A few days ago, a friend from an Assemblies of God-oriented discussion group raised an interesting topic. Since I haven’t posted much here for a while, I thought I’d share my thoughts and joyfully invite your comments.

The Good Pagan

Carissa wrote:

« I think, and this is a lay person’s humble opinion, that a person can live a good moral life without knowing Christ as Savior. »

Amen, Carissa!

It’s a sad myth among us Christians that people can only act “good” by knowing Jesus when, in fact, Christianity is proof of the fact that good behavior is possible while not helpful at gaining eternal salvation. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus, he was not condemned by Jesus for bad behavior. The young man, in fact, kept all the commands since childhood. He said as much and Jesus, knowing his heart, did not call him a liar. But the law, for all its moral purity, is not enough because, as Jesus says, “No one is good — except God alone.” (See Mark 10:17-31.)

God has revealed himself not just in his Word but in creation as well, and many who do not believe in Jesus have perceived what is right and good through God’s general revelation. God has given a great deal of truth, knowledge, and wisdom to unbelievers, and we benefit from it every day.

When I fly safely thousands of feet in the air via a sturdy Boeing 747, I thank God for the pagans (and believers) who applied their knowledge to build that plane to fly safely. I thank God for their sense of ethics and morality in controlling quality and making constant inspections.

In short, I thank God there’s no such thing as a “Christian” airplane.

The better we understand this, the better and more winsome our conversations can be with unbelievers. I think.

Shortly after, Carissa followed up with some more thoughts, prompting me to pick up the keyboard again. …

Good People in Hell

When I wrote about the possibility of unbelieving folk exhibiting good moral behavior and enjoying God’s “common grace,” Carissa responded:

« There’s a friend of mine that refuses to believe in Jesus or God for that very reason. If you can live a good and moral life without Him, then why do you need Him? Especially with all the negative connotation “Christians” have on themselves. He also has a hard time with the fact that God sends “good, moral” people to hell. With as much love as I could, I explained that God doesn’t send people there, they chose to go there through His gift of free will. »

Sounds like you’ve had some great conversations! Keep them up.

True, individual Christians don’t always fare all that well when compared to individual pagans. Some believers act worse than some unbelievers. Some Christians, in fact, exhibit frankly evil attitudes and behaviors (just read the newspapers). We’ve all known believers who’ve cheated on their spouses, who’ve stolen, who cheat on taxes, who engage in risky behaviors, and who are addicted to vices. And yet we’ve all known unbelievers who are faithful to their spouses, who shrink at the thought of stealing, who pay their taxes honestly, who enjoy wise lifestyle choices, and who conscientiously abstain from alcohol, wacky tobacky, or thriftily avoiding gambling on the state lottery.

In any given church there are likely a handful (or more!) in whom we would be hard pressed to identify any holy behavior beyond that of appearing in church relatively sober and even-tempered on Sunday morning while a trip to the local pub might reveal a handful (or more) of relatively sober and even-tempered patrons who would be a joyful addition to any church’s membership roster. (Save for the fact that they don’t mind hoisting a tankard or two now and then. (Count among them C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, who met regularly at local pubs with their friends, The Inklings, to talk theology while swilling brew and inhaling smoke.)

But Jesus didn’t die on the cross, suffer the pain of our sin and separation from his Father, and rise again three days later so we could be paragons of moral virtue for our neighbors. He didn’t save us to be good — he saved us despite our paltry attempts at goodness. Our goodness doesn’t count for much. For no matter how good our best behavior is it is never ever good enough. Not when compared to the pure, unadulterated, undiluted, pristine infinity of God’s absolute, burning holiness.

That is not hyperbole.

Even the most faithful husband is guilty of moral adultery in his heart. Even the most even-tempered peace-nick is guilty of murder in his heart. Even the most honest policeman is guilty of theft via his heart’s jealousy. And the most abstemious tee-totaling librarian is guilty of the secret vice of addiction to the drug of self-conceit. Only God is truly holy. Only god is truly good. And the detritus of our holiest ambitions are steaming piles of rotten carnage when compared to the solar brilliance of God’s fiery righteousness. In his presence the holiest of all of mankind’s venerated saints would burn to a crisp without the protection of Jesus’ grace and protection.

What I most need reminding of when I start feeling good about my own efforts and my own false sense of purity is that Jesus’ sacrifice and victory over death doesn’t save me from Hell — it saves me from God himself. For without the debt of my moral bankruptcy being forgiven in full by God through Jesus, my eternal death would be the price I would pay upon entering eternity.

God’s holiness suffers no sin. In his presence sin will not be tolerated — the very hint of it would result in destruction. Only by submitting to the covering of the sacrifice and blood of Jesus will I be admitted into his presence. His death “covers” my debt. His sacrifice doesn’t magically make me good: it mercifully loans me his goodness.

The rest (being good) I must learn, with the help of the Holy Spirit, constant training, meditation on the Word, worship, prayer, service, and fellowship. That’s what discipleship is. That’s what sanctification is. That’s what growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is. Hopefully, by God’s grace, in ten years I’ll be a “better” man, closer to being like Jesus, than I am now. That doesn’t make be a bad Christian now, or less likely to enjoy Heaven. It just makes me “on the way.” And that’s true for the new believer, the old believer, and the scarily ineffective believer who still does bad things while burning up grace minute-by-minute. (That’s me, by the way.)

In the scale of things, when compared to God’s purity, I am no more clean and worthy of eternal joy — now, or ever — than is bin Laden, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, or Dahmer. Sure, compared to them, I look great. But on my own and compared to God, I’m in their league, not his.

You’re right. God doesn’t send “good” people to hell. They’re already there. It’s only by his grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy that we are saved from life without God by God himself.

May I ever be mindful of his grace and mercy.

Finally, there were a couple follow-up emails that I had missed and failed to respond to in my previous post, so I rounded them up and sent one final email.

As a follow-up to my recent post, I realized there were a couple other comments I wanted to chime in on, please forgive me if I act like I “have all the answers.” I don’t, but I do have a perspective, and I hope it helps.

Conversation with Good, Happy Pagans

Last Tuesday, March 11, Steven wrote:

« I’ve found that the “good” and the “moral” are the hardest to witness to. They don’t see their need for a Savior. Anybody else found that to be true? »

And Carissa followed almost immediately with agreement:

« Definitely… To be honest, I was kind of at a loss when my friend pulled that card. All I could think was, Jesus makes it better. »

Good Hypocrisy

I think it’s not the morally “good” people that are the hardest to talk to about faith. Rather, I think the morally “self-righteous” seem hardest to talk to — and that’s true whether they are believers or not. And when you read the gospel accounts, the morally self-righteous are the ones Jesus spoke most harshly to. Self-righteousness comes in many forms, I guess, but the worst are the religiously self-righteous, and they need to be help as much as the happily unchurched “good” folk do. Why? Because it seems the zealously good self-righteous crowd will be the the most surprised on the Day of Judgment. They will remind Jesus of the good things they’ve done in his name, the sacrifices they’ve made, and the moral acts they’ve performed. Instead, Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

You’ll find that text in Matthew chapter 7. Interesting, that’s also the passage where Jesus makes the point that everybody knows, basically, how to be good, but that God is even better. He illustrates this by saying, “Look, compared to God, you’re evil — but even so, you know how to be good to your children. When your son asks for bread, you don’t hand him a rock to eat. God does even better than that!” (My paraphrase. See Matthew 7:9 and following.)

But their moral goodness toward their children, as I mentioned earlier, doesn’t count for much in the eternal scale of things because, in the end, only those who do the will of the Father in heaven will be counted as inheritors of heaven. What is the will of the Father? It’s not only obedience to his commands — his will is that everyone call on his name, repent, and confess Jesus Christ as Lord of their total life (John 6:40, Mark 1:15, Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3, Acts 3:19, Acts 17:30, Romans 10:9-10, 1 John 1:9).

Done vs. Do

See, the self-righteous believe that it’s what one does that earns a way into heaven. But alone among all religions stands Christianity teaching that nothing we do earns us eternal life. It’s only what has been done by Christ that works. All the rest, our obedience, flows from that, but even then it’s not to our credit for it is God who works in us and through us to do his will. (Philippians 2:12 and following.)

How Do We Know What Is Good?

For discussion with unbelievers, I believe it’s good to discuss the reality of good and evil to help introduce God’s goodness and what he considers evil. What’s great about this is that unless you’re a committed materialistic humanist who believes that all of life is merely “molecules in motion,” that we are simply advanced forms of protoplasm, then a belief in the moral good has to have something that informs it.

In other words, if we are simply massive collections of molecules, then ideas such as good or evil, right or wrong, or beauty and ugliness have no real meaning. If we are mere matter and nothing more, then it makes no difference whether you murder or love me, all that would matter is whether murdering or loving was useful for the moment. For the committed materialistic humans, there is no more literal value on a person’s life than a rat’s. Fortunately, few people outside academia or death-row are that fully committed to materialistic humanism: it takes a sociopath to truly believe that.

So, the good news is that since your friend believes in good and evil, half your work is already done. The question that you can wrestle with together is this: Where does he get his ideas of good and evil from? What justifies his belief that, say, murdering an innocent person is wrong while feeding the poor is good? How does he make this judgment? If goodness, beauty, and decency are to have any meaning at all, if there is some sort of moral law underpinning our codes of conduct, then where did we get this law from? Who, then, is the law giver? If your friend has ever experienced guilt, shame, or regret, ask him why? What made him feel this way? Would his life be better off if nobody ever felt guilt or shame from wrongdoing? What kind of a world would that be like? On the other hand, what kind of a world has rules for what’s good and bad and where violators are expected to feel remorse? And how would that kind of world merely evolve into being?

If God Is Good, Then…

If God, who created all these molecules, is the source of this universal moral code, then it makes sense to find out what his expectations are. And now! And, I believe, only Christianity points the way. Only Christianity describes a law-giver who not only created the universe and all that is in it, but also condescended to reveal himself to his creation not only generally, through nature and our own innate sense of right and wrong, but also specifically through revealed writings (the Bible), and personally in the person of Jesus Christ.

Further, in all other religions, what one does is the measure of one’s worthiness of reward. Only in Christianity is God the one who acts on our behalf to save us from the effects of sin. Only in Christianity is man seen as innately flawed and incapable of self-redemption. That’s why in nations influenced and shaped by Christianity, you’ll see checks and balances on power because Christianity recognizes that man is innately flawed and susceptible to evil. And that’s why when any other religious system is in political power in a nation, despots rise up and great evil follows. We only have to look at the Middle East to see this truth.

Embrace Doubt, Then Examine It

Finally, your friend’s doubts are healthy. But it might be helpful to talk about how his belief system is itself informed by leaps of “faith” that are essentially presuppositions and assumptions. For instance, in his view, people are (probably) basically good and that left to their own devices, people will usually make good choices. However, the reality is that people are heavily driven by self-interest and will often make bad choices, especially when manipulated by the need to be accepted, loved, praised, respected, followed, or feared. A number of psychological studies have shown this to be true, from subjects who thought they were giving volunteers electrical shocks to other subjects who abused “prisoners” in campus experiments conducted in the last century.

More…

There’s more that could be written on this, but I’ve already written too much. I encourage you to seek out Tim Kellers’ book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism and C.S. Lewis’ classic Mere Christianity. I understand Chuck Colson’s recent book, The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters, also covers this ground nicely, though I haven’t read it yet. Also, noted and influential (former) atheist Antony Flew, after decades of leading the charge against Christianity, recently converted to Theism and now accepts the possibility that there is a God. He’s not fully Christian (yet!) but his account of his “conversion” may be helpful, it’s titled, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Regards,

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Wherein I describe my first day on the job after a harrowing 14-month unemployment ordeal.

So, there hasn’t been much news on this blog lately, mostly because I’ve been busy, I’ve been distracted, and I’ve been unemployed. Somehow, not having a job makes me less productive in my blogging alter-life. Go figure.

Here’s the news: I’ve been hired!

I didn’t want to spend a lot of time talking about interviews and possibilities and potentialities, getting hopes up, and boring you with my uneven work possibilities. But after leaving Tennessee just before Christmas, I contacted Zondervan for a new open position I’d found on their website: Senior Editorial Manager. I expressed my interest.

Then I moved. Jennifer and the kids and I packed up and moved to Muskegon to live with my father-in-law while we sorted things out, worked on selling the house, and licked our wounds.

By the end of the month, I had a nibble from Zondervan. Then, in February, I got an interview. Then I was called back for more interviews. Then, finally, I got … the call.

March 10, today, was my first day on the job.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Yet, anyhow. As far as I can tell from the conversations I’ve had and the job description I’ve seen, I’m going to be a project manager/expediter for anything and everything produced by Zondervan’s Curriculum, Academic, Reference, and Resource division as well as their digital/online division. If it’s going to be a product, I’ll be pushing it through the system. I won’t be editing. Rather, I’ll be managing the stuff that editors are working on.

It’s a big job, but I’m happy to do it, and I’ll be learning a lot over the next few months, not only about the job itself, but about Zondervan, its 75+ year history, and its highly refined publishing process.

Word to the wise: Zondervan looks to be a great company to work for. Their benefits are phenomenal and their employee culture is great. Everybody is friendlier than tame puppies, and they’ve bent over backwards to make me feel really wanted and celebrated at the company.

Thanks to all who prayed for us and kept sending us helpful suggestions and encouragement. It has been hugely appreciated. We’re not entirely out of the woods yet: we still have accumulated debt, a house to sell, untreated medical stuff, and the need to move into our own home. But apart from that, God is really blessing us!

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I couldn’t let the day end without wishing all of you a happy new year! Welcome to 2008!

I am safely tucked away in Michigan right now. My family secure and housing provided. Work has already begun to find work.

It’s going to be a good year. I’ll keep you updated.

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Hi, all.

First off, I apologize for not spending much time in this space over the past couple of months.

If you’ve followed my blog activities (and inactivity!), you know that on October 22, I accepted a position as marketing and media director at one of the Assemblies of God’s 100 largest churches. I was thrilled not only to have a job but to be in a position that required top-notch creativity and performance from many areas of my skill site — and many areas I was eager to acquire new skills in.

As marketing and media director I designed several promotional and in-house printed pieces, I wrote press releases, I worked with vendors, I approved and gave guidance for the video and broadcast editing (though not much of that because my staff was not only skilled but very professional and surpassed my knowledge in many ways). My team struggled with print deadlines, malfunctioning and aging equipment, and volatile tempers. I raised the visibility of my overworked team’s plight (loads of stress and too much work), and asked a lot of questions. I didn’t always like the answers, but my job wasn’t to change the church, but to understand it first.

Unfortunately, I failed to understand many things quickly enough and I now find myself looking for work once again after the single shortest tenure at any job I’ve ever held in my short, if rotund, life.

But, fortunately, my hasty departure from the church is not due to any sort of illegal, unethical, or moral wrongdoing. Instead, I chalk it up to a severe failure to communicate on my part. Which is ironic, really, since communication was my … err … job. (Big failure on my part.) As the pastor noted when he released me, my personality was not a good fit for the church.

Upon tearful reflection, we are agreed.

So, once more into the breach. My family and I will covet your prayers yet once more. We are packing up to move to Michigan where we will live with family while we wait for our Chicago home to sell and try to find gainful employment again.

Regards,

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Wherein my wife and I describe a day without meds, without sleep, and concluding with a horse tranquilizer. For AJ, that is.,

Intro

So my son has a pretty severe case of ADHD. And lest you nay-sayers pooh-pooh that notion, let me say that even when merely undermedicated both his pediatrician and psychiatrist remark that his is one of the more extreme cases of hyperactivity they’ve ever seen. Yet when properly medicated with methamphetamine salts he’s calm, collected, and controlled. (Mostly.) When completely off his meds? He’s a a wildcat on crank. But once in a while, even under meds, AJ will space out for a few seconds and lose time, lose his thread of thought, and just stare off into space. When he resumes he carries on with whatever catches his attention first. The docs thought, at first, that this would pass with time. But, really, it hasn’t.

So his doctor finally decided to prescribe an EEG for our little boy, just to check on things. But, thing is, the EEG requires that he be sleep-drived, hungry, thirsty, and completely unmedicated.

Boy, what a trip!

Here’s what my wife has to say about the day.

Jennifer’s Tale

So, Thursday I woke AJ up for school at 8:00 am. Went to school, came home, day goes on … time for bed. But I couldn’t give him his sleeping pill per Dr.’s orders. So, at 9:00 pm he’s in bed. At 4:00 am, we planned to wake him up because they wanted him sleep-deprived. But — he still wasn’t asleep!!!!

So, I took him downstairs where he ran around and goofed-off and played computer puzzles and made random noises with his mouth non-stop for the next 2 hours. Finally, I woke up Rich to take the next shift. He reports the same behaviour. Finally, around 7:30 am, they went to McDonalds where AJ had his breakfast and then ran around the playroom like a wild animal until it was time to come home at 11:00 am — still full of energy and random noise.

At 11:30 pm, we left for the hospital. Prior to driving there I was worried he’d fall asleep, but noo … Instead, I heard, “Mom why  … ” fill in the question with anything you can imagine. He talked non-stop all the way to the hospital.

12:15 pm: AJ’s now been awake for 28 hours. Is he slowing down? No. Speeding up.

Run, skip, walk backwards, somersault, hop hop hop, wiggle wiggle, run jump climb hop run — all the while explaining to anyone who wanders by how lighting strikes work, the reason people get shocks when they touch something metallic, how positive and negative electrons attract and reject each other  … and so on.

1:00 pm: 29 hours awake. … We get to his hospital room which has a bed. He quickly figures out that it has a brake to stop it from rolling, turned that off and starts jumping on the bed at an angle to get to speed across the room. Weeeeeeee! “What’s this?” “What’s that?” How why who what hop hop skip fly climb jump roll the bed hop karate jump and, of course, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

2:15 pm: 30 hours awake. Still blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Run jump hop skip. Bounce off the walls. Literally.

Finally they come in and give him the sedative. It takes 20 minutes before he starts to calm down and a little longer before he finally falls to sleep at 2:45.

They hook him up to all the wires (there was no way they could do it before with him vibrating like a Ronco bread knife) and watch him until about 3:30. “Now we’re going to wake him and he’ll be groggy, but we want to watch his brain in a wakeful state.”

So, the technician, the nurse and I start rubbing his arms. “AJ AJ AJ!” There is no response at all. All the monitors said he was fine. But he was totally and completely unconscious. We poured cold water on his head and there was no response that we could see, although his heart rate shot from 78 to 120. Yet as soon as the shock was over, it settled in the 80s.

So, we let him sleep another 30 minutes. Tried again. In order to leave the hospital, he had to eat, drink and open his eyes. But, he couldn’t talk and when he tried to, it sounded like a wounded animal screaming. Drool everywhere. Finally got a cracker in his hand and told him to eat it. Eyes still closed, his hands both shoot up toward his face, the cracker goes flying and both hands hit his forehead. It seems there was no small muscle coordination. (Yes, you may laugh — we certainly were.) We’d stand him up and walk him up and down the hallway. He’d screech with every step, and cold barely hold his own weight. The nurses named him “Our little drunken sailor.”

Now, don’t “poor AJ” yet, because they said this was mostly normal. Kids wake up hard from this stuff and he likely won’t remember any of it.

Back to the room, more pouring cold water over him … After an hour, the nurses said it’s no longer normal and they called the doctor on call. He took a look at what was going on, saw that AJ had been awake for 30 hours and told us to forget trying to wake him up. Did a bunch of tests and said he was fine. Tired. Very, very tired, but he was fine and it was safe to take him home.

It’s 6:40. He’s still sleeping.

We’ll know results in a few days or weeks. Depending on when the doctor gets them and calls us. We have an appointment in the 3rd week of October, so we’ll know for sure by then.

Conclusion

This is Rich again. Finally, at 7:30 or so I finally managed to annoy AJ enough that he woke up. But it took poking, prodding, wet towels and, at last, a forced march out in the chill night air. I was certain the neighbors would call the police: at every step AJ wrenche and flailed and howled and cried like the most severely abused child in all of Chicagoland.

This, kids, is apparently what happens when you take chloral hydrate when you’re sleep deprived. What is chloral hydrate, you ask?

It’s a horse tranquilizer.

Well, among other things.

Why was AJ without sleep for over a full day? Because he has to take clonidine to counteract the effects of methamphetamine salts which counteract the hyperactivity he normally experiences. At night, when the clonidine kicks in, his normal sleepiness takes over, and he can pass out. Without it, he’ll stake awake and alert all night long. Literally. And since we were instructed by the docs to not give him any clonidine the night before. Well, we had one very hyperactive, unmedicated puppy the next day.

After getting him awake, though, he perked up for an hour, ate voraciously, then promptly passed out when we put him back to bed.

Hopefully, Saturday will get him back on track.

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This is my pre-published version of an article I wrote for Christianity Today International’s Resources department. It is part of a larger downloadable study exploring Church rental issues. Here, with the help of a few friends, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of renting worship space.

The urban landscape is becoming increasingly crowded — and expensive. While churches have been moving out of the city to the suburbs, the cites have been growing. The North American Misssion Board reports that nearly 6 out of 10 Americans live in the 50 largest cities. And while establishing a new congregation in a populous city context poses many challenges, the lack of affordable space for church property is one of the most daunting. Purchasing facilities for worship in most large cities, especially for a church plant, is often impossible. Thus, renting space is often the only tenable option. But which option do you choose?

Advantages to Renting

• Your ministry is “In the marketplace”
  As former urban churches grew larger and financially successful, many moved into the suburbs, creating a trend that left many cities without a significant ministry presence. Renting space allows you to keep your gathering place close to where people live and work.
• Renting takes advantage of the familiar and comfortable
  As Mark Batterson, pastor of a theater church in Washington, DC, notes, “Thousands of people already feel comfortable coming to National Community Church because they’ve been to the theaters before. We are familiar to them.”
• You avoid institutionalization
  Batterson notes that meeting in a rented theater helps keep his church feeling like a “movement,” and serves as a constant reminder that “church is not a building.”
• You are mobile
  As your church grows, you simply move to a larger facility. This, however, is largely dependant on the length of your rental contract’s term.
• Utilties included
  Depending on the lease, you don’t always have to cover utility expenses. Additionally, snow removal may be included if you rent a facility that’s already in use over the weekends, such as a theater church rental. However, if you rent from a school you will need to cover this cost yourself.
• Setup and break-down builds teams
  While the time needed to set up and break-down before and after the service can be a disadvantage, Jon Cawston, who currently pastors a theater church plant in Naperville, Illinois, reports that this can be a valuable team-building ministry for men. After moving to permanent facility from a high school rental, Cawston noted, “many of the 40-50 people who set up and tore down really struggled to find their place of ministry because their team had been disbanded.”

Disadvantages to Renting

• There’s not much you can change
  Your ability to permanently stage and modify your worship space can be severely dampened. You may not be able to stage productions and plays at all without using very minimal staging.
• Your community may perceive you as transitory
  John Lindell, pastor of James River Assembly in Springfield, MO, has pastored in a variety of rental facilities and notes that Midwesterners, in particular, view churches in leased facilities as being temporary. However, this may not be as big an issue in larger metropolitan areas.
• An army of volunteers not included
  Multi-use buildings, such as school auditoriums, require a lot of volunteers to setup and break-down before and after services. Lindell notes, if your church community includes a lot of children, providing facilities and equipment for early childhood and elementary school children can be difficult.
• No Equity
  What’s true for families is also true for churches: by renting you’re not investing in your own properties equity. However, this can still work to your advantage if strike a least-to-own arrangement.

Other Churches

• Churches are multi-use, too
  The cost of renting a church may be cheaper than most other forms of leasing and renting. You get the added benefits of low-overhead, multi-use facilities, classrooms, and facilities for children’s ministries.
• Communicates you’re here to stay
  Renting space in a local church helps communicate that your minister is here for the long haul. If you’re in a conservative community, this can be a positive sign. If you’re in a more diverse and metropolitan community, it could also work against you.
• Church baggage included
  One potential negative about renting space in a church is that members of your community may have emotional connections and associations with the church where you’re meeting. While you may risk “guilt by association,” you may also benefit from the church’s positive local standing. It pays to know the local history of the church you plan to rent from.

Auditoriums

• Time keeps slipping away
  Jon Cawston, a theather-church pastor, notes that timelines can becaome a negative factor. Because his congregation meets in a theather, they have to be out by 11:15 — before the movies start. Whle this could pose problems for relationship-building, he notes: “On the other hand if you are totally dependent on your foyer to build relationships, you may be in trouble anyways.”
• Equipment issues
  Renting from schools provides you built-in classroom space (if your lease allows it), which can be a boon for Christian education ministries. However, theaters won’t have facilities for these “extras.” Seating won’t be a problem if you rent from a theater or auditorium with built-in seating. But if you rent from a school or auditorium, you’ll be stuck with foldable or stackable seating that must be set up and put away for each service. In most cases you’ll need your own sound and projection system, and you’ll need to choose rugged equipment since the constant setup and tear-down will wear your equipment out faster. Plus, in theater settings you may need to provide additional lighting, since theaters are designed to be dimly lit and have no windows.
• Property issues
  School settings not only provide you additional classrooms and furnishings, but they also have custodial staff which keep the gounds clean, saving you a lot of money on janitorial and grounds maintenance. Note, however, that if you rent a school you have to provide snow removal because schools are under no obligation to be cleared on the weekends.
• Less fear, uncertainty, and doubt
  Jon Cawston notes that not only are theaters and school auditoriums well known and easily found by your community, “People don’t have to be afraid of going in because they already know what to expect. They’ve been there before.” Church buildings, though, can be a little scary for the unchurched urbanites.

Retail / Commercial Space

• Lease to own
  Unlike actively used theaters and already occupied churches, unused commercial and retail space may be available for lease-to-own arrangements. Mars Hill church had been in several locations and needed a permanent church home when a property advisor helped them find an unused hardware store they could move into. By structuring a lease-to-own contract, they were able to move into a permanent property much faster than normal. An additional benefit is that Mars Hill now has a valuable piece of property that can be re-converted into a retail facility very easily for the next buyer.
• Doesn’t feel like church
  The most common complaint about a storefront or retail space rental is that they are so non-traditional that churchgoers may not feel like they are “in church.” This could be positive or negative depending on the expectations of your community.
• Fewer accessability issues
  Churches meeting in commercial and retail space (as well as public auditoriums and theaters) don’t have to worry about providing handicapped-accessible access: the law already required the property owner to provide those features.

Final considerations

Renting property can be seen as an entirely pragmatic and cost-effective decision. But whether you rent or own should be primarily driven by the providence of God. As Jon Cawston notes:

“You can only step through doors God opens for you. Some churches rent, some buy, but whether renting is a pro or con is really only limited God’s direction. I have been in both scenarios: both rental properties and multimillion dollar facilities. All had their unique challenges but it was what God provided.”

(Note: This is the pre-edited article included in a pay-per-download article provided by Christianity Today International, available for purchase here ($12.95). The full download contains six other articles. Though I was once employed by Christianity Today, I do not personally benefit from any transactions through these sites.)

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So, breaking news, San Fransisco is a gay-friendly town. Oh, more breaking news: Chrisitanity is anathema to a sinful lifestyle. And it’s an easy target for sinners.

So the 24th annual hedonistic fetish event, San Fransisco’s Folsom Street Fair (wiki definition), created a poster playing off da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” Instead of tableware, there are sex toys. Instead of Jesus and his disciples, there was “Sister Roma” and ” “half-naked homosexual sadomasochists” (WND). And, of course, there were sponsor logos.

The fair is scheduled for September 30, three days from now.

Predictably, the Christian community at-large has recoiled in disgust and lashed back with angry diatribes and calls for apologies. The poster, itself, has been labeled an “unprovoked attack against Christ and His followers” (WND, again).

Ironically enough, the Miller Brewing Company has responded to the pressure from my fellow believers and is removing its logo from the promotional poster.

Huh. Fancy that. One of the last companies you’d expect to worry about losing customers, a “likker” company, has bowed to Christian pressure. The sarcastic part of me wants to quip, “Jesus approves, gentleman, and hoists a tankard in a comradely toast.” But, for fear of reprisal from the people who didn’t like my “Church vs. Bar” post, I’ll refrain.

I get it. Really, I do. I understand why my peers in the faith would react in anger against the poster. And I, too, find the poster heartachingly distasteful and viscerally provocative as well. Though I must admit — the ornery side of me still finds this all a bit humorous.

I mean, really, what’s worse here? A sarcastic and cunning spin of a da Vinci masterpiece (a long-standing meme, actually)? Or … sin? Does anybody in their right mind really believe that the poster is going to do more damage to the cause of Christ than failing to reach out in witness to those gripped by the sins of the flesh? Meanwhile, we just gave the event plenty of free publicity. :: sigh ::

I sense much laughter in Hell. Wormwood is proud.

This is a battle I, personally, would have recommended avoiding. Perhaps anger limits our creativity here, but surely there are better ways to respond to the real issues than attacking a poster.

Posters, after all, don’t send people to Hell. Sin does.

Where’s the moral outrage over that?

(PS: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you“, right? And “Blessed are the peacemakers” as well as “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” I guess the Sermon on the Mount is still as hard to live up to today as it was 2,000 years ago.)

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As previously noted, this is my week for presenting at GospelCom’s meetup: “The Internet Ministry Conference.”

I successfully captured audio for today’s presentation: “Relationship Blogging.” So as soon as I can get my audio editor software working, I’ll upload it as an mp3 file, and I will also upload a flash version of the powerpoint file for your enjoyment as well.

I don’t think there was any video of this presentation, so I’ll spare you that!

Stay tuned for details.

Tomorrow I’ll be giving my “Integrity on the Internet” presentation. The presentation has been updated from my earlier 1998 version. Hopefully It’ll go well!

More later. But, meanwhile, for all who were interested in the books I mentioned, see:

• Brian Bailey and Terry Storch’s, The Blogging Church
• Shel Israel and Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversations
• Debbie Weil’s The Corporate Blogging Book
• For more on my views of blogging, see my appropriately titled “blogging” category!

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