thejakers

Yeah! New music! So, here we go! All pictures link to lala.com, where you can spin the album for free one time. Enjoy!

Joy.

Do you have it? Have you lost it?

The Bible is full of passages that remind us of the importance of joy in the Christian life. The Psalmist reminds us to “shout for joy,” to rest in God as our “exceeding joy,” and makes supplication for God to “restore the joy of [God's] salvation.”

Paul speaks of joy as a fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22), and is “overflowing with joy” (2 Cor. 7:4). James calls us to “count it all joy” when we meet trials (James 1:2).

Indeed, joy is to be the perpetual state of all believers who are in Jesus. Yet, we are often joyless – especially those who serve the church in full-time ministry.

Leaders, we are not called to be stoic. We do a huge disservice to our people when we do not daily express the joy of our salvation. Come to Christ like a child, filled with laugher, free of care, resting in the sovereinty  of our mighty savior. Celebrate with your people. Laugh, exclaim, dance, if you must. Let your joy be evident.

If you are lacking in joy, pray today, like the Psalmist, that God would restore your joy. And live like Paul, who strove to make his joy the joy of those whom God entrusted to him.

A random collection of interesting info from my Internet travels for the week of 10/4/09:

The Harvard Business Blog discusses why the $250,000 FDIC deposit guarantee needs to be lowered. I agree.

“Play requires more time and demands more engagement than does your work. . . . [W]ork is onerous and efficient, whereas play is fun and prodigally wasteful.” Justin Taylor reminds us that play time with our kids is so important – even if it does seem like a waste of time.

Desiring God reminds us to count the cost of sexual sin before temptation. A great reminder.

Brent Thomas gives a good review of Jim Belcher’s new book, Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional.

For my freelance friends, 73 great resources for freelance writers.

“There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line.” A great article on entrepreneurship and vulnerability from Harvard Business Blog.

Science is aiming to prove hard work is overrated.

I love a flame broiled burger as much as the next guy, but Burger King and “intimate” dining are not compatible…until now?

Some big Christian bloggers share their thoughts on the platform.

Five changes to your freelance work habits that are as good (almost) as taking a day off.

Chile (the country) understands the importance of entrepreneurship.
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This is the third and final post in my series on ministry and the internet. You can catch up on the other posts here and here.

What is the Church?

Just what is the church? It seems to me that is the central question when we begin to think through the implications of digitalism. As Mark Driscoll stated in his talk at Advance 09, the digital age is forcing us to reexamine and redefine our ecclesiology.

In my study, I’ve come to believe that the church is defined by:

• The preaching/teaching/proclamation of the word
• The administration of the sacraments (in my view communion and baptism)
• And the fellowship of the saints

As seen in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

I don’t think there are too many people who would argue with such a definition. The real debate comes when we start asking whether this type of community can be done in the digital world.

Can the sacraments, for instance, be rightly administered online? Some people think so, as evidenced by Flamingo Road’s internet baptism as posted on Church Crunch. How about communion? Can that be administered online and still embody the New Testament concept of “breaking bread together”?

The Purpose of the Church?

I’m not going to debate here the intricacies of the sacraments and their relevancy online (mostly because I haven’t studied much on it). I’ll save that for another time. But what I do know is that the sacraments are a sign of coming into Christ, and traditionally (and scripturally) a first-step in joining the body of Christ that is the Church. They are not the end-all.

In looking at the purpose of the Church, I believe that the it exists primarily to:

• Equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-16)
• To make disciples (Matthew 28:16-20)

These commissions are best accomplished by preaching, teaching, and proclaiming the word and by doing the word. As James says, you cannot do one without the other, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” And while some are called expressly to do the teaching and preaching (Ephesians 4:11-12), we are all called to proclaim the gospel and to do it.

When thinking of the purpose of the church in the context of Internet ministry, it’s easy to see how it is useful for proclamation – the preaching of the gospel. In that sense it is an excellent tool. It becomes harder to think of its usefulness in discipleship and in being a catalyst for bringing people beyond hearing the word to doing the word. This is because the Internet is an uncarnate environment that, as I’ve discussed in previous posts, is inherently geared towards engendering a people who consume rather than pour out. Yet, as a community of believers, we are called to do just the opposite – we are called to incarnate the gospel to the world.

The biggest challenge I see in the future of ministry is the pervasive acceptance of digital interaction as true community, replacing, not supplementing, physical community. Yet, in a Christian context, it is the daily interactions between believers that leads to discipleship. As Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write in their book, Total Church, “In becoming a Christian I am a disciple, but that is an identity, not an event. I never stop being a disciple, and I never reach a point where I no longer require daily discipleship by the gospel word in the gospel community.”

Event Driven Church vs. Rhythm Living

Ministries that are diving full force into the Internet by forming Internet campuses, doing online administrations of the sacraments, and more, are indicative to me of the more American expression of Christianity and church, which is an event driven model. For many people, church is just one of a many obligations or events that must be attended, consumed, and completed – an X on the calendar. It’s easy to say you go to church and believe you are part of a church in an online forum if you believe that church is about the Sunday event where you sing some songs and hear a sermon.

But that is not church. If anything that is evangelism, which to be clear is very important. But it is not true Christian community. It provides no true venue for discipleship, or the rhythms of Christian life that are depicted in the New Testament (eating together, praying together, serving together, etc.).

When you approach church as an event, it is easy to leave that church if the pastor says something that pisses you off. It’s even easier when all it takes is a click of a mouse, where no actual physical connection is severed. A rhythm centered approach to church where people are eating together in homes, giving to and taking care of those with need, discussing the scriptures in late night gatherings over coffee or a pint, serving arm in arm in doing the word and incarnating the gospel, and more creates bonds that are not easily broken – and ensures that if a fellow believer is straying, you have a real, valid, and tangible means to confront him or her in love.

Conclusion

Steve Knight, who was kind enough to reference this series on his blog, has written about the importance of reverse incarnation in the digital age. In that sense, the Internet is useful. But in reality, reverse incarnation is simply a fancy word for what we’ve already discussed is part and parcel with being the church – proclamation. We are to preach the word and proclaim the gospel in the digital world. But the digital world cannot replace the incarnate body of believers gathering together in community. You must have both.

I find it hard to understand how we can theologically justify Internet campuses as autonomous and fully functioning churches. Many will speak to their practicality, but we must be cautious when we move to speaking pragmatically without undergirding our pragmatism with theology.

In the end, the Internet is useful, but it can also lead to a disembodiment of the church that is not biblical. It is my prayer that as we move forward we don’t wholesale dive into new technologies because our culture demands it, but that we carefully, prayerfully, and with measure engage new technology in a way that continues the Church’s long and grand tradition of being in the world but not of it.

I invite your thoughts, beat downs, and undying adulation.

As a writer, I should know better than to read Annie Dillard. She always makes me feel inferior. I leave you with this gem from her memoir, An American Childhood:

“The adult members of society adverted to the Bible unreasonably often. What arcana! Why did they spread this scandalous document before our eyes? If they had read it, I thought, they would have hid it. They didn’t recognize the vivid danger that we would, through repeated exposure, catch a case of its wild opposition to their world. Instead, they bade us study great chunks of it, and think about those chunks, and commit them to memory, and ignore them. By dipping us children in the Bible so often, they hoped, I think, to give our lives a serious tint, and to provide us with quaintly magnificent snatches of prayer to produce charms while, say, being mugged for our cash or jewels.”

A collection of interesting and mostly unrelated content from my online explorations for the week of 9/27/09.

Justin Taylor explores the concept of God sanctioned genocide.

Starbucks introduces instant coffee…yuck.

The Resurgence is giving away free posters explaining theological terms.

“Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). A convicting post from Desiring God.

Steve Knight tackles a topic that I’ve been interested in as of late – the Internet and Theology. He also references my blog series you can read here.

Prophets and psalmists would probably say of us, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Great quote from John Stott via Tim Challies.

Russell Moore blogs about Michael Moore and Mammon. Great read.

Greed. A great little video posted by Joe Thorn.

I don’t normally like violence…but this sounds like just plain fun.

Perry Noble on when you should apologize as a leader.

Loneliness seems to be a theme in the blogosphere lately. Eugene Cho pitches in with some great words here.

Is a Deacon just a servant? Russell Moore explore the role of a Deacon.

For my freelance friends, best books for freelancers.

Kem Meyer posts a good one on integrating social media…and making it work.

Virtual church membership. Is it legit? Church Crunch discusses here. Ties in with my series on the internet and ministry here.

Neil Cole is blogging on multi-site churches. Leadership Network highlights his series.

Twitter is finally building lists into it’s own service. Read about it here.

This is the second post in a series on doing ministry in a post-Christian, digital society. In the first post, I explored what I perceive to be a cultural shift from post-modernism to what I defined as digitalism. Here I want to lay the foundation to explore some of the ecclesiological implications of the Internet.

You Have No Idea

Seems you can’t go anywhere today without running into some conversation, blog post, or story about how such and such church is integrating the Internet into their ministry. The rise of social media and the popularity of such platforms like Facebook and Twitter, have heightened the sense within the Church at large that we must figure out what our online strategy is. Some people doing great pioneering work in this realm are John Saddington and his site Church Crunch, Kem Meyers, Tony Steward, the good folks over at Church Marketing Sucks, Drew Goodmanson, Church Communications Pro,  Tim Schraeder, and many more.

I say it’s pioneering work because, though it doesn’t seem like it, the Internet as a daily and vital component of our lives is really only about a decade old. And we really have NO IDEA what it’s doing to us, our society, our children, and our ministries. Yet, we’ve (society at large) embraced it wholeheartedly as not only a norm, but also as a great advancement in human society and interaction. Perhaps this is because, as I alluded to in my last post, it appeals to our ego in a way no other medium has.

I can think of no other major shift in human interaction and thought that has been so completely, quickly, and docilely embraced than the rise of the digital age.

I can think of no other major shift in human interaction and thought that has been so completely, quickly, and docilely embraced than the rise of the digital age.

I am Ego

As I sit in my office with my headphones on, having spent the last three hours staring at computer screen, I am completely isolated in my world and thoughts, yet I am also connected to more people than ever in my life through Twitter and Facebook – at the same time. But the important component is that I have the power to engage or not engage. I create the reality of my relationships and the context in which they are acceptable to me. And others do likewise.

Of course I don’t have this luxury when my fellow office mates tap me on the shoulder. In those moments I don’t have complete control – at least not without looking like a total jerk. The rules – the norms – of physical community dictate that I should interact with my community, even when I don’t feel like it. And it has been that way since the dawn of human society.

Not so anymore. As a digitalist, I can be a hermit and connected. Picking and choosing which interactions best suit my ego and my desires. It is pure, white-hot consumerism.

When Fools Rush In

My fear is that as the Church we are being swept up in this NEW cultural shift without engaging it correctly. Too often our online strategy is not a strategy at all but a blatant and often poor imitation of the way the world and businesses use the online medium – as a subjection of authority to the individual. Marketers often talk of this great shift from one-way interactions between businesses and corporations and their customers. A new day has dawned. Your customer is in charge, and you must engage them in conversation. The consumer has always dictated product in a sense, but only in so much as the producers made it available. Now it is the consumer that drives everything.

Our job as a church is to create disciples and equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. How do we do that effectively when we’ve never met our people face to face? Is it possible?

Consumerism is not a new problem for the church, especially in America. But I fear the rise of digitalism will make it much more so – and that we will gladly embrace it in the name of going where the people go, without ever actually going to them.

Here are hard and honest questions we should ask ourselves:

• Are we doing online ministry and online campuses because they further the Gospel or because people want them?
• Is our online strategy full of practical implications but lacking theological ones?
• Have we critically examined what implications for the shift to online community are for Gospel formed community?

My inclination is that you have answers to these questions, and I’m not the first to ask them. I’m interested in the answers you’ve come up with.

My next and last post in this series will deal with my thoughts on how we balance the Biblical conception of Christian community with the prevailing culture of the digitalists. Until then, I’d value your feedback on my thoughts here – and your ideas for a path forward.

As an entrepreneur, I found this video to be such a great reminder of why I do what I do. Thanks to Tallskinnykiwi for making me aware of it.