Happy people have friends with flesh and bones

Here is a brief article that is interesting as it pertains to our relationships in our culture, and the difficulty of being missional in it.

The gist, unhappy people comfort themselves with television while happy people watch less TV and hang out with real people in the flesh more. This is another reason why I should never feel bad about rants against television or other forms of media which people use as diversion from real life. Still, I find it shocking that the AVERAGE number of hours people watch TV each week is 19, for "happier" people and 25 for unhappy people! That is almost 3 hours a day! So if you watch almost 4 hours of television a day and cut back to 3 you are likely be more more happy. Imagine how happy you could be if you didn't watch any!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081115/sc_livescience/unhappypeoplewatchlotsmoretv


This shows that we are all made for community and relationships with other people. It is necessary for a healthy and fruitful life. Few of us are truly not "a people person." We are all people people, personalities describe only the quantity and depth of friends you can handle. Some of us like a lot of friendships in small doses and others of us like a few friendships but in large doses.

Jesus came so we can live life to the fullest, John 10:10.

P.S. I think I watch 3 hours a week... about the amount of time for Bronco game. I am very happy, except for when they lose.

On Third Places

Since the concept of "third place" came up in our discussion related to the previous post, I thought I would read the book Great Good Places by Ray Oldenburg to get a better picture of what a third place is. The book was wonderfully fascinating, and I've posted some summary thoughts over at my blog. If you aren't sure what a third place even is, that's the place to start. For here at the Regen blog, I thought I would put together some of my thoughts about third places as it touches on our ministry.

First, I think it is clear that we need to be in third places. These are great connecting points for a well-balanced society, and being active in a third place is important for our own well-being and the good of society, community, and family. Even apart from any possible avenues for evangelism that might open up, I think being in a third place is a good thing.

Second, I think third places are hard to find. Modern cities and especially in the suburbs, there just aren't many places that meet the criteria for being a true third place. As Americans, not just as Christians, our free time is mostly organized around activities and is typically committed to structured activities rather than unstructured and unplanned hang-out time at a place close to our homes. Unstructured time is usually spent holed up at home in front of the television or the computer or otherwise with our families. This doesn't mean that there are no ways to connect to other people in our society, and it doesn't mean that the third place concept is unhelpful, but it does mean that the third place is not a panacea for how Regen can connect to new people.

Third, I think it would be very difficult for a Regen small group to meet in a third place and engage with it as a third place without giving up the ability to discuss issues that are of our particular interest. We could locate ourselves there yet set ourselves apart in order to talk about Jesus or pray or whatever, but then we aren't really engaged with the native discussion of the place. Alternatively, we could join the conversation is there, but we wouldn't be able to pursue any agenda other than just being there. Most of us in Regen live far enough from each other that in order to go someplace together, we would have to adopt a third place that's not really in our neighborhood. Further, "regular" at a third place would probably mean something more than once a week. This doesn't mean that meeting in a third place (if one were found) is a bad idea that should be thrown out, but there are certainly some issues to think through.

Fourth, if Oldenburg is right that third places are important to human flourishing, and if he is right that our communities largely lack third places, then there may be opportunities for us, corporately or more likely individually, to be involved with promoting or creating third places. I don't have any ideas of what that might look like for Regen or Bear Valley or myself individually, but I think it is worth at least keeping in the back of our minds.

The book really is great, and I would recommend anyone to read it. You can find it at several area libraries or your favorite book retailer.

Regen Reorg: Some initial thoughts

I've been mulling over thoughts about possible reorganization and redirection of our efforts in Regeneration as we had discussed at our last planning meeting. Based on my own experience, I think that our biggest issue to overcome in reaching people has more to do with individually living missional lives than changing the activities that Regeneration does or the way that we do them. Let's face it: If I'm not meeting new people, talking to them, building friendships, and drawing them into the Regen community, then it really doesn't matter if Regen has the perfectly organized and executed activity program, we are still only going to "reach" the limited number of believers who walk through the doors looking for a church home.

If being settled and not making those steps to meet and build friendships with new people is common to more of us than just me, then I think that if any structural change is to be made, it should be done in a way that encourages, equips, and frees us to put our missional convictions into practice individually.

There are probably many reasons why I (and others?) do not do well at engaging new friends, some of them personal and some of them cultural. These issues, at least for me, are not entirely new, and discussion on why I haven't done better at growing in this area could certainly be a topic of discussion, though better suited for my own personal blog or over a cup of coffee on a relaxing hike. For us as a whole, I would propose three questions:

1. Am I alone in feeling like we aren't doing well at meeting new people and engaging them with the community of faith?
2. If you agree that this is a significant weakness that needs to be addressed, how can we address it?
3. What priority should this have relative to other areas of growth?

Authors@Google - Tim Keller

What is Authors@Google? According to Google's website, "The Authors@Google program brings authors of all stripes to Google for informal talks centering on their recently published books. Through the program, we invite authors to our Mountain View headquarters . . . where Googlers are treated to readings of everything from serious literature and political analysis to pioneering science fiction and moving personal memoirs."

On March 5, 2008, Google invited Tim Keller (pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City) to give a lecture about his book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. The video is about 1 hr long (roughly 45 min lecture, 15 min Q&A). I encourage you to take a look!



This is a great example of what being missional is all about: getting outside of our Christian bubbles and engaging with people who don't know Jesus.

A Geometric Missional Model

Joe Thorn and Steve McCoy, two young SBC pastors whose blogs are on my regular reading list, have worked out a missional paradigm for their churches based around three aspects of church life: the table, the pulpit, and the square. Joe has a nice diagram:

Instead of copying Joe's full description of the three parts, I refer you to his own explanation. The gist of it is this:
The Table, represented by a circle, is the hospitality and friendship aspect of personal and corporate ministry. Steve's explanation fleshes this out as ranging from neutral third-place relationship-building to private dinners or coffee with people.
The Pulpit, represented by a triangle, is the gathered activities of the church, including corporate worship, equipping ministries, and community groups.
The Square, represented by a square, is the civic engagement aspect of personal and corporate ministry.

I like this paradigm for a few reasons:
1. Every aspect of life is involved.
2. It is doable. Everyone and anyone can sign on.
3. It is memorable.

This really isn't all that much different from the connecting, maturing, and unleashing mission of Bear Valley. One could even propose the following one-to-one relationships:
Connecting = The Table
Maturing = The Pulpit
Unleashing = The Square

Maybe that can give us some food for thought—or at least a clearer mental model.

Thinking about.... They Like Jesus But Not the Church

Emergent Church leader Dan Kimball recently published a book called, They Like Jesus but not the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007). The book is divided into 3 sections: 1) Why Emerging Generations are Changing (more like, where they are at, and how different the church is), 2) What Emerging Generations Think about the Church, 3) How the Church Can Respond. I am going to review it a bit, mixed in with personal commentary, but most of all I want to pose the question: Would a teaching series based on these topics be beneficial? Likewise, what may be some other questions that you constantly encounter (or think about) that we should teach on?

The emerging church movement, as it is now commonly called, is basically the pejorative term for all the fresh, new, hip, young, and culturally savvy churches popping up around the country. Dan Kimball is one of its best voices. He seems to be the mediator between leaders like Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll. The common theme among them all is that most of the church in this country has forgotten how to reach the culture they live among. Your parents church is now a completely different culture with its own language (Christianese or church-talk), dress, and food (casseroles and bad coffee). Kimball, meanwhile, takes the time to sit in cafe's and talk with people, and simply get to know them. They Like Jesus... is a summary of what he learned from the emerging generations who don't like your Mom and Dad's church (pretty much all of them), but they do like their person of worship, Jesus. I like Kimball a lot and he seems to avoid the controversies that follow Bell and Driscoll. The guy lays down the state the church is in, and calls us to wake up and start being missionaries to our neighbors. This means not standing on street corners or beating down doors, but listening, taking notes, meditating, praying, and getting out of his comfort zone to find creative ways to express the saving message of Jesus Christ. The guy is a great teacher, listener, is rather introverted, funny, and looks like he was time-warped out of the 1950's.

Anyways, the early chapters stress the importance of the situation. Having read lots of emerging church or missional church stuff, most of it I had heard before. However, one of the better chapters is called, "Jesus as Son of God and plastic action figure". In it he basically highlights lots of places Jesus has shown up in popular culture, from quirky celebrity quotes, to t-shirts, to music, etc. He has a rather funny, but also insightful, story about his lack of comfort with a Jesus action figure that roamed around his church office. He eventually got rid of it but notes it existence says something about what our culture thinks of Jesus.

On with the reasons why people don't like the church. If you are younger, came to Christ later in life, or didn't get too sucked into the Christian bubble, these might be a big DUH to you.
1) The church is an organized religion with a political agenda
2) The church is judgmental and negative
3) The church is dominated by males and oppresses females
4) The church is homophobic
5) The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong
6) The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally

[Side note: #6 makes me want to read a new book really bad. Its called The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. Where a non-Christian dude, decides to follow the Old Testament to the LETTER for a year. It sounds hilarious and is not critical. Nonetheless it ought to raise interesting questions about how many Christians interpret scripture.]

I have so much to say about each chapter (what else is new). Overall, this is a very good book and I think Kimball provides an excellent example of how to converse with non-Christians in a natural and effective way. He provides plenty of quotes from the people he talks do, never gives canned answers, and sees through some of the more emotionally charged responses to hear the person. You get the impression he never fires back "The Bible says so", or "let me show where it says that homosexuality is wrong", or "women should be submissive," or "this is just what I believe." Instead, he shows us that often times, non-Christians seem to have a better idea of what Jesus would say or do then Christians. It makes me wonder if those terms are even appropriate in this context, maybe it should be those "inside" the church versus those "outside" the church. Anyways, one example is on the issue of homosexuality. The two people he quotes provide excellent observations we all should hear. Kimball basically says we need to teach people how to deal with sin, not point out what we think is their sin. Thus, he poses a question: If a gay couple walked into your church should you treat them any differently than a straight couple who is living together and having sex? Biblically, I think the answer is no.

Two things really stuck out at me about this book:
1) Lots of people really dig Jesus and that should give us great hope.
2) Christians don't know their Bible very well.
He constantly presented examples of having to really study hard to come up with a Biblical answer for some of the questions these issues raise. Do you really understand all of the passages related to women teaching in the church? Do you really know the context of all the passages related to homosexuality? How do you explain other religions (Kimball provides an excellent one)? Are you even familiar with the arguments for the other's side position? They are often very sophisticated and not to be taken lightly.

Bottom line, we need to be "quick to listen" and slow to attack with jargon you heard from the pulpit because you trust your pastor is always speaking God's honest truth. We need to act more like Jesus and stop talking like Pharisees.