"But mom... I don't wanna go to church... It is sooo borrrring..." A blog and review of The Church Creative by John O'Keefe

If you have heard these words before, "but church is boring", you or someone you know may be suffering from Lethargic Church Syndrome. LCS has many causes, but the symptoms are clear: Lack of excitement, perceived feelings of fickleness or meaninglessness, the in-ability to reach out to others, vision problems, introversion, obscurity, opaqueness, and obsolescence, to name just a few.

Many of us have been here. We've gone to a church all our lives, or maybe just for several years, and one day we are asked "Why?", and we have no answer. Or an answer comes, but it is canned and hollow. We may say things about good music, good preaching, good youth programs, location, etc. But this hardly illustrates why we go to a given church over, let's say, a good YMCA with a summer concert series and use podcasts to listen to our favorite preachers (or more honestly, TED talks).

Perhaps this feeling of something being not quite right shows up more when your leader asks everyone to invite your friends, and immediately you are paralyzed with fear, or a whole list of reasons not to invite them goes through your head, or you find yourself simply asking why you would ever invite your friends. It could be LCS.

Any of this sounding familiar?

There is a Masonic Temple meeting place a couple blocks away from my house. At least I think there is. There is an old sign, in the historic district, and really, I am not sure if it is hanging there long abandoned or if Masons still meet there. I don't know anyone who goes there. I'm not even sure exactly how one would go inside as it is in a multi-business building, with multiple floors. I think you have to be invited in the first place to even go, but I am not sure. They are picky about who they let in. At least that is what I am told. I also heard they have weird beliefs and strange rituals. I've seen some pretty crazy stuff on the History channel. Or maybe it was SyFy. Who knows? Anyway, I don't know and haven't gone out of my way to find out.

So... why share that about the Masonic Temple? Because, that is a good snap-shot about what people who don't go to church think about churches. Even I as a seasoned church goer worry what I will encounter when I visit new churches. (Food for thought: I haven't been invited to a church since I was 20. I am now 30.) Am I dressed right? Do they do that whole stand up, sit down, kneel, stand, kneel, stand, sit down, now everyone come to the front thing? Do I know anyone here? What do they do during the week? A good sign that your church has become too lethargic is that no one outside the church knows anything about it.

This leads me to...*

Dr. John O'Keefe's book is a defibrillator shot to the chest of a lethargic church. 

What it is not: 

This book is NOT another copy-and-paste book that attempts to reproduce the success of a church you have never visited that is on the other side of the country in a demographic you don't live in. This book is not about copying all of the author's past success with step-by-step guides on how to get your best church now. This book is not your average church-leadership book.

What it is:

 This book is a great guide that does give you a how-to. That how-to is how to use creativity to learn to really reach out to the community around you. But, this is not about the typical creativity in a lot of church books that tell you to be "seeker sensitive", have relevant music, etc. It is awakening the creativity in the leaders and attenders in the church to re-think the way-they-always-do-things attitude and instead become something life-giving and engaging in their community. (Seriously, when was the last time someone described their church as life-giving? [no, I am not talking about salvation, nit-pickers]) Also, this book is great for leaders and for everyone else, too. 

Some of the things you will learn in this book are; (Forget it. I was going to list some things here, but really it was boring and didn't do justice to the book. Suffice it to say you will learn the route to becoming a genuinely creative and engaged individual in your faith-gathering, and learn how to help move your entire gathering in the same direction. You will learn to think about, for instance, your church's worship space. No, the book does not tell you how to set up your church [boring], but it does tell you the right questions to ask to set up your church in ways that are intimately connected to the specific community you serve.) QUESTION EVERYTHING!**
                                                         

Have you been feeling a little lethargic in your faith and/or church? O'Keefe's book is a great guide on your journey to revitalized faith, fellowship, and community.

*Total disclosure: I received a free .pdf file of the book to review. I was going to review another one of my friend's books, but he politely declined giving me a free copy. I politely declined to give him a free review. Actually, I don't think he asked for a review. So it goes...
** But do it in a productive, intelligent community building way. You'll be called annoying and perhaps a rabble-rouser at times, but it will be worth it.  

My addiction. Or why I am a Christian.

My good friend (The Reverend) Paul over at That Which is Central wrote a post worth taking a few minutes to read about why he is not an atheist. Paul is easily among the top 5 smartest and most read people I know and his insights are worth a look.

Anyway, his inaugural post inspired me to do one of the same nature. Why am I a Christian? I started out on a different path for this post than the one I am now taking. I was going to attempt a clearly thought out and mostly logical/rational post for the answer to this question. But I can't. I simply can't convey it in reasonable language that isn't overly verbose and ultimately fickle. So here is my newly revised answer to the question, "Why am I a Christian". 


I must admit, I am an addict. Not to a drug, nor a style of music, nor a particular food or drink. I am an addict of love, beauty, and hope. I can sense the eye-rolls right now, but bear with me, folks (I never said this blog-ride wouldn't go through some turbulence at times!). 


Have you ever caught a glimpse of something beautiful? Like a sunset on the beach, or a flower in springtime? Or perhaps something more powerful like two family members or former friends that you see in the moment of reconciliation? That moment when suddenly you are snapped from the ambient noise of the world around you to something so acutely different from everyday life that even as a distant spectator you feel as if you are intimately a part of that moment? Even fantastic works of art in various forms such as movies and songs can seem to translate us to these moments. Perhaps a good example of it is the Christmas Truce. That is the addiction that I am talking about, and the fixes come so few between. Allow me to quote a bit of C.S. Lewis...


"We do not merely want to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly by put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it... At present we are on the outside of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in." C.S.. Lewis The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco 2001), 397


So why am I a Christian? For the reason Lewis states, that Jesus seems to be constantly filled with these outpourings of love, and beauty, and light, and hope, and that through his power and spirit, that we can too, participate in these moments. These moments that are so rare but seem like they should be normal. We can't fully live into them yet, as just as quickly and intensely that they break into our lives, the moment passes, life goes on, and we can quickly forget that it even happened. I see God working in these moments, and catch a future that will come with the fulfillment of time in which we will be able to live in the ongoing revelation of beauty and love. It isn't fully here yet, but it is arriving. Maybe Emily Dickinson can help shed some light on this:

"Like lightning to the children eased / Through revelation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind"

Again, why am I a Christian? Because of love, and beauty, and forgiveness and reconciliation, because of love given towards enemies, because of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and other the ultimate fulfillment of reconciliation between God and all of creation (us included):


Colossians 1:19-20: ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
New International Version (NIV)

I am a Christian because I crave these outbursts of beauty. And though we may catch glimpses of them at seemingly random times in our lives, I have seen and experienced the most where Jesus is working and people are focused for real on him, and not on the church or the religion of Christianity.

*A quick note. I have heard it said many times that we all have a "God shaped hole" in us that can only be filled with God. I think that maybe this is part way to the truth, that people were created to love and experience what the biblical writers could only allude to as love, light, beauty, creation, fullness of life, forgiveness, sight to the blind, seeing the dead raised, singing new songs, healing the sick, etc. There is something incredibly powerful that seems to weave all these seemingly separate things together, and I believe -that- is what we long to know, and that is God. People will often talk of trying to fill this "God shaped hole" with other things, and how it never works. Again, I think this is partly true, but that what is really happening is we are trying to create beauty and love and all the things mentioned above on our own. Sometimes we are somewhat successful and sometimes we fail horribly. We might try to curb this aching with other things like drugs, hobbies, etc, but that ultimately leaves us still too empty. That is where I believe and have experienced that a relationship with God comes in and we start to understand how to work with God and his creative power to bring love into the world. Jesus talked about this as "The Kingdom of God, "Kingdom of Heaven", and as "Life in the fullest" or "Eternal Life".

One last thought: I am not suggesting we use God as a means to fulfilling our desire to see beauty and love, as a means to an end. I am suggesting that we join with God in becoming a means to a beginning.

I hope this helped give you a glimpse of insight into what drives my relationship with God. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Oh, great. Another blog. I mean, oh, another GREAT blog!

So, I was thinking what my first post should be about. It should really come in with fanfare and awesomeness, right? Well, that isn't this post, but at least I can talk a little about what is going down here.
I contemplated the big "Why?". You know, the "Why does the internet need another blog?". Well, the internet doesn't, but I do. I guess most of all I am trying to break my awesome insights out of my head, and that involves you, because without you, I am left to my own devices, that that is never good. So, grab a seat, and enjoy the ride as we talk all things life. Remember, as Leonard Sweet points out, participation trumps excellence. If you wait until you are excellent at something until you start it, you will never start it. But, I'll save that for a full post!