The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Quote of the Day - Detroit Seminar

An annonymous pastor asked the rhetorical question in Detroit yesterday at our seminar:

"Did God think... I will make this person miserable... I'll make him a Lutheran pastor!"

(pause)

"Then I'll make everyone else miserable."

(-;

Quote of the Day - Milwaukee & Naperville

Great times with FINKs Tim Tahtinen in Waukesha and Will Stenke in Naperville yesterday and today. I know why FINK works so well and so many kids are touched when I watch them do ministry, wrestle with issues, and perk their guides. Tim grilled all of his Guides steaks Thursday night. (He even sent a frozen one to Will via a Melheimian courier). Thanks, friends, of your wonderful hospitality.

I'm now half way done with my manic travel schedule, and Monty and Brad are out there doing the same. Here's the best quotations, ideas, and links from the last couple days.

It's not just "Jesus loves you" but "see how he loves you!" - Salim

Why not have a fourth Faith Stepping Stone course - a six month/sixty thousand mile check up summary for the people who take each mini-course? - Jesse

Regarding people who believe in parallel universes to the exclusion of God:
"If you don't believe that God created one universe, how can you believe in the creation of infinately more universes?" - Anita

IDEA of the WEEK Always take a lot of digital pictures during your theme events, then show them as a slide show during the quiet closing review. Post them on your church website, and tell the kids they'll be waiting for them to show their parents the moment they get home.

LINK of the WEEK: Tony Campolo's answer to Hurricane Katrina and the question "where was God?"

Tomorrow: Worship with Will in Naperville, then on to Detroit.

Quote of the Day - Stillwater III Seminar

"Most boys decide by age six if church is cool and if they're going to invest any of their time in it from then on..." - Salim

Talk about a scary thought. If it's true, we've got to start our confirmation process a lot earlier.

(Read: Faith Stepping stones.)

Quote of the Day - Stillwater II Seminar

The beginning point of all science is also the ending point of all science.

Big Bang is the start of it all. Since Einstein, Hubble, Penzias & Wilson, COBE Satellite and WMAP Probe, this theory (or variations thereof) has become the most testable and measurable and verifiable theory in all science to date.

It suggests that in the moment before the first moment, there was no matter, energy, space or time. In the moment before that moment, there was no moment.

As David Letterman said, "If there was no matter, energy, space or time, then what for the love of God banged?"

If there was no matter, energy, space or time, there were no laws of physics as we know them.

If the first law of physics in our physical universe is "nothing comes from nothing," then there must necessarily be a second law. "Something did... some First Cause that stands outside and above all the laws of nature as we know them."

The Latin for "above nature" is... super natural.

Is it rational to believe in the supernatural? If you get to the end of science - the testable, measurable and verifiable - that's the only rational conclusion. There is something that stood above and beyond the rules as we know them. There is, as Einstein said so eloquently, an invisible Piper who stands behind the universe."

"I dance to the tune of an invisible Piper who stands behind the universe... he is God."

Where did it all come from? Science can answer some whats and hows, but it cannot begin to answer the whos and whys.

The beginning of all science - Big Bang - is also, therefore, the end of all science. Science can go no further.

We are at the end of all science, my friends. We are now entering the realm of philosophy.

The end of all science is philosophy. The end of all philosophy is theology.The end of all theology is God.

Chew on this for a day. We'll do more tomorrow.

Oh, and send this link to your three favorite college students. I'd like to get their take on it.

PS (I need some help. I think I made the italicized quote up, but I can't be sure. If anyone can find it anywhere else, please, please let me know. I don't want to take credit for something that isn't original, but I would like to put it in the Quotelopedia for posterity.

Quote of the Day - Unionville

Wonderful time Sunday with the hospitality of Bob Kuppler in Basking Ridge, Nj. They fed us, housed us, churched us, and even drove us all the way to Unionville, PA, to save us the Amtrack fare. Thanks a million!

Yesterday's conference at St. Matthew's in Unionville, PA, was a blast. Raving FINK Pastor Rick DeRasmo, and trusty side-FINK-kick Kathie Mervin were maaaaaaaaaaavelous. Deb Streicher, our GIFT (intergenerational) director showed up to surprise me, as did our good friend Rev. Cindy Krommes from Phoenixville, MD. Dr. He Qi enjoyed showing all his works to the wowed crowd.

The best insight from yesterday? Have a "6 Month Check Up" for each Faith Stepping Stone to get the parents and kids back and see how they're doing. A little fun, a little review, a little friendly accountability with the highs and lows, prayer, blessing, etc.

Oh yeah, here's something else: An edit on my mom's Bible study from "Women of the Word" via our buddy and ad hoc out there editor Kirk Jensen:

Hello, fellow FINKs!

I had to laugh when I saw this in the Volume 3 Issue 8 FINKmonthly Bible Study on Michal:

“I tied the other end around David’s waste and tearfully helped lower him out the window and over the wall.”

Sounds a little disgusting…  “Holy e-scatology, Batman!  They’re throwing s*** over the wall!”  J

SpellCheck doesn’t catch everything…

Kurt Jensen

Quote of the Day - Long Island Seminar

Wonderful hospitality with Justin Vetrano and his team of high school youth who run confirmation for 8 (count them, eight) area churches. Yes, that's kids leading confirmation all based out of St. James Lutheran for their neighbors.

Youth ministry is redefined as youth doing ministry here. What a FINKy think.

Here's an insight on the Lone Ranger pastors who so it all by themselves:

The “lone ranger” had only one side-kick.

His name was Tonto.

Spanish for fool.

And Tonto called his master “Kimo Sabe”.

Very close to the Spanish “Quein Sabe?”

That means “who knows?”

It could be seen as a sarcastic “so, you think you know so much?”

The long ranger pastor only has fools following, and may not know as much as he, she, or it thinks they know.

Think about that one before you try youth and family ministry on your own.

Quote of the Day - Boston Seminar

Today's Tour Insight/Quote:

"The small group shouldn't be any bigger than one car-load of kids. Or one care-load of kids."

Hey FINKs. Long time no blog.

I did San Raphael, Phoenix and Stillwater on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, with a day breather in between. Today we were hosted at University Lutheran just off Harvard Square in Cambridge. An old friend and former parishoner - now a pastor - Andrea Hoslette showed up. Andrea was dragged back to church by her two daughters, Megumi and Mikya, who were active in our youth group once upon a time long ago. Mom showed up for the kids, and the next thing you know mom's quitting her job and going to seminary!

It was great to reconnect with her and hear about her ministry as an east coaster.

Dr. He Qi has joined me for this leg of the trip, and he wowed the group by showing off his 30 x 30 prints, plus some original silks of his works that are destined for his spring shows at Harvard and Yale. Tonight's trip from Boston to Long Island included a stop in Penn Station for KFC, followed by a long, long, long (and now it's 1:22 am my time) trip to St. James, NY, where our actor buddy Justin Vetrano (aka Richard Phamous) is treating us like royalty in a nice hotel.

Justin has 15 kids coming tomorrow - high school kids that he has trained and are now leading Faith Inkubators in 8 Queens churches who round robin the hosting and let HS kids teach junior high. I'm intrigued and anxious to meet these vunderkind who are spreading FINKology across the bouroughs.

Justin is taking leave from his Hollywood career to attend seminary on Manhattan, and run youth groups on the side for fun and profit. (Ok, very little profit but a lot of fun).

Tomorrow it's Long Island, and then a Sunday AM in Phillie before a jaunt to our friends Rick DeRasmo and Kathie Mervin in Unionville, PA for another wild and wacky seminar day.

Learn something new every day. It keeps life interesting.

 

More from Bill Easum

I've got a little deck burger/brainstorm session going on today at the office with Twin City FINKs, then off to Boston/NY/Phillie. Dr. He Qi will be joining me on those trips to show off our new stuff. Here's another installment of the future of things 15 years from now by my friend Bill Easum.

Education Sector

 

In the Education sector the leader of the future will bypass most traditional forms of education in favor of a demonstrated credentialing rather than academic – an orthoprax form of education. These leaders will be raised up in the hiving congregations and ordained by those congregations for ministry mostly beyond that congregation – multiple sites, church plants, and marketplace ministries. We are already seeing this done in churches like Northwood and Mars Hill just to name two of the thousands where this happening.

 

Media and Communications Sector

Online Apostolic Avatars will emerge whose primary missional activity will be working with two online audiences – emerging Christian leaders, as EBA does with its EBA Community, or the non-Christian online population, as many churches are beginning to do with their websites. One might take a look at the online

Alpha

Church

.

 

Arts and Entertainment Sector

 

The visions of the

Church

of

Living Waters

and the

Virtual

Church

of the Resurrection in our book Growing Spiritual Redwoods are still valid in 2020. Although churches will continue to use more and more high tech/high touch, churches like the

Dream

Center

in

Los Angeles

will become more of the norm where worship and daily life intersect. Whether the arts are holograms as in the Virtual Church of the Resurrection, or the arts as in Ecclesia, or experience as in Bay Area Fellowship, or the outpouring of help to Los Angeles as in the Dream Center, worship will be tied to what happens when one leaves the auditorium – how Christians treat their neighbor.

 

Sports and Fitness Sector

 

Apostolic leaders are placing more importance on the heath of their marriages, body, and spiritual development than leaders through most of modernity. Spiritual life and calling are being linked together so that religious life isn’t compartmentalized and separated but united. More churches will focus on meditation, monasticism, and contemplation. 

 

As the old Christendom continues to fragment though ideological, theological, and liturgical differences, what are the emerging principles of apostolic leadership that create a new unity for mission?

 

The primary unity will be a passion, or heartburst for fulfilling the Great Commission in our lifetime.

Mission

to the non-Christian will shape everything. Another way to put it is

Mission

becomes the Mother of all theology, not just a part of it.

 

As the emerging pagan world continues to fragment into many tribes, what are the emerging boundaries of apostolic leadership that set it apart from the competition?

 

Love and respect for all cultures, rather than judgment and exclusivity, will set up the boundaries for apostolic leadership. Like Paul at

Athens

, the apostolic leader in a pagan world has to both understand and treat with dignity all of the gods of the world into which he or she is entering without compromising their belief. The apostolic leader of the future will not play the “I’m in – you’re out” game, assigning some to Heaven and some to Hell. The leaders must love and embrace others in conversation, not judgment.  The future will demand that we take seriously “love your enemy” more than any time in Modernity.

 

This does not mean that our desire to bring the Kingdom to bear on all the world is lessened. Not at all. But it does mean that coercion, and even proclamation will be replaced by love and conversation. If this is so, it is easy to see why small groups and house churches are exploding and why marketplace ministries will have a growing importance in the future.

 

More than anything else, apostolic leadership determines the price Christians should be willing to pay to join Jesus on the road to mission. That price can be analyzed in a “hierarchy of cost centers”. Start with the first “cost center”, and proceed in order. If the Christian movement is willing to pay the price in the first set of “cost centers”, the cost of discipleship later will be easer to bear.

 

The Cost of Discipleship:

 

The price will be experienced in several sectors of the first cost centers.

 

• Christians will continue to be marginalized from society as the

  U.S.

  decides that, after all, it really isn’t a nation “under God.” 
• Mainline Protestantism will be a shell of what it once was and those who want to make an impact on the world will have to pay the price of admitting this fact. 
• Laity will pay the price of giving up ownership of management and instead claim the ownership of the mission. 
• Pastors will pay the price of giving up most hands-on ministry and have to learn how to be a coach and equipper. 
• Church members will have to give up almost all of the present entitlements they feel come with membership. 
• More time will be spent in personal devotional, spiritual formation, and personal health, taking time away from many of the non-healthy recreational activities. 
• Missiology will replace theology and systematic theology will become a thing of the past. 
• Homogeneity will be seriously challenged as we enter the early stages of serious multi-cultural, racial, and social cross pollination which will require musicians to have an enormously wide musical appreciation making no room for the classical purist.

 

As a result, the second tiers of the cost centers will come more naturally

 

• Many will find that they will have to learn how to go out into the public rather than wait for people to come to them 
• One’s standard of living will be more affected by peoples giving to the point that the standard of giving will determine the standard of living. 
• Youth groups will have to give up the fun and games approach to ministry for a more serious small group, mentoring approach sprinkled with lots of fun. 
• Mainline Seminaries will be marginalized as student enrollment reaches an all time low due to people bypassing academic credentialing for demonstrated credentialing. 
• As the emerging nations continue to industrialize or even by pass it for the high tech world, the environmental concerns will play heavily on the world. This will be the one area of life that the

  U.S.

   Christian will still cling and do whatever it takes to be comfortable. It could easily be one of two dividing lines between the rich and the poor (along with digital skills).
  
  

From Easum

This in from our friend Bill Easum... worth passing along:

Where Will Jesus Be in Fifteen Years

 

One of the ways to see where Jesus will be in fifteen years is to look at what Jesus is doing now on the fringes and ask, “Where are those signs leading us in the future?” 

 

Based on what I see God doing today at the fringes of culture, I think Jesus will be found walking down the following roads.

 

1.  The non-Christian Road. Jesus will be with those churches that focus primarily on the non-Christian. If you had walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus you would know that you were walking away from

Jerusalem

and that the future of Christianity was with the pagan Gentile world because you knew Emmaus was basically a Roman garrison.

 

 The emphasis on the local church is being replaced by a renewed passion for kingdom oriented ministries- Ministry will be focused on bringing the kingdom to bear on the world rather than on building or preserving institutions

 

 The debate over whether the church should use an incarnational or an attractional approach to the non-Christian is important (I think it will use both), but not as important as realizing the primary focus of ministry will be the non-Christian rather than the church member or the transferring member. 

 

2.  The Hiving

Church Road

. Jesus will be with those churches that exist to replicate or multiply not only themselves but also other ministries at home and beyond in order to reach the non-Christian. The hiving church will be found in at least four forms.

 

• The large mega church that has developed a church planting center within its structure. I believe however that the mega trend will be a continually declining phenomenon by then.

 

Recently (Sept. 2005) I saw a chart that showed that ten selected churches planted over 300 churches in 2004 and are on schedule to plant six hundred churches in 2005 with over 296,000 people attending. Think what will happen if this tread catches on with more churches.

 

• The multi-site church of all sizes that refuse to let property dictate mission as well as proliferate to reach different micro cultures

 

• The medium size (300-500) congregations will multiply rapidly and will continually hive off to plant other churches. 

 

• The house church movement that continues to welcome those who are fed up it with the established church or who want more authentic community.

 

3.  The Apostolic Road. Jesus will be with pastors who function more in an apostolic form of ministry than congregational or representative government (neither of which is useful for effective congregations). I think we will see the continual decline of highly centralized, check and balance type of church governance.  We will see more and more churches with boards of less than 5 people who function more like a paid staff than laity using some form of permission giving and servant empowerment.

 

 It is my contention that the effective pastors over the next fifteen years will function more as “Apostles” than “pastors.” Apostolic leaders follow their call and don’t serve the church or denomination; instead, they serve Christ in the midst of mission. They could care less what other people think, yet their live such Godly lives that their character is above reproach. 99% of the pastors in the hiving churches of today already function this way.  They, not the church, set the agenda. The church follows and is accountable to the lead pastor. A total switch from what we see today among mainline churches.

 

Since mainline denominations can’t cope with apostles, they will continue to be a declining force or voice in the

U.S.

 

4.  The Emerging Road. Except for a few exceptions, Jesus will give up on the “club mentality” of most mainline Protestantism and will focus on the emerging churches. Mainline churches will be only five years away from the mesa and the number of sick, small churches will be in a free fall. They will be replaced however by the healthy, hiving, medium size hiving church.

5. The

Marketplace Road

. Jesus will be with those Christian business people starting secular businesses for the purpose of connecting with the public and offering them Jesus. They will use the incarnational approach to witness.

 

6. The

Samaritan Road

.  As always, Jesus will be with the least, the last, and the lost. Any form of authentic apostolic ministry must include anyone who will respond, but especially the Samaritan on the fringe. The thriving churches I know have already plunged headlong into this aspect of ministry.

Quote of the Day - LA Seminar

 Wonderful hospitality from Rev. Leland Lance at Lutheran Church of the Cross in Laguna Hills, CA on Saturday. A scientist guy with a double doctorate, Lawrence Vescera, stopped in to check out our "Why God?" piece to see if our science and approach was up to snuff. During lunch I picked his brain to see where he was coming from. He said he grew up a total athiest who thought Christians were total idiots to believe in God. Through a series of wanderings and paths, an a life-threatening arithmia in his heart, he found himself miraculously healed by a Christian... a Christian he thought was an idiot in a church that he thought was nuts.

So, what's a healed athiest to do?

Today he's studying everything he can get his hands on that helps people see that it is totally rational to believe that a Grand Designer stands behind the grand design of the universe.

Here's his addition to yesterday's senior high session about the fine-tuned nature of the universe:

 

The temperature variation during the big bang was 1/40,000th of a degree Kelvin across the universe.  If it had been a tiny bit more or less you would not get the right kind of clumping to get the galaxies to cluster and form, or for life to form. It has to be this exact temperature differential or nothing would exist as we know it. – Larry Vescera (lvescera@idscience.org)