As we get older in life we have to make conscious decisions about things to give up in this life. Because there are many things we add in maturity that are More Important (spouses, children, jobs, houses, faith), many of the things we were raised with lose their importance.
In recent years I gave up college football (there were many negative reasons to give it up: athletes getting ripped off, many dull games, games were far too long, no real champion, why are colleges involved in this?) and except for the Royals I have gradually given up following any major league baseball. There are just too many games, and I just don't have time to follow 25 players on 30 teams. Of course, I could say that since I only follow the Royals I don't follow any major league baseball. Zing.
It was hard to give up both of these things in my life: baseball was part of my upbringing, and for many years most of my Saturdays were dedicated to college football. Especially when I lived on the west coast, Saturday football would start at 9am and many days I would watch the better parts of four games before the day was done.
The NFL, however, has been a relatively more recent addition to my life. I didn't grow up having a team, as the closest team was the Cowboys and I picked up my older brother's hatred of them, and the Chiefs never seemed worth rooting for. Only when I hit my mid 20s and was not far from Kansas City and had many friends rooting for what was often a good team (Derrick Thomas, Joe Montana, Marcus Allen, Neil Smith) did I jump on the bandwagon. But never was it a huge thing for me...I didn't live or die with the Chiefs like I ever had rooted for the Royals or the Sooners.
I have also developed a growing fascination with soccer in recent years. I'd much rather go to a Sporting Kansas City game than a Royals or Chiefs game, and I'd much rather spend a Saturday morning watching EPL soccer than a Sunday afternoon watching the NFL. I'm not sure exactly when things changed...part of it may be that after 40 years of baseball and football it seems to dull to me...soccer is something new, even though I played it as a kid. I enjoy learning the nuances of the game in a way that is something like learning a second language...it's not natural, but it's fun when it starts to make sense.
The NFL in many ways is a greatly entertaining product, but I'm just about done with it. The Chiefs have been bad enough that they haven't been must-see for years, but now that all this information about head injuries is coming out I'm not sure that I can keep watching. Just as I don't want to watch MMA because the point of it seems to be to hurt somebody else, the idea that football leaves so many people with debilitating injuries makes me squeamish about supporting it. I decided a few years ago that my son would not be playing football (there's plenty other games out there to make him tough without squashing his brain), and so maybe it's also time to give up the NFL as well.
The season starts in a few weeks, and it might be tough to escape it. But there are enough projects around the house to be done that I think I can get by without it.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
The Failure of 'Evangelism'
This past weekend our church attempted one of our bigger evangelism pushes we have tried in the past few years. Every year our town hosts an event like many other small towns do...crafts, carnivals, street dances, parades. It's a really big deal for people in small towns to have events like this. If you grow up with these traditions, they are important...if not, then they just mean more traffic.
Anyway, we plunked down our $50 and reserved a space and then tried figuring out what to do with it. We wanted to promote the church, but more importantly, to tell about Christ. The idea we settled on was to try and get people to take a simple 10-question 'test' about basic bible knowledge. If they were to take the test, they would get a Bible. The idea was that if we could get them to think about these things then they would be willing to talk about the Lord. We also had plenty of promotional pens, magnets, and fans to pass out as well to people walking by. Then, on Sunday, we had a cookout at the church building and were to spend time inviting people to come and worship and eat with us.
We quickly discovered several things. 1)Most people have no interest in stopping and taking a test, nor do they really want to talk to you. They might be interested in the incense seller on one side of us, or the spice seller on the other, or the candle sellers or the horseshoe art guy across from us, but only for what they could buy. 2)The ones who might be interested in talking already believed they knew everything there was to know about the Bible, even if they took the test and missed quite a few (IMHO) easy questions. If they did not have a church background, taking a Bible test was intimidating to them. And not much fun, either, especially when there was so much other fun to be had elsewhere. 3)In the end, because most people were walking quickly we resorted to passing out stuff. Almost 2000 pieces of material. Many invitations to the cookout. We were friendly and non-threatening...it's true!
And guess what? Not a single visitor, even those whom we talked to and seemed genuinely interested in coming, came to church on Sunday and ate lunch with us. Not a single one. We tell ourselves that we've planted some seeds. Six months from now, somebody will see that magnet or that pen and walk through our door. But deep down I think we know the truth...it didn't really work.
It's hard not to feel like a failure in this job when it seems like nothing we do works. Depressing failure means that most churches give up and stop trying to reach out at some point...some studies show that evangelism stops being a primary focus of a church within a decade after it is founded, and by the time 25 years passes outreach is rarely attempted. I'll give credit to our church (or at least a few people in it)...we don't stop trying. 'Think souls' remains the motto for at least a few of our hearty souls. But yet we continue to lose people more quickly than we gain them. Indeed, even many of those churches gaining in number don't grow anymore, they swell, picking off healthy members from older, dying congregations. Lord knows we've lost enough people that way. Those of us left in smaller, dying churches feel like a shrinking pack of cheetahs waiting for another attack by the lions and the hyenas and the praise bands down the street.
More and more I realize the truth that mass evangelism simply does not work. A number of years ago in another town we knocked on every single door and did not get a single favorable response. Maybe our technique was bad. Maybe (as I've later learned was the case) this church had a not-so-favorable reputation amongst its neighbors. Or maybe then and now we're just not doing what we ought to be doing...we're shooting for the random stranger rather than really doing evangelism. On a larger scale we keep throwing money into mailers (tried it), TV shows (seen it done), pens and magnets and fans (yep), and who knows how many other plans. It makes us feel good, at least for a moment, until nobody new walks through our door. Maybe another technique will try. What's Outreach magazine talking about this month?
Maybe, just maybe, we've missed the point. Maybe evangelism was never meant to be massive. Instead, it is to be as simple as getting to know the neighbor next door, being a friend who continually intercedes before the Lord on their behalf. It is to be as simple as sharing with that cousin who has gone through three marriages and countless bad relationships about what is really missing in her life. It is to be as simple as being an example, but eventually a faithful witness, to the co-worker who spends far too much time worrying about all the money he doesn't have. Maybe evangelism is about just knowing who is the ONE that we can reach for Jesus.
It might even be easy to blame the Bible for our failures. Matthew 28 tells us to go and preach to all nations, and Acts shows Paul as the dynamo who did it. We're inspired by the Billy Grahams and the heroes of faith and the shiny sparkly televangelists who seem to be able to reach millions. And so we think, hey, we can do that too...we have fans and pens and magnets, don't we? We have a great correspondence course that teaches important Bible facts, right? Good for us.
But somehow I think we long ago missed the point. If we're going to reach the world, we need to start one person at a time.
Who's my ONE going to be?
Anyway, we plunked down our $50 and reserved a space and then tried figuring out what to do with it. We wanted to promote the church, but more importantly, to tell about Christ. The idea we settled on was to try and get people to take a simple 10-question 'test' about basic bible knowledge. If they were to take the test, they would get a Bible. The idea was that if we could get them to think about these things then they would be willing to talk about the Lord. We also had plenty of promotional pens, magnets, and fans to pass out as well to people walking by. Then, on Sunday, we had a cookout at the church building and were to spend time inviting people to come and worship and eat with us.
We quickly discovered several things. 1)Most people have no interest in stopping and taking a test, nor do they really want to talk to you. They might be interested in the incense seller on one side of us, or the spice seller on the other, or the candle sellers or the horseshoe art guy across from us, but only for what they could buy. 2)The ones who might be interested in talking already believed they knew everything there was to know about the Bible, even if they took the test and missed quite a few (IMHO) easy questions. If they did not have a church background, taking a Bible test was intimidating to them. And not much fun, either, especially when there was so much other fun to be had elsewhere. 3)In the end, because most people were walking quickly we resorted to passing out stuff. Almost 2000 pieces of material. Many invitations to the cookout. We were friendly and non-threatening...it's true!
And guess what? Not a single visitor, even those whom we talked to and seemed genuinely interested in coming, came to church on Sunday and ate lunch with us. Not a single one. We tell ourselves that we've planted some seeds. Six months from now, somebody will see that magnet or that pen and walk through our door. But deep down I think we know the truth...it didn't really work.
It's hard not to feel like a failure in this job when it seems like nothing we do works. Depressing failure means that most churches give up and stop trying to reach out at some point...some studies show that evangelism stops being a primary focus of a church within a decade after it is founded, and by the time 25 years passes outreach is rarely attempted. I'll give credit to our church (or at least a few people in it)...we don't stop trying. 'Think souls' remains the motto for at least a few of our hearty souls. But yet we continue to lose people more quickly than we gain them. Indeed, even many of those churches gaining in number don't grow anymore, they swell, picking off healthy members from older, dying congregations. Lord knows we've lost enough people that way. Those of us left in smaller, dying churches feel like a shrinking pack of cheetahs waiting for another attack by the lions and the hyenas and the praise bands down the street.
More and more I realize the truth that mass evangelism simply does not work. A number of years ago in another town we knocked on every single door and did not get a single favorable response. Maybe our technique was bad. Maybe (as I've later learned was the case) this church had a not-so-favorable reputation amongst its neighbors. Or maybe then and now we're just not doing what we ought to be doing...we're shooting for the random stranger rather than really doing evangelism. On a larger scale we keep throwing money into mailers (tried it), TV shows (seen it done), pens and magnets and fans (yep), and who knows how many other plans. It makes us feel good, at least for a moment, until nobody new walks through our door. Maybe another technique will try. What's Outreach magazine talking about this month?
Maybe, just maybe, we've missed the point. Maybe evangelism was never meant to be massive. Instead, it is to be as simple as getting to know the neighbor next door, being a friend who continually intercedes before the Lord on their behalf. It is to be as simple as sharing with that cousin who has gone through three marriages and countless bad relationships about what is really missing in her life. It is to be as simple as being an example, but eventually a faithful witness, to the co-worker who spends far too much time worrying about all the money he doesn't have. Maybe evangelism is about just knowing who is the ONE that we can reach for Jesus.
It might even be easy to blame the Bible for our failures. Matthew 28 tells us to go and preach to all nations, and Acts shows Paul as the dynamo who did it. We're inspired by the Billy Grahams and the heroes of faith and the shiny sparkly televangelists who seem to be able to reach millions. And so we think, hey, we can do that too...we have fans and pens and magnets, don't we? We have a great correspondence course that teaches important Bible facts, right? Good for us.
But somehow I think we long ago missed the point. If we're going to reach the world, we need to start one person at a time.
Who's my ONE going to be?
Friday, August 2, 2013
Movie Pitch: Buy Your Life
I have loved movies for most of my life. They have affected the way that I look at life, at relationships, even at faith. I've preached sermon series about movies, and I'm convinced that Hollywood isn't missing out at not using the Bible as an almost-endless supply of source material (and no, I'm not talking about junk like 'Left Behind'). The Bible is filled with terrific stories of intrigue, sex, violence, and forgiveness. Just look at the book of Judges or the lives of Saul and David. I'm preaching through David's life right now in fact and would think that the story of David and Bathsheba definitely ought to be made a movie. Michael Douglas as the aged king who falls from nobility into lechery. Some young hollywood babe to be Bathsheba. Al Pacino as Joab, the military commander who has a past of his own. Denzel Washington as Uriah, a man sent from the palace carrying his own death orders.
Instead, we get Fast and Furious, part six. Oh well.
But I have other ideas as well. One of them takes the best elements of The Hunger Games, Death Race, Running Man, and our current resentment and fascination of the wealth class of this country.
Imagine a dystopian future (they are all that, these days)...the wealth have secluded themselves into little islands of fortune, while the rest of civilization is poor, strung out, and does nothing but seek entertainment. Revolution is in the air, but it is stifled...why? The biggest show in entertainment: Buy Your Life. (OK, I know...better titles can be made than this...but we're just brainstorming here). Once a month the wealthy offer up a sacrifice to the proletarian masses. In an arena, the wealth superstar (picked at random, of course, or so it seems) has to defend his/her life in some way. Maybe it's in mortal combat with killer. Maybe it's in escaping from a hunt by expert hunters. Maybe it's in a race to buy their freedom by making an agreement with a group of rag-tag people who might (or might not) be able to be bought. The beauty of this is that the rules of the game are always changing...and there is a chance for freedom, or a chance for death. Sometimes the end is gruesome...a beautiful heiress gets raped and tortured. Sometimes the end is heart-warming...the wealthy creep pays for a new, well-maintained village for a few hundred families out of his fortune and finally learns the most important lesson of life.
The first 20 minutes set up this world...but what then? There's several ways to go. One of them is about how the game is rigged...maybe a business tycoon pays off the 'random selection' committee in order to have his main rival put into the arena. Maybe a trophy wife, having had her husband caught, sells him in much the same way. Or maybe, just maybe, we find out that the people being sacrificed all along were not the wealthy ones. Instead, they were stand-ins for somebody else. The powerful continue to get their own way, and the poor are instead unknowingly killing their own.
Maybe it's a personal story about an oblivious young wealthy person who gets entered into the arena. He's done some bad things, but nothing too horrible, but his name is selected. At first he is terrified and does all the wrong things, but eventually his heart and his courage (not to mention his good looks) make him into somebody that the viewers can identify with. What's this? Can we really root for the rich man? But I'm not sure where this story ends up.
Or maybe it's a story of the sneering wealthy guy whose death is not enough. The arena erupts, and violence begins spilling out into the streets. If one wealthy person is killed, why not all of them? Homes are invaded, rebellion comes, and a new world order comes out of it all.
Maybe somebody competent will take this idea and run with it. But I think it's a good start. I'd pay to see this...or at least get it from Redbox.
Instead, we get Fast and Furious, part six. Oh well.
But I have other ideas as well. One of them takes the best elements of The Hunger Games, Death Race, Running Man, and our current resentment and fascination of the wealth class of this country.
Imagine a dystopian future (they are all that, these days)...the wealth have secluded themselves into little islands of fortune, while the rest of civilization is poor, strung out, and does nothing but seek entertainment. Revolution is in the air, but it is stifled...why? The biggest show in entertainment: Buy Your Life. (OK, I know...better titles can be made than this...but we're just brainstorming here). Once a month the wealthy offer up a sacrifice to the proletarian masses. In an arena, the wealth superstar (picked at random, of course, or so it seems) has to defend his/her life in some way. Maybe it's in mortal combat with killer. Maybe it's in escaping from a hunt by expert hunters. Maybe it's in a race to buy their freedom by making an agreement with a group of rag-tag people who might (or might not) be able to be bought. The beauty of this is that the rules of the game are always changing...and there is a chance for freedom, or a chance for death. Sometimes the end is gruesome...a beautiful heiress gets raped and tortured. Sometimes the end is heart-warming...the wealthy creep pays for a new, well-maintained village for a few hundred families out of his fortune and finally learns the most important lesson of life.
The first 20 minutes set up this world...but what then? There's several ways to go. One of them is about how the game is rigged...maybe a business tycoon pays off the 'random selection' committee in order to have his main rival put into the arena. Maybe a trophy wife, having had her husband caught, sells him in much the same way. Or maybe, just maybe, we find out that the people being sacrificed all along were not the wealthy ones. Instead, they were stand-ins for somebody else. The powerful continue to get their own way, and the poor are instead unknowingly killing their own.
Maybe it's a personal story about an oblivious young wealthy person who gets entered into the arena. He's done some bad things, but nothing too horrible, but his name is selected. At first he is terrified and does all the wrong things, but eventually his heart and his courage (not to mention his good looks) make him into somebody that the viewers can identify with. What's this? Can we really root for the rich man? But I'm not sure where this story ends up.
Or maybe it's a story of the sneering wealthy guy whose death is not enough. The arena erupts, and violence begins spilling out into the streets. If one wealthy person is killed, why not all of them? Homes are invaded, rebellion comes, and a new world order comes out of it all.
Maybe somebody competent will take this idea and run with it. But I think it's a good start. I'd pay to see this...or at least get it from Redbox.
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