Weekly Links

Real Life on Food Stamps - In this great Sojourners article a mom shares her experience of getting signed up for food stamps

Why single-tasking is more productive than multi-tasking

Doing two things at once, like singing while you take a shower, is not the same as instant messaging while writing a research report. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can multitask jobs that need your full attention. You're not really having a conversation while you write; you're shifting your attention back and forth between the two activities quickly. You're juggling. When you juggle tasks, your work suffers AND takes longer--because switching tasks costs.

John Carroll has assembled a great list of seminary-level learning that is available for free online. This is a great list. All of his links go directly to iTunes

Thinking of getting rid of cable and watching shows online? Check out this article from Lifehacker

The Effects of a Broken Spirit

A spiritual goal I have for 2010 is to read through the entire Bible. This is something that I've never attempted, and am I excited by the challenge. I'm using this reading plan. Yesterday I was getting caught up after missing a couple of days, and came across a verse that I had never read before. It's from Exodus 6, which begins the back and forth dialog between God and Pharoah, with Moses as middle man.

In verse 2 God begins speaking his Father's heart for his people. He reminds Moses of the covenant that he established with them. He says that he has heard his people's groans as a result of their slavery, and he is going to redeem them. They will be his people and he will be their God. So Moses relays this message to the people, but verse 9 says that they did not listen.

You would think that if any message would cause you to listen, it would be this one. The Father's heart is on display. We see his passion and pursuit for his people, yet they don't listen. But the passage isn't over, and it's the remainder of verse 9 that spoke to me so powerfully. We learn here that there is a reason that they didn't listen. It's not because of their rebellious ways. It's not because they don't think God knows what he's talking about.

Verse 9 says that they didn't listen "because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery."

Here's what I felt God saying to me. I don't know what it's like to have a broken spirit, especially one that comes as a result of harsh slavery, or, really, any other kind of injustice. Because of this, I need to have a special compassion for those who have, and I need to seek understanding on what they are going through. It's difficult for me to understand how someone could not be captured by this message, but perhaps that's because I don't know the powerful effects that a broken spirit can have on a person.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12). These forces that Paul is talking about impact lives more than we realize. It's a scary thing. But here's the good news. We have someone fighting for us. In this passage God moves from Loving Father to Just Redeemer. He fights for his people. And the rest of the good news: He wins!

I am thankful that God fights for my soul, and I want to join that fight for the souls of others.

Healthcare in Haiti Before Earthquake

From Newsweek...

• In 2008, three fourths of the population had no access of any kind to healthcare
• Only one doctor for every 3000 citizens (compared with seven doctors for every 3000 US citizens)
• Life expectancy is 61 (78 in US)
• Infant mortality: 60 deaths per 1000 births, which is almost 10 times the U.S. rate and four times the rate in Memphis (US rate is 7 per 1000; Memphis: 15 per 1000)

Beyond Babyland

Beyond Babyland, a one-hour film, followed by a 60-minute panel discussion, premieres Monday, January 18 at 8:00 p.m. on WKNO/Channel 10. Award-winning filmmakers David Appleby and Craig Leake examine the problem of infant mortality in Memphis' poorest zip codes, and look at some of the people and organizations working to turn the tide and make a positive impact in our community.

Oreos and Government Spending

Shane Claiborne showed this video tonight at CCDA. Any thoughts?

Under the Overpass

After reading the Kindle sample chapter on my iPhone, I'm looking forward to getting this book. I had heard about it from a couple of friends. Interesting story. Beliefnet.com has an excerpt from that book. Here's an excerpt from their excerpt:

We both laughed, and I sat down to begin again. Just then three guys walked past, the lead guy carrying a pizza box.

“Hey bro!” I called. “You going to eat the rest of that pizza?”

The guy stopped, looked from Sam and me to his box of pizza, then said, “Nope.” Shaking his head, he walked over. “You want it?” he asked.

“Sure!” I said, and he handed it down to us.

We thanked him profusely. “No problem,” he said, walking away. “Enjoy.”

Opening the box we found half a pepperoni pizza. “Unbelievable!” Sam yelled.

“This is the good stuff!” I said, grabbing a piece. “Father, thank you for this food!”

We sat there, happily devouring the still-warm pizza. By the time we were down to the crumbs, we were ready for more conversation.

“‘Father, thank you for this food’ means something different out here, doesn’t it?” I said.

“Sure does,” said Sam. “I don’t know if I’ll ever say it so sincerely again after we get back.”

“I hope I don’t change,” I said.

Weekly Links

• Bailout bill fails to pass - I didn't see that coming, but I'm glad it didn't. I know the government needs to do something, but $700,000,000,000 scares me (doesn't that look a lot scarier than just writing "700 billion?"). There's got to be a Plan B, right?
  
  
• For what it's worth, here's Dave Ramsey's thoughts on how to fix this problem
  
  
• Mark Batterson's 10 Steps for Setting Life Goals - you'll have to give your name and email address, but I think it's well worth it.
  
  
• James Howell on why Christians should be defined by more than just Liberal or Conservative (from Ben Witherington's blog). I especially like the John Yoder quote.
  
  
• Wendi Thomas' article on Ron Sider - I got to hear him speak last Wednesday at 2nd Presbyterian Church, and am currently reading one of his books in preparation for a talk I'll give at church in a couple of weeks.
  
  
• Ben Witherington's Evangelical Voter's Guide
  
  
• New Advent Conspiracy website is up. I'm looking forward to taking part in this again this year.
  

Clean Water Video

You might have seen this if you watched Idol Gives Back last night.

The Church of Irresistible Influence 3

...without practically attractive, spiritually compelling, proof-positive lifestyles, what good are our claims and pronouncements about a life-changing God? If we can't outlive the world at every point - in our marriages, with our children, at work, with money, in our relationships, in the use of our time - why dare to speak of salvation and the abundant life? Incarnation of the Word must precede and empower the proclamation of the Word (61).

The Church of Irresistible Influence 2

Here is Fellowship's mission statement.

We exist to manifest the reality of Christ to the world by equipping Christians to live lifestyles of spiritual integrity, which are...

• Passionately committed to Jesus Christ (a heart for God)
• Biblically measured (everything by the Book)
  
• Morally pure (in a morally compromised age)
  
• Family centered (healthy homes are priority)
  
• Evangelistically bold (willing and confident in sharing one's faith)
  
• Socially responsible (the community around us is our business)
  

...and to equip Christians for influential works of service in our community and the world (62).

The Church of Irresistible Influence 1

I just started reading The Church of Irresistible Influence, by Robert Lewis. Here's a quote from the book.

In my quest to discern how my pastoral ministry could be more effective, I saw that more preaching is not the answer to today's spiritual hunger. Neither is the writing of more books, the hosting of more conferences, better technology, or special effects. For the most part, we are simply talking to ourselves. Meanwhile, the church grows increasingly isolated from its community and the culture, glorying in a biblical "witness" it often does not really possess.

Then I looked at some of the early attempts by our church at serving and caring for our community.

• I noticed the changed lives that resulted from members investing their lives in helping families in a low-income area known as Eastgate.
• I observed the impact of doctors from our church who set up a medical clinic at a home for unwed mothers.
• I felt a sense of God's pleasure as I joined hundreds of our members as we went out into the community one Saturday to clean up neighborhoods, repair homes, and complete other projects.
• I noted that city leaders were beginning to view Fellowship Bible Church as a force for good in the community.
• And wonderfully, I saw people who were formerly hardened to, and skeptical of, the gospel soften and embrace Christ (47).

Who are we called to be?

We're in week four of our book group on Greg Boyd's Myth of a Christian Nation. Here's a great quote from chapter 6:

This is what we are called to be: a community characterized by radical, revolutionary, Calvary-like love; a community that manifests the love of the triune God (John 17:21-26); a community that strives for justice not by conquering but by being willing to suffer; a community that god uses to transform the world by providing it with an alternative to its own self-centered, violent way of existing. How socially and politically revolutionary it would be if his disciples lived up to their calling!

Todd Hunter

I just read that Todd Hunter is leaving Alpha USA. Check out what he's going to be doing.

Effective April 1, Todd Hunter (51) transitioned from his role of National Director at Alpha USA to launch a new ministry focused on helping pastors and lay leaders reach a generation that has become disenfranchised from the church.

Under the new non-profit, Society for Kingdom Living, Hunter will develop his writing, speaking and professional activities in the areas of conversational evangelism and the 21st century church. Hunter has a passion for evangelism but is convinced that Christianity in America has a massive image problem that stymies most attempts at evangelism. With the basic premise that Christianity needs to be re-practiced in order to help make followers of Jesus in this generation, he is developing resources and events that include writing a series of three books, the first to be published by InterVarsity Press, developing conferences, and teaching at key seminaries.

Hunter will begin this ministry by teaching and consulting on Three Is Enough Groups. These groups are designed to show people how to undo un-Christian faith by showing them that heaven is not the goal of Christianity - it is simply the destination. Being the servant - otherly people of God - is the goal.

Through his writing and teaching, Hunter will encourage churches and lay leaders to begin forming Three Is Enough Groups to help individuals pray, grow and serve. Keeping the groups small and focused insures that evangelism can happen anywhere, in the midst of people’s busy lives. Meeting in their most natural places of community – the workplace, school, or at the local coffee shop - Three Is Enough Groups will go on the Journey Inward of spiritual transformation and the Journey Outward of serving others. This will be done through the power of the Holy Spirit, for the sake of others - the least, the last and the missing.

Listen to the Externally Focused Churches Webinar

Leadership Network just made the webinar I blogged about the other day available. I haven't figured out how to download it yet, but you can listen to it here.

Externally Focused Church Webinar

Last Wednesday I listened to a webinar with Eric Swanson and Rick McKinley. I've listened to and read quite a bit from Rick McKinley, and I always come away with some new insight. This webinar was no different. Below are some notes.

Four Paradigm Shifts a Church must make to become Missional

1. From How-To to Want-To

• If we are not on mission, it's not because we don't know how, but rather because we choose not to be.
  
• If we desire to be on mission, the first step is repentance.
  
• Only God can change our sinful and selfish hearts.
• We talk a lot about sins of commission, but we also need to deal with sins of omission.
  

2. From Coming to Going

• Attractional churches (how do we get people to come to church) vs. Incarnational/Missional churches (how does the church go to the people)
• It's not that one is good and the other is bad (it's not a good thing if your church is un-attractional). However, if we are going to influence the culture, we need to figure out how to be incarnational.
  
• We often believe that the world exists for the church. This is a faulty belief.
• We are the Sent people of God
• The church's best expression isn't on Sundays. It's when we see our workplaces, schools and neighborhoods as our mission fields.
• We are not here for our own agenda but for Jesus' agenda, and his agenda is about loving people.
• Which is more difficult, to get our church to go out into the community or to get the community to come to our church?
  

3. From Protection to Proclamation

• Our focus is often "Us vs. Them", especially when we see the culture all around us changing. Yet we aren't here to protect. We're here to proclaim.
• Here in the U.S., we're not going to be killed for proclaiming. Why, then, are we still in protection mode? Does God need to be protected?
• Our job is to joyfully serve and proclaim His reign (Kingdom of God)
  

4. From Relevance to Influence

• Relevance became such a hot topic for the church because we were often very irrelevant to the culture at large.
• However, many of us have stopped at relevance, and we're not even sure why we are trying so hard to be relevant.
• The purpose for relevance is so that we will have influence in the culture. That is the goal.
• We can't be so focused on relevance that we fail to preach the entire Gospel (including the difficult parts).
  

Final Thoughts

• We need to teach the people in our churches what redemptive work looks like. Their work has a gospel-based focus and a gospel-based outcome.
• Do the people in our churches know how to "Go?" What does this look like?
• Our budget has to reflect this shift
• Rick McKinley: "If you took away the work we were doing in the city, and I was just preaching every Sunday, it would make a major difference in our influence."
• Rick was asked, "How do you lead a very traditional church to becoming missional?" His response: "You have a better shot at making them missional than making them attractional. You have to be honest with your condition. If you are an older congregation that sings hymns, that is not a bad thing. The question is, are we willing to go through the process of repentance?"
  

Easter Weekend

Another Easter has come and gone, and I feel in some ways that I missed it. The last few weeks have been such a blur that I have found it difficult to sit and be still. Friday night Jason and Barb hosted a Good Friday observance. They spent a lot of time preparing for it, and it was a very moving experience for me. Today was a little weird, though. I realized yesterday that the Tigers were set to tip off a little before our Easter Egg Hunt began. I think that caused me to do a little sulking today. I was very pessimistic about today's events.

Our group planned on getting to the Skinner Center at 3:30, and the Easter Egg Hunt was set to begin at 4:00. None of us were really that prepared, in part due to the fact that we didn't know if anyone would show up. I went outside to the park a few minutes after 4:00, and began telling people that we were getting ready to have an Easter Egg Hunt. I went back in. When I returned, there were quite a few people waiting.

I told the kids that the Easter Bunny, played with excellence by Josh, (I'm glad our kids can't read) was on his way, and that we would begin as soon as he got there. As you can imagine, there was much excitement at the notion that the Easter Bunny would there. When he got there, we released the kids to find their hidden eggs. We then invited anyone who wanted to have their picture taken with the bunny.

When it was all over, Mandy told me that there were at least 35 kids, plus their parents. I'm not sulking anymore. I am very happy that we had the opportunity to give kids a good time and meet some new neighbors in the process.

Southern Baptists and Creation Care

By Brian McLaren

As the nation's second largest denomination (after the Roman Catholic Church), Southern Baptists have been given much, so their potential to do good is considerable - as is the danger of missing opportunities to do good. Sadly, until now, constituents and leaders of the 16-million-member Convention have tended to lag behind other large Christian communities when it comes to addressing the issue of environmental stewardship in general and climate change in particular. But that may be changing.

In 2007, the Convention took the positive step of passing a statement affirming the need for Baptists to care for creation, but a new group of Southern Baptists - including many notable Baptist leaders - have said the statement was too timid: it could be interpreted by "the world," they said, as "uncaring, reckless and ill-informed." Through the new declaration, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change," these leaders are calling Baptists to keep moving forward in care and healing for God's precious planet. Jonathan Merritt, a young leader who helped inspire the new declaration, expressed his motivation in language that resonates deeply with Southern Baptists: to trash this beautiful planet - which is God's handiwork and declares God's glory - is like tearing out pages from the Bible.

True, many SBC notables have not yet signed the new statement. But current Convention president Frank Page did, along with 43 other exemplary SBC leaders including Ed Stetzer, Larissa Arnault, David Clark, Timothy George, John Hammett, Darrin Patrick, Jonathan Merritt, and two previous Convention presidents, Jack Graham and James Merritt. Their website (www.baptistcreationcare.org) has room for additional signatories, so we may see the center of gravity shift further toward environmental responsibility in the coming days and weeks.

Read more.

Public School Education

A few weeks ago Al Mohler's new book, Culture Shift, came out. One of the chapters is entitled "Needed: An Exit Strategy for Public Schools." I have not read the book, but have read a few articles and blog posts about this chapter (see below). This topic is very near to my heart. When we were first planning to move to Memphis, one of the first questions that came up was, "Where are you going to send Adam for school?" We were told that the public school system was in a mess, and we would most likely end up moving out of the city when Adam turned five. We knew that it was going to take longer than 4 or 5 years to see a church started, so we had to find other options.

In our first year in Cooper-Young, we started learning about Peabody Elementary School. Last April we held a forum at the school, and discovered that the question of where to send our children was near to a lot of people's hearts. We discovered that many of our friends desired to live holistic lives that revolved around their neighborhood. They didn't want to leave the city, and neither did they want their kids going to school outside of the city. Mandy is now on the leadership council at Peabody, even though she teaches at a different elementary school. We have been so encouraged by what we have seen there. In three weeks we are going to have a new playground. The CYCA, Peabody, Home Depot, and a nonprofit called Kaboom have teamed up to build a playground on March 20. This is going to be such an exciting time for our neighborhood and our school.

I am proud of our little church because everyone is behind this. And I'm definitely proud of my wife, because she has played such a large role in getting much of this off the ground.

When I hear someone say that we need an exit strategy from public school, I am saddened. On one hand, I want to be live with a lot of grace in this issue . My child is not in school yet, so who am I to judge someone for choosing one way or the other. This is not an easy decision. I would like to think that all of us will stay in this neighborhood and fully support the public school, but I want to be realistic. I'm sure that some of us will end up moving out of the city or sending our children to private school. That, however, is not going to stop me from working hard to try to get more and more people to consider public education.

As a follower of Jesus, I feel that this is one of my roles. I'm getting ready to preach from Genesis 12 in a few weeks. God's covenant with Abraham was that he and his descendants would be blessed...in order that they might be a blessing to the world. I desire to be a blessing to my neighborhood and my city. The only way that will happen is for me to be a part of my neighborhood and city. That's why incarnational ministry is so essential. The original incarnation featured Jesus (aka God) becoming flesh and blood like us and moving into our neighborhood. Praise God for that!

I'll leave you with one resource. This is a blog post from Scot McKnight's site. Read the comments as well. As of now there are 136 of them.

Prison Entrepreneurship Program in Fast Company

Rising Star: Prison Entrepreneurship Program

From: FastCompany.com By: Fast Company staff

Catherine F. Rohr, CEO
Houston, Texas
pep.org

A large percentage of inmates come to prison as seasoned entrepreneurs, having run highly successful enterprises such as drug rings and gangs. What if these influential leaders were provided with the training and resources to establish and run legitimate companies?

The Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) links executives and inmates through entrepreneurial passion, education and mentoring. The program engages the nation's top business and academic talent to constructively redirect inmates' energies by equipping them with values-based entrepreneurial training--enabling them to productively re-enter society.

In three years since inception, PEP has dramatically reduced return-to-prison rates: its graduates' return-to-prison rates are 3.7%, compared to the national average of more than 50%. The program has a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 150%, and has assisted 40 participants in starting their businesses. PEP has recruited 800+ senior level executives and venture capital/private equity professionals who serve as inmates' mentors and business plan judges. Additionally, the program has established affiliations with 12 top-tier MBA programs, including Harvard and Stanford, whose 400+ students serve as weekly advisors for the inmates' business plans. The program's innovative work has won several awards, and has received coverage on NBC Nightly News and in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur Magazine.

PEP's five-year vision includes:

• Growing its budget from $2MM to $15MM
• Graduating 1,000 inmates per year
• Assisting 500 graduates in launching successful businesses
• xpanding staff from 17 to 125 employees

PEP is hiring successful, motivated entrepreneurial-types. Ready to jump ship? Email: recruiting@pep.org

Clean Water