CCToday.com

Since February I've served as the content editor for Christian Church Today, and I spent much of my spring working with a team from PlainJoe Studios to completely relaunch the site. We went live last week and it looks great--I'm proud to be part of it and the PJ team did a great job. We're still working on some final details, but check it out and let me know what you think. 

Last NACC post for a while--promise

Every time any conversation turns to the NACC, I hear three recurring comments. 

The first is that other events--many of them more helpful--exist for church leaders.

The second is that the NACC is too expensive for many preachers to attend, especially those from smaller churches with less money to allocate for travel and professional development.

The third is that the National Missionary Convention is becoming a preferred alternative.

Some thoughts:

1. It's true that church leaders have more options for personal and professional growth than ever before. This includes not only books, websites, blogs, podcasts, DVDs, and mentoring relationships but also events. Whether you're into northern Michigan church planting, family worship services for primary school students, or gospel choirs of 25-40 people, there is a niche event for you. I think this is a good thing, even if it's symptomatic of our 500-channels culture.

2. I don't think the NACC should try to duplicate these niche events. There's no way they could, for one thing, but more importantly it would be contradictory to their stated mission, which is to be "the connecting place" for a movement. The value of the NACC is its role as a place for all of us to gather, make new relationships, renew old ones, and generally remember that for all our independence, we are not alone. That in itself is a "niche" worth preserving. (And that's why the regional conventions a few years ago were such a huge failure. Why would the board of the convention adopt a mission statement saying it's the connecting place and then splinter the annual event into three separate ones?)

3.  Since many of these alternative conferences cost much more for one person than the NACC's current family registration rate, my guess is that megachurch pastors and other leaders who have the money are more frequently commenting on the irrelevance of the NACC, and the less resourced pastors more often complain about its cost. Just a guess.

4. Either way, the $$ complaint is actually a comment on the perceived value of the North American, because if many of these leaders are willing to pay multiple hundreds to attend another (often shorter) event, money is just part of the problem. I suspect the larger issue is a waning desire on the part of our younger leaders to associate with "the movement" in the first place.

5. I think those guys, and the ones who don't even realize they're part of the independent churches, are missing out. It's good for all of us to be together and we need their participation and perspective.

 

6. As much as I enjoy the NACC, I'm all for letting something die when it's time to die. If that time has come for the NACC, and the NMC should become "the connecting place" for our churches, then I will happily transfer my attendance to that event. I'm not sure the NMC team would define its mission that way, but there's no reason our leaders can't gather to celebrate missions and celebrate our heritage all in one week.

7. The bottom line is we need to decide if we're serious about being "connected," however loosely, and--if so--how we want to nurture that connection. Meanwhile the events vying for attendees need to step up their educational and promotional efforts to address the underlying issues.

I don't really care if it's the NACC, the missionary convention, the National New Church Conference, or some gathering that has yet to be invented. But I do believe we need some consistent way to journey forward together. Whatever that is, I'm there.

More fun with church papers

To prepare for our upcoming missions project we are having special prayer stations in the foyer beginning today and ending July 29th. These stations will allow everyone a taste of what the missions team will experience.

WARNING!! THIS WEEK WILL FEATURE A LIVE CAGED SNAKE.

This week my friend David emailed me the link to an amazingly articulate, "spot-on" article by Sally Morgenthaler. Ms. Morgenthaler is the author of Worship Evangelism and a respected voice in worship/creative arts circles. With this article, she also proves to be something of a prophet.

For years Morgenthaler traveled the country as a speaker and consultant, sharing ways churches can reach the unbelieving world through accessible weekend worship experiences. In this article, and in her recent decision to disband her worship resource website Sacramentis, she recants that position. Her current thesis is that worship as evangelism appeals to churches who "are waiting for an excuse not to do the work of real outreach," and that churches which truly do attract the unchurched are successful not because of worship style or song selection but because of an ongoing, unglamorous commitment to community service and relationship-building. 

To support this position, she cites convicting statistics that show "for all the money, time, and effort we've spent on cultural relevance--and that includes culturally relevant worship--it seems we came through the last 15 years with a significant net loss in churchgoers, proliferation of megachurches and all."

Morgenthaler supports some of my own opinions about worship services in the local church, but that's not the main reason I appreciate her work (although if anyone wants to pay me her going rate to come speak to your group about worship trends, I'd be happy to prepare a powerpoint). What I love is her willingness to speak the hard truth even at the cost to her own career. "To witness through worship, the unchurched actually need to show up," she writes. Since the late '90s, this has stopped happening, and she concludes "[I] have become convinced that the primary meeting place with our unchurched friends is now outside the church building."

Click here to read the entire article, and let me know what you think.

I remember growing up and attending the "Impact Brass" concerts at the convention each year. Remember that group from Ozark? They were the coolest of all the college groups because not only did they have contemporary music but also three screens with video images that accompanied each song.

I especially remember a singer named Rachel; I'm not sure why she had an "impact" on me but I looked for her at each concert during those years. I envied her pretty blond hair and her poise on stage. I later learned she was one of the Melton Family Singers, a southern gospel group that always showed up for the convention. 

This week, one of my assignments during the evening services was to keep things on schedule by alerting the speakers and worship leaders as they neared the end of their allotted time. I accomplished this via a very high-tech method of holding up a certain number of fingers to a teammate on the front row who watched for that signal and then flashed a large posterboard sign displaying the number of remaining minutes to the person on stage.

And my tech crew partner in timekeeping was none other than Rachel. Like me, she volunteered to help backstage this year and we worked together to keep things on track. And as I stood there Wednesday night with my headphones on I had to smile: at the memory of myself as an impressionable grade-schooler, at the twists life can take, and at the fun of being part of our movement. I love the NACC because of moments like this. 

For those of us who have been part of the independent Christian churches for any length of time, the convention really is a family reunion of sorts. Like all families, we have our dysfunctions and disagreements, yet we keep gathering each summer because--as much as we value that independence--we want to experience the fellowship of our fellowship. 

But fewer gather each year. The convention consistently trends downward in attendance and financial support, and it worries me because, as Ben Cachiaras said this week, "The NACC isn't nice, folks. It's necessary. We need this." We need to be reminded that we belong to a tribe, with all the messiness and joy that entails. 

This year marked the 80th anniversary of the first convention. I hope the NACC leadership finds the secret to reinventing things so it continues for another 80--not for the sake of tradition, but so future generations can continue working together, learning from each other, and experiencing small Wednesday night serendipities of reconnection.

Along with the ongoing debate about music styles in worship, some churches also struggle with including other artistic forms, like dance, in their weekend gatherings.

Worship ministers who incorporate this art into services sometimes get criticism for allowing the dancers to wear inappropriate clothing in church. Obviously anyone participating in worship should be dressed modestly (and that includes you, worship team), but I think this complaint is often a veiled objection to the dancing itself. Like Michal, we can fault David for dancing before the Lord in his revealing linen ephod and miss the example of this verse--David danced, and it seems to be held up as a legitimate expression of praise and thanksgiving to God.

At last night's opening NACC service, a local dance troupe performed intricately choreographed routines to two different songs, one at the beginning to the week's theme song and one following the message. At my tech crew post on stage right, I had a close-up view of the young women who danced. Their outfits were modest yet attractive, their contribution was well-rehearsed and done with excellence, and they added to the message of the songs rather than drawing attention to themselves. And like David in the Old Testament, these girls danced exuberantly, with abandon, and with huge grins of joy.

I don't know if the NACC will get any flak for including the dancing, but it was a highlight of the service for me.

I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in Kansas City reading the online version of this year's NACC program book and looking forward to the convention's kickoff tomorrow. Interestingly, I had already decided to write about the use of literature in preaching when my eye fell on the program's list of the top ten books leaders are reading right now. One is the new Harry Potter novel, and another is War and Peace.

I'm not sure how the NACC compiled its list,  but I wish I could copy and paste it into the syllabus of every English 101 course at our Bible colleges. Many students at these schools--especially freshmen males--believe literature classes are a waste of time because "I'm going to PREACH. I don't need all this stuff."

And I strongly disagree. For one thing, great literature--like all great art--explores the human condition. These books, plays and poetry illuminate and draw conclusions about God, love, and sacrifice. This is true of literature from every country and every age, and it's true regardless of the author's spiritual background. In fact, sometimes works like The Grapes of Wrath, Death of a Salesman, or the poems of Sylvia Plath speak most profoundly about the need for a Savior. Because all people reflect the image of God, their creations can't help but point to him.

Speaking more pragmatically, these students should read literature because it's also a rich source of illustrations and other sermon material. Paul Williams demonstrates this with his use of The Odyssey in his recent editorial on poverty. And I'm guessing War and Peace is on the NACC's list not because it's such a fun read--it comes in at over 1,000 pages and every character has three different last names which end in "ovitch"--but because it is an epic story full of insights about God--insights that will preach.

Churches have adopted the use of visual stories, in the form of movie and television clips, as powerful tools to communicate the Gospel in a fresh way. I wish we could develop a similar appreciation for written stories, because both art forms can point to The Story.