Yet another event announcement but I might actually go check out Church 2.0 in Boston this Friday put together by Greg Atkinson. Anyone interested?
It should be a very engaging dialogue full of creativity and innovation. I’ve been hungry for that.
1. Friday, Oct. 17: Church 2.0 Local Forum – Boston
Register for Boston on Facebook HERE. Not on Facebook? Register HERE.
There are other tours. Check out the tour schedule and sponsors at Church 2.0
The official website for Q Conference 2009 is up! [Thanks to Jeff Shinabarger!]
Q will be held April 27-29, 2009 in Austin, Texas.
Looking forward to another one.
Check out my 2008 experience posts:
Q Conference 2008, nyc, PART 1
Q Conference 2008, nyc, part 2
Q Conference, nyc, part 3
Q Conference, nyc, part 4
I wouldn’t mind being at Catalyst Conference lounging with some of you bloggers that I’ve come to know or follow stalk. I’ve yet to go. Don’t know if I really ever will.
Catalyst has provided some great fresh ideas and fuel for next gen church leaders. I think they’re doing some pretty cool things but I do wish I could see some more diversity from such an influential effort that seeks to shape and impact the next generation of church leaders.
Is there a lack of minority esp. Asian voices making an impact on culture?
Or is it that these voices are just too busy actually making an impact on culture?
You can follow the tweets along with me or try to follow their live conference setup through Catalyst Backstage with Anne Jackson. The live ustream.tv for interviews were pretty buggy yesterday.
CATALYST LIVE WEBCAST: Thursday @ Noon (Eastern) / 9:00am Pacific
Thursday, Oct 2nd, @ 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern, Catalyst is hosting a LIVE Webcast on Mogulus.com/catalystspace. Brad Lomenick and Chad Johnson will be giving you a view of Catalyst Conference behind the scenes and answering your questions.
Monday nights have been revived for me. You’ll find me glazed over watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Heroes. I’m still eagerly waiting for new episodes of Battlestar Galactica (ETA: Jan 2009). NYTimes reviewed the new season of Heroes and gives us some great insight into Gen Y. If you don’t have a clue about Gen Y then here’s a good way to start. It’s important to know the things that shape a generation and their attitudes towards the world. Unfortunately, the church tends to be years behind the times and still trying to minister to generations before. I deeply appreciate James Chuong‘s approach to tell the Gospel in this context. Check out, From Four Laws to Four Circles. As you read and understand Gen Y you’ll see how well the Four Circles works to convey the story of God today.
Insights From Times Review
The current economic crisis confirms Gen Y’s worst fears that their baby boomer parents are leaving them a world convulsed by war, drowning in debt and melting down under global warming.
And Generation Y has more special abilities than any previous one: these are people who came of age taking the Internet, BlackBerries, cash machines, Facebook and iPods for granted. They also take the taking for granted. They are the most coddled, indulged and overprotected generation ever. Swaddled in safety and self-esteem, they have all been assured that they are special. They don’t rebel against their parents or even seek independence; they welcome an electronic umbilical cord that stretches through high school and college and even the post-graduate return to the empty nest.
“Your mother, my father, God knows what else they’ve done. How much longer are we going to have to clean up their mess?” – Matt Parkman, Telepath on Heroes
Every Generation Has Heroes
Each generation thinks less of the next generation. The Boomers were the hippies. Gen X were the slackers. I can’t help but have some of my own criticisms as I have worked with Gen Y over the years. I do get frustrated with many of them but I know it is unfair to make sweeping statements of an entire generation. Generally they are certainly driven individuals. Especially among Asian-Americans, talented, privileged. Demanding? Who doesn’t want work-life balance? They want to be CEOs by their mid twenties but only prepared to work 35 hours a week to get there. Wouldn’t that be nice? Big rewards with little or no effort? The old paradigm used to be work hard and eventually you’ll make it. Now it’s be famous for doing nothing. They want the life of heirs and heiresses. I want to just say, grow up! — Er… or more spiritually say, we need to leave room for God to disrupt our lives. We’re all ordinary people called to be heroes who have all of God’s resources to fulfill that calling. But if we really want to be real heroes, we have to decide if this seemingly impossible mission of God is worth giving everything up for. At some point, we need to confront our hypocrisies – what do we desire more?
The Post Gen Y Generation (11-13 in 2008, born in 1995-1997) is in formation right now. We’ve yet to know what they’re attitudes will be as they are being shaped by a world that offers no easy answers. I think they will be a conservative generation. They know their world has limits.
How will we shape theology and minister to them?
Have we even started that discussion in the church yet? Oh, I’m 10yrs too early.
Related Posts
Apple Love and Gen Y
Links
Gen Y Myths Debunked
Biblical Theological Seminary leading the way in teaching Missional Theology is hosting a conference addressing theological and practical challenges for the future of the missional church. Additionally this conference will feature the installation ceremony of John R. Franke as the Lester and Kay Clemens Professor of Missional Theology. Franke’s seminal work Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context is essential reading for you ministry geeks. This event features leading practitioners and scholars in the missional conversation: Darrell Guder [Also must read: The Missional Church &
The Continuing Conversion of the Church] – Tim Keel – John Franke – Brian McLaren – Scot McKnight – David Dunbar
Friday, October 10, 2008
1:00pm – 9:00pm
Biblical Seminary 200 N. Main Street, Hatfield, PA
LOOK WHO’S ON THE BIBLICAL WEBSITE!
So Obama’s decided who the next VP would be and he had this to say;
Quick Thought:
What if OBC/Senior Pastors used the same philosophy for how they consider and partner with EM/ABC pastors?
Questions to consider. Link to Al Hsu’s (pronounced shee) post from The Suburban Christian.
Part 1: Exploring Your Suburban Context
Describe your suburban context, where you live/work/worship/minister. How did you come to live here? What brought you to the area?
What would you say is distinctive about your particular location? Consider these cultural cues:
· What institutions are important in your suburban area? Commercial, governmental, nonprofit, educational, entertainment, etc.?
· What major employers are based in your area?
· What kinds of local festivals or community events are held in your area?
· What different kinds of residents live in your area? Where do they live?
· Why do people move to your local suburb rather than others?
· How is your particular suburb different from others nearby?
What are the needs of your suburban area? Assess the “as is.” Consider physical, economic, social, emotional, relational, spiritual dimensions.
What would your suburb look like if the kingdom of God became more manifest there? What problems might be alleviated? How would your suburb be different?
What is your vision for your suburb, your neighborhood, your community? Describe the “could be.”
Part 2: Identifying Your Church’s Role
Why do people come to your church? (If you don’t know, call some ordinary church members right now and ask them, “Out of all the churches in the area, why did you decide to visit our church? What made you stay?”)
Why do people leave your church?
What’s your church’s distinctive DNA? How is it different from other churches in your area?
What does your church do that other churches don’t do? What can your church do that other churches can’t do?
What do you wish your church could do? Is that hope anchored in reality?
Consider the “as is” and “could be” discussed in part 1. What is your church’s role in contributing toward this “could be”?
How can your church partner with other churches in moving toward this “could be”?
photo credit by phil of posterchildforgrace.blogspot.com
I just recently discovered Andrew Lim and this nice piece he wrote from down under.
Is your church more Chinese than Christian?
From the article, 7 key identifiers for when Ethnicity supersedes Christianity
1. When the church becomes an excuse for a social club for a particular ethnic group
2. When ethnic/cultural unity is more important than gospel unity.
3. When ethnic-cultural values override Biblical virtues and Biblical truth.
Formally put: “In the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, Jesus has given us a culture-transcending and a culture-transforming dynamic which confronts ethical categories of all societies and ethnic groups. The Gospel calls into question all social mores and moral codes.” Informally put: God’s virtues trump our values.
4. When church is restrictive and exclusive.
5. When church becomes insular and inward focused.
6. When church becomes homogeneous, rather than heterogeneous.
“People like to become Christians without having to cross racial, linguistic, or class barriers…It takes no great acumen to see that when marked differences of colour, stature, income, cleanliness, and education are present, men understand the gospel better when expounded by their own kind of people. They prefer to join churches whose members look, talk, and act like themselves.” (Understanding (1980), p. 227)
This states in brief what has become known as the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP). Although it sounds obvious to anyone involved in evangelism, it has had significant consequences for the church. It has influenced the development of many churches with a heart for mission. As churches move more towards making mission a priority, the more they will have to deal with cultural issues that interfere with or distort the gospel, and so the more the HUP appeals. The problem with this approach is that homogeneous evangelism tends to create a homogeneous church.
7. One Final Story St Andrew’s Cathedral and Asian Bible Church. You have to ask Andrew about what this means.
this isn’t anything new or profound. we need to be reminded that we’re all in danger of doing these things whether we’re ethnic based or not.
Rev. Rodney Woo
Interesting CNN cover story yesterday on interracial churches and “Why Many Americans Prefer Their Sundays Segregated.” Good read.
Some great highlights:
What was he was going to do if more of “them” tried to join their church?
The article cites Rev. Rodney Woo, who is partly Chinese, showing a very Third Culture approach on his part. There was fear that more Asians would flood the church because of his last name but according to the article it seems like that’s far from reality. I wonder if there are Asians in his church? My guess is that if they go or don’t go it probably has nothing to do with Woo’s last name. The reverend doesn’t look very Chinese to me. Not a knock on him but just a statement that perhaps the reason why people (Asians) go or don’t go has little to do with his last name but it may be an issue for non-Asians.
The Rev. Rodney Woo, senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, may be such a person. He leads a congregation of blacks, whites and Latinos. Like many leaders of interracial churches, he is driven in part by a personal awakening.
Woo’s mother is white, and his father is part Chinese. He attended an all-black high school growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, where he still remembers what it was like to be a minority.
“Everyone understands the rules, the lingo, the mind-set — except you,” he says. “It was invaluable, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
When he became pastor of Wilcrest in 1992, he was determined to shield his church members from such an experience. But an exodus of whites, commonly referred to as “white flight” was already taking place in the neighborhood and the church.Membership fell to about 200 people. At least one church member suggested that Woo could change the church’s fortunes by adding a “d” to his last name.
“The fear there was people would think I was Chinese,” he says. “There would be a flood of all these Asians coming in, and what would we do then?”
Woo kept his last name and his vision. He made racial diversity part of the church’s mission statement. He preached it from the pulpit and lived it in his life. He says Wilcrest now has about 500 members, and is evenly divided among white, Latino and black members.Woo doesn’t say his church has resolved all of its racial tensions. There are spats over music, length of service, even how to address Woo. Blacks prefer to address him more formally, while whites prefer to call him by his first name, (a sign of disrespect in black church culture), Woo says.
Woo tries to defuse the tension by offering something for everyone: gospel and traditional music, an integrated pastoral staff, “down-home” preaching and a more refined sermon at times.But he knows it’s not enough. And he’s all right with that.
“If there’s not any tension, we probably haven’t done too well,” he says. “If one group feels too comfortable, we’ve probably neglected another group.”
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