VenuePM is now 9 weeks old. I’ve launched a few worship services before, but this one has taught me quite a bit more than the others. Here are some of my reflections on this time around…
1. Different is good. We have a successful Sunday AM service, but we were feeling the need to do something different. We didn’t want to simply replicate the same service again. We needed to find another way of expressing God’s love for people. The first most obvious difference is live preaching in the PM service, verse a simulcast message in the AM service. We also went out and hired a different worship leader for our evening service, which gives us a totally different musical experience. We want our worship services to foster a sense of community in and of themselves, and in order to accomplish this our services have to be different.
2. Good communication is vital. We really messed up on this one. There were all sorts of mis-communication happening. We had to post a note on Facebook, have some special meetings after we launched, and play general cleanup. If I had to do this one over, I would have started with some key conversations one on one, months before we made anything public.
3. New worship services are about new people. I greatly underestimated this fact in launching this service. Originally, our strategy was to try to get a good number of our morning congregation to “transplant” into this evening setting. The thinking here was that 11:00 AM on Sunday is still the desirable time for first time visitors. If we are full (or almost full) in the morning, we need to free up space. It turns out we have done too good of a job creating community in the morning that we did not get what we were asking from our people. At first, I was a little upset by this, but now I see this is a good thing because it is pushing us to think about how to get new people. I hate the idea of having to do marketing to attract people. That said, I have to confess, we are now starting to do outside marketing to try to get our name out there. The better model, I’m convinced, is to engage our members in spreading what God is doing because of this work. This is a cultural change for our people. I was relying on pre-conditioned practices, when in fact, we had to be willing to grow something from virtual scratch without the benefit of the critical mass of people that constitute our AM service.
4. Work with people who get what you’re doing. This is an area we have done well. Our team is made of Todd Craig, Ben Kilgore, and myself. This is a good team in that we’re all trying to figure out a new way of saying a really old message. We’re trying to connect with those who have been burned by the church and offer a place of confession and healing. I couldn’t ask for a better team.
5. Success does not begin and end with me. I’ll probably have to learn this one everytime I start something new. There are too many Saturday nights that I lie awake thinking, “will anyone come to VenuePM tomorrow?” When the success is about me I neglect prayer, don’t invest in people, and become depressed/or swelled with pride. God give me freedom from such thinking.
When people describe the practices and polity of the UMC, I often hear the word “connectionalism” thrown around in the conversation. I think this usually means two things. One, we share money. Two, we share pastors. Rarely, do our members ever interact with one another or share any sort of community with other United Methodists.
One of our 2nd Saturday work sites has been Wesley Chapel UMC in north Tulsa. We send teams to help clean the grounds and help with repairs to the facility. Here is a story of our own version of serving one another in “connection”:
I’m still wrestling with the question of evil, especially how it relates to Genesis 3:1-10. I’m currently reading through Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Merton is writing about his call to monastic life in 1939-1940. After spending a summer in a remote part of New York state to think over becoming a Fransiscan and also writing a novel, he returns to New York City and finds Europe at war. He had intentionally not been reading the papers or listening to the radio. Merton writes this as he comes back to civilization:
“There was something else in my own mind- the recognition: ‘I myself am responsible for this. My sins have done this. Hitler is not the only one who has started this war: I have my share in it too…” It was a very sobering thought, and yet its deep and probing light by its very truth eased my soul a little.”
What a sobering thought. There is great evil in the world, and yet I have been one who has shaped this evil. There are those who do deeds I think I can never understand, and yet if I am honest about myself, I have to own that I have particiapted in this evil and have helped shape a world that is contrary to God’s goodness.
Back to Genesis 3… so much of this story of Adam and Eve is the story of all of us. It is the story of all of us who have chosen to think that we have a better way for our lives than God’s plan. It is the story of us all falling into a deception that ends up harming us. It is the story of us all clinging to some fig leaves in order to cover for our shame and to cover over our guilt.
And yet, “But where sin inceased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I’m working on a message on Genesis 3:1-10. A few days ago, I posted a link to a John Wesley sermon about this famous chapter in the Bible. Today, I’m wrestling with the question of evil.
Specifically, from where does the serpent in Genesis 3 come? The first verse of chapter 3 specifically says God created the serpent. Since I am reading this passage with the New Testament in mind, I conclude that the serpent is some sort of representative of the Accuser, or Satan. This raises a whole set of questions. What is God’s role in the existence of evil?
To find some clarity, I turn to the saints…specifically St. Augustine. In Confessions, he wrote these thoughts about evil:
“Whatever is, is good. Evil, then, the origin of which I had been seeking has no substance at all; for if it were a substance , it would be good. For either it would be an incorruptible substance and so a supreme good, or a corruptible substance, which could not be corrupted unless it were good. I understood, therefore, and it was made clear to me that you made all things good, nor is there any substance at all not made by you. And because all that you made is not equal, each by itself is good, that the sum of all of them is very good, for our God made ‘all things very good.’ To you there is no such thing as evil, and even in your whole creation taken as a whole, there is no; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which you have appointed for it. But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil….
… And I asked what wickedness was, and I found that it was no substance, but a perversion of the will bent aside from you, God, the supreme substance, toward these lower things, casting away its inmost treasure and becoming bloated with external good.”
Not sure what to think about this and how to relate this to my experience. But it is a good reminder not to confuse God’s good creation with the presence of evil in the world. It also reminds us of our own authority and responsibility in participating with evil.
We begin a new sermon series this week at Asbury called Deceived. To kick off the series, we’ll look at Genesis 3:1-10. I’ll have some reflections on this passage as the week progresses, but to start off the week we’ll turn the pages back a few centuries. Here is a classic sermon on the story of the fall from John Wesley…
“….mankind in general have gained, by the fall of Adam, a capacity of attaining more holiness and happiness on earth than it would have been possible for them to attain if Adam had not fallen. For if Adam had not fallen, Christ had not died. Nothing can be more clear than this; nothing more undeniable: The more thoroughly we consider the point the more deeply shall we be convinced of it. Unless all the partakers of human nature had received that deadly wound in Adam, it would not have been needful for the Son of God to take our nature upon him.. [READ MORE] “
We begin a new sermon series on deception soon. Here is the possible artwork created by Sparrow Creative, and specifically my wife, Abby.
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Which one do you like?
Have you been a part of this conversation?
Person 1: “Our worship service (or substitute with or other ministry area) is really growing and experimenting with new ideas.”
Person 2: “That’s exciting, tell me more about this.”
Person1: “Well, we’re doing a form of worship that is brand new with our church. It’s just amazing to see how well we’re doing right now (insert pause for reflection)… well, for a Methodist church, that is.”
And there it is. The little disclaimer that I seem to hear on a regular basis. The level of our work inevitably comes back to that little phrase. Excellence, it seems, is determined by Methodist standards. If you are not familiar with Methodist standards, then just try to think about our culture from 1995, and you now have a pretty cutting edge Methodist church.
I hear it around Asbury when we start talking about organizational change. Our work in the Venue, for instance, is years behind where it should be. We should have been doing the style of modern worship years ago and now we should be thinking about what’s next. And yet, in comparison to Methodist churches, the Venue is amazingly forward thinking.
I don’t get why our Methodist connection has to be a handicap to our moving forward. Why can it not be a help? A lack of innovation is not the Methodist distinctive we need to be embracing. We came from a movement that is grounded in innovation. I don’t understand what is holding us to a standard of excellence that comes from a denomination that has not seen growth since 1968.
How do we move forward? I’m not going to be a Methodist pastor who surrounds himself with the connection, the publishing of Cokesbury, and the same cyclical thoughts that keep us in downward growth. Its time to engage churches that are growing, and even more importantly, its time to engage those who are not steeped in any Christian culture. I tend to think that when we committ oursleves to the work of spreading good news to actual new people, we are forced to begin to think in innovative ways once again. In this task of active evangelism, we reclaim our heritigae and distiveness of Methodists.
I’m spending this week in Fayetteville, AR learning about church planting in the United Methodist Church.
As I think of church planting, I think of the population growth areas around me. Suburban areas jump to my mind. I know that in Tulsa there is at least one suburb with no Methodist church. Asbury has several families, that I know, who come from this suburb. My mind also goes to the urban areas that are seeing renewal as whole neighborhoods find new life as younger adults move into these urban neighborhoods.
The church plant in suburban Tulsa makes a whole lot of sense. It is simply a matter of there not being any Methodist churches there. What kind of sense, though, do we make of the urban churches that are doing okay, but are not able to reach the population growth of young adults? I ask this in terms of the churches doing okay, because it is a bit more obvious than the church that has a great location and facility and only has 10 elderly people in worship…. probably time to shut it down. But there are churches (probably in most cities) that are doing okay in attendance and finances, but have no real ability (or interest) in connecting with the new young residents in their neighborhood.
I can think of neighborhoods in my city where there are great shifts occring in demagraphics, but no shift really occuring in the churches that are in those neighborhoods.This is a real catch-22 for us as Methodists. We believe in a connectional system where every church adds equal value, but there are areas where we probably need to plant a church right on top of the pre-existing church in that same neighborhood. How do we make sense of this?
I’m wrestling with the question of membership in the United Methodist Church. For the most part, I put little to no stock into the value of membership because I see little to no accountability in the process of membership. I don’t know how church membership is connected to faithful Christian living. The only real value I see is in having people stand in front of the congregation and publically state their commitment to Christ and their willingness to support the church.
This week, I had the very difficult moment of weighing my lack of value on membership with someone living in a way that we at Asbury have deemed outside of the biblical witness. This person was coming back to faith after having walked in some very dark places, and as this person is trying to get their life back together they come for baptism and membership. The church is the rock in this person’s life. In the church, healing is happening. In the church, isolation is fading away. In the church, this person is finding who they really are.
However, there is one large piece of their life that still is causing them grief.This is something some of us might deem as a lifestyle sin. This is something that is ingrained in their life and currently they have no intention of leaving it behind. And now this person comes for membership. What do I say?
I have to address this issue. I have to speak up. It has nothing to do with membership.Membership is not the same as Christian living.And yet, in this instance, membership is the catalyst for a further conversation. There are some serious issues of repentance that must be addressed. Without repentance of this issue, can they faithfully answer the questions asked at membership? Without repentance, can I faithfully ask them the questions?
I’m preaching this week on Paul’s words in Romans 13:1-7, which begin “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” I’m not sure where to begin with all of the objections that come to mind when I read these words.
Where are Paul’s anti-imperialistic thoughts? Why is he not challenging Caesar as he so often does? He writes these words and yet he dies because of the rule of the tyrannical rule of Nero. How do we make sense of these words?
Its not just Paul who has been anti-establishment. Christians throughout history have stood against the governing authorities…we do remember all of the persecution, right?
Thinking through this issue led me to King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Here are some of his words in that letter,
There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.
How would Paul feel about these words?
