Lame Ducks & Church Hopping

I love things that make you go "Hmmmmmmmmmm". 

I was thinking, as I do way too much, about the conversations we had with other churches when a new "contemporary" church was coming to town.  The church was based in Corpus Christi and was expanding their ministry to our area.  Though we all like to say that we are "accepting and open" as churches the conversations going around town were mixed or different.  I remember sitting down with 3 people from other churches and talking about the new church about to start up in the local movie theater.  One of them seemed genuinely glad to see them coming, but the other 2 were not the happiest that someone else would be worshiping in the same town.  Basically they felt that it would affect their own ministry because people would be going to "check out the new church" and now they had "more competition" to go up against for the unchurched.

I remember NETChurch going through some of the same thing when we first started meeting.  The funny thing about it was that we were starting out as a house church which usually means "no threat" to established churches.  We tended to hear more when we began to meet publicly in the coffee shop.  We had comments from other churches that we were "trying to steal their people" and "moving in on THEIR deal" because they served coffee and now we were imitating them.  Some thought that our graphics and website were too close to theirs and that we were doing that to hurt them.  Then there was the person who told one of our attendees that you can’t have church in a coffee shop because God wouldn’t honor it and that the only reason we were doing it was to be popular and outdo other churches. 

Just to set the record straight after all this time: 

1. We didn’t look at what anyone else was doing in town.  We weren’t really smart enough to do that. 
2. All our graphics and web came from my weird mind.  I had never seen anything from any other church in our area.  I actually didn’t think anyone HAD any graphics….
3. We ended up in the coffee shop on a whim.  We never planned anything out.  That’s how we’ve usually done things:)

What happened between the time of the Acts church and today that created this idea that each church is "an island unto themselves"?  I touched on some of this yesterday in my blog.  Any time that I’ve gone from one church ministry to another there was a time where I was a "lame duck" because I was no longer going to be a part of this particular church’s ministry.  When someone decides to move to another church they have to answer questions from people about what happened or they are just forgotten/ignored completely.  Why?  Each denomination stands on it’s own, even splintering into smaller parts when one group disagrees with another.  We call each other Christians, but we don’t act like we are all part of the same body.  It’s the problem that has created the difference between "church" and "The Church".  Unfortunately it seems to me that "church" is what people see more of than "The Church".

Imagine this:  A new church starts in our town and every other church welcomes it and asks what they need to get started.  It actually sounds a little strange where I live.  It’s even hard for a church here to support someone from their own congregation if they want to go start something somewhere else because they are afraid that it will draw people away from the parent church’s attending members.  We have become so wrapped up in protecting our organizations that we’ve forgotten about "The Church" that exists as all believers united as one.  People where I come from even have trouble telling the difference between a religion and a denomination.  They will ask if I’m Christian or Baptist or Methodist or "What religion are you?".  Isn’t that scary that they can’t tell that all these denominations are part of the same body of Christ?  Someone even asked me if NETChurch was a part of the "Non-Denominational denomination".  The words don’t even make sense anymore!  Non-Denominational (the absence of a denomination) is now a denomination and in some people’s eyes a religion!  And why?  Could it be that we have become so good at our independence that the world now sees us as little small groups that have no connection with each other?

I think that this last statement is the thing that grieves me the most.  Our connection, our common bond, should be Christ.  Unfortunately things are now so diluted that they don’t even see Christ anymore.  They simply see churches.  Churches that don’t want competition.  Churches that preach they are right and everyone else is wrong without using those exact words.  How can I say that?  Because I live in a town of 17,000 people with over 20 different churches in it that I’ve seen argue over the smallest of issues.  I’ve seen new pastors end up being called down because they started a church but didn’t consult the other churches in town ahead of time.  (There’s people out there saying to themselves that I’m making that one up.  Trust me.  I’ve seen it first hand.)  There’s no cohesiveness between the churches because each of us have started creating our own little empires that have to stay individual so that our growth can be contributed to us.  It makes things alot easier to grow.  People are attracted to groups that can say that they are right and other people are wrong.  It’s called a clique.  We have become a body full of cliques.

Now before the emails start pouring in with the statements about "Our church isn’t like that.  You need to check out our church." please let me say this:  I agree.  Not every church in the world is going to be like the picture I’ve painted above.  Thank God there are those out there that are fighting against this ideal.  But these churches are not the majority.  Not today.  As long as we are counting numbers and running lists of the top 100 most successful churches in the US then we are going to be a separatist community. 

"Andy, your statements are too harsh.  You generalize too much.  We’re not all like that.  Quit making the church out to be something that it’s not." 

Maybe.  I can see people and communities out there that don’t reflect this image.  I really respect those people, too.  Perhaps I am totally wrong about what I’m saying.  But if I honestly look at myself can I say that I have opened myself and my church up to other congregations as if we were one family?  No.  I haven’t.  We’re trying to learn it, but we haven’t been successful yet. 

One day a church will start in Portland, TX that is totally new, innovative, and will draw a bunch of people that we’ve never reached before.  Hopefully NETChurch will be there to help them get started instead of sitting around the coffee shop talking about them.

Lame Ducks & Church Hopping

I love things that make you go "Hmmmmmmmmmm". 

I was thinking, as I do way too much, about the conversations we had with other churches when a new "contemporary" church was coming to town.  The church was based in Corpus Christi and was expanding their ministry to our area.  Though we all like to say that we are "accepting and open" as churches the conversations going around town were mixed or different.  I remember sitting down with 3 people from other churches and talking about the new church about to start up in the local movie theater.  One of them seemed genuinely glad to see them coming, but the other 2 were not the happiest that someone else would be worshiping in the same town.  Basically they felt that it would affect their own ministry because people would be going to "check out the new church" and now they had "more competition" to go up against for the unchurched.

I remember NETChurch going through some of the same thing when we first started meeting.  The funny thing about it was that we were starting out as a house church which usually means "no threat" to established churches.  We tended to hear more when we began to meet publicly in the coffee shop.  We had comments from other churches that we were "trying to steal their people" and "moving in on THEIR deal" because they served coffee and now we were imitating them.  Some thought that our graphics and website were too close to theirs and that we were doing that to hurt them.  Then there was the person who told one of our attendees that you can’t have church in a coffee shop because God wouldn’t honor it and that the only reason we were doing it was to be popular and outdo other churches. 

Just to set the record straight after all this time: 

1. We didn’t look at what anyone else was doing in town.  We weren’t really smart enough to do that. 
2. All our graphics and web came from my weird mind.  I had never seen anything from any other church in our area.  I actually didn’t think anyone HAD any graphics….
3. We ended up in the coffee shop on a whim.  We never planned anything out.  That’s how we’ve usually done things:)

What happened between the time of the Acts church and today that created this idea that each church is "an island unto themselves"?  I touched on some of this yesterday in my blog.  Any time that I’ve gone from one church ministry to another there was a time where I was a "lame duck" because I was no longer going to be a part of this particular church’s ministry.  When someone decides to move to another church they have to answer questions from people about what happened or they are just forgotten/ignored completely.  Why?  Each denomination stands on it’s own, even splintering into smaller parts when one group disagrees with another.  We call each other Christians, but we don’t act like we are all part of the same body.  It’s the problem that has created the difference between "church" and "The Church".  Unfortunately it seems to me that "church" is what people see more of than "The Church".

Imagine this:  A new church starts in our town and every other church welcomes it and asks what they need to get started.  It actually sounds a little strange where I live.  It’s even hard for a church here to support someone from their own congregation if they want to go start something somewhere else because they are afraid that it will draw people away from the parent church’s attending members.  We have become so wrapped up in protecting our organizations that we’ve forgotten about "The Church" that exists as all believers united as one.  People where I come from even have trouble telling the difference between a religion and a denomination.  They will ask if I’m Christian or Baptist or Methodist or "What religion are you?".  Isn’t that scary that they can’t tell that all these denominations are part of the same body of Christ?  Someone even asked me if NETChurch was a part of the "Non-Denominational denomination".  The words don’t even make sense anymore!  Non-Denominational (the absence of a denomination) is now a denomination and in some people’s eyes a religion!  And why?  Could it be that we have become so good at our independence that the world now sees us as little small groups that have no connection with each other?

I think that this last statement is the thing that grieves me the most.  Our connection, our common bond, should be Christ.  Unfortunately things are now so diluted that they don’t even see Christ anymore.  They simply see churches.  Churches that don’t want competition.  Churches that preach they are right and everyone else is wrong without using those exact words.  How can I say that?  Because I live in a town of 17,000 people with over 20 different churches in it that I’ve seen argue over the smallest of issues.  I’ve seen new pastors end up being called down because they started a church but didn’t consult the other churches in town ahead of time.  (There’s people out there saying to themselves that I’m making that one up.  Trust me.  I’ve seen it first hand.)  There’s no cohesiveness between the churches because each of us have started creating our own little empires that have to stay individual so that our growth can be contributed to us.  It makes things alot easier to grow.  People are attracted to groups that can say that they are right and other people are wrong.  It’s called a clique.  We have become a body full of cliques.

Now before the emails start pouring in with the statements about "Our church isn’t like that.  You need to check out our church." please let me say this:  I agree.  Not every church in the world is going to be like the picture I’ve painted above.  Thank God there are those out there that are fighting against this ideal.  But these churches are not the majority.  Not today.  As long as we are counting numbers and running lists of the top 100 most successful churches in the US then we are going to be a separatist community. 

"Andy, your statements are too harsh.  You generalize too much.  We’re not all like that.  Quit making the church out to be something that it’s not." 

Maybe.  I can see people and communities out there that don’t reflect this image.  I really respect those people, too.  Perhaps I am totally wrong about what I’m saying.  But if I honestly look at myself can I say that I have opened myself and my church up to other congregations as if we were one family?  No.  I haven’t.  We’re trying to learn it, but we haven’t been successful yet. 

One day a church will start in Portland, TX that is totally new, innovative, and will draw a bunch of people that we’ve never reached before.  Hopefully NETChurch will be there to help them get started instead of sitting around the coffee shop talking about them.

Discussion, Blogging, and “I Don’t Want Your Opinion”

A couple of years ago we were starting to have our weekly gatherings/meetings/worship times at the coffee shop and having to make decisions (Very quickly, I might add) about how we were going to do things.  Being the non-traditional thinker that I am we, of course, went a different route than any church around.  Our first service started with worship music followed by a preacher and ended with worship music.  We were so incredibly creative!!  On top of that we had this cutting edge idea to go out after we grew a bit an move into a movie theater where we would be in a place that people "go all the time" so that people would feel comfortable.  It was going to be really different, too.  We were going to have this rockin’ band for worship music, then some good preaching, and probably end things up each week with some worship music!  It’s so far out there that I’m amazed we weren’t shut down by the authorities the very first week!  (These last few moments of sarcasm were brought by me for your enjoyment.  SARCASM- Just one of the many options I offer!)

Back to the story at hand:  After we got started I began having these ideas of utilizing open discussion in our teaching time.  The reason was that in all the years I had spent in church I saw alot of people (especially the totally unchurched that we were trying to reach) that walked away from a very emotive, well spoken sermon but could not remember anything that was just said.  That doesn’t mean that we haven’t learned from preaching, but it seemed that there had to be more than just one person in the room being active while everyone else was basically passive.  As I cultivated the thoughts of open discussion we ran into some of the usual "church walls of thinking".  One was "How will we facilitate discussion with alot of people?".  Another was "How do you have a series of messages if you are allowing the discussion to carry things?".  The clicker, though, was "I’m worried about open discussion because we have no control over what people will say."

Most of you know that we eventually progressed (and I really consider it a progression) to pulling away from preaching and now utilize a totally open format of discussion in our worship times.  It’s been a really interesting road to go, but it has caused us to face alot of these issues that were eventually brought up.  The last one is the one that fascinates me the most.  The concerns were valid.  If we went to open discussion we would not be able to edit comments, stop people from talking, or screen what they would say before it came out of their mouths.  That can be scary, to some extent, especially if you are used to preaching where no one questions the one who is speaking.  By going this direction we were opening the door to anyone and everyone to not only have an opinion but express it in an open forum.  What would this do to our teaching?  If we can’t control what is said how will people learn and what if something is said that is "not biblical" or off color?  If we went this direction we would be giving up our safety zone.

I’m finding over and over that the "safety zone" is very important to us in church.  I’m not going to say "to us as Christians" because it’s not necessarily that important to all of us, but I do see it as a major factor for alot of us that are ingrained in the church structure.  We are afraid of allowing too many people to have opinions.  If they DO express them then we find it necessary to correct them or prove to them that we are right.  The only problem with this thinking is the fact that Christianity itself has fragmented into layer upon layer of denominations giving us this huge melting pot of churches who are separated by their individual differences.  What that means is that the Methodists think differently from the Baptists who think differently from the Church of Christ who think differently from the Assemblies of God who think differently from…….you know what I mean.  Amazingly with all of these differences (and some of them are pretty huge in the way of doctrine) we still find it easy to refer to each other as "Christians".  We are ok with someone being a Christian with differing opinions.  They just need to voice them at their church.  Not at mine.  Out of site.  Out of mind.  Do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t affect my world.

I’ve seen this played out alot lately by looking at blogs, especially ones on Christian websites.  People will write a blog giving their opinion about some simple matter and are perfectly fine with the comments that result as long as they basically agree with the original writer.  Throw one in that takes a differing stance, though, and get ready for the fireworks!  As I’ve roamed around reading multiple blogs (I love reading blogs because I really love the differing looks at life) I keep running into situations where people throw in comments expressing their opinion and then get lambasted by people because they are seen as instigators or confrontational, all while they simply were trying to join in the "conversation".  I’ve watched time and time again where people with valuable points of view have simply stopped sharing their thoughts because the backlash is so pointed and hurtful.  The writers and their followers don’t like the tone, the language, or even the message so they attack instead of trying to understand.  It ends up that there’s only a conversation as long as you agree with me, you know?

Every week I sit in this huge discussion that is now stretching outside of our location and onto the internet.  Sometimes people agree with what is said.  Sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes they praise me for what I say.  Sometimes they tell me that they don’t agree with me.  The only thing about having a discussion is that you can’t mute the people you don’t like and it still be a discussion.  You lose the ability to converse, to share.  Why are we so scared of hearing opinions?  Why do we lash out at each other simply because others think differently?

I’ve made one pact when it comes to this blog:  No censoring allowed.  I don’t erase comments.  I don’t correct people when they share their point of view.  I try to do the same thing when we have our conversations on Sunday morning.  Sometimes people have used off color language or have told stories that aren’t considered appropriate in church.  Some people have actually disagreed with me out loud.  But you know what?  I’ve usually learned something from all of those situations.  All I had to do was look beyond the initial difference and try to see the heart of the person speaking.  That’s it.  Look at their heart.

I pray that we will stop listening only to words and start looking for hearts.  If I’m going to say something (especially if I’m going to publish something on the world wide web) then I’ve got to allow others to say something also.  I don’t have to agree.

I don’t have to crucify them for it, either.

Here’s to the glory of the discussion.  May we all find the beauty of Christ in it.

Belonging before Believing

I was listening to a teaching the other day and realized something about myself:  Over the past couple of years I’ve, to some extent, prided myself on the fact that I’ve found ways to become more accepting of people than I had been in the past.  I’ve looked at different relationships we’ve had, how our church has tried to be "inclusive" compared to "exclusive", and even what we’ve taught and really have thought to myself "We’re getting somewhere now".  The fact that we were building relationships with the Mormon missionaries in the area and having them come in on Sunday to help us set up our Gatherings was a major step, I believed.  We had walked away from being judgemental and had moved into the light!!! (That’s tongue in cheek, if you can’t tell.)

Have you ever had one of those moments when you read or heard something and just basically said "Aw, crap"?

I was listening to a teaching from a seminar back in, I think, 2002 by Deb Hirsch (Alan Hirsch from "The Shaping of Things to Come" has a wife by that name.  Oh yes!  It’s her!) where she was talking about the 3 fold concept behind their variation of the Social Set theory.  The idea lies behind looking at the traditional church structure which tends to want people to "Believe then Behave then Belong" and it flips it.  In their structure you move towards people "Belonging then Believing and then Behaving".  In other words we allow, no, we encourage people to Belong to our community to a much deeper level than we usually do, even before they become believers in Christ.  Alot of us have a different hierarchy within our churches that says people should not be involved in various levels of activity until they are believers.  Basically they are kept on the outside until they walk down the aisle and flip the switch.  At that point we get all excited about them and decide to include them.

Now I know that there will be many out there who don’t see this as true, but if we look at the way we do things it might change the view a bit.  In some of the churches that I was ministering we had classes designed to integrate people into the church.  101,201,301,401. (My we are a creative bunch!!) We STRONGLY encouraged everyone to take the classes and move into membership.  In the classes we made a gospel presentation and asked people to give their life to Christ before they went any further.  Basically membership required this commitment.  (I’m actually ok with that if that is how your membership is set up.  There’s requirements just like at our country club.  That’s how it works.) My question is about the people who had an aversion to "becoming a member".  Often times I would talk to people who would say they wouldn’t take the classes because they wanted to be accepted for who they were, not because they ran through our process.  That said we had all these "conformists" who joined in and then the "non-conformists" who sat on the outside never feeling like they were totally a part of the group because they didn’t play well with other children.

Now this could become a discussion about membership vs non, but what I want to focus on is the acceptance of people no matter what.  I did not allow anyone who was not "saved" to be a part of the worship team because we couldn’t have an unsaved person leading worship. (Even though we would put them on the sound board to control what happened in the service as long as they weren’t seen…..)  We didn’t want anyone working in the office that hadn’t been down front because we weren’t sure what impression they would give other people.  We controlled the environment by only utilizing people who had "passed inspection" by saying they had already had a salvation experience.

Now the interesting thing about this thinking is that the people who usually gave the church a black eye, the people who did the offensive things, the people who caused conflict and strife within the church and really made us look bad to everyone else…..

They were the saved ones.

It wasn’t just THEM, either.  It was ME!  Me and my judgemental attitude and thinking that I had to preserve the organization over really being honest.  It was me sacrificing the people who needed God and fellowship the most because I was supposed to control what happened in "the church".  So many times it was me and people just like me who were more concerned about how things looked than what Christ would do in each situation.  Why didn’t we let someone be at the front desk that hadn’t "made the walk" yet?  In the words of Deb Hirsch "Were we afraid that they were going to make our computers possessed?"

No.

We were worried about how things looked.  I was worried that they might say something that I was going to have to clean up.

There wasn’t alot of Christ in my actions.

NETChurch must be a place where we fellowship no matter where we are in the journey.  The journey doesn’t start because you walked up to a pastor, cried on his shoulder, and signed a card.  It began the day you were born.  We’re on this journey with everyone.  Some of us have just realized the beauty that’s been in front of us the whole time.

A person must belong before they can believe.  Why?  Because if they don’t belong then how are we going to show them who Christ really is?  By yelling at them on the street corner?

I’d rather sit down with them as equals in God’s eyes.  One person who has sinned talking to another.

The Demographic Phenomenon

"If you’re going to start a new church today you need to be aware of the environment and demographic that you are planting in.  As a pastor you need to be in control of the perception and direction of the ministry you are planting.  That’s why when we have a new staff member come on board with us I have a list of the neighborhoods that they should live in.  It’s important for us to live among the people that we are trying to reach.  You also need to put a clothing allowance in to your staffing budget so that your staff can dress appropriately.  Consistency is important.  So are your connections and who you associate with.  Do you think that I’m an adviser to the city council because I have political dreams?  No.  It’s because the closer I am to them the more our church is able to do in this city.  It’s alot easier for me to get projects pushed through because they know me."

Transcript from a church planting seminar in 2005

The words that you are reading above have haunted me for the past 2 years.  They are from a seminar that my wife and I traveled to right when we were about to launch NETChurch.  We thought it would be a good idea to go and see what these people were doing in this church.  They had tremendous growth, they seemed to be moving, people were excited.  They offered an "inside look" at the ministry (for a fee, of course) stating that this was the way that they were "helping expand the reach of Christ to an unsaved world".  What we ended up with was 2 days of hearing about how they got so big, how we need to be cutting edge or our church would never make it, and a bunch of statements like the ones above that are designed to "direct" the ministry towards our goals.

Let me give you some insight into what was being said in the statements you’ve read.  The pastor was talking about the fact that his staff needs to live in the nicest parts of town because that’s where the movers and shakers live.  He expects the people who work for him to live in nicer homes and dress very fashionably because, as he said, this "communicates to people today".  As I looked around the room I noticed that everyone that worked there dressed like the pastor.  Untucked shirts in fashionable prints (or the mandatory tight t-shirt with witty sayings on it), the hair was coiffed and yet unkempt, Old Navy jeans, and if you weren’t clean cut then you had one of three variations of a goatee most likely with a shaved head if you were really cutting edge. (Ok.  We’ve really got to get a new look, but that’s a whole different post)  They looked like the people I’ve seen in most of the contemporary churches of today.  When he talked about his ministry he talked of meeting up with "movers and shakers" because they were the people who got things done.  He talked of setting goals of growth for the church because "people need to have goals and you can’t just tell people to minister.  They need to see something progressing or you’ll never see the church grow."  His whole seminar basically told us that we were not really being successful if we weren’t getting the money people involved and if the church was not seeing progressive, numerical growth.

The whole time since I was at that seminar I’ve kept thinking the same thing over and over:  Has our marketing taken over and who are we actually marketing to?  What was the "demographic" that he was trying to reach?  It was obvious that the whole direction of this ministry was middle class, suburban families.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  As this pastor said "You wouldn’t go to a foreign country and expect them to listen to you in English.  You would try to integrate yourself into the culture."  I agree.  The only problem that I have is when integrating yourself into the culture means following money and power so that YOUR church grows in the way YOU think it should.  I really have some trouble with looking at some of the areas of today’s church and thinking that this is what Christ really intended it to become.

I guess the biggest part of the question above is "Who are we marketing to?"  We keep designing churches that look so much alike that they have interchangeable parts.  I know of 5 mega church models that actually exchange the messages, graphics, music, and series information between them and each touts the message as being their own.  (I’ve actually picked up the dvds from 3 of the churches with the same messages preached by 3 different pastors.)  It’s not the message that’s actually being duplicated.  It’s the feel, the experience, the production.  Our stages are getting bigger, our children’s departments are more DisneyWorld, and there’s a Starbuck’s in ever foyer.  We’re all starting to build the same church!  On top of all that it’s not a church that’s actually designed to reach people who DON’T go to church.  It draws Christians from one location to another looking for great programs and new things for the kids to do.  It’s as if we are building competing malls that have the coolest stores and we’re always looking for a new, hip, designer shop that will bring more people to our mall than the other one.  We’re marketing to the consumers but the consumers for our product are most likely already Christians.  They already know about church.  They’ve been going to many of them in town already.  We’ve just shifted them across to something new and exciting because we offer a more polished store front and a better tasting latte.

Here’s the bottom-line truth about building a ministry:  It’s almost impossible to grow a church like WE imagine it should be if we only focus on the type of people Jesus ministered to.  No one has found a good way to build something HUGE while totally concentrating on people who know nothing of Christ or what we call "church".  We’ve become so geared to needing to see physical growth so that we feel successful that we are willing to accept bad results as long as they look good on paper.  We’re telling our pastors that we need to see a 10% growth each year and a continual increase in baptisms or that pastor isn’t doing something right.

I yearn for a church seminar where a church says "We have places we want our staff to live" and it’s in the middle of the most run down, needy parts of town.  We need to hear leaders that aren’t talking about the new bowling lanes being put in our church building or the rock climbing wall in the children’s wing but instead are leading their congregation out of the building into the darkest part of the mission field that God has planted them in.  We desperately need someone who is building another 10 million dollar building for their congregation with expectations of 15,000 in worship services to turn to their church and ask them to feed the hungry in the name of Jesus Christ.

I’m just not sure that our demographics are right.  We’re going into towns looking to find what the most dominant group is, hoping most of the time that it’s middle class America, and then establishing churches for them.  It’s not that they don’t need the church, but what about all of those people who don’t fit the demographic?  Is our church not supposed to minister to them?  Have we ever said "They aren’t really our focus"?  I don’t seem to find anything in the gospels that say "Go out, collect your demographic data, establish a good business plan, and then build a church".  Jesus never saw demographics.  He saw people.  There was no segregation.  We see that. Christ doesn’t.

Once we start thinking in a new way it starts giving a whole new perspective on Mark Chapter 16  "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone."  Everyone.  No specifics.  Just everyone. 

I wonder what neighborhood Jesus would have lived in.

Building Bridges

I used to work in a church that had a slogan one year that was "Building Bridges Between Jesus And The World".  Today I saw this news article online.  Let’s see if you can find the humor:

Two jailed after bridge built by blind man collapses

Mon Jun 11, 7:27 AM ET

A Chinese court has jailed two officials after they let a blind contractor build a bridge which collapsed during construction and injured 12 people, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

Huang Wenge, township head of Bujia in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, and colleague Xia Jianzhong were sentenced to 18 months and one year in jail, respectively, for not stopping the project, Xinhua said.

"Huang Wenge and Xia Jianzhong, who were in charge of road management and supervision, did not ask the contractors to provide certificates guaranteeing their proficiency," it said, citing the court ruling.

"When they knew the bridge was being built by a blind contractor, they did not stop it," it said, adding the contractor had changed the blueprint without getting a professional to look at the design.

"After the blind contractor changed the blueprint, he carried out the work only using a roughly drawn draft of the plan, which caused the bridge to collapse," the report said.

Xinhua did not explain how the contractor was able to run the project considering his inability to see.

I’m relatively sure that I’ve worked for that contractor before………….

MyChurch and the Re-education of Andy (or “Andy Get’s Schooled!”)

(I love those titles that make you go "what???")

A few days ago I wrote a blog post called "This Godless Internet" (which, btw, was one of my more fun and truly laugh filled moments in life).  This blog post got ALOT of attention, it seems.  For some reason people thought this list of "Future Christianized Websites" clicked somewhere and folks decided to read it, send it on, etc.  I appreciate that everyone enjoyed reading, responding, and harassing.  It’s nice to know that what’s done here isn’t falling on deaf ears.

No,it’s definitely NOT falling on deaf ears……….:)

Within 3 hours of posting there was a comment on the post.  I was at work and my cell phone goes off that I had an email. (Yes, I’m one of those people that obviously thinks that my life is so important that I have to receive my emails IMMEDIATELY) 

Anyhoo……………

I check my email and it says that there’s a comment on the blog and it’s from "joe (from MyChurch)".  Ok.  I figure someone who’s on MyChurch saw the blog and took a moment to defend their website.  Now, I wasn’t writing anything directed at MyChurch.  The post was written as a call for originality within the Christian circles.  It just happened that I decided to do it with some humor. (Basically meaning don’t take my words as gospel.  I don’t have that kind of pull!)  When I go to check out the "mystery commenter", though, I find out that it’s not just someone from MyChurch but one of the administrators.  Oh great!  I’ve ticked someone else off!  Let the games begin!!!

Actually, I was very interested in the comment.  It was a simple "Great Post:)"  followed by an invitation to join a similar discussion that his group was having.  This caught my attention simply because I was not being torn apart for being born with a rather warped sense of humor. (Simply said, you can’t blame me or God for what happens here, it’s all mom and dad’s fault!)  This was an actual comment without malice.  This guy seemed rather OK.

So, off I go to MyChurch land.  This should be fun!  I’m sure that the comments and conversation being had there will be extremely enlightening. (Don’t I sound like such a snob???)  I go to check out Joe’s blog post and start reading about this guy that is uncomfortable with being considered an "alternative to MySpace" because that’s not what they intended their site to be.  It turns out that he sees it as being truly a "church" (I’m putting words in your mouth, Joe.  Sorry about that!) or a place where believers come together, but not as a replacement for the things that exist in this world.  Here, I’ll let him explain it:

"I do not encourage Christians from leaving Myspace and Facebook. There are opportunities for believers to be salt and light in dark places. These places cannot be ignored by those who have a gift for evangelism. And these places exist offline and they exist online.

I support the idea of believers living missionally to partake in, influence, and ultimately transform our mainstream culture. But there still needs to be a cohesive community of believers gathered to encourage, edify, and equip one another. That usually happens in a building on Sunday mornings. And MyChurch is trying to foster that community to "be church" online and throughout the week."

Yes, after reading this I had to comment on his blog.  You can read it by going to http://www.mychurch.org/blog/24272/The-Christian-Myspace.  I have to say that I really was enlightened.  Joe turns out to be a pretty good guy and I do believe that he’s really trying with an honest heart.  One thing that speaks very highly in my book is the fact that he was OK with my opinion, no matter whether it agreed with his or not.  We really need more of that.  It’s a nuance of Christianity that I believe has been lost for alot of us.  Over the years we’ve created this amazing structure of segregation as our denominations have grown more and more entrenched in the little details that separate our churches.  In some ways we’ve become "Unified with Christ-Not with each other".  The amazing thing to me is that this idea is something that alot of us (including myself at some point in my life) have been willing to accept as just being the way things are.  "We can’t be united because we don’t think the same things, don’t baptize the same way, and don’t worship in the same style".  Slowly but surely this amazing and beautiful body of Christ has developed this splinter cell mentality that allows us to believe it’s ok to walk away from each other and become strangers just because we don’t agree.  I know that sounds extreme, but if you look at the churches in your area (and even for us in the Corpus Christi are) you will find subtle indications of this thinking.  No, we’re not going to war with each other because of the differences, but we have extreme difficulty with coming together unless it’s for some major cause like 9/11 or National Day of Prayer.  We’re ok with the events that "we’re supposed" to unite.  We just have trouble all of the other days of the year.

This sounds harsh and crass?  I once had a pastor that I worked with that had no problem with the Methodist church and Assembly of God pastors coming to our church for a community Thanksgiving service, but knew that he was probably going to have to preach a retraction the next Sunday morning because he knew that they would say things that "just weren’t right".  Does everyone think this way?  No.  Absolutely not.  The undercurrents are there, though, and it can be very scary.

There are moments when I look at the things I’ve been a part of as a pastor and wonder if this is what Christ imagined His church to be.  I think that’s some of the problem, though.  It’s the conflict between what WE want it to be compared to what He would want it to be.  I see Christ calling for unity and love between all.  I hear Him calling for understanding.  I see Him laughing at my jokes because He knows my heart, not my words.

This past week someone saw my heart instead of my words.  I thank Joe for being what I expect a Christian to actually be: real.  Even though I was never taking a shot at MyChurch it would have been easy for him to take it that way.  He didn’t.  He actually looked for common ground instead of conflict.  THAT was a true example of Christ.

I have recently found kindred hearts on the MyChurch site.  People like IndyChristian and voice_in_dc.  We might not have exactly the same ideas or methods, but we are believing in the same God.  Because of these things I have to admit that I have a new point of view, at least about the people at MyChurch. (I’ve learned something today.) 

May we all have like minds and hearts even through our differences.  May we bless each other because of who we follow, not who we are.  Our unity does not exist because we say the same things, but because there is Christ.

Well I’ll be, Joe.  You might have just started a church whether you wanted to or not:)

Don’t Touch Me!

This article was in the news today  (See It Here) and caught my attention.  It seems that the Pope was going through the crowd at his general audience and was standing in "the popemobile" (I’m not making fun.  That’s what it’s called.) but they didn’t have it covered in the usual bulletproof glass.  He goes out uncovered whenever he is in the Vatican Square and then they cover it when he makes trips to other countries.  There were about 35,000 people there to see the pope as he drives through and waves to the crowd, picking up the occasional baby to kiss.  What makes the story interesting is that a man jumped the barriers, ran out to the popemobile, and hung on the back of it for a few seconds before being tackled and detained by the Vatican police.  A spokesman for the Vatican states that "The man was a 27-year-old German who showed signs of mental imbalance.  He was interrogated by Vatican police and then taken to a hospital for psychiatric treatment."

This amazing imagery really got me thinking.  I was flashing back to the story in the New Testament where Jesus is walking through this thick crowd and a woman reaches out to touch him.  (Luke 8:42-48) Jesus makes a statement to the disciples that someone had touched him.  Of course, the disciples are thinking "There’s people everywhere.  Everyone is touching you right now."  Jesus, though, knew someone was in need and stopped to reach out to her.  It’s alot like the situation with the pope, with a few exceptions.  There’s no barriers to hold back the crowd.  There’s no police force (though you can argue that the disciples were trying to fill that role).  There’s definitely no bulletproof glass.  There’s simply Jesus in a crowd.

Now I know that things have changed over the past 2000 years.  We don’t live in the same world that Jesus lived in.  Things have even taken a turn for the worse after 9/11.  Our concern turns to protecting our leaders and keeping them safe so that they can continue in their roles, leading us and making decisions for us, allowing us those brief moments where we see them as they pass by and wave at us.  We’ve allowed the media to turn them into international celebrities that can’t be touched, but are great to look at.  This is a day where the pope travels in a glass box like that precious trinket that your mom put on the top shelf under a glass dome to keep you from breaking it.  We HAVE to protect these leaders, political or religious, because without them our organizations would fall into chaos.  Man, I wish the disciples had thought of this!

Or did they?  You see the picture in Matthew 26 where Jesus is arrested and one of his followers picks up a sword to fight back, trying to stop them from taking or hurting Jesus.  Jesus has him put the sword away because "all who draw the sword will die by the sword."  You see him allow himself to be taken away.  I would figure that the disciples were looking for any way they could get him out of this situation and rescue him.  They would have stopped the woman in the crowd.  They would have stolen Jesus away in the night, if they could have.  Jesus, though, knew that He could not reach these people if He could not touch them.  That openness eventually led to his death on the cross at the hands of his accusers.  He was so accessible that anyone could get to him, even at the risk of his own life.

I’m really not pointing fingers at the pope or even trying to compare him to Jesus.  I am looking at us and our churches.  Are we truly as accessible as Christ to those who need Him most or are we locked up in our bulletproof hamster cages so that we won’t get hurt and our "ministries" can still go on?  I sometimes see us trying so hard to "minister without touching people".  We’re afraid to go to the places that are dark and dirty because something might happen to us.  There’s a desperate need to take on the concepts that Christ lived by that showed His ministry existing out in the open among the wretched.  Could He have gotten hurt?  I’m sure He could have.  Was that His concern?  Not at all.  I mean, think about it.  His ministry was 3 years long because of this type of thinking.  We’re all trying to keep ourselves safe and sound so that we can live long lives while millions of people are dying around us.  We’re comfortable and content, but are our ministries truly doing what Christ intended if we are so worried about controlling the outcomes of our contact with other people?

As I read this story and heard the reactions of the representatives for the pope I couldn’t help but wonder what affliction this man might have had that needed the touch of Christ.  As we are the followers of Jesus, the body of Christ, was he really just needing to reach out and touch someone?  They say he has a mental illness.  So did some of the people in the bible.  What would have happened if someone would have been able to let him know that "because of his faith he was healed".

Man, things sure have changed.

This Godless Internet

I was looking at the "GodTube" site, which is (of course) the Christian alternative to YouTube.  This was after seeing "MyPraise" for replacing MySpace (along with "MyChurch", "SpaceFaith", and "ChristUnion") and I was wondering what might be the next great successful website that obviously need to be "Christianized".  Here are a few of my votes:

1. "Goddle"-the newest God-safe search engine.
2. "Jbay"- The yard sale for Christ.
3. "Christipedia"-Collective information on the greatest God ever!
4. "Nile.com"- Amazon’s Christian brother: Different river, same low prices.
5. "Christ’s List"- Who the heck is Craig anyway? And what denomination is he?
6. "Godster.com"- Monsters are evil and you only need a Christian job, anyway.
7. "Yahweh"- Yahoo with a little "Oy Vey"!
8. "GODspeedia.com"- Christian travel site so you can book ahead before jumping from church to church.
9. "GodcoDirect"- Get low cost "Fire Insurance" without some annoying gecko! (Mama says reptiles are evil….)
10. "ChristWire"- Why should the heathens get the discount on downloading illegal mp3s?  We can download them AND have "non-tax status"!

And, of course, every computer should come loaded with:

"GODTunes":  Be like Eve and REALLY take a bite out of the Apple!

AND

"Norton Anti-Christ":  Building a hedge of protection around your computer for at least 1000 years.  (Or until the rapture, whichever comes first)

Someday we’ve got to realize that Christ was an original.  We should be, too.