On the second day, we were driving in a small bus from our hotel to a reception, and drove by a theater with a sign in Russian that read “Kosmos Cinema.” I pointed to it and said to the co-pilot, look, that’s the ‘World Theater.'”

In a flash, our interpreter jumped from her seat in the front of the bus and ran back to me and said, “On your entry forms you all said that you didn’t speak Russian. How can you read that?”

I was startled, but said, “I can read Greek and the letters are a combination of English and Greek letters. I thought that was a reasonable translation of Kosmos Cinema.”

“Why did you learn Greek?” she asked.

“To understand the Bible better,” I replied.

See looked nervously at the other “guide” (guard) and then dropped her voice to a tiny whisper and said, “I have read ‘The Cross and the Switchblade.'”

From then, we tried to steal a moment of conversation here and there in which she talked about being a Christian, despite the persecution that would come if it became known.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church does not lack urgent energy – it just doesn’t have any that unites. It accommodates the several lesser “urgencies” of a couple of groups, who may or may not be in denial about the harm they are doing to the rest of the body. As I’ve written elsewhere, it is a “one generation strategy,” kind of like rent controlled apartments: Nobody cares what happens next, as long as they get theirs now.

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We are being lulled into complacency by the royal consciousness. Who will loose us from this torpor that is immobilizing us? The problems facing our church are not financial or cultural. Our decline is not the result of not having the right programs in place, or that all the mainline denominations are in decline, or that the culture is against us. These are all symptoms of the underlying problems.

The problems facing our church are spiritual in nature. We have not been faithful enough disciples of Jesus Christ. We have not reached out to those around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ. We must not be content with attempting to hold the line. Simply trying harder will not be enough.

St. Paul said, referring to the gospel, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (KJV). Our sin is that we have treated our denomination as the treasure and the gospel as an earthen vessel. The royal consciousness will only drive us into a deeper stupor. We too need a forward movement.

Read the whole thing.

Increasing percentages of the population around us don’t know who we are or why we exist. We need to find new ways of telling the old, old story ”“ ways that are congruent with the joys and challenges of the people and societies around us.

This kind of recontextualizing of the gospel is (and has been) necessary in every age, since the first apostles. The Samaritan woman went home from her water break with Jesus to tell her friends and neighbors about the person she had just encountered (John 4). She didn’t hang around the well waiting for them to show up. She didn’t write a tract and post it next to the bucket. She didn’t even produce a drama to tell the story. She went and found her friends and told her own story.

There is an urgent need for Episcopalians to learn and try new ways of evangelism. Most of them begin by telling our own stories or providing opportunities for others to tell theirs. One of my favorite images of the latter comes from Nelle Morton, which she calls “hearing others into speech” (The Journey is Home, Beacon, 1985). An intrinsic part of our task is to provide opportunities where others can feel safe enough to begin to share their questions and fears and stories about God. Increasingly that’s being done by going out into the community, rather than waiting for people to come to church.

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Jesus promised that he would build his church (Matthew 16:18) and one of the surest ways we know to be obedient to God is to be faithful to the Holy Scripture. It was Jesus who prayed for the church, saying, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

God seems to be using at least six factors in the continuing process of renewing and reforming United Methodism toward faithfulness to his Word.

1. Most evangelistically-minded churches grow, while others seldom do. Quite simply, too many of our United Methodist congregations don’t know how to reach out. Though most liberal United Methodists are compassionate, kind people, their churches seldom grow. One definite reason is theological. Most evangelical Christians feel a sense of urgency about lost people. They really believe that people who are outside a relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are at risk of spending all eternity in a horrible place where God is totally absent. By way of contrast, many liberal United Methodists are universalists””believing that all persons are going to heaven regardless of what they believe or do. Such a belief makes evangelism irrelevant.

Recently I studied one particular annual conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction. The ten local churches with the highest worship attendance figures for the previous year were quite diverse in terms of location (some are inner-city, others suburban) and in worship style (traditional, contemporary, and blended). But these ten churches have one thing in common””all of their senior ministers are evangelical/orthodox in theology. That same pattern probably prevails in most other annual conferences.
Jesus said that he came to earth “to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Holy Spirit seems to bless those congregations that focus primary attention and resources on seeking, serving, and saving lost people.

2. United Methodist renewal and reform groups are making a positive contribution. The “granddaddy” of UM reform organizations is Good News, launched in 1966 by Charles Keysor’s article in the Christian Advocate. For 28 years, the Rev. James V. Heidinger II led Good News with prophetic courage and winsomeness. Now, the Rev. Rob Renfroe leads this vital agency of renewal and reform. Other organizations like The Confessing Movement, The Institute on Religion and Democracy, The Mission Society, Lifewatch, Transforming Congregations, and others have joined in the struggle.

3. High-quality biblical material has been introduced into the UM educational curriculum….

Read the whole article.

On just another Sunday morning at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, the Rev. Sara Fischer preaches about the season of Advent, the coming of Jesus Christ and what this holiday season really means.

“People who’ve been around me a long time know that I’m always saying this or that season or day is my favorite,” she says with a small laugh. “But really, truly, I love Advent. This is a season of new beginnings, of expectation and preparation for something wonderful.”

She might as well be talking about her own church.

A year and a half ago, St. David’s was dying. Sunday services were held in a small side chapel for a crowd you could count on your fingers. The older members””the Little Old Ladies, as they call themselves””were trying out other parishes. The priest, a part-timer fast approaching mandatory retirement, was doing his best to hang on, fearful that if he left, the diocese would sell the building.

Read it all.

There used to be a time when churches could rely on being filled on a weekly basis, come rain or shine.

But dwindling congregations and ageing members have forced churches to look for ways to innovate and modernise in an attempt to get the Christian message out.

And so members of Greyfriars Parish Church in Lanark have decided to exchange pews for bar stools in an attempt to spread the festive message with a Christmas Eve carol-singing session at a local pub, the Clydesdale Inn.

Their minister, the Rev Bryan Kerr, said that the church had looked at ways of getting their message out beyond the church.

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Susan Hong stops Pastor Tim Keller as he dashes up the steps of a Baptist church on a hectic corner of Broadway and West 79th Street.

She heard him preach at 10:30 a.m. on the Upper East Side. Now she has brought friends to hear him at the West Side 5 p.m. service. He briefly greets her, then slips into the service just before his sermon.

In 45 minutes, before the final hymn, Keller’s gone ”” off to deliver the same sermon, “The Gospel Changes Everything,” on the East Side.

Then, again, Keller, founder and senior pastor of Manhattan’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, will dash back to West 79th Street for his fourth service of the day at three leased locations.

Read the whole article from the front page of yesterday’s paper.

No, this isn’t a joke; it’s a new scene for American Christianity: Young guys in their 20s and 30s forming Christian communities in pubs, concert halls, cafes and art galleries.

In West Town, that guy is Mark Bergin, 29, who leads prayer meetings wearing a cap embroidered with the Guinness logo. The self-described “hot-dog-eating, baseball-loving, tool-owning missionary” is part of the church planting movement in the United States — an effort to start thousands of churches a year that reach people in more culturally relevant ways.

When he moved from Seattle a few months ago to start a church on Chicago’s West Side, he met more than 50 potential churchgoers by visiting neighborhood coffee houses and bars, including the Chipp Inn across from his house.

Read the whole article.

Can we talk, here? I mean, just you and me? No blame; no shame? Let me start the conversation (right now it’s a monologue but I hope you’ll join in, right?). Here are the facts: three out of four of our finest entrepreneurial leaders in charge of a failed “start” eventually leave the Episcopal Church, after leaving the ministry. Do you understand the significance of that well-documented statistic? It means that, while we say we want to learn from our failures, we don’t quite know what to do with the very person who needs to lead the inquiry! It means that, while we love it when industry leaders advise us to “fail early and fail often” to discover what works, we’re still a little scared when it comes to shamelessly and blamelessly working through our own failures in order to discover what works. It also means that, while we get awfully passionate about recycling tuna cans and paper towel rolls, we don’t know how to “recycle” our own best leaders. We let them wander off stage to fend for themselves without even thinking to ask, “How can we help you find your next post in our church?” or, “How do we learn from this venture so that we do better the next time?”

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Yet another commission reports that TEC is in steep decline. We are helped to digest this news with the sweetener that there are good things going on as we decline! So what happened to us?

The extraordinary thing about all this is our fairly sudden and dramatic collapse. The late fifties were a time of growth in numbers, income and “membership” both in England and the US. Over 3 million people in the US identified themselves as Episcopalians. New church plants were on the rise and special shorter courses were established in seminaries to train older men for ordination. For the CofE, things were better than at any time since Victoria died.

I do not for a moment believe that suddenly in the sixties people became less religious or religiously inclined. I do believe that Anglicanism lost its nerve. I do believe that we began to produce a leadership, lay and ordained, that assumed that the voices heard in academia and among the “culture-vultures” reflected the thoughts of most people. Yet the “intelligentsia” of that day ”“ I am not speaking of truly educated people ”“ no more reflected the feelings and thoughts of every day people then than they do now.

We went for a ride with “right thinking” people and still not cannot get it into our heads that these people, what ever their social or political ideals, are a vocal minority.

The vast majority of people were left out of this small company of the self-obsessed.

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Check it out.

Clergy and lay representatives from seven dioceses in The Episcopal Church, as well as six bishops with Episcopal jurisdiction, met in Charleston, S.C. on November 3-4, 2009 to consider ways they might assist each other in more effectively reaching their communities and the world for Christ. More specifically, in keeping with General Convention resolution B030, which encouraged domestic Dioceses within The Episcopal Church to enter into missional relationship, this meeting encouraged the dioceses to consider what resources they can share with each other and work more closely to further the Gospel mission. Evangelizing and reaching the unchurched; catechizing and discipling the converted; assisting members in generational faithfulness; renewing, strengthening and growing existing parishes; and planting new congregations to reach their communities with the Gospel were the areas of greatest interest.

To this end, through the work of some of the Communion Partner bishops and rectors, along with others, these Dioceses in Missional Relationships will begin by hosting two initiatives for the purpose of encouraging and equipping missionally focused dioceses, congregations and individuals through:

1. Establishing a website for sharing resources and networking for ministry and mission. It is their intention to have this ministry-networking initiative functioning in an initial stage during Epiphany 2010; and,
2. Sponsoring a large venue three day event in Dallas, September 23””25, 2010. This event will be for the purpose of encouraging, empowering, emboldening and equipping missionally focused individuals, congregations and dioceses, as well as providing resources to assist each other to be more effective in reaching their communities for Christ and his Church.

Dioceses presently involved in this Gospel initiative are Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Springfield, and Western Louisiana.

Five new Congregations will be welcomed into the Diocese, with seat, voice, and vote, at our Annual Convention on November 6 and 7. The Church of Christ the Redeemer in Fort Worth will be recognized as a new mission church, with Fr. Christopher Culpepper as vicar. St.Francis Church in Dallas will be received as a new parish of the diocese; their rector in Fr. David Allen. The Bishop will introduce St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church in Springdale, Arkansas, as a new mission station, under the leadership of their rector, Fr. John Slavin. And then two parishes will be welcomed and seated under a new Parish Affiliation Agreement, authorized by the Bishop, Standing Committee, and Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. They are St. Matthias’ Anglican Church in Dallas, Fr. Dwight Duncan, rector; and the Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose rector is Fr. Briane Turley.

More than ever, we need to renew our vision of what it means to be an evangelical Anglican. My conviction is that not only is being evangelical the most authentic way of being Anglican ”“ we’ve been saying that for years – but also that being Anglican is a great way of being evangelical.

How come?

Firstly, because the Anglican formularies (the 39 Articles, the Prayer-Book and the Homilies) subject themselves at every turn to the authority of scripture. Though they provide an extraordinarily rich theological foundation, they also offer themselves to be tested against a scriptural norm.

Second, because Anglicanism has a great sense of what is of primary and what is of secondary importance. Other Protestant denominations have a tendency to make secondary issues ”“ like the manner of baptism or church discipline or church government ”“ a primary distinguishing mark. And they endlessly divide because of it. The Anglican formularies commit us to important things ”“ and allow us freedom under Scripture on the secondaries. What a blessing!

Third, Anglicanism is a great mission strategy. From the beginning, Cranmer and the others knew that they were in a battle for hearts ”“ hearts, like Catherine Parr’s, that needed conversion. Today, the opportunities opening up for mission because of our Anglican networks ”“ in Sydney and elsewhere – are extraordinary.

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We are in the ninth year of our Strategic Plan. We started out with a flurry of activity and accomplished much. After five years we got sidetracked by sexuality issues and the departures of several churches. In the face of the conflict in the larger church we have been faithfully living into various parts of the Strategic Plan.

Ӣ We have continued to plant churches. We have planted five churches and several new communities of faith, targeting Latinos, young adults, Koreans, and African Immigrants. Approximately ten percent of our average Sunday attendance is traceable to these new communities of faith.

Read it all.

How to attract young people to Christianity is a topic on the mind of just about every church leader today. It’s no secret that a large number of young adults don’t belong to any church, but that doesn’t mean they are insensible to religion, according to a recent book.

In “Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches That Reach Them,” (B and H Publishing Group), Ed Stezzer, Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes, look at “the twentysomethings” and how some churches are striving to make contact with a generation notoriously reluctant to commit itself to institutional religion.

In their study they looked at the unchurched, dividing them into various categories for the purpose of their analysis. There were some who were never involved in any church, those who left the practice of religion after childhood, and those who are either friendly or hostile to churches. It’s not a study based on any one Christian church, but rather a look at how young adults interact with Christianity.

Read it all.

The day began with morning prayer led by Chaplain James House.

The first presentation of the day was from Fr. Chris Keough on Church Growth and Church Planting. The presentation covered the Patriarch’s vision for Church planting, a Church growth model with three case studies, the relationship between the Cathedral and the mission, how to measure progress and make adjustments, a budget for church planting and financial models for Church planting and growth.

Planting and growth–what a nice focus. Read it all.

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

–C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Harcourt Brace, 1956), p.228, quoted by yours truly in yesterday’s Adult Sunday school

A National Church Planter’s Summit attended by 22 key figures in Australian church planting has managed to move forward despite denominational and cultural differences.

The summit, organised by church planting support network The Geneva Push, was held in Sydney from September 29-30.

It included representatives from a wide range of supportive organisations, including The Church Army, The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, Church Planting Australia, The Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, The Ministry Training Strategy and Moore Theological College, as well as key Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Reformed Church and Independent pastors from Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, New South Wales and the ACT.

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A wise friend said somewhere – if the pastor of a church isn’t an evangelist then the church will only grow through transfer church.

Spurgeon’s advice in The Soul Winner is timely:

Just be men among men, keeping yourself clear of all their faults and vices, but mingling with them in perfect love and sympathy, and feeling that you would do anything in your power to bring them to Christ, so that you might even say with the Apostle Paul, ”˜Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more’

Don’t misunderstand me – evangelism is not just about inviting people to events. But sometimes being able to invite a friend to an event is a gauge of where the friendship is up to. The friends I’m inviting are the ones I’m already praying for – asking for opportunities to speak about Jesus. If I’m not out mixing with real people and praying for them then I shouldn’t be leading the people here in God’s mission.

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Nationally, the Great Recession has taken its toll on organized religion, but exceptions exist in some places, and South Carolina is one of those.

In the Palmetto State denominations are reporting stable attendance rates, even some growth; and while giving is down, South Carolina congregations have not been hurt as badly as others….

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, with 72 active churches in the lower part of the state, has been growing steadily since 1990, according to Nancy Armstrong, assistant treasurer.

Church operating income did not grow in 2008, likely because of a terrible fourth quarter, she said.

The diocese is projecting an 11 percent decline in operating income for 2009, from about $34.4 million the year before to $30.95 million, Armstrong said, calling the change a reflection of the general economy. “We have not seen a discernible drop in Sunday attendance,” she added.

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Tomorrow is Back to Church Sunday for the Church of England ”“ a public relations push to get the lapsed back in the pew. It has been marked by a radio ad campaign, which shows how hip and happening the Anglican Church is now ”“ “No need to make no innovation, Please accept this as your invitation.” Well, that will get all those young folk in, for sure.

Weekly attendance figures have now dropped to below one million and, according to the Bishop of Reading, it’s quite the wrong sort of million turning up. “How did it come to this,” he asked, in what was apparently supposed to be a positive contribution to the attendance debate, “that we have become known as just the Marks and Spencer option?” Jesus, the Bishop feels sure, was more of an Aldi man.

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Verses 2 and 4 present another important point about being successful evangelizers: we need to tell the truth about the glory of God in Christ. Verse 2 says that we refuse to do anything underhanded but “by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”

St. Paul is warning us against the wrong sort of success orientation. We can want so much to succeed at evangelism that we will try anything that works ”“ like dressing up a story to make things sound better than they are, or relying on dazzling evangelistic presentations to bring people to conversion. This verse does not rule out a concern for the methods we use to present the gospel, but it does make us consider how we are stating the truth.

Even more crucial is verse 4: “What we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

We are not winning people to ourselves. We are not trying to convince them to accept us as their lord. We have something people need. They would want it if they realized what it would do for them. We are like waiters bringing food to hungry people or nurses administering medicine to patients who are in danger of death.

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Sam Weigle is Crossbridge’s shaggy-haired guitar player. The 29-year-old grew up Methodist, and was attending a Methodist church when he met Lloyd.

“The first time I heard him speak I was kind of hooked,” Weigle said. “It’s not a conventional church message, but it’s really back to the roots of what I believe Jesus intended.”

Lloyd is not surprised at the Pew numbers. He’s seen a bevy of local worship options emerge since his childhood, particularly ones for those who might not be comfortable with the pat answers that traditional churches often offer to moral questions.

“We’ve tried to make religion an exact science, and it’s just not,” Lloyd said. “Good religion is full of truths, truths that are life-changing, but it’s still fuzzy. The only thing I know for sure anymore is that God loves me more than I can imagine, even when I do stupid things, and that my job is to love him back, and to love other people.”

Read the whole article.

In an interview, Outreach founder and chief executive Scott Evans said a recent study by Southern Baptist-affiliated Lifeway Research sparked the campaign. The study found that “82 percent of people who don’t go to church would be somewhat likely to go if invited but that only 2 percent of people who do go to church had invited someone,” he said. Outreach, Evans said, is “equipping people to be inviters.”

Eric Abel, the vice president of marketing for Outreach, said the organization works with about 17,000 churches; most of the interest in the back-to-church campaign is coming from evangelical or nondenominational churches.

According to Evans, there have been more than 1,000 requests for the tool kits. Outreach’s Web site allows people to record how many people they’ve invited to church; the count is up to nearly 700,000.

In Great Britain, Back to Church Sunday, which is Sept. 27 this year, was started in 2004 by the Anglican Diocese of Manchester. Anglican churches in New Zealand and Canada picked up the idea, and British Baptist, Methodist and United Reform churches are taking part.

Although the Back to Church Sunday campaign in the United States is generating buzz on Facebook, many mainline Protestant churches were staging fall welcomes long before there was electricity, much less computers. Concord Presbyterian Church in Statesville, N.C., is holding its 234th homecoming celebration on Sept. 20 — the congregation was founded in 1775 — with guest speakers and musicians.

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The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrew’s since 2000, wrote to all members of the parish on September 4 to announce the program. The letter included the signatures of 36 other congregational leaders, including all current staff and nine senior wardens whose service dates back to 1989.

“Since 2003 I have felt compromised by continued association with a denomination that I consider to be apostate,” Fr. Wood told The Living Church.

He said he does not know of any significant group in St. Andrew’s that wants to remain affiliated with The Episcopal Church. When he interviewed to become rector, Fr. Wood said, both the search committee and the vestry asked if he was open to separation from The Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

Raised in the evangelical movement, I attended a church that placed emphasis on activities, outreach and marketing that included young people. My church had no qualms about using the latest communication methods to reach a larger audience. There was even a ministry where people with savvy multimedia skills could serve God in innovative and “hip” ways. Congregants utilized most parts of the body of Christ using their gifts and skills to work together like an athlete’s well-trained physique. While the evangelical movement might limit new members based on their theology, I cannot deny their success in translating and spreading their message to the current age. They have a large young adult contingency.

Unlike many evangelical churches currently experiencing an increase in membership, the Episcopal Church’s work is going largely unnoticed not because it isn’t the work of Christ but because people are unaware of its programming, vision or why a person would consider the Episcopal Church over other commitments. If it were not for my friend who invited me to church, the Episcopal Church wouldn’t have reached my radar screen. My perception of the church was mostly ambivalent. I saw the church as a grand gesture rather then a pertinent part of God’s creation.

As a permanent first-time visitor on this trip, I saw how a church’s visibility was critical when selecting churches. I used the web to do my research from town to town. For me, it was important to find a friendly, comfortable and young “feeling” church. That meant that I favored churches with a current website that was clean in design, branded and creative. I also searched for churches with updated online calendars that had cultural programming targeted at my age group. I especially loved programs that brought the church to the world instead of requiring that the world enter the church.

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If an achiever or an accomplished man is one who pursues set goals and accomplishes same; then the man, Peter Akinola is an undisputable achiever and an accomplished man. No sooner was he elected Primate than he undertook a frank and introspective appraisal of the church’s situation, a visualization of the desired situation and charting a course.

Believing in a shared vision, the new Primate, Peter Akinola, used the occasion of his presentation in Abuja on March 25, 2000 to flag off the process of articulating the vision of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). Just two days after his presentation (March 25 -27) Akinola embarked on a 2-day visioning exercise with over 400 leaders of the church made up of all the bishops, some clergies and laities representing all the Dioceses of the Church of Nigeria. He brought in some experts in visioning process including Chief Ernest Shonekan, former Head of State and Chairman, Vision 2010 and Prof Alele Williams, Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin as facilitators. The propositions of this body which were based on the vision which the Primate sold to them were harmonized and eventually adopted as the Vision of the Church of Nigeria by the Church of Nigeria Standing Committee on June 5, 2000 at Owerri. The Vision states that:

The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) shall be Bible based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a church that epitomizes the genuine love of Christ.

Read it all.