Words from the WellRandom Thoughts on Christ, the Church and Technology

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending Unleash 2010 at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. It was a day that was filled with incredible worship, inspiring preaching, great breakout sessions, and, allow me to geek out for a minute, absolutely amazing lighting and set design. But what impacted me most was this little note card that was handed to me, and every other Unleash participant as we left. Inside this card is a HANDWRITTEN note from one of the hundreds of NewSpring volunteers that help make Unleash possible.

Now this note was not written specifically to me. It was to an Unleash participant. It didn’t have my name on it and Julie (NS Volunteer) has no idea who received her card, but that does not lessen its impact. The fact that volunteers took valuable time to hand-write thousands of these cards is what impacted me. It wasn’t what the card said, it was the card itself.

This card was the cherry on top of the sundae that the NewSpring Volunteers built for me yesterday. It began as I arrived on campus, greeted by volunteers lining the parking lot, waving, smiling and directing me to a parking space in a friendly, efficient manner. Then there were the volunteers that cheered as I got close to the building, those that smiled and handed me my conference packet, the ones that directed me through the doors, those that offered me free coffee, or helped me find a seat in the auditorium. Everywhere I went I was greeted by NewSpring volunteers in brightly colored t-shirts offering me encouragement and help. It was incredible.

I realized two things from all this:

1. Churches can learn from what I experienced yesterday. It was only my second time on the NS campus but I felt at home. I felt as though I belonged there. I know that coordinating all those volunteers was not a simple task but I think that it was worth it. (BTW, from what I hear Unleash is not that different from what NS is like on any Sunday!)
2. Because I did not have to fight to find a parking place, because registration was simple, because everything was easy to find, I felt at ease as I entered worship. I was ready to worship because distractions had been removed by an awesome team of volunteers.

Imagine if more churches made everyone (not just guests) feel that welcome on Sunday morning. I think it would go a long way.

Thanks NewSpring Volunteers!

After seeing photos like this and this Saturday afternoon. My wife and decided that we would get up early and head up to the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, SC for church. The excitement that I was getting from seeing Twitter updates and text messages from friends that were involved we knew that we needed to be a part of NewSpring’s 10th anniversary celebration even though we do not attend NewSpring.

So we got up early and drove 2 hours in very dreary weather, arriving at the Bi-Lo center just a few minutes before the doors opened. We stood in the rain with no umbrella (who wants to carry an umbrella into an arena anyway) until the doors opened. We followed the crowd through the doors, past the cheering NewSpringers that are shouting chants of “Jesus…Jesus…Jesus” and high fiving us as we went past.  This was certainly not like any other church service that I had been to.

We had some doughnuts and coffee and saw a few people with popcorn, or nachos and even french fries! I have seen some strange things in church, but never french fries.

I have seen churches get in crazy fights over putting in one projection screen. I wonder what they would say about 12?

It was electric, the videos were playing, the boom sticks were…well, they were booming, and the beach balls were bouncing all over the place, and then we did the wave! I’ve never done the wave in church before.

When things got started it was amazing. The lights, the sound, the video, the HUGE band, etc. The crowd, or congregation, was going wild singing God’s praise. It was a beautiful thing, that I have done in church before.

Now I bet a few of you reading this are seething right now, you can’t imagine how God could be glorified in such a secular setting, after all, this was an arena, not a church building.  For some of you it was the band that makes you mad, for some it was the screens, a few of you are ticked off at the idea of french fries in church.

For those that are mad, I’m sorry that you feel that way because my favorite part of the day was when Perry Noble, the Pastor of NewSpring, stood on stage and said, “This is Church!” He was right. It was church, it didn’t matter what that building had been the day before, or the week before, at that moment it was church. It was 15,000 of God’s children gathered together to praise His name and that, my friends, is church. It’s not traditional. It may not be what you think of when you think of church, but it was church.

My point is that we all have different visions of what it means to have church. For some it is stuffy and quiet, for some it is casual and loud. But none of that matters.  What matters is that we gather together and worship our great and mighty God. Our God that has saved us from ourselves.  Our God that has plucked us up from certain death and given us the gift of eternal life. Our God who loved us while we were still vile. Our God that created our universe. We may have different worship styles but Who we worship remains the same.

So next time you want to criticize a church or a person or a pastor because you don’t like their particular worship style just remember that they worship the same God you do.

Here are some incredible photos of the celebration!

Click on the photo for a before and after shot.

As a former church staff member and now a volunteer serving in a church I have a unique perspective on this thing we call “service.”  I’ll grant you none of these thoughts are original, I think that they just come from a different perspective.

With that being said, here are those thoughts:

• People too often serve out of guilt.  It’s the “If I don’t do it no one will” syndrome.  I think that often staff members are to blame on this one, but church members bear some of the responsibility as well.  The reasons that this happens would take pages and pages of words and I would still miss some of the excuses and reasons.  The thing to recognize here is that sometimes people guilt themselves or others into service.  This is not a good thing.
• Church staff members react to the guilt problem by in turn trying to “protect” members by not asking (or allowing) them to serve.  This is not good either.
• Sometimes church members are asked to serve but are not empowered to do what they are asked to do.  Churches are quick to give people responsibilities.  The problem is that they don’t often empower them to do ministry.  Let me explain.  Often staff will delegate responsibilities to volunteers.  When they delegate those responsibilities it means that the staff is still ultimately responsible for the outcomes, good or bad.  When a volunteer is empowered they are given the authority to do what needs to be done within the parameters set by the vision for the church.  For a more detailed of the difference between delegation and empowerment look at Tony Morgan’s post here.
• Asking for volunteers can be seen as a sign of weakness or laziness.  Empowering someone could be seen as a staff member not doing their job.  I believe that this is the opposite of true.  If a staff member is not empowering volunteers to do ministry then he/she is not being as effective as they can be.
• Volunteers have sometimes gone off the deep end and pursued activities and values that didn’t match the churches vision.  As a result, staff members have become gun shy when it comes to empowering volunteers.

So there you have it, a virtual mind dump of, well, thoughts, good or bad, valid or off the wall, they are there.  The question is, “what now?”

Well, I believe that there are lots of church members out there that truly want to serve their God and their church.  They want to do this not out of guilt, but out of love.  What they need is permission and empowerment.  If church staffs will learn how to empower, not delegate and if volunteers will use the vision for their church as their guide the world be turned on its ear.

Don’t delegate responsibilities, delegate authority. Delegating responsibilities creates followers. Delegating authority creates leaders.

Craig Groeschel

Are you empowering or delegating?  Are your volunteers serving out of guilt or love?

I have been thinking about this for a few days.  How do I see people?  My answer really dissapointed me.  I see people through my eyes, my prejudice, my experience, my social mores, my emotions, my understanding, etc.  What I really want to do is to see people through Jesus’ eyes. Seeing people through His eyes mean that I will see them for who they really are.  I will see their hurts, their needs, their desires, I will see past their sin and depravity and see them with love.  I will see them as they can be, not as they are.

This song really hits this home for me.  Take a listen and pray for His eyes in your life and mine.

I saw this video posted over on Michael Trent’s blog.  I LOVE it for several reasons, first the production is top notch, but really the message is what stands out.  This is what I long for in a church, to be honest, my church is not quite there yet, we are trying, but aren’t quite there.  Take a look, what do you think?

When I was a full-time member of a church staff I always dreaded the benevolence requests. I didn’t hate them, I just dreaded the uncomfortable feeling that I got. It was caused by my struggles between the commands of scripture and the realities of needing to determine the neediness of the person making the request. We have all been told that most people asking for money from a church just want to buy drugs, or alcohol; or that they don’t really need the money, they are just playing the system. So to combat this churches have come up with elaborate systems to make sure that they don’t get abused. These systems range from the “no cash” policy, to extensive databases that catalog requests. Now I am not saying that those systems and policies are wrong, but I am saying that I am afraid that they breed a form of fear, apathy and spiritual arrogance that is dangerous for the Church and it’s witness. Let me share with you two stories that illustrate my point…

The first story happened just a few days ago and really broke my heart. This is what happens when our attitude towards those less fortunate goes the wrong way.

I was at church early on Sunday afternoon for a Children’s Choir rehearsal. A man who didn’t look like me (or anyone else at church) entered the building and sat down in the sanctuary. At some point someone asked him if he was looking for someone and he said that he was looking for some gas money. My wife heard this and asked if I could help him since she was busy with the kids. I took the man to the office so that I could find a staff member to help him. I knew that the church has policies and resources that I personally don’t have. Since it was early, there was no one on staff at the church. I decided to do something that is contrary to what most churches allow. I gave the man some CASH! That’s right, I handed him $5 and looked him straight in the eyes and said, “You ARE going to buy gas with this, right?” He said yes and left. Now you’ve gotten this far and are wondering why this broke my heart. Here’s why. As he was walking out the door and I was walking down the hall one of our members came in the same door that he exited. She saw me and hollered down the hall to me, “Kenny, do you know that man?” ( I don’t know, but I am pretty sure that he was still within earshot.) The sub-text of her question seemed to say to me (and him?) “what was HE doing here?”, “what did HE want?”. About this same time, another member came down another hall, and asked the lady questioning me if she would walk her granddaughter to the sanctuary because she didn’t want her walking in the church alone after what she had just walked in and seen in the church (she was referring to the man that I had tried to help).

Now before you start making comments about all the reasons that these ladies had to be worried, concerned, etc. Let me say that I totally understand their comments, but, they illustrate a disease that the church suffers from today. This is why this story breaks my heart.

1. The first ladies immediate thought was that the man was an enemy that could not be trusted. I so wish that the first words out of her mouth were something like, “Kenny, did that gentlemen need some help?”
2. The grandmother’s statement was made in front of her granddaughter, it sent two possible messages, one was racial, the other was that people who don’t go to church here may be out to hurt you. So wrong on both counts.
3. I didn’t tell anyone but my wife that I gave the man cash, because I knew that I would what others would say about my breaking the rules!

Here’s the second story.

A pastor friend of mine was in his office one day when a homeless man entered the church office needing some assistance. My friend has told me that he really wasn’t “in the mood” to deal with this man. He was dirty and stinky and my friend had things to do. He knew that he HAD to deal with it but his heart wasn’t really in it. He spoke to the man and then went to get some paperwork. He took his time. When he came back he couldn’t believe what he saw. On the floor beside the man was the pastors secretary, on her knees, with a bucket of water and a wash rag. She had removed the man’s shoes and socks and begun to wash his nasty feet. BAM! There she was, being Jesus to this man. My friend said that he has never been the same. I never will be either.

My point? My point is that we should welcome the uncomfortable feeling that I described in the beginning. That feeling that is a struggle between just tossing money at everyone and being effective stewards of what God has entrusted to us. I gave that man cash because at the time I felt the Holy Spirit leading me in that direction, I decided to be obedient. What I long for is for us to rely more on what the Holy Spirit is leading than what our policies and procedures demand. I want the “least of these” to stir our compassion, not our indignation. I want the Church to become known for love, not for rules. I think that this is what God wants too.

If by some strange chance one of the people in these stories reads this. I am not aiming to judge you or your actions, you simply provide illustration for what I perceive as being a problem with the Church and Christians. It’s not personal.

A few months back I had the awesome privilege of baptizing my youngest daughter. Words cannot express how amazing it is to be able to baptize both of your children. Our church records every baptism and each person that is baptized gets a DVD of their baptism. Here is the video of Sarah’s, I just wanted to share it with the world.

Sarah’s Baptism

Let me start by saying that I don’t use Media Shout every week. I used to, but now we have several other people that create our MS content and run the show on Sunday mornings. However, this past week I had to use MS for a special presentation. This meant that I had to start from scratch and build my own script. Let’s see…how can I sum up my experience with Media Shout? Well, to put it bluntly…IT SUCKED! Why you ask?

1. It will not playback mp4 files natively. You have to use a third party codec pack and even then it is not reliable. Because of this I had to play my beautiful mp4 files in QT Player, not very elegant, but it didn’t crash the machine every time like MS did.
2. Doesn’t recognize the correct video dimensions. If I create a cue with an mp4 file (did this before I realized that it wouldn’t work) MS sees the video as being larger than it is and uses the wrong aspect ratio, I have to go in and manually create the correct dimensions for each video!
3. Too many clicks. In MS it takes way too many clicks to do anything. For example, I wanted to play a video from an in point to an out point and have it dissolve in and out. To do this, I had to create a 1 sec black cue that dissolved and continued to the next cue automatically and place those cues before and after the video cue. Why can’t the video just dissolve in?
4. The interface is clunky. We are using MS 3.5.??. We have not and probably will not upgrade to 4.0. The interface of 3.5 is clunky and confusing. It takes weeks for someone to become comfortable enough to run a service.

I just said that we probably will not upgrade MS to 4.0, and I mean it. I am looking very hard at ProPresenter. Why? Well, for starters look at the list above and from what I have seen about 4.0 they have not addressed the video playback issue. I do not understand this. With video being used every week, why would you not make your product work with the latest and greatest codecs? And all you Mac haters out there, don’t start with Macs are more expensive and all that crap. It is simply not true. In fact, our MS computer is a $2500 HP workstation. And it can’t playback an H.264 file without crashing. For less money I can get an iMac that will perform better.

Bottom line is that MediaShout is losing the battle to remain relevant.

Anyone have any other thoughts?

I go to a church that whose community has changed radically in the past 15 years.  We have not done much to react to this change.  Life has gone on with membership being bolstered by a very personable pastor, a faithful membership and a few heads being stuck in the sand.  In the last 8 years this church has gone through some significant changes that have had negative effects on the church.  The realization is beginning to set in.  We must do something.  Needless to say there are plenty of ideas bouncing around.  One of the most popular discussions out there is how we can reach our community.  We seem to be looking for that “magic bullet.” That amazing program, or worship service, or whatever that will magically connect with a community that looks very little like the rest of the church.

While studying and reading today I had an epiphany.  Now to must of you this won’t sound particularly profound, in fact, you may think, “duh.”  Anyway, here goes…we don’t need to do anything more than being Christ and loving our community.  If we continue to look at our community as though they are different, we will continue to send the message that we are better than they are.  This is certainly not the message of Christ.

I think that too many churches are looking for the next magic bullet.  The next thing that will separate them and magically make them attractive to outsiders.  I have great news for you.  You already have it.  It’s called love.  Jesus wants you to love those around you.  Whether they look like you, think like you or act like you is irrelevant.  God says to love them.  As I write this two old hymns have come to mind. First, we must remember where we have come from  and that Christ died for everyone, “Alas and did my Savior bleed…for such a worm as I…”  We need to get back in touch with our worminess (yes, I said worm. I know that many hymnals have replaced that with sinner, fool, etc. but I like worm, so there) and remember that we are not so different from those around us and we are certainly not better than anyone.  Second, “They will know we are Christians by our love…”  Not by our worship style, not by our Sunday School attendance, not by how we dress for church, not by any of the traditional standards that we try to place on people, but by our love.

We must learn to shout “Jesus love you” to our communities, our friends, our neighbors and our co-workers. We do this with our lives, living sold out to Jesus.

What are you doing that shouts “Jesus loves you?”

UPDATE: I warned you that this “epiphany” was nothing new. After I posted this I found this post on Dino Rizzo’s blog.

I am in a season of intense questioning, struggling with what I am supposed to “look” like as a Christian.  This is an interesting, confusing, exciting time of personal growth.  I invite you to join the ride with me, as I look deeply inward at who it is that God created me to be, and far outward at His creation.

13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.  http://youversion.com/nlt/Col.2.13

I struggle with the truth of this passage.  I know what it means, I know that it is true, I believe that I am saved only by God’s grace. BUT (you had to see that one coming) I really struggle living this truth out in my life.  Partially I blame the Church.  (Before you post that nasty comment about personal responsibility, please note that I said partially.) Instead of being a safe place to find refuge, comfort and forgiveness the Church has become a place of dogmatism, condemnation and hate; not really the picture of Christ that we are supposed to be.  Consider the church sign that I pass every day on the way to and from my home.  This morning it read “Consider the high cost of low living.”  Sounds good right?  Nice little turn of phrase, shows a little creativity and it is true, there is a cost to living out of God’s will, but is that the message that we want everyone that drives by a church to get?  I don’t think that it is.  As the old saying goes, “You catch more flies with honey, than you do with vinegar.”  God’s grace disarmed the religious authorities and their attempts to use religion to rule, in some ways I think that is what the Church is trying to do today.  Christians are sometimes more interested in condemning than they are in redeeming.  As Christians we are called to be salt and light, two things that are good, two things that are positive, two things that bring about change.  We are to be Christ to a world that doesn’t know Him.  We are called to live in His grace and we cannot do that when we are pointing out the faults in others.

I want desparately to live in Grace, both for myself and for those around me that do not know Christ.  How about you?