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| June 16, 2005 |
It was an interesting process for me personally, as I reflected upon what faith perspectives within me have mellowed over the years, and what perspectives have become more solidified.
To view my personal results (please to not use this information to hold theological arguments with me) and to launch the quiz for yourself, click here.
| June 3, 2005 |
A new online ministry is soon to launch...iMediaFeed. I have talked much about the new broadcast medium called podcasting. iMediaFeed will make broadcasting your blog-based MP3 audio meditations, songs and teachings extremely easy.
Todd and Joe of iMediafeed write:
"iMediafeed.com created a global partner RSS network for churches and other organizations seeking to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. We encode, host, distribute and manage all your media. Simply send us your content and then watch the results. We use open, standards based formats to ensure the widest possible audience. With guaranteed results, we are the best solution for your Godcasting needs. Check out our website for more information and to signup for the special introductory price!"
I recently drove past the Chicago-land church I was contracted to re-start way back in 1990. In those days, the church had fallen from a high attendance of 550 people down to 35 people. The average age was 63 years old. I remember meeting with each individual privately and asking them one simple question: “What’s the problem”? The consistent answer was: “All the young people have moved away”. Well, being new to the area, I thought I had better verify their perception, so I did a demographic study of the community and found that the average age was 26 years old, predominately young married couples with infant children. Furthermore, there were over 500,000 people with a ten minute drive of the church!
The problem was not that the young people had moved away from the church, the problem was that the church had decided long ago to move away from the young people.
With God’s help, the ministry grew 400% in that year…all in young adults. Ten adults accepted Christ through the ministry in that year. But when my one-year contract was concluded and I moved on to plant a new church in
I believe churches die for one primary reason: they become self-serving rather than Christ-serving. No church ever has to die. However, as you are reading this article, the vast majority (some believe 98%) of churches in
The problem is really quite simple to nail down and fix…our Boomer controlled churches must stop deciding to move away from the young adult. Just because our Boomer model of ministry worked for us does not mean that it suffices for the emerging generations. If our church leaders find it politically dangerous to transform their current presentational/program-driven ministry model into a postmodern paradigm, then I have two recommendations:
1) Plant A Church. Let your Boomer-model ministry die in 20 years, but give life to as many postmodern child-churches as possible.
2) Start an Online Ministry. A complete online ministry can run concurrently with your established church programming, without forcing the current programming to change. The online ministry will also provide your ministry with the young adult core you require to plant child-churches.
Our nation is one generation away from paganism. I pray that God would enable your ministry to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.
We have received many requests from ministries for discipleship curriculum that they may utilize within their e-learning training centers. While our e-learning system was designed to enable your ministry to create your own courses quite easily, many pastors and staff would still like to have other course content to draw upon.
This Fall, E-Church Essentials plans to begin releasing editable curriculum including a New Testament Survey, an Introduction to Christianity, and an Old Testament Survey. With additional courses to follow. Course may be purchased individually. We will provide more information as the materials become ready for launch.
In addition, we are actively seeking to network with publishers and professional curriculum authors who may be willing to make their curriculum available for use in an e-learning environment. (Note: Curriculum placed within an e-learning environment is secure from theft, printing and re-distribution unless intentionally made shareable). If you are aware of curriculum authors who may wish to make their curriculum available for use in an e-learning environment, we will soon be adding a curriculum resource guide to our corporate website. Please contact David at info@echurchessentials.com or call toll-free at 1-800-724-1159.
Check out these curriculum suppliers:
>> World Christian Resource Directory
>> Abide In Christ
>> Southern Baptist Convention
The sponsors of Internet Evangelism Day have been gathering reports from participating ministries. It is interesting to learn how various ministries tried to make their congregations more aware of the incredible potential of online evangelism.
(Click on the banner to visit the website)
E-Church Essentials is releasing hundreds of FREE photo-art for use within your ministry websites, blogs and e-learning courses. These images may be used even on websites and blogs not hosted by E-Church Essentials. High resolution CD volumes are available for $99/each.
If you are a photo-artist or a graphic artist, and would like to include your artwork within the FreePics website so that they may benefit ministry, please visit the FreePics website and select the "Submit Photos" link within the website header for contractual information.
It is very true that today’s young adult wants to judge for themselves what is true…and this includes the process of knowing God. The Echo-Boomer has no love for the know-it-all pastor who tells the congregation what to believe and how to live. At the same time, the Echo-Boomer displays little long-term appreciation for topical talks we label as “Seeker Services”. They know intrinsically that God is much more complex than these feather-weight talks convey. The Echo-Boomer, above all things seeks authenticity. They are marketing savvy. They can smell a packaged presentation a mile away…they have trained themselves to disbelieve any thing that does not display true authenticity.
A Severe Impact Upon Church Services
The impact such cultural distinctives will have upon our worship services are severe. The presentational and programmed model of ministry that has been so prevalent over the last 35 years is now finding waning support among young adults…particularly those who have not been raised within a Christ-centered faith community. As one young adult communicated to me some time ago: “It doesn’t take a real Christian to put on a Christian show”. And, from the perception of many Echo-Boomers, that is what many of our churches have become…merely a show, a performance, filled with a live band, drama, multimedia, lighting and entertaining talks.
If It Was Good Enough for Us, then….
Ministry leaders make a fundamental error in believing that the model that was good enough for the Boomers must be good enough for the Echo-Boomers. The labels themselves should help us understand that the two cultures are very distinct from one another. An “Echo” occurs when sound bounces off from another object. In the case of the Echo-Boomer, there are many facets of the Boomer’s values that the Echo-Boomer reacts against (i.e., bounces off from). Below are but a few documented traits:
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Boomers value how things look…they believe a professional corporate image and presentation adds credibility. |
Echo-Boomers value how things feel…the perception of normal authentic life is far more important than image and presentation which is viewed as always false. |
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Boomers value independence and control. The Boomer generation has been fundamentally a rebellious culture. |
Echo-Boomers value the group and group-think. They seek to be inclusive and participate as a valued member of a team. |
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Boomers tend to be culturally self-serving, creating the systems and structures they value for themselves. |
Echo-Boomers tend to be self-effacing; they will tend to “walk away” from a community that does not fit them, rather than try to transform the community to their needs. |
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Boomers create mega-church empires through their neo-institutionalism; they may have rebelled against institutionalism in the 1960’s, but have consequently created their own institutions that they can control themselves. |
Echo-Boomers have a fundamental distrust of any organized institution. In January of 2005, CBS held a focus group study of the Echo-Boomer generation. Their study revealed 0% trust in organized institutions. Influenced by the flat-structure of the internet, Echo-Boomers tend to value decentralized structure and authority. |
Postmodern Ministry has Raised Discipleship from the Dead
The stresses of the presentational and programmed ministry model have resulted, over the past 35 years, in a devaluing of Biblical discipleship. There simply has not been enough time nor energy to offer meaningful and in-depth Biblical and Spiritual Formation training. The traditional Sunday school format is dominated by those younger than twelve and older than 55 years of age. The absence of the Echo-Boomer from the classroom has caused some pastoral leaders to believe that today’s generation is not interested in the Bible. I believe such a perception is inaccurate. The Echo-Boomer simply learns and relates differently than any previous generation.
Today’s generation is starving for God. They want to know God intimately. In April of 2004, the Pew Internet and American Life study demonstrated that the #1 search category on the internet was “Spirituality and Religion”. In fact, 65% of online Americans have used the internet for spiritual research purposes. Today’s generation seeks God, but they highly distrust packaged religion. If your ministry seeks to “package” God and the Christian life in every Sunday service, the young adult will avoid your ministry. But if your ministry can adopt an attitude and atmosphere that communicates “we are all learning together”, and are able to facilitate Biblical learning…by allowing the Bible to speak for itself…then the young adult will have open ears and open hearts.
Facilitation also implies personal participation. To facilitate Biblical training and application requires that our services become much more interactive. A common methodology utilized is in-service journaling. Through the use of journaling, while providing moments of quiet introspection, prayer and reflection throughout the learning process, the participant has an opportunity interact authentically with God. The old preaching paradigm told people how to live and expected them to apply the teaching once they exited the church doors. The postmodern preaching paradigm enables the individual to spiritually participate in the immediacy of the moment.
An excellent example of a postmodern "Biblical Facilitation" ministry is Mars Hill of West Michigan. Much has been written about this 10,000 attendee ministry and its bleached blond, barefoot pastor, Rob Bell. But if you were to visit this church, you would be taken back by how basic and raw everything is. The atmosphere is warehouse like. The band plays on the floor and there is no visible worship leader. There is no drama, no staging and no special lighting effects. The heart of Mars Hill is Biblical facilitation. Rob Bell will open the Bible and guide the participants through lengthy passages of Scripture. He permits Scripture to speak to Scripture. Rob is also an excellent facilitator. He consistently utilizes journaling and participatory dynamics to enable the individual to meet with God in the moment.
Below I present an MP3 of a teaching by Rob Bell. I present this teaching for one purpose alone…to illustrate how radically different postmodern Biblical facilitation is from the Seeker-Sensitive Topical Talk model so prevalent within our churches today. I encourage you to listen quietly and reflectively to the entire teaching. Do what Rob asks you to do. And when the teaching is concluded, consider for yourself whether you feel as if you not only learned about God, but more importantly, met with God. I believe that if our pastor's can re-educate themselves to utilize Biblical facilitation, they will find that both young and old, as well as seeker and leader, will highly value and appreciate the methodology. Additional teachings can be found on the Mars Hill website.
Click on the banner to download a FREE News Reader. A News Reader enables you to create a custom "News Paper" on your desktop from which you can read the blogs of your choice.
To use your news reader once you have installed it, look for either the
or 
news feed pictograms in pages of websites and blogs that you enjoy.Place the mouse arrow on one of the above pictograms (in your desired blog) and click the right mouse button, then choose "Copy Shortcut".
Start RssReader and go to add(+) channel/feed and then paste (click right mouse button) the url and press "OK". Add as many feeds to this free RSS reader as you want and use it as a free news aggregator.
I want to encourage you to download the software, it only take a moment. I also want to encourage you to point your news reader to this newsletter blog so that you can receive articles, information and resources to help your ministry be more effective in our current postmodern culture.
You Are Reading a Blog
To better understand what a blog is and how it functions, take a moment and look at this newsletter…for if you are reading this article, you are visiting a blog. Unlike a website, a blog is an excellent platform for writing articles, devotions, and Bible studies. Blogs can also be highly personal, reflecting the thoughts and heart of the blog author. For pastors and staff who seek to inform, educate and inspire their people, a blog is the perfect communication platform…especially if you desire to attract and communicate with young adults who are the very future of Christ’s Church within this world.
The Perfect Communication Platform
So what are the traits of a blog that make it so perfect for pastors?
- Blogs are easy to update. In fact, you should try to post a new article at least once a week…it only takes a few minutes.
- Blogs are interactive. People can post comments to your articles by selecting the “Comments” link that displays at the end of your article posting. While websites are a monologue, blogs permit a basic dialogue to exist. Postmodern ministry is all about interactive relationships, and a blog is one way to have a more interactive communication process.
- Blogs can be broadcast. It is crucial to understand that unlike a typical website, a blog has the capacity to be broadcast to people’s personal computers. On a typical blog you will find a small icon that will state RSS or XML. These icons communicate that the blog has the capacity to be syndicated and broadcast…an analogy you might relate to would be the Associated Press (AP)…it is syndicated and broadcast to all other news agencies. In the same way, through the use of a “News Reader” loaded on one’s computer (many News Readers are free), people can have a customized newspaper on their desktop. They simply point their News Reader to the blogs they prefer, and whenever a new post is made to their preferred blogs, the posting immediately displays on their desktop. To download a free News Reader, click here. In a similar fashion, more advanced blogs and News Readers can broadcast MP3 audio files…you may have heard this form of broadcast called “Podcasting”…named so because of the ability of the IPOD MP3 player to be able to instantly download audio files from a multimedia blog.
- Blogs can be linked. Through the use of standard links, permalinks and referrals, other blog and websites can link to your blog generally, or to specific articles within your blog. Blogs archive all article entries, so links to specific articles are never lost.
By encouraging your people to download a free News Reader, and pointing that reader to your pastoral blog, you will find that you can have direct interactive communication with your ministry base. In particular, you will have a communication platform that the young adults your ministry so desperately needs to reach, will value and respect. Alternatively, you may also create an email newsletter jump-page that will direct the people within your database to specific articles within your ministry blog.
Where to Get a Blog?
Text-only blogs are often available on the internet for free. One popular example is www.blogger.com . But for a blog that can support MP3 audio broadcast, video broadcast (also called “Vlogging”) and Flash multimedia, you will likely have to pay a very small monthly fee or put up with annoying advertisements. E-Church Essentials provides full multimedia blogs for only $7.99/month.