Evangelism Series Blog 1

This is the first in a blog series on Evangelism and the topic of “Who is visiting your church?”  In this first post, I have challenged myself to write a statement on what I believe (currently, subject to change) Evangelism is (and isn’t).  As always, these are my thoughts, relevant to my context, you can certainly add or subtract, but this is what I think.  Initially I challenged myself to do so in less than 750 words, but that was too wordy.  So I lowered it a bit, and even at that, it is too wordy, but here we go…

Evangelism’s root word Evangel means “Good News.”  So Evangelism is simply doing “Good News Work.”  Yet the Evangelical in ELCA not withstanding, Lutheran reticence to identify with such labels is well documented.  Although centered theologically on the Cross and Empty Tomb, the Good News, we aren’t sure about accepting such a label.

Much of this reticence is produced by a culture in which Evangelism/Evangelicalism are fraught with negative meaning and images.  Think crazy street preachers, abortion clinic sign holders, gay funeral protesters, clergy sex/financial scandals, hard sell altar calls, get rich quick theology, etc…   Despite the spectacular size of some “mega-churches”, the overall percentage of American’s attending worship continues to decline.  These mega-parishes preach to the choir and many more are sneaking out the back door.

But it is also well documented that these folks sneak out the back door not because they don’t believe in Jesus or that his teachings aren’t relevant.  Many want to be Christian, the Good News sounds good to them but they struggle with where they belong.  Maybe they have slightly more nuanced views on those “hot button” issues or maybe they just don’t want to be so “loud” a Christian.

How can I and these folks claim the title Evangelical?  I suggest three do’s and don’ts...

Do…equip yourselves and others to live out the good news in word and service, especially in relation to Biblical principals of compassion, stewardship and tithing.  Remember God’s preference for the poor and forgotten, the widow and the alien. (see…the Prophets)

Don’t…equate worldly riches with God’s favor and poverty with God’s wrath.  If you have above average wealth and resources (i.e. above the median income in your county), give thanks and follow Biblical principals of stewardship and tithing.  If you are not, do the same.

Do…equip yourself and others to engage neighbors about faith, but only after asking them about their lives, actually listening and learning their joys and sorrows. (see…Woman at the Well)

Don’t…try to hard sell your neighbors on their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, guilt them into church attendance or threaten them or those they love with hellfire, they will stop talking to you.

Do...worship authentically and excellently.  Preach the Law AND the Gospel.  Connect Sunday to Monday. Sing and dance.  Welcome visitors genuinely and follow up with them!  Have multi-generational education to equip disciples of Jesus.  And DO IT WELL!

Don’t…assume worship style and programs will grow your church.  The folks looking for flashy programs and high performance worship can find it and you probably don’t have the resources to do it or even the calling. 

Obviously these are relevant to some and not to others, but they are guidelines I use in evaluating how “Evangelical” we are being in my context.  Basically they are simply principals of Good News living, of discipleship, and because of that they are hard.  Being Authentic to who you are, your context and choosing to be Excellent in that will cause trouble because it isn’t easy and requires tough decisions, but it is Evangelical. 

Next week… Do signs, advertising, mailers actually work in generating visitors?

Cowtown Lutheran on Vacation

Forgot to mention in my previous weeks post about my blog series that it would not begin until Tuesday May 31st as I am on vacation in Wisconsin this week.  Will see you in a week!

Until then, be thinking Evangelism!

A Blog Series? Yes Indeed!

Ok, so I have occasionally done sermon series in the past.  Usually based on the Lectionary texts, tied to a season (which is actually easier than many folks think it is).  But I have never done a blogging series, until now! Today I begin something new, focused on an issue that has been brought up again and again in conversations I have had lately.

So what is that issue, the dread word is...EVANGELISM!

Despite the fact that we are people of the Gospel (literally εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion) or "Good News!") so often we recoil from the prospect of actually sharing this good news with others.  Additionally, it has been brought to my attention that some even contend that the goal of a congregation to increase the size of a church, or "church growth", might not be the most noble of goals.  


This is very strange to me in that I believe Christ was quite clear in Acts 1 that he desired us to take the Gospel to the nations and that we were expected to both face challenge and be successful in inviting others to know the wonder of a relationship with God.  So why is it so hard for us to engage in honest and hopeful Evangelism (as opposed to the Evangelism of fear that so many propagate)?  Why has church growth become a dirty word in our circles?  Can't we grow our communities, care for the poor and aged, help nurture new disciples, baptize the young and old, bury the dead and in all of this be evangelical?


So what do we make of this.  In the next 5-6 weeks I want to take on a series of topics related to evangelism that I hope might spark conversation at Trinity as well as in other places.  These topics (I will mostly cover one a week, but perhaps depending on the spirit, add new ones or subtract others) are...


1) What is Evangelism? (in 750 words or less, I am challenging myself)
2) Do signs, advertising, mailers actually work in generating visitors? 
3) Who is visiting your church?
4) Why would any of those folks join a church today?
5) Why would they join your church?
6) Why does this matter at all?


So we shall see where we go in this series.  But if nothing else, it keeps me accountable to actually blogging.  BTW: check out our church website at www.tlcfw.org (of course nothing I say here represents what they think, after all, I just preach there, they think for themselves) because if you do it will drive up our traffic and that makes Google happy and Taylor happy. So visit the site at least twice a day ok!  See you next week (I will be blogging from Wisconsin!)

Snakes and Spiders

So I actually got a comment on my blog last week when I ventured into the territory of current political events.  To be clear, I don't do that simply to generate controversy, but I do want to have open and stimulating conversation.  If we as Christians who think do not engage the world, those who do will wind up speaking for us in ways we might not appreciate.

That said, I would like to take on another of the conversations that have arisen in the wake of the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Much of what I have seen have been comments like "we cut off the head of the snake."  Basically, stating that if the head is cut, the body will soon die.

A quick story from my childhood.  Playing at a friends farm, I remember one afternoon moving a toy dump truck and underneath it was a baby rattlesnake probably 8-10 inches long.  Screaming for my friends father, I ran away and he came with a hoe.  In one quick movement, the snake no longer had its head.  However, for the rest of the afternoon we watched in horror as its body twitched and shivered.  I never came within 5 feet of that shaking snake.

My point is two-fold...
1) Even if you cut off the head of the snake, be prepared for convulsions to follow which will be both frightening and sad.  These are the death pangs of the organism.  The good news is, the organism finally stopped moving after several hours and died.
2) But ultimately, despite this horror, hope that you have killed a snake.  Because in my leadership, I try very hard not to create snakes, but to create spiders.  Spiders spin webs.  These webs have no clear head, they are strung to many points of contact so that if you kill/separate one, there are others to pick up the slack.  The webs are complicated, with many strands that make them confusing, but also resilient and hard to destroy.  Good leaders create webs of accountability and authority, so that organizations are flexible and resilient, able to weather even hurricanes, and certainly weather to death of one leader.

For the sake of the world, I pray Osama's organization is a snake, but I worry that it will be a web.

Saying "I"

Sunday night about 9:30pm, the news started breaking into all the TV shows.  Apparently something big had happened, indeed, as K learned from the texts that started blowing up in the TCU library, Osama Bin Ladin had been found and killed.  About an hour or so later President Obama got on TV to announce that indeed the news was true.

In theory, this was a big win for the US in the war on terror, but of course in our 24 hour news cycle, winning elections is the only thing that really matters, so immediately the talk began, was this a big win for President Obama?  So jaded by political process, we couldn't even take 10 minutes to reflect on the reality our nation had chosen to assassinate this man, that his death would drag up issues for thousands of Americans whose lives were taken because of his leadership.  No, we immediately have to make it political.

Not long after that conversation began of course, the criticism started.  I saw it on facebook, from friends who couldn't bear to congratulate the president on the success of the military he commands to those who ripped into him for saying "I" too much.

Whether you support Obama as our president or not, whether you voted for him or not, I think this critique is a fascinating study in leadership.  Reading the text of his speech, there are but 2 paragraphs in which he references his role in this event.  He identifies in those 2 paragraphs his role as commander in chief to both authorize the following of leads and ultimately authorizing an incursion into another sovereign nation's air space.

Obama took a big risk on Sunday night.  Had the helicopters not functioned, had the bunker been empty, had the Pakistani air force shot down a US chopper, had US servicemen died in the incursion, it would have been him standing there taking the failure.  When you are the leader, it is you who are on the line.  30 some years ago, another Democratic President had to go on national television and own up to the fact that an incursion into a middle eastern nation's airspace, an incursion intended to free US hostages, had failed.  Many attribute his loss in the next election to that failure.

When you are a leader, you have to say "I" a lot.  Usually it is in defeat.  You take the blame when things go wrong and you should.  But occasionally, you get to say "I authorized that" and get a measure of credit for taking a risk.  Time will tell if he actually will profit politically from this.  And I can honestly say I hope he doesn't.  Because this I believe wasn't a "political" move.  This was a decision made for the safety and security of the world.  It certainly will not free us of violence, for violence cannot possibly accomplish that.  But today the world has one less bully in it, and it is because a man who the American people had given the authority to do so, said go.  I for one, think we should give him some credit for that and then encourage him to get our economy moving again.  Cause at the end of the day, "It's the Economy stupid..." that really matters.

Keeping the Big Mo

One of my favorite personalities in the world of football is a guy named Frosty Westering.  He coached at Pacific Lutheran University (my dad's alma mater) for over 30 years.  In that time he won more than 300 games, 4 national titles, and wrote a really quality book Make the Big Time Where You Are, which unfortunately is only available in used at this point.  Obviously being the coach of a small Lutheran college in Tacoma doesn't translate into best seller success.  In fact, in googling it, I found some pretty negative reviews, which is frankly not surprising of anyone who puts leadership principles out there.  Some people will basically think you are full of crap.  Part of the deal.

My point in bringing up 'ol Frost is that one of his principles was of keeping "the big MO" or momentum.  Frosty certainly never had great athletes on his teams.  His guys were brought together from the cast offs and never were's of the college football world.  The greatest team he ever coached, was led by a guy left behind by the big state university up the road and went on to star as the Lutes team leader.

So the point!  The big MO is so huge in getting things going.  One of the things Jim Collins talks about in his books is the challenge in getting the flywheel moving.  The heavy lifting getting the momentum started in an organization in a positive direction.

Last week, in the midst of Holy Week, two funerals and all sorts of other stuff, I was encouraged by a member to keep up my "uber-enthusiasm".  Basically a challenge, encouragement to keep up "the big MO" at Trinity.  To which I think we responded well.  (and I say we intentionally because everyone really needs to understand, this is all a team effort)  But now it is the week after Easter day, a week usually reserved for vacations and relaxation for Pastor types.  But should it be?

If we have "the Big Mo" going, why would we stop?  Why would we take a break.  And we aren't.  Our mission assembly is this weekend.  Lots of great stuff going on.  A canvas of our neighborhood, asking our neighbors for food for the local food pantry, while also telling them about our ministry.  Hundreds of Lutherans coming to Hurst to be hosted by the Greater Fort Worth conference.  Lots of momentum going on.

But I worry about our worship life at Trinity.  Will we step back now?  With the intensity of Easter day.  300+ in worship at Trinity (more than in at least 5+ years, if not more).  Will we sit back and relax?  Or will we build on that "Big MO" and move forward.

I am heartened that the choir has agreed to keep singing anthems through Holy Trinity weekend.  Well past the usual cut off of Memorial Day.  Our youth are preparing to head to Colorado in June for a mission trip, after leading us in worship on May 22nd.  Lots of good momentum, but we must keep it going.

And yet we must rest.  So we need to multiply.  It can't be the same people doing the ministry every week.  Yet that will mean giving ministry away.  K and I have been here for 8 months now.  We have seen much great progress and God at work in this place.  So what can we give away?  What will the people take on?  What will God inspire someone to take on that they never thought they would?

Well this weekend, I have a feeling the 20 folks who will go walking out into our neighborhood probably didn't think they would be doing that 8 months ago.  And neither of us will be going with them.  This is their ministry, we will be busy working at other tasks.  So that is a start, ministry multiplying, and for that, I am grateful.

Two Weeks Off

So I haven't blogged not for almost 3 weeks, meaning I have had 2 Tuesdays (which was my resolution) with no posts.  As such, any readers I might have had probably gave up on me and won't read this anyways, but I am back on the wagon (so to speak).

My absence, despite the good reasons for it, have me thinking about the importance of accountability.  As has a book I have been reading Transforming Discipleship by Greg Ogden.  In it he talks about many things but most interesting to me so far is the reaffirmation of the Triad form of accountability groups.  In these groups, three people covenant together to go on a discipleship journey together, to keep each others trust and hold each other accountable on that journey.

His point is that one-on-one relationships are good, but the addition of the third party brings an added dimension to the accountability structure.  It isn't just one person you are letting down, or one persons ideas you are hearing from but you have conversation partners that work together offering ideas, asking questions.

So far in 2011 I have tried to have coaching conversations with all of our council members who are leaders of teams. For the most part these have been relatively fruitful but I wonder if an additional piece would be to subtract myself out of the equation and create triad groups within the council.  Groups where they meet together and hold each other accountable for the work of their teams, their communal growth.

Accountability is hard but good.  As I don't have a covenant relationship re: blogging here, it was easy to slip away and forget to continue my resolution and not be called on it.  Not sure that my blogging is that important of a part of my life of discipleship (or anyone else's for that matter), but there are many other things that are.

A blessed Holy Week to whoever might be out there.