I believe in God but...

I can't tell you how many times I have heard that phrase through the years. In fact I have been hearing it more and more of late. It usually takes shape in something like this...
"I believe in God, but I have needs."
"I believe in God, but I just don't go to church."
"I believe in God, but I am just real busy."
"I believe in God, but you just don't understand how hard it is."

What people keep saying is that "I believe in God, but I just don't want to do things His way."
I don't trust His ways
I don't like His ways
I don't want to give up my rights

I find this particularly takes form in the second "I believe but" phrase. I believe in God, but I just don't go to church. People have had many disappointing experiences in churches. Believe me I understand this!! I have heard many stories and even seen what I term "spiritual abuse" within God's house. As a pastor please allow me to apologize for the idiocy that is found in many churches. All I can tell you is that I have devoted myself to being a part of the solution rather than checking out of the game altogether as some have. You see even with the experience of poor leadership; even with experiencing the sin of those we are supposed to be able to rely upon, we are still commanded in numerous verses such as "do not forsake the assembling together of yourselves" to come together in worship and service. Some say "well I am still a Christian, I just don't go to church." "You don't have to go to church to be a Christian!" In fact you do. Here's my point: someone might still be saved and make it to Heaven without being a regular part of a local church. However, if you are going to claim the label of Christian, which means "follower of Christ," then you absolutely do have to be plugged into a church somewhere. It has been the case for 2000 years despite the many errors and abuses that the Church (the universal Body of Christ as expressed in local assemblies) has been the vehicle through which God has moved and extended His Kingdom. We were made for community. God Himself has invited us into community with Himself and calls us into community with others that follow Him.

How does "church" meet this created need?

• Church is a place of corporate worship where we gather together with all different types of people on the common ground of the cross to worship Jesus

Christianity has never been about the individual, but rather about connecting the individual in community. First with God and then with others. God's intent is for all of creation to be restored. As people gather in worship it is an expression of what is to come and a testimony to those who do not yet know Him. We need each other in this journey of faith. We cannot do it alone! If you were the devil and wanted to destroy a Christian or at least make them totally irrelevant wouldn't you try to isolate them and separate them from all sources of strength and encouragement?

• Church is a place where we cannot create community in our image, but we are connected with other people utterly unlike ourselves yet we share the common foundation of being redeemed in Christ.

You know those churches where people all look, dress, vote, talk and act the same? They are like a big boring scoop of vanilla. No sprinkles, no syrup, no different flavors. Some say that is a picture of unity...I see it as a picture simply of uniformity. God's creation is diverse and wonderful. God loves Republicans and Democrats. God loves the wealthy and the poor. God loves the socially adept and the socially inept. "Red and yellow, black and white they are precious in His sight..." Though that is an incredibly non-politically correct way of saying things today, (and by the way...where's the "brown?") the point is still valid. If Jesus is for everyone, why don't our churches reflect that? Certainly if left to our own devices we gravitate toward those most like us, but are we challenged through that? God connects us with others that cause us to be stretched and as a result it makes more room for Him within us.

• Church is a place where we can connect with others in mission to accomplish more for God and His Kingdom than we could separately.

Really...do I need to elaborate here? Just think Foreign and Domestic missions. How are you "going into all the world" by sitting on your butt on the couch on Sundays watching Joel Osteen feeling good about how God loves you? What about ministry in the community? What about being a witness in the community? What about engaging the culture around you through the ministries of the church that your faithful tithes and offerings provide?

Bottom line... you cannot claim to be really close with Jesus and in touch with God's call on your life and not be connected at a local church in a significant way.

And by the way, that whole "I believe in God" bit... So does the Devil. How is your faith different from his? Take your life to the next level and join obedience to your belief!

Remembering 9/11, but dreaming of a different one...

It's 9/11 today. I think all of us remember exactly where we were when we first saw the pictures of a plane hitting the tower...and then a few minutes later another one. We saw bravery and courage that still stands within our memories as a monument and testimony to service and sacrifice today.

I am continuing a series on the Lord's Prayer as a paradigm rather than a script this Sunday and I am going to be examining extending forgiveness to others. In thinking about that and about what day it is today I began to think, "What if as a result of 9/11 we attended to the necessary security issues, but instead of what we chose we as a nation that was founded upon Christian principles had chosen to extend forgiveness instead?" Now of course this is completely hypothetical, but how would the world be different today?

Let me be clear: This is not political commentary and I honor our troops and their service and sacrifice for this country. I also am not a pacifist, I do believe there are times where force is justified. But even in those times where it is justified as St. Augustine said Christians should "march to war with tears in their eyes."

But what if... Forgiveness is costly.

I am going to be taking an honest look at what the Bible teaches about forgiveness on Sunday. Is there anything in your life where you have said "I just can't forgive..."

Is there justice in forgiveness?
Is forgiving just letting people off the hook?
Does forgiving someone mean pretending like nothing happened?
Does forgiveness mean going back to the way things were before?

God bless you today.

PE

I Could NOT Do That Before!

You know my son is 6 years old and started his first day as a 1st grader yesterday. He also had his first day at (flag) football practice the other day. Even though he can be a little fearful of new things and experiences, he is genuinely excited about all the things that growing older lets him do. He's always been that way, and I think most of us are that way. This morning for example, after breakfast he came in the kitchen grabbed his leg and stood on one foot and said "Dad, did you know I could do this??" I responded with the appropriate "Wow! I sure didn't!" As he was walking away he said "I could NOT do that when I was 5!"

As adults I wonder if we have lost the wonder and excitement about growing. We develop our patterns and our world views and devote a lot of effort to making ourselves comfortable. We do that. And yet, I wonder if in our pursuit of comfort, safety and security if we have lost the joy of discovering new things. Do we ever look to God and say "Jesus, teach me something new about you today," or "Jesus, about these spiritual gifts that are a mystery to me, could you help me in a greater experience of you?"

All I know is that if in five years I look back in my life and see sameness, I would be greatly discouraged. Even though that is the natural pull of my life, I know that with God there is more. I have only scratched the surface of Who God is and what it means to be His servant. Let's take a lesson from children who get to experience growth and new adventures all the time and realize that we too can still grow and become different, greater. Would you join me in the great adventure and open your life up to more today? By God's grace and in Jesus Name, may we all be able to say tomorrow, next year and in five years, "I Could NOT do that before!"

50 Ways Marketers (and Churches!) Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

Found this at chrisbrogan.com. There are some great applications for a church here as well!

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Research Question

I am doing some research for my master's class. I would love it if you could comment on this blog with your reply. You do not need to register to reply, it can be anonymous if you'd like.

Here are the questions:
"Do you go to church regularly? If not, why?" (please think about the foundational answer instead of just "busy" for example)

"Why do you think that the American church (all denominations) are experiencing decline in attendance?"

Thanks for your help!

The Word

Spoke to me today:

Psalm 66:10-12 (TNIV) For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Psalm 4:6 (TNIV) Many, Lord, are asking, “Who will bring us prosperity?” Let the light of your face shine on us.

Isaiah 54:2-8 (TNIV) “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit— a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer.

Bring it on!

facade

Is anything helped when people are walking in an untruth? Is the Kingdom of God advanced when there is a veneer in place? It is that kind of thing that many find distasteful in churches, how people are one way during the week and then when they get to church everything is "fine" and "wonderful." I have said from the beginning that I wanted West Shore to be a place where people can be real.

So let's be real... As we continue to work on transitioning a church that was on a slow downward spiral for a number of years, we have lost people who liked the way things were...or at least do not like where things are headed. What is absolutely clear to everyone who was able to grasp the big picture is that things could not have continued as they were. If things were to have continued unchanged, the church would have been one of the tragic statistics that show that 3,500-4,000 churches a year are closed forever. (download the message called Desperate for God's Household for more details) I have seen this happen before.

So in an effort to turn things around and bring change, we have lost people...and things are tight. But we have seen some firstfruits of what is to come.

We just had a baptism service for a young professional in the area who was for the most part unchurched and had never given his life to the Lord (was not a rededication) before. What has happened in this man's life is a picture of what is to come IF...IF we do not give up. IF we continue according to God's blueprint for His Kingdom. IF we continue in the Jesus way. The church's mission statement talks about building a relevant church that exists for Jesus, and for others. But what will that look like? I have shared a specific 5 year vision that I have, but I want to break that down to some personal essentials. I don't want to speak to demographics or attendance levels, but rather to the heart. Let's dream together...

Imagine a church where the people are very consistent in their spirituality. Their life of faith and walk with Jesus is organic to who they are, and the church service is just one aspect of their Christian experience.

Imagine a church that is passionate about Jesus and their worship of Him all throughout the week. The church service is just one focused time of corporate celebration of who God is and all that He has done.

Imagine a people that flow in the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit in a naturally supernatural way.

Imagine a people that are thoroughly equipped for every good work of service and defense of the faith.

Imagine a people deeply rooted in Christ through a life of prayer both corporately and individually.

Imagine a church whose vision is so dramatic that it will take life-change on the part of every person as well as connection with the God who makes the impossible possible.

Imagine a church that is so culturally and ethnically diverse that it is a true representation of the creative heart of God.

Imagine a church that is creating modern day disciples that walk in humility and relevance towards the people Jesus came to reach.

Imagine the church of God's dreams to impact the West Shore region, Cleveland, and the nations...