Research for Outreach

I was fortunate enough thanks to God's mercy to have an announcement placed on the local Christian Radio Station.

It made me wonder... just how far did the announcement possibly travel?

That's when I found Radio-Locator.com.

I got this rough map of the station's "reach" geographically. I'm sure you can do the same for your press releases.

I think the "local" reach area is pretty sound. No pun intended.

I don't think it reaches all the blue lined areas except at night maybe. But I'm not travelling too much then.

I think this gives a pretty good estimate of our potential "parish" conceived in its broadest fashion, i.e. the center of our county.

By the way, here's where I draw my understanding of the parish, not the supposed model usually described as "people who owe me a hearing".

Street Pastors Tackle Disorder

From the BBC

"Street Pastors" are a great idea. Where do I get my blue cap and jacket?

The idea for the street pastors originated in Jamaica when churches joined forces to take their values into the streets and tackle the growing tide of gang culture, guns, drugs and violence.

It was pioneered in London by the Reverend Les Isaacs in 2003 and since then has been set up in Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Southend and Wrexham with some interesting results.

Figures from the Ascension Trust, which was set up to co-ordinate the project, show a 74% reduction in street crime in Peckham, south London, since the street pastors began their patrols and a 95% reduction in Camberwell.

Image courtesy BBC

Tell Me The Story Of Jesus

There's a resurgence of telling Bible Stories.

It's under the concern for "Orality"... no, that's not a form of foot in mouth disease.

It's a preference for learning via means other than reading and writing.

Even in "literate" nations, as many as 50% of the population is estimated to prefer learning through means other than books and taking notes.

When reading about the phenomenon at sites like OralBible.com, one can get the impression that we're talking about people sitting around a flickering campfire. But studies show that an oral preference is very likely to exist amongst people who spend their time sitting around a flickering computer screen instead.

That metaphor of flickering campfire for primarily oral learners and flickering computer screen for secondarily oral learners or oral preference learners comes from one of the highly skilled practitioners in the Bible Story Evangelism field - Jackson Day who used Bible stories to plant churches amongst the highly educated in Brazil. His website is BibleStorytelling.org

3 Questions Every Church Must Ask

I've been trying to "keep things simple" and ask..."In the most simple terms possible, what must happen for churches to become focused on mission instead of maintenance?"

Here are the three questions I posed to our church:

Every member must be able to answer these questions for themselves.

1. Why am I a Christian serving the Lord in this church?

2. Who is your mission field?

3. What are you doing to disciple your mission field?

No Skeleton In God's Closet

My friend Phil Corr has a blog entry titled "No Skeletons In God's Closet". It's just the "Da Vinci Code" with the pretense of archaeological gravitas.

Phil quotes the historial Paul Maier:

Thanks for the profusion of e-mails I’ve received over the last two days regarding the Talpiot tombs discovery in Jerusalem, a.k.a., “the Jesus Family Tomb” story. Some of you also suggested that “life seemed to be following art” so far as my A Skeleton in God’s Closet was concerned. Believe me, this is not the way I wanted my novel to hit the visual media!

Alas, this whole affair is just the latest in the long-running media attack on the historical Jesus, which – we thought – had culminated in that book of lies, The Da Vinci Code. But no: the caricatures of Christ continue.

Please, lose no sleep over the Talpiot “discoveries” for the following reasons, and here are the facts:.

1) Nothing is new here: scholars have known about the ossuaries ever since March of 1980. The general public learned when the BBC filmed a documentary on them in 1996. James Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also made a big fuss over the Talpiot tombs more recently, and now James Cameron (The Titanic) and Simcha Jacobovici have climbed aboard the sensationalist bandwagon as well. He

2) All the names – Yeshua, Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, Matia, Judah, and Jose -- are extremely frequent Jewish names for that time and place, and thus most scholars consider this merely coincidental, as they did from the start. One-quarter of Jewish women at that time, for example, were named Maria.

3) There is no reason whatever to equate “Mary Magdalene” with “Mariamene,”
as Jacobovici claims.

4) So what if her DNA is different from that of “Yeshua” ? That particular :Mariamme” (as it is usually spelled today) could indeed have been the wife of that particular “Yeshua.”

5) What in the world is the “Jesus Family” doing, having a burial plot in Jerusalem, of all places, the very city that crucified Jesus? Galilee was their home. In Galilee they could have had such a family plot, not Judea. Besides all of which, church tradition – and Eusebius – are unanimous in reporting that Mary died in Ephesus, where the apostle John, faithful to his commission from Jesus on the cross, had accompanied Mary.

6) If this were Jesus’ family burial, what is Matthew doing there – if indeed “Matia” is thus to be translated?

7) How come there is no tradition whatever – Christian, Jewish, or secular -- that any part of the Holy Family was buried at Jerusalem?

8) Please note the extreme bias of the director and narrator, Simcha Jacobovici. The man is an Indiana-Jones-wannabe, who oversensationalizes anything he touches. You may have caught him on his TV special regarding The Exodus, in which the man “explained” just everything that still needed proving or explaining in the Exodus account in the Old Testament! It finally became ludicrous, and now he’s doing it again. – As for James Cameron, how do you follow The Titanic? Well, with an even more “titanic” story. He should have known better.

There are more arguments, to be sure, but I want to get this off pronto.

With warm regards,

Paul L. Maier

I'd add that when you review the collected writings of the ante-Nicene church (pre 325 A.D.) you will find a letter addressed to Mary the mother of our Lord and her response.

Far from Jerusalem and any tomb there, Mary the mother of Jesus was living under the care of the Apostle John in Asia Minor and apparently travelling with him on at least some of his apostolic visits.

She was busy proclaiming the resurrected Lord "to all nations", not hiding away his bones and covering up a lie!

Family Integrated Churches

Dr. Voddie Baucham, Jr. helps lead Grace Family Baptist Church - a Family Integrated Church. Dr. Baucham is a reformed baptist.

Here he answers the question... "What is a Family Integrated Church?"

Read the whole page to see how this works out in dealing with both families and singles and how it affects church programming and evangelism.

In general this is a sound approach and very reformed in its emphasis. The family is to be redeemed. As they note, planning for singleness and broken families is essential because of the fallenness of this world and the fact that our Lord warned that the Gospel and allegiance to His Lordship would, in fact, separate families.

He puts it like this: While we believe the ideal family involves two loving, godly parents, we do not consider single-parent families inferior to traditional, nuclear families. We understand that many people find themselves raising children without the help of a spouse for a variety of reasons beyond their control, and we embrace these families (Deuteronomy 10:18; 16:14; 24:19-21).

Because we are sinners, it is essential that we remember that this method of ministry like all the others are subject to idolatry.

It's easy to be smug when we recognize the Big Church's idolatry towards its building and lust for the biggest Dog and Pony show they call "worship".

But there's also a very subtle idolaltry related to feeling oneself to be "family centered" though I believe they can make a much better case for it than the mega church can for theirs.

The "family centered" approach CAN wrongly be used to justify single family house churches that have no connection to other Christian families around them. I've seen this breed isolation, exclusiveness, and an actual self-excommunication because the family assumes all the prerogatives of the church for itself, including the sacraments. Such families can - in the name of "protecting their family" - become heretical (theologically by wackiness and not just socially isolated) because it's just "them and the King James Version" or really their favorite far away profit who exerts no personal pastoral ministry to them at all . I've also seen that some men who consider themselves "family centered" do so to justify not any form of legitimate fatherly leadership but to justify tyranny, arrogance, and an unwillingness to listen to any "Preacher" who might disagree with their novel idiocies. There is also a tendency when such families are isolated from the church and never rub elbows with families that are less "perfect" to look down on others, try to keep their kids "pure" to the point of Pharisaisim, and so forth. At least that's what I've observed.

Dr. Baucham's model with its church centeredness is not the subject of my concern. It's the isolated families downloading sermons and considering themselves autonomous from the larger Body of Christ that are my concern.

Dr. Baucham's model should be more widely implemented in the church. The extremes I've noted are not the result of Baucham's model. They are caricatures - albeit factual ones - of this valuable model! And these caricatures are merely the opposite and miniscule extreme of the larger problem in our society of fatherlessness and the larger problem in the church of male passivity, homes not practicing the Christian faith Monday through Saturday, and the church's programming aping whatever the secular educational hierarchy suggests. (We must remember that professional education as a secular profession had the goal of alienating children from their families and the church because they "knew best". The church has betrayed its mission by failing to proclaim the Lordship of Christ over all education and allowing secularism to gut education of any transcendent content - but that's another posting or hundred. )

Here's another quote I agree with: One of the biggest distinctions of a FIC is the absence of age-graded ministries. We do not have segregated youth ministry, or children’s ministry. First, these ministries are not part of the biblical church model. The Bible is clear on whose job it is to disciple children... parents. Second, these ministries can work against the biblical mode. Parents who are relieved of their discipleship duties tend to become dependent on those who have taken over the job. Finally, these ministries have failed. We are losing 75-88% of Evangelical teens by the end of their freshman year in college. And as Dr. Alvin Reid has noticed, “The largest rise of youth professionals in history has been accompanied by a decline in youth evangelism effectiveness.” Ouch! But it's true isn't it... the more we've hired "youth ministers" with goatees, the less get's done because we're trusting the youth minister and abdicating parental responsibility!

People do grasp at such caricatures of "family centeredness" though to minimize the importance of implementing the things we should be learning from Family Integrated Churches.

Note: Rev. Anthony Carter's blog brought Dr. Baucham's work to my attention.

Who Were The Wise Men?

This post at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship Blog got me thinking: "Who were the Wise Men?"

Here's my first thoughts.

I think the "Wise Men" were men who had been influenced by the ministry of Daniel and perhaps a form of what we see as "God fearers" in the New Testament. They'd seen the prophecy of the return from exile fulfilled after the 70 years mentioned in Jeremiah and knew the God's promises were true. God had also revealed to Daniel that the full flower of the "return promises" would ultimately await a Messiah after 70 weeks or 490 years. This was neare the Magi's own time.

If this is a correct reading of the Magi's experience, perhaps it is a call to heed the scriptures more minutely and humbly than we do and take as our basis for action an expectation that God is still extending the reign of the King through the mission of the church. As John Piper has said "Missions exist because of the places where Worship does not".

The wise men are the first from the "nations" to meet Jesus who then commanded that the annoucement of His enthronement should be proclaimed to all the nations that they might be brought under His Saving Reign (Psalm 2). Jesus' saving reign encompasses both justification and sanctification on an individual level but likewise results in the blessing of God in the transformation of the kingdoms of men into the kingdom of our God (Revelation 5:10)through the preaching of the Gospel and the flowering of the communion of the saints.

The Wise Men remind us that the "missional message" is "near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart" (to use the language of Romans 10:8). The missional message is as near as the message of Holy Scripture yet as distant as our failed obedience and sinfully distorted and selfish world views that do not allow Jesus to truly be "Lord".

How Do You Respond To The Good News Ee-Taow

How do you respond to the Good News of Jesus? Is it so "old hat" to you that you really need to get your kicks some other way?

Is the message of Jesus - to your way of thinking - just for "Sunday School kids"?

When was the last time that the message of your sin and mine laid on Jesus brought tears to your eyes?

When was the last time that the message of Christ's righteousness reckoned to you lead you to outrageous rejoicing?

If the time frame for either answer is "not recently", you need to watch Ee-Taow the story of the reaction of the Mouk people of Papua New Guinea as they hear the Good News about Jesus Christ for the first time.

You'll be amazed to see the story of the Zook family as they leave an idyllic lifestyle many idolize in the Amish country of the US (though they themselves were not Amish) to take the gospel to people who had never heard about Jesus and who lived in fear and self-degredation.

In true incarnational fashion, the Zook family (after overcoming their own hurdles to get to the mission field) did what all missionaries do when coming to people who have no written language...they learned, listened, and befriended until they could understand the people and convey their love. Then they began translating the key stories of the Bible into the Mouk language. It took quite some time.

They taught through the key stories of the Old Testament for over 2 months without ever mentioning Jesus using words, pictures and drama.

They recorded the stories and the Mouk listened to them again and again on hand powered cassette recorders.

Then when it came time to finally tell the story of Jesus, the Mouk sat and listened 2 hours per session, twice per day for 2 weeks.

Their response to the Gospel was amazing and convicting.

I strongly suggest getting this 2 part DVD for jaded Western Christians for whom the story of Jesus seems too "mundane". Why do we assume our people even "know" as much about Jesus as they do now? Most haven't taken the time to learn as much as they have.

May God use it to awaken them to the truth and the joyous good news of Jesus.


P.S. Don't we have to do the same thing as the Zook's even if we speak the "same language"?

Why She Is A Deaconess

From Life of the World

Mrs. Patricia Nuffer, a Deaconess Intern at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, is now working on a proposal for the “Hands of Mercy Training Center for People with Disabilities” to be tested during a five month trial in Yambio, Sudan. The picture of holding Maria’s hands, disfigured through leprosy, is the inspiration for the name of this project. She hopes this will be a model for other churches in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sudan to follow in reaching out to people with disabilities.

Here she holds the hand stumps of a woman with advanced leprosy.

When you read her story you begin to understand why so many hospitals bear the name "deaconess" in their title. Without Christian compassion there would never have been hospitals. They were never known until the coming of Christianity.

The vocation of the deaconess (alternately called the "parish nurse" for groups not comfortable with that name) dates back to the New Testament of course (Romans 16:2, 1 Timothy 3:11) but was revived in Germany in the late 1800's. It spawned the nursing and Red Cross movements as the students of the movement took it's principles to the battlefields of that century.

The nursing "profession" is its secularized form, but the Christian ministry and calling of the deaconess is much needed in our day.

By divorcing the nursing profession from its Christian roots, we've in practice taught one and all that healing is separated somehow from the providential care of God and the church.

And because nursing is considered a profession, it reaches only those able to afford hospitalization or to visit a doctor.

If we want to personalize care to the poor and make it independent of their ability to pay, we need to revive the ministry of the deaconess or parish nurse and her training must be more than what it offered by the nursing profession. It must be grounded in doctrinal and theological training in addition to nursing training so that it is a ministry done in Jesus' name and it must be funded as a ministry of the church not dependent on the recipient's ability to pay or have medical insurance.

What must be done to revive this wonderful ministry?

The Reformed and Missional Doctrine Of The Parish

One of the theological fads of the church growth movement is to equate the doctrine of the "parish church" with a non apostolic, "come serve me" mentality of doing church.

It's usually linked to another favorite whipping boy, the doctrine of "Christendom".

These two doctrines are used to "prove" the Church expected people to come to it and was not interested in being "apostolic".

But the "parish system" need not be "non apostolic" at all.

There's a clue to that in a source Reformed people should know. After all our most famous confession is the Westminister Confession. Celtic Christianity scholar Ian Bradley reminds us that the phrase "minster" derives from the more ancient term monasterium - the missional base of operations from which to penetrate a geographical area with the gospel. The monasterium was devoted to worship, praise, the training of leadership and the preservation of knowledge from which to send mission teams. This model saved civilization once when Europe was going "Post Roman". Why wouldn't it work again in "Post Christian" America?

A missional doctrine of the parish doesn't see it as a doctrine teaching the privilege and prestige of the Church and, by implication, the obligation of the masses to fawn before the Church and kiss the Bishop's ring. Instead the missional understanding of the parish is held because of the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and over all and the right of people within geographical reach of the minster to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. It should go without saying it is based on the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

Click here to open an adobe acrobat file discussing, in essence, the Reformed and Missional Doctrine of the Parish. It's an actual mission philosophy for a small missions agency working in Peru.

Bible Stories as English Teaching Tool (ESL/EFL)

In the U.S. the question of "illegal immigrants" occupies the daily news - at least if there's a political campaign on the horizon.

The church of Jesus Christ exists within a tension - not encouraging people to break the law of the land but also called to "welcome the stranger" because we Christians realize we ourselves are pilgrims and strangers in this world.

So whether your church is surrounded by illegal aliens wanting to learn English or legal aliens in the form of students, business owners, etc. these resources may help your ministry.

Most "English" courses focus on the "rules" of English. What they don't give people is practice in reading or speaking simple English.

These tools are being used in Southeast Asia but might as easily be used here in the United States if reaching out to folks wanting to improve their English.

They're based on the concepts of Chronological Bible Teaching and Chronological Bible Storytelling.

The book A True Story is fairly short - about 150 pages - and can be printed without royalty if following the author's guidelines. Download the zipped file here. There are also simple guidelines for using these materials as well.

We are making these books available, with no charge, to anyone who wants to take the time to help a non-English-speaking person. Teachers in more that 60 countries are using and reproducing these books, or even parts of a book, to help their students. If you are looking for an activity to enrich your life, this is a golden opportunity. Try downloading one of the books listed below (we recommend starting with "A True Story"), and help another person read and understand it. The books are not on various grade levels. Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

Note: Many of the resources at the Chronological Bible Storytelling site are from Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionaries. The nature of these stories should not require too much adaptation if any to your particular denominational context.

Related Links:

>Teaching English Language Learners The Good News

>English Lessons from the Book of Mark I - student edition

>English Lessons from the Book of Mark I - teacher edition

Or here...

New Diaconal Opportunity Via NationalSOS.com

Part of the "attractional" ministries of our Lord were his healings and public feedings.

In response to our Lord's example, the missional church has always been the diaconally active church starting in the Book of Acts and continuing throughout history. Public education, hospitals, the rule of "law", and the advance of science are all attributable to the abiding impact of Jesus Christ.

The concept of Disaster Relief is no different...it owes it's inspiration to the diakonal ministry of the Church.

Communications failures in the wake of 9-11, Hurricane Katrina and the threat of terror attacks or the possibility of other local disasters that might, for instance, disable cell towers or telephone lines inspire a voluntary nationwide effort called NationalSOS.com .

By planning ahead and using inexpensive Family Radio Service hand held devices costing $10 to $30 (or more expensive Ground Mobile Radio Service radios that require licensure) and coordinating with local ham radio operators, it's entirely possible to create a decentralized alternative communications system for use in emergencies that take advantage of the 100 million FRS radios already sold to the public, 70,000 GMRS operators, and 700,000 Ham Radio operators.

A working model of the NationalSOS concept is being formed in Washington, DC no less, the DC Emergency Radio Network.

Guidelines to make the networks operate in a uniform manner already exist.

What's lacking is organization on a local basis so people who already have these units are trained to access the system during an emergency.

Undoubtedly many churches already have men in the diaconate who are Volunteer Fire Firghters who'd be ideal to help communities put this program into action, help people be trained, and drilled on its use.

In the postmodern world, the church can either inflitrate a "beehive of people" to share the gospel or - in this case - create a beehive of people. In this case that would be people concerned about emergency communications.

Churches that are centrally located are ideal settings to host the training meetings and the participants are either people who need to hear the Gospel or people are already part of the church and who need your encouragement to labor in God's Vineyard.

Let's be honest about another reality... the estrangement of many men from church. They feel alienated if they can't teach, sing, or speak in public, especially if they consider themselves "working class".

Does Christ's kingdom have no place for them? Of course not! Look at Peter, the fisherman!

Harness men's propensity to "protect" their loved ones by involving them in an outreach like this. While they might feel awkward inviting other men to a Promise Keeper style emotional share-a-thon, they would probably feel different about inviting other men to church to learn how them to help their community.

This is an amazing opportunity to reach out to people in every community of the US. Will we use that opportunity?



From NationalSOS.com:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a major contributing factor to the tragic loss of life was the near total breakdown of communication systems. When electricity, telephone, and cell phone services failed, people were unable to let neighbors, family, and rescuers know of their dire situation -- and some died as a result.

Growing A Church With Love - Rose Sims

Rose Sims tells some of her experiences revitalizing small, country churches.

It's a thrilling story of how she and her husband (until his death) spent their ministry revitalizing churches that denominational officials were about to close as "dead".

I found a copy of her book (used - they all seem out of print) called "The Dream Lives On" at Amazon and hopefully it will be here soon.

You really need to read the whole article if you're interested in revitalizing small churches. For a taste though, I'll share the story of her latest church revitalization project - Trilby (Florida) United Methodist Church.

I became the pastor of Trilby United Methodist Church. Six years later, those eight in attendance had grown to 350 members with debt-free buildings and a ministry that the Board of Global Ministries evaluated at a replacement cost of nearly a million dollars. Best of all, those buildings had been built and paid for without a fundraiser or a single negative vote. Jesus had been lifted up, and broken lives were mended. The Trilby Mission was packed with the African Americans, Anglos, and Hispanics who came for food, clothes, and our clinic. Our programs became wide-open doors and windows leading many of them to accept Christ. Teenagers and children who had accepted Christ shared their testimonies in a drama group week after week, leading many in attendance to Christ. A petition to the county brought a free health clinic and park. Singles, drama groups, country gospel nights, adult education, literacy programs, AA, a dinner theater group, etc., opened windows of opportunity. I performed 20 weddings for couples from our singles group. After they found Christ, they found new beginnings.

What was her method? Perhaps this paragraph sums it up best:

We programmed to the purpose, budgeted to the purpose, trained to the purpose, and evaluated by the purpose. Of each program we asked, "Is it winning the lost and growing disciples, or are we only doing what some good atheist is probably already doing better?" It was hard work but as one of the local saints remarked, "If we want this church to grow, we shouldn't itch for anything we aren't willing to scratch for." It meant getting involved to the point of inconvenience.

Parenting Skills, Common Sense, and Outreach

I went to a meeting sponsored by our local county school board. They are seeking the help of churches, businesses, and community clubs to promote better parenting in hopes of preventing a Columbine style situation here.

I'm all for that and I was struck by the speaker's story about interviewing a young man who is in prison without benefit of parole until he's 109. Aged 27 now, he killed 2 people in a nearby school shooting in 1995.

The trigger?

He was afraid he'd lose his driver's license.

Life wasn't worth living so he decided to kill some people in revenge and assumed he'd die in a hail of gunfire.

He didn't.

His hopelessness was inspired by years of abuse by an alcoholic father.

Now the young man is sane and seeking to help others avoid this tragedy.

Why?

He became a Christian. Someone visited him in jail and told him about Jesus Christ and forgiveness.

The boy forgave his father and now the whole family are united in a way they never were before the tragedy... as a family and as followers of Jesus Christ.

Then the meeting took an odd turn.

Instead of asking us to evangelize better and reach out to these kids, we were introduced to a new plan to promote better parenting in the county.

And we were invited as churches to teach it to our congregations.

They've even offered a curriculum... one that is secular and supposedly "research based".

It might be great, but there were no copies available for any one to review.

Those who've reviewed the curriculum say "It's just common sense".

That's a loaded term for me. In some societies, if a female family member is seen in public without a veil, the dishonor to the family is worthy of death. That's called an "honor killing".

When you inquire about the propriety of it, you're greeted with a statement like "It's common sense! What are you, a barbarian?"

"Common sense" really is totally dependent on one's presuppositions and worldview. Only when two people share a common worldview can there be "common sense".

Even when something allegedly "doesn't promote a particular faith", it promotes a particular faith and worldview. That's why you can have Christian teachers in public schools facilitate the production of secular kids because topics are taught without reference to God. Humanity is the measure of everything. And because the measure is flawed, the results always turn out warped.

I've taught these secular parenting seminars to persons getting a divorce. When they have minor children, they're required to take the classes.

The people coming into the classes will be no better afterward than their presuppositions when entering the class.

The basic problem is that unless there is true humility and repentance to care for the child's needs above one's own pursuit of revenge, all the advice in the world won't help. Good idea - sinful hearts.

I'll do everything I can to help this initiative, but I'll keep pointing them back to the story they started with. That's what the church needs to be focusing on, the parenting instruction can fall into place on fertile soil.

The Ministry of Presence

John Wesley the Anglican is one of my favorite characters because of his holistic approach to ministry.

Here, some of those to look to Wesley as their inspiration, practice the ministry of presence and lead others to Jesus Christ outside of "adult" venues. Help me Lord to follow their good example.

In my short time there one of the managers came out to threaten harm, yell, call police and laughingly promise a law suit. Even so, wearing a dress shirt and tie and holding a sign that read “We are praying for you” it was interesting to see pricey vehicles drive up, see that respectable citizens were standing outside and decide to drive on and do something else with their evening.


Not long after my visit Dr. Knight sent an e-mail that certainly encouraged:


I just wanted to tell you some good news. Today in chapel one of the security guards from (one of the clubs) showed up. He cried during the service and wants to come again. He shared that he had quit his job and desired a new life. He also said that another security guard had quit and that an assistant manager had quit. He said it was all due to the fact that we had started coming down there. Praise the Lord!

The secret? No secret, really. There is so much about effective ministry that is easily understood. Prayerfully show up. Play it by ear. Be willing to stay kind, gentle, reasonable. Be courteous but also be able to challenge. Don’t back down. Meet bullying with a heart of love.

The Hunger Behind Halloween Neo Paganism

Updated 10/31/2006

Chuck Colson has done an excellent job in today's Breakpoint discussing the powerful spiritual hunger and longing behind the growing Halloween Neo Paganism.

Using the research from Christian researcher Catherine Sanders as his starting point, Colson notes the following.

Today's "Wiccans" were frequently raised in nominally Christian homes.

So why have they turned their back on Christ and the church?

1. They have bought into environmentalism and believe the church is silent on the issue.

2. They believe the church is patriarchal and women have no place in the church except doing the dishes after a church meal. (Funny, many men think exactly the opposite - that there's no place for men in the church and that to survive there, one must be emasculated.)

3. They crave true "spirituality" and they find no spiritual reality in the church, just superficiality. I'm not sure if they're reacting against the evangelical penchant for programs for everything, the lack of Christian love and community in the Church, or the lack of a worldview that promotes worship. Maybe all of these came in to play.

As I read this, I find the criticisms true of parts of the Christian Church and therefore shortsighted.

But as one who's spent so much of his time nursing his own myopia, I understand the problem.

Now that Colson has described the problem, I look forward to reading his prescription for action tomorrow, on All Hallow's Eve (Halloween).

On 10/31/2006.

Colson followed up this article describing Wiccans as "The Unpaid Bills of the Church".

Frankly, the prescription was disappointing not because it's wrong, but because it's so vague. It boiled down to the fact that "those we seek to change, we must first love." Ok... now what?

The orthodox church is paralyzed at the moment in dealing with Wiccans for several reasons... for the most part we've stopped believing in demon possession and the demonic that empower Wicca except on the lunatic fringe that sees demons in everything. That comes from the secular mindset even within the church. So we're not prepared to deal with people who have rejected modernism's sterile view of the world as purely materialistic for the world view of somone seeking spiritual experiences from a postmodern, nonmaterialistic framework.

Concerns about the environment, spiritual formation, and women's rights bring a kneejerk negative reaction in traditional orthodox churches because such talk has been introduced into the mainline church by people seeking to transform the Christian faith into something else or in order coopt the church for the agendas of earth worship, radical feminism, or pagan spiritual practices. Why be a bi-vocational Wiccan when you can be a salaried Methodist "reimaging" God? Therefore Colson's analysis of the problem makes us reject the potential answers out of hand. They've been given to us before - we thought - by people we really don't consider faithful Christians.

Since we're spouting out cliches today, I'll spout another one.

Perhaps the way through this morass is to review the history of the Celtic Church. (I told you I'd be dishing out one of those platitudes... and believing that looking to the "Celtic Christians" might be a cure all for the woes of the West is another modern cliche. But cliche's aren't necessarily false, just time worn in this case.)

The Celtic Christians do have much to teach us though. I first recognized this thanks to a book I thought was a joke at first... How The Irish Saved Civilization".

From what I've read about the Celts and how legitimate information about them (versus the fanciful hagiography!) might be applied to today's church, the Celts were...

1. Very connected to nature
2. Had prominent both men and women in prominent leadership positions within their own spheres
3. Had the profound spirituality aimless post moderns seek

Yet they were profoundly Chrisitian, Trinitarian, and Biblical. They preserved the scholarhip of their day so that civilization might be rebuilt after the barbarians had turned the Empire's libraries into latrines.

The problem is implementing these things in the church on the corner where real people live and who have long suffered under the prodding and poking of ecclesiastical makeover fads gone awry.

Here are some sources to consider.

The Fellowship of Ailbe is one group seeking to learn from and implement the vision of the Celtic church and is in a formative stage as I write this. Many other sources for allegedly "Celtic" learning are available, but the Fellowship of Ailbe resonates with me because of its ability to dialog with the Celts and the Reformation.

Another group devoted to restoring Celtic Christianity (and whose Metropolitan can wax eloquent on the prevalence of Celtic Christianity across North America before the "Pilgrims") is the Celtic Episcopal Church. The Celtic Episcopal Church has much to teach those interested in Celtic Christianity through their liturgy and spiritual practices they consider representative of the Celtic past and reconstructed through their own pilgrimage. Ank, again, if you can get their Metropolitan waxing eloquent about Celtic missions to the US, you'll enjoy hearing how deeply he's reconstructed the Celtic impact here (though largely lost)not to mention his mastery of the storyteller's art.

May the risen Lord Jesus Christ who conquered the principalities and powers, disarming them and making mockery of them by His victory be with us to rescue the victims of darkness again.

Their hungers are legitimate in many cases, but their appetites have addicted them to candies laced with poisons. May Jesus Christ go forth through us and set them free.

Halloween Facts

Some of the folks from church and I are doing a Halloween Candy Distribution, weather permitting. But we're also going to hand out a flyer that will probably be different than anything else produced around here. (Or anywhere I've seen perhaps).

Other churches commenting on the day around here are likely in attack mode because of the problems associated with the day. That's complicated by their lack of historical foundation.

I actually read a "Christian" website calling "Halloween" a "Druid holiday". Yes, the festival or holiday Halloween replaced was pagan. Halloween was most definitely implemented as a part of the CHRISTIAN day - the evening prior to All Saint's Day.

You can read more on this at the Christian Research Institute's page on "Halloween: Oppression or Opportunity" which I found after writing this flyer. This one by the Passantino's is good too. (Both open in a new window as pdf files.)

Here's how we're taking advantage of the situation... the same way any missionary would upon going to a new culture and noticing a holiday they could use to reach out to folks they didn't know.

We're going to hand out bags of candy with this flyer called "Halloween Facts". I plan to dress up in my monk's robe and have given a press release to our 2 radio stations announcing that "Friar Chuck and the Gang" from church will be handing out "Free Candy". Our corner get's a steady stream of kid traffic anyway, but we want to give out 200 flyers which invite them to our Wednesday night supper and Bible Study the next night (at least this year it's the next night!)

Feel free to adapt "Halloween Facts" for any NON COMMERCIAL MINISTRY USE. Otherwise it's protected by my copyright 2006.

If you do end up using it and would like to send a donation in any amount to help with outreach here, it would be much appreciated. Send a check to:

1st Presbyterian Church

252 Admiral Circle

Lawrenceburg TN 38464

The heading is, "Halloween Facts".

The text is...

• "Halloween" means "Holy Evening" or "Hallowed E'en"... It's the evening before November 1st, All Saints Day.
• Long before there was "Halloween" our Ancestors feared this night thinking the spirits of the dead wandered the Earth and had to be pacified with "treats" or else they'd play "tricks".
• When the Good News of Jesus Christ came to our ancestors, they realized that Jesus Christ cast out demons and conquered the spirits they feared. Jesus triumphed over them in His resurrection from the dead after He paid for humanity's sins by His death. (see Mark 5: 1 - 15 and Colossians 2: 15)
• So they transformed the ancient festival of fear into a day of remembering their Christian Brothers and Sisters who'd died during the previous year. They called it All Saints Day.
• Today, Halloween is slowly reverting to its pagan origins.
• We enjoy handing out candy because it's fine to have a good time and we want you to be safe.
• But we also want you to know that Jesus Christ is not only the reason for the Christmas season, He's the one who transformed the ancient festival of fear into a "Hallowed" or "Holy evening" where joy could rule instead of fear.
• So if you happen to tell somebody "Happy Halloween", it CAN be happy because Jesus Christ is the King who brings Joy where fear once ruled.
• We'd like to tell you more about Jesus Christ. 5:30 pm Wednesday at First Pres, we study more about Jesus and pray after sharing supper together. We'd love to see you!

Pumpkin artwork courtesy Funnies.com (no other copyright or photograher information was available on the page.)