The study by Willow Creek was been years in the making but only splashed across the blogosphere with its sensational headlines late last year. (Read: “Mind-Blowing!” – “Painful!” – “Revolutionary!”) I’m not sure why CT is still doing stories on it at this late date except that their publishing schedule is generally 3-6 months out. (I first heard about the Reveal study in October.) [Update: I didn't read the intro to the article well enough! WC announced they are changing their Sunday service program. --R.] Whatever you think about Willow, mega-churches, or the so-called “Seeker sensitive” model — this report and its conclusions are a must-read if you’re in church leadership of any sort.

It’s easy to be critical of Willow for being “seeker sensitive,” and too many who’ve never been exposed to Willow are happy to critique Hybels & Co. But I think it’s important to note that the survey and its findings weren’t focused solely on Willow Creek. At least two dozen other churches (or more) were involved in the study — Willow was just the beginning, and the study continues.

Sadly, the results were consistent across the board. That’s what’s truly interesting about the study’s conclusions.

The main takeaway is this: numeric growth does not equal spiritual growth.

If we’re honest about it, the idea that numeric growth reveals a church’s health and its members’ own spiritual health has infected the American church for decades. The idea is captured in this sillogism:

Healthy organisms grow
Churches are like organisms
Therefore, healthy churches grow

But what this three-step dance of logic fails to take into account is that healthy organisms stop growing when they reach maturity and a size appropriate to their nature. In fact, an organism’s failure to experience a growth plateau is one evidence of sickness.

Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. (Think: obesity, cancer, acromegaly, gigantism, etc.)

So, why?

I’ve bemoaned this elsewhere (on my blog, on email discussion groups, and at my denomination’s discipleship forum), but in my view the chief problem with most (if not all) of the churches I’ve attended has been a failure to encourage, challenge, and provide for spiritual transformation and discipleship in individual believers within a transformed community. And the failure to do that, I believe rests on a handful of factors — not always present in every circumstance, but often working together.

Churches are filled with members who’ve not become spiritually transformed because:

• The leadership believes numeric growth is an indicator of success
• The leadership believes financial growth is an indicator of success
• The leadership believes the quality of its programming is an indicator of success
• The leadership believes the members’ level of participation in programming is an indicator of success
• Transfer growth (from other churches) is as valuable as evangelistic growth
• Adherence to moral standards of conduct is an indicator of spiritual growth
• A greater variety of programs will attract more participants and induce spiritual growth

But, in my opinion, the three greatest moves (or cultural shifts) that create the stalled spiritual growth the Willow Creek study analyzes are:

1. The move from a Word-centered church to a worship- and/or fellowship-centered church,
2. The move from Word-based exposition from the pulpit to a topical attempt to engage attention, and
3. The move away from peer- and mentor-based discipleship as part of the church community’s DNA.

If I had to blame anything on these movements away from what has been historically and classically the strength and backbone of the church, I would point to three modern developments that have contributed to our cultural individualism and this failure to connect church community membership and spiritual transformation:

• The demise of the one-room schoolhouse,
• The ubiquity of the automobile and widely flung pseudo-communities, and
• The ubiquity of private immersive entertainment (starting with the portable radio, the television, and now the Internet).

Seriously, these things contribute. Let me briefly opine how (and, again, I welcome our comments and criticism). And let me say at the outset that just because these may be contributing factors, that doesn’t make them bad. More likely, it just means they’ve been poorly used.

The Demise of the One-Room Schoolhouse

When children were taught in the context of a community and in the dynamic mentoring relationship of a one-room schoolhouse, we didn’t have to talk about mentoring younger people: it happened naturally. The teacher could focus on teaching the older, more capable students as well as the young, but the older students would tutor and mentor the younger children at the same time. Brothers helped their little sisters. Big sisters helped their little brothers. All under the watchful eye of the teacher. If you spent 12 years in this kind of relationally-driven learning environment, it would influence your every approach to teaching, training, and learning. Why don’t more careers have journeymen and apprentices? Because our culture no longer acts as though careers or skills are best transferred in relationship. Instead, pedagogy rules, books liberate, and “information wants to be free.”

Information may be free, but discipleship is costly.

The Automobile and Pseudo-Communities

With the automobile came a renewed pioneer spirit. Not only could we “Go West!” once we were emancipated from the rule of our father’s house, many of us saw it as our imperative to get as many state lines between our parent’s and inlaw’s homes and our own domicile – whether that meant college out-of-state or marrying and accepting jobs in some far-flung corner of the country, few people now live in the same neighborhood as their parents. And fewer still invite their parents to live with them in their retirement. Yet this wasn’t uncommon at the turn of the century. People might move across the city, or to a neighboring town, but it took strong motivation to pack up and move completely out of the community one knew growing up. But the automobile made it possible to live as far away as one or two states over and still allow a comfortable commute to visit over the weekends and holidays. Now, families are content if they see each other only a few times a year. And with the car came the possibility of choosing a church community a half an hour to an hour away from one’s home. I’ve frequently attended churches that were 20-30 miles from my home, passing by perfectly good faith communities along the way. Which, of course, cater to similarly far flung “pseudo communties” of members whose domiciles may be spread out over thousands of square miles. When my closest church neighbor lives 10 miles away, am I truly living in community?

Going Solo

With the advent of solo entertainment devices, we completed the cocooning cycle that Faith Popcorn predicted nearly two decades ago. We can live virtually our entire day bubbled in a safe cocoon and we now get to take our cocoons with us in the form of internet-enabled, blue-tooth capable cars complete with AM/FM Radio, CDs, XM-Radio, built-in DVD players, and Internet capable telephony. From the cocoon of our home to the cocoon of or car, to the cocoon-like cubicle at work, many of us can honestly say we haven’t had more than an hour’s conversation with a close friend in weeks. If we have a close friend.

So…

Nothing can be done about these cultural shifts, but something can be done at our churches. We can resist the siren call to greater size, more numbers, bigger budgets and insist, instead, on reproducing ourselves. We can plant more churches, reach our to our local communities, talk to our neighbors, and focus on truly relational discipleship (which really needs to start with the leadership). We can scale back on the number and size of our programs and focus instead on building relationships, discipling our converts, being accountable and actually preaching the Word from the pulpit. We can focus on worship, not entertainment, on prayer and praise, not showmanship, on truly walking together in love and grace rather than small group exercises in futility.

Too often we leave our faith at the door when we climb into our SUVs for the drive home. How can we help it? It’s all we know, it’s all we’ve seen, it’s what our pastors do. Our churches inherit the DNA and style of their leadership.

If our members haven’t gotten the message that they need to pick up the spoon and feed themselves, as Bill Hybels laments at the RevealNow website, it’s not because they don’t know that’s their responsibility: it’s because they haven’t seen anybody doing it and growing from it to value it themselves. They’re not hungry for it, else they would belly up and feed from the trough of the Biblical buffet.

Further, even if the people are feeding themselves, church leaders are not absolved from the responsibility to lead just because a believer is now “on the path” to spiritual maturity. Just as parents still must provide guidance and proper nutrition for their hungry children well past their infancy, so much the shepherds of the local flock continue to provide good content to direct their charge’s attention and spiritual formation. Though Timothy was the Apostle Paul’s appointed delegate and personal representative (a sign of great trust, leadership, and maturity), Paul continued to minister to him with instruction, doctrine, guidance, and wisdom — even from prison while nearing his own death. (See both 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy.)

We must preach the Word, not opinions. We must disciple, not merely teach. We must walk in relationship and community, not simply attend church in proximity. This, I believe, is what the modern church needs most.

Well, that’s my $0.02 worth. Now, go and write likewise!

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.)

Overheard recently: “I’m wondering what’s the difference between church and the bar?”

In church you pray for the Spirit. In a bar you pay for the spirits? (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)

Anyways…

Everybody knows your name…

When Jennifer and I lived in Springfield, MO, and worked at the Assemblies of God headquarters, our friendly pagan neighbors invited us to join them at a neighborhood bar for lunch. We were on our way back home from church where we had invited them, so we figured a little tit for tat was probably in order.

photo: Rich Tatum

When I write “neighborhood,” I mean, it was 1.5 miles from our home (plus, incidentally, 1.3 miles from the A/G HQ). And when I write “bar,” I mean it was one of those windowless, pre-fabricated metal buildings that you always imagine when the words “biker bar” appear in news print. And, yes, there were occasional twisted-iron road gators resting out front.

Never having been a regular customer of neighborhood bars before (or since), we were a little nervous about going inside, but our young urban neighbors encouraged me to “man up” and bragged that this was the best place in Springfield to get a good, cheap, dinner of steak and potatoes … and boy were they right! The steaks tasted so good that Jennifer and I made Dan’s Place a regular stop on our way home from work.

photo: amir_yunus

Now, Dan’s Place had two coin-operated pool tables in the crowded center floor. After a few visits Jennifer and I joined in the fun. Really, we couldn’t resist. Before long, we’d eschewed the banged up house cues and we went and bought our own sticks from a pro-shop, just so we wouldn’t have to keep hunting down the one or two decent pieces of wood in the bar.

After a couple years of eating regularly at Dan’s place — competing against the neighborhood pool sharks (who, interestingly, shot better “under the influence” than sober), sipping her tea and my diet Cokes — we became part of the family. Whenever we’d enter, the patrons would shout our names: “Hey, Jennifer! Hey, Rich!” Our friends would sit with us during dinner and regale us with their tales of woe and victory. They’d show us their latest photos, and talk of the last trip they took to Arkansas, or Silver Dollar City. They’d talk about their children, their jobs, their spouses and their divorces. They became our friends.

On our last night in Springfield, we announced our departure to Chicago.

They bought us shots. They hugged us. And told us to stop by — any time.

We drank the shots. We embraced, and we promised to visit. “We drank the shots.”
You are free to criticize me for drinking the shots. I was not a credentialled minister, I hadn’t taken a vow of abstinence, and I wasn’t working at the A/G headquarters at the time. But while we did work there, we certainly never told anyone we ate at Dan’s place: it would have been a job-ending offense for frequenting a place of “ill repute.”

My point

During the time Jennifer and I haunted that smoky old joint, I frequently found occasion to compare the neighborhood bar with my local church. Unfortunately, I noted some differences where I wished our churches were more like bars.

• People went because they wanted to be there, not out of duty or obligation
• The singing was celebratory and sometimes therapeutic
• Greetings were heartfelt and welcoming
• Everybody had a seat waiting for them, if there wasn’t room, someone gave up their seat
• Everybody got a chance to play, but you didn’t have to play if you didn’t want to
• People notice when you stop showing up
• Nobody puts on “airs” and when they do, they get called on it
• Thus, nobody expected anybody to be perfect, and nobody pretended otherwise
• If you make a mistake, you get called on it
• If you admit your mistake, you get forgiven
• It was a great place to go when feeling lonely
• It was a great place to go when feeling sociable
• It was a great place to go when feeling down
• It was a great place to go when feeling up

photo: thereisnocat

I’ll leave it to you to determine how your local church does or does not reflect those differences. But in my opinion, most churches could afford to be a little bit more like a bar.

Sure, there are differences that set church apart from any bar — notably the sacraments, the preaching of the Gospel, the fellowship of the saints and the power of the Spirit. But, if your church is doing its job, you should also have a few drunks in attendance, you should need a few ashtrays out front, and you know when your regulars are missing.

And everybody should know your name.

Update (07/24/2007): Be sure to check out the article from Chuck Swindoll I found and have included below.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed the amount of search engine queries landing on this site have shot heavenward for Carlton Pearson. The searchers have typed:

• carlton pearson goes bad
• carlton pearson has cancer
• carlton pearson has lost his mind
• is carlton pearson gay?
• did carlton pearson get a divorce?

photo: Scott Griessel

As far as I can tell, Carlton Pearson’s “badness” quotient has gotten no worse than when I wrote my semi-definitive exploration of his doctrine of inclusion back in early 2006: “Carlton D. Pearson: The Charismatic Bishop of Heresy.” I’ve read that around 2005 Pearson had been diagnosed with prostate cancer but, according to last night’s 20/20 program (read the segment: ‘Nobody Goes to Hell’: Minister Labeled a Heretic), it is now in remission. Pearson appears to enjoy full possession of his faculties, as far as the TV demonstrates (though he did once hear revelatory voices from God), he has not publicly admitted to any homosexual inclinations that I know of (or can find), and nobody anywhere has reported a divorce.

But Pearson did publish a book recently, and I figure that caused some of the alarm. God Is Not a Christian defends his views, answers his critics, and, according to the sole reviewer “he also throws in a lot of ideas about God, the divinity of man, and why he views Scripture as flawed in places. This will bother some of his conservative Christian readers.”

Indeed.

If there are any.

Pearson’s book currently ranks #829,524 on Amazon.com (as of Saturday, July 14, 2007). It’s no Mere Christianity-style instant classic to be sure (which ranks at #405), and Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (ranked at #1,432) must have a marketing genius pushing the tome when compared to Pearson’s sales rate.

But the media love Pearson and I’m sure his sales will pick up well before Hell freezes over. Not that Pearson wants to profit off of Hell. No, he’s done getting paid for Heck-Fire:

“If I say everybody’s going to heaven, then I can’t raise money from you to get me to keep people out of hell.” (20/20, “‘Nobody Goes to Hell’: Minister Labeled a Heretic“)

Problem is, once you’ve done away with Hell, why stop there? Since, in Pearson’s view, the doctrine of Hell rests on man-made documents about a man-made myth, then the doctrine of Heaven itself is on shaky grounds.

The flipside of Pearson’s hell-doubting theology, however, is that he sounds awfully skeptical about the existence of heaven. “We don’t know what happens after this life,” he says. “But we presume something good happens. So we’ve come up with these thrones and gates and virgins … But the closest to God you’ll probably ever get is you.” (Reuters, “Checking in with Carlton Pearson – who doesn’t believe in hell – in Tulsa“)

Not a quote I’d want to enter Eternity with, for sure.

I watched Bill Weir’s 20/20 documentary on Hell last night, but after Tivoing the program, I must have run out of disk space. I only captured 33 minutes of the program. Sadly, the show cut off before the commercial break leading into Pearson’s segment. Otherwise, I would have shown you a clip. But if you hurry, you might be able to catch it streaming off of the ABC.com website.

(Pearson photo by Scott Griessel via Flickr.)

And it has begun. I’d say the issue is now real.

While it hasn’t surfaced within the Assemblies of God yet, I suspect it will within the next few years. Meanwhile, The Church Report Online released a special report in its May 2007 issue, titled: “Identity Crisis: A Transgender Minister Reappointed to Lead Church.” MinistryToday magazine’s weblog quickly picked up on the story. And the story threatens to go national now that a CBS affiliate has featured the item (includes video).

On May 25, at a previously unheralded United Methodist Church in Baltimore, the Reverend Ann Gordon announced her gender reassignment and consequent name change to the Reverend Drew Phoenix. And while the UMC has rules of discipline regarding “sexually active gay clergy,” there’s nothing on the books about transgendered clergy. So, for now, for the next year at least, Phoenix remains pastor.

(It is no coincidence that the timing of the announcement syncs with Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the founding of the Church and the empowerment of the Spirit for ministry.)

Meanwhile his more clear-headed colleagues from the Baltimore-Washington Conference are calling for a review of the decision. Good luck with that. And a conservative UMC group, UMAction, is petitioning the UMC General Conference to come up with a position paper. Good luck with that, too.

As Ann Gordon/Drew Phoenix said, “I want to be the face for an issue.” Phoenix will get his wish. And the issue is going to steam-roll the United Methodist church. If anybody thought that the Gay and Lesbian clerical issues were difficult to resolve (and largely remain unresolved), wait’ll this hits the debate floor.

Here, for your consideration, are the comments I posted to the Ministry Today blog, which asked: “How should the Methodist Church respond to this situation? What would you say?”

Yikes.

I’ve blogged about this nascent issue on my own weblog. Churches simply aren’t prepared for this. And the mainline churches who gave up the struggle on ordaining homosexual ministers will probably have to roll over on the issue if they’re going to be consistent in their rejection of orthodox Biblical values.

While the Bible does not directly speak to sexual dysphoria or sexual identity issues, I believe there is a Biblical foundation for rejecting the claims of the transgendered proponents.

The creation account clearly depicts the inception of two sexes: male and female — not some admixture of the two. And as God created man in his image, clearly expressed gender identity is very likely a part of that imago dei. Any confusion regarding one’s innate gender would, therefore, be a result of the Fall, sin, and its many effects. To surrender to the dysphoria and adopt a new sexual identity does not clarify the chaos, rather, it cements it.

The Apostle Paul makes it clear that our identity in Christ is not tied to our “meat space” identity. He encouraged the Corinthian believers not to waste their energy in changing their social or psychological circumstances:

“Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. … Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.” (See 1 Corinthians 7)

I’m sympathetic to circumstances where gender dysphoria arise from true hermaphroditism (having both male and female sexual characteristics) or where sexual genitalia are opposite one’s genetic endowments. In such circumstances, I believe acting out a sexuality or gender that is at odds with one’s innate physical genitalia creates a self-contradictory gender image — and this does violence to the “image of God” within.

Our denominations will have to wake up to this issue, like it or not. I’ve called for my own Fellowship to respond to this — years ago, and it hasn’t happened yet. But the trend is inexorable and we must respond now.

Regards,

Notes from around the Blogosphere and Web

• The Albert Mohler Radio Program: “Gender Identity Disorder In The Pulpit” (with MP3)
  “When the former Rev. Ann Gordon returned to her congregation at St. John’s United Methodist Church as Rev. Drew Phoenix, the regional leadership of the United Methodist Church was faced with something of a dilemma. Their decision to reappoint Gordon/Phoenix has ignited a firestorm of controversy and we’re joined by Mark Tooley, of The Institute on Religion and Democracy, to analyze the issues involved in the case.”
• Teflon at MoltenThought says, “We are created with the proper gender, and those afflictions of body, mind, and soul not self-inflicted do not excuse us from proper behavior. … Is it not more likely that the creature is twisted and the Creator straight and true?”
• The Baltimore Sun: “Transgender minister is reappointed”
  “In explaining yesterday’s decision to the conference, [Bishop John] Schol said he looked at the Book of Discipline, talked with fellow bishops and other experts and ‘learned that there is nothing in our discipline that speaks to transgendered persons, learned that there is nothing in our policies or guidelines that speaks to transgendered persons.’ According to the Book of Discipline, to be a pastor, ‘the person has to be of good character, and faithful to the church and effective in ministry,’ Schol said in an interview. Phoenix is all of those things, he said.”
• UMC.org: “Pastor speaks of transgender experience“
  “Phoenix believes his transition is making him “even more effective” as a pastor and said his greatest concern “is that the congregation continues to grow and thrive.”"
• Darrell at Dow Blog in “Post-Modern Gender Confusion” writes: “Is there any doubt that we are living in an era of sexual and gender confusion? In our post-modern mind, we ourselves determine what it means to be man and woman, to be human. The Author of creation is cast aside as the goddess science is enthroned and worshipped, even in the ‘church.’”
• MBT at Right Pundits in “Transgender Methodist Minister Is Reappointed” comments: “I wonder if a pastor with a conservative bent would even get ordained anymore in the Methodist church, let alone become Bishop?”
• And more…

Some GodBloggers have been critical of the whole “movie-based Bible study” enterprise. Not surprising, really: using Hollywood movies to teach Biblical truth is a little like using dance to teach worship, or wine to serve Communion. There may be a place for it, but it’s going to generate controversy somewhere.

I’ve been asked before to justify how I could write a Bible study with a movie as its context. After all, if I’m writing a Bible study, how can I presume to use a movie to develop themes? And if I’m so big on biblical theology, hermeneutics, exegesis, and expository preaching, then why would I water down the message of the Bible or jeopardize the faith of weaker brothers and sisters by endorsing a movie? After all, this is Hollywood we’re talking about and nothing good comes from there. Right?

So, I will clarify: any Bible study or discussion guide I write that uses a movie to illuminate and illustrate biblical themes is not an endorsement of that film.

The Debate

So, when Andy at Heart for the Lost posted a blog critical of Detweiler’s Spider-Man study, I offered up my own version and asked for commentary. (To be fair, Andy was re-posting an item from A Little Leaven.)

Instead of actually reading the study (or my study, at least) it seems Andy’s audience is ready to reject the idea outright, for the usual notions of avoiding “fellowship” with “the world.” But, in my view, writing a critical Bible study using a film as its thematic base is not about being unholy or about sullying the Word. It’s about reaching a culture steeped in godless ideology, and subversively redeeming secular entertainment for evangelistic and edifying purposes.

One commenter, Leonard, asked:

How can you feel right about joining God’s Word to us with such an anti-Christian gnostic film?

I feel like Leonard hasn’t actually read my Matrix study before judging it, or possibly even the Spider-Man study. I suppose, though, if Leonard is morally opposed to mixing film and theology in any way, he might be concerned that reading my study would be a sin, that it might jeopardize his eternal future. Its hard to say. But it’s clear he believes I’m engaging in a sinful enterprise.

My position and answer to this question follows. But first a word from John Calvin:

“From this passage we may infer that those persons are superstitious who do not venture to borrow anything from heathen authors. All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God. Besides, all things are of God; and, therefore, why should it not be lawful to dedicate to his glory everything that can properly be employed for such a purpose?”

 —John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Trans. by William Pringle (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library). [Calvin makes this statement in commentary on Titus 1:12. — Rich]

There is no truth that is not ultimately God’s truth.

And there is no man perfect and without a hint of sin or untruth in us. If it is acceptable for a rank and vile sinner like Leonard or me to teach the perfect Word of God, and if it was appropriate for the apostle Paul to quote pagan philosophers to teach God’s truth (see sidebar), and if it was appropriate for apostle Paul to stand in a pagan worship center in Athens and use their heathen altar to teach God’s truth, then I don’t see how using a story written by pagans to also teach God’s truth is a sin.

I suppose my critics might be of the mindset such that when they preach or teach they only use quotes from the Bible, they only use illustrations from the Bible, they only use the text of the Bible in their presentations, and they only ever refer to events in the Bible to make points. If that is one’s philosophy, it would be difficult to say anything other than to simply quote a Bible text and sit down because otherwise we’d be adding to the Scripture and invariably marrying God’s holy Word with sinful ideologies.

“But there’s sin in them flicks!”

Interestingly, though, one major plank of my critics is that secular films portray blasphemers, adulterers, and rank sinners. But I am painfully aware that for all its faults, the heathen Hollywood elite end up painting a more accurate picture of life than the lily-pure world of Christian movies and books where nobody cusses, chews or dates the girls who do. The Christian entertainment industry with few exceptions simply doesn’t reflect the mud, grit, and sin-laden pain of stories from the Bible itself where men rape women, soldiers raze villages, adulterers murder husbands, men sleep with their father’s wives, and friends betray the Messiah.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the sin recounted in my R-Rated Bible it’s this: Sin and error don’t have to be applauded or endorsed to be useful for edification and instruction. Life’s most instructive moments are often found in the errata.

And while Hollywood is not good at showing us the path to purity and perfection, it excels at showing us the myriad ways fallen men fail. What Hollywood glamorizes in film and New York immortalizes in print can be redeemed with the light of the Word. If we would but pay attention.

What are they thinking about?

You see, if you’re going teach others what God wants us to know about how to love him, serve him, worship him and live holy lives, we should spend some time connecting those sacred truths with what people are actually thinking about. Sometimes they’re reflecting on tragedies like the recent massacre at Virginia Tech. Should we also not refer to that event because it was planned, perpetrated, and promoted by a media-savvy godless murderer? Sometimes folks are pondering the most recent Spider-Man or Matrix movie, the latest Ridley Pearson novel, or the latest New Yorker cartoon. If my critics were consistent, we should never mention those things except to denounce them because every word and deed therein are damnable lies.

Perhaps, in my critics world, we should simply pile those things up and toss a match.

Credibility begone! Hello folly…

But you know what happens when we simply denounce everything that isn’t “churchy” and fail to engage? The people listening to us snicker. Because they’ve seen the movies, read the books, and enjoyed the cartoons. And they know that while there are significant problems with them, not every word is a lie. When we superstitiously presume otherwise, we not only lose credibility, we make ourselves look foolish.

Only foolish Christians think they have the only truth. Only foolish Christians think everybody else is ignorant of even the slightest glimmering of light. Only foolish Christians would be so blind.

Please note, I’m not saying Leonard or my critics are foolish. I do think they’re sensitive to the perils of encouraging believers to consume what Hollywood produces uncritically. I commend Leonard and his friends for their care and concern for the mental and spiritual health of believers. Because, really, there is danger in consuming what Hollywood produces uncritically. But these films already shape how people think. It’s up to us to redirect those thoughts, to train people to think critically about the claims made in these films, and ultimately to help them reject the message.

Stop hanging out with sinners!

Leonard continued:

Maybe it is time we remember that as the Body of Christ, we don’t join ourselves to the world. We are in it, not of it. We do not fellowship with the world. Our only real relationship with the world should be one of ministry.

Au contraire, mon frere! Paul encouraged us to disfellowship ourselves from believers who are charlatans. He did not discourage fellowship with pagans, rather, see 1 Corinthians 5.

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

If we ever hope to have anything relevant to say to pagans and seekers, if we hope to do the ministry you speak of, we need to not only know what sinners are thinking about, we need to enter their thought-space and know what we’re talking about

We, like Paul, should spend some time in the Areopagus of this world pointing at the altars to the unknown gods, saying, “Hey! Look! This thing you built in ignorance actually points to God. Look at it this way with me for a moment.…”

Trivial persuasion

After a few more words, Leonard concludes:

Maybe instead of trying to link the Bible with such things as the matrix movies, we should tell the Body of Christ that they should steer clear of such things and run to God. Trivializing God’s Word for the sake of itching ears is wrong.

I can only assume Leonard hasn’t read my studies, else I don’t know why he’s saying I’m trivializing the Word of God. I don’t believe I am. Otherwise, please point out how, exactly, I am trivializing the Word? Because, frankly, that sounds rather insulting. But perhaps I am misunderstanding Leonard.

I invite you, my faithful readers, to set me straight.

Teaching the Word of God is an awesome and frightful task. (In one sense, the mere act of attempting to deliver the message trivializes it immediately. How can you or I or any sinful man or woman hope to adequately explain an convey all the truth contained in even one verse of the divinely inspired Word?

We cannot. Our very presumption to attempt it is trivializing in itself. Further, by our very sinfulness we soil the Word any time we lay hands on it or attempt to interpret it.

But that cannot be our concern because we have been given the task of not only studying the Word, but teaching it, conveying it, preaching it, and delivering it. That is not only our honor, but it is our duty. It’s our mandate.

So let us leave aside these concerns about somehow gutting the Scriptures by presuming to highlight was is good and what is not good about a film in a discussion guide. I suspect God has the power to preserve his Word and I won’t be single-handedly tearing it down in my lifetime.

In reality, the greater danger is not to the Word itself, but to the films we discuss. My hope is that the moral and philosophical framework behind these secular fables will be redeemed, not that God’s Word will somehow be destroyed.

A blogger with a “why” beats one with only a “how”

Blogging can be a waste of a leader’s time if he doesn’t know what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. (Especially why.)

I would never suggest a leader start blogging (or podcasting) unless they’ve already been reading some choice blogs and are starting to get some idea of what value a blog can bring to a ministry or to one’s life. Rushing into blogging without first experiencing it is like convincing someone to preach who’s never heard a sermon in their life. Sure, it might be comical or even refreshing — once.

A few blogging bennies…

For some, blogging can be a kind of spiritual discipline, helping hone thoughts and to dig past the sometimes surface thoughts of hurried Saturday-night sermon prep. It provides a database of sermon themes related to your deeper concerns. It aids writing — requiring clarity and concision. It keeps you in touch with other influential people, and exposes you to criticism and commentary, sometimes kudos. Leaders need all of that.

Too few leaders have opportunities for strangers or even friends to comment and speak into their lives or provide feedback. Blogs with comments enabled are a great way to help provide that. It brings the leader out of the ivory tower. Blogging can be truly incarnational. Leaders need this, too, but it’s frightening because they’ve never had it.

I like to think of Paul the Apostle as the original proto-blogger. His missives dealt with current events, addressed failings in the Church, provided solutions, commented on trends and dangerous ideas. He “blogged” from prison, he blogged on the road, he blogged with the help of a peripheral writing device: an amanuensis.

And his words have become a significant part of our thought-life today many, many years later. Talk about the “long tail!”

If you are a leader and you are intentionally not blogging, you are ignoring one of the most influential media currently available to you.

Banking your thoughts

Blogging, in some ways, is like an interest-bearing savings account. As long as your ideas are only spoken, they’re being spent as soon as you generate them — just like spending your entire paycheck the very week you get it. But if you can “bank” some of those thoughts, they’ll go to work for you on your behalf, influencing more than just the handful within earshot. And like money in the bank, your blog-published ideas compound their influence week after week after week.

Do you have what it takes?

On the other hand, maybe not every leader should blog. After all, it does require a specific set of skills that many of our leaders simply don’t have: the ability to write clearly, the ability to engage an audience, the ability to be consistent, to provide something worthwhile and interesting with regularity, the ability to take criticism and respond irenically, the ability to respond to current events in the real-world, the ability to be transparent, and the ability to turn on a computer and use it.

But some of those guys aren’t leading. They just happen to be standing where the crowd’s facing.

If you’re a ministry leader and you’ve intentionally ignored using Internet technology to augment your message and vision, please ask yourself why. You may have very good reasons. And it may not reflect poorly on you at all. For example, I really don’t see Billy Graham picking up the keyboard to blog nowadays, and he’s not diminished one whit by not blogging. And maybe guys like Dallas Willard, Tim Stafford, and Jack Hayford don’t need to blog: publishing houses are already happily killing trees to extend their reach through the printed page. (But I’d sign up for their blogs so fast my keyboard would melt!)

But it’s easier than falling off a pulpit

But if you’re checking out of the “blogging craze” because it’s the domain of teens and Gen-Xers, or overwhelmingly nerdy, or seemingly too difficult to master, I invite you to give it another thought. Sign up for an account at WordPress.com and start flailing away. Really, it isn’t hard, and you can start doing it in about five minutes.

Ride the long tail and prosper!

Central Bible College: Our First Act of Civil Disobedience (via Soulforce)

We arrived to Springfield, Illinois [knowing] at the beginning that it was likely that Central Bible College would not be as pleasant a stop. We relentlessly pursued conversation with the administrators at the school, who told us again and again that our voice was not welcome, that this was a conversation that the school did not need or want.

Arriving at CBC, the protesters found the school ready, with police and security from Evangel, CBC, and the General Concil all around (all hands on deck, apparently). After loitering on the sidewalks just off campus for several hours, silently reading their bibles, Abigail Reikow and Brandy Daniels entered campus through the main gate, walking toward the chapel when they were arrested, frisked, sent downtown and charged with a misdemeanor trespassing violation. The group left around noon. Apparently even non-violent protests give way to lunchtime hunger-pangs.

Prior to this, the Springfield News-Leader quoted campus pastor Ron Bradley:

“We have no difficulty discussing this issue (of homosexuality),” said Bradley. Instead, it is the organization and its method that led to the decision, he said. “Their track record has been ignoble at best. … “Our concern, having studied their patterns … is while their initial contact calls for dialogue, their pattern has been much more combative and on some campuses, deceptive.”

I don’t know what dialog this group hopes to foster, and I’m too pressed for time to research their claims or their theology. However, whatever one believes about sexual “orientation,” I believe it’s clear that Scriptures teach that it’s not the impulse to sin that marks the sinner (we all are tempted) but the behavior itself and the act of entertaining the temptations — nurturing sin in our hearts. Just by analogy, straight men are sexually tempted as well, but it’s not the temptation to have sex that marks the straight man as a sinner or even unregenerate: it is the behavior and the lust that defile.

Thus, I believe it’s possible to be a believer and a disciple while experiencing same-sex attraction — or any-sex attraction. Yet if obedience to Christ is the mark of a disciple, I am not as agnostic about salvation and the practice of gay and lesbian lifestyle choices.

But all that’s been discussed elsewhere and on other fora ad nauseum. If you want to see what the A/G teaches about it, review their extensive ephemera at the ag.org site here.

But the transgendered issue is still a relatively open discussion. There’s virtually nothing about it on the ag.org site, and there’s certainly no position paper on it.

Elsewhere, I own and moderate an email-based A/G discussion group. One of the long-time members of that group was a transgendered (male to female) participant who had not disclosed his/her gender mashup until another enterprising member discovered it and disclosed it publicly on the forum and called for an ousting. This was back in late 2003.

If it were just that a member on the forum were cross-dressing or undergoing gender reassignment, it wouldn’t have been a huge issue for me. We have sinners of all stripes on our message boards. Being an unbeliever, a pagan, or a sinner wasn’t a reason to get kicked off the forum or castigated. What made the ousting a bigger issue, for me, was that the individual involved was involved in lay-ministry at her local Assemblies of God church

Ouch.

So, I found myself struggling with the question: Is it possible to be a post-operative transsexual and remain a Christian?

I wasn’t sure, and still am not entirely certain of my position, but I suspect maybe the answer is similar to this question’s conclusion: Is it possible to divorce and remarry while your first spouse is alive and remain a Christian?

Personal View

My personal view is that the transgendered operation should only be embraced by those who are born hermaphrodites or whose sexual genitalia are opposite their genetic endowments. I do not currently buy the view that being “mentally” or psychologically a woman and “physically” a male (or vice-versa) somehow justifies surgical change. The mental phenomenon may or may not be legitimate, but that’s irrelevant to me. For a believer, I don’t believe the experience justifies the surgery.

By analogy, a mental or genetic predisposition to violence doesn’t justify abuse. Similarly, a mental or genetic predisposition to thinking like the opposite sex, or being attracted to the opposite sex, also doesn’t justify cross- dressing, transsexualism, or homosexuality.

I don’t endorse the view that “God doesn’t make mistakes, therefore, nobody is ever born with homosexual or transsexual desires.” Clearly, children are born with physical defects and abnormalities, as are others are born with mental defects and abnormalities.

Current research, while controversial, seems to deny that there is a “gay gene” or a truly gay “brain shape.” And I am not certain there is such a thing as an opposing-gendered mind trapped in the wrong-gendered body. But, however the research pans out, maybe it’s possible there is a truly homosexual brain formation, or a truly transsexual self-image reflected in deep mental structures. But whether homosexuality or transsexualism does or does not have an ultimate basis in biology is irrelevant to me.

In the first case, I believe the homosexual behavior is sinful, and that would be true regardless of any biological justification. After all, biologists have been telling us for years that males are driven by biology to have sex with as many females as possible. So what? Our values and morals are not founded on biology in a fallen world. Rather, they are based on God’s Word and his nature.

In the second case, I believe that acting out a sexuality or gender that is at odds with one’s physical genitalia creates a self- contradictory gender image — and this does violence to the “image of God” within.

Marriage, by Analogy

Bear with me as I take a slight digression to reveal my thinking here. I believe the fundamental reason divorce is unlawful in God’s eyes is because he created Male and Female to not only bear his Image independently, but also to bear his Image in union — through marriage. The marital union is the only relationship on Earth that mirrors and symbolizes the relationship between God and his Bride, the church.

In the same way that murdering another person violates the image of God within that person, divorce similarly violates the image of God within the marital union. Marriage is sacred, not just because of the vows surrounding the ceremony, but it is sacred because the image of God, and God himself, is present in the marital union in a way that it is not present in any other kind of relationship we know and enjoy.

Gender and the Image of God

But marriage of this kind requires the two genders that God created to be joined as one. God created male and female, from the beginning of time, to not only bear his image independently but to combine to symbolize his relationship to Man.

In light of gender being a fundamental part of God’s design for his creation, and in light of gender being an indispensable part of the marital union and all that is symbolized therein, I therefore believe that to deny one’s gender or to confuse the matter by switching genders, violates God’s design and intention.

Tentative Conclusion

Is it possible to have committed this sin and remain a Christian? Probably. Is it possible to fail to repent of this sin and remain a Christian? I don’t know. I wished I did.

But on the safe side, I follow the example shown in the early Church. If God has poured out his Spirit on and individual and that person bears the evidences the fruit of the Spirit in discipleship — especially obedience and chastity  — then I’ll treat that person like a child of God.

But, meanwhile, I feel it’s necessary to draw the line at ministry leadership. In the same way that divorced and remarried men and women are not allowed to hold ministerial papers in the A/G (I know many here will disagree with this), I would posit that transgendered or cross-dressing men and women also not hold positions of ministry. In my mind, that would include teaching Sunday School, leading outreach ministries, writing devotionals (with a byline), and so on.

This is one of those contemporary issues made possible by advanced medical technology that never faced the early church. Sure, I expect there were homosexuals and even cross-dresses in every age of mankind, but the ability to cross-dress the flesh itself is new. And the Church, by and large, has yet to figure out how to respond to this.

Interestingly, in 2003 and beyond, I know that the executive A/G leadership has been made aware of this issue. And yet, no studies have commenced, no committees formed, and no positional papers issued.

I suspect that’s going to have to change. And soon.

Read along with me:

• Springfield News-Leader: Gay-rights group plans Monday visit to CBC
• Springfield News-Leader: 2 Soulforce members arrested
• The Chronicle of Higher Education: Gay-Rights Activists Arrested at Oklahoma Baptist U. [cached]
• Vanity Prayer Request: Gay Christians coming to Central Bible College Springfield Mo. for dialouge.

Apostate — it’s not exactly a common word. But for those doomed to hear its rare pronouncement, it can mean imminent death or serious eternal consequences.

Like repentance, apostasy implies a rejection or abandonment of a practice, ideal, or belief. And one religion’s penitent is another one’s apostate.

This irony became apparent in the first formal court case involving charges of apostasy in Kuwait. The court found Hussein Qambar Ali guilty for converting from Islam to Christianity in December 1995. Since Shari’ah law in Kuwait (and many other Islamic societies) prescribes the death sentence for apostasy, the court called for Ali’s execution, along with the termination of his marriage and the distribution of his possessions to heirs.

“Apostasy in the Islamic world is serious,” said Ali. “Anyone, even an ordinary person, has the right to kill me without any penalty.”

With religious and government leaders clamoring for his death, Ali fled his ransacked home, living on the run for several weeks. Finally, he left Kuwait to seek religious asylum in a vibrantly Christian nation full of healthy churches: the United States of America.

Unfortunately, the apostate Muslim soon became an apostate Christian. Less than two years after his conversion, Hussein Qambar Ali returned to Kuwait and recited the creedal Islamic statement before an official court: “I witness there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” The prodigal Muslim had come home.

Fortunately for Ali and others in the evangelized Western world, turning away from Jesus doesn’t equal treason or provoke an immediate “kill clause.” There are no Christian death squads looking for dropout Sunday schoolers and backslidden believers to behead. There’s no hangman’s noose outside the revolving back door of the modern American megachurch.

And yet, it wasn’t always so. The annals of history — and the archives of CT Library — brim with examples of Christian thinkers, leaders, and rebels who rejected contemporary orthodoxy and became martyrs for their presumed heresy. There’s William Tyndale, strangled and burned in 1536 for rejecting the notion that only priests could read the Bible. Or Patrick Hamilton, burned at the stake in 1528 for rejecting Scotland’s ban on Lutheran literature. There’s also Protestant preacher George Wishart, strangled and burned in 1546 for rejecting Catholic doctrine and embracing the Reformation. And John Rogers, burned in 1555 during the reign of Mary I for embracing Protestantism and refusing to not preach it.

Plus, don’t forget the Crusades, the Cathars, the Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials. When severing ties with apostates (legitimate or otherwise), the church has a bloody history.

But dealing with heresy in today’s church isn’t quite as dangerous or thrilling as addressing apostasy under the laws of Islamic societies, the rule of medieval Catholic potentates, or the dictates of colonial Puritans. Sure, Bishop Carlton Pearson recently earned the label of heretic for preaching the “Gospel of Inclusion,” teaching everyone’s already saved and going to heaven. But he still has a church … and his health. Lutheran minister Thorkild Grosboel of Denmark said, “There is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection”; and his great punishment was only a suspension.

However, while modern Christian apostasy won’t elicit a death sentence, it’s still dangerous. It still leads to certain eternal death. And it’s bleeding the Western church dry.

“Every year, some 2,765,100 church attenders in Europe and North America cease to be practicing Christians,” notes Books & Culture editor John Wilson, citing the World Christian Encyclopedia. That’s five Christians every minute slipping into practical apostasy. Meanwhile, the church in Africa alone is growing by a net result of three new believers every minute.

So while overseas churches become healthier, the American church seems to be infected. Despite aggressive evangelistic efforts, perhaps something intrinsic to the Western church’s theology, practice, or culture is “un-converting” new believers, driving them to apathy, if not outright apostasy.

Research seems to support this idea. In “Closing the Evangelistic Back Door,” Win and Charles Arn cite a study of three groups’ receptions to evangelistic presentations. One group made commitments and were actively involved in local churches. Another group “dropped out” soon after making commitments. And the third group rejected the presentation outright. Of those who remained committed, seven out of ten received a presentation using “non-manipulative dialog.” In contrast, nine out of ten “dropouts” received a presentation using “manipulative dialog.” And of those who said “no, thanks,” seven out of ten received a fact- and theology-driven presentation.

This study’s results indicate the need to revise evangelistic strategy. The Arns recommend abandoning manipulative coercion and viewing evangelism as a process rather than a one-time gospel presentation. They also believe evangelism should be fundamentally relational and tied closely to the church. For if the church community doesn’t befriend and incorporate believers within the first six months of their spiritual life, the church will likely see new converts become apostate dropouts.

Revolutionizing evangelistic techniques is also a concern of Foursquare pastor Jerry Cook:

Part of our problem is this: we’re trying to do the confronting. We’re trying to convert people. Conversion chases after a person’s beliefs, lifestyle, and relationships saying, “We have the answer.” Then we must inform the person what the question is that he should be asking. The whole process is artificial. …

[Unbelievers] are drawn to a relationship. That’s why “sinners” were drawn to Jesus. He never attacked them. He simply said, “You can be forgiven.” …

Until we come to grips with this, we will always be putting off the non-Christian and patronizing the Christian.

This failure of the Western church begs a sobering question: if Hussein Qambar Ali had fled from Kuwait to perhaps Africa, China, or Brazil, would he ever have abandoned Jesus and returned to Islam?

May God help American Christians reject flawed ideas of evangelism to become better disciples, demonstrating his love in order to make disciples — not converts at risk of becoming apostate ex-believers.

—

Originally published at CTLibrary on April 11, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today International.
Used with permission.

(Note: Most of the articles linked above require paid membership at CTLibrary.com to view, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading Christianity Today, Leadership, Books & Culture, or Christian History & Biography, it may well be worth it. Also, though I was once employed by Christianity Today, I do not personally benefit from any transactions through these sites.)

[T]hose of us involved in Internet evangelism in the West have, in many cases, devalued face-to-face relationships and neglected (or even abandoned) the local aspect of Christian community. … [W]e … are much too quick to assume that virtual community is just as ideal as face-to-face community. …

It is my strong conviction that the unbeliever must be immersed into Christian community prior to conversion in order for the unbeliever to understand that God loves him/her and to understand the purpose of Jesus’ mission on earth (that’s the point, I think, of Jesus’ statements in John 17:21-23). I don’t think that such immersion into Christian community is possible in the worldwide digital realm to the same extent that it is in the local physical realm. …

I tend to think that our basic philosophy of evangelism is flawed. If our approach was to encourage unbelievers to be immersed into Christian community prior to conversion, we would find that our “follow-up” would be much more effective. …

Our goal with the Internet and other digital means should not be primarily to gain new converts, but to facilitate the introduction of unbelievers into local Christian communities, which are the most effective context for outreach.

Touching on issues I’ve blogged about previously (specifically, A/G church growth stats and our discpleship issues), Frank makes a good case for not placing too much value on Internet-based relationships without a face-to-face, meatspace component. In fact, Frank very says that without prior engagement with a local body of believers, conversion and discipleship may not occur at all. And we have our own statistics to demonstrate that without mentoring and discipleship, coverts don’t “stick.”

GospelCon puts a sharper point on it by asking GodBloggers about their online conversion strategy:

[I]f your website or ministry has an evangelistic focus–perhaps even an invitation for visitors to accept Christ and become a Christian–it’s worth asking yourself: what do we do after one of our visitors accepts Christ through our website? Are we equipping them to grow in Christ and plug into a local church community? If it’s not possible to do that (perhaps the convert lives in a country that is hostile to the Gospel), are we doing our best to provide the online equivalent of the community and discipleship that is normally found in a physical church family?

The upshot of all this is really the delicate question that must be asked: do we pursue virtual conversions at the cost of souls?

I’m not a huge fan of online evangelism, just as I’m not a huge fan of bar-evangelism. Solid, healthy decisions to believe in Christ and make him Lord, to follow him in discipleship and obedience, can only be made soberly, with the facts in hand, and in light of the costs of being an apprentice to Jesus.

That said, I’ve witnessed to drunks (“Waiting for the Harvest”). I’ve witnessed in a bar (once responding to the challenge to explain the Gospel in five minutes to a PI who felt he’d never heard a decent Gospel presentation), I’ve witnessed to skeptical co-workers at a housewarming party. I’ve done street-witnessing. I’m a huge fan of witnessing when the opportunity presents itself, but I’m realistic and pragmatic about the call for conversion—sometimes we really only have the opportunity to defend the Gospel, to plant seeds, to call for repentance, to provide aid and comfort, to be hospitable. Every interaction with a seeker doesn’t necessarily have to lead to an altar call. It didn’t for Jesus, and there’s no reason you have to see every opportunity to open your mouth as a call for the Sinner’s Prayer. Being born a second time is a lot like being born the first time: there’s a gestation period, and premature births aren’t always in the new believer’s best interest.

But is it possible to witness online? I mean, is it possible to lead another to Christ online?

Yes. When God orchestrates the encounter.

Let me give you a brief example. In July of 2000 I answered a technical email that had been languishing in a discussion group inbox in my mail client for a few months. I answered it for no better reason than I was compelled to one night before leaving the office— and it was only one call for help out of several hundred emails in my queue. The next day I was stunned to discover that my email had become a direct answer to a prayer uttered by Kathi Sharpe, a fully committed pagan Wiccan. You see, God had been working Kathi over in her dreams, appearing to her, calling her to serve him. When she had enough of it, she asked God to solve this one technical problem that had been plaguing her for months, and that if he would do that, she’d seriously consider his claim on her heart. That next morning, my email was waiting in her inbox. What followed was a year-long series of correspondences and IM chat sessions where Kathi voiced her frustrations, her questions, and her celebrations. She started out a troubled Wiccan, came to faith quickly, and began growing in faith and maturity immediately. Now Kathi leads an online ministry to Wiccans, blogs, and serves faithfully in her local church. (See the transcript log at The Sharpe Logs.)

In this case, Kathi had a local church resource she could turn to immediately after coming to faith, and at several points in our dialog I deflected her questions to her pastor, who could ultimately provide better counsel. In many ways this anecdote only demonstrates the wisdom of Frank’s charge: Successful conversions require (or at least are vastly improved by) a local community of believers for fellowship, instruction, and growth. But in some other ways it also demonstrates that online conversions and discipleship are possible when the seeker initiates the dialog.

I agree with Frank that witnessing and evangelism are inherently relational. I would not recommend that a church just post the sinners prayer online hoping that this will lead to conversions and discipleship. Yes, this practice has a long and colorful history rooted in the covert placement of nifty evangelism tracts on park benches and doctor’s waiting rooms. And, yes, such impersonal presentations of the Gospel can and do have an impact of sorts. But sometimes the impact is negative, and it really is important for people new to the faith to find a local church and get involved. And the person least likely to know this is exactly the person you’re trying to reach.

Rather than doing online evangelism, I suggest we simply focus on being faithful in everything we do, whether it’s online, offline, in-line at Starbucks, or as we recline at home. Our faithfulness and our own personal discipleship will help assure a ready response when a query comes in over the email transom or in the comments section of our blog. It’s not about doing evangelism, but being disciples and making disciples. And, frankly, web pages do not disciples make.