Junk Food

We all know an exclusive diet of Big Macs isn’t just a bad idea—it’s more like suicide. But it’s even worse to gobble down the half-eaten burgers and cold rubbery fries you find under the back seat of your car. Repulsive, right? But Christians are doing the very same thing.

It wasn’t that long ago that Bill Hybels stood in front of his church—Willow Creek, one of the early pioneers of church growth theory—with his mea culpa. (I’d link to the video of Hybels saying, “We made a mistake,” but they’ve apparently pulled it from their website. But here’s a link to an early newsflash.) After decades of practicing church growth principles, Hybels said, “Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back, it wasn't helping people that much.” Yeah, kinda like fast food.

Today’s church-growth gurus have repackaged the same church-growth theories in cool-sounding, ministry buzzwords like incarnational, missional, and attractional. After a few bites, it becomes apparent that it’s nothing more than half-eaten burgers and cold fries. And it’s not a meal that gets better with age.

One of the more distasteful aspects of the contemporary version of church growth is the franchising, the brand propagation. Cookie-cutter churches are popping up everywhere, powered by church-growth principles, launched with shrewd marketing strategies, legitimized by impressive stats, and stamped with the brand of the celebrity leader and his church franchise. In some cases, you’ll even find the evangelical version of a PlayPlace and a clown. It’s a pattern that works, established by corporate, coming to a church near you.   Keep Reading >>>

The Incarnation Is About a Person, Not a Mission

For several weeks now, I’ve talked and corresponded with ministry leaders and pastors who are thinking hard about the mission of the church and evangelism. Our conversations have centered around the word incarnational, a common way for many to characterize their ministry today.

I suggest we abandon this usage and will make that case in this article. But I realize these church leaders are doing praiseworthy work in difficult places, places where many of us would hesitate to bring our families. And I want to let those who use the term speak for themselves so my response accounts for the best arguments for describing our ministry as incarnational.

From the Incarnation to Incarnational 

The fact that so many are attempting to work out the theological significance of God becoming man is, at first glance, noteworthy and encouraging. There is a refreshing lack of business/CEO talk in all of it. Alan Hirsch, author of several books including The Forgotten Ways and Untamed, wants to put the incarnation back into the imagination of the church’s mission. For Hirsch, incarnational gives us a more theologically rich vision than what sociological terms like contextualization and enculturation can provide. He says, “If missional means going out (being sent into the world), then incarnational means going deep down into the culture.” Hirsch elaborates: Keep Reading...