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 >>>

My Halloween Theory

It has been fascinating to witness the rise of Halloween in recent years. What was at one time a day for kids to spend a couple of hours going door-to-door to collect candy and coins has morphed into a true holiday where kids and adults alike celebrate. Recent trips to costume stores show that the shelf space given to adult costumes now outweighs the space given to children’s costumes. I actually wonder if the trajectory of the holiday is such that the children will soon be forgotten altogether.

It’s fascinating to me—and more than a little repulsive—that on Halloween you can walk into a legitimate, professional workplace—a bank or real estate office where millions of dollars change hands every day—and find women dressed in ill-fitting, sexy costumes. You can find men dressed like skeletons or superheroes. Just for one day we can all act in ways that any other days would get us fired (or institutionalized). 

I’ve often wondered why it is that Halloween has transformed from what it was to what it is today. Along the way I’ve developed a theory. It may seem a little far-fetched, but hear me out and let me know what you think. First I’ll give two background factors or forces, and then get to the heart of my theory.   Keep Reading>>>

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The Limits of Science

The kind folks at Evangelical Press sent me this book to review: Is God Past His Sell-By Date by John Blanchard.  It is a shorter version of his award-winning Does God Believe in Atheists?  The former is around 230 pages while the latter is around 650.  Is God Past His Sell-By Date is intended for skeptics, people who doubt or question the Christian faith, the existence of God, the person/work of Jesus, and so forth.  The book mostly deals with creation, humanity, evil, science, suffering, and the gospel.  Even though I’m not a skeptic, this book helped me think through some of my own doubts and questions I have about life in general as well as the Christian faith.  At the end of each chapter there is a short testimony written by different Christians who used to be skeptics.  I appreciated these testimonies; they were “real life” examples of how God brings people out of doubt and into [the] faith.

One section that stands out for me is where Blanchard discusses the limits of science (p. 64-5).  Drawing on several scientists themselves, he lists the following limits (which I’ve edited for the sake of space):

1) Science can tell us nothing about why the universe should have come into being.  It cannot answer the question that Stephen Hawking asked (and could not answer himself): “Why does the universe bother to exist?”   Keep Reading...