"What You Win Them with Is What You Win Them To"

Considering the conversation yesterday and with Gavin's encouragement, I'm posting my blogpost from today here for the consideration of the group.

"What You Win Them with Is What You Win Them To"

This statement, spoken by Randy Harris at the Lipscomb Summer Celebration, is an idea that has stuck with me, in my craw since I heard it. I realized in listening to it the bald faced truth of it.

Many churches over the last generation or so have adopted an "attractional model." In other words, offer enough programs or special services or cool teaching (or teachers) or hip worship, and people will come into your church. Once you've got them there, you just keep offering those things enough because you have to keep the people there. This is ESPECIALLY true in a place like Nashville where churches are like lobbyists in Washington; you can't swing a dead rat without hitting one. If you don't offer someone what they like, they'll just go somewhere else. So, following the title of this post, if you offer someone a great children's program and then children's program changes or goes away, then they just leave or stay and complain about it.

The focus then needs to become in our congregations, not the attractional model, but the missional model. I've talked before about how "missional church" or "missional Christian" should be absolute redundancies, but the sad fact of the matter is that our congregations have become more like affinity-based social clubs, rather than organizations with the mission that Jesus gave us in Matthew 28. What we have to be clear about is the purpose we are here for. We are to be a blessing to the world, recalling God's call to Abraham in Genesis 12. We are to work with God in bringing His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven, creating disciples of Jesus not simply admirers of him or adherents to some beliefs about him.

The challenge comes in working within an existing church to do this. I think Otter Creek is starting down this road. You can listen to some of the recent Sunday sermons (last week's Purpose of Membership, specifically) and hear a greater calling to discipleship, that our elders will be asking us the questions about our discipleship walk. Undoubtably, there have been people who have come to Otter Creek for our children's programs and/or our worship and/or whatever else (not being like other Churches of Christ). I hope those people will join with the elders and other members in this push toward greater discipleship (even though statistics apparently show that churches that begin this kind of transition from attractional to missional/discipleship focused lose 50-70% of their attendance).

I firmly believe that a congregation that devotes itself whole-heartedly to following Jesus could make a change in its community. I pray God gives me the strength and perseverance and patience to walk through this with my brothers and sisters, and that Otter Creek can be a place where disciples of Jesus are formed and matured and grow in the faith with a mind toward Jesus and a heart for the world.

Cohort Returns August 3rd

Greetings friends,
The Nashville cohort, which has been off for the summer, will officially reconvene on Thursday August 3rd, at the Flying Saucer from 11:30-1:00. The agenda will be simple, hang out, reconnect and make new friends. The inimitable Sam Davidson will be hosting the gathering and fun should be had by all.

Be thinking about anyone you know who might be a good "guest speaker" at a cohort this year. I've met a few folks who I've asked to contribute and spur conversation but I'm sure I'm not the only one. If you know anyone, of have a particular area of expertise yourself, let me know as this get put in place for the fall. As for honorariums...we can at least offer to buy them lunch:)

I look forward to reconnecting with you all soon.
Peace in Jesus,
Dixon

Dodgeball Tournament Fundraiser

Hey, guys - Forgive me for using this forum in a fairly self-serving way, but I thought some of y'all might be interested in this, and might be able to help me out in the process.

The church that Phil and I attend, Otter Creek, will be holding a dodgeball tournament this Saturday, June 10, at 4:00 p.m. The money raised will go towards missions teams going to the UK and Guatemala this fall.

The cost is $10 per player ($3 for spectators). If you want to put a team together, you'll need at least 6 players over the age of 16, and each team must be co-ed. You can also sign up individually, and we'll put you with a team.

If any of y'all are interested in playing, or know people who are, shoot me an email at tiffsniff(at)hotmail(dot)com. Last year's tournament was a blast, and we're expecting this year to be even better.

Thanks!

NASHVILLE COHORT GATHERING LAST THUR.

If you didn't make it to the Nashville Cohort gathering last Thur, you were missed. We had a great turnout for lunch and conversation.

The topic this month was "Worship" and it was quite the discussion. Here's a recap from Taylor Burton Edwards of Emergent Methodist:

There were maybe 12 or so of us there today-- including a "recovering" Willow Creek staffer, a guy who's ended up having a Bible study meeting gathering in his home, another guy who is a poet/writer and erstwhile home church pastor (with 15 people 7 of whom are children under the age of 13), a youth/young adult pastor at a local Episcopal Church, a volunteer from that ministry, and another guy who was interested in the overall topic. In all about 4 of us were newcomers to the group today. We also had a special guest from Kiev, Ukraine-- a guy named Paul Thorson who's planting a church there, and who has just published a book called Painting in the Dark -- all of us there today got free copies. And yes, it was all guys today... I think this is a real challenge point for the whole emerging thing, to what degree it really represents male only leadership, even if it is not intentional, but that's another story.

Today's topic-- worship...

The conversation was rather free-form, and I think everyone contributed along the way. I think we came to a few common affirmations, though I don't think that was the point of what we were doing...
a) Worship is fundamentally corporate... worship itself is an act of a communal body.
b) Christian worship is primarily responsive more than generative... that is, in our worship we respond to what God has done for us and through us more than we try to "gin up" something we offer to get God's attention or even to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God.
c) Christian worship is relational-- God isn't the object, but the subject (the Thou, in Buber's terms, not the It) of our action, and we are certainly not the object either. Not even of God. We're all in this together.
d) God may not need for there to be a presider-- someone whose role is to help "conduct" the giftedness of the people in an orderly and profound way-- but we probably do.

We were of several minds on talking about whether worship and prayer are the same thing... my own tilt is that they're not... that prayerfulness or attentiveness to the presence of God in all things is something we may well strive to do individually at all times, but that's not the same thing, per se, as worship.

We were also struggling with the notion of strengths and weakness. Paul Thorson reminded us that God really makes a huge difference in our lives in the places of our deepest weakness... so we maybe need to be more thoughtful about whether we look at worship only as a means of offering our best to God, and need to make room for the possibility that God is also waiting for us to cry out in our distress, failure and weakness... no happy clappy all the time, no pep-talk self-help feel-good stuff as dominant mode, etc.

We will not be meeting during the summer months unless unofficially we get a group up. Have a great summer, y'all!!

shalom,
jonathon

Questions for the May Cohort

Our Cohort topic for May is going to be "worship" and while there will certainly be a practical dimension to our conversation we sould also come prepared to reflect on the theological motivations that inspire our practice.

So, I offer a few questions for reflection before next Thursday:

What is worship?
What is your theology of worship?
How has that shaped your praxis of worship for the emerging context?

As always, feel free to add other questions through comments.

I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Peace,
Dixon

favor, please and thank you

hello friends...as many of you know, i'm a one of several in our cohort who work for The United Methodist Publishing House. at UMPH, i'm part of a team that is working on some new projects aimed at young adults. we've set up a quick online survey to help with product development, and it would be great if as many of you as possible would click over there and take it. it doesn't take long, and your answers could have a major impact on some of these new ideas. will you please do me this favor? thanks.