"Wal-Mart" churches spring up in rural areas

Oh the joys of rural ministry!

Top 5 in 2004

Here's a list of the top blogposts in 2004. Have fun surfing and reading.

Bose Personalized Amplification System - Amplifiers and Sound Systems for Musicians

So why haven't I been writing lately? One of my church's recently bought this great system! It is awesome! The sound is unbelievable and so simple to achieve!

This is the perfect system for small to average size churches looking to get great sound and simple operation at a great price!

Out in the sticks is one year old!

My blog is now one year old! It is amazing to think about how life has changed in that time. A new laptop computer, wifi hotspot in Wray, wifi at work...and even with all the new accessibility I haven't posted in 8 days or so!

In the coming year I hope to write more. We'll see if I am able to do that.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

I'm loaded

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 433,272,059 richest person on earth!

And that doesn't even include my non-monetary riches!

Nomo Pomo

I'm fully prepared to admit that when we boomers were young, we faddishly embraced church-growth ratios and sociological analysis; we praised these modern tools as the salvation of the church. So it's poetic justice for us now to sit in the back of the room, the balding and befuddled, as the next generation praises the postmodern matrix as the salvation of the church.

But we're both wrong. We've already got a salvation for the church, and he will not share his glory with any current cultural form, no matter how valuable or necessary it may be. If the church uncritically embraced modern culture, the solution is not to uncritically embrace postmodern culture.

Good advice to keep in mind on any new thinking or technique in the church!

next-wave > church & culture: American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon...A Review by Tim Berroth

What follows in Prothero's book is a systematic analysis of how Jesus has become a modern day version of the Greek god Proteus, conveniently morphing and changing into whatever image is created for him.

This sounds like a very interesting book. I hope to pick it up soon. Here's another quote which reminds me of the 'Dirty Harry' piece I linked to a while back:

The natural response to this softer effeminate Jesus was a push for a more masculine Jesus. Christianity was viewed, for the most part, as a religion for women. In the late 19th-century, church membership was only 28 percent male. By 1910, U.S. churches were only one-third male. In The Virility of Christ , published in 1915, author Warren Conant protested against artists who "subjoin a silky, curly beard to a woman's face and hair and label it 'The Christ'" Instead he offered a vision of a "Fighting Christ" with "big lung capacity" and the "free swinging stride of the mountaineer." Men of the industrial age would "demand a strenuous Christ." Prothero's examination of this battle for the male/female Christ is fascinating in light of the church's continuing struggle and failure to proclaim the distinctly masculine God revealed in the scriptures. In the wake of the radical feminism of the 1960's and 70's the church is still scrambling to figure out how to define roles of the sexes and how to faithfully proclaim God as a male.

Wireless hotspot in Wray

Here I am sitting in the greatest coffee shop in Yuma County Colorado and now it's even better because it is now equipped with a wi-fi hotspot!

And wouldn't you know it, it is the same week I get my own wifi at the church! Wow, no more wires and much faster internet experience!

By the way, this is the same coffee shop which we have had our alt worship service Echo at, Canyon Cafe and Coffee. If you're ever in Wray, Colorado look me up and I'll treat you to coffee and wifi!

ChristianToday > New Handbook to Promote and Sustain Christian Presence in Rural Areas

I'd love to read this handbook. Hope the Methodist church will make it available online.

The Death Clock - When Am I Going To Die?

When will you die? Check out the internet's friendly reminder that time is slipping away!

For me, January 7, 2041.

How God fooled Satan at Christmas

Very interesting take on the Christmas story.

Denver Journal - 7:0302 - A Generous Orthodoxy review

This is from a review of McLaren's new book Generous Orthodoxy by Craig Blomberg:

But overall, I am far more enthusiastic about this volume than worried over it. What worries me are the growing numbers of people who are worried about it. What does this portend if not an ungenerous orthodoxy that draws ever-narrowing boundaries around what counts as authentic Christianity, thereby alienating even more onlookers from the very faith they already see as too judgmental and divisive? I recommend McLaren's work highly to anyone who cares about evangelizing postmoderns and about developing the kind of community in the church of Jesus Christ that our Lord himself seems to have desired.

I have been wanting to get a copy of this book for some time. Now I am really wanting to read it!

As a graduate of Denver Seminary and former student of Dr. Blomberg's I have great respect and admiration for his thoughts and opinions.

The Emergent matrix: A new kind of church?

While emerging churches talk a lot about being relevant to postmodern culture, they are also aware that there is a danger in relevance. Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God, posed the question this way at the convention: “How do you simultaneously attend to the culture and be a pocket of resistance? You can’t be a pocket of resistance without attending . . . but I still think people come to church when church is different from the world, when there is something noticeably ecclesial in the broadest sense, when church seems like church rather than a shopping mall.”

An Emergent definition of relevance, modulated by resistance, might run something like this: relevance means listening before speaking; relevance means interpreting the culture to itself by noting the ways in which certain cultural productions gesture toward a transcendent grace and beauty; relevance means being ready to give an account for the hope that we have and being in places where someone might actually ask; relevance means believing that we might learn something from those who are most unlike us; relevance means not so much translating the church’s language to the culture as translating the culture’s language back to the church; relevance means making theological sense of the depth that people discover in the oddest places of ordinary living and then using that experience to draw them to the source of that depth (Augustine seems to imply such a move in his reflections on beauty and transience in his Confessions). Relevance might simply mean wanting to understand why so many young people have said that attending U2’s Elevation Tour and hearing Bono close the show with choruses of “Hallelujah” was like being in worship (but a whole lot better).

I am currently wrestling with these thoughts. I sense that I agree with much of it.

I feel I am growing more and more tired of the emerging church "conversation". It has reached both Christian Century and Christianity Today.

It's hip and trendy. This I believe is what the masses experience and believe the "conversation" to be.

But those who started the conversation are seeking much more. Much of what they write and speak of resonates with me at some levels and on some points. Yet I feel a certain skepticism toward the conversation/movement.

What about you?

MSNBC - Religion: The Birth of Jesus

A NEWSWEEK Poll found that 84 percent of American adults consider themselves Christians, and 82 percent see Jesus as God or the son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, and 67 percent think the Christmas story—from the angels' appearance to the Star of Bethlehem—is historically accurate.

So what do you think?

A Perfect Brainstorm

Interesting article on brainstorming.

New Rescue Truck

Here's our town's brand new rescue truck for the volunteer fire department.

Denver Journal - 3:0103 - Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible

Lastly, one who desires to do contextualized biblical work must also think through the meaning of the nature of the inspiration of the text.... A host of thorny theoretical matters come to the fore, and confessional commitments become an inescapable factor to consider in this contextualizing enterprise.

More thoughts on contextualization from Dr. Danny Carroll from Denver Seminary. This quote is from a review of the book Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible.

Can a Christian deny the virgin birth?

More contemporary attacks on the virgin birth of Christ have emerged from figures such as retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and German New Testament scholar Gerd Luedemann. Luedemann acknowledges that 'most Christians in all the churches in the world confess as they recite the Apostles' Creed that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. Now ... modern Christians completely discount the historicity of the virgin birth and understand it in a figurative sense.'

Obviously, the 'modern Christians' Luedemann identifies are those who allow the modern secular worldview to establish the frame for reality into which the claims of the Bible must be fitted. Those doctrines that do not fit easily within the secular frame automatically must be discarded. As might be expected, Luedemann's denial of biblical truth is not limited to the virgin birth. He denies virtually everything the Bible reveals about Jesus Christ. In summarizing his argument, Luedemann states: 'The tomb was full and the manger empty.' That is to say, Luedemann believes that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that he was not raised from the dead.

I find it fascinating as a pastor how in a quest to make Christianity more appealing to the masses, many have essentially destroyed the Christian message.

The gospel must be contextualized. But must the gospel be denied in order to be presented in a particular context?

If you are working to contextualize the gospel in a naturalist context, some theologians and pastors do not seek to challenge the basic worldview of naturalism. Rather they seek to understand the gospel in light of naturalism, seeking scientific and natural causes for the accounts in Scripture.

But is this really contextualization? Contextualization is to present an idea in a particular context. So to present the virgin birth idea in a naturalist context is to challenge the very worldview of the naturalist.

Ultimately the naturalist must decide to accept the supernatural as an explanation for the virgin birth or they must deny the virgin birth and remain committed to their worldview.

Hmmm...to change your mind and realize that your worldview is incorrect...doesn't that sound like repentance?

And isn't that the message of the gospel? Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!

The "evangelical uniform" versus real piety from PreachingNow

In the second part of his article on "The Future of Expository Preaching," Bryan Chapell says, "How we will apply Scripture to our present situation in order to be salt and light remains a hot topic in adult Sunday Schools but a great void in the homiletics literature. Once application was easy. Everyone knew the uniform that Evangelicals were supposed to wear: do not smoke or drink or chew; don't see bad movies; and don't cuss when the preacher's around. Virtually any biblical text could be exegeted to add threads to this uniform of Evangelical/Fundamentalist identification.

"Of course, for reasons both good and bad, that uniform is now largely considered out of fashion. Survey after survey tells us that the life patterns of Evangelicals on matters as varied as marriage, entertainment, alcohol and drug use, abortion and charitable giving vary little from the secular culture. The individualism that we were inadvertently promoting by emphasizing faith as a path to personal fulfillment has come home to roost as mere paganism among our people.

"We know how to preach salvation by faith, but we have not yet determined how to replace false legalisms with true piety. Young and old are more schooled in popular culture than biblical thought — that is evident in not only in our congregants' lifestyles but in their shocking lack of Biblical knowledge. Yet, before we blame others for not applying the scriptures well, we must confess that even among conservative church leaders there is little consensus regarding such culture forming issues as economics, government, education, poverty and war. The cold wash of this culture's realities are making it startlingly evident that it was far easier to talk about the uniform than it is to fight the spiritual war of the soul in today's society.

"We are beginning to think afresh about how exposition and application relate to these cultural battles for the soul. There is a healthy trickle of recent articles and books on how to do exegetically sound application. Still, much work remains to be done in order for expository preaching to move from merely creating weekly to-do lists based on our own traditions and really identifying how biblical truth applies to life's struggles."

Will 1 in 8 churches close? From PreachingNow newsletter

Thom Rainer, dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism and Missions at Southern Baptist Seminary, and an astute observer of the church growth scene, believes that 50,000 American churches will close by the year 2010.

In an article which originally appeared in his The Rainer Report newsletter, he noted, "Thousands of churches are on the precipice of closing. The conventional wisdom was that churches were tenaciously stubborn, and could keep going for years. But those churches were led by the Builder generation, those born before 1946. The churchgoing builders attended churches out of loyalty and tradition. They would often remain loyal to a church despite deteriorating quality and attendance.

"But Boomers, Busters/Gen Xers, and Bridgers — those born between 1977 and 1994 — have no such loyalties. They see no need to remain with a church that exists out of tradition and with little care for the quality of the ministries. . . . The fading of the Builder generation indicates the death of one out of eight churches in America today."

The big question remains: what kind of churches will close their doors over the coming decade? Most likely, they will be churches for which maintaining the status quo is the major priority.

Wow! Now how to get beyond maintaining the status quo...