When I'm President--or--Sending All of My Money to the Televangelist Worked

When I'm president, everyone, and I mean everyone will have a limousine! Now that's prosperity baby.

Alternatively

"So I sends in my $15 to Benny Hinn right, just like he tells me to. And dogonital I wakes up the next morning with a blessin' from the lawrd like you wouldn't believe...You fellers wanna go muddin?"

A Better Way to do Church?

I found the following post over at Lee Iwan's site. Lee often posts business related information that pertains to being more productive, increasing customer base, dealing with people in a work setting, etc.. I find this interesting because we often invoke the "business model" in the church. We want to measure our productivity by counting the number of new members we have, we try to increase the number of members by becoming "seeker friendly" which is just a rip off of user friendly, and we adopt all manner of crazy marketing strategies to get people in the door. Quite frankly, I'm sick of it. But, if we're going to keep the church in this paradigm, we may consider a few changes.

Lee suggests a new strategy for managing actual businesses and I wonder, if we are going to adopt the business model for the church, why can't we adopt innovative management strategies too? Do you think this method would work in the Church?

Please note: I have not read, nor do I recommend the book referenced below.

Successful managers should be breaking the rules September 14th, 2006

Hell, there are no rules here - we’re trying to accomplish something. Thomas A. Edison

I’ve found the most successful and exciting environments to work, study or play in are those with “no rules”. Environments that are open and flexible and not strictly controlled with things you can’t do. It’s exciting to be in these situations, inspiring, sometimes a bit scary, but always memorable.

Rosa Say has a brilliant read for all managers about how the use (or abuse) of rules often limits our creativity and enthusiasm. What are the Rules? Hopefully, none. “No rules” requires clear objectives and goals.

• “No rules” requires planning.
• “No rules” requires discipline and commitment.
• “No rules” demands responsibility for actions and outcomes.
• “No rules” is about inventing process. Creating and forming the process required, or desired, in order to get the job done and reach the objective.
• “No rules” is about allowing creativity and innovation into every decision that brings us closer to our objectives.
• “No rules” is about questioning the status quo in order to explore new and different solutions and methods.
• “No rules” is about accepting and integrating new ideas.
• “No rules” is about tolerance and examination of new concepts.
• “No rules” is about getting excited and energized by every life or work experience.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results. George S. Patton

It is good to obey all the rules when you’re young, so you’ll have the strength to break them when you’re old. Mark Twain

What do you think? Would this work in the Church? Why or why not? Can Christians be trusted to live with "No Rules"? Is a life without rules biblical?

I receive a weekly e-mail from http://www.gracedagain.com. They usually deliver a nice uplifting and insightfully tidbit to mull over every week. This is one of my favorites:

"Our proper guilt is God's methodology of bringing us to himself. Just as sickness sends us to a physician, guilt sends us to God and keeps us there. In fact, it is that guilt (and here I use the word guilt in it broadest possible understanding of "helplessness", "discomfort", "emptiness", "disunity", "fear", "shame", and "embarrassment") that is the impetus of prayer. It is guilt that builds a fire of love in our hearts. It is guilt that makes us more like Christ. It is guilt that becomes our greatest blessing, because something happens when we come to God for his grace and mercy--something that is so radical and so amazing that it can only be described as death to our old selves. It is the overwhelming desire to please the One who has loved us with such amazing and unconditional love."

Steve Brown, Approaching God

Reasons To Go To Church: Summary

First, thanks to everyone who commented on the previous reasons to go to church post. I've been struggling with this topic and your insight has been a great help. Second, your comments have expanded my list a good bit and through this I have started to pick out some consistent themes. Here they are:

Community (+)/Social (-): This category of reasons was mentioned by people who relayed a close connection or longing for connection with a group of other believers. To use the term social to describe this might be a little misleading. The folks who mentioned this one seemed to communicate a sense of community, a connectedness with others through Christ. Conversely, we all know people who only show up at church to "hang out" with their friends. It becomes another place to chat, have coffee, and be seen. I think this aspect of church attendance is often seen as a negative by outsiders because the recognize "worship" as something beyond mere human interaction.

Transaction-Give and Receive: This category is rather straightforward. People come to church to give. They give their money, time, sweat, tears, you name it; I guess a good way to describe it would be Service. People want to give something to God. Conversely, People come to church to receive. Likewise, here, the list is long; a touch from God, help with the rent money, a wife, a challenge, healing...the list goes on. God/the church is seen as the great provider, source of living water, money tree, easy mark, etcetera. Giving and receiving combine to create a transactional relationship. This is an area that needs more thought and space.

The question that arises in this category is one of motivation. I'd like to hear other people’s thoughts on the question of motivation in a transactional relationship with the church. I recognize that there are two sides to the coin here, what I would call authentic and opportunistic; but I want to hear your views first.

Worship: This is the one that I guess I don't really get. I suppose, on the positive side, this is actual communion with God. But, I can see this as a part of Community. On the other side is the music, preaching, and ceremonial trappings of church. But, I can see this falling under the transactional reasons.

So, here we are, as in most things of this world (actually the human mind) it boils down to three categories, or is it two. Your job is to comment critically on these ideas. When I say critically, I don’t mean be mean…But, I’d like to hear your opinion…

Almost forgot, I'm a visual thinker. So, a free t-shirt to the first person who can accurately represent the concept of church attendance with a ven diagram.

My Post-Congegational Narrative!

That's right, I said it. I'm starting my post-congregational narrative. I found this fancy term on the Web. I believe this what country folk call a twenty dollar word (I just made that up). The funny thing is that I found it when I wickipedia'ed (is that a word) SCP. Needless to say, I like the ring of it. I believe I'll drop that one the next time one of the people from my church asks why I haven't been going.

On another note:

Thanks to everyone who has come by and left a comment or two. I appreciate your opinion. I realize the time you take to leave a comment is time you could spend doing something other than help a stranger figure out his way through the universe. Thank you.

I've also noticed that some folks have helped out by putting a link to my site on their blog (can't use the same word twice in a row). Socieityvs at Losing My Religion has a very well thought out opinion about faith and his personal journey through/within/about (I don't know) it. Also, check out YBMT?. I haven't had a chance to poke around there too much yet but it is an interesting community of people who really seem to care about each other. Hey, sounds like a church without all of the fighting and political wrangling, wouldn't that be nice for a change.

Why Do People Go to Church?

A previous post, I've stopped going to Church for a while, has me thinking. Why do people go to church? What causes a person to get out of bed on a perfectly sleepy Sunday morning? Why do they/we forgo relaxation, the newspaper, catching up on your favorite blogs or whatever it is you could be doing and go to church? Why do I go to church? I think this a rather straightforward question but I want to make sure that I'm not just writing down the Sunday School answers, so, here it goes. The reasons why people go to church:

• To worship God (Gawd! To be proper).
• To establish a social connection within the local community (believers or otherwise, aka. fellowship).
• To make one's self feel better, serve penance, sacrifice, etc..
• To accrue benefits (e.g., social status, money, accolade, etc.)
• To earn a living.
• To see friends.
• To network.
• To sing.
• To demonstrate your goodness.
• To appease others.
• To relieve fear.
• To stimulate fear.
• To continue tradition.
• To look for a mate.

I seriously doubt this list is complete. I need input. What have I left off? How can these reasons be categorized or lumped together?

Something I Struggle with...

When you choose to be pleasant and positive in the way you treat others, you have also chosen, in most cases,how you are going to be treated others.

Zig Ziglar

How do I choose to be pleasant and positive?