Bad Posture: I flipped a guy off! - Hugh Halter - Wet Mud... musings from the Street

I have recently begun participating in an online collaboration called MCAP, run by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay.  Hugh recently wrote a great blog post about maintaining a proper missionary posture towards the culture.  There is a great part about where he flipped a guy off, but you should read it for yourself.  Enjoy!  (You gotta love how I just made it sound so juicy that now you have to read the article!)

This post takes a break from my usual rant against consumerism and the foreclosure crisis to bring you some good posts related to house churches and people I know.

1. Simple Church Journal is a great site I read that keeps you thinking about how house churches can be utilized in reaching the lost.  In particular, as they relate to CPMs (Church Planting Movements).  Check out this post that highlights David Watson's work on CPM's.
2. Also, my former church planting professor, JD Payne, was highlighted on Simple Church Journal as well.  His new book, Missional House Churches, is summarized nicely.  P.S. - Check out his website http://northamericanmissions.org because I made it :)

Next-Wave-Magazine - Worship as Evangelism This article is by a Sally Morganthaler who wrote the book Worship Evangelism. The article basically is her confession, that the contemporary worship movement that she so actively followed has not really reached the unchurched. In fact, she even shut down her website designed to equip churches implementing contemporary worship. I highly encourage you to read the whole thing since it outlines this woman's journey from the beginning of the contemporary worship movement in the late 80's early 90's to its present state. HT: House Church Blog

This website is a great resource for a perspective on the missional conversation taking place in areas other than the Unites States. The following is a podcast by Dr. Alan Roxburgh which highlights how generational differences change the way people perceive how the church should express itself in a meaningful way to the culture. Enjoy! Listen Here

They’re so good at evangelism, they even converted a building! This blog entry is part of an experiment by a Christian radio talk show host named Drew Marshall. He offered to pay some non-Christians to go to some churches in the Toronto area. This blog talks about their experience at a mega-church, and it is worth the read. Particularly, it should wake Christians up to see how an educated non-Christian sees a mega-church that is relying on being mostly attractional in its approach to reach people. (Attractional Church = majority of time money and man hours goes into the Sunday service). An excerpt:

This part of Bruxy’s series was about attitudes towards money - specifically, those of “The Secret” versus those of Christ. Great talk, very clearly pointing out the Bible’s really clear messages on money and wealth. I was impressed with Bruxy’s insistence on putting traditionally over-used quotes in context, which makes them clearer and points out how they’re usually mis-quoted. I also liked his style - yes, he was preaching the traditional message of “Seek His kingdom and the rest will follow”, and “We shouldn’t value money or possessions enough to seek them”, but he delivered it well. The line “God doesn’t need your money” really sat well with me - what omnipotent divinity needs the feeble human trappings of finance? Also really liked the way he pointed out that those who are wealthy shouldn’t be judged as impure or imperfect - that lesson often gets missed by those eager to be “the meek and poor”, and thus the inheritors of the earth. That said, I always get irritated by this topic as far as Christianity is concerned. Why is it that I should not seek out possessions and money, but the church is permitted to do just that? Does taking 10% of every congregant’s income not count as seeking out money? Why should the institution be rich, and the congregation not? If you really believe you should be living the aesthetic life led by Christ and his apostles, why aren’t you doing it? If money and possessions aren’t important, why aren’t you meeting to discuss the meaning of Christ’s ideas and life in the local park? Notwithstanding the need to broadcast to your rather large congregation, and obviously you’d have to come up with a solution during the winter months, but really: why the son et lumiere? I found the medium more than a bit out of whack with the message.

It has come to my attention that the church must take more seriously the medium it chooses to proclaim the Gospel. I have no doubt that the preacher gave the clearest, doctrinally sound presentation of what the text in the Bible intended. But that is not the chief concern of the non-Christian here and in most of North America. Instead, it is the method used to communicate that truth (flashy lights and sound) that is essentially, drowning out the message altogether. If this is the case, then for whom does the church do the elaborate Sunday service? Probably not those who are genuinely unchurched.

Here's a plan for saving the city This article is possibly the best stab at fixing the problems that plague the city of Cleveland, or any other major urban area. The main idea of the article is decentralizing the responsibility of governing areas of the city to prominent people in the city. I like this idea because there is a sense in which Jesus described the church like this. "A priesthood of believers" is a metaphor used in the bible and has radical implications. Priests are usually thought of as elite clergy who are "people of the cloth." But the church of Jesus Christ is called to put the power in the people and train them to responsibly represent the kingdom (or city) to which they truly belong....the kingdom (or city) of God. So according to the bible, everyone in the church is a priest...not just a small group. So when it comes to how to divy up responsibility to govern people, there is inherent wisdom in not giving the responsibility of governing a major urban area to a small group of people in government. Instead, they should invest their time and energy in equipping people in the city to take responsibility over their area of the city and network with leaders in other areas. Good stuff.

RELEVANT MAGAZINE If you are at all interested in understanding the Christian church's need to get with the times.....read this article. The internet is profoundly shaping the current generation and ultimately society as we know it. If you use any web service such as Flickr, YouTube or Wikipedia, then you will love this article. If the church would understand (and at some points embrace) what the internet is changing, it would certainly be a revolution for the better.

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Sex Offenders Test Churches’ Core Beliefs - New York Times It is always interesting when a church is really challenged by the world in stories like this. When former sex offenders come into a church openly seeking a place of worship, how will the church respond?

Well, Now We Have GodTube In case you have missed the latest craze....Godtube is here. A youtube clone for Christian videos. The site it controlled by the user base and site administrators to keep objectionable videos from being posted. I found this interesting because a secular blog picked it up and pointed out something.

"I think JesusTube would have been a better name choice, though, given that this is restricted to the Christian God."

House Church Blog: Hirsch: From Consumerism to Missional Adventure