Tag Archives: Church
Cussing Christians
Posted on 10. Oct, 2008 by Kenny.
One of the blogs I subscribe to posted this recently. I literally laughed out loud!
Lark is a news site that pokes fun at the Christian sub-culture, but in a very funny way. It’s like “the Office” of news blogs. The material is fictional, but it doesn’t read that way. The first time I came across this site I did a double take, thinking the content was real.
What made me laugh so hard was because the the situation described in this fictional story wasn’t too far off from something that I knew happened in another church. How funny.
It brings up a really good point though. More than it has in a very long time, I feel the church is becoming more relevant to the world. That is good. However, I wonder if some churches are becoming “too relevant.” Although this article talks about how the youth pastor was practicing how to drop a swear word into a sermon to get attention, I’ve had conversations with people about this very subject. I’ve met people who honestly believe that swearing may help them be more relatable to those they are trying to reach. I’m not so sure that’s a strategy worth taking.
The other thing I’ve noticed in the “authenticity” movement is a tendency to get complacent with some habits, actions or words we use. We say words or do things that are questionable and slap the “hey, I’m just being authentic” label on it and feel better about ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love where the church is going. I love it when churches create an authentic and grace-centered environment where people don’t feel condemned or judged just by walking in the doors, but I think we all need to be careful about how “authentic” we allow ourselves to become. Grace is there to help us up, but not to be used as a crutch.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to get preachy. I actually found the article very funny because it hit close to home and this very issue has been the subject of conversations I’ve had in recent months.
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TwitterChurch
Posted on 10. Jun, 2008 by Kenny.
I just read this article about a church that used twitter during a church service. You really should read it, absolutely amazing! In case you’re just skimming, I’ll give you the gist. The church planned ahead and let people know that a particular Sunday was going to be Twitter Sunday. So, people walked into the service with their iPhones and laptops. They had over 70 people following the church feed. There were big screens all over the auditorium displaying the feed as people interacted with all parts of the service. How amazing is this?
They said that there was humorous banter going on in the early part of the service, which kind of eased people into the feeling of community. Later on there were great moments of reflection and agreement and solid points displaying during the service. The end result? About half of the team loved it. The other have hated it. They didn’t say, but I’d be willing to guess the age/personality temperament of those who hated it.
Here’s what I love about this. Have you recently watched a teenager on the computer? With facebook, myspace and whatever chat clients they have going on, they have all of them open on their desktop and they are doing 3 things at once while actively participating in at least two separate conversations. It’s crazy. I’m not saying this is healthy, but it is the reality of the generation entering the adult church population. Why not create this type of experience in a worship setting? Why should a church service be totally passive for the hundreds or thousands sitting in their chairs. The lead teacher/communicator doesn’t have to “interact” with the feed, but it could happen in conjunction with the service. Here is his follow-up post about the hurdles they had to overcome to make this happen. What do you think? Would you find this a positive experience or terribly distracting?
Technorati Tags: Twitter,iPhone,Worship,Church
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Going to church is flippin’ easy (Lessons Learned the Hard Way Part 4)
Posted on 09. Mar, 2008 by Kenny.
It’s Sunday, so I thought I’d keep this one light.
In the 11+ years I’ve been a Children’s Pastor, I hardly know what it is like to “attend” church. Typically I’d miss 2-4 weekends a year for the last decade. On those weekends, I’d either be on vacation or something like that. On those weekend that I attended another church, I was usually checking them out and had an agenda for being there.
So, since I’ve been “out,” my eyes have been opened. It’s just easy to go to church. I figured that I would probably become a Saturday church attendee if I could… I like to have my mornings to sleep in. However, on the first weekend I had free I was amazed at how much time I had on Sunday morning. I got up, fed my son, watched a movie on DVD, got dressed and then still made it to the 11:00 service. I was back home by 12:20. That’s too easy. I understand being busy and having all kinds of commitments, but committing local church attendance isn’t so bad… especially when you attend a casual “come as you are” church. That way I don’t even have to shower.
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I was a visitor, the first time in over 10 years
Posted on 12. Nov, 2007 by Kenny.
I was on vacation last week, so I didn’t actually attend church (unless you count Bedside Baptist with Rev. Sheets). Since my weekend was open this week, I decided that I would go check out someone else this weekend. I actually wanted to visit a church just 4 miles down the road that I’ve seen and heard a lot about over the years. It was a 3 year old church plant that’s been growing like crazy. I have a friend who is a ministry intern there and and I had seen pictures of their new facility. I had seen some pictures and from the looks of it, this church plant had an incredible looking environment for kids (without having to spend a fortune on Wacky World or something at that level). [...]
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The Multi-Site Advantage
Posted on 21. May, 2007 by Kenny.
 Sorry, I still have multi-site on the brain. I was thinking about my last two posts all weekend and felt that I needed to emphasize the last few sentences of my most recent post. This was the thing that I found so beautiful and so powerful about multi-site kids ministry. [...]
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My Multi-Site Evaluation
Posted on 18. May, 2007 by Kenny.
Okay, my last post was getting too long and I hadn’t even gotten to my honest evaluation. So, I decided to add a separate post of my evaluation. I’ve been intimately involved in a multi-site church for about 18 months on various levels of leadership. In addition, our style of multi-site leadership has changed over the past 18 months. So, this evaluation is simply my honest opinion based on my experiences. [...]
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