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Six Megathemes In The Church Today

"In a period of history where image is reality, and life-changing decisions are made on the basis of such images, the Christian Church is in desperate need of a more positive and accessible image. The primary obstacle is not the substance of the principles on which Christianity is based, and therefore the solution is not solely providing an increase in preaching or public relations. The most influential aspect of Christianity in America is how believers do--or do not--implement their faith in public and private."

On December 13, 2010 the Barna Group published an interesting article titled Six Megathemes Emerge from Barna Group Research in 2010.

They have identified six startling trends in the church and about society in general that we would do well to address. The trends are listed after the break.

Read the rest of this post »

 

Social Media Boot Camp for Pastors

I believe all Pastors and ministry leaders need to read this, and then attend an event like this.

For the last year or so,  I've been trying to get my Pastor to engage in social media and he has resisted, for all of the reasons that one would suspect.

Read the rest of this post »

 

Simpleton Faith.

Media_httpourdailyfre_gphfd
I love ourdailfred. His often irreverent and usually funny posts always make me think. 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)

Back then the blueprint was clear. You believed the Bible and actually did what it said. You didn’t sit on your private butt in front of your flat-screen plasma TV but spent as much time as you could eating and laughing with your fellow saints. And you prayed. That was it. Bing bang bong. Christianity for dummies.

Do yourself a favor. Get narrow

via ourdailyfred.wordpress.com

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King James Only Fundamentalist Baptists Pass Website Reform In Attempt to Modernize

This a funny satire piece by tominthebox.

Independent KJV-Only Fundamentalists Baptists Pass Website Reform

Tempe, AZ - In an unprecedented move, a national gathering of Independent KJV-Only Fundamentalist Baptists met in Tempe, Arizona to discuss the issue of website reform. While for the past 15 years churches and leaders within the IKJVOFB movement have resisted change, the fast growth of the web and new browsers now available have led the group to decided that something had to be done. Among those decisions passed were:

  • Churches would upgrade their computer systems to at least Windows 98.
  • Animated GIFs should be limited to no more than 50% of a page's image content.
  • Underlined, bold and italicized text at the same time on a website should be discontinued. Churches or independent "evangelists" may continue to use any combination of the two, but not all three at the same time.
  • All-caps may be used but only in reference to the KVJ-only position, "liberals," Calvinism, or when referencing James White. When referencing "common" points of doctrine (i.e. the Trinity, virgin birth, resurrection, etc.") all-caps may no longer be used.
  • Sites must contain no more than two frames.
  • Font sizes should be no larger than 78, with the exception of referring to the KJV-only position, "liberals," Calvinism, or when referencing James White.
  • Spelling on websites must be at least 85% correct.
  • Sites should take no longer than 4 minutes to load.
  • Pictures should be kept to under 4 MB in size.
  • Background music on sites should be completely eliminated.
  • Sites should be updated at least every 3 years.
  • Color schemes should be used that allow the text of the site to be at least barely readable.
  • Plans should be made to discontinue writing sites in basic HTML on a plain-text editors by the year 2019.
"We feel these measures will bring our churches up to at least a 1999 level," said pastor Steven Sanderson of Faithful Word of the Bible Church in Tempe. "We want to see more of our IKJVOFB people better utilize 20th-century methods of communication.

The comments were pretty good also.

 

Why I Am Considering The New Living Translation of The Bible

Let me start by saying that, in general, I don't like paraphrases or dynamic equivalent translations of The Bible. I prefer the more literal translations like the New King James (NKJV), New American Standard (NASB) and recently the English Standard Version (ESV). I do use the New International Version (NIV) as a general reading bible, and it's the one I carry around, as that seems to be the default version for most pastors to preach and teach out of.

My biggest problem with the NIV and the New Living Translation (NLT) is that they tend to present one (usually the most common) interpretation of a passage, as apposed to presenting a literal translation of the text, and leave it to me to figure out what the author intended to say.

That being said, I also believe that the best version of The Bible for a person to have is the one that they will read, and enjoy reading. I think that explains the success of the NLT, and the NIV before it.

I am considering purchasing a NLT for a couple of reasons.

First, I have recently had an experience with someone who was very intelligent,  but suffers from ADD and a reading disability. This person wanted to study the word of God, but found it to be very tedious to put the effort into reading, let alone decipher what the text was saying. The solution it seems is a NLT audio Bible in an mp3 player, paired with a NLT large print Bible.

The Second reason is that people in general are less literate today than in years past, and when trying to witness to a non Christian  today, I am starting to think that rather than getting high-centered on the 100% word for word accuracy, it would be better to share with them a translation that is immediately understood. There are so many thoughts and concepts in The Bible that require thought, meditation and teaching that I think that allowing the text to interfere in the process does the nonbeliever a disservice.

Let me be clear, for study, I have no plans to give up my more favored literal translations.

What do you think?

 

Interesting and thought provoking post - “Christians Can’t Ignore the World…” -@ktackel

Below is an excerpt from an article titled  “Christians Can’t Ignore the World…” -@ktackel

Today I was reading Acts 17 and it is amazing how Paul uses the local culture of the time to reach people. I think there is a big disconnect in churches about using the culture of the time in church. Well, ok, actually more than a disconnect, there can be major arguments on the subject!

Many churches are using secular songs and video to make a point in relation to a subject they are trying to teach. Now before we go further, I will say secular songs for the sake of doing them, to me has no point, but if they relate to a message I think there can be good reason backed by Paul in this case.

People often think that secular media in church can be seen as sin or just wrong to God but I believe that if we truly want to meet people where they are especially people that are not Christians then it needs to be considered. Starting in Acts 17:16 and onward Paul talks about how he walked around and saw the various idols and how distressed it made him. So I believe in reading that we can’t close our eyes to the world and what is going on, we can be distressed by it, but we should not ignore it.

In Acts 17:28 Paul even quotes a poet of the time to help people relate to his message. So what you say? Poets of that time are like popular musicians, or rock stars of our time. Meaning if a preacher uses lyrics from a secular band for example to make a point relating to the message I believe it is completely biblical, as long as there is a point and it points people back to Jesus.

Read the rest of the article here.

I like this. I'm torn a little about it, but it provides some food for thought. I agree with the over all point, but I think that it can cause problems. Below is the comment I posted at the article.

"I play drums, grew up in church, and have changed my opinion on this more than once.

I would have no problem with using a secular song to illustrate a sermon topic, but I couldn't see using it as part of the worship portion of the service..

Worship is to be upward looking, about God to God, and exalting Him above all else. It's not for us or meant to instruct us (although it probably does both to some extent) it's about us worshiping him.

Anything that puts a light on ourselves by definition is not worship, at least not worshiping Him."

 

"Because the Bible Says So" Is Not Good Enough

A Case For More Apologetic Teaching in Today's Church

Let me be clear, I believe that the Bible is to be the ultimate authority in a Christian's life, and EVERY WORD is accurate and inspired by God. Because the Bible says so should be enough for a Christian, but sadly it is not.

The Barna Group has an article out today titled New Research Explores How Different Generations View and Use the Bible. It is at the same time interesting and very sad. It really highlights a problem that I have recently come to see a the root of a lot of the problems we are currently seeing in the modern Church, specifically, a low view of scripture. The Authority of scripture is not emphasized, and Apologetics is rarely taught, if at all.

The survey sited in the article defined four generations. 
  • Mosaic generation - ages 18 to 25
  • Busters are those ages 26 to 44
  • Boomers are 45 to 63
  • Elders are 64-plus.
Researchers found three similarities amoung all four groups.
  1. Over 50% of all four age groups consider the Bible a sacred book.
  2. Right at 25% of all four groups have the “highest” view of the Bible – that it is “the actual word of God and should be taken literally, word for word.” (Mosaics: 27%, Busters: 27%, Boomers: 23%, and one-third of Elders 34%)
  3. 20-25% of all four groups have the "lowest view" of scripture - that "the Bible is not inspired by God." (Mosaics: 25%, Busters: 19%, Boomers: 22%, and Elders: 22%).
The differences between the four groups are more interesting, and show a bad trend towards a lack of belief in the authority of scripture. This is illustrated by the following six areas of belief, or lack of belief.
  • Bible as Sacred: 
    "9 out of 10 Boomers and Elders described the Bible as sacred, which compares to 8 out of 10 Busters (81%) and just 2 out of 3 Mosaics (67%)"
  • Accuracy of the Bible:
    "Just 30% of Mosaics and 39% of Busters firmly believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches, compared with 46% of Boomers and 58% of Elders."
  • Acceptance of Universalism:
    "Among Mosaics, a majority (56%) believes the Bible teaches the same spiritual truths as other sacred texts, which compares with 4 out of 10 Busters and Boomers, and one-third of Elders."
  • Skepticism of Origins of Manuscripts:
    "Young adults are more likely to express skepticism about the original manuscripts of the Bible than is true of older adults."
  • Less engagement with the Bible:
    "Busters and Mosaics are less likely than average to have spent time alone in the last week praying and reading the Bible for at least 15 minutes. Interestingly, none of the four generations were particularly likely to say they aspired to read the Bible more as a means of improving their spiritual lives."
  • Biblical Appetite:
    "Despite the generational decline in many Bible metrics, one departure from the typical pattern is the fact that younger adults, especially Mosaics (19%), express a slightly above-average interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge. This compares with 12% of Boomers and 9% of Elders."

This study gives us a picture of American society that is about 50% accepting of the Bible as sacred, but 30-50% accept universalism and only 30-40% believe in the Bible's complete accuracy.

We live in an age were the average person has more information at their fingertips than ever before, and the younger generations are consuming that information as fast as they can get it, but most of what they hear and read concerning the Bible either negative, or completely false. But if you look at the last point in the study, 19% of our youngest adults "express a slightly above-average interest in gaining additional Bible knowledge." I would bet that if we fed the curiosity of that 19%, a good portion of the rest would then become interested.

We (the Church) are doing a horrible job of teaching the historicity and factual accuracy of the Bible, let alone the spiritual truth of the Bible. We need to equip ourselves and fellow Christians with the knowledge, skill and desire to defend the Bible and all that it teaches to the world. Our young people need to know how to defend what they believe. If they can't even defend the provable history and facts in the Bible, how do we expect them to be willing to share their faith to an increasingly skeptical peer group? Heck, how many of us can defend what we believe to our own kids when the come home from high school and college with their heads filled with all of differing beliefs and philosophies taught by their teachers and professors?

"Because the Bible says so" is no longer good enough. 

 

Oregon school districts flock to Facebook and Twitter

The Oregonian has this article today.

I think this is really cool.

I remember just a few short years ago when my stepson's teachers were finally willing to my wife and I their email addresses. It took some convincing but they finally agreed to let us communicate with them by email. The result? we had much better communication with them, and were much more involved in his education. 

The next logical step is to incorporate social media in to the mix. It is the way most kids communicate today, along with a growing number of their parents.

We currently have three streams of communication. Teacher to student, student to parent, and then parent to teacher. Using social media however, we can will bring teachers, parents and students into one communication loop. the possibilities are very exciting.

Now, if we can get churches, pastors and youth pastors into this on a much wider scale.