Vegas Trivia: What is the most popular game in the casino getting $7 out of every $10 gambling dollars and has the second worst odds only to the game Keno?   Believe it or not, there may be a correlation between gambling games and churches.

There are a lot of reasons churches are declining in western societies.  I do not pretend to be a church expert.  For scholarly advice on this topic, separate from my own experiential conclusions, I would recommend some of the amazing philosophical/theological/social commentaries of Charles Taylor and James K. A. Smith.  

Anecdotally, every denomination seems to be twisting and flipping the same Rubik’s Cube of church attendance, giving, and new member growth.  Unfortunately, the only online hack for solving this enigma of faith formation in this country are the rapidly growing, community lacking, superficial mega ministries that perfected the use of MOOCs in creating satellite locations while at the same time changing the landscape of how church is being done now and into the future.  My use of “MOOCs” is abbreviated “Massive Open Online Church” not to be confused with Massive Open Online Classes. (I hope I am not tipping my hand that I am not a big fan of the MOOCs approach of church.)

But back to Vegas, why is it that slot machines/video gambling are no longer games of choice just for the elderly?  According to Gary Rivlin’s New York Times article entitled, “The tug of the newfangled slot machine,” for 21-35-year-olds, 69 percent play slot machines and 18 percent play table games.  An estimated $1 billion is pumped into slot machines every day! (Rivlin, 2004)  In the same year, there were 850,000 video gambling machines twice the number of ATMs in this country. (Craig, 2015)

One MIT professor outlined the following neuro-psychological attractions to the Slots:

• ·      The illusion of control: pressing buttons to produce the outcomes (I get to choose my church experience on my digital terms)
• ·      Appearing to operate on a variable payout: fooling the player into thinking that the more they play, the more likely they are to win. (A health and wealth theology often times is associated with the larger mega socially-mobile churches)
• ·      Increased arousal: bells and whistles matter (Big worship, Big lights, Big Drama, Big Pyro, Big Show, Church CGI)
• ·      Immediate gratification: perhaps the most important.  There is no waiting for another person, no interruptions. (Collins, 2014) (It's my own personal journey not connected to a community per se.  This medium fulfills the modern characteristic of individuality)

It has become a common experience for a mega pastor to stare in the direction of multiple cameras providing the obligatory online greeting to groups of people located in cohorts all over the world.  The real savvy ones create superficially choreographed dialogue with the screen so as to portray relational connectivity.  In the end, it’s kinda like me at a Dallas Cowboys game sitting in real primo seats on the 50-yard line.  I end up staring up at the 80-yard HD digital screen and not the live action.  Embarrassingly, I could do that from my couch from my home without the hour-long parking lot exit fiasco from Jerry’s World.

Despite having the live action right in front of me, my fixation is on the HD big screen.  Hard to explain, and even harder to understand, but there is something about the digitalization of reality that seems to attract us Gen Xers and Millennials.  

It is no real surprise that the fastest growing churches today are the ones that are able to leverage technology and the SLOT machine relationships with their parishioners over the boring Blackjack experience where “holding” is the strategy for winning.  After all, this generation is unable to hold their attention, their bladder’s, their comments, and their energy to be active in the kingdom of God.  Some lessons can be learned from what NOT to do when it comes to re-framing how new wine will be contained in new wineskins (sorry to mix my metaphors in mid flow). Jesus is doing a new thing.  Lesson learned: Putting new wine in old wineskins will ruin both the container and the beverage (Mark 2:22).

So why is it churches continue to create a Blackjack sit and lecture style approach to faith formation?  The dealer is the preacher delivering the cards that keep the game going while concomitantly (simultaneously) holding the deck.   Meanwhile the audience is left to be a passive recipient hoping that at the end of the game the experience leaves them with a sense of fulfillment or a feeling of a spiritual win. More often than not, they have been sitting on a face card and an 8 holding and hoping that their church experience will translate into some kind of take home spiritual currency they can cash-in that will make Monday seem less frustrating, less depressing, less drama at home, and more significant and meaningful, provide more relational capital with their loved ones and co-workers that help them do life.   

It is true that with the ubiquitous sermons, lessons, and YouTube’s that church is no longer the primary place to receive biblical and spiritual knowledge.  Instead, it is the place to meet people.  Never before could people augment their need and intrigue for good biblical information and story telling through other sources other than their local church and preacher.   With this in mind, church is less about acquiring knowledge and more about creating a space for lives to intersect.  If this statement is accurate, than churches need to overhaul the way they plan and design their three-hour church experiences (assuming your church still has a traditional Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and midweek service). 

It could be we are playing Blackjack with individuals that are more interested in hedging their bets on more risky endeavors for Jesus. 

Disclaimer: I have never been inside a casino nor have I ever been to Vegas.  lol  This is just an analogy.  

Biblical Purity is not best represented in the True Love Waits Campaign: "What happens after the relationship foul matters in how we frame God's nature of redemption."

Introduction

The way I frame life is fundamentally different now than when I was a teenager in 1992.  Parenthood (a great show by the way) does something to a person’s worldview, or to use Charles Taylor’s language, one’s social imaginary.  Social imaginary is a term that describes the cultural and social filter by which all individuals process life.  Put differently, it is impossible to separate a person’s belief system from their social imaginary.  This is especially true for the first Christians in the first century.  Evidenced in Paul’s occasional letters to groups of believers, he is working through real time issues and life challenges with the understanding that his readers are bring to his message their own cultural framework or social imaginary.  

When it comes to parenting, a person’s social imaginary are shaped by the residue of their own social and cultural upbringing.  I have distinct memories of the various campaigns that were deployed to shape my framework on issues of culture, faith, and sex.  For example, I remember living next door to some kids that were avid Dungeons and Dragons players.  It is funny how some thirty-years later D&D is harmless compared to the video games and the virtual role-playing games and equipment on the market today that are accessible to kids and teens.  But back then, it was ingrained in me that D&D along with other fantasy games were evil (pronounced eeeeeeeevvvvvvviiiilllll). 

Similar tactics to keep me away from fantasy role playing games were also deployed to keep my CD collection free of such bands as AC/DC, Motley Crüe  RATT, and the other hair bands of the 80s.  A less than sophisticated campaign by the Southern Baptist Convention and their dealing of “Behind the Music” genre VCR tapes to churches and parents had me convinced for about a month that Black Sabbath was sending me subconscious messages through the amazing technology of backmasking.  Thirty-years later and the most significant technological advancements in the history of humankind, backmasking has to still be one of the seven wonders of technology.  These church VCR tapes were popular at youth retreats and camp meetings.  We would all be scared out of our mind convinced that Satan was somehow messaging social destruction through the hair bands of the 80s. 

I should provide the following explanation.  Yes, I concur that a lot of the music that was targeting the youth culture when I was growing up had content that was less than savory.  With that said, my point here is only to illustrate that parents have always been deploying scare tactics to offset the indigenous youth culture/social imaginary of their children.  Off the top of my head, I am unsure if any campaign has successfully worked widespread. 

The campaign that seemed to sweep the country was the True Love Waits Purity campaign that started in concept in 1982 but came to market ten years later in 1992.  On October 23, 1992, Lifeway submitted the theme of True Love Waits for consideration in their newly developed sex education curriculum.  On January 13, 1993, the first True Love Waits campaign took place in Nashville.  Twenty-years later, there are still remnants of the True Love Waits purity campaign.  Similar to the backmasking campaigns of the 80s, the purity campaigns of the 90s had good intentions but left a residue of really bad theology.  A residue that for many who lived through the failed Purity campaigns of the 90s continue to struggle with their own sense of acceptance and approval with God.  

In this essay, I am interested in re-framing purity in a biblical context that is not contingent on behavior modification/perfection.  Instead, purity as defined as God’s continued work of making holy those who are in Christ Jesus throughout their entire life on earth.  One or even a series of actions does not pollute this concept of purity.

Social Narratives

The social narrative around the various abstinence/purity campaigns is based on very well intentioned church leaders, parents, and Christian educators.  In its inception, the TLW curriculum and messaging seemed to work.  Teens by the hundreds of thousands were signing virginity pledges, wearing reminder bracelets and rings, and even developing relationship covenants.  The theological narrative that catapulted this campaign is the message that God made humans to be pure.  And this purity is what grants access to God’s approval or disapproval.  Any sex act before marriage compromises this purity while concomitantly (at the same time) compromising God’s approval.  Therefore, in order to remain a pure child of God, one must remain a virgin until marriage. Or something to this effect.  You get the point.

In concept, I can now see how this messaging worked for many for a period of time.  While this essay is not necessarily about the failed purity campaigns of the 90s, it is important to note that the fail rate of those who signed virginity pledges, donned bracelets and rings, and attended the local and national campaigns were high.  So much so, that the TLW folks started a subsequent campaign that focused on second chances and virginity renewal pledges.  This too had a high fail rate.  Please let me qualify that if you are reading this essay, and you held firm to your pledge until marriage.  Amen! 

In a recent parenting workshop hosted by another Christian organization that is led by teens from the 90s, they share a different message about our purity and God’s approval.  Instead of focusing on sexual promiscuity as the gate keeper of what it means to be pure in God’s eyes, they re-enlist scriptural support that in Christ Jesus we find cleansing.  The advice to us parents was to be careful we are not setting our children up for a major let down in their faith and in the way they view themselves. 

Purity

There are a handful of references to purity in the Old and New Testament.  You can goggle the occurrences and context.  It is generally understood that the Greek root word from which we get the English translation for “pure” or “purity” means unclean or polluted.  What is interesting to me as I read about Jesus’ interaction with polluted, unclean people, he never denied access to himself because of a person’s unclean baggage.   In fact, over and over again we see Jesus targeting those whom the “clean” religious society deemed “unclean.”   

One of my favorite Jesus encounters is found in Mark 1:43 when the man with leprosy asks Jesus, “If you are willing, make me clean.”  The text tells us that Jesus reaches out his hand, touches the unclean man, and makes him clean.  It might be easy to read over the small detail of the human touch exhibited by Jesus.  Of course, Jesus already demonstrated the ability to heal simply through verbal commands without human touch.  But here, Jesus wants the unclean person, who may have forgotten what it was like to experience human touch since the social stigma of the day around leprosy created entire colonies of “untouched” people, to remember again what human compassion, acceptance, and love felt like.  

As a side note, the medical community informs us today that leprosy is a degenerative disease that attacks the nervous system.  Over time, the leper develops the inability to feel pain because the nerves no longer send the critical information to the brain.  As a result, many lepers suffer from very serious self-inflicted wounds.  Touching a hot stove without realizing it before the burn is sever, walking with deeply infected sores that over time lead to loss of appendages, and in some cases injuries that are fatal.  With this background information in mind, I can’t help but to wonder if Jesus realized that for this person, the act of touching and being touched was no longer welcomed because it was dangerous not to be able to discern good touches from bad touches.  Jesus being the great physician who came to heal the sick provides a touch that gives this man a restart on life.  He is now free to leave his colony of marginalized and return to his family. 

As it relates to being unclean, it is as if Jesus is attracted to unclean individuals because he desires to bring healing.  This is a powerful message of hope that still resonates over two thousand years later.  In my humble opinion, when we as parents and church leaders deploy hell tactics with our children as our gambit to keep them from engaging in immoral behaviors that also send the message that Jesus’ approval and His power to continually cleanse and make pure is compromised, we are creating a social imaginary for our children that frames the way God relates to them in a context that is based on their ability to avoid certain behaviors and perform other ones.  This is not consistent with the biblical concept of righteousness or purity.

Without doing a full exegesis on these topics, I direct your attention to the number of biblical examples of the numerous ways God continues to exercise grace through the lifelong work of purifying us to Himself.  Romans 5:8-9 reminds us that, “If when were sinners (helpless to save ourselves; unclean; polluted) Christ died for us, then how much more willing is he to continue to save us (justify us) now that we are saved?”  I think all parents, including me, wish for our children to avoid the social and relational pitfalls that our culture celebrates and glorifies as a lifestyle of happiness.  But, if in our parenting tool kit we are using tactics that leverage away God’s power to accept, redeem, and cleanse for the sake of making sure our teens don’t hook up, then I would recommend a different set of tactics. 

There is no simple answer that will work for every teen and every family.  But there are effective ways of teaching our children about living a virtuous lifestyle without shaming them into thinking that if they take their relationship beyond set parameters they are somehow less pure than they were before the relationship foul.  Biblical purity is tethered to the nature of Jesus and not defined by one's actions.  Of course this is not to suggest we have an excuse to continually engage in immorality.

Side note, the pursuit of purity does not end on one’s marriage night.  It is almost comical the messaging around abstinence based purity.  The message is, "Just wait until your wedding night as if that is the end goal of all things pure."   I would say the journey of pure living just get’s going after marriage. 

One of the best metaphors that I came across recently on this topic is that of a curving mountain road.  In the church, we have convinced teens and young adults that the road is dangerous and one wrong move behind the wheel (intentional double-entendre) will lead to a careening off the mountain down a steep precipice that is next to impossible for recovery.  How about this same metaphor that clearly teaches our teens that, “Yes there are certain decisions that have major life changing implications and some that could even be relationally catastrophic, that will take you off the road.  But thankfully, God knows us better than ourselves and has provided plenty of on-ramps to continue our journey.”  This is only meant to be a simple metaphor of God’s willingness to forgive and restore. 

Conclusion:

I think the message of abstinence is still relevant and much needed in our hyper sexualized culture.  But be prepared to also have a plan “B”, “C”, “D” etc.. with your teens and young adults that allows them to hear the wonderful love story of the Bible.  How God did not allow our pollution to distance Himself from us, but instead, He demonstrated the ultimate love act by rescuing us from ourselves by becoming just like us (without sin) to die for us. 

The lyrics from the song “How Can It Be” by Laura Daigle is a great reminder of the psychological hang-ups we develop when it comes to allowing God to rescue us.  After all, I suspect a large number of this readership understands first hand what it is like to fail on a pledge (virginity or not), and because of our own harsh self-abasement we resist the love gesture of Jesus reaching out to touch us over and over and over again while on our life-journey of purity.  Daigle, in her song, finally comes to the realization of just how amazing God’s love is that he would willingly enter into relationship with her knowing her own unclean baggage.  Her story in the song is not much different from my story. 

Last, it is a bit ironic that Jesus enters our world in the form of a baby to a virgin mother who had not yet had sex.  The life and birth of our Savior is wrapped in a narrative of impurity, failed virginity pledges, promiscuity and fornication.  Of course, that was not the case, but for a period of time Mary and Joseph had to work through these sets of stigmas.  May we not forget that the very bloodline of Jesus is full of both men and women that were unable to keep their sexual pledges (David and Rahab and many others)?  May your children see you celebrate God's work of restoration and recovery over and over again so they grow up realizing that perfection is impossible.  My educator side is coming out with this next statement, "Human beings only learn by failing."  It is no coincidence that our human race learns by failing and the Savior of the human race loves by forgiving and giving second chances.  What a combination!

Collapse: How Churches Will Decide to Fail or Succeed

Several years ago I came across the research and writing of Jared Diamond.  Diamond, sociologist/anthropologist professor at Stanford University, wrote the book Collapse: How Societies will Decide to Fail or Succeed that has stuck with me ever sense.  I find myself frequently thinking about the correlation and lessons between organizational leadership and the examples of civilizations that ceased to exist discussed by Diamond.  Diamond specifically identifies seven or eight civilizations that at one time had a great deal of success and strong potential to continue regeneration but for internal factors collapsed.  

The story of the Norse Viking people who settled Greenland is especially interesting to me as I think about the church landscape and ecosystem in the United States.  Side note, this essay is relevant for other organizations besides churches and denominations.

The Norse Vikings that were banished from Iceland settled the eastern and western most southern tip of Greenland around 980 A.D.  In Greenland, they found their own Promise Land full of plush green grass, plenty of water, a fishery that could sustain settlement for generations, and trade routes with northern Europe that created a sustainable gross domestic product or economy.  So why did the Norse civilization cease to exist in the early 1400s after centuries of very prosperous living?  In short, they were not overtaken by any external military or invading country, instead over time, they mismanaged their natural resources and forgot they were in Greenland and not northern Europe. 

Diamond identifies several complex ecological and sociological factors that contributed to their collapse, but there are three factors in particular that should be on the dashboard of every organizational leader to avoid a similar outcome of the Norse Vikings in Greenland. 

First, the Norse people arrived to Greenland with a well-entrenched sense of European culture.  Put differently, they were deeply committed to transforming their new settlement to mirror the culture, customs, and status of their much wealthier and well-resourced northern European friends.  Over time, the Norse people constructed a very impressive cathedral at Gardar with massive church bells, beautiful stained-glass windows, bronze candlesticks, Communion wine, linen, silk, silver, churchmen’s robes, and jewelry to adorn their church, with its three-ton sandstone building blocks and eighty-foot bell tower. In the end, the Norse starved to death. 

Second, the Norse people refused to learn survival lessons from the Inuit people that were their neighbors.  They had a low regard for the Inuit ways and customs viewing them as natives instead of a resource.  In reality, long before the Vikings settled Greenland and long after their collapse, the Inuit people continued to survive well.  Unlike the indigenous Inuits that understood how to hunt and harvest whales to burn oil for heat during the brutal winters, the Norse decided to burn their own timber.  Over time, the local deforestation would render them without the timber needed to build boats necessary to sail to other locations for resources.  Also, the Norse apparently had a too sophisticated palate that they preferred beef to fish.   The status of being a farming community with cows was great in northern Europe but not so much in Greenland.  Because of the climate in Greenland, once the grass was removed and the soil exposed, it became increasingly difficult to regenerate grass.  Grass is important for grazing animals.  Also, since the Norse did not master more efficient techniques of energy, they built their homes with large sections of sod as their insulation.  As the American southwest would learn during the dust-bowl years of the 1930s and 40s, when dirt is turned over too frequently for the sake of getting the quick fix of a wheat harvest, the soil no longer has the natural covering (grass) that keeps the dirt grounded.  The windstorms that swept over the plains literally picked up the ground and created apocalyptic dust storms.  Similarly, the artic conditions in Greenland damaged the exposed soil rendering it useless to regrow grass needed to keep a grazing livestock alive.  To add insult to injury, the Norse people starved to death with a fishery that would have sustained them for many more centuries.  Archeologist discovered embarrassingly few amounts of fish bones in the trash of the Norse people.  Diamond and others conclude that the Norse people just didn’t like fish. 

Third, the Norse people were more concerned with living the fancy life of their European trade friends that they became dependent on very bad habits overusing their resources for the purpose of keeping their trade relationships intact.  For example, during the summer months when they should have been hunting and harvesting new timber not their own, they were too busy hunting Walrus to quench the European desire for ivory.  Also, they didn’t fully utilize the Walrus for survival purposes discarding the blubber that could have been heated down for oil for heat and cooking.  In short, they wanted badly to live like their catholic friends in Europe, but the problem is they didn’t have the resources to sustain their standard of living.  It has always been the case that importing fine goods is always more expensive than learning to desire the goods in ones own backyard.  In this case, the bad habits of mismanaging their own capital became a generational expectation for living.  This is most evident in the Norse civilization in their own descriptions of their cathedrals.  In essence, the way they did church was a microcosm of the way they did life.  Church was more about looking and functioning like church in Europe at all cost.

Contemporary Applications:

IMHP, every person interested in organizational leadership needs to work through Diamond’s Collapse.  Similar to the Norse Vikings, we are seeing more church and denominational failings every year in our country.  While there are certainly a lot of external social factors working against a sustainable model of maintaining the way we used to do “Church,” there are plenty of internal “self-inflicted” wounds that will more than likely be the cause for the collapse.  Using Diamond’s story of the Norse Vikings as an analogy, churches and organizations need to call a timeout and do an organizational triage and ask a few fundamental questions:

 

-Are we attempting to maintain a particular custom, culture, or standard of living that is not consistent with our resources?  In other words, are we spending way more than we are making necessary for stability?  Are we over committed to being “beef” eaters instead of having a willingness to consider “fish” in our religious diets, vis-a-vis our historical commitments to our church customs that make us distinct but have become irrelevant, our church culture that is no longer sustainable because the vast majority of people are disinterested in maintaining a political brand or bureaucracy, or just the temptation of keeping up with the “Jones'” in our building campaigns and extravagancies?  Are we starving to death because of commitment to a religious lifestyle that was never endorsed in the New Testament anyway?  

-Are we unwilling to learn from others out of pride or brand loyalty?  I recognize the dangers of syncretism when it comes to faith matters.  I am not suggesting that every church needs to blend with the next church that seems to be doing it better or more effectively.  There has to be some theological/doctrinal guideposts to protect against syncretism.  But, there are plenty of ways our churches can learn from communities that are different in brand, custom, and even theology.  In order for this to happen, there first has to be a conduit for communication.  I suspect history is full of examples of segments of people refusing to openly share and respect other segments of people because of superficial differences.  The lesson from the Norse's unwillingness to connect with the Inuit natives is pride comes before the fall.  Unfortunately, the institution that seems to breed more pride and ego are churches in this country.  Of course, we are somewhat innocuous in the way we posture in our pride.  It occurs in our church membership numbers, budgets “Our weekly collection is____________,” and programs.  While all of these are not necessarily negative, when they become the source of identity ego they take the focus off of Jesus and ministry and on ego-driven status. 

-Have we developed some bad habits over time that have become part of our organizational DNA?  The challenge of conducting a self-triage in this area is that it is almost impossible to accomplish without the help of feedback from outsiders.  Are we willing to listen to people that visit our churches but then decide not to stay? Do we even ask them why they left? Or, are we scared that we might hear that we have some blind spots that need immediate attention?  I suspect there are hundreds of churches right now that are asking themselves the same sets of questions: “Why are we not growing?” “Why are we constantly chasing the bank note?” “Why do thousands of people drive by our church, and yet, we continue to look at the same 65-100 people every week?” “Why are we not experiencing spiritual growth in our congregations?”  These questions are not exhaustive, but they help illustrate the trajectory that leads to a final closing of the doors.

Conclusion:

I do not pretend to understand all of the social and religious complexities that lead to collapse; however, I do think Diamond makes a strong case that more often than not churches are engrossed in game planning against that “other” church down the road that they ignore their own internal strategies of being a healthy church/organization.  While the church down the road may be bigger, nicer, and more attractive, the message of Collapse is they are probably not your biggest threat.  You are your biggest threat (My tone is really nice in making that statement. 😊)

There is one particular aspect of the way we do church in this country that I see has shifted from previous decades.  The millennial generation are not interested in building campaigns for several reasons.  They are not as heavily resourced as the Boomers and Greatest Generation, they are not going to church much anyway to validate a multi-year bond purchase for a new building, and they much rather see their money and church budgets go to help people and not for a country club membership. 

My conspiracy theory is there is an organization that already has the building capital in every city in every state in our country that, if they decide to, could close thousands of churches in a single week.  I am waiting for Chick-fil-A to decide to open their places of business on Sunday for early morning faith conversations.  They can continue to be “closed” on Sundays for business, but creating a meeting place for those interested to share faith and some nuggets seems more like what church will look like in the future.  Chick-fil-A is a metaphor for the shifting that has been long underway in our country as it relates to faith matters.  For a lot reasons, people today are looking for a meeting place that is low-church and high-relationship.  Discard all the work and effort put into the Sunday morning program and aesthetics, and focus more on creating casual meeting spots that lead to meaningful conversations about Jesus that are resistant to gender and generational gapping.  Something happens when people in small groups share healthy food and life.  In the midst of food and life sharing, sermons will occur organically.  Sad for the full-time preacher, but your days may be numbered in the capacity of commercial Christianity.  People today can find great sermons, sorry, but much better than what you are delivering anyway on Sunday morning, on their devices.  Lots of them, and you know what? They are listening to way more than one a week. 

I tithe a lot to my local Chick-fil-A’s because they provide manna for our family.  Every morning I get my yogurt parfait, I see groups of people in Bible studies.  This is a foreshadowing of what may be coming.  I suspect they are providing more than just physical manna as well. I already have the slogan: "Reed Mor Bible"