The Backside of Thirty

I turned 35 yesterday. I don't think that's much of a milestone birthday, at least not like 16 or 21 or 40 or anything like that. But it was a reflective birthday. Something about reaching the backside of thirty makes me feel old. For those of you who don't listen to old country music songs, that's a line from a '79 John Conlee song. I actually have it in my truck's CD player right now. I know, I know, Conlee is not exactly hip, but neither am I. Take for example the fact that I just used the word hip.

Anyway, there's a line in the chorus that says I'm on the backside of thirty, the short side of time. That's the part sill ringing in my ears. The short side of time?! So I've been a little more reflective on this birthday than normal. I've been thinking back over my last 35 years and wondering what I'll do with the next 35 years. Here's my short list (so far)...

• Stay at a church longer than five years. Since leaving home, that hasn't happened and my five year anniversary at Maury Hills is up in October. I'm not trying to scare anyone at MH. I don't plan on going anywhere. I couldn't imagine a better church or a better fit. I just want to make sure I don't screw it up. Church research continually shows that long tenure is one the keys to growing a healthy church.


• Learn how to speak Spanish. This has been on my New Year's Resolution list for about three years, yet I still only have a Dora-level understanding of the language. The problem is lack of exposure. At least one week out of every year (the Belize trip) I have strong desire to learn Spanish, but my enthusiasm fizzles throughout the remaining 51.


• Write a book. Same story. It's been on the New Year's Resolution list multiple times, maybe since Junior High. At least that's how long I've been writing stories. In fact, my Mom just found a whole stack of them in my old room and some are quite funny (if you enjoy 8th grade humor). Anyway, the book dream has been out there for a while and I figure I'll surely get around to in the next three decades.


• Teach my kids how to hunt and fish. This is something my Granddad and Dad passed down to me and its one of my favorite pastimes. There's just something about being in the woods or on the river that brings me happiness. It also gives me time to think and connects me with God's creation. I want my kids to experience that. I also want my kids to understand where things come from (i.e. meat comes from dead animals, not the grocery store). A couple of weeks ago I took Halle fishing and she asked, "When we catch some fish can we please throw them in the cooler and cook them for supper?" That's my girl.


• Take my wife to Hawaii. She's wanted to go for as long as I've known her. She wanted to go for our Honeymoon, but we settled for Colorado. Then I told her maybe we'd go there on our 10th anniversary, but I think we wound up in Nashville. So then I was talking 15th but that's only a couple years away so I've recently moved it back to the 20th. At some point I've got to stop postponing and book a flight.


• Give a major charitable gift. In working for a non-profit (a church) and volunteering at another one (my kid's school), I've come to appreciate the power of the big gift. The one that comes out of the blue and allows you to add that much-needed extra classroom or pay off that looming debt. I'd like to do that kind of thing one day. Just go up to an elder or a principal and say "what is it you need the most right now?" Then write a big check for it.

• Own a farm. I was raised on a farm. Not a working one with chickens and chores and stuff like that, but we had our share of adopted strays, fields and ponds. I loved it and still do. One day I want to be able to step off my own back porch and go hunting. This doesn't make any sense to my wife because I already have more hunting leases than I need, but its different when its your own backyard. I guess I just want to live in the country again someday. You could say we kinda do now (15 minutes from town on 1.75 acres), but it still feels like city living to me.

A Promise Kept

If you plan to be at Maury Hills this Sunday then stop reading. This story and video will be in there somewhere, it's just too powerful not to share...

Robertson McQuilken was the president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary (now Columbia International University) from 1968 to 1990. He was a renown NT scholar, author and speaker. He was married to his wife, Muriel for 53 years. In the 1980s, during the middle of his tenure as president, Muriel’s health begin to decline and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Over the course of the next few months and years things got progressively worse and her health deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t speak, reason, clothe herself, feed herself or bathe herself. So in 1990, Robertson stood before the student body and resigned his position as president in order to go home and care for his wife of then 40 years. I couldn't find the entire speech, but here's a clip...



Apparently Robertson McQuilkon wasn’t just a student of the Bible, he was a follower. The two most powerful statements to me were "I'm a man of my word" and "I don’t have to do this. I get to do this.”

Doing What You Know

I heard this quote on the radio today...

"It's not that we don't know what to do, it's that we don't do what we know."

There's a lot of truth in that. The reason I sometimes struggle with being a good husband or a good father has little to do with knowledge. I know what to do. I just don't always do it. That's because doing it usually requires more effort, more time and more commitment.

The same is true with churches. The reason some churches thrive while others languish has little to do with knowledge. They know what to do. They just don't always do it. That's because doing it usually requires more effort, more time and more commitment.

The same is true with business. The reason some businesses achieve excellence while others remain average has little to do with knowledge. They know what to do. They just don't always do it. That's because doing it usually requires more effort, more time and more commitment.

Are you sensing a pattern here? When things aren't going well it's usually not due to a lack of knowledge, but a lack of implementation. We usually don't need more information. We need more action! Yet almost all of our training, conferences, seminars, classes, sermons, books, etc., are geared to distribute information rather than inspire action. Granted, education is valuable but only when coupled with action.

I used to think about this whenever I attended business conferences. I'd sit in a room full of competitors listening to ideas about how to better market our products or improve our business. I'd think "This is great stuff, but what good is it if all my competitors get the same information? If everyone learns the same 'secret of success' then it's not much of a secret." But the secret wasn't in the idea, the secret was in who would go home and actually implement the idea. The answer was very few.

I read somewhere that Peter Drucker said there are very few high achievers within any organization (maybe 10%). I think he's right. I also think that there are very few high achieving organizations (be it schools, churches, businesses or non-profits). The reason? It's not that we don't know what to do, it's that we don't do what we know.

The Bible says that listening, but not doing "is like looking at your face in the mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like." (James 1:23-24 NLT). When you put like that it doesn't make a lot of sense to seek knowledge, but never implement it. Yet how many times have I read a book, attended a conference, listened to a sermon or heard a great idea and then walked away, forgetting what I learned?

Church Growth (The Old Fashioned Way)

Churches are always thinking of new ways to spur grow within their congregations, yet new statistics show that most aren't working. A couple of Sundays ago the Tennessean reported that almost every major Christian denomination is either in decline or pleateued. The handful that are growing aren't even keeping pace with the population growth. It used to be a problem that mostly affected mainline Protestant denominations (ala Episcopalians or Methodists), but now it's also affecting more conservative denominations (ala Southern Baptists or Assemblies of God). The reason, according to Conrad Hackett, a postdoctral fellow in the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin:

"...most of the decline of mainline churches can be linked to declining fertility rates. As early as the 1930s, women in more progressive or liberal denominations had fewer children than women in conservative churches. Now conservative Christian women are having fewer children as well."

"The fact of the matter is that there are demographic trends that hit the liberal or progressive denominations earlier," Hackett said, "and some of these trends are now catching up with the more conservative denominations."

The article goes on to detail some of the ways churches are trying to stop the bleeding, including more emphasis on outreach and church planting. But Hackett says...

"Those efforts will help...but not as much as having more babies."

Sociologists of religion like Rodney Stark argue that the early Christian church grew from a small group of followers to the dominant religion in the Roman Empire by having more kids than non-Christians.

Churches might want to try that approach again, Hackett said.

"The fact is that one of the most reliable predictors of growth is fertility," Hackett said. "In the long term, for denominations, having members who have more children is one of the most likely means of growing denominations."

Do We Have a History?

I thought this piece was relevant in regards to some of the conversation in the comments of this post. It's from the introduction of a book on the history of the Churches of Christ by Gary Holloway and Douglas A. Foster. I think the authors do a good job explaining the value of church history within the specific context of the Restoration Movement. Perhaps it will give some perspective.

He came into a course in Restoration History and announced, "I don't care what Barton Stone or Alexander Campbell said. All I care about is what the Bible says."

We thought of several appropriate responses. What we did say was, "At least one reason you care only for what the Bible says is that Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell influenced you."

Or take another example. An undergraduate Bible major goes home to visit. At church on Sunday a good deacon asks him, "What are you studying this semester?" The student replies, "The Gospel of Luke, Youth Ministry, Speech Communication, English Composition and Restoration History." "Restoration History?" the deacon replies. "What good will that do you?"

These stories illustrate the mixed feelings in Churches of Christ about our history. Indeed, some would deny that we have a history. Aren't we the church of the first century? Isn't all history after the first century just a record of apostasy and corruption? Shouldn't we leap over those years to the purity of the early church? Don't we undercut our plea to be biblical by admitting we have a history?

We understand those who want to deny our history. On the side of the church building where one of us grew up were the words: "Church of Christ, Established A.D. 33." The idea was that we wanted to be the church of the New Testament, the one established at Pentecost. That ideal still burns brightly in our hearts. We do not want to restore everything about the early church (no one wants to be exactly like the Corinthians), but we do want to be the kind of church that the first century churches should have been. In a real sense, we can trace our existence to that first church at Pentecost.

But do we have a history after Pentecost? Honesty requires that we answer, "Yes." The whole history of the church, as messy and fallen as it has been, is in some sense our history. Although we want to be like the early church, we must admit that we are not the first Christians. Two thousand years have passed. Previous generations have passed the faith on to us. We would not have the Bible itself were it not for the faithful labors of copyists and translators who lived long after Pentecost. One reason for studying church history is to honor these spiritual fathers and mothers.

Studying church history also helps us experience how faithful Christians in the past struggled to follow God in their own context. If we can see how the church in the past often conformed to much of its culture, then perhaps we can see how much our culture threatens to subvert the current church. Studying church history also shows how the church has positively affected the culture around it.

Studying history can also help us understand the Bible. We prize the authority of the Bible because those who went before us taught us to respect it. By seeing how previous generations understood (and misunderstood) the Bible, we gain perspective on its meaning for our time.

This book focuses on our history in the context of America. While it is true in one sense that Pentecost A.D. 33 (or more likely, A.D. 30) is our birthday, there are other dates we can point to as the beginning points of the existence of the Churches of Christ in America. The first "founding document" in our history is The Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery written in 1804. The ministers who wrote these words began the first group of independent churches in this movement. Although many before him called Christians back to the Bible for the sake of Christian unity, Thomas Campbell's publication of The Declaration and Address in 1809 marked a significant intellectual beginning to our movement. The Disciples of Christ in particular see that date as their starting point, celebrating a centennial in 1909 and anticipating a bicentennial in 2009.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the movement divided with the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) and the Churches of Christ becoming separate groups. Some place that division in 1889, when Daniel Sommer and others called for a break of fellowship in the "Declaration and Address" at Sand Creek, Illinois. The "official" date of that division is 1906 [when David Lipscomb confirmed that the Churches of Christ had split from the Christian Church]. Thus, in one sense, the Churches of Christ in America had our centennial in 2006.

So what is our birthday? All and none of the above. We do want to be the church founded at the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus. Yet, we must admit that we are the church in an American context. We owe our identity to Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone in the 19th century. We also owe a debt to those in the 20th century who shaped what we now are as Churches of Christ.

I also highly recommend the book itself. It's a concise history and offers a great overview.

One Hour a Week

We're preparing to open our new children's wing this weekend so my mind has been on children's ministry lately. Typically, a church gets one hour a week to influence the life of a child. Just one hour. Over a year that translates to maybe 45 hours (assuming they miss a few Sundays). That's less than 1% of their time. Compare that with amount of time they are influenced by school, sports, media, internet, friends, etc. It's staggering. That's why we've been working hard at Maury Hills to do two things:

1) Make that hour the absolute best hour of their week.
2) Partner with the home (where lasting spiritual formation happens in the first place).

Here's what we're trying to do in each of those areas. On Sundays we invest a tremendous amount of time and energy into our children's ministry. It takes up more space, more staff and more volunteers than anything else we do. We truly want it to be the best hour of their week! We want our kids to engage in worship, learn Bible truths and spend time applying those truths to their lives. This happens because of dedicated volunteers who are willing to share their lives with the kids. The registration volunteers make sure that they receive a warm welcome and parents feel comfortable. The hosts and worship leaders help them learn how to praise God and sing from their heart. The storytellers teach them that the Bible is not boring and make it come alive in unbelievably creative ways. The small group shepherds nurture and guide the kids in applying the principles of the Bible to everyday situations. I'm continually amazed at what my kids learn and love to see them "making the wise choice" or "trusting God no matter what." Two of the core values that are taught each week.

With our new building we're adding an entirely new element to Sunday mornings. It's called an "immersive environment." All week long our kids spend time in their rooms or classrooms which are typically full of kid stuff. They watch TV, play video games, listen to their ipods or surf the Internet. Then they come to church and sit in a room with blank walls and watch flannel-graph figures. If church is going to be the best hour of the week, then it also has to the most kid-friendly place in town. Of course we're not going to compete with Disney, but we are going to work hard to create an atmosphere that's inviting, fun and cool (or whatever word the kids are using these days). Our children's area has been transformed from blank walls to a Coney Island boardwalk complete with a ticket booth, surf shop, funhouse, captian's room and pier. It's one of the most amazing things I've seen. I wish I was back in 2nd grade so I could go to Bible class in there.

The idea of partnering with the home is still a work in progress. It's something we've been trying to gradually incorporate into our church. We realize that parents have the greatest potential to impact their kids spiritually. Therefore, we need to include parents in every step of the process. What happens in the one hour on Sunday is only valuable if its carried home and repeated throughout the week. So we're trying to do a few things differently. One is information. We've tried to provide more info to parents about what their kids are learning and how they can help reinforce those truths. We've done that through classes for parents and handouts that go home with the kids. One of the coolest things was the For Heaven's Sake class where we shared the gospel with both parents and kids, then challenged them to go home and discuss it as a family. I know of some great discussions (and decisions for Christ) coming out of that event.

Two is family experiences. We want to create some intentional events where the parents and kids learn or serve together. This allows the parents to see first-hand what their kids are doing and to model Christ for them. Two examples of this are Kidstuf and Summer Surge. Kidstuf is a family worship experience that's geared towards both parents and kids. With storytelling and drama we hope to spark conversations that extend beyond Sundays. Summer Surge is when we cancel all our classes on Wednesday nights and do something as a family each week. It may be fellowship (Concert in the Park) or service (King's Daughter's Party) or spiritual (Prayer Walk). It's something the entire family can do together.

Of course, I'm making it sound like we have all this down to a science. We don't. There's still plenty of gaps left to fill and we're constantly evaluating and re-adjusting. And very little of this is original with us. The folks over at Orange have been influential in shaping our thinking. A wise youth minister once told me the key to implementing effective ideas in ministry is knowing "what to steal and when to steal it." So what about your church? What are you doing for kids? Any good ideas we could steal?

Daylight Savings

My alarm goes off every morning at 6:40 AM. I don't always get out of the bed at that time (the inventor of the snooze button is one of my favorite people) but I'm generally awake within the next 10 minutes. Not this morning. Today I just couldn't wake up, even after three snooze button routines. And my alarm is located on the dresser where I have to get out of bed to reach it. Someone told me that would keep me from hitting snooze too much, but they were wrong. I finally rolled out of bed thinking "Why am I having such a hard time waking up?" Then it hit me. It wasn't really 6:40 AM. It was actually 5:40 AM in disguise thanks to Daylight Savings Time!

I'm a little torn about the whole concept of Daylight Savings. In the mornings, I think it's probably one of the most dumbest things we do. Why in the world are we moving our clocks around twice a year?! Are we actually accomplishing anything other than disrupting sleep and how does "saving daylight" work anyways? But in the evenings, I change my mind. The concept is genius. Why waste all that daylight in the mornings when we can simply move the clocks and tack it on to the evenings. Brilliant. Whoever thought of this idea should be given a medal and put in charge of our nation's economy.

So the adjustment is painful, but overall I'm for keeping it around. However, I do have a couple of suggestions for improvement.

1) Please stop making the change on Sunday mornings. It's killing us preachers. It's hard enough to get people here for the early service without taking away an hour of their sleep. Why not make the change on Saturdays where it wouldn't interfere with worship attendance and church members could avoid possible embarrassment. Like those families that forget to move their clocks, come in at the end of worship thinking its the beginning, and have that bewildered look on their face when things wrap up in 5 minutes. Plus, I could actually sleep in.

2) Is it really necessary to go to school the first Monday of Daylight Savings? Our school has all kinds of "Monday holidays." Why can't we coordinate one of those with Daylight Savings? Maybe move Columbus Day or something. Does anyone really care what month we celebrate Columbus Day? Then I wouldn't have to beat the kids out of bed to get them there on time. I'm just kidding of course. I didn't actually didn't beat them. Just a lot of yelling and empty threats.

Anyway, that's my suggestions for improvement. I think I'll send an email to Obama and see what he can do. Any other ideas?

Repealing Conscience

From Cal Thomas' column yesterday...

A rule approved in the waning days of the Bush administration established broad protections for health-care workers whose religious faith, conscience or moral misgivings forbid them from participating in an abortion. Last Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services, which is still without a confirmed secretary, announced its intention to rescind the regulation. There will be a 30-day period of public comment before the rule is overturned. Here is mine.

No politician can be found who admits to favoring abortion. To acknowledge moral misgivings means that you are at least acknowledging that the beating heart and brain waves extinguished during an abortion are of greater significance than, say, the removal of an appendix or a tumor. Infected appendices can burst, killing the individual. A tumor can grow, become malignant and cause death. A growing unborn child can be born and contribute not only to the betterment of the country, but if you’re utilitarian about it, increase the tax base. Abortion kills a potential taxpayer, which ought to override every other consideration for liberal politicians who are constantly looking for new sources of revenue.

Why do social liberals say they want to make abortion “safe, legal and rare,” but then spend all their time on the first two and none on the third? It is relatively simple to reduce the number of abortions, even while keeping them “safe” and “legal.” Show the abortion-minded woman a sonogram of the fetus she is about to destroy. A 2005 survey by Care Net, a network of about 1,000 antiabortion pregnancy centers in the United States and Canada, based in Sterling, Va., found that “72 percent of women who were initially ‘strong leaning’ toward abortion decided to carry their pregnancies to term after seeing a sonogram.” That isn’t depriving a woman of her “choice.” It is providing more information so that her choice will be fully informed.

Carried to its logical conclusion, repealing the “conscience rule” would allow hospitals to require pro-life doctors and nurses to participate in abortions. The Catholic Church teaches that elective abortion is a mortal sin, so the government is considering a requirement that would place a Catholic in the position of risking excommunication and the eternal damnation of his or her soul. Evangelical Christians regard abortion as equally offensive. Where is the separation of church and state when you really need it? [read the entire article here]

Although he takes a little political jab with the taxpayer comment, he otherwise makes some great points. I think a "woman's right to chose" is here to stay, but shouldn't we at least help them make an informed choice? Before you undergo any medical procedure wouldn't you want your doctor to present you with all the facts? And we certainly shouldn't force medical professionals to violate their conscience or the moral teachings of their faith in order to perform an elective procedure. That should be the decision of the doctor, not the government. Where is the separation of church and state when you really need it? Well said Cal.

What Happened to All the Deaconesses?

A little background info for those not familiar with the history. The Churches of Christ, along with the Independent Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ, were birthed by the American Restoration Movement. The primary concern of this movement was the desire to restore the practices of the early church and there was much emphasis on the idea of restoring the "ancient order of things." An important part of this was the establishment of proper church structure. Each congregation was to be governed independently by a plurality of elders (or overseers) and deacons were to be appointed to carry out the specific works of the church. As you can tell from the title, this post deals with the latter role.

In Romans 16:1 Paul writes "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. I ask that you receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me." The Greek word translated "servant" is the same word translated "deacon" or "minister" in other places. It's also the same word used by Paul to denote other servants/deacons/ministers in the church such as Apollos, Eprahas, Timothy, etc. Many believe that Phoebe was a deacon in the early church in the same sense as these men.

Then in 1st Timothy 3:11, while listing the qualities of a deacon, Paul writes "In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything." The Greek word translated "wives" in the NIV or KJV can also be translated "women" as in the ASV or RSV. There is some debate among scholars as to whether Paul was referring to the "wives of deacons" or simply "women deacons." Those saying it's wives point to the immediate context believing that it would be awkward to address deacons in vs. 8-10, deaconesses in v. 11, and then back to deacons in v. 12-13. Those saying it's women deacons point to the immediate context as well, saying that there are no similar instructions for the wives of elders in vs. 1-7 and it would be odd include qualifications for deacon's wives but not for overseer's wives.

At any rate, from Romans 16:1 (more so) and from 1st Tim 3:11 (less so) you can make the argument that deaconesses were a part of the early church. So it would stand to reason that a movement primarily concerned with restoring the practices of the early church would include the role of deaconesses in its church structure. That's the exact argument made by some of the early Restoration Movement leaders. Take a look...

In 1827, Alexander Campbell, the most prominent leader of the movement, wrote that early Christians in Jerusalem "appointed female deacons, or deaconesses, to visit and wait upon the sisters. Of this sort was Phoebe of Cenchrea, and other persons mentioned in the New Testament, who labored in the Gospel." Later in 1835 he wrote, "it appears that females were constituted deaconesses in the primitive church. Duties to females, as well as to males, demand this."

Tolbert Fanning, founding editor of the Gospel Advocate said that "the sisters, beyond all question, were as legitimately deacons as the brethren. Paul said 'I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a deacon/servant of the church at Cenchrea.' The Apostle, not only recommended the brethren at Rome receive her as a deacon of her church, but to 'assist her in whatsoever business she had need of them.'"

W.K. Pendleton, another early leader, wrote in 1848 that it was "generally regarded among our brethren, as an essential element in the restoration of primitive order, to ordain, in every church, both deacons and deaconesses." Later in 1870 he said, "Besides deacons, every church should have deaconesses, whose duty it is to perform such offices as cannot be so well performed by deacons, and especially such to females, as could not with delicacy and propriety be laid upon the deacons."

Moses E. Lard, a well-known evangelist, was initially opposed to the idea but by the mid 1870s wrote, "Phoebe was a deaconess in the official sense of the word." Therefore he urged present-day churches to have them too: "whenever the necessities of the churches are such to demand it, the order of deaconess should be re-established. They are often of as much importance to a church as the deacons, if not even more."

There's also evidence that some of the churches actually established the office. In 1833 the Baltimore church reported that the congregation had 60 members and "was set in order with three Elders, three Deacons and three Deaconesses." Some other churches followed suit but eventually the office of deaconess vanished from most Restoration churches. Today most churches in our movement do not recognize women as deacons, although we would readily admit that women do a great deal of serving in church and often end up carrying out its work. Sometimes essentially doing the work of a deacon, but in an unoffical sense. So, what happened?

P.S. This is not part of some evil sub-plot to overthrow male leadership of the church and subvert the established doctrines of religion. It's just a question.