The Internet Monk Archives

Thom Rainer on Megachurch Trends

The churches in the U.S. that get the most public attention are the megachurches. Dr. Thom Rainer, the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources (SBC), is a leader in a denomination that has always put the spotlight on large and growing congregations. In a recent article, Rainer listed seven trends he sees in megachurches today:

1. Further consolidation of people attending church in megachurches and other large churches. Currently more than 50 percent of church attendees attend the largest 10 percent of churches. Megachurches continue to draw people from small and mid-sized churches.

2. A significant increase in the number of megachurches in America. There are about 1600 megachurches in the U.S. today, compared to 50 in 1970. The rate of growth has recently been decreasing. Will this trend continue?

3. An increased interest in the long-term sustainability of the megachurch. Rainer notes that the ten largest U.S. churches in 1969 are not among the largest today. Will the megachurch model be sustainable?

4. More youthful megachurch pastors. The average age of a megachurch pastor today is 47. Twenty five megachurches have pastors younger than 38. In contrast to the older pattern of pastors climbing a career ladder from smaller to larger churches, today there is a definite movement younger.

5. More multi-venue, multi-campus churches. “Large” doesn’t necessarily mean large at one location. Rainer sees churches building smaller facilities, but more of them.

6. A greater interest in groups. Small groups of various kinds continue to play a key role for assimilating people and getting them involved in megachurches.

7. A greater interest in the source of growth of megachurches. Rainer suggests that megachurches will do even more in-depth analysis of how and why they are growing. Is it transfer growth? Unchurched Christians returning to church? Evangelism growth?

* * *

I think it is fair to say that many of us who write, read, and comment here on Internet Monk are not big fans of megachurches for a variety of reasons. In our discussion today, I’d like for us to try and avoid blanket critiques. Instead, let’s think about these congregations and why they continue to multiply and grow and have influence in our culture. Share some thoughts about the megachurches you have observed in your own communities. What is happening in them, and in what directions do you see them heading?

I have special interest in the question of sustainability. What do you see megachurches doing to ensure their survival and continued relevance over the long haul?

Some Things That Caught My Attention

Your iMonk prior, Fr. Dunn, is down for the count with the flu. Or at least a very bad cold. I’ve always suspected him of having Witzelsucht, but maybe he comes by his weird humor naturally. In any case, I am here as your substitute scribe for the day. Who am I? I go by the Synonymous Rambler. And that is all you need to know.

We will touch on a few subjects today in Jeff’s absence, and then open the floor for discussion.

Dr. Karen King, a historian from the Harvard Divinity School, revealed a small piece of papyrus that supposedly includes the line, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…'” Scholars around the world are weighing in on the viability of this find, calling into question whether or not it is authentic and, if it is, what it really said in context. Armchair scholars are reaching for their copies of The da Vinci Code by Dan Brown to compare notes. Jeff was immersed in world of Brown and his codes about ten years ago, editing one book and authoring another that dealt with the theory that Jesus was married. I’m sure he could go into more depth about this and its implications.

My feeling about this find? Who knows? Who cares? If this scrap of papyrus could be proven to be true, what difference does it make? It is obviously not taken from a book of accepted Scripture. I doubt Jesus was married—that would have been a pretty big detail to leave out of the entire New Testament! If he was, that did not affect him being both the Son of Man and the Son of God at once. This seems to me to be another Shroud of Turin. Is that really the burial cloth used to cover Jesus? Who cares? We know that some cloth did—it very well could have been the Turin one. What is more important to me is that Jesus shed his shroud and rose again. For that there is no proof. We must come to God by faith, not by sight.

How am I doing so far, iMonks?

Continue reading “Some Things That Caught My Attention”

Game of Errors

And yet another story about why I love baseball so much…

Jeff Passan and Kevin Kaduk at Yahoo Sports report:

Sometime this weekend, an unlucky soul will commit the 500,000th error in baseball history. It has taken the sport 136 years to accumulate enough bobbles, bungles, kicks, trips, flips, flops, flings and altogether awful things to reach half a million. And whether it’s a bad hop, a worse throw or any of the hundreds of other ways to work yourself onto the scorecard, someone will earn a historic Scarlet E.

Any game that keeps track of its blunders like that, ya gotta love.

In Kaduk’s piece, he ranks the top ten errors over the years, and three of them resonate painfully in this Cubs’ fan heart.

In 1984, the Cubs were in the NLCS, leading the Padres two games to none. The Padres came back to tie the series, and then in the seventh inning of the deciding contest, Tim Flannery hit a grounder that the Cubs’ Leon Durham booted. His miscue allowed the Padres to score the tying run and they went on to win the game and the series, booting the Cubs out of the playoffs.

Interestingly, Durham’s glove had been soaked with Gatorade when Cubs’ star Ryne Sandberg spilled his drink on it earlier in the game.

Yes, Gatorade.

I love baseball. Perhaps my best chance to see the Cubs get to the World Series in my lifetime, and a guy gets Gatorade all over his glove and misses a grounder.

* * *

My next best chance was in 2003. I don’t even want to talk about it, but since Kaduk ranks it number four on his list, I have to. This was way worse than Gatorade.

The setting was the famous “Bartman” game, when, in the eighth inning (so close!) Cubs’ outfielder Moises Alou failed to catch a foul fly near the stands because, it appeared, a fan had interfered with his effort.

When people today talk about the game that is the incident they recall. But more important was something that occurred a couple of plays later. Cubs’ shortstop Alex Gonzalez booted a potential inning-ending double-play ball. The Marlins went on to score eight runs in the inning, win the game and eventually the series, leaving the Cubs hanging high and dry once more.

Sigh…

* * *

The greatest error in baseball history was not committed in a Cubs’ uniform, but by a player who once played for them. In fact, he was an All Star first baseman for the Cubs and even won the batting title in 1980. They traded him to the Boston Red Sox in May of 1984, the same year that Leon Durham led the Cubs to the playoffs and then booted their chances away.

As good a player as he was, the error he made at a crucial moment in a World Series game is the most infamous flub in the game (at least in my lifetime). As Kaduk says, “It has become a universal blooper.”

Bill Buckner. That’s all I need to say, and most baseball fans will see in their minds the image on the left side of the page.

Boston Red Sox vs. New York Mets. 1986 World Series, game six. Tenth inning and the Red Sox score two to take the lead. When they take the field in the bottom of the tenth, Red Sox manager John McNamara decides to leave Buckner in the game rather than bring in a defensive replacement as he had in previous games. The Mets score two and tie the score and then Mookie Wilson comes to bat. He fouls off two pitches and then hits a slow roller toward first. Buckner rushes because of Wilson’s speed and the ball rolls by his glove, through his legs, and into the outfield, allowing the winning run to score.

The Mets went on to win game seven, and it became another year in futility for Red Sox fans. Buckner became the scapegoat and for many years he had to endure scorn and even death threats from Boston fans, as well as heckling and derision when he went on the road. He eventually came to terms with what had happened in 2008, when he received a standing ovation at Fenway Park, and Buckner voiced his forgiveness of the fans and the media.

* * *

Baseball is a game infused with failure.

The best hitters fail seven out of ten times.

And now we are told that there have been 500,000 errors over the course of baseball history.

Yet the game goes on.

It almost makes me think about my life.

Counting the Commandments

Those of you who have experience in various Christian traditions may have observed that there are different ways of numbering the “Ten Commandments.”

This is not a mere academic issue of interpretation. It can be shown that the different schemes can lead to some significant ways of understanding and living out the faith.

In my Lutheran tradition, Martin Luther followed the Roman Catholic ordering of the commandments, which originated with Augustine. This is the order we see in Luther’s Small Catechism:

You shall have no other gods.
You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.
You shall keep the Sabbath.
You shall honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.
You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor.

In my view, the obvious weakness of this ordering of the commandments is that it divides the “coveting” commandment into two when it is more likely that the entire section on coveting should be read together and considered a unified word.

Other Protestants, as well as Greek Orthodox and Hellenistic Jews followed Philo and Josephus in accepting a different ordering of the commandments:

You shall have no other gods.
You shall not make a graven image.
You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.
You shall keep the Sabbath.
You shall honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.

Note that this ordering keeps the coveting commands together but separates the word about “graven images” from the command to “have no other gods.”

This reading, adopted by other Protestant groups during the Reformation, had a significant impact in those tumultuous days. For groups that saw “no graven images” as a separate commandment became iconoclasts, destroying religious works of art and developing theological teachings that moved away from sacramental perspectives.

It seems to me that these words should go together rather than be separated because “no other gods” in the days of Moses explicitly pointed to idols that would have been fashioned as images.

The third approach is to see the “Ten Commandments” as the “Ten Words” or sayings, rather than simply commands, and to begin ordering them from God’s very first word to Israel — the words that other groups considered the preamble. This was the Talmudic approach, and it looks like this:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
You shall have no other gods.
You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.
You shall keep the Sabbath.
You shall honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.

I favor this approach for two primary reasons:

It keeps commandments together that belong together (no other gods/no graven images, the various coveting commands).
It puts the “commandments” in their proper context — the context of God’s grace and salvation.

The Ten Words, then, are not merely a revelation of God’s Law, but a compendium of the works that should spring from the lives of those who have a covenant relationship with God by grace (the first word) through faith (the second word).

In his book, A Treatise on Good Works, Martin Luther argued that the commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” is God’s word that calls us to faith, and that all the other commandments spring forth from this chief requirement.

By viewing the Ten Words in the Talmudic ordering, we strengthen Luther’s case and ground the faith that God commands in his own work of grace and redemption.

God Hidden in a Wondrous Web

All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government — to what does it all amount before God except child’s play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things.

– Martin Luther, Exposition of Psalm 147

I hold in my hand a bus ticket. Waiting at the station, I am greeted by the woman behind the counter, who answers a question and directs me to the right location. A man with a broom and dust pan tidies up around the room, which is filled with early morning travelers. It is just past 3 a.m., and we look it.

The buses are lined up outside, ready for our boarding. The bus driver opens the door at the appropriate time, makes his announcement, and begins checking our tickets. When we and our luggage are safely aboard, he greets us over the sound system, outlines the course of our trip, backs out and we are off.

I think about what it takes for one passenger like me to make a trip like this.

People have designed and oversee a website where I can purchase my tickets and print them off. They deal with other folks at banks and credit card companies that process my order and information securely. This, of course, all depends upon a reliable electrical grid, as well as the computers and servers and wires and switches that enable our signals to connect and get to the right place. People designed my computer and the printer at home by which I print out my ticket. Others manufactured it, still others marketed it, and another group of people worked in the store that stocked it and sold it. Another store sells the ink refills I purchase, the final link in a similar chain.

Now here I am on the road. The same electrical grid lit the station where I waited for this bus. The water and sewer system keep it hygenic. The people who work there keep it clean and functioning. Some group of people designed and built this bus on which we ride. Thousands of parts were manufactured and assembled to form it. It runs on fuel from the earth — but not raw fuel — refined fuel that human beings harvested and processed and blended and carried to filling stations in other vehicles likewise made by human hands. We ride on a road that did not just appear in the wilderness. It was built by people. Citizens pay taxes to keep it maintained, which is another task done by a host of workers.

I could go on and on, and it seems clear to me at least, that this exercise is virtually endless. If we go far enough, we might hear God say, “It is good.”

Sometimes people talk about heading out of civilization to “God’s country” — some place where nature displays awe-inspiring vistas that awaken our sense of the Creator and the magnificence of his creation.

I like to do that too. But here I am today, sitting on this bus, thinking of the hidden God about whom Martin Luther wrote. How marvelous are his works! They are past finding out.

For everywhere I go and everything I do depends upon a wondrous web of people who are fulfilling their vocations, from sweeper to driver, from bus manufacturer to builder of roads, from IT person to the clerk who sells me my ink refill. They mask the common grace and goodness of God, who keeps this world turning and holding together and functioning with life and strength and skill. He does his work through our hands.

By virtue of that wondrous web, and the Spirit who animates it and keeps it operating, I made it to Chicago on time.

And now it’s almost time for the journey home.

Monday Morning Thoughts

Duccio Way to Calvary — The Way to Calvary, Duccio

Beloved, let us love.

Lord, what is love?

Love is that which inspired My life, and led Me to My cross, and held Me on My cross. Love is that which will make it thy joy to lay down thy life for thy brethren.

Lord, evermore give me this love.

– Amy Carmichael, If

* * *

Peter knows and confesses that Jesus is the Messiah.

He’s right, but Peter does not know what “Messiah” means.

He thinks he does. But before you know it, he’s scolding Jesus, contradicting him, correcting him.

Nowhere in his imagination can he fathom that “Messiah” means “Cross.”

In attempting to protect God, Peter opposes God. His thoughts seem right, but they are not God’s thoughts.

Get behind me, Satan.

Jesus calls his disciples and the crowd to him. Most of these are people who have said and are saying this day that they want to follow him. They believe in him. They trust him. They are committed to him. They love him.

They are right. Jesus is worthy of following, but they do not know what “follow Jesus” means.

They think they do. But before you know it, they are scratching their heads. Some are walking away, shaking their heads. These followers cannot get into their heads what Jesus is saying — “Follow” means “Cross.”

I wake up. It is Monday morning. I’m ready to go. I have my plans, my agenda. It’s laid out before me. I have work to do, things to accomplish, a mark to make in this world. Great things for God!

Good stuff. I have faith; I want to live for Jesus.

Only time will tell if I’m prepared to love, that is, to die and rise again.

Again, and again, and again.

– see Mark 8:27-39

Luther’s Morning and Evening Prayers

In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther wrote Morning and Evening Prayers for families to say each day. I find them attractive in their simplicity and devotion. Perhaps you will find them useful in your own conversational relationship with God and in your family.

* * *

Morning Prayer

In the morning, when you rise, you shall bless yourself with the holy cross and say:

In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may, in addition, say this little prayer:

I thank Thee, my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy dear Son, that Thou hast kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray Thee to keep me this day also from sin and all evil, that all my doings and life may please Thee. For into Thy hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Thy holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Then go to your work with joy, singing a hymn, such as one on the Ten Commandments, or what your devotion may suggest.

* * *

Evening Prayer

In the evening, when you go to bed, you shall bless yourself with the holy cross and say:

In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may, in addition, say this little prayer:

I thank Thee, my Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy dear Son, that Thou hast graciously kept me this day, and I pray Thee to forgive me all my sins, where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Thy hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Thy holy angel be with me, that the Wicked Foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Then go to sleep promptly and cheerfully.

Psunday Psalms: Morning and Evening

Marc-Chagall-King-David-1956 — King David, Chagall

Psunday Psalms
Devotional Thoughts on the Psalms

* * *

Each morning you listen
to my prayer,
as I bring my requests to you
and wait for your reply. (Psalm 5:3, CEB)

I can lie down
    and sleep soundly
    because you, Lord,
    will keep me safe. (Psalm 4:8, CEB)

* * *

The first pieces in the Book of Psalms include a morning prayer (Ps. 5) and an evening prayer (Ps. 4).

These psalms remind us, at the very beginning of the book, that each day belongs to God and that we should seek his blessing and help throughout the course of each day. We start the day with God and end the day with him as well.

In these prayers, we see King David seeking God in the morning…

Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.
In the morning I lay it all out before you.
Then I wait expectantly….

Because of your great mercy,
    I come to your house, Lord,
and I am filled with wonder
as I bow down
    to worship
    at your holy temple.
You do what is right,
    and I ask you to guide me.
    Make your teaching clear
    because of my enemies.

– Psalm 5:7-8

And then, at the end of the day, we see him conversing with God again…

You brought me more happiness
    than a rich harvest
    of grain and grapes.
I can lie down
    and sleep soundly
    because you, Lord,
    will keep me safe.

– Psalm 4:7-8

The habit of morning and evening prayer has been a long-standing practice in the church. It is good to begin and end each day with God, talking to him, seeking him, resting in him.

Notice also that in the order of psalms, evening prayer comes first, then morning. I have found this true in my own conversational relationship with God. Falling asleep talking to him, embraced by his love, and mindful of his gracious promises and presence, I not only sleep better, but I awaken more ready to greet him in the morning. Well, let’s say as ready as someone who is definitely not a morning person can be!

No matter how the world may oppose us, God is with us throughout each day. Morning and evening prayers remind us that we live our lives in this world in relation to another world, the world of the heavenlies, the spiritual reality of God’s Kingdom which surrounds and influences everything that takes place in our daily lives. Through this practice, we build a “frame” around each day to remind us that his grace encompasses our lives.

Morning and evening, and everywhere in between, he is with us!

iMonk Classic: How I Interpret the Bible

Note from CM:
This is an excerpt from Michael Spencer’s essay, “A Conversation in God’s Kitchen.”

Folks, don’t rush through this one. Ponder it. Print it off and carry a copy of it in your Bible to remind you what the Book is all about and what you should be looking for as you read it. This is the good stuff, the real stuff, the right stuff.

* * *

How Do I Interpret the Bible?

Ever think of the Bible as….a grocery store? I worked at grocery stores for a long time. People come into the store with their grocery lists, and they know what they are looking for. They need some bananas, ice cream, a case of root beer, a head of lettuce. They run up and down the aisles finding what they want, find everything on the list, check out and go home.

That’s how evangelicals increasingly approach the Bible. They have a list of what they need. Parenting principles. Verses for healing. Advice for marriage. Rules for children. Stories to inspire. Challenges to give. Information on Heaven. Predictions of the future. We run into the “Bible” looking for these things, and when we find them, we leave.

This “grocery store” view of the Bible is built on the idea that the Bible is an inspired “library” of true information. A “magic book” as some have called it, where passages contain unquestionable information and authoritative rules. This approach to the Bible is flattering to the human ability to catalog information, and it is used in many churches to build confidence that the use of scripture puts a person on a foundation of absolute certainty.

In this approach, interpretation is important, and good interpretation is common. But the problem is fundamental. Scripture is not a grocery store. It’s not a place to run in and find principles for parenting or prophecies about the future, even though the conversation contains discussions about these things.

Continue reading “iMonk Classic: How I Interpret the Bible”

Saturday Ramblings 9.15.12

Good Saturday morning, fellow iMonks. Welcome to the Slim Pickens edition of Saturday Ramblings. No, we are not going to go bronco on an H-bomb. There just hasn’t been that much news to report this week. But we do have birthdays to celebrate, and a bonus video to watch, so we’ll have to fill in the space between now and then with something, won’t we? And while the pickins may indeed be slim, that doesn’t mean we won’t pick ’em. So grab your cowboy hat, jump astride a bomb, and let’s ramble.

In case you didn’t catch the humor in the above paragraph, I recommend turning off football today and watch Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb. You may thank me afterward.

Words are very powerful things. And when you mix words with pictures, it can be a deadly combination. That was seen this week with the violent death of several Americans serving overseas at embassies or in the military. Muslims protesting an obscure movie that insults Muhammad are blamed for the deaths. The movie was produced, edited and distributed by three men claiming to be Coptic Christians. I am not going to link to the 14-minute-long trailer for this film here (you can find it easily enough if you want), but I have never seen such horrible acting, sets, costumes, editing—it truly is laughable. And when these men arranged for a screening in a Los Angeles theater, no one (literally no one) showed up to watch. Yet it is this film that has set in motion the riots that are raging across the world as I write.

Terry Jones, the Florida preacher and ebay furniture salesman who set off a firestorm several years ago by proposing to burn a copy of the Koran in public, is tied to this movie. In an interview with the Voice Of America, Jones says he has talked with the filmmakers many times and plans to post the trailer on his web site. Amazing how much damage the “pastor” of a church of 30 people can do.

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 9.15.12”