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engagement

Christianity

The Amazonification of Christianity

Amazon announced a new product and service to their line-up: Amazon Key. Amazon describes their new product as the way to, “get your Amazon packages securely delivered just inside your front door. Plus, grant access to the people you trust, like your family, friends, dog walker, or house cleaner.” This is one of many products that have taken over our lives by Amazon or also known as the Amazonification of retail… and life.

Amazon has started putting large retailers out of business. With their free two-day delivery with Amazon Prime, tablets that push notifications of sales, Echo devices that can order Amazon products, and other devices that can order via their website, Amazon has put their delivery method in the hands and heads of people around the world. Amazon has created a virtual e-commerce ecosystem that we can’t escape. Now, Amazon is testing drones to deliver products faster. Amazon not only sells products but now services of professional cleaning, installation, plumbing and more on their website.

This is a takeover of Amazon’s brand force. It’s the Amazonification of life: a total and complete delivery system of goods, services, and information. Amazon has disrupted the way people get their “stuff”.

Amazon’s virtual staying power taps into something that is happening in every facet of our lives: virtual delivery and engagement of life… including our faith.  Amazon shows us how Christianity has been disrupted by factors and forces of our technological and mobile connected world.

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Leadership

The case for the 45 credit seminary degree

The Atlantic ran a disturbing article on the state of middle class clergy carrying a seminary degree: high debt, low wages, vanishing churches, and part-time pastor positions. The piece profiles Justin Barringer, a recent seminary grad who like many before him graduated the call to pastoral ministry. His story is not unlike thousands of other ministers:

Justin Barringer would seem to have the perfect résumé. He’s a seminary grad, an author and book editor, and a former missionary to China and Greece. But despite applying to nearly a hundred jobs over the course of two years, Barringer, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, could not secure a full-time, salaried church position.

So he splits his time among three jobs, working as a freelance editor, an employee at a nonprofit for the homeless, and a part-time assistant pastor at a United Methodist Church. “I am not mad at the church,” Barringer says. “However, I wish someone had advised me against taking on so much debt in order to be trained for ministry.”

Here is the reality: high debt and scarcity of full-time paying pastor positions.

The traditional mainline church track for full-time pastors followed like this: 4-years of college, 3-years of graduate seminary education, and ordination. This process launched a generation of pastors into their ministry in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. The traditional 90-credit seminary degree, the master of divinity, became the mark of an intellectual, professional, and full-time pastor. Churches had the people and money to support such a model. The pastor typical could raise a family and even buy a house (if one was not provided).

Now, because of cost of graduate education, seminary graduates are saddled with debt. In the $40,000 to $60,000 range (on top of college debt). The pace of the rise of the cost of education has exceeded the rate of inflation: to the tune of 500% since 1985.  Usually, when a professional incurs such a debt, their boss gives them a raise because of their higher degree. Not the case with pastors. Many pastors have the same credit hours as school administrators, but paid much less.

With this current reality of shrinking churches, downsized church budgets, less full-time pastor positions, and need for a generation of clergy to lead churches into a new culture, a shorter more focused seminary degree is needed. An online distance modified 45-credit degree could shake up this bleak future for pastors and churches. Here’s what the 45-credit seminary degree could look like:

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Christianity

Learning church growth trends in England

church

As American churches slowly declined, we watched our European neighbors over the pond decline even faster. The “Death of Christianity” was forecasted to spread from England, Germany, and Norway to  around the world.  Surprisingly, a new study has revealed church growth trends in Europe. The death of Christianity story is greatly exaggerated.

What can we attribute to this growth? Hipper churches? Better social media? Flasher worship bands?

No… none of the above were found to produce long term church growth and revitalization.

The church growth movement in England has discovered deeper trends that can help American churches. A 10 year study was completed by the Church Growth Research Programme to study British churches. The study found that 18% of churches in Britain grew over a 10-year period. The study aimed to uncover what was different about those churches. The findings were reported by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership:

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Facebook, social media

Yo Facebook, are you losing it?

Facebook started as a college student sharing site. It was new. It was edgy. It was young. It was better than Myspace. Now your mom, dad, and grandma are already your ‘friends’. That’s not cool according to some young people. Young people are jumping ship for Snapchat and Tumblr. Those social media networks are not usually frequented by parents.

As Facebook rolls out new News Feed features, the social media site wants to stay ‘hip’:

The changes unveiled Thursday are an attempt to address complaints that Facebook’s hub — the News Feed — is degenerating into a jumble of monotonous musings and disjointed pictures. This has come as users’ social circles have widened from a few dozen people to an unwieldy assortment of friends, family, businesses, celebrities, co-workers and fleeting acquaintances.

Time published a story about Facebook’s ebbing appeal. A number of teens were interviewed:

Other sites, like the microblogging site Tumblr, offer more opportunity for creative expression with less prying parental eyes. “The reason we like it so much is because not everyone has one,” Steed says of Tumblr, which is very popular among girls at her high school. “You can almost disguise yourself. Not everyone’s on there, not everyone’s stalking you.” Snapchat, meanwhile, offers spontaneity and instant gratification, though one student said it’s more of a game than a legitimate Facebook alternative.

The new features will start rolling out in the next few weeks. A select group of users are currently testing the new News Feed. If you are interested in the new features, Mashable has a good review.

With 1 billion users, Facebook proudly proclaims their global reach. But, Facebook wants to make money. And that may not be cool for young users. One way Facebook will make money is with inserting ads that look like pictures in your feed:

Zuckerberg explained during his brief remarks at the announcement, Facebook’s users love photos so much that photo posts now take up some 50 percent of the current News Feed. It’s a smart trick, making the ads look like photos posts in the new feed. Because not only do Facebook users look at photos and post photos more than they do anything else on Facebook, but the giant images also happen to increase the most engagement, a source told AllthingsD’s Mike Issac.

However, some think that Facebook could crash. Bianca Bosk the Executive Tech Editor at The Huffington Post, thinks Facebook could be growing towards its end:

Social media researchers have long warned that Facebook users may be turned off by the site’s “context collapse,” with a person’s disparate social circles melded into a single audience of “friends.” The latest incarnation of News Feed suggests users, and Facebook, should be wary of a related phenomenon: the content collapse.

It seems Facebook’s coolness factor is going down while trying to keep the profits up. It’s hard to stay cool when your goal is to make money in the tech world.

Israel Trip

Israel Trip Day 7: Mass, Sderot & Kibbutz Visit

St. George’s

Sunday morning, we walked to nearby St. George’s Church (Anglican) in Jerusalem for a mass in a side chapel. It was a delight to experience worship in Jerusalem with liturgy. The priest gave an excellent reflection on John the Baptist in the midst of Advent. As we were exiting the church I noticed a large baptistry for immersion baptisms. I have heard of some Anglo-Catholic congregations returning to the ancient practice of immersion and even seen baptistries in Catholic churches.

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Sderot & Sderot Media Center

We started our morning in one of the most dangerous locations in Israeli. Near Gaza, on the Israeli side of the boarder, is a small city named Sderot. The location of the town puts it right in the line of rocket fire over head. These rocked attacks started in 2001. Homemade rockets are fired from Gaza over into Israeli controlled land. The city lives in constant fear. If there is a rocket attack there is a 15 second siren warning the public to get to a bomb shelter immediately. Public bomb shelters are above ground at all bus stops.

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Our group watching the video that shows how extremists in Gaza build rockets.

Our first stop was the Sderot Media Center. At the media center, we were shown a video describing the struggle in the community. It included a video that featured rebels making shoulder fire rockets.  The part of the video showed many children during a community gathering and a rocket attack interrupted the gathering. Children and adults ran in panic to shelters. The footage that followed was disturbing. During the video, the power went out in the media center. This results from damage that the power grid sustains during attacks. The damage is lasting beyond rocket attacks in the form of instability in the power grid. The media center helps share the story and struggle of the people in the city because these stories do not reach many mainstream news outs locally and internationally.

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A bomb shelter. Notice the vents. This most likely means there is an underground section in this shelter.

We took a short walk to the police station in the city. As we walked, the local leaders told us that every house in the city has a safe room that can sustain a directed rocket. These rooms costs over $26,000 to construct. In addition, every bus stop (there were many) has an above ground bomb shelter. As we walked. we saw random bomb shelters/safe rooms that dotted the street. It wasn’t clear if these were private or public. Some houses that are two and three stories have safe rooms/bomb shelters on each floor. You can tell what part of the house is a safe room because of shape and yellowish color.

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Spent rockets. Notice the different sizes and shapes. The rockets are just made from plumbing pipe.

We walked around to the back of the station to a parking lot of police cars. Against the back wall of the police station, there was a small display of rockets. These rockets were sent from Gaza over the boarder into the city. The rockets were in different states of damage. Some small and some larger. I picked up an early version of these homemade rockets which was small and thin. The display showed that as time went on, the rockets became larger. I couldn’t believe that the rockets were made out of plumbing pipes. Regular pipe. The tail fins of the rockets are welded on and the entire construction is very basic.

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Spent rocket.

We took a short trip to the boarder of the city that overlooks Gaza. It became very clear why this city is hit hardest by rocket attacks. The city is the closest population to Gaza.

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Looking across the valley into the Gaza Strip.

Later, we rode over the only protected playground in the world, or so we were told. The playground is similar to what you would see in the States. However, there is a large concrete tube shaped and painted to look like a giant worm. This giant worm is a protected bomb shelter. This way, if the alarm goes off children can quickly be protected from rocket attacks. In 2004, during a rocket attack, a rocket killed children walking to school. Since then, play grounds are bright and decorated order to make the spirit of children more hopeful. Because of rocket attacks, there are no windows for early elementary school buildings. This is a protection measure for younger children.

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That giant worm is really a bomb shelter.

Kibbutz Nir Am

Later in the day, we traveled to a kibbtuz in Nir Am and met with Avi Kadosh, the Director. The community was found in 1943, by his wife’s family. The complex was destroyed in the war of independence.  He joined the kibbutz during his army service. He was born from Hollywood, CA and was called into the draft but left to live and serve in Israel with the army. He met Nina, who he later married.

The kibbutz was on the leading edge of independence because it is so close to Egypt. After the British Mandate, Egypt invaded from the west. Recently, rockets fell on the community during different Gaza conflicts causing damage to buildings and structures. In 2009, the community built safe rooms that can withstand bombardment.  The kibbutz is seeing more frequent cycles of engagement between Gaza and the Israeli military.

The buildings and structures on the kibbutz were very nice and modern. We sat in a common café space. They provided refreshments for us and there was an espresso maker behind the counter. I so wanted to ask for a mocha, but I didn’t want to push my luck! The coffee in Israel is spicy. I just wanted an in fashion Italian espresso.

After a long day, we travel to Tel Aviv for the night to rest.

Israel Trip Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5 part IDay 5 part II Day 6Day 7Day 8

Weddings

Christian "Wedding Crashers"

(I use the term “Christian Wedding Crashers” as a tongue and cheek way of referring to those people who are not typical church member seeking marriage.  Please do not be offended.  This is a light hearted term that some Christians have used for this situation. I do not believe these people are really crashing a wedding.   Please keep reading. )

“What an awesome wedding!  You did a great job.  You opened new doors for us into Christianity.” – is the comment that I heard from a wedding I once officiated.  Over the years, I have been conflicted by couples who come into my office asking me to officiate their wedding.  Normally, I have no problem doing a wedding for a church member or Christians who do not have a church home.  What has been a growing trend for a number of pastors, including myself, is what to do with non-Christian weddings?

Many Christians have been troubled with what to do with Christian “wedding crashers”, which are those people (who some Christians deem to be conflictual) who do not meet the “typical Christian” engagement period.  The typical Christian premarital situation looks like this:

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