Come as you are – Salon Article on Mars Hill

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 14, 2006 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

At Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Snoop Dogg figures in sermons, housewives cradle babies in tattooed arms — and religious fundamentalism rules. Meet the Disciple Generation, the fierce new face of American evangelism.

Sept. 13, 2006 | SEATTLE — It's Father's Day and Mark Driscoll is blessing babies. A stocky, square-headed figure in a black shirt and jeans, with a leather cord around his thick neck, Driscoll stands against a backdrop of a giant brushed steel cross and a phalanx of electric guitars, praying over the "lovely wives and godly husbands" lined up on the stage of Mars Hill Church. Located in a former warehouse in Seattle's hip Ballard neighborhood, where drive-through espresso joints out-number churches ten to one, Driscoll's megachurch is a sprawling industrial space of corrugated steel, painted charcoal and muted taupe. Inside, the walls are hung with a member's graffiti art, lit by Starbucks-style colored glass fixtures blown by a congregant.

Read Full Article Come as you are @ Salon 

Being A Missional Church

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 11, 2006 in Church, Culture, Teaching | 0 comments

Church Bootcamp – Session 3
Author: Mike Gunn
Church: Harambee Church

The church is not a place, but a gathering of individuals into a community to be equipped for the sake of the mission (Acts 14:27). Thus most of our assimilation structures and programs are designed around an internal ecclesiology, and a self centered discipleship process. Everything is individual and internally centered, and the church has forgotten its mission to the world.

Being A Missional Church (text & audio)

Jesus Camp & the culture's critique of Christianity

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 9, 2006 in Church, Culture | 2 comments

Get ready for Jesus Camp . A Pentecostal summer camp is the focus for this documentary. The camp teaches kids Christian values, and the filmmakers show how they try to integrate these beliefs into their young lives. A story writes:

There is, for example, the boy who believes he is part of the “key generation to Jesus coming back,” the girl who dreamily intones, “I feel like we're training to be warriors – but in a much funner way,” and the star of the show, a Pentecostal children's minister, who declares that democracy, in which every person is given an equal voice, is “going to destroy us.”

“Jesus Camp” (rated PG-13) already has drawn honors from New York's Tribeca Film Festival and the SilverDocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in Silver Spring, Md. It's due to open to wider audiences beginning Sept. 15, and by the time it's released in San Diego Oct. 6, you can expect the buzz will have built to a crescendo.

The documentary focuses on the Rev. Becky Fischer and her “Kids on Fire” summer camp held in North Dakota. The Christian retreat is more boot camp for spiritual warfare than a kumbaya marshmallow roast – and the children the film follows definitely get the message, as we see them later handing out conversion pamphlets and praying for an end to abortion in our nation's capital. (source )

One user comment from the IMDB writes:

The documentary goes beyond their experiences at camp and paints a vivid image of the evangelical subculture in middle America. From scenes with a mother home schooling her son on the lunacy of evolution to kids at camp praying fervently for a cardboard cutout of George W Bush, the tenacious beliefs of the subjects and their utter lack of doubt is striking. The infusion of politics into religion is also notable, as the children are told of the evils of homosexuality, that prayer in school is necessary for schools to teach effectively, and that America is responsible for the deaths of fifty million innocent children since 1973. The families even travel to Washington to protest in front of the Supreme Court building.

Jesus Camp, is released in the same time as three new books putting conservative, born-again Christians under a cultural microscope.  "Righteous" a book by Lauren Sandler,  from her travels around the country to write about young evangelical adults intent on converting America to Christ through everything from mega-churches to skateboard festivals.  

We've talked about 'exegeting our culture', listened to the 'Lost' presentations and now the microscope is turned more finely on Christians. 

Reformed Gangsta Rap

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 8, 2006 in Church, Culture | 6 comments

Ok, this is over the top hilarious.  There's nothing like hard core reformed gangsta rap calvin-style. Click on image to enjoy…

I think there was a drive-by shooting…  

Someone has too much free time!   (Disclaimer to the ultra-Reformed: I'm not implying they have a free will.)

For Young Women Only

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 6, 2006 in Church, Culture | 0 comments

Kelly a friend who blogs at AbleKnife told me about a book she read, For Young Women Only: What You Need to Know About How Guys Think.  Kelly wrote an post about the book: For Young Women Only at AbleKnife.  Leif (pastor at Mars Hill) introduced me to For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men, which he has brides-to-be read in his premarital counseling. 

Leif told the guys NOT to read the For Women Only book because they would be frightened how much their wife-to-be would know about the weaknesses of men.  My wife read it and let's say, uh… it's helped her outlook and her understanding of me. I haven't read the book, so I can't really tell, but there has been change.  So guys, take a stab and recommend this to your wife it may be a good tool in the conversation of your marriage.  FWO Description: 

What's going on in a man's mind? From their early days, every woman has struggled to understand why males behave the way they do. Even long-married women who think they understand men have only scratched the surface. Beneath a man's rugged exterior is an even more rugged, unmapped terrain. What bestselling author Shaunti Feldhahn's research reveals about the inner lives of men will open women's eyes to what the men in their life – boyfriends, brothers, husbands, and sons – are really thinking and feeling. Men want to be understood, but they're afraid to "freak out" the women they love by confessing what is happening inside their heads. This book will guide women in how to provide the loving support that modern men want and need.

I found this dating game from the FYWO book:  

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Church Online Confessional Booth

Posted by D. Goodmanson on Sep 5, 2006 in Church, Culture | 1 comment

Craig Groeschel is creating some controversy.  His church created a website (mysecret.tv) that caught the attention of the NY Times, Intimate Confessions Pour Out on Church’s Web Site.  The article begins:

On a Web site called mysecret.tv, there is the writer who was molested years ago by her baby sitter and who still cannot forgive herself for failing to protect her younger siblings from the same abuse.  There is the happy father, businessman and churchgoer who is having a sexual relationship with another man in his church. There is the young woman who shot an abusive boyfriend when she was high on methamphetamine.Then there is this entry: “Years ago I asked my father, ‘How does a daddy justify selling his little girl?’ He replied, ‘I needed to pay the rent, put food on the table and I liked having a few coins to jangle in my pocket.’ ”

Mark Driscoll had his Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church.  Now Groeschel promises to take it one step further, with the Fall release of Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God . MySecrets.tv seems to be a prelude to Groeschels own book of confessions.  The chapters of the book carry titles such as I Can’t Stand a Lot of Christians, I Hate Prayer Meetings, I’m Afraid of Failing and Most of the Time I Feel Incredibly Lonely.   The book description states:

The Dark Side of a Pastor's Life – A Breath of Fresh Air Are you tired of pretending? Living walled up? Going only skin deep? Craig Groeschel , pastor of the thriving LifeChurch.tv, sure was. And in his refreshingly raw and real book, he comes clean. Not that he has anything other than typical, human stuff to confess. Check out a few of his musings: I have to work hard to stay sexually pure, I hate prayer meetings, sometimes I doubt God , and I can't stand a lot of Christians . Through his incredible honesty, he opens the door for you to follow suit. Are you ready to dig deep and let God shine through the genuine you? No more living just to please others. No more hiding. You can be who God called you to be. You can live for an audience of One.  

Yet, there is some backlash amongst Catholics who feel Protestants aren't holding confession in a high regard.  "This is no substitute for the sacrament of Confession. Why did Protestants abolish Confession, anyway," writes Wilfred at titusonenine.classicalanglican.net.  

More of confessions: One of the most famous confessional sites is a secular site, called Postsecret.  Donald Miller has a great story of using a confessional booth in Blue Like Jazz.