Latinos are the largest ethnic group in the US. 45.5 million live in the US, comprising 15% of the total population.

According to recent research conducted by the Barna Group, Latinos indicate that faith is very important in their lives. Most Latinos are associated with the Catholic Church; however, this percentage has dropped 25% in the last 15 years. Now, more Latinos are aligning themselves with Protestant churches, especially charismatic churches.

Barna found that Latinos take their faith seriously. They are more likely than other American Christians to be transformed by their faith, and are more likely than other Christians to share their faith. Church attendance by Latinos has also risen 10% in the last 15 years.

These statistics reveal that Latinos are experiencing a spiritual awakening. Their faith is changing, and this challenges those of us who are already in the church to reach out to Latinos in our communities. If churches in the US do not want to miss out on incredible opportunities to minister to this population group, they must take active steps to share the gospel with them and involve them in local churches. How can this be accomplished?

• Evaluate Needs. Churches need to discover the needs of unchurched Latinos without assuming to know them already. What spiritual struggles do they have, and what needs do they have? The lines of communication need to be opened up, their voices need to be heard, and churches need to respond.

• Encourage Cultural Identification. The Pew Hispanic Center revealed that two-thirds of all Latino Christians are involved in churches with Latino clergy or Spanish services. This is true for both Spanish speaking and English speaking Latinos, foreign born and American born. Latinos crave ethnic identification. They need to be supported in acknowledging their cultural identity, or else they will become a culturally white or African-American church that happens to speak Spanish.

• Educate Latino Clergy. Latino churches need qualified clergy to lead them. Churches can institute clergy training programs for Latinos that communicate the challenges and strengths of leading Latino congregations.

• Equip Latino Laity. Since Latinos are evangelistic, churches need to help exploit their spiritual passion by training them how to reach out to others with the gospel of Christ. Traditional evangelistic methods that canvass everyone in sight will not work; Latinos need to be encouraged to target people with whom they can identify.

As the above video so aptly illustrates, words matter as we seek to relate to people outside the church walls. Often times, we use “christianese” so naturally we forget that others may not understand us. Examples of christianese are: Holy Spirit, testimony, witness, assurance, redemption, resurrection, confession, and justification. If you didn’t grow up going to church, “here I raise my Ebenezer” and “Jehovah Jireh” make about as much sense to a non-Christian as “triple net lease” and “current ratio” do to a person outside the financial industry. The church is not an exclusive club – at least it shouldn’t be – so let’s try not to disenfranchise the ones we are trying to reach.

If we want to be effective at reaching others, we need to speak the same language! How do we do this?

1. Target your audience. What are the backgrounds of the people you are trying to reach? It may be wise to do a demographic analysis of your community.

2. Take “churchy” words out of your advertising. Instead of saying, “Join us for a time of spiritual edification through magnifying worship”, you might try something like, “Come for a time of spiritual refreshment.” There is something about refreshment sounds yummy.

3. Use regular words in your worship service. Instead of saying, “An opportunity to contribute back to God what he has bestowed on us”, perhaps you could say something like, “This is a time to financially support this church and the work we do around the world. If you are visiting today, your attendance is your gift to us.” It may sound cheesy, but it gets the point across and reduces the pressure visitors may feel.

4. Check any printed materials for confusing terms. The words we use in our bulletins, newsletters, and the like can be mystifying to the non-member. We may need review these materials on a weekly basis at first, until christianese is wiped from our vocabulary.

Last Sunday morning, Dr. George Tiller was shot in the foyer of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. For many years, Dr. Tiller had been the subject of controversy for performing late-term abortions at his clinic, Women’s Health Care Services. In 1986, the clinic was bombed by pro-life protesters, and in 1993, Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms.

President Obama stated that he was “shocked and outraged” by the shooting, and added, “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

I agree. No matter what religious or political views you have, bombings and killings are not solutions. They are sins, plain and simple. My prayers will be with the Tiller family and his church family.

Steven Anderson, a Baptist minister in Arizona, was tazed and beaten by border patrol agents for refusing to get out of his car 75 miles north of the Mexico border. The video below is footage of the incident taken by the minister.

The case is pending. Updates can be found on Steven’s wife’s blog here.

I find videos like this disturbing. What do you think?

My daughter recently took an online survey that included sexually suggestive questions and slang terms. Thankfully, she did not understand much of what she saw, but the bottom line is that she was inadvertently exposed to sexual material.

90% of minors are exposed to Internet porn, according to the London School of Economics. Some children intentionally look for porn, but there are many others who are exposed to it through email spam. In a study conducted by Symantec, 47% of children receive emails with links to x-rated content. Half of these children report feeling annoyed by the content and 38% never tell their parents.

Children are also making friends with strangers online. 50% of children from 13-17 years old make friends online, and 41% say that their parents are unaware of what they do online.

Twitter has also been infiltrated with pornography. Children can view porn by simply clicking on a link in a tweet.

What can parents do? The first step is to talk to your children about Internet safety. Here are some safety tips from Congresswoman Melissa Bean:

On April 10th, 2009, Good Friday, a tornado classified as an “F-4” struck Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It destroyed over 800 businesses and homes, leaving fifty one people injured and two people dead. David Young, minister of the North Boulevard Church of Christ, wrote a provocative first-hand account of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tree where David Young hung on for life

The Newsweek cover story for April 13^th, 2009 is entitled, The Rise and Fall of Christian America by Jon Beacham. The article is based on the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. The article states that the number of people who claim to be Christians has fallen since 1990, from 86% to 76%. Additionally, the number of people who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased since 1990, from 1 million to 3.6 million.

In the article, Beacham asserts, “While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing…” A few days later, in the wake of perhaps premature criticisms, Beacham clarified in an online article that his intent was not to attack Christianity, but rather, to make a connection between the “declining Christian population and a weakening Christian force in partisan politics.” Beacham continues, “I personally believe that religion has, on the whole, been more of a force for good than for ill in American life and history.”

Is Christian America falling? In a Newsweek poll published April 7^th, Daniel Stone reported that America’s religious beliefs have not changed significantly in the past twenty years. In fact, the percentage of those who say that prayer is an important part of daily life actually increased two points – from 76% to 78% — since 1987; and 85% said that religion is very important or fairly important to their lives, a statistic that has not changed since 1992.

The key to understanding seemingly divergent statistics may lie in one’s definition of what it means to be a Christian today. The Newsweek poll reveals that 30% of Americans claim to be “spiritual but not religious.” Dan Kimball commented on the Christian America article in his blog: “I think maybe there is a decline of a certain shape and sub-culture(s) of “Christian America” as the article states…But at the same time there is excitement and energy and hope as churches who have already recognized what this article says about being in a “post-Christian” country - and have made changes to become churches on mission…It may not be as easy or routine as it has in the past. It may shake up some of our ecclesiological categories that we have constructed.” Michael Medved echoed this sentiment when he wrote, “In fact, the reduced number in part shows people taking the word “Christian” more seriously–as a designation of commitment, not just ancestry.”

It may be that Christianity is moving from a religion not based on traditional institutional definitions, but is rather transforming into a more spiritually holistic religion that introduces Jesus to people on a spiritual level to which they can relate.  God is not yet finished working in us! Through his sovereign purpose and infinite wisdom, he will guide us to eventually raise America and the world to greater heights of faith than we could have ever imagined.

Valentine’s Day is here!

Here are some ideas for a memorable date.

Inexpensive dates*:

• Bundle up and enjoy a sunrise or sunset together
• Browse the shelves at a library or bookstore
• Volunteer together for a cause you both are passionate about
• Rediscover your local playground – without the kids
• Go to a museum (most offer “free days” without admission costs)
• Attend a concert or a poetry reading at a local coffee shop, bookstore, church or other location that doesn’t charge admission
• Take a walk
• Go out for coffee and dessert instead of dinner
• Enjoy an indoor picnic on the living room floor
• Cook dinner together
• Rent a movie and make your own popcorn
• Dust off those old board games
  *http://www.mops.org/page.php?pageid=2409

Get a babysitter and cozy up to a romantic movie.
Some suggestions:

• Far and Away
• Regarding Henry
• Ghost
• A Walk to Remember
• You’ve Got Mail
• Witness
• Jerry McGuire
• A Walk in the Clouds
• Kate & Leopold
• The Saint
• Forever Young
• Groundhog Day
• Roxanne
• The Wedding Singer
• Sweet Alabama
• My Fair Lady
• Casablanca

Write a poem.
Here are some words from Solomon to his wife to whet your appetite:

How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Mount Gilead.

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
not one of them is alone.

Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.

Your neck is like the tower of David,
built with elegance;
on it hang a thousand shields,
all of them shields of warriors.

Your two breasts are like two fawns,
like twin fawns of a gazelle
that browse among the lilies.

Until the day breaks
and the shadows flee,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of incense.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Yesterday I attended a conference at George Fox University entitled, Recalibrating Concepts of Church. Speakers included Len Sweet, author of the upcoming So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life in the Church; MaryKate Morse, author of Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space and Influence; Frank Viola, author of Reimagining Church; Alan Hirsch, author of Reactivating the Missional Church; and Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus but Not the Church.

The idea of recalibration is to realign or readjust our aim to better hit our target. The focus of this conference was to recalibrate the way we “do church” in light of evangelism.

Several statements struck me:

Len Sweet:  “We need to do ministry to the body and be missional to the world”

Alan Hirsch: “Christianity minus Jesus equals religion”

Frank Viola: God did not create us to meet our needs. God wants to show us who he is. We need to pursue Jesus Christ [rough quote]

Dan Kimball: “The church building needs to become a mission-training center, not where the minister goes to work”

MaryKate Morse: When Jesus allowed the woman in Luke 7 to wash his feet, he gave her the dignity of her gift [rough quote]

The conference was challenging and thought-provoking. I picked up MaryKate’s book on leaderhip, and highly recommend it.

MaryKate Morse: GeorgeFox.edu/seminary

Len Sweet: LeonardSweet.com

Frank Viola: PaganChristianity.org

Alan Hirsch: theforgottenways.org

Dan Kimball: DanKimball.com

W’s farewell speech yesterday was overshadowed by the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. The plane experienced a double bird strike less than a minute after takeoff which caused engine failure. All 155 people on board survived.

The pilot, captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger III, who safely “ditched” the plane in the river, was hailed as the hero of the day. Former airline pilot Denny Walsh, speaking highly of Sullenberger, observed, “The sheer expertise he demonstrated is amazing.”

New York governor David Paterson summed up the sentiments of many and coined a new phrase when he stated, “We have had a miracle on 34th Street, I believe we now have a miracle on the Hudson.”

Several passengers who were on board the flight made statements that pointed to an awareness of divine intervention. Fred Berretta, reflecting on the mood amongst the other passengers after they realized the plane was going down, stated, “People started praying.” Jeff Kolodiay, another passenger, remembered that, “Everybody started saying prayers.” Joe Hart confidently said, “I knew I was safe. The big guy upstairs didn’t want me.” “God was certainly looking out for all of us,” exclaimed Andrew Jamison after being rescued. Dave Sanderson affirmed, “God put me there for a reason,” after helping a baby safely exit the plane.

Even those who were not on the plane recognized God’s hand on the incident. For example, Erica Ramsey, daughter-in-law of passenger Debbie Ramsey, expressed, “I do believe that God certainly had his hand on the plane. It’s just unbelievable. I don’t see any other way.” Adam Weiner, who saw the landing from his Manhattan office building, proclaimed, “Thank God it stayed in one piece and just slid along its belly.” And Drew Palmer, son of passenger Lucille Palmer, called people to, “Believe in angels, because there had to be angels.”

It is refreshing to hear people identify God’s sovereignty in times of crisis. It displays a solid faith and a willingness to share the Good News with others.