From the Exec...

Jesus? Yes! Church? YES!

2012-01-05T16:11:00.001-06:00

I've heard more times than I care to remember folks saying things like, "Jesus? Yes! But church? No. Not interested."

I understand why folks might feel that way.

Popular media will often cast the church in a negative light. The church is often presented as opposing progress, trying to enforce archaic moral values, and teaching quaint but outdated fairy tales. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Church leaders do things that bring disgrace to the church; the news media is not hesitant to report cases of clergy sexual abuse, financial mismanagement, or any of a myriad of other indiscretions. Add to that the plethora of other religious options -- e.g., eastern mysticism, moderate and radical Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism -- which are the consequence of immigration trends. What right do Christians have to tell others what they believe is wrong (and what we believe is right), that they should cease being Hindus or Jews and become Christians if we can't get our own act together?

Newsweek Magazine (April, 2009) went even further when it announced the end of Christian America. Al Mohler, a seminary president and defender of the Christian faith, was quoted in the article saying, "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."

Is it true? Is America turning away from Christianity? Is the church outdated, irrelevant … a social appendix, a vestigial organ that now serves no useful purpose?

I wondered. Being a nerd (who spends most of his time trying to not let folks know that's who I really am), I began to wonder what the world would be like if Jesus hadn't come, if the church didn't exist. Would the church be missed? Has Christianity really made a difference in our world?

This is an especially relevant question for me since UBA exists to help churches spread the good news of Christ, to encourage people to become Christ followers, to help churches make a difference in their communities.

So I began to do one of the things I do do best -- read, study, research.

And the conclusion I came to is this: the Christian faith and the church has been foundational and fundamental to our Western way of life -- to many areas of related to human rights -- the treatment of women, care for children, abolition of slavery, care for the sick--to capitalism, to our scientific world view, even our current educational system.

Over the next few months I'll unpack some of what I've learned in my research. I'll show you what a radical difference Christianity has made. And I hope you'll end with the sense that I have now -- that we can be proud of who we are and what we believe, that the world would be a much different place without Christians and that sharing our faith is one of the best things we can do for both the eternal and temporal destiny of folks.

That doesn't mean I'm blind to the shortcomings of the church. The church isn't perfect. We have our critics and we need to listen to and learn from them. Church members and church leaders are not always well-behaved. There are times we we should be ashamed an apologetic. But we need not be ashamed of the gospel nor the difference it has made in our world!

Next time I'll start showing you just how.

'Tis the Season

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

I'm writing this between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The turkey is gone but the aroma of dressing and cranberry sause are still in the air. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind me, but I've still got lots of Christmas shopping to do. It's a time of betwixt and between, of giving thanks, of making lists and anticipating something special. So it seems appropriate as I write this, my last blog of the year, that I spend a moment sharing some of the things I'm thankful for and wishing for in my role as Executive Director of Union Baptist Association.

Giving Thanks

I have had the opportunity to serve in the role of executive director of UBA for more than a decade now. I began serving on the associational staff in a full-time capacity twenty years ago and moved into the role of executive director in the late nineties. Over the past two decades I've seen many, many things change in our association. We've grown in significant ways.

We have more churches and baptize more folks than any association in Baptist life.
We are one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse associations in Baptist life. Once UBA was all Anglo association. Today one third of our churches are Anglo, one third African American and one third language churches with Hispanic being the largest group.
We work cooperatively with Baptists and non-Baptist groups so long as they share our vision and values.
I serve with an outstanding team of leaders -- on our UBA staff and with our subsidiary corporations. I don't spend time motivating people to work; my job is to resource them and get out of their way! I could not ask to work with a more highly competent, trustworthy and dedicated group of people. Thanks team!
We enjoy the support of churches aligned with both state conventions. Years ago we decided as an association not to make state convention alignment an issue at the associational level. Consequently, we've maintained a high level of collegiality and cooperative among all our churches. If you looked at the money we receive from our churches, we enjoy strong support from both BGCT and SBTC churches. Thank you all!
UBA has been known through the years as innovative and a leader in Baptist life. That's due in great measure to the permission-giving culture of UBA. We are not afraid to experiment, to try new things. We are not tied to doing it the way we've always done it.

I didn't realize when the UBA Executive Director Search Committee informed me I was their choice as the new ED for UBA that it was one of the greatest days of my life. Looking back now, though, I know that it was.

Wishing for More

Just because I have so much doesn't mean I don't wish for more, though. (Isn't that just the way we are?) So what would be on my wish list as ED of UBA?

A positive view of the church. I hope in 2012 we can begin talking more positively about the church. The church in general suffers from a lot of negative press and bad attitudes, even among believers. We talk about losing ground, being in decline, having apathetic and uncommitted members ... and there's some truth in all of that. But it's also true that the world is a much, much better place because of Christ, the Christian faith and the presence of the church. In 2012 one of the key initiatives for UBA will be promoting the positive aspects of the church!

Bold steps forward! Since the events of 2001 in Houston (the national economic downturn, flooding from Tropical Storm Allison, 9/11, the collapse of Enron), UBA has been in a protection mode. We've had to reduce our budget, release staff, limit what we do. We've lived all the cliches -- "work smarter, right size, think outside the box, focused on our core competencies, managed expectations, innovate" -- in our effort to do our job. Truthfully, I believe we've done well. We really have done these things, but it's not enough. After a decade of consolidation, I believe it is time to take bold steps forward; to think about expanding, not retreating; to challenge our churches to take things to the next level, to push the envelope, to give 110% … I know, they're just more cliches, but they can also reflect our high level commitment to make a difference for Christ.

The list could go on ... more churches, more baptisms, more openness to the gospel ... but this blog cannot, so I'll stop here. As I do I want to say thanks to all once again for the privilege of serving as the executive director of UBA, and to wish you a Merry Christmas and a very happy new year!

Feliz navidad, y prospero año y felicidad en Christo.

Toppling Governments -- Spreading the Faith

2011-11-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

A question: what do secular movements like the revolutions in the Middle East and the protests against Wall Street have to do with the growth and spread of Christianity?

I've read accounts of what's going on in our world and wondered. Here's some of what I've concluded: these movements began when someone, deeply committed to a cause, starts to rally those closest to him or her to action. Using Twitter, Facebook, texting or old fashioned word of mouth, the cause spread from one person to another along already established social and relational networks. Movements spread like viruses, going from person to person, among those who are in close contact with one another -- a friend connects with a friend who connects with a friend.

According to Dr. Rodney Stark in his books The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal, Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force and the just released The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World's Largest Religion, that's how Christianity spread in the first three hundred years following Christ.

Dr. Stark says by 40AD the movement Jesus founded had only about 1,000 followers. By 300AD the number of Jesus followers had grown to around 6,000,000, or about 10% of the Roman Empire. Never has any movement--social, religious, or political--achieved such a rapid advance in the dominant culture without the aid of a military force! How did this happen?

The book of Acts tells the story of the growth of the early church. Much of Acts focuses on Paul and his missionary activities. While we usually think of folks like Paul as being responsible for the spread of Christianity, according to Dr. Stark the spread of Christianity didn't depend upon religious professionals so much as on ordinary folk who shared their faith with family, friends and neighbors (you can catch a glimpse of this happening in Acts 11:19-26),

Dr. Stark writes:

Christianity was spread, not so much by the professionals, but by ordinary people whose names and deeds are not recorded. Christian conversions followed networks of relationships. Missionaries often led the way making initial contacts. Once some insiders were converted, they became the key to the gospel spreading throughout the rest of the social network.
[T]he spread of religious movements is not accomplished by dramatic events and persuasive preachers, but by ordinary followers who convert their equally anonymous friends, relatives and neighbors.

The Roman authorities attempted to halt the expansion of Christianity by targeting its leadership. Men like Peter and Paul were arrested, imprisoned and executed. But that didn't stop the rapid, widespread growth of Christianity for it was a movement of the people, not the professionals!

We can find something very much like the growth of the early church happening in China today. Despite decades of religious persecution, the church in China is growing and spreading. The communist government tried to stop it by expelling missionaries and arresting and imprisoning pastors, but the church continued to grow because it was a movement of ordinary people.

Christianity conquered the Roman world without a strategic plan, without an organizational structure, without access to significant resources, without academic institutions, and without a professionalized clergy. How? Ordinary people, on fire with the love of Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit, told their families, friends, and casual acquaintances what God had done for them. There are many factors that influence a person's decision to become a Christ follower, but the most important factor seems to be a close and positive relationship with another committed Christ follower.

In my last few blog entries I've focused our attention on the concept of movements, wondering what it would take for there to be a spiritual, transformative movement of God spreading across our city like a wildfire. For there to be a movement of God do we need to call a group of pastors together, write a vision statement, develop a strategic plan, then figure out how we are going to fund it? I don't think so. There's nothing wrong with that approach, and it may help. But whether there is a strategic plan in place or not, the only thing that really matters is this -- as Christ's followers we must be deeply surrendered to him, and then just begin sharing our faith with our those closest to us -- family, friends and neighbors. If this simply formula can be used to topple governments and change social policies, surely it can be used to bring Christ to our world.

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For those interested in more books by Dr. Stark, just click here. It will take you to Amazon.com. Not only will you have access to Dr. Stark's books, but UBA will receive a little income on everything you purchase using this link. Other books you might consider are:

Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome

The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

Question: why? Our answer: "cause."

2011-10-05T09:07:00.002-05:00

There are certain answers that fit most any question. As an adult my favorite is "that depends." Try it out.

Which shirt (dress, etc) do you like best? "That depends" (on whether you intend to use if for dress or casual wear, on whether you wear it with blue jeans or shorts, etc.). Do you like to listen to music? "That depends" (for example, on what I'm doing). It even works for highly specific questions which you might think have only one answer. For example, is Washington DC the capital of the US? "It depends" (on whether you mean political capital, or entertainment capital, or financial capital).

"It depends" can be used to answer many questions. It is my default "adult" answer. As a kid my favorite response was probably "because" which I shortened to "cause." It works best with why questions.

Why did you hit your brother? "Cause" he hit me first, or he took my toy. Why didn't you take out the trash? "Cause" it was too heavy or it smelled too bad. Why? "Cause."

Today "cause" isn't an answer so much as it's a question. What "cause" are you living for?

I've been writing about movements and asking what it's going to take if we are ever going to see a great movement of God in our city. I believe great movements occur when people find a cause worth giving their lives to completely!

John Wesley didn't plan to start a movement, but nonetheless that's what happened. The founder of Methodism, Wesley lived at the epicenter of one of the most significant religious and social movements of the eighteenth century.

Wesley's goal was to reform a nation by spreading Scriptural holiness over the land. Wesley believed that people without Christ were lost, that sin brought destruction in this life and the next, that faith in Christ should result in loving obedience to his commands, and that by faithfully following Christ the world could be changed!

Denied access to the church, he declared "The world is my parish!" He began preaching in open fields and public places. In his lifetime he traveled almost a quarter of a million miles on horseback, preached 40,000 sermons often preaching two or three times a day, and saw over 100,000 conversions.

Wesley didn't work alone. Wherever he went he appointed local lay preachers to carry out the work of ministry. This expansion of lay preachers was one of the keys to the growth of Methodism.

Wesley's commitment to Christ and his cause never wavered throughout his lifetime. He endured opposition and derision from ministers and magistrates alike. Mobs often turned up at his meetings to disrupt his work, but never wavered in his commitment to Christ and his cause.

When Wesley was carried to his grave, it's been said that "he left behind him a good library of books, a well-worn clergyman's gown" and the Methodist church. Records show there were 71,463 Methodists in Britain and 61,811 in the US around the time of his death (1791). By 1850 Methodists were the largest Christian denomination in the US! (For the story of how this happened check out my blogs on "How the West Was Won.")

Summarizing his life and impact, Steve Addison says: "Although there were many factors that fed into this amazing expansion none were more important than Methodists' discipline and commitment to their cause." [italics mine]

Why am I writing about movements and how they come about? Because I believe a great movement of God is needed -- in our city, among our churches, in our denomination. Christian influence is waning. Our denomination is poised for decline. We can't just keep on as we are and pretend everything is going to be better.

That's why at UBA we have a cause: to mobilize churches to take on lostness. We believe that without Christ people are lost, that sin destroys but faith transforms, and that following Christ can truly change our world. We believe that the church is God's instrument in society for change. Only by sparking a movement of God that ignites our churches to take on lostness in exponentially greater ways is there hope.

You might ask, Do you really think if people follow Christ it will change the world? Based on the way I opened this article you might think my answer would be "that depends." Not this time. This time my answer is a definitive "yes."

Will it happen? Will we see a movement of God? This time my answer is "that depends." Do we have a white-hot faith? Are we committed to a worthy cause?

A White Hot Faith

2011-09-06T13:15:00.001-05:00

When Jesus said, "I will build my church"* I am confident he was starting a movement. He spoke with authority and conviction, and the common people heard him gladly and followed him devotedly. What began as a mission in the heart of God has become a transformative movement that has circled the globe and lasted for two thousand years!

Movements don't follow formulas; they follow passion.

The first great Protestant missionary movement began with Count Nicolas Zinzendof. His story is fascinating. Zinzendorf was born into one of the most noble families of Europe. As a young man he struggled with his desire to study for the ministry and the expectation that he would fulfill his hereditary role as a Count. As a teenager he formed a secret society, The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed, whose stated purpose was that members would used their position and influence to spread the gospel.

When he came of age as a young man Zinzendorf took a Grand Tour as was expected of a person in his position. On his tour he visited an art museum in Dusseldorf where he saw a Domenico Feti painting titled Ecce Homo, "Behold the Man." It portrayed the crucified Christ with the legend, "This have I done for you - Now what will you do for me?" The young count as profoundly moved and appears to have had an almost mystical experience while looking at the painting, feeling as if Christ himself was speaking those word to his heart. He vowed that day to dedicate his life to the service of Christ.

In 1722, Zinzendorf became intrigued by the story of the Moravians after granting a group permission to live on his land. So taken was he with them that in 1727 Zinzendorf left public life to spend all his time working with the Moravians.

In 1731, Zinzendorf met a converted slave from the West Indies. The tale of his people's plight moved Zinzendorf deeply. As a result two young men were sent to St. Thomas to live among the slaves and preach the gospel. This was the first organized Protestant mission work. It grew rapidly spreading to Africa, America, Russia and other parts of the world. In two decades the movement resulted in more missionaries being sent out than all Protestants had sent out in the previous 200 years!

The missionaries that went out were were laypeople, mostly farmers and tradesmen; trained as evangelists, not theologians; receiving scant training in language acquisition and cross-cultural ministry; with no financial support and no organization to look after them. They were simply people of passion on mission for Christ.

Movements don't follow formulas; they follow passion!

In the book Movements that Changed the World, Steve Addison identifies a "white hot faith" as one of the characteristics of a dynamic missionary movement. How does God develop a white hot faith in us?

Addison suggests two things:

(1) A crisis which results in a surrendered life. Thoughout Scripture God takes the initiate to call a person to His service through a powerful encounter (Moses before the burning bush, Isaiah's vision in the Temple, Jesus in the wilderness, Saul on the road to Damascus). Before there is any outpouring of vision, there is a deep experience of surrender to God followed by an outpouring of God's spirit (remember Pentecost?). An experience of crisis, surrender and empowerment is central to Count Zinzendorf's story as well as throughout every missionary movement.

(2) A process that results in a disciplined life. Just what that process is varies from movement to movement, but deep personal devotion to Christ and highly disciplined life are always evident. The early disciples met regularly to read Scripture, hear teaching, pray, confess and share with one another. The Moravians and Methodists met in classes to do much the same thing. These classes also became accountability groups with confession of sin and repentance key components.

While we cannot orchestrate a spiritual crises, we be open to God at all times, look for Him in all our life experiences, ask God what He is trying to say to us at all times. We can consistently spend time in his Word and prayer, listen to good biblical teaching and stay in community with fellow believers. In other words, we can make sure we are in the right condition for a God to ignite a white hot faith within us.

Due to extreme heat and dry conditions wildfires are igniting all over Texas right now. The wildfires can result when a tiny spark meets just the right conditions. While we can't control the spark (that comes from God), we can make sure our hearts are in the right condition. And we can pray for a movement of God to break out in our city, a movement that will ignite the church to share the gospel with the nearly five million people in our city who need to know Christ.

__________

*Matthew 16:18

For more on Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, check out: http://www.zinzendorf.com/countz.htm

The Church on the Move(ment): One Solitary Life

2011-08-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

Dr. James A Francis was the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California nearly a century ago. You've probably never heard of him. There are not many hits for him on Google. There is no Wikipedia article on his life or ministry. But probably everyone who reads these words has been impacted in some small way by something he said.

In a sermon, "Arise, Sir Knight," delivered on July 11, 1926, he spoke these words:

"Let us turn now to the story. A child is born in an obscure village. He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, proclaiming a message and living a life. He never writes a book. He never holds an office. He never raises an army. He never has a family of his own. He never owns a home. He never goes to college. He never travels two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He gathers a little group of friends about him and teaches them his way of life. While still a young man the tide of popular feeling turns against him. The band of followers forsakes him. One denies him; another betrays him. He is turned over to his enemies. He goes through the mockery of a trial; he is nailed on a cross between two thieves, and when dead is laid in a borrowed grave by the kindness of a friend. Those are the facts of his human life. He rises from the dead. Today we look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, What kind of a trail has he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned are absolutely picayune in their influence on mankind compared with that of this one solitary life."

Dr. Francis' sermon was published in The Real Jesus and Other Sermons (Judson Press, 1926). He apparently edited these words a few times into the version we know today as "One Solitary Life." Somehow over time his association with the words was lost and they came to be attributed to "Anonymous." Ironic, isn't it, that the Jesus of whom he wrote was born and lived in relative obscurity though he had a profound impact on mankind, and Francis' association with "One Solitary Life" likewise became obscure for over three-quarters of a century though his words are known by many.

When talking about Jesus, Dr. Francis asks: What kind of a trail has he [Jesus] left across the centuries?

I believe it is fair to say that when Jesus established the church he started a movement that is transforming our world for the good.

Most folks don't think of the church as a movement. Today we tend to think of it more as a place where people gather, a building, an institution. I'm rather confident that's not what Jesus had in mind. When he told his disciples they were to be witnesses to all people throughout the earth, I don't think he had in mind building an auditorium in the heart of Jerusalem (just down from the Temple), installing Peter as pastor and inviting folks to come hear him preach. I think he wanted to start a movement where all people could hear the good news, become Christ followers, and find the abundant life they long for.

Just look at the language of the book of Acts. It's not about an institution. it's all about movement. The Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples as a mighty rushing wind and tongues of fire. Wind implies movement -- there is no wind unless there is movement. And fire is in constant motion. Again, movement. Later the disciples are scattered by persecution like seeds scattered by a farmer as he throws them to the wind and they fall upon the ground. Movement!

In the book Movements that Changed the World, Steve Addison defines a movement as "a group of people pursuing a common cause ... movements are characterized by discontent, vision, and action." For good or evil, he says, movements change the world. In the weeks ahead I'm going to consider the five characteristics Addison identifies as characteristics of dynamic missionary movements. For the record here they are:

White hot faith
Commitment to a cause
Contagious relationships
Rapid mobilization
Adaptive methods

Dr. Francis wrote of that one solitary life that has had more influence on the world than the combined impact of "all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, [and] all the kings that ever reigned."

The church began as a movement and became an institution. At UBA we are committed to helping the church reverse it course and once again become a movement that will change our world!

For more information on One Solitary Life and Dr. Francis: http://www.sjvls.org/bens/bf007sl.htm

To purchase Steve Addison's book Movements that Changed the Word: http://www.ubahouston.org/589318.ihtml

A Call to Prayer on August 6

2011-07-05T14:19:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago (on May 18) Texas Governor Rick Perry wrote a letter to the governors of each of the other states inviting them to join him on August 6 at Reliant Stadium in Houston "for a solemn day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation."

Why?

He wrote: "As governors blessed to serve our respective states, we are all too aware of the struggles our citizens face that are often beyond the power of government to solve. Try as we might, we cannot right every wrong, prevent bad things from happening to good people or sign laws that cause people to treat one another with love, decency and respect.

"Given the trials that beset our nation and world, from the global economic downturn to natural disasters, the lingering danger of terrorism and continued debasement of our culture, I believe it is time to convene the leaders from each of our United States in a day of prayer and fasting, like that described in the book of Joel."

He is referring to Joel, Chapter 2, and I'm betting you haven't read Joel lately. I hadn't. So I went back and read it again. A plague of locusts had devastated the land, the economy, and with it the social infrastructure of the nation. The people were in great despair. Joel calls upon the people to gather for a solemn assembly. Everyone needed to be there--even the aged, the children and nursing mothers. Get the just married out of bed (yes, he really says that) and get them there, he says. After you've gathered, cry out to God and see what He will do. "Even now--[this is] the LORD'S declaration--turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the LORD your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, and He relents from sending disaster. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him..." (Joel 2:12-14).

Governor Perry concluded his letter: "Our nation was blessed to have founders who were both righteous and prayerful. I am not one who believes that our culture and society cannot be redeemed and renewed. But I believe it will take a great amount of prayer, and a renewed commitment to spiritual principles, to get our nation back on track. Let us not delay in doing what is right for our people and their future."

Once word got out that Governor Perry was calling for people to gather for a solemn assembly folks started asking questions: why would Governor Perry do this, is it an election ploy since he may be running for President, won't this turn into a political rally for the conservatives ... on and on the questions go.

When I was invited to meet with some of the organizers of the event, I had questions going into the meeting. (I sometimes think I have the spiritual gift of skepticism. ) I'll just be candid -- a city-wide solemn assembly is not the kind of thing I am naturally drawn to, but as I listened to Doug Stringer and others speak I decided this is something I need to support. Why? Here are some of my thoughts:

1. This will be a solemn assembly, not a political rally. Governor Perry is not organizing this event. That has been turned over to a group of folks, many of whom I know and trust, who are committed to keeping the event's focus spiritual, not political.

2. Our attention will be focused on God in worship and prayer. It will not be a celebrity parade; most of the folks who will lead in prayer will be folks you've never heard of ... ordinary folks like you and me. There will be no sermons or speeches; the organizers promise every speaker's platform time will be limited to a period of 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

3. While anyone is welcome to come, this is an event for the Christian church. The focus will not be on "political correctness." When folks pray, they will pray in the name of Jesus.

4. Originally, it was to be in Dallas, but the venue they wanted wasn't available. So the organizers turned to Houston. It seems providential to me, given the recent media attention surrounding the national cemetery in our city, that the event should be here rather than Dallas!

5. There is risk involved. Someone could say or do something inappropriate, but safeguards will be in place to keep things from getting too far out of hand. Even though there is some risk involved, I believe it is a risk worth taking.

6. The greatest risk may be for Governor Perry. If he is interested in running for President of the United States, being so clearly identified as a Christian who believes the future of our country rests on the providential and intervening activity of God may be more detrimental to his political campaign than helpful.

I have adjusted my schedule so I can participate. I'll be there to pray with brothers in sisters in Christ. I probably won't have on sackcloth and ashes, but I will be there in a spirit of humility. The body of Christ is so diverse I don't expect to be comfortable with everything that happens, but that's not the point. I can handle a little discomfort if what we are doing honors Christ.

I ask you:

1. To join me in Reliant Stadium, August 6

2. To reach out to your network and circle of friends and invite them to come with you

3. To pray for this to be a day that honors God and blesses our nation

Why Add When You Can Multiply?

2011-06-06T16:54:00.001-05:00

"We're not smart. We're just relentless." -- Ralph Moore

Ralph Moore is a pastor in Hawaii. I'm guessing, like me, you probably haven't heard of him before. I just learned about him today. If he had planted a church in Hawaii that grew to 10,000 people, we'd probably know him, but he didn't do that. Instead, he planted a church that multiplies churches that together amount to 70,000 people. Learning that intrigued me. I wanted to know more about Moore.

In 1983, after starting a church in California (Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach) he moved to Hawaii. The new church, Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay, began under a hau tree in a Kailua Beach Park with 71 folks in attendance. Within six months they planted their first "daughter" church. Today, HCKB had grown to more than 1,700 people. Under Ralph's leadership Hope Chapels have planted more than 700 churches located on six continents.

Ralph Moore believes church should be simple and it should reproduce. Ralph's strategy is to multiply through MiniChurches. The MiniChurch is where church members are discipled and cared for and new leaders are identified and nurtured. MiniChurches are small groups. They meet weekly to review the Bible teaching from the previous weekend's services. The format is simple (of course). They ask, what did you learn, what did God say to you, and what will you do? (Today Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay has over 115 Minichurches.)

Faithful group members who are influencing others are recruited as apprentice leaders and trained. Faithful apprentices can become MiniChurch pastors. MiniChurch pastors who are effective in multiplying other groups and leaders participate in the "pastor factory" where they are receive theological and practical training for current and future church leadership. The "pastor factory" becomes the talent pool from which future church planters are drawn. (Think of it as a kind of farm system for church planters.)

Mel Isara was one of the new Christians in Hawaii. He became a MiniChurch pastor and began multiplying other groups. Mel caught Ralph's vision for church planting and started his first church in 2001. Six months after starting the church, Mel told them he would only be their pastor for two more years.

True to his word, two years later Mel left to start another church. In the first service in the new church he told the congregation he was going to be the laziest pastor they had ever met because he was going to equip them to do the work of ministry. He told them he would be leaving in two and a half years and "Junior" would be their new pastor. Junior was a former alcoholic and drug addict Mel had been equipping for the past four years. In 2005, Mel kept his promise, left that church and headed to another city in Hawaii to plant another church.

Since 1972 Ralph has seen over 700 churches, large and small, started in North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Many of those churches have started churches that started churches that started churches, on and on out several generations. In human terms, some of these churches are parents, some are grandparents, great-grandparents and even great-great grandparents of new churches!

Ralph Moore isn't just a church planter. He's a movement maker. (Don't count baptisms, he cautions. Count new churches. That's the way to multiply.)

For many, many months I've said we need to think different(ly) if we are going to reach our city for Christ. One thing we need to do is shift our way of thinking from addition to multiplication. If multiplication (multiplying disciples, multiply churches) was our aim, what would we do? What would we stop doing? What would we do differently?

I'm convinced Jesus didn't come just to establish the church; he came to start a movement, a movement which grew exponentially. But what does it take to have a movement, whether social, political or religious? That's a question I'll explore next month as we look at the church on the move(ment).

Note: For more on Ralph Moore, visit www.hopechapel.com and www.ralphmoorehawaii.com, or read Ralph's book How to Multiply Your Church with Ed Stetzer.

It Matters if You Pray

2011-05-05T10:32:00.001-05:00

Today is the National Day of Prayer. The Continental Congress issued a day of prayer in 1775 to designate "a time for prayer in forming a new nation." As this nation continues to form, it only seems right to set aside time to pray for our country, her leaders, our place in the world of nations.

I'm not one who believes ours is a Christian nation (though I do believe there are biblical principles that form the framework for our country's foundation). I don't see us as godly and those who oppose us as ungodly. It's far too complicated to take that simplistic an approach. But I am proud to be an American. My heart beats a little faster and my emotions move more to the surface as I think about this nation of ours and how fortunate we are to be here. But that's not the focus of my thoughts today.

Does it really make any difference if we pray? That's a question that often comes to mind as I sit (or stand or kneel) in meetings like I will all day today to pray for our nation. I will confess, sometimes our praying (even my own) seems perfunctory, superficial and far too generic to be much good. Does it really matter if we pray?

Every time I ask myself this question I remember something a seminary professor and friend, Dr. Huber Drumwright, taught me about prayer. He had me look at Paul's prayer request to the church in Rome (found in Romans 15:30-32). Paul asked the believers in Rome to pray for him as he journeyed to their city. He asked them to pray for three things specifically: (1) that he would be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, (2) that his service in Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints there, and (3) that by God's will he would be able to come to Rome and meet with them. Then Dr. Drumwright had me read Acts 20-28. I smiled as I did. "You see," he said, "it really does matter that we pray."

You'll want to read Acts 20-28 for yourself (I'd encourage you to read it in "The Voice," the new translation of the New Testament published by Thomas Nelson). What is recorded there? It's the story of Paul as he leaves Ephesus and returns, after many years, to Jerusalem with a financial gift for the church there. Along the way he heard people were plotting against him. Many believers warned him not to go to Jerusalem, but he continued on his journey. Initially, he was well received by the church there (the first answer to prayer), but things turned against him quickly.

The story begins to read like a Grisham novel now. After Paul had been there a week or so, those who were plotting against him started a riot and tried to kill him in the confusion. Roman soldiers came to Paul's rescue and stopped the crowd from beating him. Paul is thrown into jail. He needed to be transported to another city far away to stand trial. Men take a vow to kill him while he's in transit. A boy overhears their plot, persuades the Romans the threat is genuine and under heavy Roman guard (about 200 soldiers!) Paul is taken to Caesarea. Answered prayer again as he is rescued from the unbelievers in Judea!

Before Paul is taken to Caesarea God assures him he will testify about him in Rome, the third thing Paul asked the believers to pray for. It doesn't happen quickly. Paul would stand trial several times more before various officials, a process that will take years, not days, before he was ensconced on a ship to sail for Rome. Strong winds, unabating storms and a hurricane force "northeaster" lead to a shipwreck. Again, God intervened several times to save his life. You'll want to read the story for yourself. It really is almost too good to be true, but true it is.

Finally, finally, Paul arrives in Rome where he is able to preach the gospel, meet with the church, and fulfill his mission. Answered prayer a third time!

Every time I wonder if it makes any difference when we pray, I remember this story and I am encouraged to keep on praying. I hope you are, too. Reflecting on the story, I also realize that while God will answer our prayers, those answers may be a while in coming. So I not only need to be positive as I pray, I need to be patient and persistent as well.

As you pray, pray for the churches of Union Baptist Association and the leadership of the UBA. We've got a big job to do as we try to strengthen churches and mobilize them to take on lostness.

As a quick-witted friend from seminary days said to me one time, we definitely need the prayers and you probably need the practice. (*smile*)

Good, Better, Best

2011-04-06T15:16:00.000-05:00

I'm not much of a poet nor a lover of poetry. But here's a little verse that's worth remembering.

"Good, better, best ...never let it rest,
until your good is better and your better best."

I think I read that little verse in a book given to me at college graduation. It's certainly not great poetry, but it is a worthy challenge ... especially in the realm of ideas.

In my previous blog on "iNnovation and Discernment" I concluded: "The creative process isn't about accepting every new idea that comes along. It's about taking the best ideas and enhancing them -- finding their strengths and building on them, finding their weaknesses and eliminating them."

When we are trying to solve a problem or come up with an innovative idea, it's easy to stop with the first good idea we have. It takes great discipline not to jump immediately into action. After all, we don't just want to come up with ideas. We want to solve problems, to take action, to get things done. It takes great discipline to say (to yourself or others): that's a good idea; now let's see if we can build on it and come up with a better idea.

Thomas Edison came up with a marvelous invention, the phonograph, which created a whole new industry. The story is beautifully portrayed in the movie "Edison the Man" staring Spencer Tracy. Edison didn't so much invent the phonograph ... he stumbled upon it quite by accident (like many great discoveries). He was trying to create a way of capturing the dots and dashes of a telegraph message when he wondered if his device might capture the human voice as well as an electronic impulse. Amazingly, it did. Voilà. The phonograph. It became one of Edison's greatest innovations. (Pictured: Edison and his early phonograph)

That was in the summer of 1877. But the fame bestowed on Edison for this invention (sometimes called his most original) was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, and its reproduction of sound was distorted and squeaky, good for only a few playbacks. Alexander Graham Bell had a better idea. Use wax instead of tinfoil (better). Emile Berliner had an even better idea. Why not use flat, wax platters rather than can-like tins. Production would be cheaper, easier and faster. Good --the tin foil disk. Better -- the wax disk. Best -- the wax platter ... which was the market standard for almost one hundred years!

Though I'll not take time to tell the stories, the same kind of thing happened to two of Edison's other great inventions: the electrical lighting system and moving pictures. Both inventions were innovative. Both created new industries. Both transformed the way we live. But no matter how good Edison's ideas were, someone else came along and improved on them. Westinghouse changed the electrical lighting system from direct current to alternating current. Charles Jenkins and Thomas Armat took Edison's concept of moving pictures (the one-person-at-a-time, peep-holed Kinetoscope) and developed a way to project them on a wall so a room full of people could watch at the same time.

My point in all of this is to say every idea, no matter how good it may be, can be improved upon. Even the wax platter, an industry standard for nearly one hundred years, was supplanted by the CD and digital technology.

So what ideas might we consider improving upon? How about the church? The concept of church is biblical. Jesus established the church and I'm confident it will last until he comes again. But the way we do church, that's where we need to be open to new ideas. Do we meet in a building and listen to one person teach or preach? That's one way of doing it. Are there better ways?

The idea of churches in a geographical region working together to promote education, church development, benevolence and missions is a good idea (it's called an association). Is there a better way of doing those things?

Is there a better way to start churches? A better way to train leaders? A better way to meet the needs of those around us? A better way to share the gospel? A better way to make disciples? Better ways to do missions?

Innovative thinkers are linked to the past, but they are not chained to it. They are constantly taking good ideas and improving upon them making them better.

In UBA we are re-tasking to mobilize churches to take on lostness. We know what we are doing is good (like Edison's phonograph), but we are convinced there are even better, more effective ways of carrying out the Great Commission and we are committed to finding them. It's not in the Bible, but it's well worth remembering: "Good, better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better best."

iNnovation and Discernment

2011-03-03T16:27:00.001-06:00

The "i's" seem to have it these days. iPod. iPad. iPhone. iMac. And my personal favorite these days: iNnovation.

I'm convinced we've moved into an era when innovation is the great new leadership skill ... and most of us don't have a clue how to be creative or innovative. Innovation and creativity aren't skills being taught in our seminary classes, so it is something we as church leaders will need to learn on our own. That's why I've spent the last two years learning all I can and sharing some of my thoughts with you.

I especially believe it is important for the church to be creative and innovative. One would think that since we serve the great Creator God that innovation and creativity would come naturally for the church. Quite the opposite is usually true. Taken as a whole, highly religious folks seem to value preserving the past more than being innovative or creative. Jesus ran into that with the scribes and Pharisees. (Remember his conversation about new wine and old wineskins?)

And it's not just religious folks that have trouble with new ideas.

"In 1968, the Swiss dominated the watch industry. The Swiss themselves invented the electronic watch movement at their research institute in Neuchatel, Switzerland. It was rejected by every Swiss watch manufacturer. Based on their past experiences in the industry, they believed this couldn’t possibly be the watch of the future. After all, it was battery powered, did not have bearings or a mainspring and almost no gears. Seiko took one look at this invention that the Swiss manufacturers rejected at the World Watch Congress that year and took over the world watch market.

"When Univac invented the computer, they refused to talk to business people who inquired about it, because they said the computer was invented for scientists and had no business applications. Then along came IBM. IBM, itself, once said that according to their past experiences in the computer market, there is virtually no market for the personal computer. In fact, they said they were absolutely certain there were no more than five or six people in the entire world who had need for a personal computer. And along came Apple." (Michael Michalko, "A Theory About Genius")

Being creative and innovative isn't easy, but it is essential if the church is to continue to have an impact in our world.

Thus far I've said that to be innovative we must (1) carefully define the problem, (2) learn from others who are successfully solving problems like the ones we face, (3) use what we learn from other like building blocks to construct new ideas, (4) give the new ideas time to germinate ... and now (5) be discerning. What do I mean by that? (Refer to my prior posts for more details on the process.)

When we first come up with a new idea, it is easy to think "that's the answer ... let's do it." But a good problem-solver will be discerning. Let the euphoria of a new, novel idea pass and take time to look at it critically. Look for strengths and weakness in the new idea. See if there are ways to make you good idea even stronger.

Here is where a critic can be really helpful. Most of us don't like critics, especially when they're critical of our new ideas. But the critic can turn out to be a benefit and a blessing if they help you look at your new ideas objectively.

Critics are usually folks who are looking at things from another point of view. During his lifetime, President Abraham Lincoln was the most unpopular president that ever lived. From our point of view, he was one of the greatest presidents that ever lived. We are looking at the same man, but our point of view is different.

Walt Disney learned to look at ideas from three points of view: the dreamer, the realistic and the critic. When he considered a new idea, he would begin by exploring all the possibilities. He would let his imagination soar without worrying about funding, implementation, technology, anything. Sometimes he would take new ideas and combine them with other ideas. Talking mouse? Why not! That was the point of view of the dreamer. The next day he would bring his fantasies back to earth and be the realist. How can we make this idea workable? Practical? Finally, he would play the part of the critic and poke holes in his ideas. Who's going to believe a mouse can talk? Is this really feasible? Can we fund it? Will people respond? Can we make money? By looking at his own ideas from these three different perspectives he learned to be discerning.

The creative process isn't about accepting every new idea that comes along. It's about taking the best ideas and enhancing them -- finding their strengths and building on them, finding their weaknesses and eliminating them.

That's what folks like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels did years ago. The took the idea of church, looked at its strengths and weaknesses, and figured out how to do it better to reach their communities. It's what the great church leaders have done throughout history. They haven't sought to preserve the past, but to build upon it in new and creative ways.

So here's the process we've discussed to date:

Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Learn from Others
Step Three: Imagine and Construct a New Idea
Step Four: Give Your Ideas Time to Germinate
Step Five: Be Discerning (Cast a Critical Eye)

The next step: start all over again and see if you can come up with something even better this time.

Give Your Ideas Time to Germinate

2011-02-01T12:19:00.001-06:00

One writer described our culture this way: "This is the age of the half-read page, and a quick hash and a mad dash; the bright night with the nerves tight, the plane hop and the brief stop, the lamp tan in a short span, the big shot in a soft spot, the brain stain and the heart pain, the cat naps 'til the spring snaps and the fun's done!" Pass the Valium, please.

When our kids were growing up Sandra and I had a cassette tape of children's songs we played for our boys. One song played so many times I recall the words now, many (many) years later: "Have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry. When you get impatient you only start to worry. Remember, remember, that God is patient to. Just think of all the times he had to stop and wait on you."

I suppose as an adult that song had more meaning to me than it did to our kids, but they got the message -- patience is a godly virtue. Unfortunately, it is not something most folks seem to practice ... especially when things aren't going well.

I mention this because I've also discovered patience is critical to the creative process ... and that's what I've been writing about for some time.

Jesus told a story about a man who scattered seed on the ground (Mark 4:26-29). After a time the seed begins to sprout and grow. He doesn't know how; it just does. He waits patiently until the plant (crop) fully matures before he harvests it. Jesus tells this story in reference to the kingdom of God, but, like any good story, there are layers of meaning. I even think there are lessons here for us on how to think creatively and be innovative.

Notice what the farmer does ... he gives the plant time to grow before he harvests it. That's what we need to do with ideas. We need to give them time to grow, to mature, to season. It's pretty obvious how you do that with a plant, but how do you do that with an idea?

Pray. 'Nuff said. Seriously. Pray, ask God to work through your heart and mind to formulate new, creative ideas.

Give your unconscious mind time to work. We have this sense, sometimes, that great ideas come like blinding lights on the road to Damascus. That's rarely true. Usually the really creative ideas come after we've spent time working on a problem, finding out how others have solved it, playing around with ideas, then focusing our attention on something else for a while. The process is much like the farmer planting the seed below ground and giving it time to sprout, establish its root system and begin to grow. Sometimes to solve a problem I have to get away from it, go running, sleep on it for a while. How many times have you had it happen that you worked on a problem, couldn't solve it and woke up in the middle of the night with the answer (or some version of that story)? It's the way God made us. We've got to give ideas time to grow in the soil of our subconscious mind before they sprout into really creative ideas.

Sometimes, like the farmer, we've got to work the soil to bring forth a crop. The farmer needs to clear out the weeds, loosen the soil, fertilize when appropriate, water if needed. Sometimes, even with ideas, we've got to work the soil if we want to bring forth the good fruit. Dr. Blaine McCormick is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University knows how to work the soil for a good idea. In his book At Work with Thomas Edison he says he will give a problem to his students and tell them they must come up with a list of at least 40 ways to solve the problem. After they've done that, he will ask them to identify their best idea. Almost always the best ideas come somewhere between number 16 and 32 on the list. Good ideas take time to develop!

Why even mention this? Why send this word out to churches? Simple. This year we are focusing on re-designing UBA "to mobilize churches to take on lostness." If we are not careful, in the name of trying to do something creative and new, we will just keep on doing the same old things we've always done. We will repackage our ideas, give them a new name, think that putting concepts on the internet rather than printing them out on a mimeograph machine (anybody remember them?) make them modern. It doesn't. Consequently, we will keep getting the same lackluster results we've been getting.

No, the really creative ideas come after hard work and lots of prayer. Like seed, ideas grow when the conditions are right. Our job is to do all we can to make the conditions right. Define the problem. Learn from others. Play around with our ideas. Give them time to develop. Next step, be discerning.

Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Learn from Others
Step Three: Imagine and Construct a New Idea
Step Four: Give Your Ideas Time to Germinate
Step Five: Be Discerning (Cast a Critical Eye)

Another thought about Imagineering

2011-01-31T16:27:00.001-06:00

I'll go on with the next installment of creative/innovative thinking ("Give Your Ideas Time to Germinate") in the next few days, but I came across this story which I thought would help explain the concept of imagineering.

The basic idea is this ... when creating a new idea, begin with an old idea ... I don't mean "old" in the sense of outdated ... I mean old in the sense of "prior." Use other ideas as building blocks for a new idea. Find a way to combine technologies to create something new, or maybe find new applications for existing technology (e.g., sometimes medicines designed for one purpose are found to discover other uses, which is how a certain medicine designed to control blood pressure was found to have other uses, but I'm not telling that story).

At Methodist Hospital here in Houston, Dr. E. Brian Butler had a hunch. Dr. Butler is the chairman of radiation oncology at Methodist. His hunch was that the 2-D black-and-white images created from CT scans, X-rays, MRIs and other tests could be combined and layered to create 3-D images. So he asked some gaming engineers if they could help him. He said to them, "I use radiation to kill cancer. I want to figure out where to drop my bombs on the enemy, and where not to. Can you help me figure out how to do that, in a 3-D simulated environment?" "Sure," they said. "You want sound effects?"

Now doctors use video game technology -- including Wii and PlayStation controllers -- to "travel" inside a patient's body and preview the landscape in 3-D before surgery. The images are shown on a 16-by-9-foot screen in a room that Dr. Butler and project co-developer Paul Sovelius dubbed "Plato's Cave."

"When I show my patients a photo of the thyroid gland in a book, there's no real depth of understanding," says Dr. Eugene Alford, an otolaryngologist and facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Methodist. The 3-D images shown in the Cave, however, make more sense to patients. "Fade out the skin, then see the muscles; fade out the muscles, see the arteries and veins of the neck, the windpipe, and how they relate to the thyroid gland," Alford points out. Now, perhaps even cooler yet, they take the 3-D experience to the patient's bedside using the iPad.

Notice how 3-D computer gaming technology combined with the older 2-D medical technology to create something entirely new (and cool!).

It just makes me wonder what new ideas are waiting to be discovered that can help the church do a better job communicating the gospel and making disciples. Some creative mind ought to be able to combine technology and incarnation (or some other combination) to help us find better ways to fulfill the Great Commission. I'm not that smart, but maybe you are.

_______

The source for the story on what's going on at Methodist Hospital is the January, 2011 issue of Continental's flight magazine. There's even a great story on how Memorial Hermann's autism clinic is using iPads (I've just gotta get one of those) to help autistic children learn to organize their thoughts and learn the names of things.

Become an Imagineer

2011-01-04T11:30:00.000-06:00

Imagineer. I don't recall ever hearing the term until I heard the late Dr. Randy Pausch use it in his famous Last Lecture. I had a fair idea what an imagineer was, but I took time to look it up anyway. Any imagineer is "a person who devises and implements a new or highly imaginative concept or technology, in particular one who devises the attractions in Walt Disney theme parks."

As I am using the term, though, I think of an imagineer as someone who uses his or her God-given gift of imagination. Imagination may be one of the most powerful tools in our mental arsenal. Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Though known for his use of logic, Einstein also said, "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."

When it comes to thinking differently, not just any kind of imagination will do. What's needed is a well-informed imagination. That brings me to the third step in thinking creatively.

Let me review what I've said before (for those who haven't read my prior posts). When faced with a significant challenge and you need to think differently, step one is to define the problem. The way you define the problem sets the stage for the way you will develop a solution. Step two is to learn from others. Brilliance is borrowed, so go exploring. Find out what others have done to solve problems like yours. Don't limit yourself to just folks who have the same problem you've had. Be intensely curious. Look at what folks have done in other fields. See what you can borrow from them to solve your problem. What you learn from others becomes the basis for your well-informed imagination.

That leads us to step three: imagine and construct a new idea.

For centuries manuscripts were produced the same way. A scribe would carefully and meticulously copy a manuscript by hand. It was a long, laborious, expensive process. Books were rare. Only the very wealthy could afford them. Consequently, not much was written and not many could read.

Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the world with the invention of the printing press (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press for more background).

Johannes Gutenberg was a goldsmith whose invention of mechanical movable type printing started the printing revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period. But where did he get the idea for movable type printing? “In 1448 Johannes Gutenberg combined the mechanism for pressing wine and punching coins to produce movable type, which made printing practical.” (Cracking Creativity, 114)

The Wikipedia article says: “Among his many contributions to printing are: the invention of a process for mass-producing movable type; the use of oil-based ink; and the use of a wooden printing press similar to the agricultural screw presses of the period. His truly epochal invention was the combination of these elements into a practical system which allowed the mass production of printed books and was economically viable for printers and readers alike."

Charles Darwin combined ideas from various disciplines in the development of his concept of evolution. While many naturalists noted the differences between species, Darwin noted their similarities, for example the similarities between the human hand and a bird's wing. But this was not enough to give him the idea of evolution. He borrowed key ideas from others. He was influenced by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology in which he said geological formations developed naturally over long periods of time. Add to that ideas influenced by Thomas Malthus' Principles of Population in which he said populations tend to grow beyond their natural resources and are "checked" by natural processes (starvation, disease, conflict) and you have the basis for Darwin's theory of evolution.

As we look at what will be needed to reach the vast, diverse, unreached population of Houston with the gospel, we will need to pray earnestly and think creatively. If we continue just doing what we've done, maybe just trying harder, we will fail to fulfill our Great Commission responsibilities. I believe, as I always have, that the church is the basis for reaching our city with the gospel. But doing things as we've always done them isn't enough. We need to think differently, creatively, about the kinds of churches we start and about the ways we start, fund, and support them. We need to move from addition to multiplication. We need to think more creatively about church leadership, about leadership development, about evangelism, and about every aspect of our work.

So what can we learn from others? From social media? From broadcasting? From medicine? From the Salvation Army? From the U.S. Army? From al queda? From social enterprise? From business? From the Mormons? From musicians? From IMB and IBM? And how can we use what we learn as components to create new ideas? To paraphrase the wedding ditty, instead of something borrowed, something blue, we want to use something borrowed to make something new.

Feliz año nuevo!

Learning to Think Different(ly)

Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Learn from Others
Step Three: Imagine and Construct a New Idea
Step Four: Give Your Ideas Time to Germinate (coming in February)

Let Others Solve Your Problems

2010-12-01T10:56:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas. I know that's something everyone seems to say this time of the year, but I really do mean it. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, that it brings you close to family, friends and God, and that you discover again the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Thanks for taking time to read my ideas and reflect seriously upon them. I hear from folks all the time about things I've written and it encourages me. If you are reading my blog for the first time you should know that each edition is part of an ongoing dialogue that proceeds on things written earlier. So to get the full benefit of each article it would help to read the articles that have gone before it. Enough said.

The church has some unfinished business. Jesus told his followers to make disciples of all peoples beginning with their neighbors and extending out to all people everywhere (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). Like many things, that's easier said than done. So what stands in the way of us doing that? In part, at least, we've shifted the focus away from "making disciples" to consumer models of "doing church" and I don't think that's what Jesus intended. I really believe Jesus envisioned the church as a disciple-making movement rather than the Christendom of Europe or the consumer-oriented church of America. If that is so, how do we get back to that?

Let others solve the problem for us! At least let them start to solve the problem for us.

Andrew Hargadon and Robert Sutton writing in Harvard Business Review say: "The ... best innovators systematically use old ideas as the raw materials for one new idea after another." (May‚ June 2000, "Building an Innovation Factory")

The Industrial Revolution was born when steam power replaced water and muscle power. The idea of using steam to generate power has been around since the ancient Greeks, but it was centuries later before folks like Thomas Savery, Thomas Newcomem and James Watt took that idea, built upon it and changed the world.

We think of velcro as a space age product, but the idea, literally, has been around since creation. Cockleburs have stuck to clothing since Adam and Eve put on fig leaves, but it wasn't until Swiss engineer George de Mestral came home from a hunting trip with his dog and really looked closely at them that anyone conceived of them as the basis for a new kind of fastener.

Today scientists are studying the gecko to learn how to learn about surface tension and discover how to create a boot that will adhere to any surface (making Spidermen of us all).

How can we let others solve our problems for us? In Borrowing Brilliance, David Kord Murray suggests problems can be solved by learning what others have done to solve your problem or problems like yours and use what you learn as ingredients for forming new ideas. First, copy; then, create. He suggests looking in three categories: learning from others in your field, learning from similar but unrelated fields, and learning from completely unrelated fields.

What can we learn from our own field? What churches are doing the best job of making disciples? (Not just growing membership.) We hear about church planting movements going on around the world. What can we learn from them? Baptists and Methodists grew rapidly in the U.S. during the 1800s. Anything we can learn from them?

What can we learn from other fields/industries? How did McDonald's grow from one fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, CA to the world's largest chain of hamburger restaurants in a span of 60 years? How did Walmart grow from a few stores in northwest Arkansas to the world's largest public corporation in less than 50 years? (I'm not advocating adopting business practices to grow the church per se, but I think there is something to be learned from them.)

What can we learn from unrelated fields? Virus spread rapidly. What can we learn about rapid multiplication from viruses and the spread of epidemics? What about ideas? How do ideas spread? How do fads develop? How did the Beatles move from obscurity performing in night clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg to the most commercially acclaimed popular music act in history?

Are there things that run though all of these? For example, I think there is something for us to learn about simplicity of structure. Viruses are simple organisms. Church planting movements are built upon simply structured house church models. Franchises are precisely replicated, simple organizations (each one essentially the same as the next). Want a burger and fries? McDonald's has it? Want a steak and baked potato? Sorry!

If all truth is God's truth, we can learn from others and apply what we learn to advancing God's kingdom cause in our world.

Learning to Think Different(ly)

Step One: Define the Problem
Step Two: Learn from Others
Step Three: Imagine and Construct a New Idea

Defining the Problem -- Finding Solutions

2010-11-08T08:59:00.001-06:00

Previously I've written* the mission of the church is to make disciples of all people, to lead the unconvinced and unbelieving to become fully devoted followers of Christ. The work of the association is to assist the church in carrying out that mission. (*see "Define the Problem")

If that's our task, we are not doing a very effective job. While we can show that we are starting new churches and our churches are baptizing folks, we are doing it at a rate much slower than the population growth of the city. We are doing good ... just not good enough. (see “Insanity Redefined”)

We can't just keep doing what we've been doing and expect things to get better. We need to do things differently. But we will never do things differently until we begin to think about things differently. (see "Think different(ly).")

The first step to thinking differently, I've said, is to define the problem. I asked what you thought. Now let me share what I think. I think the problem is the way we think about church.

When most folks think about church they think of a building, of people gathered to hear a preacher, of ongoing programs like music, children and youth ministries, Sunday School, missions groups. The model is deeply ingrained in us whether we like it or not.

But is this what Jesus meant when he said "I will build my church?" I don't believe so.

When Jesus gathered his disciples and told them to follow him he didn't take them to the Temple and say "Now guys, we're going to raise shekels and build a building. I'll be the pastor. Peter, you and John can be my associates. Matthew, I want you to be chairman of the stewardship committee. Andrew, you’re in charge of the new members class. Anybody play the organ? We'll grow this thing and start more like it and some of you can be the pastors of the new churches we start. We'll need one in Antioch, Cairo, Ephesus, Rome...."

Not on your life! Jesus gathered his disciples, taught them in the course of daily life and sent them out to make other disciples from among all the peoples of the earth. That's the essence of the Great Commission. That's the essence of church.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the IRS may have a greater influence on how we do church than the Bible because the IRS encourages formal organization and incorporation, asks questions about fundraising, place of worship, clergy training, and familial relationships to governing bodies. These issues are not raised by the Bible and they shouldn't be issues that define or limit how we do church.

Buildings, professionally trained clergy and meeting IRS guidelines are not wrong or bad. That's not the point I'm trying to make. The problem comes when they become the primary ways we define and understand church rather than the biblical instruction to make disciples.

So how would I define the problem? I would say we have substituted an institutional understanding of church for a biblical one that focuses primarily on making disciples of all people.

Does this mean traditional churches aren't making disciples? Not at all! I'm the product of a traditional, institutional church and probably so are most of the folks reading this blog. Traditional churches have programs that teach people to share the gospel, educate believers, even send folks out to far away places to make disciples. My point is not that they don't do it. It's just a comparatively inefficient way of doing it!

Should we do away with traditional churches and change to another format? That's not going to happen and I don't think it needs to happen, but that moves us more toward finding solutions and I'll wait a while before addressing that. Let me go back to the process I referred to in "Define the Problem."

In order to think more creatively, begin by defining the problem. Then, to think creatively learn what others have done to solve the problem.

In his book Borrowing Brilliance David Kord Murray says "All brilliance is borrowed. First copy, then create." It's nature's way. A copy of genetic material from the mother (egg) combines with a copy of genetic material from the father (sperm) to create an entirely new person that is similar to but distinctly different from either father or mother. (It would have been so easy to refer to my grandson so recently born, but I resisted the temptation.)

When did the church do it’s best job of making disciples? How did they do it? Who is doing an outstanding job of making disciples today and how are they doing it? These are not the only questions we need to ask, but they get is started as we continue to rethink the church.

I'll have more to share about finding solutions to problems in the next segment. Hint: it's not just the church we need to learn from.

Learning to Think Different(ly)
Step One: Define the problem
Step Two: Learn how others have solved the problem

How the West Was Won -- Part 3

2010-10-25T07:41:00.003-05:00

As a proud grandfather, I just had to include this picture of our new grandson and his father (our son).

Let me introduce Matthew Billings Jr and his father Matt. Matthew was born October 21, 2010 and is healthy, content and very well loved.

Let me pick up where I left off. I'm trying to provide background material to part one in this series in which I said that the way early Baptists and Methodists in America were structured made a significant difference in their ability to start many new churches and reach people with the gospel. I'm basing my argument on the excellent research provided by Finke and Stark in The Churching of America: 1776-2005. The comments in italics below are direct quotes from their work. All other comments are mine.

One of my contentions in "Insanity Redefined" is that we cannot start all the churches we need because there are not enough clergy to pastor the number of churches we need if we rely on having full-time, seminary educated clergy. That wasn't a problem for the early Baptists and Methodists in America.

Not only could the Baptists and the Methodists generate surplus clergy, both denominations operated with incredibly low overhead. The Baptists typically paid their preachers nothing at all; most earned their living with a plow just like other members of the congregation. [p.82]

The uneducated and often unpaid clergy of the Baptists and Methodists made it possible for these denominations to sustain congregations anywhere a few people could gather, for it was the pursuit of souls, not material comfort, that drove their clergy forth. [p.84]

I include these two quotes not to suggest churches should not pay their pastors, but to show that Baptists grew through laymen leading small groups of folks like themselves. We might think of this as bi-vocational pastors leading congregations or laymen leading simple, organic churches. It also highlights their passion to reach the lost as the following quote suggests: Indeed, it would be hard to imagine that any sum of money could have motivated Bishop Asbury to travel nearly 300,000 miles on horseback, disregarding weather and chronic ill-health, to supervise his far-flung network of itinerants and circuit riders. [p.84]

These farmer-preachers knew what to do: preach! Neither the Baptists nor the Methodists set forth their confessions in complex theological writings that required extensive instruction or teaching ... but both denominations stressed spiritual conversion and a strong individual responsibility to God. [p.86]

What about their doctrine? Did the lack of formal theological education make them subject to poor theology or false doctrine? Apparently not. Probably just the opposite.

The Harvard and Yale divinity schools did not train their students to earn their own livings behind a horse and plow or prepare them to spend half their days in the saddle going from one rural hamlet to another. As George Whitefield charged, the primary impact of these schools on many of their students, then as now, may have been to replace faith with theology and belief with unbelief. For seminaries, a desire for intellectual integrity and academic acceptance soon takes precedence over developing the skills desired and the piety admired by those in the pew. Indeed, it was in the religion departments and divinity schools, not in the science departments, that unbelief was formulated and promulgated in American intellectual life. [p.87]

Just FYI, in the last quote the authors refer you to Conrad Cherry (Hurrying Toward Zion: Universities, Divinity Schools, and American Protestantism) for a historical overview of divinity schools' struggles with intellect and piety. Also, just to be clear, I am grateful to my alma maters, Belmont University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, from which I received a good, solid liberal arts and theological education.

What does this mean? It means these folks were solid theologically and passionate about reaching people with the gospel. Though not professional clergy, they were effective in reaching folks like themselves because they were "of the people, by the people and for the people." They used the language of the people. They made careful use of vernacular imagery, metaphors, and stories that applied to the everyday life of their audience. // The Baptist and Methodist preachers looked like ordinary people because they were, and their sermons could convert and convince ordinary people because the message was direct and clear and the words were not read from notes, but seemed (to both speakers and hearers) to issue directly from divine inspiration. // We must never underestimate the impact of humble and ardent preachers on the spread of faith. [p.86]

In some ways, these preachers were not special. They were common folks, but that may be what made them special! They were common, ordinary everyday folks, in love with Jesus, passionate about reaching others with the gospel, willing to personally sacrifice if necessary to see that their family, friends and neighbors had a chance to hear the gospel and be saved. That's how the west was won for Christ in America.

How the West Was Won -- Part 2

2010-10-11T10:04:00.001-05:00

In my previous blog I mentioned Finke and Stark's The Churching of America: 1776-2005. I thought a few quotes from their chapter "The Upstart Sects Win America, 1776-1850" might be enlightening. Quoted material will be in italics and cited for easy reference.

In 1776 the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians seemed to be the colonial denominations. Of Americans active in a religious body, 55 percent belonged to one of the three. And at the time it seemed certain that these groups would continue to be in the "mainline" for the foreseeable future. Indeed, in 1761 Ezra Stiles using a demographic projection technique taught him by Benjamin Franklin, proclaimed that one hundred years hence there would be seven million Congregationalists in the colonies and fewer than four hundred thousand Baptists. But by 1860 there were actually fewer than five hundred thousand Congregationalists in America, while the Baptists numbered nearly two million. What happened? [p.55]

In 1776 the Methodists were a tiny religious society with only 65 churches scattered through the colonies. Seven decades later they towered over the nation. In 1850 there were 13,302 Methodist congregations, enrolling more than 2.6 million members--the largest single denomination, accounting for more than a third of all American church members. For such growth to occur in eighty years seems nearly miraculous. [p.57]

Thus the central question comes into clear focus. Why did the leading denominations of 1776 crumble in a free market religious economy? What did they do wrong? Or what did the Methodists and the Baptists do right? [p.60]

Where there are winners there are losers. Much can be learned from a comparison of the two primary winners in the American religious economy between 1776 and 1850, the Methodists and Baptists, with the two primary losers, the Congregationalists and Episcopalians. There also is much to be gained from examination of the "also-ran" Presbyterians, whose growth kept pace with the population, but not with the increase in the proportions active in churches. [p.72]

Social scientists agree that the structure of an organization can have tremendous impact on its efficiency and success. [p.72]

The authors cite the local, democratic rule of the congregation in both Methodist and Baptist churches as significant. Methodist congregations were divided into small, close-knit groups called classes. Each class met on a weekly basis and was composed of approximately a dozen or more members. Here is where the zeal of camp meetings was maintained, intimate fellowship was achieved, testimonials were offered, new converts were instructed, and the behavior of the faithful was monitored. [p.73]

In this era the actual pastoral functions were performed in most Methodist churches by unpaid, local "amateurs" just like those serving the Baptist congregations up the road. [p.73] [This is in contrast to the Congregationalists and others that functioned with highly educated, well-paid, full-time clergy.]

Whereas the Baptists would form regional associations wherever four or five Baptist churches were established Congregational churches established outside of the New England region were often isolated units, lacking any regional support. [p.74, just had to thrown that one in]

The Presbyterians had established strong presbyteries throughout the nation, and ... they fared much better than did the Congregationalists or the Episcopalians during this era. Their growth, however, was constantly plagued by divisions within their organization. [75]

The organizational forms used by the Baptists and the Methodists were quite different, but their clergy were nearly interchangeable. In both denominations, ministers primarily came from the ranks of the common folk and, to a very important extent, remained common folk. Unlike the Congregational, Presbyterian, arid Episcopalian ministers, who typically were of genteel origin and were highly trained and well educated, the Baptist and Methodist clergy were of the people. They had little education, received little if any pay, spoke in the vernacular, and preached from the heart. [p.76]

In short, well-educated clergy entered a prestigious full-time profession with a variety of career opportunities, whereas the uneducated clergy answered a call from God and the people to serve the local church in saving souls. [By uneducated the authors mean they lacked formal theological education. They were not, the authors point out, less educated than the people they served.] Reliance on well-educated clergy also created a serious practical problem for the colonial mainline: a constant shortage of clergy. [p.80]

In contrast, Baptists and Methodists had an abundance of available clergy because the clergy came from the people. Both denominations developed systems that made it easy for gifted laymen to enter the ministry. Among the Baptists the local preacher, or farmer-preacher, was often a man of local origins whose call was ratified by his fellow congregants. [p.82]

Not only could the Baptists and Methodists generate surplus clergy, both denominations operated with incredibly low overhead. [p.82] More on this will follow.

That's enough for now. In good "speaker" speak, let me tell you what I'm trying to tell you and then continue developing my argument later: one of the key issues we need to face is that our current system of doing church is more like the Congregationalists than the old time Baptists and Methodists. Dependence on full-time, highly educated clergy, for example, limits how many churches we can start. So does our dependence of buildings and our emphasis on super-sized churches. Denominational conflict hindered Presbyterians and has hindered us as Baptists. Operating as isolated churches rather than working together hindered Congregationalists and will hinder us.

Back to the point I've tried to make all year. We've got to change the way we do church if we are going to reach the city. We've got to think differently about church if we are going to change. That's what I think. Let me know what you think.

How the West Was Won

2010-10-05T12:52:00.001-05:00

So, have you defined the problem yet? I will share some of my thoughts in this article, but I think it might be helpful to give you a bit of background information before I do.

One of the most intriguing and informative books I've read in many years is The Churching of America: 1776 to 2005 by co-authors Roger Finke and Rodney Stark. Dr. Roger Finke is a Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania State University who helped create the Association of Religion Data Archives which provides significant information on religious life in America (and a resource I use for our work in Houston). Dr. Rodney Stark was for 32 years professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington. In 2004 he became University Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University where he also serves as the co-director for the Institute for Studies of Religion. (I believe this is a book anyone interested in reaching our world for Christ should read! To purchase a copy of The Churching of America: 1776 to 2005 click here.)

In The Churching of America: 1776 to 2005 the authors look at the history of the church in America, how it grew, what factors contributed to the growth of some denominations and the decline of others. For example, in 1776, the leading denominations in America were Congregationalists, Anglicans (Episcopalians) and Presbyterians. Baptists and Methodists were considered sects. By 1850 everything changed! Methodists and Baptists were the largest denominations. Congregationalists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians fell far behind. Changes in the Methodist church in the 1880s caused their growth to stall out while Baptists continued to grow becoming the largest denomination in the US.

What happened? What contributed to the growth of Baptists and the decline of other denominations? Social scientists believe there were several contributing factors (things we need to pay attention to today).

Structure made a difference. Churches were not highly organized. Their structure was simple and congregational. Among Methodists, the class meetings (home Bible studies led by laymen) were a primary source of spiritual and social support for members.

Pastors were not professionals. A highly professionalized clergy had not yet developed. Among both Baptists and Methodists, pastoral functions were mostly performed by unpaid, local "amateurs," what were sometimes called "farmer-preachers." The call of George Truett to ministry was typical of what was going on in churches at that time. His church needed a pastor. George was just a young man in the congregation. During a congregational meeting, a layman announced "I believe God is calling George Truett to be our pastor." George wasn't convinced. He planned to study the law, but the congregation prevailed upon him and he became their pastor. That's how one of Baptists greatest leaders entered the ministry!

And there is much, much more in the book (and history) we can learn from, but this is enough for now.

In my last article I said we need to define the problem, we need to see what impedes our reaching all the people in our city with the gospel, what is contributing to the loss of market share for the church in Houston and in America (sorry if stating things in such crass terms is unsettling for you)?

I'll answer by referring you back to a conversation with a new friend and neighbor (posted in August). In our first meeting, he asked what I did. After I told him he said, "I go to church with my fiancee. It's a Presbyterian church, but it's not really a church because we meet in a school."

Did you catch his idea of what a real church is? Therein lies the problem. What is it? I think it is in our institutionalized understanding of church. Even though we know "the church" is the people, we've allowed an institutional model to creep into our thought process and take over our understanding of church. I believe that model of church is a major impediment to the rapid multiplication of disciples. (And for those who ask, is it about making disciples or planting churches, I think the distinction is only relevant if we think of church as an institution. In my mind, the concepts are more alike than distinct.)

It's probably dangerous for me to say so, but I believe we need to de-institutionalize church. We need to find models of church that are consistent with the biblical characteristics of church but without many of the trappings that we think of when we think of church: buildings, professionally trained clergy, large budgets, complex organizational structure.

Now I realize that's probably not going to happen in the US unless something quite frame-breaking happens (like the taxation of the church, and don't think that couldn't happen!). So rather than dismantle church as we know it, I believe we need to lay another system alongside the institutional church, a system of simple church that empowers the laity and doesn't require significant funding. But that's a conversation for later when we start talking about solving the problem. For now I'm just trying to define it.

For more on "How the West Was Won, the Growth of the Church in America," plan to attend our January Quarterly Meeting when I'll be doing a more extensive presentation of this material.

In case you missed it, I would also encourage you to read my July article entitled "Insanity Redefined" for data that shows it would take 1,452 years and $47.9 billion dollars to reach the unreached population of Houston using our current strategy for starting institutional model churches!

And thanks for all who are engaging the conversation by making comments. Keep those cards and letters coming. :-)

Define the Problem

2010-09-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

Throughout the year I’ve tried to carry on a “conversation” with you about the work of UBA churches in Houston. Let me take a minute to summarize what I’ve said. The mission of the church is to make disciples of all people (panta ta ethne), to lead the unconvinced and unbelieving to become fully devoted followers of Christ. The work of the association is to assist the church in carrying out that mission.

I've said that, frankly, if that's our task we are not doing a very effective job. While we can show that our churches are baptizing folks (a measure of our effectiveness in making disciples), we are doing it at a rate much slower than the population growth of the city. We can show that we are starting new churches each year, but we are doing it in multiples of ten when we need to be starting them by the thousands!

So, we are doing good, just not good enough. It a little like bailing the water out of a ship that is taking on water faster than you can bail it out -- you are working hard but you are fighting a losing battle, and the projected end is not good.

I've said we can't just keep doing what we've been doing and expect things to get better. We need to do things differently. But we will never do things differently until we begin to think about things differently. So my theme throughout the year has been "think different(ly)."

Think different(ly). I've discovered that's much easier said than done. Why? Because God didn't really design us to think differently. He designed us to think in repeatable patterns. (I'm tempted to follow this line of thought in my blog, but instead let me point you to the "Think Different(ly)" videos on our UBA webpage www.ubahouston.org where I show you in detail just what I'm talking about.)

So the question then becomes, what is it going to take for us to learn to think different(ly)? (I'm glad I asked.)

I think it is a process that begins with defining the problem. How you define the problem determines the solutions you develop. For example, Henry Ford and Will Durant (the driving force behind General Motors) saw the mass market potential of the automobile. The question, how can we produce cars people can afford?

For Henry Ford, cost was the primary focus. How could he keep the costs down so that he could produce a good product at an affordable price? The solution? He developed a wonderfully elegant system -- the assembly line process -- for producing cars. There was only one model -- the Model T ... one color -- black. "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" he said. Everything was designed to keep costs down. A friend told me he even arranged for his suppliers to send parts to him in crates of a certain size. He would disassemble the crates and use the wood for the floorboard in his cars. Everything was designed to keep the cost down.

Will Durant also wanted to make cars people could afford, but he took a very different approach. Instead of focusing on the cost of the car, he focused on paying for the car. Drawing on his experience in the carriage business, Durant sought to create automobiles targeted to various incomes and tastes. He created General Motors by consolidating his company (Buick) with twelve other car companies and various parts and accessories manufacturers. With so many options and so many different cars, how did he make cars affordable? He created a finance company, GMAC, that allowed people to buy a car and pay for it in affordable monthly installments.

Both men were interested in mass producing and mass marketing automobiles. One defined the problem as cost, the other as affordability. The way they defined the problem determined the kinds of solutions they developed.

We are commissioned by God to make disciples of all peoples and we are doing that less effectively than we've done it in the past. So what's our problem? Is it that church members have become consumers rather than contributors ("folks just aren't committed like they used to be")? That our society has become postmodern and pluralistic? That Christians are afraid of being rejected if they witness (maybe even fired)? That the church has become irrelevant and outdated? That churches focus more on providing for their members than on making disciples? All the above? Some combination of the above? Something else?

How we define the problem is critical. I know how I would define the problem. How would you?

Learning to Think Different(ly)
Step One: Define the Problem

K.I.S.S.ing the Church

2010-08-03T15:49:00.002-05:00

K.I.S.S. -- you probably recognize the acronym. It stands for "Keep It Simple Stupid." That much may be familiar, but do you know about the man who developed the acronym and all he accomplished?

KISS was first coined by Kelly Johnson (Clarence Leonard Johnson), an aircraft engineer and aeronautical innovator. Johnson led or contributed to the development of a number of aircraft including the P-80 Shooting Star, America's first operational jet fighter. He was the team leader of the Lockheed Skunk Works which was responsible for the design and development of the F-104 Starfighter and the secret reconnaissance planes U-2 and the SR-71 Blackbird. When the Blackbird was developed, it flew so high and so fast that it could not be intercepted or shot down.

Johnson's fourteen rules of management are built around the idea of keeping things simple and uncomplicated (which is amazing since he was involved in creating the most sophisticated aircraft of his time). One time he handed a team of design engineers a handful of tools and told them the jet aircraft they were developing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these (handful of) tools. Now that's keeping it simple!!

I concluded in my last blog with Einstein's maxim -- "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Antoine de Saint Exupery said, "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

If we were to make church simple, if we were to reduce it to it's irreducible minimum, what would we have? I think we would have a group of people in whom Christ dwells focused on being disciples of Christ in the world. The Bible would be their curriculum. They would reveal Christ to others daily as they interact with them. They would be led by one of their own. Their desire would be to see others become disciples of Christ. Their tithes and offerings would be used for ministry to others.

Keeping church simple sounds like a desirable thing to do, but it's not as easy as it seems because we have come to expect certain things of church.

Many equate "church" with a building. A fellow I met this weekend said, "I am going to church with my fiancee, but it's not really a church. It meets in a school auditorium." To him, it wasn't a real church if it didn't have a building.
We want to be led by highly competent, professionally trained, full-time ministers. "Our pastor is bivocational," one lady told me. "We wanted a real pastor, but we couldn't afford one."
Many who attend church are product-oriented consumers of church who will swap churches because one has a better youth program or another a more dynamic music ministry.
Many are merely spectators of church. One acquaintance said to me, "I can watch one or two good services on TV. I don't need to go to church."

Church has become too much about facilities, professionalism, dynamic ministries and glitzy programming ... and less and less about disciple making.

Please, hear me. I am not an angry "outsider" casting stones at the church. I am a professionally trained minister with an earned doctorate that led a large congregation that had many ministries, a big church plant, a large staff and a budget bigger than UBA's today (and that was 22 years ago). I'm a loving "insider" who realizes that continuing to think of doing church this way as the only way we can do church is not going to reach our city for Christ. (Just read my previous blog and you'll see why.) We must find a way of starting churches -- lots of churches -- that focus primarily on making disciples without the complexity required by the traditional way of doing church.

At the heart and core of what it means to be church is the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. We are to make disciples and love one another. What could be more simple than that?

Insanity Redefined

2010-07-01T12:47:00.004-05:00

When I began my quest to think differently, Albert Einstein's name kept popping up in things I read. So I started reading a bit more about him. Here are some of my favorite Einstein quotes:

"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

OK, I don't know if he really said the last one, but I like it.

But the Einstein quote that's getting the most circulation right now is his redefinition of insanity. He said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (I think that's a definition of my golf game, but that's better saved for another blog. Then again, maybe not.)

Doing the same thing over and over. That basically describes how we've started churches for years. Here's the formula: get a church planter, gather a group of people, secure funding from various sources, find a place to meet, as you grow hire more staff, eventually buy property, build a building, expand your programming ... wallah ... a church. We've done it the same way for years and years expecting this to help us reach our city, make disciples, transform communities, fulfill the Great Commission.

Seems reasonable, but if you've followed my blog for a while, you know that it's not working as we'd like. (Check "A Parable Inverted" under March.)

Let me be clear, I'm a church man. I believe in the church. I believe it was founded by Christ, ordained by God, and is an effective means of fulfilling the Great Commission. Much of who I am today is the direct result of the ministry of various churches I've been associated with throughout my life. I'm pro church!

Here's the thing -- I'm not sure church the way we've been doing it is working the way it needs to. Just consider one thing -- the number of Christ followers in our city is declining.

In 1990 the population in Houston was 3,731,131. In 2000 it was 4,669,571. According to religious demographers (www.thearda.com), only 20% of the population in Houston could be identified as Christians (active followers of Christ as we understand it) leaving 80% that need to be reached with the gospel. Eighty percent of the 2000 population is 3,735,657 or roughly the same number as the total population living in Houston in 1990.

Estimates put the current Houston population at about 5.99 million. If 80% of them need to be reached with the gospel, let's see ... that would be 4,792,000 people need to be reached.

How many churches do we need to reach 4.79 million folks? A medium-sized UBA church in the Houston metro area has about 300 members. Using that as a basis, it would require 15,793 new churches to reach the 4.79 million unreached people in our city.

What would it cost? It takes about $3 million to fund a traditional church -- to buy land (you'd need at least 3 acres of property), build the first unit buildings, pay a staff, funding programming over the time it takes to become a 300 member congregation. Truthfully, $3 million is a conservative estimate.

What would it cost to start and grow 15,793 new churches? Are your ready? $47.9 billion dollars!

How long would it take? At our current rate of growth (110 new churches per decade), it would take 1,452 years.

1,452 years and $47.9 billion ... and that's just to reach our current estimated population.

What am I saying? It's not enough just to start more churches the way we are currently doing it! No matter how hard we try or how many we start, it will never be enough. There're not enough trained leaders, not enough money, not enough available land to do it the way we've done it for many years. We've got to think differently about the kinds of churches we start, where we get our leaders, how we reach those who we are not reaching with our current strategy. This is not to say we need to stop planting traditional churches; the point is that's not the only kind of church we need.

Otherwise, we just doing the same thing over and over expecting different results ... and thanks to Dr. Einstein we know what that is.

So what do we do? Maybe another Einstein quote can help us: "make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Hummm, but I'll save that thought for another time.

Panta ta Ethne -- It's No Laughing Matter

2010-06-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

A Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian and an atheist were riding together in the same car. Sorta sounds like the start of a joke, doesn't it. It's not.

The other day I was in a Starbucks when a friend, a fellow church member, came in. We were talking about how much Houston is changing. "It was really weird," he said. "We were working on a project at work and broke for lunch. Four of us decided to go together. We were a kind of mini-UN (United Nations). I drove. There was a tech guy from India. He was Hindu. A guy from Pakistan. He was Muslim. And another guy from the US. I know he's not a Christian. I'm not sure he has any kind of faith. And there was me. [It was close to Easter.] I was playing Christian music on the radio and one of the guys started asking me about it."

Houston is changing, diversifying. Folks from all over the world come to our city to live, work and play. The mission field has come to Texas. As Christians we know we have a responsibility to share the gospel with everyone. The Bible tells us to go into all the world and share the gospel (remember Acts 1:8). Leaving home, going abroad to share the gospel ... that's what missionaries do. And our job is to support them with prayer and finances. But what is our responsibility toward the world citizens who now live in our city?

Let's do a little Bible study. On one occasion Jesus said to his followers, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations [panta ta ethne]..." (Matthew 28:19). When most folks read this they assume nations means a country, like India, China, Pakistan. But look closely at the word ethne which is translated nations. Remind you of any word in English? Right! Ethnic. Now read it again using the word ethnic in place of nations. Go and make disciples of all ethnics. That gets closer to what Jesus meant. Why? Because the word nations has morphed (words tend to do that ... charity doesn't mean today what it did to the King James translators).

Now go to Acts 2. The story of Pentecost. Remember what happened? The disciples were gathered in prayer when the Spirit of God fell upon them and they began speaking in different languages (2:4). It was Passover in Jerusalem. Folks from all over had come to the city to celebrate. It's obvious from the listing of countries in Acts 2:9-10 that they came from countries spread across the Mediterranean, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. As the disciples spoke, the people there understood what they were saying. It didn't matter where they'd come from, what language they spoke, what people or ethnic group they represented, they all heard the gospel in their native language.

The miracle at Pentecost is a picture of what God desires for people around the world and in our cities today. God desires that everyone have a chance to hear the gospel in their native tongue so they have a chance to be saved. That means that the 350+ ethnolinguistic people groups living in Houston, speaking 215+ different languages all deserve to hear the gospel in their native language and to have a church that reflects their distinctive culture and tradition to disciple them.

What is our responsibility? As churches we are responsible for reaching across cultural and linguistic barriers to reach folks who may not be like us. Most churches never do this and have no strategy in place to change! Just look around your church this Sunday. You'll probably only see folks who are like yourself ... white, black, Chinese, Korean, Hispanic, Vietnamese, whatever. We all do it. That's not necessarily bad. We like to be around folks who are like us. It's only bad if the church doesn't have a strategy for reaching those who are not like themselves as well.

Folks who are not like us are all around! Take a look. See who lives in your neighborhood, who you encounter as you shop, maybe who you see when you go into the city. If you are really adventuresome, drive into parts of the city where you don't live. Look for folks who don't look like you. Stop by the Galleria. Notice the many different ethnicities. Drive down Westheimer. Notice the restaurants. How many different kinds of food (Chinese, Thai, Indian) can you identify? Can you find street signs in languages other than English? Can't get out? Turn your radio on during the daylight hours and cycle through all the AM channels. How many different languages did you hear? Start looking and listening for the panta ta ethne. They're here and they are our responsibility.

Back to my friend. He is in his car with a Hindu, a Muslim and another fellow who was not a Christian playing Christian music when one of the others in the car ask about the music. What does he do? What does he say? Nothing. He just turns off the music so they can talk. Why? He didn't know what to do, what to say, how to respond. And that's true of many churches today. It's not that we don't care. It's that we just don't know what to do. That's where the associational staff can begin to help.

For a good while now we have tried to learn how to be missionaries in our own culture and context and to teach others to do the same. We've learned from missionaries and gone to the mission field for first hand field work in order to be able to help our churches reach all the people, the panta ta ethne, in our city. It's all part of UBA 4.0. More next month.

UBA 4.0 -- An Open Conversation

2010-05-03T10:29:00.001-05:00

Throughout the year I am engaging in ongoing conversations with our UBA leaders about re-tasking the association to take on lostness in our city. But I don't want to limit the conversation to the opportunities I have for a face-to-face dialogue so I've decided to expose my thinking to all who stop by and read my blogs. (Thanks for doing that, by the way.) So let's have an open conversation about UBA 4.0. (Please, feel free to use the comment feature and let's talk.)

In my previous blog (UBA 4.0 ... read below) I postulated that the association has always been designed for the times. During the first three iterations of the association, the association helped churches focus on starting churches and getting pastors on the frontier (1.0), developing our Baptist identity in a predominantly Christian context (2.0), and strengthening churches and helping them change to reach an increasingly secular community (3.0). Today things are continuing to change and the major change is demographic. I referred to it in my previous blog, but let me amplify that thought a bit.

It all began in 1965 with the "Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965." I mentioned this in my previous blog, but let me expand upon it here. (I can tell you are excited about this part of the conversation, but stay with me. It's important.)

Prior to 1965 almost all who immigrated to America were white Europeans. They primarily came from the northern portion of Europe and the British Isles: England, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Poland. To a lesser degree they came from the Mediterranean region of Europe.

From 1492 to 1965, 82% of all who came to America, came from Europe. Another 12% were African-Americans, originally brought here as slaves. (Congress banned the importation of slaves in 1808.) A small number of Chinese and Japanese worked as farmers or laborers in California and Hawaii. The border between the US and Mexico was relatively open allowing cheap laborers to come and go as needed, but only a small percentage took up permanent residence. So, for the most part, America was a "white" nation.

From 1924 to 1965, immigration was even more tightly managed. 98% of all immigrant visas granted went to Europeans.

By controlling immigration the government was creating an essentially homogeneous population.

* Prior to 1965 America was predominantly White (Caucasian, Anglo, call it what you will, I am using this designation because it has been the designation used by the government on census forms). Immigrants who came to America typically wanted to "become Americans" which meant learning English (especially making sure their kids spoke English), blending in, becoming part of the great melting pot. Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians often felt like (and were often treated as) second-class citizens. They found it hard to move into the mainstream of society and culture.

* Prior to 1965 the predominant American worldview was Judeo-Christian. Writing in the 1950's sociologist Will Herberg said to be American was to be either Protestant, Catholic or Jew (Protestant, Catholic, Jew. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1955). Herberg cited data showing 68% of Americans were Protestant, 23% were Catholic, 4% were Jewish (the remaining 5% expressed no religious preference). Whether Protestant, Catholic or Jew, the Bible was foundational for one's worldview. Consequently, the Judeo-Christian worldview was almost universally shared by Americans.

But all that began to change in 1968 when the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 became law. This particular act has been called "the most important piece of legislation no one has ever heard of." Sometimes called the Hart-Cellar Act, it abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place since the Immigration Act of 1924 making it possible for immigrants from other parts of the world to come to America. By equalizing immigration policies, the act resulted in new immigration from non-European nations which has essentially changed the ethnic and demographic makeup of America.

Today only a small percentage of the folks who come to America come from Europe. Most come from Asia, Africa and Latin America. That means their skin is of a darker hue and their religious background may very likely be something other than Christian.

What impact has all that had on a city like Houston? Dr. Stephen Klineberg of Rice University describes the Houston of the 1960s as a "bi-racial Southern city." In 1960, 74% of the population was White, 20% was Black and almost everyone spoke English. That's no longer the case. Houston is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the US.

Whites (Anglos) are no longer the largest ethnic group in our Houston. The largest ethnic group in Harris County is now Hispanic. (Interestingly, this is a trend that is growing throughout the top 100 cities in the US.)

The number of Hispanics living in Harris County today is greater than the total population of Harris County in 1960 and greater than the number of Anglos living here has ever been! (This is the reason that no matter what other changes we may make in the association, we will maintain a strong focus on working with our Hispanic leaders and churches.)

Houston is a major immigration portal into Texas and the US. One out of four immigrants that live in Texas live in the Houston area.

The number of Asians in Harris County today is greater than either the number of Blacks or Hispanics in 1960.

We know that four out of ten Harris County residents do not speak English when they go home at night. With nearly 215 identified languages spoken here, it may even be that the majority of folks who live here prefer a language other than English (they may be able to speak English, but it's probably not their first language).

What does all this mean? It means the folks who live in Houston can no longer be described as "homogenous." Far from it. We are a diverse people from many faiths -- if any at all (but more on that in a later blog), speaking many languages, with differing sometimes even conflicting worldviews. We are a world mission field, and all evidence suggests we are not doing a good job of reaching our burgeoning mission field. Every day that goes by Houston becomes more diverse and more lost. More about that next.

(If you want to learn more about immigration and the history of America, I'd encourage you to explore the Library of Congress webpage:
(http://rs6.loc.gov:8081/learn/features/immig/immigration_set1.html).

UBA 4.0

2010-03-26T15:44:00.004-05:00

We don't see trees grow or notice ourselves aging each day, but these things happen. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes only when viewed through the lens of time. But things change.

Associations, like trees, change, grow, develop over time. Take UBA, for example. UBA has gone through three distinct stages in her 170 history (yes, UBA was begun in 1840 and is 170 years old this year).

UBA 1.0 -- In the beginning was the church, or churches to be more accurate. Three churches joined together to form Union Baptist Association. Associations were formed for several reasons: to promote Baptist understanding of doctrine and Baptist church polity [our Baptist identity], to provide fellowship, to encourage starting new churches and to promote benevolent work.

When UBA began there were no national or state conventions and no agencies. They came later. As they developed, the focus shifted from the association and the local church to conventions and agencies. This led to the next stage of associational life for associations.

UBA 2.0 -- As national agencies developed, the focus shifted from the local church to the state convention and national agency. National agencies began developing programs to be implemented by churches all across the convention. Baptist churches became standardized. It didn't matter if your church was in California or the Carolinas, it was like virtually every other Baptist church. Local associations became implementers of national programs at the local level. The primary purpose of the association was to help produce good Baptists.

Houston is a city of entrepreneurs. Innovation, creativity and risk-taking are accepted, even encouraged and highly rewarded. The leaders of UBA reflect the spirit of Houston. UBA helped start two major universities -- Baylor and Houston Baptist, Memorial Baptist Hospital (today part of the Memorial-Hermann system), Center for Counseling before Christian counseling was well-established, Union Baptist Foundation for starting churches, Baptist Mission Centers and Trinity Pines Conference Center. So it's no surprise that when church life began changing in the late 80s and early 90s, UBA began to change.

UBA 3.0 -- UBA transitioned from being a promoter of Baptist programs to a team of consultants for churches and community transformation in the mid 90s. Rick Warren once referred to UBA as transitioning from being a program-driven association to a purpose-driven association. UBA led the way in leadership development with programs like Young Leaders (later LeadersEdge) which was duplicated in associations across the country, church planting and community transformation. Mission Houston grew directly out of the community transformation initiative of UBA.

Beginning in 1965, Houston began to change dramatically. Prior to 1965 almost everyone that immigrated to the United States came from the British Isles and northern Europe. That meant they were predominantly white and Protestant, Catholic or Jew. American immigration laws changed in 1965 and the face (literally) of America has dramatically changed since, with Houston leading the way in this new diversity.

Houston has transitioned from being a bi-racial Southern city (1960) to being one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in America. We've identified about 350 different ethnolinguistic people groups in Houston with 215 languages spoken. Four out of ten people living in Houston will not speak in English when they go home tonight. There are more Hispanics living in Harris County today than the total population of Harris County in 1960!

The folks moving into our neighborhoods from around the world are no longer predominantly white, Protestant or Jew. Many will be Catholic (often a syncretized version of Catholicism). More likely they will be Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, animist, or of no religious faith whatsoever. This provides the greatest opportunity for world missions at a local level we have ever known. While our forefathers learned about missions in a study group, we can learn by doing it firsthand in our city. This is one of several reasons it may be time for UBA 4.0.

What might the next iteration of Union Baptist Association, what I'm calling UBA 4.0, look like? That's yet to be determined, but I believe it must focus on our Great Commission responsibilities.

Peter Drucker said every organization must answer two questions: what business are you in? and how's business? I believe churches are in the Great Commission business. We are in the business of making disciples of all peoples. If that's true, then how's business? (I addressed this a bit in my previous blog "A Parable Inverted.") The short answer is this -- "not good!"

If the Great Commission is the church's primary task, and if we are not doing that job very well, and if it is the function of the association to assist the church in fulfilling it's purpose, then maybe it's time for us to rethink the purpose and function of the association.

I continue to wonder what would happen if the association, UBA or any association, saw as it's primary purpose to mobilize churches to take on lostness - intentionally and persistently.

I think it's time for UBA 4.0. What do you think? Feel free to post your comments.

A Parable Inverted

2010-03-05T10:18:00.001-06:00

One is such an important number.

True or false? A proposal to make German the official language of the United States of America was defeated in Congress by one vote! If you said "true" you are almost correct. Here's the story. In response to a request from a group of German-Americans from Augusta, Virginia, a House committee recommended publishing 3,000 sets of laws in German and distributing them to the states (with copies of statutes printed in English as well). The House debated this proposal without reaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. There was no vote on the actual bill, just the vote on whether or not to adjourn. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. If they had considered the bill later, would they have voted to publish in German? Probably not. The House, a month later, debated a similar issue and decided to publish only in English. But the legend persists to this day that the German missed becoming the official language of the US by one vote.

There's no denying that one was an important number to Jesus. He told a parable about the importance of one, three parables in fact, all found in Luke 15. A shepherd had one lost sheep, a woman lost one coin, a father had one wayward son. The shepherd left ninety-nine sheep in the fold and risked everything to find his one lost sheep. The woman turned her house upside down trying to find her one missing coin. The father abandoned decorum and protocol to welcome back his one wayward son. These parables show us God's heart for the lost, his willingness to do whatever was necessary to bring one more person into a relationship with him.

Last week our staff went away for 3 days to begin trying to "think different(ly)" about UBA and to ask what our responsibility was to our churches. [see my January 2010 blog] We are not interested in thinking different just to be different. We recognize there is a significant gap between what God wants and what is going on in our churches and in the world.

We didn't just talk about things. We sought God. We prayed. We read Scripture. We listened to God and shared with one another what God was saying to us. And there was amazing, amazing clarity and consistency in our conversation.

One of the things we discussed was the parable of the lost sheep. The good shepherd left 99 sheep in the fold to focus all his attention on rescuing one lone, lost sheep. Rescuing the one lost sheep became his priority! He risked everything to rescue that sheep.

Then we looked at the way the church (not any specific church, but churches as a whole) does things. What did we observe? We've inverted the parable. We focus our attention on the sheep in the fold, not on the lost sheep that need to be rescued.

We may say lostness is a priority, but what do the records say? In 1999, with 489 churches, UBA churches baptized 9,596 people. In 2009, with 599 churches and with 583,771 more people living in Harris County, we baptized only 9,595 people. With 110 more churches and almost 600,000 more people living around us, we baptized the same number of people. You tell me, is lostness really our priority?

I wonder what would happen if the association, UBA or any association, saw as it's primary purpose to mobilize churches to take on lostness - intentionally and persistently.

We're just one association, but if we did, maybe others would follow.

Think Different (ly)

2010-02-01T10:54:00.002-06:00

In 1997 Apple Computer introduced their “Think Different” ™ advertising campaign. The campaign featured people who changed the world — scientists, social reformers, ministers, entertainers, athletes, explorers, artists — because they thought about things in ways different than the general populace. (For more information and links to the video, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_different)

We are all familiar with the idea “if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting.” Let me introduce a new spin on that. If you keep thinking the way you’ve always thought, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.

Stephen Covey in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People introduces the See-Do-Get model. What you see influences what you do, and what you do determines what you get. So to change what you get you must change what you do, and you will only change what you do when you change the way you see things, in other words to get different results we must learn to think differently.

I believe the church in North America needs to think different(ly). Why? It’s simple. The results we are getting are unacceptable. It’s not my purpose to defend my position, simply to state it. Anyone who has been a longtime lover and observer of the church knows that the church in North America is in trouble. A quick review of the Glenmary reports of religion in America from 1990 to 2000 verifies this. Baptist Christians, my denominational family, particularly should be concerned. Whereas, we were once strong and growing, we are now a denomination in decline. If we think we will survive, much less thrive, by doing what we’ve been doing, we are sadly mistaken. We need to learn to think different(ly).

As the executive director of UBA, I believed we, as a staff and as an organization, needed to think different(ly). I believe church leaders need to think differently. So to that end, I’m devoting this year to helping us learn.

In January I introduced the concept at our Quarterly Meeting. (To view an edited version of that presentation go to our website at http://newsite4083.web08.intellisite.com/449925.ihtml , click on QAM Presentation, and the three part series will open. Right click on the center of the video and Zoom In to make the image bigger.) Other presentations will follow. Throughout the year the theme of our Pastor to Pastor series will be think different(ly) … about the church, about the church in the community, about making disciples. I will work with our staff, our moderator team, our subsidiary corporation leaders and our Associational Leadership Council to look at UBA and see where we need to think different(ly) in order to fulfill our vision of a transformed city.

All my life I’d been admonished to “think” — by parents, teachers, professors, my own self talk. Until I began studying about thinking, though, I didn’t realize no one had ever really taught me to think or helped me understand why I think as I do much less taught me how to think different(ly). As we learn, we will pass our learning on to you with the prayer that by thinking different(ly) we will begin to do things differently which should change the results we are getting.

God help us. Amen.

POWER IN PRAYER

2010-01-04T09:24:00.007-06:00

In physics, power is the rate at which work is performed or energy is converted. It is represented by the equation P(ower)=W(ork)/t(ime).

In the spiritual realm, that may be a good place for us to begin a discussion of the power of prayer. PP=W/t. Power in prayer equals the amount of actual prayer (work) divided by the time spent in prayer. The more time spent in prayer, the more effective our prayers. That would be a good place to begin, that is, if God measured our prayers by the time we spend praying. But that’s not what God does. Jesus made that clear in his denunciation of the Pharisees.

So what does matter? It matters that we pray. That’s it. While God doesn’t measure the length of our prayers, God does care that we pray. Prayer is an admission of our limitedness and a recognition that the all-powerful, all-loving God really does care about what we think and want, really does intervene in the affairs of men, and that life really is a collaboration between man and God.

One of the greatest prayer passages in the Bible is hidden away in Paul’s closing remarks to the church in Rome. He asks the Roman believers to pray for him, specifically to pray that he would be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, that his service for Jerusalem would be acceptable to the Christians there, and that he would be able to visit the church in Rome (Romans 15:30-32). Overlay those three prayer requests over the closing chapters of the book of Acts and you will see a marvelous testimony to the power of answered prayer. Paul is miraculously delivered from an angry mob by a Roman soldier, saved from an assassination plot when a young man overhears a comment and persuades the Roman government to get Paul out of Jerusalem, and arrives safely in Rome after being saved from a storm at sea after the boat perishes upon the rocks. Oh, yes, and the believers in Jerusalem do welcome him warmly. It is a fascinating story!

Why all this talk about prayer and power? Because I want to call the churches in UBA to a Day of Prayer for our city. Specifically, Sunday, January 31. I want to challenge every church in UBA to set aside time in the worship service, set aside time in Sunday School, Bible study classes or in small group fellowships, set aside time to pray for our city — specifically that churches would be faithful in sharing the gospel with the lost in 2010, that folks will be saved in 2010 in record numbers, and that the transforming power of God will be evident in our city throughout the year.

Texas Baptists are engaged in an initiative called Texas Hope 2010 which has three goals: that the gospel is shared with everyone in Texas by Easter Sunday 2010, that no one go to bed hungry in Texas, and that these initiatives be undergirded and supported through fervent, focused, intercessory prayer. The Houston expression of this is called Pentecost Houston. Randall Everett, executive director of BGCT, has issued a challenge to BGCT churches to set aside time that day to pray for Texas. I want to encourage all UBA churches regardless of state convention affiliation to set aside a few minutes that day to pray that the lost in Texas will be reached with the gospel, and specifically that our initiatives in Houston will be effective in sharing the gospel with the lost in our city.

When Paul asked the Romans to pray for him, it was years before anyone knew of the significance of that request and the power unleashed through their prayers. It may be a few years before we know the impact and power of the prayers of 2010, but it is my firm belief that if we are faithful in praying, God will be faithful in responding. What a difference it will make.

Let us pray.

Some Things Just Don't Come Easily

2009-12-03T12:02:00.027-06:00

Writing is hard work, at least for me. I marvel at the way authors like Dean Koontz and Stephen King can write so prolifically while I struggle to get out a simple article once a month. They write hundreds of pages a year and I only need to knock out twelve short articles a year. I realize they’re doing it to make a living; fortunately my livelihood isn’t dependent upon my writing!

Actually, writing isn’t really the hard part. Putting words on a page is easy enough. It’s knowing what to write about -- that’s the hard part. Figuring out what to write, then doing it in an informative and entertaining fashion, that’s the hard part.

Do I right about things in the news? Tiger Woods confession. (for all have sinned) President Obama’s troop deployment to Afghanistan. (there shall be wars and rumors of wars) The New Orleans’ Saints unbeaten season. (miracles happen) I suppose I could, but you don’t read my article to keep up with stories better covered by CNN and ESPN. Nope, the news is out.

Do I write about something theological? The interface of resurrection theology and the current economic crisis. The conflict between the radical Muslim agenda and freedom of religion in America. Global warming and our stewardship responsibilities for the planet. Theology is more my style, but not too many folks are excited about the interface between theology and life.

The latest UBA happenings? Insights into the state of our churches based upon the latest Annual Church Profile reports. The upcoming Pastor to Pastor series for 2010 (the 2009 series was a big hit, btw). The impact of the Fire Torch city transformation tour. Our redesigned UBA website. Giving patterns of UBA congregations. New churches started. I could, but I write about things like this all year long. Besides, many of them are adequately covered in the emails we send out regularly. No need to be overly redundant.

I could write about something personal, but I’m not sure anyone outside my family would be interested. See? It’s not as easy as it seems to write these articles.

There is one sure fire, can’t miss option. It only happens once a year. Christmas is days away. Snow is (literally) in the air. New Year’s is coming. Something seasonal and sincere seems appropriate. So let me say (quite sincerely), from all of us on the UBA team --
• associate directors -- Dian Kidd and Ron Towery
• our incomparable church consultants-- Rickie Bradshaw, Josh Ellis, Sally Hinzie, and Campo Londoño
• our fantastic support team -- Dana Bowdoin, Sharon Cain, Gloria Londoño, Alex Martinez and Nallely Torres
• our invaluable voluntary staff members -- Ron and JoAnn Holt in our financial office and UBA prayer coordinator Margie Randall
• our ever-faithful missions teams -- Mary Valerio and her team of WMU leaders and Herb Weaver and his men/boys ministry team
• our first-class subsidiary ministry teams -- Nick Howard and our Baptist student ministers, Ginger Smith and the MCH staff, Phil Springer and the TPCC staff

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It truly is our privilege to honor Christ by serving you.

PS: Now wasn’t that creative?

Houston and UBA Overview -- for BGCT Messengers

2009-11-04T15:24:00.001-06:00

Houston is the host city for the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Messengers from many of the 5,700 churches that comprise BGCT will meet for two days in November, and we want to say welcome.

For our guests, let me tell you a bit about our city. Houston is the largest city in the state of Texas and the fourth largest city in the US. More than 4.5 million people currently call Houston home. Believe it or not, the Houston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) covers an area slightly smaller than Maryland but larger than Massachusetts. At 634 square miles, the City of Houston could contain the cities of New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis and Miami. The Houston MSA contains more people than Minnesota, which ranks 21st among the states in population. Houston is as diverse a city as there is in the US. We’ve identified over 300 different ethnolinguistic people groups living in Harris County. One out of four folks that live here was born overseas. One in three will not speak English when they go home tonight.

The 600 churches of Union Baptist Association minister to the folks who live in our highly diverse, rapidly growing city. One-third of all UBA churches are Anglo, one-third are African American and one-third are congregations that speak a language other than English.

Houston is our primary mission field. People from all over the world move to Houston daily. When they do they bring with them their ethnic identity and rich cultural history including their religious heritage. Consequently, every major religion in the world is actively practiced in Houston. Still, with all that religious plurality, half of the population of Houston claim no religious identity.

A couple of years ago I wondered what would it be like if Pentecost were to happen in Houston today like it did in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. I called together church leaders from across our city to help me ask and answer that question and to begin to build a strategy which could set the stage for Pentecost Houston. About the same time Dr. Randel Everett returned to Texas as the Executive Director for BGCT and shared his dream of “prayer, care and share.” As we talked, it became apparent that Pentecost Houston and Prayer, Care and Share (now called Texas Hope 2010) were parallel initiatives that could easily be merged. Consequently, Pentecost Houston/Texas Hope 2010 are a major part of the strategy for reaching our city in the immediate future and for years to come.

We are working to see that everyone in our city has a chance to hear the gospel in their heart language just like they did at Pentecost, and to be able to attend a church where they can identify with folks ethnically, culturally, linguistically and spiritually.

We are bringing together secular and sacred care agencies to help eradicate hunger in Houston, much like the early church shared with others so that no one was in need of food.

Fervent, focused intercessory prayer undergirds and provides the foundation for all our work, just as with Pentecost.

We long to see our city transformed by the power of God. We know we cannot orchestrate it. God is not our's to command and control. Still, we want to do our part so that God can do His.

So to all our guests, we say welcome. We hope you enjoy your time among us. As you walk the streets of our city, pray for the churches of UBA and the body of Christ in our city as we fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime in our city.

UBA Welcomes Texas Baptists to Houston

2009-11-03T11:57:00.003-06:00

This month Houston will host the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. UBA is an association of churches that partners with both the Southern Baptist Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Convention of Texas to promote and extend the cause of Christ in Texas and beyond.

Prior to 1886 there were as many as five state conventions in Texas. Over time the leaders of the various conventions realized it would be better to consolidate the conventions and agencies and work together rather than compete with one another. They consolidated under the name “Baptist General Convention of Texas.” From then until November 1998, BGCT was the only state Baptist convention in Texas.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas encourages, facilitates and connects churches in their work to fulfill God’s mission of reconciling the world to himself. Approximately 5,700 churches affiliate with BGCT as do 23 different institutions and human care agencies including Buckner International (the largest Baptist human care agency in the world — founded by a transplanted Tennessee pastor like myself I must add) and ten educational ministries including Baylor University (largest Baptist University in the world).

Sadly, many, if not most, Baptists have lost a sense of their own history and distinctiveness in the body of Christ. When I was a child, denominational distinctives were emphasized, so much that I sometimes wondered if anyone would get to heaven other than Baptists. Today the emphasis is more on recognizing that we are all part of the larger body of Christ with all its plurality and diversity. That doesn’t mean, though, that Baptists should not know and celebrate their uniqueness. 2009 is special because it marks the 400th anniversary of the beginning of Baptists with John Smyth. (For more on the history of Baptists, cf. www.baptisthistory.org) If you want to know more about our Baptist distinctives, I’d encourage you to check out www.baptistdistinctives.org.

Of course, I’m partial to the special role Union Baptist Association plays in the history of Texas Baptists. UBA was the first association formed in Texas (1840). At the second meeting of the association, two actions were taken that even today impact the priorities of our Texas Baptist witness and ministry. The first action was the creation of a “Missionary Society.” Today, missions and evangelism remain the heartbeat of Texas Baptists. The second significant action was the creation of an Education Society. From these efforts, Baylor University was chartered by the Republic of Texas in 1845.

So to the messengers to the 2009 meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, we say “Howdy, partners. Welcome to Houston.”

It’s the economy, stupid. Or is it?

2009-10-01T14:16:00.003-05:00

"It's the economy, stupid" was a phrase in American politics widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush. For a time, President Bush was considered unbeatable because of foreign policy developments such as the end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War. The phrase, coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville, refers to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession.

In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters that said:

1. Change vs. more of the same

2. The economy, stupid

3. Don't forget health care.

Although the sign was intended for an internal audience of campaign workers, the phrase became something of a slogan for the Clinton election campaign. Today the phrase is often repeated with various other words substituting for “economy,” like “It’s the deficit, stupid” or “It’s the war, stupid.” (For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy ,_stupid.)

Today, three presidents later, the economy is still foremost in the news. Last week I heard on the news that economists say the recession is over. Last night the same newscasters announced the closing of Saturn, an American automobile manufacturer. Which is it? Is the economy getting better or worse? Likely, it’s both. Economists are saying the stimulus package has made a positive difference on the economy; that the economy has bottomed out and that the recession is over. That doesn’t mean that companies won’t continue laying people off, that industries won’t continue to close, that you won’t have to take another pay cut just to keep your job.

Things are tough. People suffer, therefore churches suffer, therefore the denominational groups like associations and state conventions suffer. I talk with church leaders across Houston and the U.S. almost daily. Everyone is saying the same thing. The new phrase is becoming “resource challenged” (meaning giving is down, they’ve got less money, they are cutting budgets, reducing staff, and making other adjustments). Even if the recession is bottoming out and the economy is turning around, there is going to be a delay before things get better in churches. Just like there is a lag or gap between the time you turn the water in your shower to hot and the time hot water actually begins to come out of the shower head, there is a gap between the time the economy begins to improve and churches experience an increase in giving.

What does this mean for UBA? Even though the economy is getting better, we are likely to be even more resource challenged in 2010 than we were in 2009, all of us: our associational staff, the Mission Centers, student ministry, all our ministries. We have a great team. We will find creative ways to get things done. That’s our commitment.

For us, it’s really not the economy; it’s the mission that drives us. We long to see God’s kingdom come in our various areas of responsibility: inner city work, student ministry, church work, leadership development, among blacks, white, Asians, hispanics, all people. We long to see our city transformed by the power of God. We long to see the Great Commission fulfilled in our lifetime. That’s why we do what we do.

That leads me to say thanks to all our ministry partners. We know times are tough for you as well. Thanks for sharing your resources with us. Thanks for keeping us in your budget. Thanks for believing that what we do is important enough that you continue supporting our work. As Robert Schuller once said, “Tough times never last. Tough people do.” We will last, and we will do it together.

A Sad Farewell

2009-08-26T15:03:00.003-05:00

A mentor and friend once told me, “There is no easy way to do a hard thing.” In the August Associational Meeting we voted to cease operating the UBA Center for Counseling on September 30, 2009. This action will likely come as a surprise to many, and, personally, it was a difficult action for me personally. My first connection with UBA was through the Center for Counseling as a part-time therapist when I came to Houston in 1988. From 1991 to 1993 I served as the director for the Center.

So why close the Center? Let me share some background. The Center for Counseling has struggled financially for almost twenty years. When I first came to UBA as the director of the Center for Counseling, the Center was in severe financial straits. Expenses exceeded revenue and the Center went heavily into debt. It took several years to recover. Changes in the health care industry — managed care, HMOs, reduction of benefits — and other factors made it harder and harder to survive. (In 2008, for example, income from therapy was less than half of what it was ten years ago: 1998 = $414,926; 2008 = $207,078. Income through June of this year was $36,769 behind last year.).

We took a number of steps to keep the Center operating through the years. We cut back on personnel. We reduced the director from full-time to half-time to quarter-time. We moved our offices from leased office space to donated space in churches. We raised money through the golf tournament and TalentFest.

Things were looking enough better in 2007 that we started to have hope that things were finally turning around for the Center, but that was not to be. Enter stage right the great recession. Suddenly, therapists hours were down significantly (thus operating capital for the Center) putting more pressure on the Board to raise money. When this year started the board was responsible for raising over $150,000 to meet this year’s budget. The reduction in income from fees meant the board would need to raise even more money. One of our prime fund raising initiatives — the UBA Golf Tournament — brought in a little over half what it did the year before. We finally reached the point where the income generated by fees and the money we raised through fundraising events were simply not enough to keep the Center open.

While there is no joy in the decision to close the Center, I do take great joy in remembering all the good work done by the Center for over three decades. The positive impact of the Center is incalculable, but if we had to put a monetary value on it I can say the Center gave away over $1.5 million in therapy in the past ten years. Many, many folks today could testify to how their lives were enriched by the work of the Center. Families have been knit back together. Lives have been changed. Relationships have been restored. Desperate and despairing people have found help and hope through this ministry. (Watch our website. We are setting up a place for folks to share testimonials of what the Center meant to them.)

I am grateful for those joined with me serving as directors of the Center: Howard Hovde, Mike Horton, Joan Neal, Darlene Ham, and especially to Dr. Kathy Galvin. Her leadership in these last few, difficult years has been heroic. I am thankful for the many board members who served, especially for those who have served in these last days. Jim Herrington has been chairman of the CFC board for the last three years and done a fantastic job. Last, I want to say thanks the the therapists of the Center, most of whom I have known and worked with through the years, for your ministering spirit, professional competence and outstanding work.

There is some bright lining to this otherwise dark gray cloud. While shutting the Center down, we are retaining the corporation and perhaps, at some point in the future, we will be able to begin again. And, and this is a big “and,” the therapists who have worked with the Center will still be seeing folks, just not through the Center for Counseling. The Center will send out letters to all former clients notifying them of the change and how to get in touch with their therapist in the future. Also, all calls that come into the Center through September will be referred to a therapist in that part of the city just as before.

So how do you wrap up an article like this? I began quoting one of my mentors: there’s no easy way to do a hard thing. But there are some ways that are better than others. The closure of the Center, while difficult, is the right decision and has been done well.

There Probably is No God . . .

2009-08-11T10:58:00.001-05:00

There probably is no God . . . if you believe the advertising on buses, that is. Late last year a group of folks began purchasing advertising space on buses and in tube stations across the UK. The ads said: “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Ads are now appearing in other countries across Europe and in major cities here in the United States. (For more on this story including a video go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7813812.stm.)

There’s more. Have you heard of de-baptism? I hadn’t until recently when my son directed me to an article in USA Today. The article featured a 32-year-old medical transcriptionist who decided to renounce her faith by being de-baptized … all part of her Atheist Coming Out Party. According to the article, within the past year, "de-baptism" ceremonies have attracted as many as 250 participants at atheist conventions in Ohio, Texas, Florida and Georgia” and now it is spreading to other countries. In Britain more than 100,000 people have downloaded de-baptism certificates. (Go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-07-21-atheists-debaptism_N.htm for the story.)

Atheist ad campaigns? De-baptism certificates? What’s up?

Obviously, these articles are just a reminder that the greatest wars are not fought with sticks and stones. They are fought with words and beliefs. Sticks and stones can break your bones, but beliefs will determine your eternal destiny.

Jesus once told a parable about a man who sowed good seed in a field. Over night an enemy came and sowed weeds in his field. When the seeds germinated and began to grow, he realized what had happened. “An enemy did this,” he rightly surmised. What to do? Jesus said “It’ll all come out in the wash” - okay “harvest.” (See Matthew 13:36-43)

But there’s another point, a poignant reminder, one we’d do well to remember: not everyone is sowing good seed, at least, not from our perspective. We share the gospel; they preach atheism and encourage de-baptism.

Churches across the city are in the middle of an important initiative. . . gearing up to share the gospel with everyone in the city in their own heart language by Easter Sunday, 2010. We want to saturate Houston with the good news that God loves us and offers salvation and eternal life through Jesus Christ. But not everyone will be happy about this. Some will take a very contrarian point of view. Some folks, even in the church, might suggest we don’t need to do this because not everyone will respond positively. (I’ll address that in another article.)

What should we do? Retreat? Be silent? Not do it because someone won’t like it? Not at all. When you have the truth, you need to share it. Freely, but not forcefully. Graciously, not aggressively. That’s what our Pentecost Houston / Texas Hope 2010 initiative is all about.

Just know, there are others with a different agenda. That just makes what we have to do more urgent because, contrary to the ads, there really is a God and knowing Him is the key to really living.

For more information about Union Baptist Association and its ministries, view our website at http://www.ubahouston.org or call 713.957.2000

Our Vision:
Healthy, reproducing congregations cooperating to transform
our communities, Houston, and the world!