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My friend Jon has invited people to an interesting discussion on his brilliant blog about the similarities of theme in both our Valedictorian addresses. Like him, I am not sure if the similarities are because we are both friends, we read each other's blogs, have similar experiences before seminary, or if it is symptomatic of a wider questioning of "success" in ministry. Take a read of his address and feel free to comment on his discussion here.

Is this a growing common theme? What does it mean? Is it good or bad? Where will it lead?

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This last Sunday I had the opportunity to go to a local Gurdwara (Sikh place of worship) and attend their worship service with my Inter-cultural class. It was fascinating on so many levels and I learned a lot. You can learn a lot of things from a classroom or a book, but nothing beats learning by experience and this was no exception. The Sikh community was incredibly welcoming and gave us a full tour as well as hosted us for lunch.

One of the highlight for me was seeing the children run around freely and unencumbered in the midst of their worship. Even during the prayers (which was a highly respectful time), kids were just being kids and it was acceptable and embraced. Children were frequently running back and forth from father to mother, grandmother to grandfather (men and women sit on different sides of the room) without it being a distraction or annoyance to anyone. This is one of those things I wish was more evident in Christian churches as kids were just being kids, even in the midst of their worship and teaching.

What would it look like for our Christian worship services to be more family friendly and naturally relaxed around children? What makes it so tense when a child cries or a child gets antsy? Why do we feel awkward or embarrassed when this happens ?

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I think we are often oblivious to the pervasive individualism in our society and culture. We go about our lives and don't realize how much or world-view is affected by our very individual perspective. Interesting, it hasn't always been like this, as I have been reminded of recently in my studies. For example, did you know that in medieval times people didn't sign their artwork - there was no thought of individualistic ownership or copyright? Did you know that in the Ancient Near East, the perspective of life-after-death was a communal one; they believed that they would simply live on in the memory of their community? Those are just two examples that has led me to the question:

Have we, in our culture saturated with individualism, lost sight of a communal perspective on life, theology, ministry, art, worship, reading, prayer, preaching, family, life, work, school, etc.? Are we blind to an important community perspective? How would that perspective affect us?

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Have you noticed that the "minute of silence" has gotten shorter and shorter over the last several years - we even call them "moments" of silence now. There seems to be a weird cultural allergic reaction to silence that permeates almost every activity (individual and corporate). This simple observation leads to the following question:

Why are we so uncomfortable with Silence? Do you take time to purposely "fast" from noise? Do you Sabbath from active sounds?

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What are some of the barriers to multiculturalism in the Church and what can we do about them?

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The following question stems from my trip to the downtown east-side of Vancouver (it is the poorest neighborhood in Canada) and an informal meeting with the leader of a secular social advocacy group. The guy was fascinating and, although he has some different ideas and means to social change, he made the statement that the churches were doing commendable deeds by handing out food and clothing. He even went so far to say that they were doing such a good job that people could always find something to eat in the Downtown Eastside. However, he also commented that the churches were doing nothing to solve the problem, they were just treating the symptoms of it.

His comments got me thinking...

What is the extent of the churches role in society with social justice? Do we only treat the symptoms or do we fight for beating the disease?

I am a strong proponent of separation of Church and State but I admit, he got me thinking. Do we as the Church just stop at addressing the symptoms of hunger and not deal with the disease of our cultural, social and government systems that have cause the problem the the first place? Where to we stop in our fight for justice?

I am not sure of the answers but I have definitely started to ask the questions.

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How is the world changing - shifting? How does this shift affect ministry, the church and the communication of the Gospel?

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Does God exist or is it just a delusion?

This question stems from Richard Dawkins' bestselling book The God Delusion and Allstair McGrath's rebuttal in The Dawkin's Delusion: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine. This question is an important one due to the magnitude of The God Delusion's popularity in our culture. I admit that I have not had time to read either book, I plan on it sometime soon, but I did find sometime to listen to a public debate Dawkins and McGrath had at Oxford.

You can listen to the debate here:

• Delusion Debate Part One
• Delusion Debate Part Two
  

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After my class in Music and Arts in Worship, I have been continually coming back to the question:

What is beauty? Is it simply in the eye of the beholder? Is it just culturally determined? Can sin, evil, or its results be beautiful? What then is beauty?

This is one of those questions that needs to percolate for a while...slow roast if you will.

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The following question stems from the quote I came across during some recent reading I've done on Martin Luther King Jr. The quote is from a sermon he gave entitled "Guidelines for a Constructive Church" in which he says "The acceptable year of the Lord is that year when men will keep their theology abreast with their technology." With this quote in mind, here is the question:

Should there be a relationship between theology and technology? How should this relationship function?

I think we typically see technology as distinct and disconnected from theology. But I would argue that although we may have the capability to do something, it does not necessarily mean we should.

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Today's question stems from a quote by the German theologian Paul Tillich:

"Doubt isn't the opposite of faith. It is an element of faith."

There are those who seem to think that one must be completely certain about everything in order to believe or act; however, I would ask...

If there is no doubt, can there be faith?

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I was reflecting on a post I did a while back with the following question:

What beliefs do I hold and what beliefs do I embrace?

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I was watching Lost last week and this question grabbed me:

"Why do some find it so hard to believe? Why do some find it so easy?"

Related to issues of faith, this is a very interesting question.

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Today's question is inspired by Bonhoeffer from his classic book Life Together.

Is it possible to live in, and contribute to, healthy community without being able to live alone? How comfortable are you with yourself? Are you at peace with who you are and who you are not? Only then, can you truly be yourself with others in a way that gives as well as receives, void of hypocrisy.

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Has our understanding of God, our theology, been ignorant of the perspective of the arts? Have we effectively engaged theology with our left-brains, starving theology from the important perspective of our right-brains?

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Todays questions is inspired by my reading:

Are there times when we get "career" confused with "calling?"

This confusion is widespread and exists whether you are in pastoral ministry or not.

How does this confusion materialize for you?

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The question today was inspired by a quote in my recent reading (please excuse the non-inclusive language, I am just quoting):

"Man is not an arithmetical expression; he is a mysterious and puzzling being, and his nature is extreme and contradictory all through."

In evangelism, have we reduced people to a set of formulas, making assumptions about their feelings, thoughts and attitudes regarding life, God and faith? Have we under-estimated the diversity of the human experience and as such, only communicated the Gospel to a select few?


I am not sure of the answer, but the question has my brain churning.

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What happens when evangelism and relationships collide?

The Fray's (one of the best bands out there) song "Over My Head (Cable Car)" does a great job at exploring this question. You can read about them and the song here.

Here is a video of the song on YouTube:

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The following creative video is a mesh of scenes from the Titanic movie and the script from a Chick Evangelism Tract based on the Titanic movie.


My question is simple...

Do these tracts actually work anymore in North America? Overall, could they possibly do more harm than good?

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The idea of the embedded journalist began in the Iraq war as a complicated effort to give the public unprecedented access to the war. The basic idea was that the journalist was doing to eat, live and breath the life of the soldier. I wonder if there is validity to understanding evangelism in this way.

Is the concept of embedded evangelism (a phrase I first heard in my Gospel and Culture class) a good metaphor for our changing culture?

I am convinced that our tradition idea of evangelism in North American needs to radically change; we have moved from the time people would come to church in order to hear the Good News of Jesus. This is just not effective anymore and a new model is radically needed.

In this regard, I propose several things:

1) We need to stop thinking about relationships with people who are not followers of Jesus as relationships for the purpose of sharing the Gospel with them. This understanding assumes our motive is the same as a sales person and that our relationship is contingent on their potential to "purchase." This was never the intention of Jesus. Instead, we are simply called to love…period. Of course, loving our neighbor is inevitably going to mean that I share Christ with them, but our relationship should never be conditional or contingent on that.

2) I also think we need to de-compartmentalize our lives. We can’t think of our Christian lives as something separate from our work life, family, recreation, relationships, etc. but we need to see it as an inseparable whole…embedded if you will, into everything we do.

3) Because people want to belong before they believe (in the past the reverse was true), we need to give people space and freedom to, as Psalm 34 says: “taste and see that the Lord is God.” This will mean increasing our openness and giving freedom for people to enter the church and experience God and the community of faith.


4) I also think our church evangelism “strategies” need to change in order to challenge people and empower them to enter their communities and get to know, love and share life with their neighbors. This may mean intentionally less church activities, giving “block party packs” to people in church and clearing the church calendar for a block party day where people are encouraged, empowered and equipped to have a block party with their neighbors with the expressed purpose of simply building relationships and getting to know their neighbors.

5) I also think the church needs to stop its assumptions. As pastors and leaders, we need to realize we often talk in phrases and words that less and less people understand. We need to define as we talk, therefore allowing more and more people to participate and understand.

6) Integrated in all the above and implied throughout, is the idea that the church is a positive, caring and impacting force within its community. In other words, it is meeting needs, caring and reaching into the community; not as a way of “selling something” but because it is called to be a city on a hill that can’t be hidden. I am convinced that too many churches are becoming hidden and ignored and the answer is not talking louder but doing, caring and loving more. The church, on average, is seen in the public eye to be judging, ignorant, arrogant and disengaged from regular life (some of which may be true), which is sad given the fact that we have the most positive message in the world and that those words were never used to describe Jesus.

All these are samples of what I think are some of the changes that churches and Christians need to grapple with when it comes to evangelism in our “postmodern” world.

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The following question begins a short series on evangelism...

In our church language for evangelism, has our focus on people (apart from Christ) being 'lost,' detracted from the idea that (according to the parables in Luke 15) they are also profoundly 'treasured?'

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Nothing profound today, just a picture with the following question...

What were they thinking?

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The following question was inspired by a quote on a Starbuck's cup. It made me reflect on the interconnectedness of our world and how often we, for our selfish benefit and comfort, embrace the illusion of "separate disconnected worlds."

Do we, for our own comfort and convenience, believe in the myth and illusion of disconnected worlds?

In general, I don't think we (in North America) know what to do with what is happening in Rwanda, Kenya, Indonesia, etc., so we consciously disconnected it from our worldview. In fact, the irony of globalization is that as our world becomes increasingly interconnected by the internet, plane travel, etc., we prefer to live in denial of the interconnectedness of global issues (poverty, famine, disease, genocide, HIV, human trafficking, environment, etc). The fact remains, the decisions I make everyday in Canada are not made in isolation, disconnected from the rest of the world. I may choose, for my convenience and comfort, to prefer the illusion of separation and isolation, but is that a good and healthy decision? Is it okay to believe a delusion? As a Christian, can I honestly and authentically choose isolation over reality because it is comfortable and simple? Maybe our understanding of the world needs to change, seeing our place in the largely global community? Maybe that change needs to make its way into some of the simple decisions I will make today, realizing that they are not made in isolation.

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I have been doing detailed study in the area of Christology for a Direct study class I am taking this semester. It has forced me to address some questions and lines of thought that I would not have normally considered; it has been stretching, challenging and interesting. So today I ask a question with no real answer, just the conviction that it is an important question to regularly reflect on...

What are the implications of what I believe (theological, practical, personal, relational, etc.)?

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My good friend James asked a great question about this picture on his blog:

Is this picture a good metaphor for the church in our culture and context?

I agree with James that for the most part it is. Although I struggle with the picture of the building moving and the implication of the “institution” moving (identifying the “brick and mortar” or our “structural models” as somehow definitive for the Church), I like the general idea of the Church moving into the community rather than simply expecting people to come to the Church. I think the Church needs to be on the move and that the Church needs to be mobile; however, I also believe the Church is people rather than simply an organization, denomination, building, structure, etc. Along with replacing the image of a stationary church, I think we need to shed the picture of the Church as the physical building or organization and instead, see is as the community of faith and local Churches and local expression of this larger community. Maybe a better picture would be people joined together, shedding the trappings of the modern building and structures (all of which are important but not a defining point of the Church) and moving freely, influencing culture, spreading hope, love and new life.

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The following question is derived from a quote of Athanasius in the fourth century:

Is it better in perplexity to be silent and believe, or to disbelieve on account of perplexity?

This question is definitely worth some thought and reflection.

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I just returned from seeing Cloverfield and I am disappointed. I had expected a creative movie with a good story but instead, I experienced Godzilla without a good beginning or end. On the way home I was reflecting on my recent experience at the theater as well as the fact that almost all the blockbuster movies in the last couple years have been sequels and I pondered the following question:

Where are the good, creative and compelling stories? Why the rash of movie sequels, when I think people are longing for new and creative stories?

Our culture needs good storytellers. The Church needs good storytellers as well - people who can help others connect with "the big story," the meta-narrative. We need leaders to help people find meaning in their own story by finding their place in the bigger story of God.

Have you thought about Christianity and evangelism as finding a place in the bigger story? Have you thought of your life, your story, as apart of something much larger?

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Over the last few days I have been reading Douglas Coupland's book, The Gum Thief. It has caused me to reflect on a number of things including the following question in my life:

How many times do we interact with people (Staples, Starbucks, Esso, etc.) and are oblivious - even ignorant - to the pain and loneliness that is beneath the surface of the people we regularly interact with? Why are we like this and how can we change?

There is no easy answer to this one but the question is a good beginning.

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Are positive feelings the only evidence of an experience or encounter with God? Is it equally possible that feelings stemming from conviction or rebuke could be of equal evidence of such an encounter? Interestingly, throughout Scripture the common feeling or expression from someone who had a personal experience with God or an angel was fear. Maybe we are missing out on identifying what God is doing (in our lives and in our churches) because we have limited the spectrum in which we understand how God operates. I think there are times when our "encounters with God" may be awkward, inconvenient, convicting, etc ., yet I think they are equally profound and holy moments.

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Have we simplified theology in the Evangelical Church so much that we have settled for a cereal box version of God that robs Him of His mystery and transcendence?

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Are the things we normally see as limitations, gifts instead?

We are culturally trained to believe that our limitations (the things we are not talented at) are liabilities, but what if we have the wrong perspective? What if we viewed the fact that we may not be the most gifted musician, singer, writer, speaker, counselor, painter, techy, or administrator as a gift from God instead of a liability? What if we celebrated our limitations instead of lamenting them? And if we thought this way, maybe would we learn something about our God given need for others and therefore community.

God has not simply gifted us with what we are good at, but He has also gifted us through our limitations. We will never be able to experience the gifting of others until we embrace our limitations and the need for them in our lives.

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Why is Church discipline rarely practiced?

• Is it because there is a general fear of conflict in our society and so the belief that “ignorance is bliss” prevails?
• Is it because of legal fears?
• Is it because we are so entrenched in individualism that the idea that the community would have anything, or any right, to speak into someone’s life is seen as absurd?
• Is it because we are unaware of when and how to do it biblically?
• Is it because we are afraid that if we speak into someone else’s life, they might look and speak into ours?
  

I am not sure of the full answer but think that all of these sub-questions are part of the reason. Whatever the direct cause, the sheer lack of its occurrence is symptomatic of something greater in our often misunderstood and dysfunctional concept of community. I am not proposing that Church discipline should be a flippant occurrence, but its dramatic silence in our contemporary Church deafeningly communicates something.

I’ll end this post with a quote from the classic, The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter written in the seventeenth century. Baxter was convinced that pastors should...

…set themselves, without delay, and unanimously so, to practice Church Discipline. For it is a sad situation that so great a duty is so often neglected.

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How does teamwork play out in a staff at a church? Does it matter?

This question stems from a post my friend Brad did yesterday on his blog and thought I would address my thoughts on it. If you get a chance give his post a read, he does a great job with expressing the issue.

Brad hypothetical example, which you can read in his entry, illustrates the issue that teamwork seems to be a fading virtue in our individual culture and in the church. That being said, teamwork, in my opinion, doesn't mean everyone works for the senior leader as his minions, ignoring their own thoughts, gifts, passion and goals. Instead, teamwork is about working together using those gifts and passions in pursuit of the communal vision. This effectively means three things. First, the vision must be a communal vision rather then an individuals vision. Healthy vision is not the vision of one person, such as the Lead Pastor, who tells the church and staff "where they are going" and "how they are going to get there." Vision is more communal and corporate then this. This doesn't diminish the role of the senior leader; in fact, it charges it and makes it more challenging as they lead the church through the vision process and a community. Second, as Brad identified, there will be times when the team does not all agree with direction to this point where participation of the team is not possible or productive anymore. As such, some of the staff (paid and unpaid) may need to go and find a ministry that is a better fit (a process that could be done a lot healthier in churches everywhere, but that is a post for another day). Thirdly, the teamwork process requires several shared values to occur throughout the ENTIRE team: sacrifice, respect, humility, hard work, support, loyality, courage, etc..

I have seen the ugly-side of broken teams in various locations and it is never successful and always ugly. However, I have also seen, on rare occasions, the beauty of healthy teamwork as people have been lead with the values of sacrifice, respect, humility, hard work, support, loyalty, courage, etc. towards a goal they all viewed as important.

Teamwork is like a rare gem that is possible to find/build and more of them are needed in our broken world - a world that needs the church to be led with courage and boldness.

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How and why has the role of pastor changed?

This question could go in a variety of different directions, so I thought I would start by asking some further questions (feel free to explore more through related posts, comments and emails):

1. How has the recent trend of multi-site churches affected or will affect the role of pastor in these churches?
2. Because the church has shifted over the last 25 years or so to larger congregations, how has this change affected the role of pastor?
3. How has the transition to more multi-staff churches with more specialized roles (in comparison to the past that saw smaller church congregations with a more general role of the Pastor) affected the role of pastor?
4. How has the media and internet affected the perception of the pastor? It is a unique phenomena in the history of the church that the average person in the pew compares (consciously or unconsciously) their pastor with the best preachers, leaders, administrators and counselors in the world?
5. How has pastoral specializations based on age/genre affected how we understand the role of pastor (youth, children's, women's, young adult, etc.)?
6. Has the church modeled much of its ministry and the role of pastor after the business world - where more and more pastors see the metaphor of their role as CEO rather than shepherd? Is this problematic?
   
7. Has the change of roles affected the contemplative nature of pastors - where there seems to be more and more expectations and less and less time to devote to prayer and the study of Scripture? Is this a problem?
   
8. Has the growth of multiple paid-staffs contributed to the the decline of lay-leadership and ministry?
9. How has this change of role affected theological education?
   
10. Is what the Bible teaches on pastoral ministry supportive of these changes, contrary to them, or ambivalent to them?
    

I am not making any judgments or remarks on particular models of ministry. I am just fearful that we are not asking any of these and other questions. Any change we make to how we "do church" will have short-term and long-term affects. I think we are often guilty of making changes without proper and adaquate reflection. I also get the sense that many of my colleagues are asking these question and there seems to be inadequate answers for them, if any at all.

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How should we define success in pastoral ministry?

This question begins a series of questions on the theme of pastoral ministry for this week. I am asking this particular question because sometimes we misunderstand success as we evaluate our ministry as pastors.

Here are some ways that we traditionally evaluate "success" in ministry?

1. Numbers - how many people are coming?
   
2. What are people tell us - comments after sermons, ministry events, etc.?
3. Length of pastoral ministry in a particular location?
4. Size of building?
5. Size of church budget?
6. Debt load?
7. Number of ministries?
8. Baptism and Membership numbers?
   

These are a sampling of ways we can define what "success" is in ministry. Any others that you can think of and the problems you can see with some or all of them?

Taken together, they are all important in overall evaluation but this traditional list is still lacking a dimension that we too easily ignore. This dimension is the subjective, less quantitative characteristics that are often neglected but are often what distinguishes healthy and successful churches. Therefore, I think we should evaluate our churches with the following questions (along side the traditional objective questions above)?

1. Do we have open arms that reflects the love for others that Jesus demonstrated?
2. Do we have good relationships among ourselves?
3. Do people know there spiritual gifts and are they using them?
4. Is it difficult to find and identify ministry leaders?
   
5. Do we have openness for disagreements and can we handle conflict with love and respect?
6. Do we, as a community, enjoy being together?
7. Does the average church member have good healthy relationships with people in the community who are unchurched?
   
8. Do our worship services have an element of excitement about them?
9. Do our pastors, elders and leadership get along and enjoy each other?
10. Do people participate in the worship service?
    
11. Does our budget reflect our values?
12. Do we know, and are we doing, something about the needs of our community?
13. Do we show a heart for missions and is it reflective in our actions?
14. Is laughter a common sound in our foyer, classrooms and sanctuary?
15. Is our teaching engaging, biblical, contextual, etc.
    
16. Are we compassionate to others? Do we mourn with those who mourn?
    
17. Are people's lives being changed by the Spirit of God and do we, as a community, celebrate those changes.
18. If our church ceased to exist would our community notice? If not, why not?

I understand that these qualitative questions may seem idealistic and problematic, as they are difficult to track and report on, but don't they reflect a deeper level of success than our traditional quantitative questions?

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My recent "question series" of blog posts seems to be very well received. Thanks for reading and commenting (both through blog comments and via email). In fact, I would invite you to be a part of the question process further and let me know of some questions you would like me to ask. In fact, an email I received today with a suggested question has prompted a series of questions on pastoral ministry that I will pursue this coming week.

So, thanks for reading, commenting and emailing. I look forward to exploring these questions together with you. Your comments and emails are always welcomed and encouraged. In fact, if you would like and are so inclined, I invite you to take these questions to your own blog and develop your own thoughts further (however, for the sake of connected discussion, please place a comment on my post with a link to yours so there is a thread to the discussion).

Thanks again for reading.

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Why do we, in the evangelical church, fear church tradition?

The reason this question was prompted by me this morning is that it so happens to be the Sunday of Epiphany and the evangelical church we attended had a vision Sunday with no mention of Epiphany. There is nothing wrong with a vision Sunday and similar services would have been held across North America. I guess I wonder why we don't reach back into church tradition and remember some of the important dates on the church calender - dates the Church has celebrated for hundreds of years, such as the Sunday of Epiphany.

I remember preaching a couple of years ago on this particular Sunday and tackled the idea of Epiphany (preaching on the narrative of the Wisemen acknowledging Jesus as King). Most people in the church commented that had no idea that the Church has celebrated this date for over a thousand years now.

I am not saying that we need to be "traditional" and go back to some sort of ancient Latin service. However, maybe in our post-reformation theology (which rejects the authority of tradition, saying that our authority is in scripture alone - an important distinction), we have moved to0 far in this direction and have rejected tradition all together.

I actually think if we educated the typical evangelical on the Church calender, they would gain deeper meaning and insight. In fact, it may even help us slow down and reflect on the dates we do celebrate that too often seem to surprise us (such as Easter which has Ash Wednesday and Lent leading up to it).

There has to be more room for tradition and the acknowledgment that we, the Church, don't stand in isolation as but are apart of the Church past, present and future.

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Do we at times loose sight of the proverbial forest through the trees when we study theology?

As a theology student and pastor, I have to admit there are times when I can loose sight of the big picture and get lost in my search to understand a specific aspect of theology. Don't get me wrong, it is vital to understand God and specific aspects of Him, but that should never replace our marveling and worshipping Him. Like a botonist who studies flowers and gets so caught up in one aspect of a flower, such as pollination, and forgets to smell the scent that pollen brings, we too can can get caught up in understanding God and forget to worship, marvel and know Him. The act of theology is vital and a privilege to do, but I don't want to loose track of the forest for my study of the trees.

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Today's question is theological in nature. I am currently taking an independent study class on "The Person and Work of Christ" that has prompted me to think through numerous questions about Christ, thus, I thought I would ask the following question:

What is meant by the humanity of Jesus?

1. We say Jesus is fully human (and fully divine) but what does or doesn't this refer to?
   
2. What is the essence of being human?
   
3. Is being human, the ability to sin?
   
4. Do you have to be born to be human (note: Adam wasn't born)?
5. Is Jesus able to be fully human if he wasn't female?
   
6. Was Jesus a master of all things (the best carpenter, mathematician, philosopher, teacher, orator, etc.) or is part of being human the inability to be the best of everything?
   
7. Does being human necessitate that there is limited knowledge or can Jesus be omniscient and still be human?
   

These are a few of the many questions I have been reflecting on. I am not going to give any answers here...I don't have the time, energy or expertise to effectively do so, but thought the questions are worth considering.

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Is the "perfect" church one in which everyone agrees on everything, or i