What’s Boston Legal got to do with Church?
At the start of this season, John Larroquette joined the show I love as “Carl Sack” (that’s him on the far left). As always, when a new cast member is added to a show I watch regularly, I went through some worrisome times. What was going to happen to the relationship between Denny and Alan? How was Shirley going to fit into all of this? (especially once I realised that Carl and Shirley were in a serious relationship).
You see, I regard the people at Crane, Poole & Schmidt as part of my family and I worry about things happening that may cause changes.
In a comment on an earlier post of mine, Rebecca made the following comment about Salvation Army small corps (local churches):
We just don’t seem to think like that in the Army, for good or for bad. From a divisional perspective, most of our corps struggle to accommodate a small handful of new people in their corps, let alone large growth. And for many of our 30-60pax congregations, growth beyond these numbers means a considerable change from familiarity to not as much (ie you might not know everyone’s name on a Sunday).
Regrettably, I think Rebecca’s right on this, people are thinking exactly this way, scared of change because that may upset their comfortable family life.
Here’s the catch though. The network that owns Boston Legal knows that they can’t think of the show and its cast as a family. They’re there for a purpose (to entertain and thereby make money) and the decisions made around the show reflect this strong mission orientation.
In the church, I believe we’ve got to start basing our decisions and behaviour on a strong mission orientation. The first aspect to this is for everyone in our congregation to realise that:
- The church belongs to Jesus, not to the individual congregational members; and
- That Jesus stated the church’s mission as being there for those who are not yet in church (see the great commission).
Then and only then will we overcome this struggle of people being resistant to changing from being a comfortable church that meets members needs but doesn’t reach others, to being a church that honours Jesus instructions to make disciples of all nations.
God bless
The responsibility of preaching scares me sometimes!
We had two great services yesterday.
In the morning, Raewyn preached on anger, and with everybody wondering just where the sermon was likely to head, she cleverly talked about Jesus’ anger at corruption and the subjugation of those who are not in a position to resist it.
A major challenge was forthcoming also with Raewyn asking us what would Jesus do if he walked into SAJ today, would he be happy with us or would he make a whip and chase us out and overturn tables?
In the evening I spoke on 1 John 2:12-17 with a special emphasis on how the world takes us into spiritual captivity surreptitiously, not wanting us to deny Christ, but happy that we quietly accept “little” sins and then justify them to ourselves.
God moved in both services and it’s great to see our people opening themselves up to God’s Holy Spirit and the conviction He brings.
However, as I was preparing for that message, I was highly aware that the best I can do is preach my understanding of the word. Yes, I work with commentaries from truly learned people, but at the end of the day, I have to decide what I’ll say about it!
What if I get it wrong (in a bad way)?
What if I speak without total clarity and someone takes something out of it that I wasn’t trying to say?
Oh, I love preaching but the responsibility really does weigh heavily sometimes. Praise God that He is forgiving, that He upholds us and that He somehow uses our often pitiful words to make life change happen.
Monkey Dust – The internet is expanding!
WooHoo – So this is what happens when you sign on via a modem!
The Salvation Army Johnsonville beats Willow Creek to the punch
I see that Willow Creek is now at the stage where they are going to implement REVEAL.
If you don’t know what REVEAL is, here’s a very brief, rough as guts, (my version), precis:
- Willow Creek was launched as a Seeker Targeted church.
- Sunday services were designed to enable unchurched people to come in, sit and enjoy. The messages (sermons) were for the most part topically based and there was drama to help get the point across.
- Deep worship/prayer/Bible teaching was done for “believers” at a mid week service
(My note: One of the great aspects to this approach was the fact that it brought many people into a church setting who would otherwise have been extremely negative to Christianity as they had previously seen the church as boring, bigoted and irrelevant)
- REVEAL was a large piece of research that showed Willow that although the “seekers” enjoyed things, they were not really being moved on in their spiritual journey and that “believers” felt the same.
So now, Willow are going to implement radical changes to how they do things and I quote:
On the seeker end of the spectrum, Willow is also changing how they produce their weekend services. For years the value people appreciated most about the seeker-oriented weekend services was anonymity. This is what all their research showed. People didn’t want to be identified, approached, confronted, or asked to do anything. But those days are over.
“Anonymity is not the driving value for seeker services anymore,” says Hawkins. “We’ve taken anonymity and shot it in the head. It’s dead. Gone.” In the past Willow believed that seekers didn’t want large doses of the bible or deep worship music. They didn’t want to be challenged. Now their seeker-sensitive services are loaded with worship music, prayer, scripture readings, and more challenging teaching from the bible.
Its interesting to us at SAJ because when Raewyn and I came on board as leaders just over three years ago, (We had been part of the congregation for almost ten years before spending two years away to be trained), our time away and exposure to other concepts had enabled us to see some of the issues that SAJ were likely to face in the near future. The main issue we could identify was that people were getting too comfortable, (our services were very similar to the old Willow Creek model), and therefore people were not growing spiritually. Additionally we could see mature believers who had lapsed into the idea that it was SAJ’s job to feed them, whereas they actually needed to be self-feeders.
With this in mind, changes were made, with the help of many leaders, to ensure our Sunday morning services became more Biblically based, more challenging and with greater elements of worship and prayer. BUT, we still maintain the fact we do not need to be boring or irrelevant to achieve this!
It’s nice to see we’re more than up with the play.
Delta’s New In-flight Safety Video
New in flight safety video from Delta Airlines.This is most notable for the attendant’s “finger wag”. Does this mean Delta has a sense of humour, or are they simply targeting the male businessman flyer market.
Wow – A really cool cup of coffee
Hat tip to Sam McGuire
Horseriding
A better video of Gab and James at Hanmer Springs
Chch Holiday
Trying out a new site www.animoto.com
Digsby adds Twitter support…
and goes into public beta. Give it a go – it’s great!
Today, we are proud to announce a major milestone for our little egg-shaped friend. We are launching Digsby into public beta testing to make it available for everyone! An invite code is no longer needed and you can show your support by taking a minute to Invite Your Friends. With todays announcement, we are introducing several highly requested features. The complete list of changes can be found on our Change Log as always, but most notably we added:
* Twitter Support this has been the most requested social network by far. Enjoy!
Stop Press – Parachute on C4 Easter Monday
Parachute Music – Home
Parachute 08 C4 Special
7.30pm Easter Monday
Get comfy on your couch with your Easter eggs and tune into C4’s take on Parachute 08. Fronted by Jane Yee and Jermaine Leef, the doco features interviews with headline acts including Switchfoot, Leigh Nash, Red, Jonezetta and more. And Jane and Jermaine get in the action with our morning aerobics, krump battles, barn dance, silent disco and more.
Highly captivating footage right there in your living room.
Lock your TV on C4, Easter Monday (March 24), 7.30pm and settle in for a fine time of festival highlights.
