Conversations we Need to Have

Starting Sunday, July 6 our message series will focus on ”Conversations we need to have.”  We will focus on areas that are impacting us as individual believers and as the body of Christ.  We will focus on our conversations, depression and addictions, raising children who honor Christ, handling our finances, and why is it all that important to be connected to the church.  A conversation involves at least two people.  So, on Sunday mornings we will introduce a conversation.  During the week you are invited to take part by posting on this message board, sending an e-mail to Dan (Dan@springhillbaptist.org) or calling Dan, 973-7473.  

 

Finding your identity

Do you identify yourself as a Christian?  In a very interesting interview (about technology) on Scobleizer we meet Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger a long time IBM researcher and Chairman Emeritus of the IBM Academy of Technology until his recent retirement.  The interview centers on the technology that Dr. Wladawsky-Berger believes will strongly influence the next generation of web interaction.  And what technology is discussed — virtual worlds and social networking.  Yes, Second Life comes up again as well as other social networks (2D variety) such as Facebook.

What does this have to do with the church?  Well – a lot more than will be discussed in this post, but for the moment allow me to highlight one of the basic issues raised in the interview.  Identity!  In virtual worlds and social networks you can be anyone.  This is a very interesting and difficult technical problem.  But the challenges of technically portable and secure identity raise a very real world issue.  Who are you?

On FaceBook you can keep a public and private profile (for friends).  Is the fact you are a Christian part of your public profile – or is it just for your church friends?  Do you keep an identity at work and a different one on Sunday.  To some degree we all tend to work the system when introducing ourselves and participating in various friendship and business circles.  But what is your true identity?   What is your church’s identity?

No, this is not a typical reflection of the use of technology to assist the church in reaching people for Christ but it is an important technical journey that reveals something of ourselves.  One of the reasons technical identity is hard to establish may be because we don’t want to be the same person all the time.  So, as the web evolves and interactions become increasingly personal how will you represent Christ, represent yourself?  What’s your identity?

A Great Commission Church?

At midnight on July 16 Andy, Christina, Walker and Delaney landed in Uganda.  They are part of the Intnernational Service Corp of the International Mission Board.  They will be serving in Kampala.  When we commissioned them as a church I said to them and the congregation that the Berry’s were being obedient to God’s call on their life.  Now the church must be obedient.  That obedience will be evident in a lot of ways but there were three ways I told the Berry’s we would be obedient. 

1-We will pray for them and their work.  They are part of a team seeking to reach a city of several million for Christ.

2-We will come help them.  We will send short term teams to work with them. 

3-We will financially support their work.  I told them when they needed funds for a ministry project to let us know and we would gather the money. 

The above list would be a minimal list of what we can do.  Spring Hill, like many churches, wants to be a Great Commission church.  That will require us to be constantly sending out people both far and near (i.e. Munson’s, Berry’s and people who made up the Launch Teams for Spotswood and Seminole).  It will require generous giving.  It will be dependent on constant prayer. 

God keeps giving us opportunities to let our walk match our talk.  Let’s keep moving in His direction. 

Is everyone happy?

The question that seems to guide the vision and mission of a lot of churches is, “is everyone HERE happy with what we are doing?”  If not, “what can we do to make everyone happy?”  I do not want to completely minimize that question.  Areas of discontent often show us where ministries are deficient are new ministres need to be birthed.  But my experience has been that many churches decide that if we are all happy (or at least a good percentage of us are happy – we are baptist after all!) then we are effective in our ministry and mission.

The reality is that there are a lot of “happy” churches that are increasinlgy irrelevant to the culture and ineffective in mission.  The problem with the “is everyone happy” question is that it stops at the church walls.  We don’t take the time to consider the community.  Are they happy with the mission of the church?  What do they think we should be doing?   

Every Sunday, regardless of how “good” or “happy” we are at church I remind myself that there are hundreds of people in our community looking for a place to belong, a place of community, a place to find spiritual truth. 

Church is not about me or you -it is about the mission God has given us. 

Spend some time with a non-churched person and find out what would make them “happy” about a church in the community.  Please share with me what you find. 

The work of the church

Let me share two snapshots of the church at work this week.

The first picture is of 6 people walking through the international terminal at Dulles Airport.  They look tired AND refreshed.  They have just come back from 10 days in South Africa working with children who live in a desperate area.  They have shared God’s love with these children, provided clothing and lots of hugs.  They have come back with a sense of purpose as they seek to find ways to solve the hopelessness that many feel in the community in which they worked.

The second picture is of 21 teenagers and adults spreading mulch, painting, weeding, cleaning out storage rooms and mopping out the bus at Spring Hill.  All of the projects were much needed.  It doesn’t quite have the story line that the first picture has but yet it was important work.

Both pictures remind us that the church does not exists for US.  The first one tells us that the needs of the world are great.  The second one tells us that unless we get involved personally a lot of work in the church gets put off to another day or not done at all. 

Too often in the church we think “somebody should do something.”  But it takes somebody to DO something.  It has been exciting to see pictures of somebody DOING something this week! 

How friendly are you?

Every church wants to know how to grow.  What music style do we need?  What kind of preaching should we have?  Should we have Starbucks coffee or just “regular?”  Should we start some new ministries or rebirth some old ministries?  On and on the questions go.

Yet time and time again we have heard from the previously unchurched that they came to church when they were INVITED by a FRIEND.  That is not to say that we should not have exciting and relevant worship or we should not seek to have nice hospitality areas.  But those things pale in comparison to the impact of your personal invitation. 

So, how friendly are you?  Which one of your friends are you inviting to church this week?  What new friend are you going to meet at church this week? 

On Mission on e-bay?

This past week I joined our youth ministry for “youth outreach days.”  They did some great projects in the community.  On the last day they came to church to do some work.  I joined a group that was cleaning out a “storage area.” 

While we were cleaning we found several things that one of our members is going to post on e-bay (old copier, “left behind” dishes, etc).  There was some “dreaming” over how much everything would be worth.

All of this got me to thinking.  So often in the church we talk about lack of resources.  “We could really change the world IF we had the money!”  I’m wondering how much “money” we all have tied up in “stuff” that we have tucked away in closets, attics, storage sheds, etc.  What would happen if every Christian sold their stuff on e-bay and committed the proceeds to mission work?  How many lives could be changed globally by us cleaning out our closets?

This platform is not big enough to hit every Christian.  What about every Christian at Spring Hill?  Start looking around the house and determine what “stuff” could be put on mission.  Let me know what you find.  In the mean time I’m heading up to the church attic!

The Roleof Church as Communal Organism

The Role of Church as Communal Organism

by Bob Munson

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”  <Quote by Graham in the movie “Crash”, 2004>

Gordon Kaufman in The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God points out something that most of us know, but sometimes forget.

 “We are social beings to the deepest recesses of our nature. The attachment of infant to mother and of mother to child, of members of families and other intimate groups to each other, and later the wider loyalties to community, guild and nation, are expressive of our fundamental interdependence as human beings. …the real human being exists only in community, in a network of relationships which sustain her or him biologically, psychologically, or culturally and without which he or she could not exist.” <pgs. 58-59> 

When I was living in Orlando, Florida, a police detective came to my door, and asked questions about a neighbor. I had not known the person, and I soon realized that I knew no one in my apartment complex. The few people I spent time with were fellow students at school. We were friendly, but not all that close. At church I was put into the singles class, a dumping ground for church misfits My family and friends lived over 1,500 miles away. My situation then was not that different from millions in America and beyond today. 

What does it mean for the 21^st century church?

• The church must be countercultural. American culture drives people apart. Church culture must bring people together, developing interlocking networks of relationships… a community.
• The church should model cooperation, not competition. Leave competition to sporting events. Church should model a team concept where failures are dealt with within a supportive network, and successes are shared.
• The church should break barriers. Race, cultural background, and distance should not be barriers, but add excitement and interest to the community.
• The church should act as a communal organism. It is communal in the sense that it is made up of interrelating individuals, not mindless drones. It is an organism in the sense that each part has a function that works towards a communal goal.
• The church is on a mission. Church is not a love-in, a feel good place to hang-out. It is not a social club, but an organism created by God, for a mission. That mission comes together, in part, because of trusted relationships within the community.

As John Bowlby in Attachment and Loss, stated:

 “Human beings of all ages are found to be at their happiest and to be able to deploy their talents to best advantage when they are confident that, standing behind them, there are one or more trusted persons who will come to their aid should difficulties arise.”  <Vol. II, pg. 359> 

Kaufman goes on to further:

“The strong undercurrent of anxiety which most of us experience much of the time appears to be directly correlated with the absence, or potential absence, of such supporting figures.” <Kaufman, 59>

Perhaps the church of the 19^th or even 20^th centuries did not need to have this sense of community, because other social structures existed that met basic human needs. That is no longer true, and the church must change to adapt to this new reality.

EPIC Faith

In “The Gospel According to Starbucks” by Leonard Sweet the often lyrical Sweet suggests a vibrant Christian life is EPIC.

Experiental, Participartory, Image-rich and Connective

I can’t really think of four terms that better describe the current scene in social networking and how new technology can lift the church. Take Spring Hill for example:

• The web, the use of video sermons and the many different multi-site settings all set an experience for those in worship and fellowship.

• Missions and community events build participation (not to mention the many weekly service opportunities).

• The logo of family embraced by a heart (at least that is what I see) builds an image that is lasting in conveying the heart of Spring Hill and Christ.

• And finally the very real connections with faith and each other built through all of the above.

But how can technology take it even further? Well, look at any popular community site from YouTube to MySpace. Say what you want, they define an experience. With community content they are clearly participatory.  And check that friend list — connections are made every day across the technical frontier.  And how do images make it onto MySpace?  Often in the form of a PhotoBucket widget.  Yes, see Photobucket — a site dedicated to images (literally).

Not convinced how this can all be used in the pursuit of EPIC faith…see GodSpace for hands-on Christian social-networking.  (Simply check the YouTube video — user contributed no doubt — full of images and smack on the front page of a site dedicated to participation and connection in the faith space).

A couple of flat screens can project the images of Christian hope, simple lighting control can shape a mood in worship and here in this very blog you can add your comments and participate in the conversation of how today’s church reaches the Netster generation and beyond.  Connecting your thoughts in comment through the blogoshpere and into ministry action.

Think about it…the youth in your congregation don’t pass notes anymore — texting is faster!  They don’t read the web, they create it in community and images (24×7 tapestries of art, music, video — all on the nearest cell phone).  Will Spring Hill go EPIC with the effective and powerful use of media and technology as it proclaims the Truth (capital T) of Christ?  The church clearly has nothing to fear and everything to gain by extending community through “the network” that surrounds us.  As the printing press made the Bible available to virtually all — today’s connected communities accelerate the church’s ability to communicate the message of Christ (or the message against the truth).

What are your ideas for engaging in an EPIC faith?

Leadership that Matters

The church has leaders who are good at helping do its work, but if that work is not making any Kingdom difference, why are they doing it? Many churches maintain that there is a shortage of leaders for the ministry. Could it be that the ministry that requires leadership is not the ministry that draws leaders? Might there be legions of leaders on the outskirts of churches waiting desperately for a mission vision to which they can connect? Bill Hybels believes this to be true. He consistently talks about “high capacity leaders” who are sitting on the “bench” of the church waiting for a reason to get in the game. Are the leaders of the church’s ministry working outside the church? Could the apostolic leadership of today be observed in the rise of “social entrepreneurs?”

Social entrepreneurs go after big problems and work to make sweeping, long-term changes. Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin founded KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) to make significant changes in underachieving public schools that service underprivileged students. KIPP has managed to help children and schools make significant improvements on test scores and behavioral issues. 

“Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people only see problems. They view the villagers as the solution, not the passive beneficiary. They begin with the assumption of competence and unleash resources in the communities they’re serving.” Some believe that the rise of social entrepreneurs will radically change the way our culture deals with social problems. Levin says, “We don’t go to bed at night, wondering why we are on the planet.” How many high capacity leaders in the church are wondering why their church is even in existence? 

I believe there is a huge source of leaders in our community.  They want to engage in something beyond “corporate America.”  They want to make a difference in the community and the world.  When the church goes after “big things” they are drawn in.  When the church flounders around trying to figure out how to find small resources for small problems we lose them. 

Spring Hill leadership culture is slowly changing so that we focus on a large mission.  As we do more of that I believe we will find leaders coming through the woodwork.