No, not a real vacation.  Not yet, anyway.  Going on a blog vacation.  Yes, I know it looks like I’ve already been on one for a while now.  But in the back of my mind I have this persistent voice telling me, “You really need to write another post – it’s been too long!”  But now I’m going to silence that voice.

Sometimes you just reach that point where there’s too many things going on in your life, and you don’t have time to keep up with all of it.  I’m at that point, and the blog is going to have to take a break.  Will it return?  maybe.  When?  don’t know.  But I can now ignore that voice telling me to post…

Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska

Well, the GOP convention is over.  For some reason, this year I’ve been tuned in to the political races more than ever before (both Democrat and Republican).  Partly, I think I’m just enjoying political “people-watching” – observing how these candidates approach the crowds, getting their message out, and combating their opponents.

The nomination of Sarah Palin raises some interesting questions for a theologically conservative Christian.  What about the biblical teaching of male headship?  Sure, if you approach Scripture as a final authority, it’s clear that this is God’s design for the home and the church (though I respect many of those who argue to the contrary, and wouldn’t hesitate to work with them).  Can an evangelical Christian rightfully support a woman in this kind of leadership role (which, to point out the obvious, could “in a heartbeat” become the role of head of state)?

As often, Douglas Wilson is helpful on thinking through this biblically.  Check out his post here.

Having raised this issue, let me now say this:  I thoroughly enjoyed her speech.  I agree with her thinking on almost every point.  I think the Democrats have severely underestimated her, and are continuing to do so.  If I were Joe Biden, I would be very, very nervous about their future debate.   The energy she has brought is amazing.  Almost as many people tuned in to hear her vice-presidential nomination speech as tuned in to hear Obama’s presidential nomination speech.

I have a gut feeling (with absolutely no solid data or reason to back it up) that America is just a little bit more conservative than everyone thinks.  If I had to guess today, in spite of the current electoral numbers, I’d guess McCain-Palin comes away with a victory in November.

This could get very interesting…

I always find the political season interesting.  What seems very predictable one day, completely changes the next.  John McCain announced yesterday his choice of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential running mate.  I’m surprised at how many haven’t heard of her.  I first heard of Sarah Palin 4 months ago, when her son Trig was born.  Al Mohler had a story on it, which you should take a few minutes to read here.

The national commentary on the choice seems to bounce back and forth between “brilliant” and “bust.”  For what it’s worth, my prediction:  brilliant.  Regardless of where you stand politically, you have to recognize how well Palin lines up with the majority of the conservative Republican base, which is consistenly underestimated in the national media.  The next few days should tell a lot…

The Story is our current 12-week series, designed to give an objective overview of the story of the Bible (more info here).  It’s on a level that anyone can understand, regardless of whether or not they have a background in church-related things.  We use lots of visual aids and multimedia to communicate the story.

We’ve gone for 2 weeks now, meeting at a local daycare center.  We’re looking forward to continuing to communicate this story, as we believe the story itself is powerful.  This is a great exercise for our core team, as well, as we gain a better grasp of the basic storyline of the Bible.

The approach we’re using borrows most heavily from By This Name, a book published by GoodSeed International.  It is along the lines of the biblical theology approach taught by Graeme Goldsworthy and others.  It’s been extremely helpful to me to study biblical theology, understanding the stories of the Bible as they contribute to the story of the Bible.

August 10 brought a window of sunshine, just at the right time.  Between the early morning and late afternoon rains, we were able to hold our community picnic at huffman park in Medina.  We had 19 visitors (10 adults, 9 kids) join our team and a great group of volunteers from other churches. 

We enjoyed cornhole and volleyball, and the chance to get to know a few people.  I was able to share our vision for a new church in Medina, and to invite people to a 12-week series called “The Story,” which is an objective overview of the story of the Bible, on a level that can be understood even without a church background.

All around, things went very smoothly, and we were greatly encouraged by the amount of support and help we received from other churches.  Now we’re into “The Story,” and praying about what’s next for ikon medina.

(It’s so easy to fall off the blog wagon…7 days, just like that!)

The fair finished up on Sunday.  Saturday night was our busiest night yet, while Sunday was dead all day.  It’s hard to predict when the heavy traffic will be, but now we’ve got a pretty good idea in case we do this again.

All in all, I figure we gave out 12-14,000 freeze-pops, and 6-7,000 picnic invitations.  Lots of great conversations with people, and some promises to attend the picnic, too.  We also got a couple thousand door-hangers out, covering all of our highest priority neighborhoods.

Still no idea what to expect at tomorrow’s picnic – could be 10 people, could be 200.  I didn’t put a hit counter on the church website till Thursday of the fair week (duh!), but in the 9 days since then we’ve had over 225 hits.

This morning I read Job chs. 38-42, because I needed to be reminded of who’s really in charge.  I easily start thinking that this all depends on me, on how well I plan, on how well we execute our plans, on how well I speak at the picnic, etc.  Those are great chapters to shut yourself up when you start thinking that way.

I’ll try to get a pic or two from the fair up soon.  Praying that tomorrow brings us a number of people who need to hear the story of the Bible (check out our post-picnic plans here).

We’re still rolling – I think the fair has given us good exposure to the community, even though the building we’re in isn’t trafficked as heavily as the midway.  We’ve been able to hand out several thousand picnic invitations, and several thousand freeze-pops.

Still having good conversations with a number of people (mixed with a few I could have done without).  Day 4 brought “the gay question” a couple of times:  “Are you welcoming and affirming of gays?”  My answer to that has been:  Welcoming, yes.  Affirming, no.  I try to make sure people understand that while we don’t believe the Bible condones homosexuality, we don’t expect people to be just like us before they join in with what we’re doing.  In other words, you don’t have to reach a certain standard just to be welcomed at our church.  And all of us have things in our life that God wants to change as we learn what it means to follow Jesus.

I was also interviewed yesterday for a podcast (I’ll post a link once it’s up), talking about ministries that do outreaches at events like this.

I’m really enjoying this whole fair project.  We’ve gotten a lot of good chances to talk with people about why we’re doing this.  There seem to be a lot of people who say they would like to understand the Bible and learn more about God, but something about the church has been a turn-off (formality, hypocrisy, etc.).  I’m always careful to tell people that they will find just as many hypocrites in this church we’re starting as anywhere else, but that we’re trying to create a place where people can be honest and open about where they’re truly at – not having to pretend, or to reach a certain standard before they’re accepted.

We’ve had 5 or 6 people tell us that they’ve gotten a door-hanger from us in the last couple days, which is pretty amazing since we’ve only done 8 neighborhoods so far, out of the 42 we’re aiming for.  Hopefully the multiple touches will pay off.  Here’s the door-hanger we’re using (click to enlarge):

Day 2 was a little slower, but still very positive.  Lots of good conversations.  It’s still funny to me how many “doctrinal watchdogs” there are – people who have no intention of looking into the church b/c they already have their own (usually it’s not even anywhere nearby), but they want to know if we use the KJV, teach certain things, etc. 

Our ticket/invitations still seem to be right on the mark – those we’re trying to reach are often very interested, while the long-time “church people” occasionally give us scowls and frowns.  Just for fun, here’s the tickets we’re handing out (click image to see full-size):

One of the highlights of the day was the young lady who came up to the booth holding a ticket, saying that she’d found it on the ground and had been looking for us because she was very interested in coming to the picnic and wanted to see more of what we were all about.

Praying that God will continue to connect us with people who need Him…

ikon had a great day at the fair yesterday.  We handed out a ton of freeze-pops (or popsicles, if you’re not familiar with “freeze-pops,” “icy pops,” “ice-pops, “pop-ice,” etc. – can you tell we had a running discussion about this yesterday?)  We also handed out a ton of picnic invitations for our upcoming picnic.

Lots of good conversations, too.  Many people seemed interested in a church that plans to put things in plain language, where people who have tattoos, who drink, who don’t believe in God, etc. can come and find acceptance.  That seemed to be a welcome idea to many, while we got a good number of scowls from church people.  That just makes me think we’re in the right place, as I reflect on the reactions Jesus got during his ministry.

Our combination of corn hole games, give-away drawings, and freeze-pops seems to be a big hit.  (We’ve been ranked by at least one person as the most fun booth there).  Lots of people can’t believe we’re not selling anything – a good reminder of how many of us are skeptical when it comes to religion or life in general.

Well, I’m off to the fair again right now.  Praying that God uses all of this to give us some significant connections with people who are far from Him…

I knew it had been at least a month since I posted, and I was going to get to it soon, but…

…2 months since my last post?  I’m worse at this than I realized!

So here’s the bullet point summary of what’s up:

• today begins the Medina County Fair, where ikon has a booth set up.  We’re handing out freeze-pops and invitations to a picnic on Aug. 10.  (BTW, do you have any idea how complicated it is to get 30,000+ freeze-pops frozen all at once?)
• We’re planning for the picnic on Sunday, August 10.  The goal is to take 15 minutes to introduce people to ikon and what our dreams are for this new church in Medina.  Between 25,000 invitations at the fair, and 5,000 door-hangers around town, we hope to have a decent crowd at the picnic.  check out the website for more info:  www.ikonmedina.com
• Caden and Luke begin swimming lessons today, as well.  They’re very excited, to say the least!
• We’ve experienced a lot of support and encouragement from outside our group in the last couple months, particularly from friends in Columbus, and from Trinity EFC in Amherst, OH (where I serve 2 days each week).
• More to come soon (as in, less than 2 months from now.  I’ve really got to stay in the habit of posting here…)

For Memorial Day this year, we took a veteran to breakfast (Janeen’s dad served in Vietnam) on the square in Medina, then stayed for the parade.  Later in the day, the family got together for picnic & fun (5 games of beach volleyball left me a little sore…getting older).  Caden & Luke each caught a couple fish; here’s Luke’s catch:

Chapter 2 of N.T. Wright’s small book on the Jesus meal (The Meal Jesus Gave Us) finds us joining a new friend and listening in on a Passover celebration in her Jewish family around 200 B.C.  This “freedom meal” is a recollection of the mighty acts of God in rescuing his people from slavery in Egypt:

“Why is this night different from all other nights?”

“Because,” says [the] father, reading still from his text, “this is the night when our God the Holy One, blessed be he, came down to Egypt and rescued us from the Egyptians…”

“But it isn’t,” you whisper to your friend.  “All that happened a long time ago.”

“Yes it is,” the girl whispers back.  “This is the same night.  It’s like a birthday party.  And we are the same people.  We are the people of Israel, the people God loved and chose and promised to rescue.  We are the people who came out of Egypt.”

“But…but…not you, surely?” you ask.  “It must have been your great-great-great-great grandparents, with quite a few more ‘greats’.”

“Yes, of course,” she replies.  “But that’s not the point.  We are not just us, if you see what I mean.  We are part of them, part of the whole of God’s people, God’s family.  We are the same family that came out of Egypt.  We are the same family that are having this meal in every Jewish home, everywhere in the world, tonight.  This meal makes us all one.”

This is just a small excerpt, of course.  There’s more to the story in this chapter, so to speak, filling out the picture a bit. 

I think this element of the Jesus-meal has been somewhat lost in my tradition.  We spend plenty of time distinguishing ourselves from other Christians who believe or practice slightly different than us, but do we see the Jesus-meal as a celebration of our unity both with the people of Israel and with the church? 

God is redeeming one people, one bride for himself.  We are part of that people.  The exodus story is our story.  Whenever we celebrate this meal, we proclaim that this is our God acting to rescue our people.

EC = exponential conference

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NY.  He also leads the Redeemer network of church plants, and is author of The Reason for God.  For an extensive list of Tim Keller’s resources (audio, print, video, etc.), see this page from Reformissionary.

Tim’s style is very intellectual, but accessible.  He is very easy to listen to, and gives a well-reasoned approach to each passage or idea he teaches.  This was a session from the “Multiplying Church” track of the conference.  The next conference post I’ll make (also the final one) is his main session on the gospel, which was fantastic.  This session is more of a summary of some historical and biblical observations of revival movements, with the assumption that to see a vast exponential church planting movement in the West we will first need to see revival.

Here’s a basic outline of the talk, followed by more details:

16 Factors/Dynamics of Revival for Church Multiplication

• 3 Intstruments of Revival  (things we have control over)
• 3 Aspects of Revival  (things we have no control over)
• 6 Balances of Revival Movements  (things we have some control over)
• 4 Results of Revival  (things we have no control over)

3 Instruments of Revival  (these are things we have control over)

1.  Recovery of the Difference between Gospel & Religion.

• religion says, “I obey God, therefore I’m accepted.”
• gospel says, “I’m accepted, therefore I obey God.”
• if this is true, I can’t place demands on what God can or can not do in my life (i.e., I can’t say, “God owes me, b/c I surrendered to him”).  Instead, God can do anything with my life b/c grace is free to me and comes at infinite cost to Jesus.
• all awakenings (revivals) begin w/ people grasping this difference.

2.  Extraordinary Prayer

• corporate, barrier-breaking, united, over-the-top prayer is always present in revivals

3.  Creativity

• outside of the gospel & prayer, everything changes in a revival
• in the 1st Great Awakening, it was itinerant preaching.
• in the revival in Manhattan in 1857, it was lay-led prayer meetings.
• “you never get back into Narnia the same way twice” (revival never follows exactly the same path, b/c there is always fresh new ways the gospel must be incarnated to meet the current context.

3 Aspects of Revival  (these are things we have no control over)

1.  Nominal church members get converted.

• b/c of the gospel/religion difference
• they may have believed Christian doctrine, but Jesus was only their intellectual savior.
• they really were their own savior
• their testimonies are electrifying

2.  Sleepy Christians wake up.

• their heart had looked to something other than Jesus to be their functional savior
• now the grumpiness and deadness goes away
• experiential assurance from the Spirit

3.  Outsiders/non-Christians are drawn in in great numbers.

6 Balances of Revival Movements  (these are things we have partial control over)

1.  a particular kind of worship which edifies believers and welcomes non-Christians

2.  strong emphasis on great gospel-driven preaching and teaching (truth-driven, accessible, applicable)

3.  strong emphasis on life-changing community

4.  evangelism – an outward focus which balances respect & humility with great boldness

5.  passion for justice and the poor

6.  cultural engagement – integrating faith and work (not just pietistic, isolated faith)

4 Results of Revival  (these are again things we have no control over)

1.  there is always a lunatic fringe with excesses

2.  a backlash – in the church, in the denomination, in the city

3.  lots of new churches planted

4.  real social healing (when revival is extensive enough)

EC = exponential conference

Bob Roberts is pastor of Northwood Church in Keller, TX.  I’ve read a couple of Bob’s books, including The Multiplying Church, which I just finished a few weeks ago.  I’d highly recommend any church planter familiarize himself with Roberts’ work.  Northwood is doing some fascinating things in the area of partnering with other nations to serve them, which then opens avenues for gospel and church.

In this session, Roberts moved quickly.  That, combined with the fact that he’s one of those extremely bright individuals who is always quite a few steps ahead of you, made it difficult for me to keep up.  So…my notes are fairly random and scattered.  If you want more from him, check out his books:

• Transformation (on discipleship)
• Glocalization (on globalization and the church’s roles and opportunities in this new world)
• The Multiplying Church (on being a church-planting church)

With that long intro, here’s the highlights from the session:

• within the 1st year of your church, you should be involved in planting another church (even if you’re not doing it yourself).  This will help set the DNA of your church plant as a church-planting church.
• When Northwood plants, from day 1 the new church mobilizes to work in a hard place in the world.  (According to Roberts, there are no closed countries.  We just approach them in Western-church, non-indigenous ways.)
• Converts grow a church; disciples change the world.
• Every Jesus movement so far (after the early church) has been tied to a specific tribe/country.  Because of globalization, we’re coming to the end of this and could see the 1st truly global church planting movement.
• the grid for God’s operation in the world is society, not the church (nations).  [Abram became Abraham when he became the father of nations.]
• Society is formed by…(picture concentric circles moving outward):  individual;  family;  tribe;  city;  nation.  In all these domains, faith is present when a disciple is present.  In other words, religion/church is not a separate domain, but the disciple functions naturally in all these domains, impacting society with his faith.
• Therefore, when we start our missional thinking with the church, we’re off the grid that God has designed – the society.
• Christianity began as a Jewish movement; it will conclude as a Muslim movement.  (This one has me still thinking.  He didn’t have time to really flesh this out, but to the best of my understanding, here’s what I think he was saying with this:)  We’re currently seeing great expansion of the gospel in S. America, Africa, and Asia.  The Muslim portion of the world is the last great unreached people.  When the gospel penetrates the Muslim countries – particularly when it reaches Muslim leaders – we will see an indigenous gospel movement inside these countries (much like we see in China today).  These countries will be reached primarily from the inside out, i.e. “a Muslim movement.”

Again, Roberts and Northwood are models of much of what is going right in the church.  They’re doing a great job of reaching out glocally (locally and globally).

This is the 1st post on N.T. Wright’s little book The Meal Jesus Gave Us.  It’s a great quick read on the “Jesus-meal.”

How do you explain a birthday party to a Martian? 

This is the question of the first chapter.  Imagine a Martian visiting your house during a birthday party for your daughter.  How would you explain the traditions?

• why are all these people here?
• why are they wearing funny hats?
• why do they pull those things that make a bang?
• why does the little girl in the middle keep opening packages?
• why is someone trying to set fire to the cake?

Traditions like birthday parties and the Lord’s Supper are symbolic actions that say something.  They are special and meaningful celebrations.  Our celebration of the Jesus-meal communicates something to those who participate.  (And those on the outside may be very confused what that is until it is explained to them.)

In the next chapter, we eavesdrop on another celebration meal…

EC = exponential conference

Andy Stanley’s session on vision was classic Andy Stanley.  Clear, concise, well-illustrated, well-communicated.  For those who may be unfamiliar, Andy Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley, and is pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA.  Here’s the summary:

Vision = a mental picture of what could be, fueled by a passion that it should be.  It’s something you can’t get out of your head.  As a leader communicating vision, you must realize that it has to be clear for people, otherwise they don’t know how to follow you.  Accordingly, here’s 5 steps to making vision stick:

1. state it simply.  Memorable is portable.  It can’t be complete (otherwise it’s too long to be effective).  Examples:  Bono’s One campaign – “making poverty history.”  Obama’s presidential campaign – “change.”  Hillary’s?  McCain’s?
2. cast it convincingly.  Nehemiah 2 – define the problem, offer a solution, explain why and why now.  If people don’t feel the problem, they won’t embrace the solution.
3. repeat it regularly.  Find the rythym of your organization, and talk vision at the high points.
4. celebrate it systematically.  celebrate the wins.  Display personal examples of those who are living it out.
5. embrace it personally and publicly.

On a personal note, Andy Stanley’s ministry has been formative for me in a couple of ways.  His help on vision is one area, as well as the focus on keeping things simple at NPCC.  Janeen and I were able to visit there several years ago to observe the children’s/family ministry in action.  NPCC is definitely living it out.

I’d also recommend highly Andy’s books, particularly 7 Practices of Effective Ministry and Communicating for a Change.

Here’s one of my favorite pics of Elijah (taken at Great Wolf Lodge outside Cincinnati this past December):

EC = Exponential Conference.  I’m passing on some things that stuck with me from a few of the sessions I attended at the conference.  This first post is on the pre-conference intensive I attended on “creative communication” by Mark Batterson.  Mark is pastor of National Community Church in the DC metro area (4 locations:  3 theaters & 1 coffeehouse, which is a converted crack-house they bought…)  These thoughts are meandering, as was the intensive:

1. don’t overpromise and underdeliver
2. everything says something about everything (aesthetics, etc.)
3. coffeehouses are postmodern wells
4. find ways to do church in the marketplace
5. the greatest message deserves the greatest marketing  (I’m still thinking this through in light of Alan Hirsch’s thoughts on the effects of consumer culture on the Western church.  I see both sides…)
6. do internal marketing, not just external marketing
7. consider your blog digital discipleship
8. you must turn attenders into inviters
9. church is a tag-team sport (I tag you to go invite someone in; you tag me to deliver a message when they come, etc.)
10. 60% of Americans get their theology from movies and music

And…Seven Steps to Sermon Branding

1. choose a series title (every “ology” connects to theology, so read widely across many disciplines.  This will allow you to present the message in ways that connect in our world)
2. create a series graphic (do it well.  Dorothy Sayers, “there were likely no crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers coming out of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth.”  I.e., create with excellence)
3. design a series e-vite and invite.
4. brainstorm big ideas (the reason you can lay down on a bed of nails is b/c there are so many points that none of them penetrate.  Find the one big idea and hammer it home)
5. shoot a series trailer (there are 2 ways to get behind people’s defense mechanisms:  laughter and story)
6. add sermon props
7. add sermon staging

I appreciate the creativity and risk-taking of NCC.  They’re reaching many people.  I especially like the idea of doing/being the church out in the community.  The “third place” created by the coffeeshop is great, too.

Until I can update the sidebar pics, here’s the updates on the reading list:

recently completed:

• The Meal Jesus Gave Us, by N.T. Wright (continuing to work out my theology of the “Jesus-meal” to set the stage for ikon’s practice of communion/Lord’s Supper/eucharist/mass)  And for those of you disturbed that I used the word “mass,” I plan to post one or two thoughts I learned from this great little book…hold off any condemnation till then
• I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, by Vince Antonucci  (I attended Vince’s session at the exponential conference.  Vince was inspiring and challenging, telling us that we need to do whatever God’s called us to, even if everyone else thinks it’s crazy)

currently reading:

• The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch (see post below)
• The Good Shepherd, by Lesslie Newbigin (see previous posts)
• Stories with Intent, by Klyne Snodgrass (disclaimer:  not reading in its entirety, using this as a primary study text for our current studies on the parables – it’s a fantastic resource.  If you buy this, you hardly need anything else on the parables)

on the short list (since the full list has like 89 titles…):

• Church Unique, by Will Mancini (missional leadership of missional churches)
• The Tangible Kingdom, by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay (creating incarnational communities)
• unChristian, by Dave Kinnaman (what young Americans think of Christianity)
• Compelled by Love, by Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation (missional living)
• Neither Poverty Nor Riches, by Craig Blomberg (firming up my theology of giving)
• Making a Meal of It, by Ben Witherington (more work on my theology of the “Jesus-meal”
• Divided America, by Earl & Merle Black (heard these guys on the Dennis Prager show.  The book is a look at American politics by region of the country.  Some areas are Democratic strongholds, other are Republican.  The one main contested area is the midwest, and particularly our state of Ohio.  Sounds like a very interesting read, particularly in an election year)
• The Great Good Place, by Ray Oldenburg (a look at “third places” – beyond home and work spaces – which are at the heart of a community.  Of interest to me, because I want to explore “doing and being the church” in the third places in Medina).