Mark Byron

Lakeland Revival Update

The Todd Bentley revival in Lakeland seems to have outgrown it's initial Ignited Church home and its sister church in Auburndale; they've been moving between the 7000-seat Lakeland Center and Marchant Stadium, the Detroit Tigers' spring training stadium. The Tampa Tribune piece on the revival does a decent stab at balance and background, going for replies from hostile heresy-hunter Hank Hanegraaff and a friendly take from Charisma magazine's J Lee Grady.

Mike LaPan, executive director of the Lakeland Center, estimated the crowd at nearly 7,000 Monday night and 4,000 to 5,000 Tuesday and Wednesday. Fresh Fire paid the Lakeland Center about $15,000 per day, said LaPan, who complimented the crowds for their behavior.

That's a good chunk of change; they'll need at least $3/head in donations just to cover the rental fees. The problem for the Bentley crew is that the Tigers' farm club in Lakeland uses the stadium and the Lakeland Center has other events.

The revival will return to the Lakeland Center from Monday through Thursday of next week.

"Bu after that, we're homeless," said Lynne Breidenbach, a spokeswoman for [Ignited Church pastor Stephen] Strader. Finding a venue for the services, which brought 5,000 or more people to the Lakeland Center each night this week, is a challenge.

"It's hard finding a place with 10,000 seats," said Breidenbach. She noted that revival organizers contacted the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa, but found that it was also booked.

Well, strangely enough, their old Carpenter's Home church would be perfect for the occasion. Unfortunately, they just got done selling it in 2006. Would they be gutsy enough to ask? Would the Church Without Walls (a Word-of-Faith-style joint that would be open in theory to such a revival) gutsy enough to go along and humble enough to let the local upstarts get first billing?

I'm mugwumping on the theological merits of this. It's hard to get objective information; you either have the Holy Spirit junkies who can't get enough of Bentley and this "Florida Outpouring" or you have the heresy-hunters who train both barrels at anything charismatic and noteworthy.

What we do seem to have is something that could be the Toronto of the late 00s; TACF had to buy a conference center and convert it into a church to handle their crowds.

At least people will have better weather to visit this revival in. We'll see how the charismatic pilgrims handle the "air you can wear" of a Florida summer.

The Son-'n-Spirit Fly-In?

If you're not a Lakeland, Florida person, you might not get the pun in the title. One of Lakeland's big tourism draws (other than Detroit Tiger spring training) is the Sun-'n-Fun Fly-In, where recreational aviators from around the country show up for a week of flying-related events at the airport south of town.

Lakeland might be on the verge of having another tourist destination, and it won't involve a theme park; a big revival has broken out at Ignited Church on the north side of town, with rising Pentecostal evangelist Todd Bentley (my dad's been taking about him for years after seeing him at a conference about six years ago) being the touchstone of some interesting rashes of conversions and reported healings.

Here's a piece on the revival from the Lakeland Ledger's Cary McMullen, who interviewed me back in 2003 for a Ledger piece on Christian bloggers.

What began as a five-day revival at Ignited Church in Lakeland has become something of a sensation locally and, thanks to the Internet, in Pentecostal circles worldwide.

Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley has been leading "healing meetings" at Ignited since April 2, attended by as many as 20,000 people so far, and the meetings will continue twice daily through April 27, church leaders say. The meetings have drawn attention for what Bentley and Ignited Pastor Stephen Strader say are miraculous instances of people healed of serious medical conditions.

The evening services usually fill Ignited's 700-seat sanctuary, and people have been waiting for hours for the doors to open, Strader said. The crowds have included people from outside Lakeland, outside Polk County and even other states. Ignited's media coordinator, Lynne Breidenbach, said a doctor from England had flown over to attend services after seeing reports on the Internet.

The services have been streamed live via the Web site www.ustream.tv, and as of Wednesday morning, the services had received more than 100,000 views.

Ignited Church has an interesting pedigree, being the half heir to the former Carpenter's Home Church, in more ways than one. Carpenter's Home was an Assembly of God megachurch before the pastor's son did a financial scam that fleeced a good chunk of the church gutted the membership rolls; scamster Daniel Strader got sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Two years ago, Carpenter's Home sold their large, 10,000 sanctuary/auditorium (that would frequently host major Christian acts) to Tampa's Church Without Walls for their Polk County satellite church, giving Carpenter's Home their old facility in neighboring Auburndale and $3.5 million. Part of the church moved to the Auburndale site, with Carpenter's Home patriarch Karl Strader's son in law Shane Simmons as lead pastor of the newly christened Auburndale Life Church, while another group moved to Ignited, where Karl's other son Stephen Strader is the lead pastor.

Ignited Church overhauled an old hardware store about a mile north of the old Carpenter's Home site into a new 700-seat facility. I remember shopping at the Wal Mart across the street on US-98 in the mall quadrant north of town back when I was job-hunting in Lakeland back in 2006 and vaguely remember the Ignited Church signs as they were starting things up.

Carpenter's Home has an interesting place in Pentecostal/charismatic history; they hosted a three-month-long revival by Rodney Howard Brown in 1993 that was noted by uncontrolled laughter "in the Spirit" and other over-the-top manifestations. That meme spread elsewhere, with the "Toronto Blessing" of the mid-late 90s being the largest descendant of that meme (here's a critical piece that gives a decent overview, and here's another).

This Lakeland revival was a topic of conversation at church Sunday (we were at a Vineyard church in Wilmore just south of Lexington); the pastor noted that while the Toronto-style renewals tended to have people looking to absorb more of the Holy Spirit, it didn't translate in most cases to increased evangelism. My thought was that it created a breed of "Holy Spirit junkies" going from healing conference to prophetic conference to "soaking" service looking to get the next fix.

This one's marked, at least in the early going, by a lot of potent evangelism. Conversion numbers in that type of setting can be a bit inflated, as people often give token confessions that don't quite stick for the long haul, but the reports seem impressive. If you're going to have the Spirit move in off-beat ways, it's best to see it followed by people being brought to the Lord rather than just being a bunch of Holy Spirit junkies soaking themselves.

A lot of folks are going to be turned off right away by the TBN-style Pentecostal stuff and happily link to all the heresy-hunter sites. However, I'm interested in seeing if there may be something a bit more mature and worthwhile coming out of this one.

At minimum, we'll get to see the first blogged revival in the early days of "going supernova", if the hype holds up. Also, we may see Carpenter's Home 2.0 become a focal point like it's predecessor.

Cyber-Koinonia

First, some props back to Richard Hall and Matt Brown. Let's start with Richard's sixth blogaversary post last last month; I've been too tied up with my anxiety issues and teaching to comment properly.

There have been lots of other friends along the way of course, and I’ve been irritating many of them since ‘the early days’: Mark Byron, Randy McRoberts, Bene Diction and Craig Schwarze are the ones that leap to mind. It’s an odd thing, but three of those four are folk I’ve had (and have!) significant disagreements with and yet I don’t remember any of our exchanges getting beyond the ‘robust-but-friendly’. Either my memory is faulty, or they’re all soft! Most of Christian blogdom is rather further to the right than I am, both politically and theologically, and one of the joys of blogging for me has been the conversations that have been possible across these divides.

That list of four reminds me of another feature of blogging that I’ve particularly enjoyed. Look closely, and you’ll see that it’s a little list that spans the world. Two from the US, a Canadian and an Aussie. Through their blogs, they’ve given a little window into their lives: joy, sorrow, pain, hope and the rest. And because of that sharing, I’ve been able to see their countries through their experiences. Not just theoretical issues, but real people whose opinions and beliefs have been shaped by their circumstances. I’m certain that they’ve led me (and others) to a deeper understanding of their cultures. Conversation can do that when it’s allowed to happen, and I’m grateful for it.

Richard and Bene are a few notches to my left theologically and a bit less so to my left politically, yet those two are two of my better friends in the Blogosphere. They may overmajor in grace and under-emphasize righteousness at times, but that grace has been abundantly applied when I've been down in these last six years. When you're struggling, you need compassion more than conservative orthodoxy from your friends; both would be nice, but you don't get too many warm fuzzies out of a Solo Scriptura discussion.

Meanwhile, to Matt Brownnoser's paean to this site, partly in praise of this Cedarville piece-

I'm surprised that Mark Byron isn't a bigger light in the blogosphere. I don't know what his traffic numbers are, but I'm sure that whatever they are, they're not high enough. He's been in the blogging game for several years, and his posts are thoughtful and well-written. I especially enjoy his Edifier du Jour series. If you're not a regular reader of his blog, you really need to become one. (And, Mark, I'm not saying all this just because you've been a faithful reader of mine since nearly my beginning. Truly, I'm not...)

Well, everyone deserves a fanboy or two just to give your ego a boost now and then.

I'm still wondering how Matt calls himself a Democrat when he seems to be with the Republicans on the issues more often than not. However, I was once a registered Democrat myself, even a delegate to county and district conventions. Not everyone's comfortable with the GOP. More on that part later.

A Wii Bit of a Logistical Problem

I was impressed with the Wii gaming system that my niece and nephew got for Christmas and went looking for one this weekend after Wiis showed up in a Circuit City flier in the Sunday newspaper. In CC's case, they had 33 units per store that get allocated first thing Sunday morning; the store opens at 10, but vouchers are handed out to the first 33 people in line as of 9AM. People then can come back when the store opens and use their voucher until noon.

Best Buy works much the same way, as I understand; you line up when the units go on sale, usually Sunday morning. Sundays are often when store sales periods starts, often meshing with when their fliers go out in the Sunday paper.

There's a problem with that distribution system; it tends to exclude folks who spend Sunday mornings at church. When we have a 9AM first service and a 10:30 Sunday school class, it's impossible for us to work in that setting without blowing off church, and if a gaming system is more important than church, you're priorities are a bit warped.

If you're in a multi-service church without Sunday School classes, you might be able to pull that off, snagging the machine at 10, then hustle over for your 10:30 or 11AM service. It;s even easier for the members of churches with Saturday evening services, leaving Sunday morning free.

The funny thing is, stores may well be doing that on purpose. Who's more likely to be an obsessive gamer, church goers who refuse to play hooky or the rest of the population? Probably the latter. Who's going to be more likely to buy more games for their new system once they purchase them? Probably the latter.

There seems to be a shortage of Wiis, of much longer standing that you usually see in a hot tech item; after a year or so, you'd think that Nintendo would have cranked up production. However, there is no shortage of accessories and games, which the stores will want to maximize sales of. If given the choice between selling to a casual fan who will buy a few games and a rabid fan who'll buy lots of games, your profit-maximizing point will be to find a way to get it in the rabid fan's hands.

Christian gamers can get to Midnight Madness things that launch a lot of new techie stuff, but Sunday morning releases are one way to screen them out, at least with the casual ones who aren't going to screw up their Sunday morning to get one.

Mission, Omission, and Commission

My morning Edifier had me reflecting on a Matt Brown post from earlier this week, where his alma mater Cedarville University canceled under pressure a visit from emergent-flavored speaker Shane Claiborne. Cedarville's been torn between being an old-school Baptist/Reformed college and a more generically evangelical college, moving more towards the latter as of late, which displeases the more old-school stakeholders of Cedarville.

Much of the critique of Claiborne comes from who his friends are; Claiborne hangs his hat on the Sojourners' group blog which includes a who's who of the emergent/evangelical left like Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis.  Claibourne's bio shows a degree from Campolo's Eastern College and has a ministry that focused on helping the poor with more than a bit of a radical edge; his current book is subtitled "Living as an Ordinary Radical."

Is he a bit too far to the theological left for Cedarville, even the new Cedarville? I haven't read his book or his theology as of yet, but many of the people he hangs with are less than orthodox, as is his college background. The Princeton Seminary he went to is mainline Presbyterian (PC-USA) and Eastern is mainline American Baptist; the two denominations have seminaries in Richmond, VA that have strong links. It's not the pedigree of someone who I'd invite to a conservative evangelical college, especially if I wanted to keep my job for an extended period of time.

However, that message of a radical missional approach to the Gospel may well be a message that Cedarville needs to hear, even if the speaker's theology might be to the left of the Cedarville norm.

Conservative Baptists, like the Southern Baptists I've been hanging out with since moving to Lexington and the old-school GARBC Baptists who make up Cedarville's core constituency (I was baptized at a GARBC church, and many of that church's kids went to Cedarville) tend to focus on sins of commission, like bad language, improper sexual behavior, lying, and other capital-s Sins. The focus is often on avoiding what God doesn't want you to do.

However, focusing on those sins of commission will often leave folks with a tin ear towards sins of omission, or not doing the things God would want us to do. That's not to say that you don't have missional Southern Baptists who are actively looking to minister to the needy; my pastor is one who has missional in his working vocabulary and is trying to move things in that direction.

One of the things that the emergent-church folks have focused on is being more proactive in ministering to the needy. They're correct in pointing out that modern evangelical churches have a tendency to be insular clubs that create programs for their members but don't do a good job of reaching out to the spiritually, emotionally and economically needy. That's doubly true of suburban churches, whose members often don't really want to get their hands or minds dirty trying to minister to the folks in the grimier neighborhoods.

The emergent folks point out the need for better orthopraxy, doing the right things in ministry, rather than mere orthodoxy, or believing the right things. Of course, you need both; many emergent folks are falling into the Social Gospel trap of focusing so heavily on orthopraxy that they chuck their orthodoxy and the power of the Word with it.

Such ministry to the poor sounds a bit too much like the Social Gospel to many theological conservatives. However, a lot of the critique has political overtones as well beyond any theological differences. For instance, I was thumbing through the academic help wanteds (no, I'm not going anywhere, but I was curious) and found this job posting for Cedarville for a "endowed Berry Family Chair in Free Enterprise"-

Responsibilities include promoting the principles of global free market economics in the context of biblical perspectives on economics and economic issues. The mission of the Chair shall be to engage in activities that facilitate the spread of and reinforce the foundation of free enterprise principles to students and other university constituents who will influence their culture, organizations, and professions through service anchored in biblical truth.

Endowed Chair will be expected to develop upper division economics course(s) within the Department of Business Administration, work with university faculty to revise a core curriculum course to include free enterprise principles, explore the feasibility of proposing an Economics major at Cedarville University with special emphasis on free enterprise and governmental policy analysis, and develop a proposal for a Center for Free Enterprise at Cedarville University of which the Chair would assume directorship.

As Director of the Center for Free Enterprise the Chair will: conduct and/or collaborate on research leading to publication and presentation, develop conferences and seminars, assist in finding additional funds needed to support the Center, recruit Center Fellows, explore the possibility of inviting visiting scholars to the Center, assist in developing expertise among faculty and students in free market responses to various business related issues, establish an advisory council that meets annually, and attract world class free enterprise academics and practitioners to the Center.

They're looking for a Ph.D. in Econ, so I'm not the guy I'm looking for; my Ph.D. is in Finance.

Cedarville seems to have fully bought into what is being called "full spectrum conservatism" in the presidential primaries, accepting economic as well as social conservatism in the package. For me, the hermeneutic of economic conservatism is a bit shakier than social conservatism; I accept the free-market take, but my acceptance flows more from common sense than from applying Scripture.

Such a economically conservative school might not appreciate an politically liberal speaker, even if the message of radically living out one's faith and doing the stuff Jesus would do if He were around in the flesh fits in nicely with the Gospel. Economic conservatives hate it often squirm when you talk about Jesus' "Jewish liberal" side; Mike Huckabee has found that out the hard way the last few months.

Cedarville would be more comfortable with Josh Claybourn's Christian libertarian take than Shane Claybourne progressive take. However, when it comes to living out your faith, both Cedarville and I could use some of Shane's radicalism, even if I'd vote for Josh for Congress (he's about a decade away from being eligible for president) over Shane.

We need both orthodoxy and orthopraxy, avoiding both sins of omission and commission. We need the compassion of a bleeding-heart liberal for the poor; having the political worldview of one is another matter.

Focus on the Theocon

Bene Diction was chiming in on James Dobson's latest broadside at McCain and leaves this P.S.

I don’t recall ever reading a Dobson criticism by Dr. Mark Byron, who is one of my daily blog reads. His typepad blog doesn’t have a search engine, a quick google found a sort of one from 2005.

Bene hasn't been reading things as closely as he should.

I haven't done a Ten Things I Hate About You post that Bene seems to be looking for, but I have been critical. Here's what Bene would have found if I had that internal search engine running.

May 2002-Dobson's in "a inter-evangelical food fight" with the head of Moody Broadcasting

Dobson, for all the good he does do, does have a stubborn streak, and it's showing here. It's not good for the two biggest players in Christian radio to be having a pissing match.

January 2004-Shooting down liberal dreams of a Dobson presidential run

If you think that his [President Bush's] record isn't strong enough on the moral issues of the day, may I offer up the Constitution Party and Reconstructionist-flavored Howard Phillips? Dobson voted for them in 1996 when Bob Dole got him POed. No thanks? I thought so; they're a bit too wingnut for me, too.

January 2005-Dobson looks to start a 527 fund

Dobson's not "a front for the White House," as one of Harry Reid's spokesmen intoned; he's a loose cannon who's in the process of getting some serious ammo.

May 2005- Family News in Focus is an ICBM silo in the Republican's "nuclear option."

On to another related rant. Our local Christian station has Focus on the Family's Family News in Focus broadcast on just after the 6AM news. Lately, it should be retitled GOP Leadership Forum, for the pieces are two-minute infomercials for the GOP's political platform. They've always been biased to the right, but had been more balanced and less overtly partisan in the past.

One big hobby-horse they've been riding is the nuclear/constitutional option issues; a few weeks back, they spent most of a week covering a pissing match between FOTF and Sen. Salazar on judicial nominees. Today, the piece plugged a Republican budget-reform bill.

Just like my beef with Robertson above, these Christian groups seem to becoming merely standard-issue conservative Republicans with a religious cloak. Most of the time, I'm going to agree with standard-issue conservative Republicans, but I don't like giving a Christian imprimatur to it, especially if it's on things like economics or immigration where there isn't a clear orthodox Biblical response.

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Another thing that bothers me is that a lot of the political theocons are rather dour and pessimistic. Robertson majors in snark and disdain for his foes and is hard to watch. Dobson is quickly heading in that direction, becoming more pessimistic and bitter as the years go by.

There's also a circle-the-wagons mentality that's not healthy. Instead of winning the world for Christ, we seem to be playing defense, fending off the advances of secularism. Last I checked, being against abortion and homosexuality aren't major cornerstones of the Christian faith, but it seems that way if you watch orthodox Christians in the news.

Of course, we won't get much press coverage for basic evangelism or ministry to the poor and hurting; ministries generally only get press if there's controversy or they step into politics.

We need to be reaching out to people with a God who loves them, a Jesus who died for them and a Holy Spirit that stands at the ready to transform their lives. We need something better than glum culture warriors. I don't mind a good fight for our culture, but we need more happy warriors.

April 2005-Broad commentary on the Church's PR in the media

For some reason, I'm remembering an old ad where a kid's parents were doing alternative financial planning by ambushing the Tooth Fairy. Poor TF looked like a leprechaun on a bender, and responded to the couple with a put-up-his-dukes bring-it-on stance.

The public persona of the evangelical church seems to be more like TF than Jesus, and that isn't good. Part of the problem is that it's the most combative folks that get the press; the gentle, thoughtful thinkers don't get quoted or invited on the TV shows. For instance Dobson (and Robinson and Falwell and Sekulow, for that matter) plays the role of the zealous Christian soldier all too well, thus the media love to cast him as the foil for the left; less combative figures aren't as much fun and get less coverage.

March 2007-Dobson and theocon company go after NAE official Richard Cizik for his anti-global-warming work. It's a "read the whole thing" piece, but here's my summation-

I'm loosely on the conservative side on the aisle on climate change/global warming; I'm a friendly skeptic who thinks a slow and steady move away from fossil fuels will be good in the long run, but a quick move away from them will do more harm than good overall. On that front, I'm more with Dobson than Cizik.

However, I find a faith that has room for the Ciziks one that better reflects the Gospel than the homogeneous conservatism that Dobson and company are shooting for. It shoos away folks with a collectivist bent on economics or a pacifist bent on foreign policy; that may well keep some sheep out of the Kingdom that God wants to reach.

I recall the old Audio Adrenaline song, Big House. To borrow from the chorus, our heavenly Father has a big, big house with lots and lots of room, room enough for people who are "too concerned" about climate change, as well as your standard-issue theocons.

November 2007-Calling Mike Huckabee a combination of Rick Warren and Dobson rather than the Jonah Goldberg-posited combo of Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson.

Who's your other daddy, Mike? Mr. Rudy's-my-man Rev-run Pat? NOT!

If we have to use a name that people who might link in from the Corner (if this got Jonah's attention) will recognize, let's go with James Dobson. Conservative first, Republican second. Give no quarter on the moral issues of the day, rather than sell your moral birthright out for a bowl of Homeland Security stew.

Warren isn't big on going to the mat on the hot-button theocon issues, but Dobson is.

Yesterday-I had "Conservative first, Republican second" down cold, as Dobson promises to sit out 2008 if McCain is the Republican nominee.

I'd rather have a 90% pro-life candidate who'd be open to appointing conservative judges than sit out and have Justice Tribe get confirmed after President Obama nominated him. 100% would be nice, but 90% beats the heck out of 2%.

Dr. Dobson can take his ball and play catch with Ann Coulter if he wants; he'll actually encourage moderates to vote for McCain and make it harder for Clinton or Obama to categorize McCain as a stooge of the fundamentalists.

OK, let's summarize the downside of Dobson:

• He's arrogant, has a perfectionistic streak and tends to boil things down into us-versus-them a bit too quickly. That tends to sell well on the radio, where a hard-core shtick draws a bigger crowd than a nuanced one.
  
• He also is a bit too wedded to the conservative wing of the GOP for my taste; even when I agree with him, he often brings too much of a theological imprimatur to secular political issues like judicial confirmations.
  

However, he is rather nuanced on child-rearing and psych issues; unlike many evangelicals who sneer at psychology as a hopelessly secular field that should be avoided, the Dr. in Dr. Dobson comes from a Ph.D. in psychology, not a theology degree. When he sticks to Focus' focus, he's largely on target.

He will bring a evangelical paradigm to his psychology, which won't please the liberals in the crowd; people looking for someone to defend extramarital sex and homosexual behavior won't be happy with him. Dobson was also a key help in getting Promise Keepers into national prominence, back when it was a much smaller entity headed by the football coach down the road in Boulder from FoTF HQ in Colorado Springs.

So, any criticism I have given is of an even-handed nature, critiquing someone I'm largely in agreement with rather than a broadside at an enemy ideological foe, which seems to be where Bene's distrust of the American religious right takes the writing at BDBO.

Communion

We had a full afternoon, going over to a church family's house for dinner and a birthday cake for Eileen (she has her birthday Tuesday), then a prospective-members meeting at church.

One thing that came out of the conversation at church this afternoon was that Pastor David mentioned that he didn't buy into the idea that you have to be properly baptized as a believer to receive communion; being a believer was enough.

That puts him at odds with Al Mohler, a leading candidate to be the next Southern Baptist president, who among others would restrict communion to people who have gone through a Baptist-style believer's baptism. Other believer-baptizing evangelicals would count, but non-immersion paedobaptizers like the Presbyterians and Lutherans would have the Communion Nazi go "No juice for you!" ;-).

Jeez, they even have a Mohler campaign logo up and running. Is this normal in SBC circles?

Back when I did my piece on the open-communion issue, I mentioned that "More than one pastor has said 'this is the Lord's table, not our church's table.'" David said that almost verbatim without prompting; I think it was "It's the Lord's table, not ours" that was the exact quote.

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Community has the same root as communion, and we have started to develop that here in town. Mark I (since I'm the newbie, I'm Mark II) and Lisa who lead our Sunday School class Life Group and Mark I's mom have all-but adopted us, having us over as regular visitors on Sundays like an extra son and daughter-in-law.

So we get to have a Southern-style home-cooked meal (or occasionally KFC with home-cooked sides), rowdy games of hand-and-food canasta (although we play with 11-card hands rather than 13) on most Sundays, and banter with the rest of Mark I's clan, including Mark I's niece and nephew.

To top that, our next-door neighbor, who (cue It's a Small World) happens to be originally from Lake Wales where both Eileen and I taught when we were in Florida, is treating Eileen to a birthday dinner and a movie while I teach Tuesday night. We're in a rare situation where we have two people in our apartment complex that we're close to; there's another gal on the first floor that Eileen used to do a lot of things with before the gal got a boyfriend.

Not bad for being here for just six months. That's more fellowship than we had in Florida, Indy and even Midland; we had friends in town, but not right next door.

A Baptist Public Intellectual

One of the interesting news items of the week, both via Bene and via the Lexington Herald Leader, is the candidacy of Al Mohler to be head of the Southern Baptists. He's currently president of their flagship seminary in Louisville, so the jump to being head of the denomination wouldn't be that huge of one.

The interesting thing about Mohler is that he's a blogger; many of the contentious items that were featured in the Herald Leader piece, like a thought experiment about genetically modifying a child in utereo that had genetic tendencies that would lean it towards being homosexual, flowed from blog entries where he (as the Herald Leader puts it) comments "on moral, cultural and theological issues."

That kind of fits the description of the old-school public intellectual; no, a Baptist public intellectual isn't an oxymoron. It doesn't fit the description of the megachurch (or near-megachurch; if you have one service on Sunday, you're not going to be in the hunt) pastor that normally gets the gig of running a denomination, nor does it sound like your stereotypical tight-sphinctered seminary chief.

It's rare to see a Southern Baptist leader who people outside of Southern Baptist circles might have heard of prior to his becoming leader (or prior to the week of the national convention where the leading candidates start getting mentioned in the general media); Joe Sixpack might not have heard of Mohler, but Joe Evangelical Blog Reader will have. Even if Mohler wasn't in your bookmarks (and he wasn't in mine until now), he was in the bookmarks of one of your regular reads.

If elected, he'll be an interesting president.

That's Not My Dog

Let me get in my Golden Compass post. My general take is that it might be best to rope-a-dope on this one; from what I have read of the commentary, the movie waters down the anti-church aspects of the book so that the Magesterium is more generic authoritarian than anything. The real lather would come if the second or third books, which are more anti-Church and anti-god and throw in some "adult situations" for the teenage heroine, but it's probably best to politely ignore this one rather than go in to full-jihad boycott mode.

Two recent posts make excellent points on this front. Richard over at Bandits No More has a good post that provides this great passage

The description of the god at which Pullman aims does not fit the God of Christianity (though it does, unfortunately, fit the god some Christians have claimed over the centuries). The god of the books is closest to the god of medieval Christianity at its worst. The only attribute of Pullman’s god is omnipotence - and that omnipotence is pretty shoddy, reduced in reality to a mere exercise of authority.

The real God is omnipotent - but that omnipotence is always expressed in, through and around other characteristics, including holy love. It’s for this reason that Pullman’s picture of god and ‘Christianity’ has no place for Jesus. Jesus is not only the opposite of Pullman’s atheism but also of Pullman’s god.

It’s good to remember that one of the things for which the early Christians were persecuted was atheism - they didn’t believe in the right gods. (That’s why when you converse with someone who says, “I don’t believe in god,” it’s always a good idea to figure out which god they don’t believe in. There are more gods that I don’t believe in than that I do.)

It reminds me of the old joke, used at least once in one of the Pink Panther movies. Clouseau walks up to a man and a dog; he asks the man "Does your dog bite?" (with that bad French accent which I won't try to emulate in print). The man says "No." The dog proceeds to take off a chunk of Clouseau's hand.

"I thought you said your dog didn't bite."
"That's not my dog."

Pullman describes a mean, viscous church and a meaner, more viscous god. However, that's not our God and not our Church. He may borrow a phrase from Catholic polity to name his bad guys, but it's isn't the church or the Church.

This video below has made the rounds (my old Free Methodist church in Midland and Victory Baptist here in Lexington has played it), that describes our God, that doesn't bite like Pullman's god.

That's our God. It isn't Pullman's, but Pullman's straw-man god is a figment of his imagination.

Speaking of Victory, Pastor Dave beat me to this nice article in a Herald Leader blog, where Devin Brown, an Asbury prof and C.S. Lewis scholar, gave his $0.02 

My personal view of The Golden Compass is, I didn't see anything objectionable to me. It's set in an alternative universe where a group of evil people called The Magisterium have really taken over the church, and they use kidnapping, assassination, torture and other methods to hold onto their power. The good people in this world are opposed to The Magisterium, and I would guess that good people in our world would be opposed to a group like this as well. So, if there had not been a second or third book, I don't think we'd be having this discussion now . . . There will be a point later where this evil church will become more prominent, and people might say, 'Well, isn't that anti-Christian?' Well, Pullman may be anti-church, and the church he's against is a church we should all be against . . .

"Does our God bite?" No, but that's not our God. It may be the straw-man called upon from certain folks in order to justify a bohemian paradigm, but it isn't the true God.

It's easy to be against Pullman's Magersterium, for it's not the real Church, nor does it represent a real god. We need to spend time spreading the Gospel of the real, living, eternal God and not spend too much time shooting down some cheap and nasty alien knock-off who makes Baal look good.

Putting the "Wham" In YWAM

This was a bit scary, since I have former churchmates who have worked with Youth With a Mission. Somebody shot up their training center in Colorado last night, killing two young people.

Police aren't sure if it's related, but someone was shooting people at Ted Haggard's old church in Colorado Springs this morning. "The gunman was then shot to death, a minister said." So far, all the folks in the Colorado Springs shooting (other than the gunman himself) are OK.

This BBC piece mentions that "[p]olice said the description of the gunman in the second shooting was similar to the first - a white male wearing a dark hat and dark jacket."

So, we may have someone with a hatred of evangelicals responsible, or just someone who went off the deep end, or both. Time will tell.

[Update 12:30AM 12/10-One of the targets in Colorado Springs has died. It was a security guard who sent the shooter to meet his Maker.

Chief Richard Myers called the Colorado Springs church security staffer "a courageous security staff member who probably saved many lives."

He said some of the shooting victims being treated at the hospital have life-threatening injuries.

Several "suspicious devices" were found at the church, Myers said.

SWAT teams were clearing the multiple buildings at New Life Church, along with an explosives unit, he said.

Sounds like it could have been far worse if those devices were actually used.]

Still Mega

I was doing some snooping around this Hartford Institute megachurch research web site and seeing what churches in my new neck of the woods qualified.

Immanuel Baptist, the church my Victory Baptist was a church plant from 15 year ago, cracked the 2000 barrier, as did Bene's favorite Lexington church, Porter Memorial Baptist.

"It says they are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Does that mean the Kentucky SBC is an overseer?" If so, they now have the fox guarding the hen house, since Porter pastor Bill Henard got elected head of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Someone should let the Hartford Institute know that Porter is Southern Baptist; they have Immanuel as SBC but have a generic BAPT for Porter.

Southland Christian is the biggest one in town, with a listed attendance of over 7000; Eileen went to an Amy Grant book-reading/mini-concert earlier this fall there. Quite a few people used to go their as well, as one of our friends from our apartment complex went their before settling in at a good Methodist church and quite a few Victory Baptist folks gave Southland a try before getting rooted at Victory.

An interesting one on the rise is Quest Community Church. Their facility faces the New Circle Road expressway and they use that to good effect, sponsoring a big Questapalooza featuring former DC Talk frontman Toby Mac this fall; DC Talk is on hiatus officially, but seven years is a long hiatus.

"They're on Hiatus?"

"Ask your doctor if Hiatus is right for you. Possible side affects of Hiatus include increasing distance from former friends, increased ego and delusions of grandeur."

Quest showed up at #43 on Outreach magazine's fast-growing churches list, getting a nice blurb in the Herald Leader out of it. That fast growth's no surprise when you read their history, Pete being pastor Pete Hise.

Pete attended a conference at Willow Creek Community Church in 1996, where God instilled a vision of a church designed for people who don't like church. Beginning in March 1997, a Saturday night service called Quest began at First Alliance. As it grew over the next two years, it became apparent that God was creating a new separate church. In January, 1999, First Alliance Church commissioned 80 people to come plant a new church with the mission of "transforming unconvinced people into wholehearted followers of Jesus."

Ah, yes, Willow Creek, the Mecca of seeker-friendly church growth. In this case the Hybels Highball was just the cocktail, but you do need the right people to pull such growth off. You don't normally associate the Christian and Missionary Alliance as a happening church, but these guys at Quest seems to have a flair for reaching unchurched youth.

I was at the biggest church in the state last month when I took in Sullivan U's graduation ceremony at Southeast Christian in Louisville, lovingly called "Six Flags over Jesus" by one of my colleagues. An 8000 seat sanctuary and 18,000 members. That's big.

 

Mega no More

There are a couple of things out of place in this AP piece on Earl Paulk. The first is that he's listed as being "the leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch." He was the pastor of a megachurch, but not anymore.

For one, his nephew D.E. has been the lead pastor since last year, after a sex scandal had caused him to push himself aside. Now, the news is that D.E. is actually his son; Earl had been having an affair with his sister in law in the 70s.

Also, the classic definition of a megachurch is a "congregation with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2000 persons or more in its worship services." However, the AP piece says that the church falls short of that-   

For years the church was at the forefront of many social movements — admitting black members in the 1960s, ordaining women and opening its doors to gays.

At its peak in the early 1990s, it claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. By soliciting tithes of 10 percent from each member's income, the church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress.

Today, though, membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible college and TV ministry have shuttered — a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the alleged sexual transgressions of the elder Paulks.

1500<2000. That reminds me of the story of Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland. Here's an except from a 2003 post on megachurches-

In these big churches. as the pastor goes, so goes the church. One megachurch here in the area, Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland, wound up coming on tough times after the pastor's son scammed the members in an investment scheme; they wound up selling their auditorium recently to a Tampa megachurch, the Church Without Walls, after seeing attendance drop by 80%.

Even the new owner has their little scandal; since I wrote that, the co-pastors of the CWW, Randy and Paula White, divorced. Paula's become one of the hot commodities on the Word-of-Faith circuit and there may well have been too much ego for one household; it was likely hard on Randy to be second banana in his own house.

Back to Paulk. He might not have been able to control his crotch, but Paulk at least was well ahead of the curve on civil rights, being integrated in the 60s when such stuff wasn't done by white pastors in Georgia.

I've yet to see anything to confirm the gay-friendly part that the AP piece cites; he was fairly old-school on most theological points, albeit from a post-millennial Pentecostal vantage point. Bene has him down as a Dominionist, as does the folks at Apologetics Index. That post-millennial theology will lend itself to some sort of idea of the Church running things down the line, which will be used against it by premillennialist critics.

How many you had a Goodbye, Earl come to mind while reading this one?

Charity Begins at Home

Over at Connexions, I've been part of a conversation on comparative giving to the poor between Muslims and Christians, bouncing off of a Richard Hall post on a speech from "Saif Ahmad, CEO of the charity Muslim Aid."

In theory, a good Muslim is supposed to give 2.5% of their wealth yearly to the poor. In theory, a good Christian is supposed to give 10% of their income to the church.

In practice, the average Christian gives about 2.5% of their income to the church. 2.58% was the figure for 2005 in that Empty Tomb.com study. Of that 2.58%, 2.2% was spent internally by the church, leaving 0.38% for "Benevolences." I think that includes both mission donations and donations to the needy.

At that pace, your average Muslim would only have to meet about a fifth of their goal to trump the average Christian.

That's not that far off from my church. Of our church's $675K budget for 2008, $69K is slated to be spent on various mission efforts. However, the vast majority of the money is spend on evangelism and only $5000 is spent on the needy; there is a $3000 benevolence fund and a $2000 donation to the Hope Center, a Lexington homeless shelter.

We're spending $8500 on "Life Groups Literature and Periodicals," Life Groups being Victory Baptist's rechristening of Sunday School classes. That means we're probably spending more on Lifeway than we're spending on the poor; not all of the Sunday School lit comes from Lifeway (the Southern Baptist's publishing arm), but a majority of it.

That's not to say that the church isn't active and that members might not cut checks to the Hope Center and other poverty-fighting charities. They'll definitely be down their helping on a regular basis, donating their time; the majority of our Sunday School class Life Group was down at the Hope Center last Saturday helping serve lunch.

A year ago, I did some work for the Hope Center's counterpart in Midland, the Open Door, helping get Quickbooks up and running in time to get out their yearly donation statements. One of the things my late friend Don Cormier (a board member with the Open Door and acting accountant as of Jan 2006) mentioned at the time was that the mainline churches gave most of the money and the evangelical churches gave most of the volunteers.

I'm not sure what should be replaced on the budget of what extra money for the poor would look like, but it seems like a well-off suburban church can afford more than 1% for helping the poor. Might some of the well-funded youth programs or children's programs or women's program or other programs get shorted a little in order to help some of our local needy a bit more?

Part of it might be the programmatic nature of a lot of modern church-doing; we buy stuff for various classes, we do stuff that requires money. That's going to keep a bit of money in the church rather than giving it away.

Part of it might be a conservative evangelical distaste for the Social Gospel; spending money on poverty-fighting is money that can be spent on outreach and evangelism. It can also get spent on getting better coffee and donuts the lobby or better treats at VBS, or hot dogs before the new evening service at the Lexington Vineyard, things that are nice but might not be the highest and best use of Kingdom funds.

"Charity begins at home," the old saying goes. However, it shouldn't end there. Many churches seem to forget that, padding their internal budgets when the money might well be better used elsewhere.

"Discover the Thetan in You"

Here's an interesting CNN piece on a black Pentecostal pastor, Charles Kennedy, who's using a L. Ron Hubbard book as a self-improvement tool.

For Kennedy, it began two years ago when he attended a meeting at the Church of Scientology's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater, Florida. He was introduced to a book called "The Way to Happiness" -- Hubbard's 64-page, self-described "common sense guide to better living."

In the book, which lays out ways to maintain a temperate lifestyle, Kennedy found a message he believed could help lift his predominantly lower income African-American congregation. He said the book's 21 principles help them with their struggle in an urban environment where there is too much crime and addiction and too little opportunity.

Kennedy knew that before he could introduce any Scientology-related text to his congregation, he would have to prove that it did not contradict his Christian beliefs. And so, he found Scripture to match each of the 21 principles.

I'm more familiar with Buddhism than Scientology. I decided not to post them, but I was able to make a decent biblical parallel for points 2-6 of the Eight Fold Path and could probably gin up ones for the last two (on meditation) if I wanted to do some skull sweat. The first point, on the nature of suffering (end sin/improper wants and you end suffering) is stickier, but the "Choose Life" passage of Deuteronomy 30 might hunt there, as might the "narrow door" part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Does that make a Christian case for Buddhism? No. Buddhism is focused on eliminating suffering, while Christianity is focused on following God. Following God and minimizing sin will eliminate a lot of suffering, but that's not the goal of Christianity; sharing eternity and the present with God and following Him is the goal.

Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if Kennedy "found Scripture to match each of the 21 principles" just like I did for most of the Eight Fold Path. However, that doesn't make a Christian case for Scientology, which isn't focused on serving God, but stripping away the crud holding back your inner Thetan/superman.

Bringing in Joel Osteen may be a cheap shot, but Scientology would happily borrow phrases like "Discover the Champion in You." Change Champion to Thetan, and you have a fair synopsis of Scientology thought; they want you to find "your best life now" as well with no concern about the commonweal or the afterlife.

God wants more than for us to "maintain a temperate lifestyle." He wants us to follow Him and to help expand His kingdom.

Self improvement is good, but Kingdom improvement is what He wants. The two aren't mutually exclusive, to be sure, but if our focus is on getting our acts together and polishing ourselves, we might be missing out on something that God may want to use these rough-hewn jars of clay for right now.

The Evangelical Tapestry

One of the talking-point pieces of the week is a NYT magazine piece on "The Evangelical Crackup." No crack-up, just that not every theologically conservative Christian is politically conservative as well. Most church folks are generally apolitical, and those that aren't can vary on how they stand on economics, the environment and foreign policy.

One of the talking points among the chattering classes this week is Mike Huckabee's relative economic centrism (at least among the leaders in the GOP race). The WSJ let him say his piece in response to the John Fund skewering of last Friday. He even echoed my commentary on sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade-

As part of our overall effort, I also support a cap and trade system, which has worked well for reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions.

My line from the weekend was

...a similar sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade system has worked well, and if you're going to want to do something about CO2 emissions, that would be a good way to do it.

One line from the Fund piece that I didn't comment on was a Blant Hurt statement that "He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement." That's OK, neither do I. My old joke on such critters is

The definition of an intellectual is one who hears the William Tell Overture and doesn't think of the Lone Ranger. The definition of a conservative intellectual is someone who here's the name Kirk and thinks of Russell rather than Captain.

My hunch is that if you played word-association with Huckabee, he's more likely to say "Beam me up, Scotty!" than "The Conservative Mind."

However, the Bible is a fairly good grounding in conservative thought, although it may not be the economic conservative variety that Hurt would like; Dubya prompted chuckles from the coastal pundits eight years ago when he sited Jesus as his favorite philosopher.

A 2005 Edifier came to mind here-

When the Messiah shows up, even today, political orthodoxy doesn't like it. I can remember an Art Buchwald column of the early Reagan era, where a grumbly conservative caricature complained about Jesus being such a Jewish liberal. We can debate whether Jesus is a modern liberal, but He's sure to be at least a classic liberal, disrupting any status-quo that isn't of God.

We should be trying to move our society in a more godly direction. Whether that requires a bit more government help or a bit less government interference is open to debate from a Christian context. For instance, I never read about Jesus' adoption of the Laffer Curve in the Gospels, nor did I hear Him campaigning for a single-payer health care system; He leaned more towards a single-pray-er system.

Not everyone's going to agree with a libertarian economic take if such a system would be seem to be less godly that one with a significant role for government. For instance, one can make a Christian appeal for expanded SCHIP on the basis of caring for the needy; yes, I hear the right flank of the Peanut Gallery rightly note that the income lines are too high, but I'll politely ignore the folks talking about starving Leviathan.

The Net Present Value wing of the GOP is so focused on keeping the macro economy thriving that you'd think the acronym was GDP. Anything that gets in the way of maxing out economic growth is to be trampled under, even if it means letting various folks fall through the cracks that could use a bit more help.

Evangelicals and devout Catholics can disagree on economics while still being faithful to the Gospel. There is no crack-up, just differences in economic opinion.

________________________

One interesting item of this month was some flak heading Donnie McClurkin's way; McClurkin's a black gospel star (I remember his rendition of We Fall Down got some CCM airplay a while back) who's an Obama supporter. He embodies the song's lyric that "the saints are just the sinners who fall down and get up," for he pointedly talks about getting cured by God of the "curse" of homosexual urges.

Of course, the gay lobby had a hissy-fit, looking to get him pulled from a South Carolina Obama gospel-fest, but Obama opted to keep McClurkin on the bill. Most of the people there would have sided with McClurkin on the merits of homosexual behavior, since blacks tend to be more conservative than whites on that front.

I find it difficult to back Obama since I disagree with him on most issues of contention. However, if you minister to a poor congregation like McClurkin does, one might be more in line with with a liberal economic take and be willing to swallow hard on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage in your preferred candidate; stopping Patrick Fitzgerald and Gerald Fitzpatrick from getting married in Boston doesn't help your parishioners get to see a doctor or get a decent place to live.

Might McClirkin, or some of the black churchfolks at that Obama concert like a Huckabee over a Hillary? Methinks so, and the NPV wing of the party might want to keep that in mind.

The Conservative Kennedy

James Kennedy passed on earlier today. The WaPo headline has him down as "Megachurch Leader D. James Kennedy," but his influence went further than heading up Coral Ridge Presbyterian. His radio (Truths that Transform was the radio show) and TV work as well as an extensive list of books had him influencing a lot of people in evangelical circles, but stayed just under MSM radar, unlike Robertson, Falwell and Dobson.

He wasn't in the Pentecostal Word-of-faith crowd that dominates modern Christian TV, but was a good old-school preacher, coming down on the conservative side of most, if not all, of the debates of the day; I can't think of an issue that he's on the left on.

I don't have a good link for this, but IIRC, he discounted modern prophecy and other "manifestations of the Spirit" in one of his books, to the consternation of my very Pentecostal dad, who exchanged letters with Kennedy on the subject. I'll get the details the next time I talk to him.

[Update 8:20PM-I don't recall correctly. It was John MacArthur, not Kennedy, that got my Dad hot and bothered; the book in question was MacArthur's Charismatic Chaos (1993). I was blogging while proctoring a Portfolio Analysis final and I couldn't easily call my dad to confirm my story.

MacArthur and Kennedy were both radio preachers with Reformed tendencies and I often got them mixed up, especially when the story in question is over a decade old.]

Presbyterian is a damaged brand name these days, but that's due to the center-left PC(USA) denomination. Coral Ridge is part of the PCA, created from the conservative wings of the two center-left (on balance) Presbyterian denominations that merged into the PCUSA in 1983. Frequent commenter on this blog Alan grew up PCUSA (or the UPCUSA northern predecessor; I think he became an adult pre-merger) and has a PCA-raised sister-in-law; he used to comment/complain that her old church in Tennessee is all but Baptist.

One of the signature books/memes of his was Evangelism Explosion. I remember a non instrumental Church of Christ I went to about 20 years ago used his material without a whole lot of addition. While being rather seriously Reformed/Calvinist in his theology, he also had a deep interest in evangelism.

Folks who are leery of the American evangelical right becoming theocratic are often leery of Kennedy; he was on friendly terms with dominionist/Reconstructionist thinkers R.J. Rushdoony and Gary North but rejected their political theories. Those two and Kennedy might agree that things needed to move to the right, but would disagree about how authoritarian the result should be. Unlike some more radical folks who are looking for a Christian sharia, Kennedy was conservative but also was a small-d democrat; recall that many conservative parties of Europe, like Holland, Germany and late-20th century Italy, are Christian Democrats, with the modifier needed to note that they're not looking to start a theocracy.

He might have bit a bit stiff and strident, but he was a solid thinker who influenced a lot of people. In a Christian universe filled with a lot of name-it-and-claim-it folks, he provided some gravitas, reeling the church and the culture away from the excesses of cultural and theological liberalism.

Football, Footise and Forgiveness

The old saw is that there are no atheists in foxholes. Or in the defendant's chair, it seems. Michael Vick seems to have drawn close to the Lord in his current travail. Or at least, that his stand in public.

I'm remembering a scene from the last Indiana Jones movie, where Indy is making his way through numerous booby traps to get to the Grail. One marker on the wall mentions something to the effect that "only a penitent man will pass." Indy says something like "penitent, penitent... on your knees" and then drops to the floor, just before blades slice through about normal chest-height above him.

For some folks, like Indy, dropping to your knees isn't about devotion to God, but survival. The only way they see to get out of their predicament is to at least appear holier than they were before everything hit the fan.

Turning to God in their time of need is sometimes also a honest answer to the problem, since folks with a church background know what they need to do, but were unwilling to do so when things were going good. Now that they have their back to the wall, devotion to a God who can help seems like a good plan.

We'll see if Vick walks the walk over the next few years, through his stint in Club Fed and afterwards. If bling-infested characters like Deion Sanders can find the Lord; there's hope for Michael Vick....

______

...and Larry Craig as well. My new Senator, Mitch McConnell, has his theology screwed up. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, he has Craig's behavior down as "unforgivable."

Last I checked, the one unforgivable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Playing footsie with the guy in the stall next to you, even with the intent of illicit sex, is forgivable. Maybe not politically forgivable, but spiritually at least.

McConnell doesn't have the ability to Mitch-slap you into eternal damnation; he might help get Craig expelled from the Senate, but he doesn't have the power to deny forgiveness. He lost that power back when the Democrats took over :-).

Not-So-Open Communion

I'm late to this party, but there seems to be a bit of a blogstorm over some big-name Baptist thinkers precluding doctrinally-solid folks from taking communion in their churches if they haven't been baptized as a believer; that precludes folks from paedobaptizing churches (like Presbyterians and Methodists) from being part of the mix. Adrian Warnock has this overview of the issue.

I'm familiar with Catholics precluding non-Catholics (or disobedient Catholics, that's what excommunicated means) from taking the Eucharist. I'm also familiar with some of the liturgical churches, like Presbyterians and Lutherans, closing communion to only people from their denomination, or in some cases, folks from like-minded denominations that have been deemed to be "in communion" with theirs.

My wife Eileen was raised Presbyterian; she remembers being at a young adult conference as a college-aged student, where they had a communion service, but all the various mainline denominations have to split off and do things separately, since they couldn't share communion.

I'm currently going to a Baptist church and have spent the better part of a decade in various Baptist churches over the years. I don't recall one's baptismal background being an issue when communion was done. Most Baptist, generic evangelical, and charismatic/Pentecostal churches that I've attended over the last two decades open communion to all believers. Not once in these churches that are (to use my new-found vocabulary from this sojourn) credobaptists say anything about being baptized as a believer as a prereq for taking communion.

More than one pastor has said "this is the Lord's table, not our church's table." This is the first time I've ever heard of a Baptist (or any other believer-baptizing church) closing communion to the underbaptized (either unbaptized or baptized as a kid), only having communion with fellow credobaptists.

I would have noted, since Eileen was only baptized in the credobaptist style two years ago. She was baptized as a five-year-old Presbyterian, and a precocious one at that, when she, her younger sister and her cousin all got sprinkled the day after they all were up for their aunt's wedding.

It was when the daughter of that aunt got dunked two years ago when Eileen finally decided to nod to the more evangelical paradigm and get dunked in Lake Winnebago as part of same service as her cousin's baptism. Until then, she felt that her faith as a kid (she's one of those folks who can't remember not following God) counted as the equivalent of a believer's baptism and didn't see the need to get rebaptized.

Were the various Baptist, Vineyard, Assemblies of God or no-brand churches that we attended picky about a credobaptist communion, from 2002-2005, it would have been a big issue in the Byron household real quick. Even before meeting Eileen, I don't recall that being an issue anywhere for communion. For membership in some places, yes, but not communion; thankfully, none of the churches we attended in that three year stretch made issue of it.

If I were more high church and placed more emphasis on communion, then the guest list for the Lord's Table would make a bigger issue. As is, it seems to be for believers; I don't see where you have to punch a baptismal card to get the juice and cracker. Baptism is something that believers do (and should do, IMHO), not something that makes you a believer.

It will be interesting to see what Pastor David thinks about this, since Al Mohler, the head of the big Southern Baptist seminary in Louisville, is on the side of the credobaptist-only communion.

Sabermetrics or Sword of the Lord Metrics

Randy McRoberts had an interesting post earlier this week on church statistics, a.k.a. metrics.

One thing I’ve learned through the years of developing and presenting metrics: people will perform to the metrics. Whatever picture you put up on the overhead, they will make sure the picture looks better next month, even if their business suffers because of it. I could cite multiple examples, but I won’t bore you. You could cite plenty of examples of your own.

I’ve been wondering what metrics would be useful to the administration of  the local church. How can we get past the ABCs (attendance, buildings, cash)? What should we be measuring?

Or is that a totally inappropriate question?

Randy's right in that you get what you test. For instance, when we test certain things in school these days, schools "teach to the test." That's OK if the things on the test are what you want them to learn, but there are other times where the metric can be misleading.

For instance, net income is a common business metric; people often get profit-sharing checks tied to their company's net income for the year. However, firms are looking to maximize the company's value, not this year's net income; you can increase net income in ways that are not good for the long-term, like cutting advertising, maintenance and R&D. Folks get better profit-sharing checks while the company starts to crumble.

Baseball is another example. The classic statistics are batting average, homers and RBIs. The stats that really effect outcomes are on-base percentage and slugging percentage; the sabermatrician¹/baseball geek will add those two to get OPS to have a stat that measures all-around batting ability better than the classic Triple Crown numbers. However, chicks still dig the long ball and the ribbie, so less-desirable attributes get rewarded.

Churches are often the same way. We want to see discipleship and deeper walks with the Lord, but the statistics that come out are attendance, budget and square footage.

When I saw that post, my mind went back to when Warner Southern College (my previous professorial stop) was undergoing a SACS accreditation review in the early 00s. The first goal on the college mission statement was to "Help students develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a Christian worldview."

Good accreditors want to see how you're doing on meeting the goals of your mission statement. How in heck do you quantify people's personal relationship with Jesus? How do you define development of a Christian worldview to a point where you can measure it?

The best we could do is to point out the classes where we brought a Christian perspective to the topic matter, which was a bit of a stretch in Money and Banking or Microeconomics. I did talk about doing more than just maximizing shareholder wealth but their overall well-being in Financial Management and talked about the Biblical dilemma between helping the poor and having a economic system that harnesses our sinful nature in productive ways in Macroeconomics. However, it was hard to put much of the Gospel in a lot of business classes.

Back to church metrics. Some churches look at conversions as a metric. If you're a Baptist, baptism of new believers is a key metric along with worship attendance and Sunday school attendance.

However, the quality of such baptism can sometimes be called into question. At Victory Baptist, my new church, we've had quite a few elementary-school-aged kids (at least four in the last month or so) get baptized as of late. I'm not trying to question the faith of a 8-year-old (far better to commit to the Lord at 8 than at 28; it will save you from a lot of crud) but this old joke comes to mind-

The pastor asked the kids during the children's time at church "What is brown, has a tail and gathers nuts?"
The boy raises his hand, and says "If this were at school, I'd say a squirrel. However, since we're here at church, I'll say Jesus."

Church kids know the answer; I'm not quite sure they have the questions fully grasped yet. However, that seemingly rote response of "Jesus" in the dunk tank counts as a baptism, even if the kid is merely doing what he thinks is expected of him.

What churches should be after is changing lives and making disciples. It's hard to quantify discipleship, and easy to quantify conversions and baptisms. Baptisms have an easy, integer metric; discipleship has no good metrics. We can count when Billy was baptized, but not when he learned to lean on God more and relied on his own self less or when he understood forgiveness enough not to kick his older brother in the crotch when he had it coming.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those [expletive deleted] who trespass against us. It's those kind of things that make for good discipleship, of becoming more Christ-like and less worldly, that can be seen in people's lives but not quite quantified.

We'll see those hits from the Sword of the Word counted in heaven, but we'll have to rely on less scientific data for the time being.

¹Sabermetrics is the serious study of baseball stats; it was the Society for American Baseball Research, SABR, that got honored in the title, adding an e to make the abbreviation pronounsable.

Runaway Bride of Christ

I recall talking about the runaway pastor's wife case just yesterday in church; our Sunday School material was from Beth Moore, and the gal was at a woman's conference that Moore was speaking at when she disappeared in March.

The news of the day was that she was in NYC working in a restaurant under an assumed name. I'm not sure what all was bothering Ms. Smith, but she was desperate enough to pawn her wedding ring to get as far away from home as she could. She was showing some signs of a substance abuse problem and was in the process of being let go from a job at a school due to a failed drug test and less-than-steady behavior.

One thing that comes to mind is that a pastor often has very little room for error and has little in the way of support, unless he gets it from other nearby pastors. The same goes for a pastor's wife, who's often working as hard as her husband on various church duties and is expected to be Miss Perfect. That pressure can crack people after a while.

It may well have been other things, like a less-than-stellar home life or long-term substance abuse issues, but I hope that she gets some care for what's ailing her.

Modern-Day Martyrs

We have reports of at least one such martyr in Afghanistan; a group of South Korean aid workers have been captured by the Taliban and one of them has been killed. They're a part of a Christian aid group there on a short-term mission trip, which may have caused them to be targets of the Taliban; they're both Christian and making the current government look good.

That's a good reminder of how the Koreans have taken the Gospel to heart. The country is now plurality Christian, although secular folks outnumber both the Buddhists and the Christians.  You don't see as much nominalism in Christians in traditionally non-Christian countries, since there isn't the faith-of-my-fathers default value and cultural connections to keep folks nominally in the faith.

The Korean believers are thus a more committed bunch on average. It takes guts to go into a predominately Muslim area and minister, especially an area like Afghanistan that has an active and violent opposition to the Gospel, more guts than many, if not most, American Christians have.

If the reports hold up, at least one believer was the ultimate witness; recall that we get the word martyr from the Greek for witness.

One More In the Roll Up Yonder

It's taken a few days to get up to blogging on this, but one saintly friend of the family, Don Cormier, went to be with the Lord late last week; here's his obit from the Midland Daily News. He had a number of strokes recently, and a massive one early last week finally did him in.

He and my dad were tight, having both been part of the Full Gospel Businessmen group in the 80s and part of a Wednesday morning prayer group that met in various places in Midland for two decades. He even got a hat tip in this blog for an article that he passed on back in 2004.

Don was active in prison ministry, regularly going into the county jail to minister to folks. He helped many of them when the got out through his work for the Open Door homeless shelter downtown; I did some work for him last winter when he needed Quickbooks installed at home and help updating the accounting books for the Door after their accountant left town on them.

Many of the folks at the Door are folks just out of prison looking to get back on their feet; they've recently added a halfway-house type of ministry to the newly-released. The Open Door has also served as a ecumenical Christian hangout; that Wednesday morning group has met at the Door for the last decade, if memory serves.

This is the kind of paragraph we should all have in our obit-

A vital part of his life was his involvement in the leadership of The Open Door Ministries beginning in 1989 and continuing until his death. For several years he served as the president of that ministry to the poor, the incarcerated and rejected by society. He was a life member of Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship. He was active in the Lutheran Via de Cristo movement and also participated in Royal Family Kids Camp ministry. He received credentials as minister from Full Gospel Outreach Ministries and faithfully ministered to inmates at the Midland County Jail and the Saginaw Correctional Facility in Freeland. He enjoyed spending time with his family and doing the Lord's work. He married the former Lorraine Gauvin on Sept. 7, 1964, in Marlborough.

Those of you that sneer at the "Toronto Blessing" might note that "he was later deeply and permanently impacted by the love of God in 1997 at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship." I can vouch for that, hearing my dad's testimony of that trip; TACF may not have all their theological ducks in a row, but the Spirit was in da house, especially on the Toronto trip Don, my dad and others from that Wednesday morning bunch made back in '97.

He was going to Father's Heart Ministries the same time we were; during some of the my downest days of the last few years, he was a listening ear with an infectious love of the Lord and wisdom by the truckload.

If anyone is "with the Lord now" (as the standard evangelical phrase for the dead goes), it's Don. He will be missed.

New Pastor, New Blog

I took in my first service at Victory Baptist this morning, taking in a nice Sunday School class and a solid service. The music was a solid mix of non-fluffy modern praise, including the first time that I can recall doing Aaron Shust's My Savior, My God in a church setting.

"Lead" pastor David Head gave a good sermon on Genesis 29-31 and all the problems Jacob ran into, including "getting pimped by his own wife" in Genesis 30-14:18. In his prologue to the sermon he, without mentioning him by name, ripped Joel Osteen a new one for his overemphasis on victorious pain-free living; sometimes, even the faithful have rough stretches.

He also criticized our avoidance of pain; we try to insure our health (duck graphic), our cars (caveman and gecko graphic) and buy insurance against heartburn with various purple pills. For someone who just got through three years of unemployment, having a pastor who recognizes that life isn't always rosy is helpful.

He's also a new blogger, having kicked off a Ponder Anew blog this week. It looks like it may well be more than a lame pastoral-blog-as-announcement-board; Head was a contributer to the Board's Head Tavern site and seems to have the blog art-form down, especially with a critique of Evan Almighty and the marketing thereof.

Interesting. A blogging pastor.

Unanswered Dreams

Lost of good folks in the Christian blog neighborhood has Ruth Bell Graham obits up (Bene had a nice pre-obit up and expanded it after her passing); this one from Justin Taylor has some good excerpts.

One of the things that struck me of the coverage is her decision to put aside her dreams of being a missionary to Tibet (her folks were missionaries to China and she put in a stint as a teen in a boarding school in Korea) to marry Billy. She got the less glamorous job of being a traveling evangelist's wife, but got a lot of praise from him for keeping him stable and running the household in his absence.

Such behind-the-scenes wifeliness isn't in vogue these days, for many folks prefer modern women to be Hillary rather than Barbara or Laura Bush. Even in evangelical circles, there are up-front lady preachers like Joyce Meyer or Paula White that get more attention than key pastor's wives. However, Billy wouldn't have gotten nearly as far if he had a wife that was looking to get co-billing on his crusades.

My recovering Presbyterian wife likes to point out Ruth's Presbyterian roots; her final hours were in Montreat, which has a major Presbyterian retreat/conference center that many of Eileen's seminary friends and professors went to. Eileen pointed to Ruth's decision to stick with her childhood Presbyterian sprinkling even after getting married to the Baptist pastor of the age as support for sticking with her Presbyterian sprinkling as a five-year-old for quite a while; she finally felt led to get baptized in a more evangelical fashion two years ago.

The key thing that struck me as I looked through the obits last night and this morning is that she married Billy in 1943. Had she gotten out to the mission field, her stay would have been short lived in Tibet, as the Communists came into power in most of China in the late 1940s and into Tibet in 1950. She would have had a precious few years in the field before having to figure out what else to do with her life.

Instead, she became the First Lady of American evangelicals. Not a bad unanswered dream.