Tue, Apr. 08, 2008 Posted: 15:19:18 PM EST

Non-Christians are more receptive to the Gospel today than at any point in recent American history, according to one research team.

“We are seeing a new level of curiosity among those who are seeking out religion – and we rejoice that people are willing to hear about Jesus,” said Sam S. Rainer III, who heads Rainer Research.

While Rainer said he finds the increased receptivity among non-believers encouraging, the problem lies with churches not being able to connect with them and the culture.

“Christians and non-Christians intermingle socially every day, at work, the ballpark, and in the grocery store. But we’ve lost a sense of urgency in sharing the story of Jesus Christ,” he told The Christian Post. “We rush home from work in our cars, pull in the garage by the push of the button, and disappear in our homes to watch two hours of TV, only to get up and do it all over again. We’ll stand for hours in line to purchase a Nintendo Wii, but we cringe at crossing the street to get to know our neighbors.

“Believers, me included, need to do a better job at building a sense of community in our own neighborhoods,” he added.

But there are churches that have contextualized the timeless message of the Gospel to the culture and are connecting successfully with their communities, Rainer noted.

“Nothing excites me more as a pastor and researcher than hearing about churches that connect with their communities and unashamedly proclaim the name of Christ in a way people can understand,” he said.

Ryan Bolger, assistant professor of church in contemporary culture in Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies and co-author of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures, has found many churches that are expressing their faith in ways that resonate with those in the 21st century. And they go beyond outreaches and trendy worship that only aim to draw people to church services.

“Donald McGavran … said a person shouldn’t have to change cultures to find God,” Bolger said, referring to a former Fuller professor. “A person’s difficulty with the Christian faith is often sociological, not theological.”

After five years of research on emerging churches, Bolger discovered places that were expressing the Christian faith in cultural forms that made sense to a population that has become more urban. Churches that have been able to connect with their communities were more relational, focused on practices and less institutional, he found.

Such churches incorporated aspects of people’s daily lives – whether it’s ipods, art or music – into their worship to “weave together the sacred and the secular,” he said in a recent interview featured on Fuller’s Web site. Along with creativity, these emerging churches have refocused on the life of Jesus as a model way to live. Thus, inviting the outsider in, hospitality, forgiving, peacemaking and praying together daily are central, Bolger pointed out.

“It’s not extra, it’s not an outreach. It’s actually the Gospel. So it’s something they have to get right,” he said, noting that the emerging churches look to express faith in the workplace, neighborhoods and in everyday activity and are not necessarily looking for ways to bring people to church services.

“The reason they do that is to ground their faith in the practices of everyday so it’s not a detached other worldly only faith, but it’s something that connects to their everyday,” said Bolger.

Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter

What are your thoughts?

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Unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral over contemporary church buildings, a new study showed.

Mon, Apr. 07, 2008 Posted: 07:55:14 AM EST

Unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral over contemporary church buildings, a new study showed.

Although billions of dollars have been spent on church buildings and more contemporary designs, church attendance has declined, said Jim Couchenour, director of marketing and ministry services for Cogun Inc., a founding member of Cornerstone Knowledge Network. The network was thus prompted to ask, “As church builders what can we do to help church leaders be more intentional about reaching people who don’t go to church?”

In a study conducted by LifeWay Research for Cornerstone Knowledge Network, the unchurched preferred more traditional looking buildings by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option. Given 100 “preference points” to allocate among four photos of church exteriors, the unchurched used an average of 47.7 points on the most traditional and Gothic options.

The other three options were given only 18.5 to 15.9 points.

“Quite honestly, this research surprised us,” said Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research and LifeWay Christian Resource’s missiologist in residence. “We expected they’d choose the more contemporary options, but they were clearly more drawn to the aesthetics of the Gothic building than the run-of-the-mill, modern church building.”

Stetzer believes unchurched Americans may be drawn to the look of the Gothic cathedral because it speaks to a connectedness to the past.

Young unchurched people particularly preferred the traditional look. Those between the ages of 25 to 34 gave an average of 58.9 of their 100 preference points to the more Gothic church exterior while those over the age of 70 gave that option only an average of 32.9 points.

One survey respondent said modern churches “seem cold.”

“I like the smell of candles burning, stained-glass windows, [and] an intimacy that’s transcendent,” the respondent said.

“We may have been designing buildings based on what we think the unchurched would prefer,” Couchenour noted. “While multi-use space is the most efficient, we need to ask, ‘Are there ways to dress up that big rectangular box in ways that would be more appealing to the unchurched?’”

Most churches that look like a cathedral, however, are in decline, Stetzer pointed out.

“Buildings don’t reach people, people do,” Stetzer said. “But if churches are looking to build and are trying to reach the unchurched, they should take into consideration the kind of building. Costs and other considerations will play into the decision, but the preferences of the unchurched should be considered as well.”

Survey results showed that more than half of the unchurched said the design of a church building would impact their enjoyment of a visit to church. Twenty-two percent said the design of the church would strongly impact their enjoyment of the visit and 32 percent indicated it would have some impact. More than a third said it would have no impact whatsoever on their visit.

The survey was conducted on 1,684 unchurched adults on Feb. 4 and 5. Unchurched people are defined as those who had not attended a church, mosque or synagogue in the past six months except for religious holidays or special events.

Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter

Below is an except from Tony Jones’ new book. You can also read the whole first chapter on-line. What are your thoughts? Is he on to something? What does this mean for you? What does this mean for churches in the emerging 21st century?

From The New Christians - Chapter One, by Tony Jones.http://theoblogy.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/tnc-chapter-one.pdf 

Is there something in the air? Is there a spiritual itch that people are trying to scratch but it’s just in the middle of their back in that place that they can’t quite reach?

It seems incontrovertibly so. We are not becoming less religious, as some people argue.We are becoming differently religious. And the shift is significant. Some call it a tectonic shift, others seismic or tsunamic. Whatever your geological metaphor, the changes are shaking the earth beneath our feet… This was, of course, a natural consequence of God’s death, first declared by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882 and touted again by Time magazine in 1966. Nietzsche himself wasn’t out to kill God per se, nor was he saying that no one believed in God anymore. He was announcing that that the modern mind could no longer tolerate an authoritarian figure who towers over the cosmos with a lightning bolt in his hand, ready to strike down evildoers. That deity, he said, had been murdered. With the death of that version of God, the Christian morals that upheld all of Western society had been undermined. We were, Nietzsche feared, on a fast track to nihilistic hell. So he went on a search for some sort of universal moral foundation that was not dependent on an unacceptable and medieval notion of God…  In the twenty-first century, it’s not God who’s dead. It’s the church. Or at least conventional forms of church. Dead? you say. Isn’t that overstating the case a bit? Indeed, churches still abound. So do pay phones. You can still find pay phones around, in airports and train stations and shopping malls—there are plenty of working pay phones. But look around your local airport and you’ll likely see the sad remnants where pay phones used to hang—the strange row of rectangles on the wall and the empty slot where a phone book usedto sit. There are under a million pay phones in the United States today. In 1997, there were over two million.2 

Of course, the death of the pay phone doesn’t mean that we don’t make phone calls anymore. In fact, we make far more calls than ever before, but we make them differently. Now we make phone calls from home or on the mobile device clasped to our belt or through our computers. Phone calls aren’t obsolete, but the pay phone is—or at least it’s quickly becoming so. 

Similarly, the modern church is changing and evolving and emerging. To extend the analogy a bit, no one is saying that the pay phone was a bad idea. Most people would agree that it was a good idea at the time—it was an excellent way to communicate. But communication was the goal, and pay phones were merely a means to an end. 

The modern church—at least as it is characterized by imposing physical buildings, professional clergy, denominational bureaucracies, residential seminary training, and other trappings—was an endeavor by faithful men and women in their time and place, attempting to live into the biblical gospel. But the church was never the end, only the means. The desire of the emergents is to live Christianly, to build something wonderful for the future on the legacy of the past.

[NOTE: Modern - As an adjective, modern can mean current or up-to-date. (For example, a highway rest area with ‘‘modern facilities’’ has indoor plumbing.) In our discussions, however, modern refers to an era in Western society following the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and reflective of the values of those social upheavals.]

Many thanks to Chris Walker, one of our Presbyterian mission co-workers (aka missionaries), for this link on You-Tube.

Thought the following article in Christianity Today was interesting. Thoughts?

Gospel of St. Matthew 6.1-21 + A Meditation for Ash Wednesday 

The reading for tonight comes from one of Jesus’ high moments of public teaching which occurred after his baptism and the calling of the disciples. It is better known as the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew, this teaching does not only include the Beatitudes, the “blessed are…,” but runs all the way to Chapter 7, and covers all the hot topics of his day, and in many ways is turning the religious institution and its popular and cultural teachings upside down. However, all of Jesus’ teachings are rooted in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, the Teachings of God delivered to Moses, and to the children of God. The part of his teachings we are focusing on tonight deals with is how we foster and grow our love relationship with God, and consequently with our neighbors and our very own selves.

¹ ”Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. ² ”When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—’playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. ³ When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. ⁴ Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

⁵ ”And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? ⁶ ”Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. ⁷ ”The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. ⁸ Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. ⁹ With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. ¹⁰ Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. ¹¹ Keep us alive with three square meals. ¹² Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. ¹³ Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

¹⁴ ”In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. ¹⁵ If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part. ¹⁶ ”When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don’t make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won’t make you a saint. ¹⁷ If you ‘go into training’ inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. ¹⁸ God doesn’t require attention-getting devices. He won’t overlook what you are doing; he’ll reward you well. ¹⁹ ”Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. ²⁰ Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. ²¹ It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. -Matt 6:1-21 (MSG)

As I thought about Jesus’ words today, I kept asking “What are you saying, Jesus. What are you saying to us today…especially as we gather tonight to smudge ashes on our heads to mark the season of listening, preparing, and practice at being people of the Resurrection. AS I was thinking and day dreaming, I remembered a new church up in Minneapolis whose worship and worshipful music comes out of the Hip-Hop culture. Worship at the Sanctuary Covenant Church every third Sunday is a party, where Jesus is the host. This is how they described themselves: “We worship God with a little extra flavor. We bring in local and national artists to engage our community with worship that makes sense. It makes sense because it’s the sound emanating from our streets, it’s the graffiti that colors our community walls and the dancing and fashion that energizes our neighborhoods.” Their vision is to “Reconcile the People of the City to God and One Another.” As a multi-ethnic congregation of over 1,100, they are connecting with those in North Minneapolis who are looking for work, looking for a place to belong, looking for love, or looking for God. They are reaching people. Lives are being transformed in the name of Jesus. Why? Because, in their own words, “because they are keeping it real.”  I feel that is the bottom line with Jesus in this reading and a word and a reminder to us as his Church gathered this evening…keep it real, keep it personal, but not private…because God is real and personal, but not private. 

Monday on the radio I heard about the Metropolitan Museum in New York and its success over the 30 years. It has become a model for museums, especially those who desire to museums to be more than a repository of old stuff that few are interested in any more. The secret is that the Met’s director did not fall into the trap of trying to run the museum as a corporation, a business which had to make gains and grow and grow so each year’s dividends to the investors grew. Rather, the Director said his vision was for the Met to reclaim its authority on culture. Is was getting back to the basics of what a museum is suppose to be, a center for culture and community, a place to explore what it means to be human, and he sought to keep it real. The result, the Met is one of the cultural centers not only for our nation, and the world, and has become a gathering spot for the community enrichment. The Met has been able to keep it real and personal, but is not a private institution for a select few…it is for all the people.

Something similar could be said for the Church in North America, and all who share in the personal and public baptism of Jesus. The Church for some may be compared to a museum. Yet, like the Met, our call is to claim our authority… on spirituality, and share it with the world in a way that is real and personal, but not private. Share our faith and God’s unconditional love in ways that are authentic and genuine, and life giving. This Lenten season is our opportunity to remember how to keep it real, keep it personal, and through prayer and faith sharing, know we have a God who does not desire to be private.

Bleow is a link to one of our Presbyterian brother’s blog, which provides a lot of good info. Click the title for the link. -cdb

The following are some quips gleaned by the PC(USA) Office of Theology & Spirituality from the writings of Evelyn Underhill (December 6, 1875 – June 15, 1941), who was an English author, an Anglo-Catholic, and well known for her numerous writings on Christian mysticism and religious practice. These quotes, and others from other spiritual writers, are located on the PC(USA) website: http://www.pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote.htm#january12

 As you read through the following, what strikes you? What words stand out for you? As you read them, is God speaking to you? What does your heart hear? Where is Jesus’ invitation to you through the words of our sister Evelyn?

January 11 — “When we explore beneath the surface, we find that the whole liturgic life of Christendom is built on a double foundation: the Bible and the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the unique element of worship that the first Christians introduced into the liturgy of the synagogue.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 12 — “Eucharist is never the act of the individual.  It is always that of the whole group and yet it communicates a personal communion between God and the believer.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 13 — “[Eucharist is] the historical memorial perpetually renewed, yet finding its fulfillment a real and enduring Presence unfettered by the categories of time and space.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 14 — “Jesus in the Sacrament is the same as Jesus in the Gospel.” The mystical presence and the historical presence are two aspects of one theophany. — Evelyn Underhill

January 15 — “All the historical events and conditions of Christ’s life form part of the vehicle of revelation. Each of them mediates God, disclosing some divine truth or aspect of divine love to us.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 16 — [Jesus, through the Gospels, is] giving the Christian a model he can never equal but a standard to which he must ever seek to conform.” —Evelyn Underhill

January 17 — “Each of the events of Jesus life have a direct application to human need and experience … we are born, grow, make choices, accept responsibility, form relationships, find our place in some social order, meet hardship and difficulty, suffer, and at the last, we die …. All of these can be directed Godwards and turned into worship.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 18 — “The worshipping life of the Christian, whilst profoundly personal, is essentially that of a person who is also a member of a group… The Christian as such cannot fulfill his spiritual obligations in solitude.” — Evelyn Underhill

January 19 — “Full Christian devotion must be the work of the whole church because one individual cannot possibly achieve this by herself.” — Evelyn Underhill 

January 20 — “The periods of Christian decadence have always been periods when this costly interior life of personal devotion has been dim.” — Evelyn Underhill