Hacking Christianity

Simple Steps to becoming a Green Church

For those of you who read my last environmentally-focused post "Paint your church roof white to save the earth and prevent the apocalypse, sorry Jesus" here's perhaps an easier one to chew on before you go climbing up on the church with a bucket of white paint.

Simple Steps to becoming a Green Church

Increasing energy efficiency

Conserving water

Reducing waste

Greening times of fellowship

Making creation care a core value of the church

Do it. Everyone else is doing it.

(can you tell it's the end of the month and I don't want September's post count to be lower than Augusts? Glad you noticed that too!)

The Long Tail of Ministry Revisited

One of my main evangelism quotes is "don't do it. Do discipleship instead. And so by doing discipleship, we evangelize." Thus by focusing on how to make the current members better Disciples, they will attract new people. By doing so, the mission fields are not the chaotic world, but the smaller more-manageable circles of relationships that you are already a part of. This is called the Long Tail of Ministry: the aggregate of the circles of relationships your current membership already swims in...has an equal amount of opportunity as shouting from the rooftops and standing on soapboxes at the mall.

A few months back in the "What the Church can Learn from Wikipedia" series, in part 2 we talked about the "Long Tail of Ministry." Missed it? Wonder what the heck that is? Read the link, but essentially I'll let another site explain the long tail effectively.

the Long Tail theory suggests that the dramatically lower distribution costs for media (such as music and movies) enabled by the internet has the potential to reshape the demand curve for media...Anderson argues that the internet's ability to serve niches cost-effectively increases the demand for items further down the "tail" of the demand curve, making the aggregate demand for the tail comparable to that for the head.

We talked about how focusing on the long tail of ministry (those smaller groups in your church) can revolutionize the church like it revolutionized the internet industry. Great, right? Well, then this is a follow-up. Here's two points worth mentioning.

(1) Harvard released a study questioning investments in the long tail businesses. While the article questions the long tail's validity based on empirical data, it also offers recommendations and suggestions to businesses. In there, there's a recommendation to businesses that translates directly into supporting the long tail of ministry [bold emphasis mine]:

When producing niche goods for the tail end of the distribution, keep costs as low as possible. Your odds of success aren’t favorable here either, and they will probably become less so. The extremely low demand for the large array of products in the tail means that simply recovering the costs of producing them will be challenging. Given that obscure products tend to be appreciated less than hits, it will be very difficult to earn any kind of price premium for them.

So a lesson here to keep churches from completely upending and turning their world upside down is to reasonably support the long tail. Taking money and volunteers away from a structured Sunday School to support an unstructured movie club is probably not the best idea. (This serves as a extension of the previous blog post on the Long Tail of Ministry).

(2) In a blog post response to the response to this column, the Harvard article author Anita Elberse presents another aspect of the Long Tail to consider:

[the Long Tail inventor] Anderson again makes the argument that online markets exhibit a long tail. I agree with that assessment, and have not claimed the opposite. However, I argue the data reveal two other important patterns. First, the tail is long but extremely flat—and, as online retailers expand their assortments, increasingly so. Second, compared with heavy users, light users have a disproportionately strong preference for the more popular offerings, while both groups appreciate hit products more than they like those in the tail.

Light users have a preference for more popular programs...this is true for the church, isn't it? Well, statistically-true anyway...a paper by the GBOD (Lazy Christians = Low-Hanging Fruit) shows that "the fastest growing churches depend on the least involved, least motivated, and least engaged Christian believers.” If you have the biggest and baddest Sunday School around, if your worship service has Amy Grant doing square dances, and if your soup kitchen feeds half of Philadelphia...then you might have the most shallow Christians in your ranks. If that is your goal, you are well on your way.

But if you want niche Christians, if you want to reach those on the margins, then it won't be via a massive overhaul of sunday school, but it might be by the many small groups in your community and congregation. By encouraging personal relationships and small groups, then you will engage the long tail of ministry while leaving the CEOs and Sunday Christians to the Christendom retailers.

So, in other words, if you are a smaller church in the midst of ChristoGiantChurches...don't play the same game. Don't try for the same shallow pool. Teach your members to talk while holding their spiritual breath, sink deeply into the relationship circles that are already at the margins, and by God's grace you'll bring fresh water, bread, wine, and breath to those who are in your midst already.

Thoughts?

Order, Chaos, and Jesus

What does the Joker and Luke Skywalker have in common? They both oppose order: be it rational order in Gotham City, or the Empire's New Order.

But don't take my word for it. When two blogs that I follow type up very similar posts, I have to wonder if they are reading each other (actually, I know they do).

But check out these quick hits because anytime theology, Batman, and Star Wars are in the same post, you know it's gonna be good.

Blake Huggins: The Joker was/is right . He writes about the Joker quote while he was in the hospital room with Two-Face. But he had this tidbit which caused me to think a bit:

[W]e had all been conditioned to go along with “the plan,” even if, as The Joker notes, the plan is horrifying. The plan was indeed horrifying, but most everyone went right along with it because the establishment said so and had, in effect, manufactured the consent of the masses beforehand.

It seems to me that unless this hegemony of thought is somehow subverted, not necessarily by complete chaos, but by intentional anarchic acts of liberative resistance and inquiry, the established Order will continue to see that everything goes according to plan.

Jonathan Brink: Order v. Chaos . He writes about Darth Vader's plan to bring Order to the Galaxy, which Luke rejects and parallels it to the existence of Dictators and evil men in a world that God brought "order" to in Creation:

[W]e’re left with the same question Darth Vader presents to Luke. “Join me and we can bring order to this planet.” Taking these men down seems right. But in doing so, we’re left with the question of which side we’re joining. Is control and order really the answer? Is force really the most restorative pathway?

Because once I join the effort to control, I then approve of its measure. If I approve of the killing of these people, to remove what seems like the chaos of the universe, I approve of the removal of me the moment I create chaos. And that line of order becomes entirely subjective on any side. It can be moved at any time based upon whim and circumstance, or as the men above choose. And what eventually occurs is a culture based in fear, not freedom. The order that was supposed to happen occurs, if only for a select group of people. As long as we’re on the good side, we’re safe. But step over the line and we’re at risk.

Done reading? Good. Thoughts?

Think about religion and politics abuses like these idiot pastors. By amassing political power into the church, they risk prescribing Christian behavior instead of embracing our human freedom to choose it. And that's a failure of the church even if it results in outlawed "unChristian" behavior.
Think about church growth. By systematically encouraging church growth through marketing principles with an "ends justify the means" paradigm, we risk Order overturning the chaotic relationships that often result in Christian discipleship.
Think about pastors and church leaders. Do you regard them as prophetic in every word they say? I have to wrestle with and challenge even my closest of prophetic friends, because I won't let them sell me a plan that I'm not with.
Think about Jesus. Better yet, read what both these bloggers write about Jesus and Order.

Blake : maybe Jesus has more in common with the Joker than we are willing to admit. Indeed, perhaps Jesus goes even further than the Joker by actually taking on the violence of the established Order and unmasking it for what it is — and the best part is that he, unlike the Joker, refuses to play by the rules of the Order, that is, by participating in violence. Thus, Jesus is the ultimate villian of the established Order.

Jonathan : I keep thinking of the moments Jesus is standing in front of Herod and dying on the cross. He could have assumed control and brought order to the world. But to do so would be to go against love. Instead he established a world based in chaos that allows people to harm each other. But more importantly, he provides the ability to transcend that chaos through love by the power of His Spirit. It’s a culture based in the exact opposite, in freedom not in fear.

I've got a lot to think about. I don't really have a well-thought-out plan of how to respond to these excellent (and geeky) posts. Do you?
Type the rest of your post here

To those idiot pastors tomorrow...

To those pastors tomorrow who are violating the prohibition of endorsing pastors from the pulpit (they are endorsing John McCain...see Question of the Day: Political Endorsements)....

...I give you this quote from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson:

Participants in the pulpit initiative also are wrong on their history. From the founding it has been clear that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the architects of our notions of religious liberty, intended to prohibit the state from dictating the content of religious convictions. Thus this preamble to the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which Jefferson drafted in 1777: "Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness ... that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money [through taxation] for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness ..."

That sounds a lot like the spirit of the current tax code, which makes funds available from our collective purse for pursuit of the common good, though not political advantage. Jefferson confirmed that distinction in an exchange of letters with Sister Marie Therese Farjon, mother superior of the Ursuline convent of St. Xavier in New Orleans in March 1804, shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. The nuns, who operated an orphanage and school for foundlings, were concerned that the United States, whose jurisdiction they were now under, might not recognize France's gifts of property to support their work.

Jefferson replied with a statement of the government's support for the church's charitable role. "Whatever diversity ... may appear in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens, the charitable object of your institution cannot be indifferent to any ... [and] cannot fail to ensure it the patronage of the government it is under."

They were a shrewd, as well as eloquent, bunch, the founders; we ignore them at our peril.

FAIL.

And a nightmare scenario:

Let's imagine that the Alliance Defense Fund and its clerical clients were to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn the Johnson amendment's ban on political endorsements from the pulpit. At that point, what would prevent wealthy ideologues from making tax-exempt contributions to sympathetic pastors' churches for the express purpose of engaging in partisan electioneering? For that matter, what would prevent ambitious pastors from soliciting just such contributions and then using them to bind like-minded ministers into powerful political machines?

FAIL.

Is Christianity just about salvation?

Via thinkchristian (who found it on GLocal Christianity), here's a short 4-minute video by a very articulate atheist about the soteriology of Christianity. He seems to posit a very black/white version of Christianity that focuses on the salvation of Christ and the eternal punishment of hell. Check it out:

Central to his points is that "let's agree to disagree" is antithetical to the Gospel.

1:25: I have heard Christians that have the view that "everyone is entitled to their own belief" which is not a bad position to have...but if you believe that what they believe is going to earn them a place in eternal suffering, then there's a problem with that, in that you are allowing them to be tortured for eternity, but are not willing to save them from that. It's very awkward. If you really believe that people who are not Christians are going to hell, and if you don't take that seriously, then you might be compromising your own belief system.

The video is clearly used by an evangelical organization to encourage correct belief and evangelism.

What do you think about it?

Is "let's agree to disagree" antithetical to the Good News of Jesus Christ? Is the building burning and we should "save" everyone?
Or is the Gospel more than Jesus-believers go to heaven and non-Christians go to hell?
Third option (at least)...is salvation through Christ more about an assurance that his path to God works than it is a certainty that all other paths do not?

Discuss!

Evil is an Abstract [video]

My senior paper in undergrad was on the psychological effects of a belief in a personified evil (Satan and Demons) compared to seeing evil as a non-personalized force. That was 6 years ago, and I'm sure by my own standards now it was pretty terrible.

But I'm always interested in the discussion, so imagine my delight when this very concept made it into a deleted scene from the oh-so-insulting-Kevin-Smith-movie Dogma (found via videosift). Check it out.

For those of you that find Dogma too offensive, remember that art reflects on the artist, and Smith said that it was a parallel to his own faith struggles...so for that alone, it is worth watching.

Nevertheless, here's an edited transcript of the concept as portrayed in Dogma.

Azrael: Did you know that hell was once nothing more than the absence of God. And if you've ever been in his presence, then you'd realize that is punishment enough. But then your kind came along, and made it so much worse...
Evil is an abstract. It is a human construct...Why?
Because it is beyond your abilities to simply make personal recompense for the sins you commit. No. You choose rather to create a psychodrama and dwell in a foundless belief that God cannot forgive your grievous offenses.
So you bring your guilt and your inner decay with you to hell, where the horrid imaginations of so many gluttons for punishment gave birth to this sickness...and in doing so, they transformed the cold and solitude to pain and misery.

So let's talk about this "evil is an abstract" concept. What do you think?

Have you had experiences with a personified evil?
Or is Evil, to you, a less personal force which nonetheless involves persons?

Discuss.

Daily Read 09/23/2008

Microsoft could save 45 million tons of CO2 emissions with a few lines of computer code | FP Passport
tags: no_tag
- Vampires!! - post by umjeremy
- Microsoft should issue a software upgrade to every computer running Microsoft Windows worldwide. The upgrade would adjust the machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency. Of course, this upgrade would have to allow critical systems to opt out. Nobody wants air traffic control computers to suddenly go into deep hibernation. But correcting for critical systems should be very simple for a company that churns out millions of lines of code every year.
they must need bears - the leaded window opened to move the dancing candleflame
tags: no_tag
- Vonnegut's notes can be used for sermon preparation too, I'm sure. - post by umjeremy
- Some writing advice by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on the subject of short stories, from Bagombo Snuff Box:
  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
The Daily Saint: How Long Should You Stay at Your Current Job?
tags: no_tag
- From Archbishop Oscar Romero - post by umjeremy
- "It helps now and then to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our effoerts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession makes us perfect; no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes fully the church's mission. No set of goals and objective includes everything. This is who we are. We plant the seeds that some day will grow. We water seeds that were already planted, knowing that they hold future promis. We lay foundations that will need much further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and, realizing that, there is a sense of liberation in our very being. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is the difference between the master builder and the laborer. We are laborers, not master builders, ministers, not the Messiah. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."
Colbert’s Religionizer One-Liners | Think Christian
tags: no_tag
- From Colbert's Religionizer. Hilarious interfaith jabs abound! - post by umjeremy
- Christianity:
  
  Sweet! More Bible!
  
  Warning: Stigmata not covered by HMO.
  
  Pro: Salvation. Con: N/A
  
  Jesus died for your sins, so you kind of owe him.
  
  You’re now only 60% likely to burn in Hell.
  
  Start planning your Rapture party now!
  
  Admit it: it feels good to be right.
  
  Jesus is now officially your co-pilot.
  
  Feeling guilty? Get used to it.
  
  Walking on the beach just got a whole lot easier.