ie:missional

Last week my friend Matt McGee of the Duke Law School emailed me with an interesting chart tracking the total membership of SBC churches as a percentage of the United States population since 1971. After seeing his work (the top line in the graph), I asked him to check the total attendance figures for the UMC (US members, second line), the ELCA (yellow line), and the PCUSA (purple line). It is plain to see that, as a percentage of total US population, the SBC has been in nearly unceasing decline since about 1985. Keeping in mind that “active membership” is only about twenty-five percent of reported membership, it appears that current active SBC membership represents about 1.3% of the U.S. population. With that as a backdrop…

By most reputable accounts we are entering or are already into an economic slowdown that will almost certainly turn into a recession. The housing market collapse in much of the country, the burst of the sub-prime mortgage bubble and related financial market uncertainty will take our country into places unknown to people under the age of 20. Writing in the March/April 2008 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Nouriel Roubini gives five falling dominoes which will lead to a “financial pandemic”: a drop in trade, the weakening of the dollar, worldwide bursts of housing bubbles (already happening in France, Greece, Hungary and Italy, on the verge in Britain, Ireland and Spain), falling commodity prices (projected to happen as the economies of the U.S. and China slow, though drops in oil and grain prices would be welcomed), and faltering financial confidence. He summarizes,

During the last recession, the United States underwent a nearly 6 percent change in fiscal policy, from a very large surplus of about 2.5 percent of GDP in 2000 to a large deficit of about 3.2 percent of GDP in 2004. But this time, the United States is already running a large structural deficit, and the room for fiscal stimulus is only 1 percent of GDP…President Bush’s fiscal stimulus package is too small to make a major difference today, and what the Fed is doing now is too little, too late. It will take years to resolve the problems that led to this crisis.

The Economist seems to agree. A lead story in the May 3-9, 2008 issue says:

The malaise that started the crisis-the American housing market-is still getting worse. The month-on-month decline in the Case-Shiller index of house prices in 20 large cities is accelerating; on the latest reckoning, it was down by 12.7% over the 12 months to February 29th.

Also, this:

After a long period with scarcely any bond defaults by companies, there have been 21 failures this year, according to Standard & Poor’s, a rating agency; some 122 issuers, with debt of around $102 billion, are deemed vulnerable to default. Ominously, corporate debt is the shaky foundation for trillions of dollars of derivative contracts.

Consumer confidence is in the tank and both individuals and churches will soon begin, if they have not already done so, making the difficult choices about which budget items will stay and which ones will go. Add to this (at least in the SBC) Dr. Frank Page’s warning that 1/2 of all SBC churches will close by the year 2030. Do we really think that 22,000 churches will suddenly call it quits on December 31, 2029? No, there will be a consistent downward slide as aging churches, refusing to move to a missional mindset, simply die away with neither pastor nor members to keep them alive. This recession may prove to be more than scores of small churches of all denominations can weather.

Many churches that do survive will, for the first time, begin to scrutinize their support of their denominational structure. They will begin asking about waste, mismanagement, bureaucratic overlap, and redundant ministries concluding that far, far too much of their donated funds are not making it to benevolent ministry, education or missionaries, but are going to support a structure. Many will conclude, as many already have, that if the only vision offered is to “keep Denominationalism alive” then it will no longer hold any appeal. (I recognize that giving has bounced back from recessions of the past, but during those times there were no legitimate options for “doing missions” except the denominational structures; that has now changed.)

Denominations’ tenuous relationship with technology will exacerbate the situation going into and leading out of the economic downturn. Most denominations would be satisfied to have their annual sessions broadcast live via streaming video and that would be fine…for a year or two. Why is it so stinkin’ difficult to grasp the concept of satellite feeds to multiple locations?

Way back when Dr. Jimmy Draper alerted the Southern Baptist Convention that the “younger leaders leaving the SBC” was at the “Severe” level, one of the commonly seen online suggestions was the exploration of multiple meeting sites and the ability to vote either online or at a satellite site. The ignoring of the money saving suggestions will come to haunt any denomination as a generation arises that is hardwired for efficient spending of Kingdom dollars. Through a video conferencing website called Genesys, I simulated an SBC meeting being held in Denver. The total estimated costs of video conferencing 7,000 delegates was about 17% of the cost of flying from various U.S. cities to Denver, saving an accumulated 31 years of cumulative travel time and 8,555 metric tons of carbon footprints.

The former print mag, Business 2.0 (now online here), in an August 2007 article entitled, “The Rise of the White Collar Nomad,” told of Anthony Page and Simon LePine, among others, who had ditched their offices (and sometimes homes) to spend the majority of their working hours out of doors. Armed with a laptop and a few hundred dollars worth of wireless connectivity equipment, these folks have taken moofing to a whole new level. Their offices were the entire outdoors. Mountains, lakes, London, Canada, India, they simply live where they want at the time, get paid through Pay Pal or other online account and see as much of the world as they desire. Sure, most of them are in consulting or sales, but it is technology that makes this wireless lifestyle possible. The same kind of technology could, and should, be helping denominations make better use of kingdom funds.

The Siemens corporation, as reported in Fast Company, September 2007, is working on a wireless check-in system for airports by which there would be no paper ticket, no kiosks, no boarding passes, only a bar code downloaded to your cell phone scanned at the gate and presto, you’d be good to go. Wouldn’t that be nice at the annual meeting? New Bethany’s partnership in Siberia is going to be strengthened as the M there takes advantage of a satellite connection that will allow video conferencing. Last year we hosted, via Skype, our missionary in Eastern Europe who actually taught three sessions through the video hookup and cost us absolutely nothing. Completely free. This while many M’s routinely have monthly meetings requiring multiple day excursions from their country of ministry. Some Regional Leadership even fly back to the states for meetings that could easily be held online or via satellite saving their denominations thousands and thousands of dollars.

Trustee meetings, board meetings, Executive Committee meetings (state and national) could all be streamlined and made much more efficient if advantage was taken of existing and developing technologies. In the Southern Baptist Convention alone, the six yearly meetings of one entity’s trustee board costs $500,000 of Cooperative Program missions giving. With almost no effort, change could take place immediately. But it will not and we all know it.

Instead, denominations will hunker down and try to ride out the coming economic storms. (In fairness, per capita SBC giving has been increasing over the past few years. IMO, that trend will change within five years.) As they prove more inflexible structurally and wasteful economically, churches of all sizes will conclude that money given to support the inherent denominational bureaucracies is no longer good stewardship of God’s money.

Ten months ago when I began this blog, I purposed not to engage in discussion about the denomination in which I have pastored, the Southern Baptist Convention, unless it crossed paths with a subject about which I was writing. This is one of those times.

A recent report from missiologist Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Christian Resources indicated that the Southern Baptist Convention, once characterized (because of its cultural dominance) as the Roman Catholic Church of the southern United States, has entered a downward trend of growth which, he predicts, may not turn around. If you are among those who haven’t yet, you can read the initial report here and the follow up article here.

As would have been expected, the report was hailed in some places (see Ed’s comment threads) and questioned in others. The question that does not seem to have been asked during this is simple: Has the time for heavily organized, bureaucratically inefficient denominational structures passed? My thesis is a simple one and flows from what I see happening:

The era of denominationalism is ending, therefore, time and energy spent attempting to revive them is not redeemed time.

Rather than reviving them, we should be having a planned euthanization. I will not be arguing “post-denominational” in the sense of personal preference or lack thereof, but “Post-Denominationalism” in the sense of no SBC, UMC, PCUSA, etc.

Though Stetzer’s commentary is specific to growth patterns in the SBC, all other denominations in the United States are and have been in decline with the single exception of the Assemblies of God which counts but 2.8 million members (2005). Even the respected National Association of Evangelicals has lost some of its luster since the fall of Ted Haggard, though, as we will see, it never had quite as much luster as was thought. Regardless of the denomination none have matched, via conversions, the growth rate of the population (excepting possibly the AoG), so in percentage of population terms all American denominations have been in decline for decades. At best, a few denominations have grown at the expense of others, the common scenario known as “swapping sheep.”

Is the motivation to “save the denomination” a good enough motivation to go into hyper-drive in funds promoting or doomsday scenarios? I don’t think so. When Jesus said to the people of Jerusalem, “Behold, your house [the temple] has been left to you desolate,” He was warning them that there system of belief was coming to an end. There were no more sacrifices needed, no more pouring out of animal blood, no more Day of Atonement; it was over. Their mistake was that they continued to cling to a structure that God Himself had abandoned. Shall we repeat the same mistake?

Writing with an eye to the Southern Baptist Convention, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary prof, Nathan Finn, recently asked:

So does the SBC have a future? It depends upon what you mean by “future.” I suspect the name will be used by some Baptists until Christ comes back. I also think the people called Southern Baptists will always have denominational entities that they financially support. So in one sense, I remain confident that Southern Baptists are here to stay. But if by “future” one means a vital existence in God’s economy, I have my doubts. Collectively, I fear we are too insular, too sectarian, too pugnacious, too “Southern,” too reactionary, too pragmatic, and for sure too proud to have any real future.

While I appreciate Nathan’s balanced thinking, I, for one, am not convinced that any denomination is here to stay and am convinced that the era, like the telegraph, is passing into the historical record and that we have entered the Post-Denominational (PD) era.

Commenting on Ed Stetzer’s original post, SEBTS prof Alvin Reid noted,

For several semesters I have asked our students “how many of you came from an SBC church?” The vast majority. Then I ask, “How many of you want to go back and serve a church just like that?” Almost none. These are seminarians, the ones we still have, and they see a serious need for change. Again, this is anecdotal and simplistic, but here is another idea–have someone do a survey of current seminarians to find out who they listen to on podcasts? Might be revealing.

This is not merely true of the SBC as other denominations are dealing with the same issues. No one is important enough to have cornered the market here.

Also responding to Stetzer was SEBTS president, Danny Akin, who said,

I could not agree with your assessment more! I go to bed thinking about this every night and wake up the same.We are in serious trouble. Our denomination is at a crisis moment and we will either repent, seek the forgiveness and mercy of God and perhaps experience a true and genuine revival from our Lord, or we will continue our present course and simply fade away with the Lord Jesus justly removing His hand of blessing.

But what if no amount of repentance and seeking of forgiveness will bring revival and revitalization to the SBC or any other denomination? What if, like the sacrificial system, their time has run it’s course and God is preparing a new thing? I pray that it will be embraced rather than feared.

Over the next few posts, I will be exploring why I think we will continue down the road toward a Post-Denominationalism world. We’ll see that the SBC and evangelicals have not had either the numbers or the power that we’ve thought and will continue to lose both in the US; that the Kingdom of God is shifting again (as it has before) this time from dominance in the West; and that technology has rendered the need for heavily bureaucratic, densely centralized, financially profligate organizational structures obsolete and that the lessening of the influence of denominations in culture will be inversely proportional to the influence of local churches networking in culture.

My friend Richard Mark Lee at First Baptist Sugar Hill, GA, (“The Family Church”) lit it up yesterday with a message seeking forgiveness from those in society for the church’s judgmental attitude. It was called, “We’re Sorry, Really.”

You can read about it here, from Joe Westbury of the Christian Index, or listen here.

Great job, Richard!

A while back I wrote of our opportunity at Lake Lanier Islands Magical Nights of Lights. All the performances are now behind us, so I can reflect on them in hindsight.

The first weekend had weather that could not have been more perfectly ordered. The Saturday night performances (there were four each night) had short-sleeved audiences as the temps stayed in the mid-50’s until about 9:30. It was amazingly comfortable for the second week of December. It had also been dry the entire time which made stage construction and rehearsals go well.

Friday of the second weekend was picture perfect again for weather. The forecast in the first part of the week had not been encouraging, but God gave us fair weather again. Saturday night was when He chose to answer all those prayers for rain…again. It rained from the late afternoon virtually all through the performance times, so we were forced to cancel. Sunday was very, very cold, but we were able to do three performances before it dipped into the 20’s with a strong wind making it simply unbearable.

All in all we think we had somewhere north of 1,000 in attendance even with the cancellations and the bitter cold of the last night. Remarkably, some of the most encouraging comments came from the park employees themselves with whom we were able to interact repeatedly. We’ve been told that Lake Lanier Islands has received a large number of calls commending the performances and we’ve now been asked if we can do something for Easter Sunday.

I’m very, very grateful for such an amazing church–it is humbling to be in partnership with such a people. I’m also eternally thankful that God allows His people to be in partnership in the missio dei. Below are a couple of photos from a dress rehearsal (sunglasses notwithstanding) and you can check out my flickr slideshow–A Christmas Tale 2007. (If you’ve never viewed a flickr slideshow, click the “i” in the middle of the slide to activate any comments on the photo.)

Michael Chassner as a shepherd. You’ve never had chills until you’ve heard a Jewish believer in Jesus sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel! Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come to thee O Israel.”

Abigail Duren in performance costume standing in front of the “Christmas” banner.

Each year the resort known as Lake Lanier Islands, which is a mere 1 mile from our campus, hosts a very popular Christmas attraction called, “The Magical Nights of Lights.” Thousands upon thousands of people pack into cars, vans and buses and pay a hefty amount to drive through a million light display commemorating partridges in pear trees, elves, and the birth of Christ among other things. One feature of recent years has been a living Nativity Scene sponsored by a local church about 10 miles from us. I think that they do it nightly for about 3 weeks leading up to Christmas.

Last year for our New Bethany Christmas presentation, we did a musical drama called, A Christmas Tale, which won rave reviews from our church. The house was pretty full for the three nights that we held it. This year, as a result of the vision of our Worship Pastor, Dan Brothers, we will be doing 24 performances of A Christmas Tale at the Magical Nights of Lights–four performances a night for two consecutive Fri-Sun weekends. A total of three casts, a choir and live band (not to mention sound and lighting personnel and more than 30 volunteers for greeting and inviting). Our performance area will be across from the area known as, Santa’s Workshop, the home of shops, eats and the Holiday Carnival which is a small amusement ride area. Performances have been promoted both in the local news paper and yesterday on the morning show of on of the major Atlanta news channels.

This type of ministry opportunity is exactly what we are regularly hoping to do–it’s outside the walls, it’s different from what people expect and it speaks the cultural language.  We really don’t have any idea what to expect as far as crowds go; we could play for as few as 25 or to a full house (about 300 portable chairs) at each performance.  Our hope is that by being where people are that the glory of God will be displayed and the gospel declared in a way that breaks down barriers, overcomes disillusionment and plants seeds in the lives of many.  Who knows, we might even get to experience a harvest!

I returned Tuesday afternoon from dropping of one of our M’s at the airport, which was the official close of our Mission Conference on Sunday. Our first one that we have done during my pastorate, we did a simple all day Sunday meeting with lunch provided and breakout sessions. We were blessed to have Joe and Linda from Townsend, TN, who are resort M’s with NAMB, Tara Jonick and Cheryl Elkins both of whom minister in “inner city” areas of Atlanta, Pastor Jay Juan (and his family) from 1st Papago Baptist Church in Sells, AZ, Joe W who lives in Belarus and Jim Capaldo and Scott Gilbert from T–a.

Jim brought our message on Sunday AM, beginning by quoting the book of Titus.  The then elaborated on holistic evangelism using Paul’s emphasis on “good works” throughout the book as a basis.  It was exceptional.  Our meal and afternoon breakout sessions were well attended and I’ve heard nothing but good things in response.  A relatively new believer said to me this morning, “I’ve never really thought about the fact that there are people in the world who don’t even know who God is.  I just took it for granted that everyone knew something about Him.”

Our adoption of the T—n people is moving forward and gaining speed.  We now have two churches partnering with us and I am talking with another pastor in a couple of weeks.  If you would like to discuss your church being a part of this network of churches, please let me know.  Ten to fifteen churches partnering together will make a difference in this entire people group.

A recent Christian Post article entitled Should Churches Tithe Membership to Reach the Lost? piqued my curiosity as it touched on some thoughts I had recently been turning over in my mind. From the article:

The IMB is urging Southern Baptists for 3,000 more active missionaries around the world for a total deployment of 8,000. There are currently 5,000 missionaries and 200 new missionaries are scheduled for dispatch to overseas mission fields in 2007-2008.”Adding 3,000 new missionaries might be a difficult task if we were starting out with no resources, but the truth is that those 3,000 new missionaries are already sitting in our churches, and the finances to support them are already in our pockets. It’s not a hard task,” Fort said at a Southern Baptist missionaries gathering last week, according to the IMB.

Questions: Are Americans best suited to serve as M’s in closed countries?

With the greatest transfer of wealth taking place in the current passing of generations, what does the influx of that money have to do with world mission?

What is the best use of that money?

What is a workable strategy when many willing people are in countries that have less affluence and less financial support?

Is the role of churches to provide M’s through agencies or to connect more directly?

Thoughts?  Anybody know where all of this is heading?

Without a doubt, one of the most exciting, passionate-for-the-kingdom churches I have ever attended is First Baptist Church of Campo Grande, Brazil. Located in the western state of Mato Grasso du Sol (South Mato Grosso, which borders both Paraguay and Bolivia), Campo Grande is a bustling city of 7-800,000. Near the city center is the campus of FBC, led by Senior Pastor, Gilson Breder.

Breder, pastor for the past 16 years, is a 54 year old with enough energy to power most of the city. He has both vision and passion to reach the lost in their city (primarily through cell groups), to plant churches and to send out missionaries, all of which they have done and are doing. My primary reason for going was to learn about their cell group ministry, but I received so much more.

Eight years ago, one of the pastoral staff, Pastor Leo, was burdened that the church could do a more effective job of evangelism and ministry if it moved to a cell group model. Beginning with a single cell group of leaders the church now fields 160 groups each week with a goal to begin 95 or so new groups within the next year. If there is one word that pervades the cell ministry it is multiplication-everyone talks about it. They truly understand that expanding the number of groups gives the most people ministry opportunities and creates more relational opportunities for evangelism. From 42 year old mission pastor Djalma Alberquerque to 29 year old cell leader Andrea to 23 year old leadership supervisor Yuri Breder to 18 year old cell leader Marissa, everyone knows that multiplying their group is the best opportunity to reach the teeming masses of Campo Grande.

Another thing that I learned is that at least one Brazilian church has learned to implement leadership principles while many American Christians are still debating whether business principles have any place in church. FBC Campo Grande is a leadership training machine. The leadership conference that was part of the weekend was attended (on average) by more than 10% of the normal attendance. Each of their 160 cell groups has an assistant leader that is being prepared to lead a group.

In the music ministry, multiplication is also a core value. Of the 5 or so sessions of the leadership conference, they never had the same praise team singers or band members twice. Not twice in a row, but twice! And, though the majority of attendees and participants are young and single, the entirety of the conference was attended by one particular lady who appeared to be in her 60’s along with her mother who was 92.

Prayer times both in cell groups and in the normal “worship service” are marked by passionate beseeching with tears flowing easily and pervasively across the room or auditorium. When I compare the many rote prayers of North American believers (often my own), I can see why God is so busy south of the equator. If you ever get a chance to visit FBC, I would encourage you to spend your annual convention money to go.

One story: The first time on the campus, I noticed a hippie-looking guy sitting outside the door selling trinkets (bracelets and anklets) that he had made. I thought, “That’s pretty cool that they allow him to do that and don’t run him off or call security on him.”

The next day we drove by and Pastor Gilson excitedly exclaimed over his shoulder, “Did you see the hippie?!” “Yes,” we responded. “He’s a believer in Jesus and a member of our church!” Sure enough, I was able to locate him in the crowd each session for the rest of the weekend. Later, they enlarged on the story. When “the hippie” got saved, the members of the church tried to get him job training and help him move up the ladder of social and economic productivity. His response was, “I could do that. But, if I do I will lose contact with my people. If I don’t reach them, who will?” His goal now is to go back and finish high school, then go to seminary and prepare to be a missionary in his culture.

Yes, Todd and I bought a bunch of stuff from him!

I thank God for the opportunity for this trip and for making provision for me to be able to go. I trust that our church will be able to implement some of the principles that were passed along and gain the passion for the lost that so many people at FBC Campo Grande have in their lives.