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Moving Day...

How sad will I be not to watch this sunrise each morning?

We're moving a couple of miles away to Multnomah Village, much closer to the center of town, within biking distance from where we'll be having our 3rd gathering. 

We're renting out our townhouse and renting another bigger place, just a block from a park, big backyard, 2 bedroom apt downstairs so we'll get to have two evergreeners live with us. 

It's going to be good, but man... gonna miss those sunrises.

Asking too much of Google...

Some things, you just shouldn't need to google...

Lent E-Cards

Nice...

here

(ht brian goff)

Wisdom...

"You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet. But you treat it as though it is nothing more than a piece of good literature."

-Gandhi

(ht: Thomas Ward)

Lent 2009

Lots of people talking about Lent- what it means to them, struggling to get it to mean something to them, struggling with the whole idea of giving things up... Why give up bad things for Lent? If they're bad- give them up period. Why give up good things for Lent (like Facebook community, etc)- if they are good, why give them up? 

While I have no inclination to pretend expertise here, let me just tell you how I approach Lent, and hope it's helpful for you.

I'm someone who is prone to unthinking attachment. 

I jump onto and into things without doing much "counting the cost." Start watching a new show? Cool. Dive into Facebook? Straight ahead. Get a phone with 24-7 access to email, internet, IMs and texts? YES! I subscribe, indulge, sign up and sign on without much intentionality or forethought. 

And that gets me in trouble. 

Because while I would love to do a million things well, I just can't. And my family and ministry as well as my own soul and its care are what suffers when I say "yes, yes, yes..." and never say no. 

So what is Lent about for me? 

Learning to say no. It's about detaching from many of the things I have attached to unthinkingly, not because they aren't valuable or are necessarily bad for me, but so that I can look at my life, assess what my real priorities are and begin, when this period is over, to reattach to certain things more thoughtfully. And perhaps, leave some things behind that I'm probably better off without. 

Lent is about repentance (changing your mind). I guess I really don't NEED a carmel macchiotto a day, do I? I guess I can't follow 6-10 TV shows- maybe only 2-3. I guess this money would be better off going to the poor, and that time better off going to my family...

At a certain point during the next month (I'm doing some graduated fasting for Lent), I'll even unplug from Facebook and Twitter... why? Why unplug from community? 

Because I'm recognizing that community always carries a cost and I want to *know* what it is with social media. Am I so connected to old high school friends and internet e-friends that I'm missing out on the relationships right next to me- friends, relatives, my kids etc? How much of my relational bandwidth is going to social media? Do I talk less to my wife because I talk so much to you? I won't really know unless I take a step back and live without it a bit... 

I used to read books. I used to read a lot of books. I don't do that much anymore. Why? Well, before blogs, email, the Drudge Report, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu and the rest, I think I had a lot more time. 

What would it be like to have that time again? What good could I do?

I really, really want to know. 

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Stephen Grellet, 1773-1855, Quaker Minister

Evergreen's Next Steps...

Evergreen is getting ready to take a new step as a community- starting a 3rd gathering, not in a pub space on April 5th, 2009. 

On Feb 15th, we gathered as a community in the evening (occasionally, we get bumped from one or the other of our pubs in the morning) at a church building here in SW Portland and had a combined worship gathering/baptism. 

I think I can truly say, in almost five years of being a community, this was a high point for me. My "favorite" worship gathering, as it were...

When I think about it, it was the effect of the total being more than the sum of its parts. My message wasn't particularly memorable, we've baptized more people at one go before... but somehow, between worship and prayer, baptism and communion, and us all being together in a different space that seems to open up different possibilities, it was as though the community came alive in a way we might struggle to other times/places. It was an amazing night...

And it was a "test drive." We're going to start a 3rd gathering there on Sunday evenings- one which I think will allow us to be both louder and quieter, more celebrative and more contemplative. We *love* our pub spaces and what they do for us in reminding us we exist as a community incarnated into this city- that we are not a world to or for ourselves, but that we exist for others (and they are right over there behind the bar preparing for lunch, or walking by the windows looking in, wondering if the Lab is open...)

We never want to give any of that up, but we also, I think, can add to it and enjoy again the pleasure of worship in a space that opens up new possibilities for us in terms of becoming silent (no ringing phones, ice machines or other misc ambient noise during the gathering) and what we can do for kids. 

The whole goal, rather than getting bigger and bigger and bigger, is to get to a size where evergreen can sustainably resource and launch new church plants throughout the city, and where we will be embedded in various areas throughout the city, using our gatherings as jumping off points for various missional initiatives. 

So, while I'm not putting out the call for 900 steel backed men, I will say this- if you are in the area and the idea of planting something with or out of Evergreen appeals to you, I'd love to talk to you. Whether you see yourself as someone who wants to come along in the journey, or even take a leadership role somehow (we need more worship leaders, people to lead homegroups and theology pubs, men and women to work into eldership, church planters, etc...) we need you. If you are currently embedded and part of a community here in PDX, we don't want to take you from that. But if you are newer to the area, or moving here, or for one reason or another find yourself unconnected, consider coming along with us. 

It's going to be good :)

The Death of Preaching

It's a pretty bold statement to say that video venues will eventually mean the death of preaching... but I think I can make the case. 

In his new book, Flickering Pixels (which I encourage you to check out!), Shane Hipps makes this point:

"Every medium, when pushed to an extreme, will reverse on itself, revealing unintended consequences. For example, the car was invented to increase the speed of our transportation, but having too many cars on the highway at once results in traffic jams or even injury or death.
The internet was designed to make information more easily accessible, thereby reducing ignorance. But too much information or the wrong kind of information reverses into overwhelming the seeker, leading to greater confusion than clarity. It breeds misunderstanding rather than wisdom...
In the same way, surveillance cameras, when there are too many that see too far, reverse into an invasion of privacy."

In other words, what was originally meant to make us go fast now slows us down, what was meant to make us smart now increases our ignorance (well, never our ignorance... just other peoples', right?) and what was meant to make us feel safe now makes us feel exposed. 

This is the rule: Technology, taken too far, creates the opposite of what it was intended to create. 

Still doubt it? Ask yourself- Email was meant to keep you in touch and ease communication, right? But when you are trying to process 100 emails a day, you don't feel in touch, you feel crushed. You're not communicating- you are wading through spam, forwards, fyi's... Your emails get shorter and shorter, more and more terse, and mis-communication happens more often than not. 

Reversal.  

So, what about technology in preaching? 

First came architectural improvements to increase the range of a speaker's voice. Then microphones to throw the voice even further. Then radio, television, tape and CD ministries, podcasts, vodcasts... and the seed of the video venue, the "overflow room."  All with the goal of taking the gift of preaching and extending its reach and impact. 

So far, so good, right?

But now, we have all this technology. We're not only recording the sermon, we're video taping it and we have discovered we can send that video, not just to the next room, but to a building across the campus, across town, across the state, around the world...

Now, the preaching gift of one person has the ability not simply to reach the back row, but the next town, state, continent. And we're not just talking about Spurgeon publishing his sermons or Schuller putting his on TV or Driscoll putting his on iTunes... 

NOW we're talking about not just influencing local preachers by making the "best" communicators' sermons available... we're talking about replacing those local teaching elders. 

Talk about pushing something to an extreme. 

The technology that once enhanced the preaching of others, influenced and enriched it? It's making it superfluous. Start up churches and smaller churches that used to have a team of three or four elders (or in our case, seven) who would be called on to teach on a regular basis now have a video screen and a "campus pastor" that gets to preach at most once a month. 

The technology reverses on itself. What once extended and enhanced the gift of preaching now effectively begins to strangle it, as fewer and fewer actually get the chance to ever do it. 

If we're not more thoughtful about this, soon, every city and town will have the Driscoll franchise... maybe even two or three. And the Andy Stanley, Ed Young Jr franchise as well. Is Joel Osteen too far behind? Hybels, Warren, Groeschel... the market is going to get crowded. 

Sure, smaller churches will still exist, but in fewer and fewer numbers as dying churches are replaced not by vibrant church plants full of people forced to build a community from the ground up and so learn all the lessons along the way, but by video venue franchises- prepackaged church-in-a-box. And I'm telling you- there will be fewer and fewer men and women (most certainly fewer women) who ever learn to preach, who ever get the experience of working with others to discern what God is saying to their local body through Spirit and Word and prayerfully struggle through how they can creatively communicate that as well over the course of weeks, months and years of life together. 

We're talking about the death of preaching in evangelicalism by all but a small handful of Celebrity Communicators who have little knowledge about those they teach from such far distances.

Sound like a bleak vision of the future?  Yes, it does. But we don't have to go there...

If the Church will just learn to pay its taxes. 

Stay tuned to see what I mean by that...

to be cont'd.

(And since I know it will come up in the comments, let me just address it now: No, I don't think preaching is the end-all, be-all of ministry. I don't think it's even the most important piece of ministry. But I do think it's vital and necessary for the continued health of the Church.) 

Others weigh in...

Some other thoughts on these issues...

Local pastor/Friend Eric Costa:

Maybe this has been said before; people listen to too many online sermons. Sure, the problem is probably limited to reformed-ish churchgoers, but that’s the tank I swim in, so it seems like everybody. I’ve noticed a few damaging side effects that I would like to share with you, maybe to encourage you to listen to less online sermons, but at least to help you use your “I’ve Heard All of Piper’s Sermons for Seven Years” Powers for good and not for evil. I’ll be brief.

Read the rest here

Franchise ahoy!

I've been predicting for awhile that Mars Hill Church in Seattle would try to plant a video venue here in Portland, notwithstanding the two to four (depending on how you count) Acts 29 planted churches in the metro area. 

Then today, I got this Facebook invite: ""Hey guys for those of you who have enjoyed the teaching of Mark Driscol (sic) we welcome you to join this group and invite you to pray about the possibility of a Mars Hill Church Portland Campus ".

Now, truth is, this may simply be an overeager fan boy. Or it may be someone who's actually doing something "official." Who knows. 

I do know this- Mark needs men. 900 men to be precise. Recently he posted this:

"We are deadly serious about the great commission and loading all guns to storm hell with the gospel of grace. And we need more men. Nine hundred men. Not boys—men. Real men. Men who care less about padding their resume and getting their vacation days than about seeing lives transformed and legacies altered for generations. We need men who love their wives, pastor their children, submit to Scripture, bleed the gospel, and have steel in their spine, love in their hearts, and the lost in their sights."

I'm all about men loving their wives, pastoring their children, submitting to Scripture, bleeding the Gospel, etc, etc. But truthfully, I have a feeling that when we talk about it, it tends to come out differently. And don't even get me started on the where the women are in this picture. Keeping the home fires burning while the men storm the gates, I assume.

Anyway, this invite to discuss a video venue or Mars Hill was sent to the wrong guy. Not sure how someone could be my Facebook friend and NOT know my thoughts on this, but in case you need a refresher, check here. 

I feel badly, but I did "join" the group and posted a thought... we'll see how long it stays on the page :)

I said: "Look- not to be a jerk- but there are already three churches here in Portland started by the Acts 29 network. A video church of Mark's teaching is not only redundant (it's all vodcasted, right?) it's kind of an insult to those who have worked hard to plant the churches that this video venue would most likely draw people from.

As someone who has planted and is planting churches in PDX, I can assure you- my problem isn't thinking that there are too many churches in Portland. I'm passionate about seeing as many real churches planted as possible. But a franchised video church with elders who live in another state, 3 hours away? No- thank you."

Please understand- If you want to listen to Mark's podcast/watch his vodcast, I think you should go for it- I subscribe to his podcast for crying out loud. But where we're going with this is eventually a Mark Driscoll, Andy Stanley, Ed Young Jr, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, et al Video Franchise in every major city, the further Wal-Martization of the church and, I kid you not- the death of preaching.

 

Think that's hyperbole? 

Stay tuned. 

Lent Prayer Guide

I have "put together" (read: written, adapted and outright stolen from various sources) a Lent Prayer Guide. 

And Kobie Moore, an Evergreener with an amazing design-eye, has made it look pretty. (you should see what she does with greeting cards- and the most amazing thing- each card is usable twice- I know, I know- how could that be? You'll just have to check it out to see)

Three versions for you:

Raw word doc

print version (feel free to edit out Evergreen's name and add your own- but you have to take the rap for any typos!)

online, or downloadable version just for you (depending on your browser, to see it, just left click, to download it, right click)

Unreleased Kendall Payne song

Kendall Payne sang an amazing song, as of yet unrecorded, here at the convention: here are the lyrics- still powerful, even without the tune. 

He gave us plenty, plenty to share; 

and the good sense to know what’s fair
He gave us power The knowledge of right 

He gave us strength to brave a fight
So we have no excuse and no defense
There is not one that can plead innocent
We have a state of shameful tolerance
And so you pray to God asking Him to intervene
To set it right, to stand up for the weak and the unseen
And still you pray to God ask Him what He’s gonna do
He might ask the same of you.

He gave us resource, more than enough 

to fill both hearts and hunger up
He gave us Jesus who died to proclaim 

“As you have seen in me do the same”
So we have no excuse and no defense
There is not one that can plead innocent
We have a state of shameful tolerance
And so we pray to God with our days from dust to dust
Is there a better world to have? It seems there must (be)
And still we pray to God, when will He make it just?
He might ask the same of us

@ lunch with Skye Jethani, Ruth Haley Barton and John Burke

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Npc day 2.1

Okay- so they DO have a prayer room- but it's way the freak over THERE and I actually couldn't even find it this morning... Arg, 

On an unrelated note- I LOVE this sign. 

Someone printed this. 

They paid money and had it made. 

It was accurate for exactly 60 seconds. 

Npc day 1

Day one and all is well.

Efrem Smith was great, and Shane Claiborne was pretty good as well. I'm looking forward to hearing Shane in 20 years when idealism, the wisdom of experience and 2 more decades of following Jesus like he is all meet to make him even more rad.

We were bemoaning the loss of Mike Yaconelli even more this year. Love Zondervan and IVP but the farther out we are from YS running this, the less it's focused on the pastor's heart, and the more it's focused on product.
It always had some product orientation... uh, lots of product orientation, but it rested squarely in Mike's desire to take care of, for one week, those who were taking care of the church and so many others the rest of the year. He would speak directly to those who came ready to quit, those who came burned out and angry or hurt... Every year he would say it, and even though it never applied to me, I still loved to hear him say, "some of you came with your wives, and you need to not go to a single seminar. You need to get bottle of wine, go to your room with your wife and not come out till the end if the week. Buy the CDs, and listen on the way home so you can tell the elders you learned something. But you don't need to learn some new minstry technique- you need to save your marriage."

In other words, I always felt like the people who were running things wanted to take care of us first, and sell us stuff second.

Not sure I feel that way now.

But, for all that, I still love being here. Every year I pick up some things that end up being game changers for my life and ministry. Such a valuable time to get outside my context and think in an ever so slightly more objective way about my life and ministry. I'm very thankful tonight for a wife and a Church community that allow me this time away.

The song remains the same.

Last year's pastors convention...
This year's pastors convention.

Chris + Edgar Winter= some serious white rockin'

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Andrew Bird- $1.99

at Amazon:

Grace on Homosexuality

Great discussion happening over at Grace's blog on homosexuality. Really good thoughts all around...

Here are hers- they are gold:

"What is my stand? The only stand that I am willing to make is that as we choose to follow Christ, we enter into the ongoing process of salvation.  Salvation is the process of restoring our hearts to wholeness.  That process is unique to each individual and orchestrated by the Spirit as we willingly submit ourselves to His loving hand.

The sin in our lives is a symptom of broken, damaged places in our hearts that need to be made whole.  We are all broken in areas of intimacy.  The underlying sense of separation, rejection, and abandonment is the nature of the curse and man’s original fall.  This brokenness can be expressed in many different ways, but it is often expressed sexually.

Transformation is a work of the Spirit in a person’s heart.  Shame has never been an effective motivation for transformation.  In fact, it is often the greatest hindrance to true freedom from the bondage of sin.

Our relationships with one another cannot be change-driven, and our relationship with the Father cannot be change-driven. As we focus on the sin in our lives, we become hopeless in our inability to will ourselves to change. Yet as we focus on Jesus, he can bring healing and change in the process of restoring our hearts to the wholeness that He intends for us.

I am convinced that it is damaging to identify and label ourselves according to sexual orientation.  We are so much more than the product of our attractions and desires.

The fundamentalist christian position is repressive about the spectrum of attraction that people experience.  Yet the fundamentalist homosexual position is adamant that one must identify themselves and live according to those attractions. I don’t recognize the voice of Truth in what I read from either side."

Read the rest

What does it matter WHY Jesus died?

I'm a firm believer in the atonement of Jesus as a multi-faceted gem...

Victory over sin and death? Yep

Ransom? Check.

Uncovering the hatred and violence of "the powers" of this world? Totally. 

Substitute? 

Without a doubt. 

I won't go into *all* the theology here, but I will say a few things. 

First, it's imperative to see substitution in the saving death of Jesus. Why? 

Because without that you either conclude that we don't really need saving (a feel-good-but-ultimately-bankrupt escape hatch more and more are taking) OR you end up, of necessity, trying to save yourself. Trying to be good enough, holy enough, enlightened enough. 

No- it wont be conscious- you probably wont even realize you are doing it. But without the substitutionary death, there's certainly no substitutionary life, that is if Jesus didn't die for me, He most certainly didn't live for me either, and I'm left to cobble together my own righteousness, rather than understanding that I live in His; that His perfect life, his holiness and righteousness is what I get in the bargain of the cross. Double imputation the cool theological kids call it.

 

Apart from understanding that, I will always, always feel not-quite-good-enough, and I'll be chasing one functional savior after another in one self-salvation project after another. 

Second, yes, the violence of the cross is disturbing. Of course! It's meant to be. 

But don't take the easy way out and just try to explain it away. 

Post Modern meets Old School

Oh, how I wish I could show this some Sunday... but alas- blogging it will have to suffice :)

"Aren't you all entitled to your half-assed musings on the divine? You've thought about eternity for 25 minutes and think you've come to some interesting conclusions..."

Ha!

My Blog via Wordle

Seems about right...