S PREPOSTEROUS TO COME INTO A CITY AND TELL THE CITY WHAT IT NEEDS.”

One of the obstacles is the lack of space for a children’s group—Lentz has a picture of his daughter playing behind a bar, their makeshift children’s area—and Lentz believes families will become more visible once they don’t have to arrange their own childcare to come to church. Hillsong attendees are rather homogeneous at first glance. There is some racial diversity, but the aesthetic—from the leadership to the young people eating hors d’oeuvres from servers’ white plates at the Welcome to Church Party—is unwaveringly young, hip and stylish, with little diversity of class. Diverse churches are not impossible in New York City—mainline churches are full of wealthy and low-income New Yorkers of various ethnicities worshipping side by side—and Lentz admits Hillsong isn’t attracting everyone, but he’s also not apologizing for drawing the people he’s better at reaching: “People say, ‘Is your church young?’ I say, ‘No—there are just no young people at yours, so you come and see any at ours and we’re a “young church.” ’ … We naturally gravitate toward a certain type of person. We’re not ashamed of that or excited about it. It just is what it is. People say, ‘Do you have hipsters and cool people in church?’ We say, ‘Hopefully we have everybody, but apparently yeah, we have a couple of those.’ ”* Regardless of age, race or origin, no matter who you are—young or old, hipster or soccer mom, college student or doctor—being an active contributor (as in, a volunteer) is critical. At a creative night on Thursday, hundreds came to learn more about taking leadership in the church’s creative direction, the part Houston leads. For more visible positions, like the worship team, Houston says it’s “essential” that people show commitment to the church through faithful service. When he built the worship team, Houston drew from people who had already showed commitment—not necessarily the best musicians. They lacked a bass player starting out, so a guitarist bought a bass and tried to teach himself. “To be honest, he was not very good for a long time,” Houston admits, saying he even had to turn around in the song and yell chords at him. “It would have been really easy for me to call a friend I know in Nashville and say, ‘Could you come here for a few months and play bass?’ Really easy,” Houston says. “But you don’t grow people [that way]. You don’t grow your team that way. And I love it.”

—CARL LENTZ

not a copycat of a church in another culture, Hillsong New York City seems to stand in direct contrast. They emphasize their church is not a plant but an extension, meaning Brian and Bobbie Houston are still their senior leadership. They are not so much a church that’s organic to New York City as a New York City meeting of a church in Sydney. Hillsong’s approach to church growth contrasts with that of Redeemer Presbyterian Church— another New York City Christian powerhouse that helps neighborhood-centered churches whether they identify as Presbyterian or have the same style. Some are home-based faith communities and others have more traditional services. One church might meet in a project, and another might meet in a storefront. There is a Redeemer-affiliated Hipster Church and a Redeemeraffiliated New York Lighthouse Baptist Church that holds services in Mandarin. Hillsong can feel like stumbling on a Starbucks in a foreign country—familiar songs, familiar names, a familiar brand. Hillsong has made a conscious decision to hold big services in Manhattan, not locally focused like a church in Queens or Brooklyn, despite the expense and the trouble. “Logistically it’s a nightmare and it’s a disaster and it’s too expensive—which is exactly why we want to come here,” Lentz says. They chose Union Square for a meeting place because it’s a nexus of subway lines and people can come from all over the city. “We want to tap the vein of this city right to the heart of it from day one,” Lentz says. “Our model is not to have a bunch of little churches everywhere. That model is being done here well. We like big meetings. We rage against the machine of small little meetings everywhere. It works for some people. For us, we just do church how we like it. When I go to church, I want to go to the biggest meeting with the most people and the craziest music. … That’s how we’re wired.” Bella Fong, 25, became a Christian through Hillsong in Australia and attended it during her formative years. Despite leading a youth ministry and having a job in television advertising, she felt a yearning to go to New York and finally did. As someone who has attended both churches, she says Hillsong Sydney draws far more families, perhaps because the church has been around long enough for people to raise a new generation in it. On average, there are only a couple dozen children at Hillsong NYC’s services, and three of them are Lentz’s.

ANCHORED Hillsong is a mix of brand new Christians, as well as people who have left other churches to come to Hillsong, some who still attend other churches and

still others who are finally settling here after drifting from church to church and finding them all a bad fit. Lentz says he’s not here to sway a Christian from picking the church they want. “If people do leave the church to go to another church,” he says, “they were never planted there anyway.” He is also not there to quibble over who does church better. “I desperately want to reach people and want them to feel at home, but I’m not wasting time telling you why your church in Montana did it better—I don’t have time for that. “New York City—I call it the town of the tumbleweeds,” Lentz continues. “People just blow about town [to] wherever the coolest preacher is or wherever the hottest series is or whatever suits the preference of their particular lifestyle at that time. We want people who are anchored in a church for better or for worse.” If someone isn’t wholly committed to Lentz’s mission, he or she can leave. “We need your seat badly,” he says. And for those who feel called to leave their churches to come serve at Hillsong, Lentz says he understands— he too left his old church to follow a calling—but it’s “delicate.” “I’d love to get a call from your pastor saying he’s blessed you to come here.” Lentz himself is committed. “I love these people. I want to die here. I want to get buried here.” He points to an anchor tattooed on his arm, with the quote, “While there remains one dark soul.” He saw the full quote— from William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army—on the wall of a Salvation Army building in New York City: “While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight.” “I read that and cried my face off and thought: ‘That is for me. And I’m going to be super antagonistic and get that tattooed on my arm.’ ” Both he and Houston have the matching tattoos. On Lentz’s, one arm of the anchor says 757, his area code from Virginia, and the other says NYC: “That’s where I came from, and this is where I’m always going to be.”

*DISCUSS: Is it OK to attract who you are good at attracting? Or should you stretch yourself beyond that? Is there a balance in being grateful for who God has brought to your church, but also actively pursuing new and different demographics?

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REPLACING YOU TRANSITIONING LEADERSHIP IS TRICKY. HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD BE GROOMING YOUR SUCCESSOR—EVEN IF YOU’VE ONLY BEEN A PASTOR FOR A YEAR. BY JONATHAN MERRITT

TOMORROW WON’T TAKE CARE OF ITSELF

September, news of Rob Bell surprised the world once again when he announced plans to leave his church in Grand Rapids and move to Los Angeles to pursue broader interests—one of those being the development of a script for an ABC television show loosely based on his life. He also plans to continue touring and speaking; he is working now on his “Fit to Smash Ice” tour. Mars Hill released a public statement concerning Bell’s resignation and future plans: “Feeling the call from God to pursue a growing number of strategic opportunities, our founding pastor, Rob Bell, has decided to leave Mars Hill in order to devote his full energy to sharing the message of God’s love with a broader audience.” This isn’t the first time in recent history a prominent figure decided to leave his or her church for one reason or another. Bell joins the ranks of Francis Chan, Jim Belcher and N.T. Wright—all influential churchmen-turned-authors who felt called by God to leave their parishes and pursue other paths. Bloggers and commentators aplenty have opined on the wisdom of such decisions, but very few have considered the implications for another important participant: the Bride herself. In church, as in life, the only constant is change. Yet, many churches fail to prepare for the inevitable transition of their leaders due to death or retirement or the call to plant a new church or the pursuit of “broader interests.” As Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk once said: “We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.” Should churches and pastors make plans for the next phase of congregational life? If so, what’s the best way to create something that will live well beyond the tenure of even the most beloved leader?

When Dr. D. James Kennedy, prominent pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort Lauderdale, passed away in 2007, his church was faced with the daunting task of replacing their larger-than-life leader. In March of the following year, church leaders decided to merge their congregation with New City Church, led by Tullian Tchividjian. Neither Kennedy nor Coral Ridge elders ever made plans for succession, and the results were disastrous. The congregation plunged into a wellpublicized conflict that ended in an unsuccessful petition led by Kennedy’s daughter to remove Tchividjian from the pastorate. “Succession was something that was never talked about, even though I understand some people tried to bring it up,” Tchividjian says. “The fact they didn’t have this conversation meant we had to suffer as the congregation, and Christ’s church was unnecessarily divided in front of the city.” The 39-year-old Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham, has written several books including Unfashionable. But his most recent book, titled Jesus + Nothing = Everything, openly addresses his struggles at Coral Ridge—struggles that, though he says they have mostly overcome now, at one time threatened to destroy the church. “In the Presbyterian world, it’s not common that a pastor would be given the single-handed authority to find a successor,” Tchividjian admits. “But if he had chosen a successor, we would have avoided some of the problems we faced.” Tchividjian is quick to point out that, in some ways, the lack of planning played in his favor. If Kennedy had picked a successor, he says, it would not likely have been him. Their approach to ministry, the pulpit and the role of the church in the public square were too different. “So it was no accident he didn’t pick a successor. God’s way, His providence was best,” Tchividjian says, pulling from a very Presbyterian

emphasis on sovereignty. “Succession is certainly something a pastor who is moving into the twilight of his career should be getting his congregation thinking [about]. But God should handpick that person. This is not the pastor’s church, it is Christ’s church.” Bruce Miller, co-founder of Centers of Church Based Training and author of Your Church in Rhythm and The Leadership Baton: An Intentional Strategy for Developing Leaders in Your Church, pushes back against Tchividjian’s thinking. He doesn’t discourage pastors from relying on God’s providence, but he says overemphasizing it is one of the biggest mistakes a pastor can make in terms of preparing for the future. “It’s just not that simple to think of this in terms of providence. It’s a piece of the truth, not the whole truth,” Miller says. “Nobody shows up without preparing to preach sermons and just says, ‘God will sort it all out when the moment comes.’ They prepare. So pastors need to always be raising up young leaders.” Warren Bird, the director of Research and Intellectual Capital at Leadership Network, agrees some churches suffer because their pastor relies too heavily on God’s providence. But, he says, the larger hurdle is often fear. “Only a small minority believes succession isn’t important, that it is for God to deal with. A larger group don’t know how to begin a discussion without immediately positioning [themselves] as a lame duck,” Bird says. “They’re fearful that once you open that door, you don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s safer to wait until you have to.” But thinking about succession shouldn’t be viewed as giving up or the pastor’s first step out the door, and it certainly isn’t always about retirement—many pastors leave to plant a new church, to move to another city or because of a call to vocation outside the church. Preparing a successor—and preparing the church for that successor—is merely a wise decision in the face of an inevitable reality. Whatever the reasons a pastor avoids thinking about tomorrow, Bird says, the ripples from that decision can cripple the congregation.* “Poorly handled successions go through a series of ‘sacrifice pastors’ during which attendance and momentum tend to slow down,” Bird says. “Can these be recovered? Certainly. But why invite the church to lose the momentum you’ve worked so hard to build and seen God’s hand so abundantly? Why throw water on your fire by avoiding the inevitability that you’re going to need a successor one day?”

PASSING THE BATON Miller says leadership is more like a baton than a trophy. You keep a trophy, but you hand off a baton. In a race, if you don’t hand off the baton, you lose the race. Pastors who fail to realize this may end up winning their leg of the race, but the churches they lead lose after they drop out. So pastors of every age need to be thinking this through. “Every organization has a life span. There is birth, growth, maturity, decline and death,” Miller says. “The most dangerous time is at the top of the curve—when you’re mature, when you’re large, when everything is going great. That’s where you should pass the baton. You don’t want to pass the baton when you begin declining, because then it’s harder to find someone to take the baton.”

*ACT: Even if you haven’t thought of that person as a potential successor, is there someone you are closely mentoring who you feel God has called into leadership? If not, pray about who God might be leading you to mentor.

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If Miller is correct, then succession is as important an issue for younger pastors as it is for older pastors. When a younger leader heads a growing church, thinking about transition may seem premature. But according to Miller, it is the most advantageous time to begin making these plans. One way Miller’s church, McKinney Fellowship Bible Church in McKinney, Texas, is addressing succession is through their multisite church panting model. As they plant new locations, they are raising up leaders to direct these new congregations. This provides a pool of leaders from which McKinney Fellowship could draw to lead the larger main campus one day.

Shane Hipps. Previously pastor of a 300-member Mennonite church and author of Flickering Pixels, Hipps had risen to national prominence as an author and speaker. “Mars Hill had a very unique challenge,” Hipps says. “They knew there were a lot of people who can hold a big stage, and there are a lot of people who can say things the way we’re saying things. There are very

YOU KEEP A TROPHY, BUT YOU HAND OFF A BATON. IN A RACE, IF YOU DON’T HAND OFF THE BATON, YOU LOSE THE RACE. In other church cultures, Bird says, succession is handled through what he calls “the family effect.” This mechanism often works best in non-white and charismatic churches as opposed to bodies with congregational polity. “In this church culture, the pastor is like a king, anointing the next person,” Bird says. “Sometimes it is a son or a friend. Sometimes the wife, the widow, will lead the church. Regardless, there is a passing of the baton.” He also points to a mentoring model, the highly celebrated approach taken by megachurches like Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky. With more than 20,000 members, SCC is one of the 10 largest congregations in America. Senior Pastor Bob Russell made headlines recently when he handed the church’s reins over to long-time associate pastor of preaching Dave Stone. Stone had been in a mentoring program with Russell for five years. “This model brings in multiple associates knowing one will connect best with the congregation,” Bird says. “That person becomes the successor. Then, he begins looking for a successor 20 years his junior.” Bird says churches need more than the name in an envelope required by the insurance company. Whatever model a congregation chooses, every church needs a genuine model for succession and every pastor—regardless of age—should bear the responsibility of ensuring a smooth transition whenever it does come.

GOOD GRIEF To their credit, Mars Hill began talking about succession long before Bell decided to leave. More than three years prior, church elders began asking this question: “How do we continue the vitality of a movement independent of a single leader?”* They answered with a plan to transition from a “one-pillar model” that rested exclusively on Bell’s shoulders to a “four-pillar model” that sits upon 1) an empowered executive elder team, 2) extended elder teams that govern various ministries as well as overall theology and vision, 3) an empowered staff and 4) two different teaching pastors. In pursuit of the fourth pillar, the church reached out to 44

few who can do both.” Hipps believes churches are wise to think through succession, but they should also recognize every congregation has a unique mix of needs and goals. What works for one may not work for another. “The first and most important question you have to answer is, what is the nature of what you have? If you misdiagnose this, you’ll be perpetually disappointed,” Hipps says. “The way in which [Mars Hill’s] system has to operate is fundamentally different from my previous church. One is a cat and one is a dog. If you have a cat, and you insist it must bark like a dog, you’ll be perpetually disappointed.” From Bell’s controversial book Love Wins to his recent decision to pursue other interests, Mars Hill has been through a lot this year. But Hipps says the way the church intentionally planned for a day many hoped would wait has contributed to the congregation’s current state. Contrary to some claims coming from the blogosphere and Twittersphere, Hipps says Mars Hill is healthy. “People are worried about us, but we’re doing well. Evidence of that was the day Rob announced. Before he said a word, the community gave him a standing ovation,” Hipps says. “Sure, this transition comes with a certain amount of grief, but there are different kinds of grief. We don’t have the kind

CELEBRITY PASTOR SYNDROME The idea that megachurches are a boomer phenomena and are aging out is a myth, Warren Bird says. One of the biggest considerations for this discussion, he says, is the way “celebrity pastor syndrome” is impacting the broader church culture. He offers a few statistics that bear this out: - Fewer than 500 megachurches existed in America 20 years ago. Today, there are more than 1,500. - 82% of megachurches have broken the 2,000 attendance barrier under their current pastor. - The average megachurch pastor’s age is 51. Megachurches aren’t the only ones affected by celebrity pastor syndrome. Founding pastors—of which there are a growing number, thanks in part to the church planting movement—are often idolized. Statistics indicate the founding pastor is almost always the most difficult to replace.

of grief when someone dies of cancer. Because of the way our church planned for this, we have the kind you experience when your child goes off to college. It’s grief that is mingled with joy.” JONATHAN MERRITT, named one of “30 Emerging Leaders” reshaping Christian leadership by Outreach magazine, is author of the forthcoming book A Faith of Our Own. You can follow him, but please, only on Twitter: @JonathanMerritt

*ACT: This is a question for all churches: Is your church built around the charisma and vision of one person? Depending on your answer, consider how you can create a church culture that has shared leadership and vision—through multiple teaching pastors, a visible board of elders or other means.

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Q&A

HOW TO STOP THE YOUNG ADULT CHURCH EXODUS KARA POWELL, THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FULLER YOUTH INSTITUTE, ON WHY YOUNG ADULTS ARE LEAVING CHURCH—AND WHAT LEADERS CAN DO TO STOP THE TREND BY ROXANNE WIEMAN

What does it say about our churches that 40 to 50 percent of young Christians fail to stick with their faith or connect with a church after high school? It’s a question Kara Powell, executive director of Fuller Youth Institute and co-author of Sticky Faith, couldn’t stop asking. Working with a team at Fuller, she initiated an extensive research study following more than 500 youth group graduates during their first three years in college. Deemed the “Sticky Faith” project, the group set out to find what it takes for churches to give young adults a faith that sticks for a lifetime.

a lock-box, especially as a college student and emerging adult, you’re making so many important decisions about worldview, and marriage, how you engage in risk behaviors, and vocation, and calling, and all those considerations are made while your faith is locked up in that lock-box. So there is some sort of residual sense that students value the faith, but it’s not influencing their day-to-day, or even major decisions. Given the long-term impact of those decisions throughout their adulthood, it’s pretty disconcerting.

Why is this a topic that senior pastors— rather than just youth pastors—should care about?

Is this proven attrition a matter of young people leaving church, or of them leaving faith altogether? Or is it both? Probably my best answer to that is to describe what Tim Clydesdale— who is a sociologist in New Jersey— refers to as “the identity lock-box.” What students tend to do after they’ve graduated from high school is place important parts of themselves in an identity lock-box, and their faith is often part of that. The good news is that you put something in a lockbox when it’s important to you. So there is some sense that students still value their faith at one level. But the problem is when your faith is in

In many ways teenagers are like mirrors that reflect back to us our faith attitudes and practices. So there’s a couple areas of our research that are particularly relevant for church leaders. First off, it has to do with students’ understanding of the Gospel. The students involved in our research definitely tended to view the Gospel as a list of dos and do-nots, a list of behaviors. We asked our students when they were college juniors, “How would you define what it really means to be a Christian?” and one out of three— and these were all youth group students— didn’t mention Jesus Christ in their answer; they mentioned behaviors. So it seems like students have really picked up a behavioralist view of the Gospel. That’s problematic for a lot of reasons, but one of which is that when students fail to live up to those behaviors, then they end up running from God and the Church when they need both the most. So what we’re seeing by studying is that the teenagers’ truncated view of the Gospel is a model that adults have also embraced and are modeling and teaching to teenagers.

So you can assume young adults are learning this behavioralist view of the Gospel from somewhere— probably from the adults in the church—which makes it a church-wide issue? Oh, yes, absolutely, the 16-year-olds aren’t making this up on their own. They’re getting this from adults. Another issue that is particularly relevant to church leaders across the board is the importance of intergenerational relationships. We looked at 13 different youth group participation variables in our study, things kids did in the context of youth group, to try and see what would be the biggest levers for sticky faith. To our surprise, the participation variable most highly related to mature faith both in high school and college was intergenerational worship; helping kids connect with adults of all ages is a vital part of building adult faith.* What we’re seeing is that not only are [intergenerational relationships]

transformative in the lives of the teenagers, but they make a difference in the overall church. Imagine what a church would be like, what the adults in church would be like, if they were infused with the vitality that comes with teenagers? At the very least, if they were getting to know a few teenagers by name so they could pray for them, how life-giving would that be for the adults in a church?

Is there a balance? Is there a time when the church should segregate by age? The original churches in the first century were multigenerational, were multi-ethnic. Especially as youth ministries become more professionalized in the last 50 years, [we’ve] ended up segregating kids from the rest of the church. Having said that, there’s definitely a time for 6-year-olds, and 16-year-olds and 86-year-olds to be together on their own. We need to provide space for folks in similar life spaces to chat and share community, but balance is something we swing through on our way to the other extreme. We’ve created this kind of youth-ministry machine, which then allows parents to think, “Well, I can outsource the spiritual development of my kids to the youth pastor.”

One of the insights you found was that most students say they felt unprepared for college, while most parents and churches felt like they had prepared students for college. Where’s the disconnect? Only one out of seven in the survey felt like their faith was ready for what they were going to face in college. Part of what we’re urging churches and families to do is to start preparing seniors far earlier. Now at my church we start preparing seniors in September of their senior year; we start doing regular, monthly gatherings of seniors to talk about all they’re going to face. The other step is that parents can partner with the church and start preparing their students for what they’re going to face. On really practical things, like how to handle your time and your money, these are two of the areas that students in our faith research said they didn’t realize how their faith related to those areas. The other thing we urge for churches or parents to do with their students is have a plan for those first two weeks of college. What we’ve found is those first two weeks really set the trajectory for the first year, and the first year really sets a trajectory for the next four years. So those first two weeks are really vital, and the early decisions students make. So someone needs to talk to students about the decisions they’re going to make. I know one youth pastor who asked a student last month, “When you have a moral failure, what is your plan?” And I thought, how brilliant for that college pastor to be so direct.

*DISCUSS: Consider what a more intentional intergenerational culture might look like at your church. Could you start mentoring relationships? Invite different generations to serve together? Include students in more adult worship experiences?

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What did you find helped students keep their faith the most, both in those initial two weeks and then in the ensuing years? Number one is plugging into a faith community, so finding a church or a campus ministry and then visiting that meeting early on. Literally that first weekend and that first week it makes a real difference if students locate and are intentional in going to visit a church or campus ministry. Let me also say, though, how important it is for a student’s home church to stay in contact with them. We’ve found that contact with other adults in the church during that first year in college really impacts the student. Let those college students know you’re still thinking about them, caring about them and praying for them.

On the flip side, say you’re a church in a college town—how do you focus on and attract college students?

“THE PARTICIPATION VARIABLE MOST HIGHLY RELATED TO MATURE FAITH BOTH IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE WAS INTERGENERATIONAL WORSHIP.”

There are a lot of churches who have just not made college ministry a priority. I think what any church can do, whether you’re located in a college town or not, is when you see college students, go out of your way to make them feel welcome. I remember as a college student freshman year showing up and feeling so alone. What a difference it would have made if two, or three or 10 people had come up to me and just shaken my hand and welcomed me. I’d say the second step is to go even deeper than that and provide mentoring to college students—pair an engineer in your church with a student majoring in engineering. College students don’t need flash and glitz as much as they need to know older adults who are willing to share their spiritual journey with them.

What do you see as the role of the parachurch campus ministries? How can they help students keep their faith, but also avoid becoming a replacement for the local church? I’m a big advocate and fan of those Christ-centered college ministries. Having said that, I think it is the responsibility of the college ministry to help connect students to a church. Even if it’s primarily through weekend attendance, at least they feel connected to a church. One of the challenges we’ve heard of and I’ve certainly seen with college students myself is that if they get really connected to InterVarsity, Campus Crusade, etc., then when they graduate from college, they have problems getting plugged into a church. So what smart college ministry leaders are doing is recognizing that and saying, “We can’t just provide this intense spiritual experience off to the side of the church, we have to be helping our students connect to the church.” So maybe that small group leader says, “Hey, on Sundays I’m going to [a] church down the street—how about if I pick some of you up and you come with me?” Even those sorts of steps—even if it’s just attendance—are really important. The college ministry experience is so intense. Your close friends you see in college you see once a day; after you 48

graduate it’s once a month or once a week. The experiences can just be so different after college that it can be rather jarring for students.

It’s a common story: Young adults stop going to church, then once they have kids they return. It’s not like that’s a new phenomenon. Do you think this generation is different—or will they return to church again in a few years when they start having kids? About 50 percent of those who drift from church seem to return, and it’s

often because when they get older they get married and have kids. We at the Fuller Youth Institute are still grieving over the 50 percent who don’t return, and even in the 50 percent who do return—you make those important life decisions as college students, and then there are consequences you live with even after you’ve returned to the faith. It seems like students are drifting at a slightly higher percentage than in the past, and as adolescence is lengthening, they’re staying away from the church longer. As age of marriage is being delayed, having children is being delayed, so it’s just more years under the belt apart from God and full of the heartbreak and disappointment that comes from living your life apart from God.

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COURTESY OF 58:

EXTREME POVERTY CAN BE ELIMINATED

(WHY THE CHURCH IS THE ONLY ORGANIZATION THAT CAN DO IT.) BY SCOTT TODD

AKE POVERTY HISTORY! END POVERTY NOW! Sounds a lot like “Save the Planet,” “Save the Rainforest,” “Save the Whales” and “Free Tibet.” Those who believe in such slogans are naïve idealists with little nuanced understanding of the real issues. Right? Maybe you believe ending poverty is possible in theory, but you doubt it can be accomplished in reality. After all, the statistics are overwhelming. Maybe you’ve experienced poverty—you’ve smelled it and walked in the middle of it, and because you’ve seen it, you’re convinced the problem is too big. And maybe it’s not even biblical. What about the verse that says the poor will always be with us? That verse, Matthew 26:11a, has often been taken out of context. Jesus did not say the poor would

always be with us. He wasn’t talking to us. He was talking to Judas and maybe to the others in the room three days before His death. He was saying, “I’m about to die.” He did not ordain endless poverty. In the same sentence, He also says, “You will not always have me.” When we read that part, why do we automatically put it in context? We don’t go around saying, “Jesus will not always be with us.” But that is exactly what Matthew 26:11b says. But in Matthew 28:20 Jesus promises, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” So which is it? “You will not always have me” or, “I am with you always”? We know which one it is. The same context should apply to the first half of the sentence regarding the poor. Scripture is flooded with messages calling us to remember the poor (Galatians 2:10), reminding us that “pure and undefiled religion” requires the care of orphans and widows (James 1:27), warning that doing nothing for hungry people is evidence of a dead faith (James 2:15-17), aligning our eternal fate to our actions on behalf of the hungry (Matthew 25:31-46) and many more. It is hard

to imagine the same Scripture that commands such action would also teach such action is doomed to fail. Besides, there is staggering evidence to the contrary—povertyfighting actions are, in fact, succeeding at a stunning pace. When we look at the numbers, we see the tyranny of extreme poverty is already being broken:* • Today, many countries have more than doubled average life expectancy. • In the past eight years, the number of kids dying from

*DISCUSS: Do these statistics surprise you? Why do you think we so often only hear the downer stats—the ones meant to overwhelm and depress us? Consider how you can share these success stories with your congregation—to celebrate how far we’ve come in fighting extreme poverty.

measles has declined by 78 percent as a result of immunizations. • The spread of HIV has been curbed. New HIV infections have been cut 16 percent globally. • Twenty-two countries have cut their malaria rate in half in only six years. • Extreme poverty was reduced from 52 percent to 26 percent in the last 20 years. If you remember only one set of numbers from all of this, then remember: 52 to 26, and 26 to go. Extreme poverty worldwide has been cut in half, reduced from 52 percent to 26 percent. That’s a 26 percent drop, and we have 26 percent to go. We’ve been handed a baton by the previous generation—do you think we can win the race? It will require intelligence, wisdom, perseverance and resources. I hear someone insisting, “It will require a miracle from God.” Who gave us all the resources and wisdom in the first place? Maybe He’s waiting for us to do what He has repeatedly told us to do. We need to understand the engines that drove us from 52 to 26 percent, and we need to decide if those same engines are adequate to finish the task. Because the next 26 percent will be more difficult than the last. But there should be no question of whether it is possible. It is absolutely possible. The question is not, “Can we end poverty?” The question is, “How can we end poverty?”

THE UNRIVALED CAPACITY OF THE CHURCH For the first time in human history, we have the realistic possibility of ending extreme global poverty—and it presents an incredible opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ. Many Christians are trapped by low expectations for the future. Not just for the future of poverty but for the future in general. Thankfully, the old idea that the world is supposed to get worse is losing dominion. Maybe, just maybe, the world can get better. Maybe we will do our part to make it happen. The Church is the only organization with hundreds of millions of members and the capacity to mobilize hundreds of millions of volunteers. I’m not just talking about the good people serving in soup kitchens—I’m talking about performing the ultimate act of caring for the poor: ending extreme poverty. The Church is unrivaled in its capacity. If you want to respond to the massive challenges of global poverty, then the Church is the organization with the legs to get it done. Here are a few reasons why:

• The “service delivery points” of local churches greatly outnumber branches of government, as does human capacity. • In some African countries up to 70 percent of their health care is delivered by private Christian organizations, and those services are of superior quality to government-run hospitals and clinics. • The Church was present in Rwanda before the genocide, through it and it is still there today. • In 2006, a Gallup poll found Africans were most likely to trust their churches and least likely to trust their governments. • The Church was there before the AIDS pandemic, through it and you can count on the Church being there when it is finally brought to its end.

THE ROOT OF POVERTY But these are just strategic reasons why the Church plays a critical role in ending poverty. You might think I’m arguing that the Church’s strategic assets are its strength, but they are secondary. The ultimate reason why the Church is critical to the work of ending poverty is the promise of Jesus. The root of poverty is the insidious and fatalistic lie that whispers: “You can’t. You don’t matter, and it isn’t going to get any better.” What institution carries the truth that defeats that lie? Who proclaims the message that “with God you can”? Who declares, “You do matter, and it can get better because God really does love us”? Who offers the only foundation of durable hope? It’s the Church. Jesus could have started a business for social good, but instead

He established the Church and promised “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18, KJV). The Church, expressed in local disciple-making communities, is commissioned by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to advance the Kingdom on earth. And that includes the eradication of the evil of extreme poverty. No other organization was founded by Christ or promises victory against the forces of hell.

THE ROLE OF MINISTRY American churches on average spend 96 percent of their offerings to pay for the facilities, staffing and production costs of the weekly experiences. Of the 4 percent that does go beyond the church walls, only a small fraction goes to anti-poverty work. And that could be because people generally give far less than 1 percent of their personal income to anti-poverty work. Twenty percent of all American Christians don’t give at all. Total giving among Christians, including church offerings and all tax-deductible contributions to any cause or organization, is 2.9 percent. Nonreligious Americans give 0.7 percent. We’ve got a lot of work to do to encourage the support of Christian holistic ministry for the poor. Such work must begin with you—the leader. Here are five ways to begin inspiring and leading your church to become part of a unified global Christian effort to end extreme poverty in this lifetime.* Read Isaiah 58. Then consider leading your congregation to pledge to live what it says, including a commitment to prayer and fasting, which will help align your hearts toward God’s for the poor. Shout. Isaiah’s challenge is to “shout it aloud, do not hold back.” Speak on helping the poor at least once every two months at your church; invite experts in this field to speak or give evening seminars on a regular basis. Unite. Create opportunities for members of your church to rally around specific projects, like partnering with a church or orphanage in another country. Stay committed for the long haul by sending volunteers, donating money, writing letters and inviting people from there to visit your church (and offering to pay for it). Give. Make it easy for people to donate to charities you support on your website. Include information on them, why you support them and a way to donate. You can also give by praying for the project, the people doing the work and those in the community. Celebrate. Make serving and giving a regular happening at your church, like a bimonthly serving day where people volunteer with local organizations you support. Regularly applaud volunteers and organizations making a difference in your area. The biggest obstacle facing the Church today is not a lack of resources, faith or participation—it’s a battle with our own low expectations. What if the whole Gospel to the whole world came through the elimination of poverty? Let’s adjust our expectations accordingly. May we work with perseverance and resolve as we seek to lift the poor—all 1.4 billion of them—out of extreme poverty. And may we not be satisfied until that new reality has come.

DR. SCOTT TODD is the author of Fast Living and is the chairman of the board of 58: and the senior ministry advisor at Compassion International.

*ACT: Changing church culture and eliminating extreme poverty will take bold action. So don’t be timid—commit to implementing each one of these ideas in your church over the course of the next year. Discuss ideas for doing this with your senior staff.

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THE PERSONAL LIVES OF PROFESSIONAL LEADERS BY CHUCK DeGROAT

L E ARNING TO LEAD TH ROUGH YOUR OWN UP S A N D D OWN S

THE STRUGGLES OF THE LEADER

he statistics are staggering. You’ve likely heard them. More than a thousand pastors quit each month. Fifty-seven percent would leave if they could. Ninety percent feel inadequate. Seventy percent have no close friends. Anyone in ministry for a long time has seen the gamut of reasons for attrition—infidelity, abuse, addiction, marital problems, insecurity, identity crisis, hopelessness. And these are not merely the “unsuccessful” pastors, as you might think. Conservative icon John Piper stepped away for eight months, and just recently C.J. Mahaney, the leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries, took an indefinite leave because of “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment and hypocrisy.” I tell my seminary students ministry is among the most dangerous vocations, likely to devour half of them. Most people in ministry are bound to struggle. Despite the pretense of emotional and spiritual health, the statistics say ministry leaders are just as prone as anyone else to experience emotional and relational maladies. Sometimes in my cynicism I don’t know why anyone expects more than that. Ministers come from a long history of prophets, priests and kings whose inner contradictions have made headlines. Why is there a tendency to project onto pastors higher expectations than the murdering, adulterous and narcissistic “greatest king of Israel,” King David? It’s not that easy, is it? Leaders are called to be respectable, sober, above reproach, mature, beyond greed and not prone to pick fights (see 1 Timothy 3:1-13).* I was read that list when I was ordained and it sent chills up my spine and brought tears to my eyes. What a fine line church leaders must walk—to pursue holiness while being truthful about their own brokenness. It seems like a contradiction, yet it’s a contradiction church leaders must embody. The difficult task is to find a practical way to embrace that challenging tension.

Maybe it begins early for some people when they are told as children that they need to be better than all the rest. Such was the case for Dave, whose obvious competence and success in ministry led others to challenge him to become a church planter. In his late 30s, he felt like it was time. He was approved unanimously to church plant. But after successful fundraising and three weeks of preview services, he had a meltdown. He was riddled with an anxiety he’d never experienced before. In the safe confines of my office, he said: “I can’t screw this one up. This church plant is all on me. People are counting on me. I can’t fail.” Or maybe for some it’s found in the trap of authenticity. This was the case for Shane, a pastor who advertised himself as a “messy pastor,” and gained quite a following from disenfranchised Christians in his suburban town. Yet, when Shane came to me for help, he too was dying under the weight of his “messy” persona. “I’ve made brokenness cool,” he said. “But now I’ve got to live up to the billing as the ‘real’ pastor in town. It’s too much pressure.” Pastors who are anything like Dave or Shane—and there are many— lie in bed late at night, struggling to pray, exhausted but unable to sleep. Maybe I can start a business, they think. Or perhaps I’d be good at sales. Sometimes they’ll mull over writing a book, or becoming a teacher, or in the darkest moments, ending it all. Several good pastors I know have done just that. Sometimes the pressure is just too much. Leaders hide, at times, behind their holiness, and at other times behind their raw humanness. Interestingly, both Dave and Shane share a similarly fearful soul. Both are dishonest—with themselves, with God and with their communities. But is there a way to embrace Dave’s concern for holiness and Shane’s for authenticity? In order to do so effectively, pastors and leaders must consider four core challenges.

COME OUT OF HIDING Early on in life, people learn to hide, not least because it was bestowed to the human race spiritually (see Genesis 3:8). I hardly talk to a pastor who doesn’t recognize, at some point, that he or she mastered the art of editing at a very early age. Children learn that while some parts of their personality met with approval, others were not so welcome. As people in the public persona business, leaders are well aware personal contradictions are inevitable. What is not inevitable is the inclination to share those contradictions with God and others. The great pastor and writer Frederick Buechner once wrote: “It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.” And Psalm 139 brings the challenge, “Search me, God, and know my heart” (23, NIV). Even with this invitation, the Psalmist is already aware God knows it all anyway. It’s extraordinary that the most honest writings of pastors are from Scripture, and from centuries past. King David, St. Paul, Augustine, the Desert Fathers, Teresa of Avila, Baxter, Spurgeon—these leaders saw self-protection not as crucial but utterly destructive to ministry. When you come out of hiding, God can begin to shape you into a whole person, ready to lead and to serve.

TELL YOUR STORY … WISELY Though it may sound contradictory, the necessary challenge is to embrace freedom with wisdom. It’s simply not wise to become Shane’s version of a “messy Christian,” in part because it does not lead to maturity, and in part because it’s just not safe to tell your story to everyone. Jesus once said, “Do not cast your pearls before swine.” Your story contains your pearls, the shiniest as well as the notso-fine. When you do emerge from hiding, it’s important to choose carefully who will bear your greatest treasures. “Telling it all” publicly is unwise at best, and at worst, exhibitionism. A wise man once told me there is a difference between openness and vulnerability. Pastors are called to be open with all, but vulnerable with only a few. As a leader, I want people to know I struggle and fail. But only a few ought to know the details. St. Augustine confessed his struggle with sexual sin in his Confessions, but he didn’t give explicit details. So what’s the difference between being careful and “editing your story”? How can you be wise with your sharing and yet be real at the same time? Everyone chooses and arranges what they’ll say and when they’ll say it. And ultimately, it’s not what people do as much as what they’re motivated by. If the motive is selfprotection and hiding, then there’s trouble. If the motive is to be real and messy, then the danger is exhibitionism. But if your desire is to be wise and loving in the way you share yourself for the sake of others, then you’ve caught the missional motive of coming out of hiding. Self-protection denies honesty. Self-exhibitionism distorts honesty. But self-revelation blesses you and others.

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH HONEST SOULS If you ask me what the most influential leaders lack today, I’ll rarely say authentic faith or sound theology or extraordinary gifts. What I see more than anything else is a lack of community. The best leaders solicit feedback, even when it stirs insecurity in them. They recognize that honest relationship does not threaten their power but actually empowers their leadership, as well as those who are led. But this kind of sharing must respect the inherent differences between openness and vulnerability. In their public lives, great leaders show themselves to be open leaders to their staff, their congregations and those who follow them. The best leaders I’ve known go to their staff asking questions like: How can I grow? How have I disappointed

*ACT: Read and meditate on this biblical list of leadership distinctives. Pray through each attribute and consider how you are living it—who could come alongside you in the areas you feel weakest?

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SELF-PROTECTION DENIES HONESTY. SELF-EXHIBITIONISM DISTORTS HONESTY. BUT SELF-REVELATION BLESSES YOU AND OTHERS.

you? Do you feel safe with me? What do you need from me? And contrary to their worst fears, those who follow do not lose respect but gain it, and even grow more honest and vulnerable through it. In their private lives, these leaders are vulnerable with a safe few. And this vulnerability is not as much about sharing precise details as much as getting to know the deeper story—the relational patterns, the key places of self-sabotage, the ongoing strategies of self-medication. In both the leader’s public and private relationships, honest feedback is being solicited, because the leader is secure.

CHOOSE THE WAY OF THE CROSS Finally, pastors and leaders will find they thrive not in an ambitious climb toward influence, power, real authenticity or even messy spirituality but through the humility of downward mobility, where false securities are stripped and God’s love becomes enough. The late spiritual writer Henri Nouwen introduces this dynamic well, saying: “From the beginning of my life, two voices have been speaking to me: one saying, ‘Henri, be sure you make it on your own. Be sure you become an independent person. Be sure I can be proud of you,’ and another voice saying, ‘Henri, whatever you are going to do, even if you don’t do anything very interesting in the eyes of the world, be sure you stay close to the heart of Jesus; be sure you stay close to the love of God.’ ” That first voice is driving. Make a name for yourself. Don’t fail. Become someone 40

special. The second voice, however, invites you to maturity and intimacy. Most leaders spend the first years, even decades, of their careers trying to conquer their worlds, proving themselves, providing for themselves. But eventually reality sets in. There is failure and disappointment. And leaders are forced to come to terms with the hard words of Jesus, speaking to His aggressive young disciple Peter: “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Ask a mature leader, and he or she will tell you the road to glory is paved with suffering. And those who can’t endure often collapse under the weight of self-protection. Maturing leaders feel the freedom to embrace their weaknesses, even on the road to success. They see Jesus as the paradoxical Savior who experienced suffering and crucifixion only to see His movement change the world. They invite God to strip them of any and every false self. The second of Nouwen’s voices also offers an invitation to restful intimacy. When you know you are the beloved, a son or daughter embraced amidst all your faults, you are actually empowered to live a more fruitful life for Jesus. This is the paradox of influence. Those who strive for it often fall under its weight. But those who renounce it often impact generations beyond them. Look at the humble lives

of those whose influence was relatively minor in their lives compared to the extraordinary spiritual interest after their deaths: Teresa of Avila, Brother Lawrence, the anonymous writer of The Cloud of Unknowing, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lesslie Newbigin. These were men and women who knew profound intimacy with God, whose security ran deep in their identity as the beloved.

THE NEXT GENERATION When I look back to pastors a generation before me, I see many who imbibed a Christian culture of moralism, where sharing struggles was viewed as a sign of weakness. This pastor idolized success, excellence and obedience, struggling secretly to compartmentalize the less appealing aspects of their personality. My generation of pastors rebelled against this, advocating for a kind of “messy Christianity,” one that idolized not obedience but struggle. Excellence was traded for authenticity. Instead of becoming holy, we became real. And yet, it created another kind of poser. While one extreme values holiness to the detriment of honesty, another values honesty to the detriment of holiness. This is a simplistic generalization, but many who’ve witnessed the shift will catch my drift. A way through these extremes must emerge, a way that values holiness, maturity, wisdom, honesty and vulnerability alongside one another, and not in opposition. After all, God isn’t looking for pharisaical moralists, nor is God looking for sin exhibitionists.* God calls leaders to the kind of radical honesty before Him which opens up the possibility for greater intimacy, maturity and wisdom. These are the kinds of leaders who have truly gotten over themselves, and who can give themselves in love.

REV. DR. CHUCK DeGROAT is the vice president of Newbigin House of Studies, a West Coast seminary located in San Francisco dedicated to preparing leaders for the church’s mission to renew the city. Chuck holds a Ph.D. in psychology, and is the author of Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places.

*ACT: Would you say you tend more toward the “pharisaical moralist” or the “sin exhibitionist”? What can you do to come closer to the middle—to be vulnerable with wisdom?

Q&A

GUNGOR

THE INNOVATIVE BAND TALKS THEOLOGICAL MUSIC, STAYING GROUNDED AND WHY WORSHIP IS A STORY BY JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS

Husband and wife Michael and Lisa Gungor lead the musical collective Gungor. They’ve released two fulllength albums, including their most recent release, Ghosts Upon the Earth. The Gungors also contribute to worship at Bloom, a church they helped plant in Denver, Colo. Here, they discuss theology, community and why, just as with God, you can’t put worship in a box.

Your music is very spiritual— much more spiritual than generalmarket listeners are probably used to, yet you don’t want to be labeled as “Christian music.” Why is that?

JEREMY COWART

Michael: Music, to me, was always very spiritual. I pretty much learned how to “do” music in church, playing in the worship band. Music always touched me in a deep place in my soul. Spirituality and faith and all the stuff we write about and worship itself—those are coming from the deepest places in my soul. What I love about music is that it has this ability to get beneath the surface of things and speak from and to the soul. Part of what I don’t like about the labels of Christian music is that, first of all, we don’t classify other music like that. We don’t say “atheistic music” or “humanistic music”—we don’t lump that all together as if that is the foundation. If it’s art, we’re all saying

something. To me it’s just an odd way of separating it; it’s a word game, really.

How has your theology informed the kind of music you make? Michael: It’s interesting—it actually has informed it in its entirety, not just the lyric content. The entire idea of what it means to be a Jesus follower in this world has shifted from what it used to mean. It left realms like art, even caring for the poor. You hear Jesus talking about it, but even in the theology I grew up with, it never really made sense to me why Jesus would stress something like that so much. That didn’t fit my big story of what it was all about. These kind of philosophical things seem abstract on some level, but for me it really gave me an impetus to create as a sacred act, to bring order into creation. To order creation in a way that is meaningful and sacred. Growing up, I felt like if I wanted to really be selfless and serve God with my gift, then it had to fit into a certain category. You know: “You’d better have enough Jesuses per minute if you really want to write a song and have it please God.* If you really want to do a lot with your life, you’re supposed to join full-time ministry and work for a church.” That was just kind of the mindset I grew up with.

What freed you from some of those shackles? Michael: I guess seeing that God is the sacredness of everything. I would say, even as a worship leader: “Worship isn’t just you singing here in church. You going to your job should be worship as well.” But I didn’t extend that same grace to myself. Writing music, you can write any sort of music, and that can be a sacred act; it doesn’t have to be Church music. That was a theological shift for me, personally, seeing it wasn’t about me having to put enough crosses in every painting I paint, enough Jesuses in every song I write. Not that you don’t ever do those things, but it broadened the scope of potential human work that could be sacred. For me, it gave me permission to dig into some musical things and some artistic ideas I would love to do, but it almost felt selfish before. The theology shifting made it sacred rather than selfish. Lisa: We would all like to say we don’t care what people think. There’s a certain amount of that in all of us. That’s sometimes just a hard thing to get over. You want people to like the music, you want people to connect with it. You have to convince people you’re talking about Jesus; they think you’re just talking about love. If we really believe Jesus is love, our actions need to speak louder than our words. I feel like some of that is just pushing off that weight of people’s perspectives of you.

How have you personally changed from the last album to this album? Lisa: For me, I thought this was a season of doubting and darkness—you kind of think that season will disappear. In some ways it’s still present. I still have questions, I still doubt. But I think I see the light more than I used to. There was a season for me where I was completely overcome by just looking at the evil and the darkness in the world. I felt like it was overpowering the light. I feel like in this album there is light. It’s not just the creation of the world, it’s, “Let there be now.” God is still saying, “Let there be light in the midst of our darkness.”

Ghosts Upon the Earth Gungor’s second album is both haunting and worshipful in its exploration of creation and light in darkness.

What does church community look like for you guys in this season of your life? Lisa: It’s definitely challenging. It’s very challenging. We have church community in Denver. It’s interesting, we were just talking about this. Even when we’re home and we get to go to Bloom just for small moments, it is so refreshing. We try to go home to Bloom as much as possible. If you don’t create that church community, you know something is missing in your soul. When we’re on the road we try to have communion before shows. It is difficult when you’re living on a bus. How do you “be the church”? It’s definitely a challenge, but I think it’s something worth doing. It’s something we’ve had to strive for; loving the people on the bus, serving like that is church. Michael: Yeah, we haven’t figured it out. This year has been out of balance. We’re trying little things like taking communion together, and that does help, but we probably have a little repenting to do for our use of time this year. We miss our church, for sure. We’ve been gone too much.

Ghosts Upon the Earth is a concept album—what are you hoping people take away from it? Lisa: It’s important for people to know it’s a story. I just read an email this morning from one of the girls

at Bloom. She was just sharing how she had been in kind of a dark place and she said, “I’m sorry this has been so depressing.” It was interesting, because her sharing her pain—one of her best friends had died from cancer—just her talking about it was interesting how she didn’t even talk about hope, but her sharing her story brought me hope. I’m sitting in this coffee shop and almost bursting into tears and all these people think I’m kind of crazy. That’s kind of my hope with this album is that our stories help each other. Even if it’s not the best story, sharing your story helps. I hope people can hear [that] through this album. My hope is that it brings them hope. There’s so many more people who struggle than we know, and it’s OK to have questions, it’s OK to struggle. My hope is they can relate, they can relate to the stories we’re thinking about. Michael: There are just moments in my life and there are a few pieces of music that consistently do it, but as I look back there are just moments of art, of film or music that just came at the right spot for my soul, and really opened up my soul. This music did that for us. I take really seriously these albums. We had a long list of songs and we put a lot of work into what we wanted this album to say. Really the reason for that work—what these songs do for me is good. I wanted every song to feel like something. I didn’t want filler and casual—that’s not what we were going for. My hope is that other people’s souls would feel that and open up as well.

*ACT: Do you have a similar approach to worship music—do you find yourself with preconceived notions of what worship music should do and sound like? This week, listen with a new ear to music that isn’t deemed “worshipful” but that has always made you feel at peace or in awe.

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RECOMMENDS A few of the things we’re enjoying these days for inspiration, motivation—and an occasional moment of amusement.

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photography reaches new heights through this creative digital co-op. Essays, short documentaries and video podcasts from around the world contribute to this stunning “living archive.”

late Reverend Clegg Avett (yes, the grandfather of two members of the band, the Avett Brothers) was known for imparting practical wisdom on everything from integration to tithing. Now the North Carolina minister’s words live on in this collection of 26 of his most memorable sermons, compiled by his grandsons.

Toxic Charity | Robert D. Lupton gives

today’s church a much-needed reality check in regards to charity. It won’t be long before this book becomes required reading for your missions trips and community outreaches.

The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have to Preach | Ministry often places

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Trade As One’s Just One Campaign | $450 billion is spent on Christmas each year. Fair trade company Trade As One has a way for your congregation to do a little good during your holiday shopping. With a few simple purchases, you could help lift millions out of poverty.

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“Shallow Small Group” — http:// relm.ag/peZe3u | We’ve all been there:

John Mark McMillan — Economy |

Bob Goff — @BobGoff | The Twitter account of the president and founder of Restore International is as joyful and vibrant as he is—just check out his background and profile picture.

your small group has turned into a tearful tell-all, and you’re wondering if there are any cookies left. This video parodies everything a small group would be if it was just like any other hangout—and why the discomfort of community can be good.

Three short films from Shane Hipps — http://relm.ag/qVdPvu | The

Youth Lagoon — The Year of Hibernation | The expansive sound of

Mars Hill Bible Church teaching pastor shares insights on technology, the art of preaching and God’s greatest creation (hint: it’s you) in this must-download series.

this breakout album belies the fact that it is achieved by only one member—22year-old Trevor Powers. With its unique brand of pensive electro-pop, this cohesive debut is sure to become a favorite.

A New Liturgy — http://relm.ag/ nhyb0I | Worship isn’t bound to one

Levi Weaver — The Letters of Dr. Kurt Gödel | After suffering a herniated

setting—but how do we take it with us? These quarterly “Liturgy” videos combine elements of music, prayer and Scripture to create a “moveable, sonic sanctuary.”

The follow-up to the game-changing The Medicine, Economy still delivers on McMillan’s musical trademarks—stirring instrumentation, gut-checking lyrical insights and robust, rattling vocals. Be sure to check out the rousing modernday hymn “Who Is This.”

disk, this album truly became a labor of love for Levi Weaver. But more than two years later, it’s clear the concept project was worth the wait.

Rosabeth Kanter — @RosabethKanter | There are some people who manage to be intimidatingly intelligent, even in 140 characters. This Harvard Business School professor and author is one of them. Follow closely for business tips and wisdom.

Alex Bogusky — @Bogusky | First, he co-founded a successful ad agency. Now he helps brands, teachers, entrepreneurs, chefs, farmers and other dreamers achieve global change through the collaborative FearLess Revolution.

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LAST WORD

YOU CAN’T START A MOVEMENT JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS You can’t start a movement. As much as you want to, as much as you talk about it and dream about it, trying to make one happen using books, formulas and charismatic swagger will not cause one to appear. Christian leaders and authors have a way of finding a word or a phrase and using it so often we grind its meaning into the dust—and this year’s word of the moment is “movement.” Deep down we are aching for two things: 1) A supernatural move of God. In this way our desire is good. 2) Something unique and special to happen within our church community. The danger with this second desire is how easily those motives can be tainted with arrogance. If you disagree with me, ask yourself: When was the last time you prayed for a move of God to begin at the church down the street? Christian leadership has a way of being messy like that. Talking about “starting a movement” or inviting people to “join our movement” has become something of a catchphrase we use to say, “What we’re doing here is influential and important.” The problem is that movements are identified by looking at the past, not the future. We can only clearly see a movement by looking in the rearview mirror, not by gazing into a crystal ball. Either you’re the type of church that tells your city you’re changing the world and “starting a movement,” or you’re the type of church that allows history to speak to what you’ve done. Ultimately, a pastor’s job isn’t to predict the future, it’s to shepherd people through the present.

radically different than anything happening in the city. I would argue the story of Pentecost was more the result of preparation than prediction—which may be the exact posture we need as we walk through this season of Church history. One of the exciting transitions and moves of God we’re in the middle of—and we can already point to in the Church’s rearview mirror—comes from the good news Dr. Scott Todd reports to us related to extreme poverty: As a direct result of work that’s been done globally over the last 20 years, extreme poverty has been reduced from 52 percent to 26 percent. Because of this incredible development, Todd insists the question is no longer, “Can we end poverty?” but rather, “How can we end poverty?” Kara Powell updates us on the continued transition the Church is in when it comes to young people leaving the Church. She headed up a study with Fuller Youth Institute that followed 500 youth group graduates through their college years to see why young adults lose faith—and what could prevent that disturbing trend. The variable she found to

ULTIMATELY, A PASTOR’S JOB ISN’T TO PREDICT THE FUTURE, IT’S TO SHEPHERD PEOPLE THROUGH THE PRESENT. In this issue we wanted to focus our attention on some of the key transitions happening in the global church. Jesus had a meal with His disciples one day and told them about the coming Spirit they were to wait for. The disciples didn’t move into billboard campaigns and TV ads about what would happen if people signed up to join “their thing.” Instead, Acts 2 describes what happened when the 120 who had gathered together waited together. A crowd was drawn to them because of a move of God that was 64

correlate most highly with mature faith in both high school and college students was intergenerational experiences, both in relationships and worship. That might throw a wrench in how some of us have segregated our ministries. One of my favorite thinkers, Chuck DeGroat, helps us navigate our personal lives as professional leaders. He proudly prepares each new class of seminary students by telling them pastoral ministry is among the most dangerous vocations because it

will likely devour half of them. Make sure to read his article twice as he shares his passion for how to fight the statistics that say 1,500 pastors quit each month and 57 percent would if they could. Another transition happening is the advent and evolution of the microchurch. Though the house church conversation has long hovered underneath the surface, the Barna Group now estimates between 10-15 million people attend a house church each month. Tony and Felicity Dale and George Barna point to how the perception of small churches is changing within traditional churches. Make sure to check out Jonathan Merritt’s piece on pastoral transition. He examines a number of pastoral replacements currently in process and names what is working and what hasn’t worked. The article cautions pastors to remember leadership is more like a baton than a trophy. You keep a trophy, but you hand off a baton—if you don’t hand off the baton, you lose the race. In our cover story this issue, we look at a church that represents several notable transitions within the Church right now, including a trend toward church planting as well as a desire to be present among the growing and influential urban class. Carl Lentz, lead pastor of Hillsong NYC, reveals how the first year has gone for the ambitious plant—and what they’ve learned about faith in the Big Apple. The challenge for all of our churches is to prepare for what God will do with the transitions in front of us right now, rather than predict what “epic awesomeness” will come from them down the road. In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul says: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (NIV). The good news for us today is that it isn’t all up to you and me to save the planet. The truth is you can’t start a movement because you can’t predict one. Most great moves of God started in humble rooms with hungry people believing they were to steward this moment in history. May today be no different for us.

JOSH LUJAN LOVELESS is the senior editor of Neue. Josh has 14 years of pastoral experience and lives in Orlando, FL.