Have you noticed the All Natural Effect yet?
No, we’re not talking about my high school band, All Natural, (although this might have explained our overwhelming popularity… I kid!), we’re talking about All Natural labels on our foods.
There’s this amazing laser like tractor beam that draws people in towards all these products with pretty All Natural labels on them.
And yet when you simply look at the ingredients you may walk away with a different impression – watch the video and see what I mean.
A White House panel is set to release a report today stating something organic fans have been preaching for years — chemicals threaten our bodies.
Nicholas D. Kristof has a preview of the report in the New York Times and shares these main points of the 200-page report:
Have you adjusted your eating to eat more organic, chemical free foods?
I’d love to know what you’re doing.
Looking for some good light reading over the holidays?
Check out Greenchurch.info.
The most life-changing ministry we can humanly provide a group of overlooked friends is a simple Body of Christ, a Church, planted among them, to be His Hands, His Heart, His Voice, His Compassion in their circle of relationships.
Over the last few weeks a group of guys in my tribe have been having a discussion via email about what it means to be a leader/pastor in a church.
Brian sent a link to an article from Pastors.com about multi-site churches today. The article raises some interesting points. He asked for our thoughts and thought I’d share them here and get your input as well.
Many churches across the country are moving beyond their original building to become one church in many locations. Some construct a beautiful new campus sporting state-of-the-art sound, light, and video systems at a cost of several million dollars. While this strategy is often successful, it sets the bar much too high for the average church considering a multi-site strategy. Few congregations can invest massive sums of money to open a second or third location, and with the current challenges in the economy, the number of churches is dwindling that can tap that level of cash. So how can an average church develop an affordable multi-site strategy?
I thought the article brought up some good ideas. I liked this statement…
We have discovered that the further the new campus is from the original site, the less you need to spend to replicate your original campus.
I think wherever the replication takes place, the site should take on the look/feel of the community its in. Whether its in Red Oak, Waco, Mesquite/Forney or Alaska – let the people coming help form what the church looks like, sounds like, feels like.
The article also points out ::
In a small group of 12 people, the only equipment you need is a good coffee maker. A group of 50 can have a great worship experience with an acoustic guitar and a microphone.
It just ads to the idea of a site replicating the culture/feel/ideas of where you’re at.
I saw a great video from Andrew Jones (tall skinny kiwi) yesterday about how to make pizza (I’m thinking about doing it one week with our community group leaders). He makes the point about how Jesus talks about two kinds of yeast. The yeast of the Kingdom and the yeast of the Pharisees. And as Christians, naturally we want to be the yeast of the Kingdom – always duplicating – bud emergence. He also says, if you want a great way to start a church – throw a pizza party. Gather up folks in a home, and eat pizza and then go from there.
One thing the article didn’t touch on was/is the technology aspects. Would encounter multi-site utilize the same messages across the board? Would it use a video taped message each week? Would we up our video streaming quality and use it? Or would the “pastor” of the multi-site church lead? Those are all options.
Also, talking with Eric Bryant (executive pastor at Mossaic in LA – author of Peppermint Filled Pinatas) this week for our podcast, I asked how they had such a large church and kept the gatherings personal. He said they have volunteers leading each multi-site who work very hard at meeting people, getting people plugged in and really pastoring those who come each week. He said there are times that people might slip through the cracks, but overall the volunteer staffs work to be sure each person feels just as welcome as they might in a group of 5 or 6.
(Watch some other thoughts with Eric and Erwin McManus :: http://vimeo.com/3427533)
I think that’s a great point and something we as “leaders” need to work on more and more each Sunday at encounter – multi site or not. Are we doing our best to talk with people, meet with people, lead people? Are we getting caught in the business of each Sunday where we miss the opportunity to hear someone’s story? Are we staying busy and avoiding hearing the spiritual/physical/emotional needs of those in our tribe?
Neil Cole writes ::
We must transition from seeing church as a once-a-week worship event to an ongoing spiritual family on mission together. Then people will see church as something worth giving your life for. Honestly, people need one another more then they need another inspiring message. You would be surprised what people will do for Jesus, or for a brother or sister, that they will not do for a vision statement and a capital giving campaign.
(HT @emergentvillage)
Happy Reformation Day?
Some of you are thinking “What the heck?! It’s halloween! Or maybe at least All Saint’s Eve or All Hallow’s Eve.”
And yes that’s true – but you can find out about that other holiday somewhere else.
Instead – we’ll celebrate Reformation Day around this here blog. Reformation Day is the celebration of the anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 Thesis on the church doors of the Whittenberg in Germany.
What was initially posted as a Luther’s hope to start a debate in the things he was learning and reading about as a Biblical professor, started a revolution (reformation) in the church – leading to his excommunication from the church and the protestant movement.
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light,
the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg,
under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther,
Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in
Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that
those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us,
may do so by letter.
I doubt Luther had any idea that his 95 Thesis, posted on Oct. 31, 1517, would end up being spread so rapidly to “the people” with the help of a recent invention of Johann Gutenberg, known as the “printing press.”
Who would have thought that the masses would begin reading, thinking about and debating these “high level theological thoughts” like sacramental penance vs inward repentance, the fallacy of the pope, the remittance of sin by the pope and indulgences used to build sanctuaries for the church? I mean seriously, ordinary folks can debate these kind of things?! “That’s heracy!” — or so the church thought at the time (and many continue to think today).
Imagine what might happen if folks started talking about God and debating theology in the bars and pubs of today? Imagine if there was some sort of medium that might spread these ideas and discussions around the world? Imagine if suddenly our theology stopped coming from trained pastors and priests who study for years at schools of higher education and suddenly started coming from Joe Six Pack at your local pub and was shared with folks via Twitter or Wikipedia or other emerging websites to Joe Plumber who lives in Russia or Idaho? Imagine if theology was debating and discussed and lived out in community rather than simply handed down by one central source?
Yeah we wouldn’t want that to happen today. Far from it.
I heard a couple great thoughts today while listening to some of Martin Luther’s bio today via Tripp Fuller and Craig Atwood (hint – you should listen to this great podcast as well and these are loose quotes from memory) ::
“I came to see Christ as my Savior rather than the hangman.”
“Folks got real nervous when Martin Luther began to take his faith seriously.”
“The priests and religious leaders start to get real nervous when people get excited about religion.”
So today I celebrate Reformation Day. Today I celebrate Priests in the Hood (aka the Priesthood of the believers) and hope you do too.
Here are Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis translated to English (and in the original intention of these thesis, your debate, comments and discussions are welcome here) ::