I was a shepherd in the traditional/conventional church. I also served as a deacon, a preacher, and a missionary. Today I believe more in the church of Bob Evans every Sunday afternoon, the church at Starbucks on Friday evenings and then there is my new institutional church at a University Hospital. (FYI—degrees in Nuclear Medicine and Bible; chose to make my living from the medical side)

For employees who have excessive absenteeism or a history of tardiness there is a policy that places them in a process with the end result being dismissal (verbal warning, written warning, etc) I choose not to do that. Instead I invite them into my office and use the wisdom that comes with sixty years of life and the spiritual wisdom God has blessed me with nudging them closer to success and Jesus (this is my policy and the process I choose). I really believe if I died tomorrow the employees of this institution would carry signs to my funeral expressing their love for me.

And then there are the folks at New Wineskins who encourage me in my wacky writings and the conversations I have with the many I talk with in Christian circles.

I am blessed!

Files under Church, Culture, How to Live, Jesus, conventional church, conversation, future church, influence, love, missional, orbiting the church, revolution, unchurched | |

Mike Cope, one of three senior editors emeritus at New Wineskins Magazine presents anecdotal evidence for the deep faith of Hillary Clinton. And while he’s at it, Mike gives sage advice for those who would get rowdy, loud, and excited during politico season. As Mike says,

“when vigorous political discourse turns into bashing of public figures, it perpetuates a great lie: that they are merely the ideologies and symbols attached to them. When a candidate’s ideology is mistaken for his or her personhood, it masks a crucial truth: that each person, no matter their political views, bears God’s image and matters deeply to him.”

Thanks for the be-good reminder Mike! You can read the complete post [here]

By chance or providence I happened to be on vacation when my wife and I visited the Pine Valley Church of Christ in Wilmington, NC. It just so happened that on that same day Mike Cope preached his inaugural sermon at his new church home. Mike couldn’t have been older than 25 years. He had a beautiful young family to support him in this newly accepted position at the Pine Valley Church. I’m sure there were the good times as well as the bad. Mike if you happen to stumble on this correct me where I’m wrong.

Files under Hillary Clinton, How to Live, Mike Cope, Political Correctness, Presidential Canidates, blogging, conventional church, creative, democrate, influence, politics, republican | |

Read my conversation with Alan Hirsch, the author of The Forgotten Ways [here]

I was shocked when I heard that Leonard Sweet had accepted the position left vacant at Grace Community Church with the firing of John MacArthur. Read the complete story [here]

Files under Alan Hirsch, April Fool, Consumerism, Culture, Evangelism, Interviews, Leonard Sweet, conventional church, conversation, emergent, mission, missional | 2 Comments | 2 Comments »

In many churches this Sunday “preachers” will stand before an assembly and preach on a topic they gave their week, their blood and their sweat for. It’s what they were trained to do and in most cases it’s what they like to do. But sad for them—preaching isn’t what it used to be. All those homiletic techniques they slogged through while in school and practice Sunday after Sunday is slowly losing traction.

In the last five years we’ve seen the demise of the three point lecture. Who would have thought this time-tested gem would go the way of the cute acronym? Then there’s the bulleted list. People just don’t seem to like them anymore. Maybe it’s just other people’s list they object to. Now they want to make their own.

As if paid staffing issues aren’t enough, the “rules of cool” seemed to have morphed overnight. Just when you threw your overhead projector in the trash bin. Just when you shelled out what seemed like an obscene amount of money for that miniscule-lumens LCD projector the savvy pew sitter grew tired of bulleted outlines and PowerPoint notes. It’s not what they want—but they sure seem to like pictures. Just don’t expect to put up a nice blue sky, flowery stuff you can order in packages every six weeks. No, they want pictures of nature at its mysterious best. And anything mundane, missed, forgotten, even ugly. They also want to see all kinds of people. They want to hear stories they can relate to from the people they know and don’t know.

Normal. Messed up.
Extraordinary folks.

So hand over the microphone; the assembly wants a fresh retelling of the Grand Story in the context of real lives.

Yes, I commiserate with the modern day preacher. If it weren’t so downright refreshing, it’d be worth a cry.

Files under Church, conventional church | |

Innovators are gifted with an irresistible impulse that burns deep within. They are the fountainheads of originality. Challenging the status quo with a creative idea has the potential of carrying them across the endorphin threshold. It’s about the danger of crashing. It is immeasurable, magical, and unpredictable.

Uncertain of the outcome and fearful of a congregation’s reception, immeasurable (creative) ideas are rarely implemented.  Most often they are capped in favor of measureable results. There is little room for the imaginative in a layered institution. If the creative doesn’t know, he or she soon learns not to force the issue.

They operate independent of the crowd. They set aside any herd longing of sameness relying instead on their God-given faith and creative talents.  They side-step the disparaging remarks, ridicule, and disapproval—knowing they “must” if they are going to gain the briefest hearing.

I thank God for these persevering pioneers. We need the creativity of the maven.

Having trouble with the idea of your own genius? My guess is that there was a time—perhaps when you were very young—when you had at least a fleeting notion of your own genius and were just waiting for some authority figure to come along and validate it for you.

But none came.

Of course not. It’s not the business of authoritative figures to validate thinkers; creatives threaten conventional wisdom.

But there is hope. Choose to become your own authority figure. If you do you’ll soon find yourself in position to redeem the creative genius in you that was put to sleep when the Fool was being tamed.

Reviving the creative genius in you is the beginning of Orbit.

Files under Church, conventional church, creative, fear, influence, leadership, orbit, orbiting the church | |

Have you ever wondered what those little squiggly lines are that float across your line of sight? I call them eye floaters. Some view them as tiny flecks or “wormy” substances floating about their field of vision. If you try to stare at them for a better look, they float off to the side. Look the other way and they reappear.

Creativity is like that. It will not be looked at. As soon as you become conscious of it—it vanishes. Forget about it…stop focusing on it…and it returns. Simply put—you cannot measure the creative process.

In the eye of most church leaders, anything that cannot be measured is of doubtful value. For some, the immeasurable likens doubtful existence.

No surprise that conventional church leaders are loath to commit resources or moral support to the amorphous concept of creativity. It’s all about the bottom line. Yet I find it both curious and peculiar that church leaders lust for the fruits of creativity, but mistrust the act of creativity.

Renegades who orbit the conventional church, removed from the compulsive preoccupation with results and bottom lines, are the ones free to reap the unpredictable amplitude of the creative process.

Files under Church, conventional church, creative, creativite, orbiting the church | 2 Comments | 2 Comments »

A friend at Starbucks on Saturday. Four or five couples at Bob Evans on Sunday. This is as close as it gets to “church.” The idea is most representative of what the early Christians did two millennium ago. They spent time together, ate together and shared together, Hence they knew each other well.

This is what our little group of Jesus followers prefers; meaningful relationships outside the rigid structures of America’s skewed understanding of church. Before I go on, I need to tell you that we all still attend the Sunday assemble. We just no longer do “church work” as defined by the institution. We’re not willing to fall into the trappings of traditional church. And how do we keep from being sucked back in? As Gordon MacKenzie, says, “You go into orbit.”

Have you got a minute? Good. Because I want introduce you to the concept of orbiting. Orbiting is responsible creativity that energetically explores and operates beyond the gravity of church models, patterns, accepted norms, and contemporary standards while remaining connected to the spirit of what western culture has come to define as church.

To enter orbit around the “contemporary-traditional-church” is to find a place of balance where you benefit from the resources of the organization without becoming entombed in the institution. How do you enter orbit? By seizing the best course of action for turning one’s vision into a reality while avoiding the pallid path of “church appropriateness.” You’re ready for all this, right? Good. I’ll go then.

To be of optimum value to the “appropriate church” endeavor, you have to invest enough individuality to counteract the drag of the “appropriate church,” but not so much that you escape the pull altogether. I want to hover just beyond the gravitational pull of the “appropriate church’s” programs, ministries and premeditated Sunday morning worship. Through the measured assertion of my own uniqueness I’m reestablishing a dynamic relationship with the appropriate church. I find its gravitational drag an asset that keeps me from floating out into the overwhelming nothingness of what is embryonic, emerging and still evolving. Yet I must be carefully not to allow that same gravity to suck me into the church trichobezoar, or I’ll find myself in a different kind of nothingness. The nothingness of normalcy made stagnant by the contemporary consumer’s “appropriate church.” Orbiting the appropriate and normal is the only place where you can tap your one-of-a-kind magic, your limitless creativity.

Files under Church, appropriate church, conventional church, conversation, creative, institutions, orbit, orbiting the church | 10 Comments | 10 Comments »