What a great article!

I couldn’t believe I was reading the title right. Last March 2018, I began writing down some thoughts that eventually turned into a book, The Pharisee Factory. The book will be released July, 2019.

In chapter one of my book I write about the current crisis bearing down on the church. This is the first time in history that four generations are trying to figure out the future of the church!

The article opened with this, “A profound but mostly unrecognized demographic and economic trend is unfolding around the world right now. The average human life span is growing enough that for the first time in recorded history, four generations can routinely expect to be alive at the same time.”

The authors would explore a positive spin on a fast approaching train-wreck. “How we might turn a massive social liability into a common good.” Endicott and Sviokla boldly state, “There has never been a modern society in which people routinely lived into their 90s. The longevity revolution is putting massive strains on all of our major social systems — employment, retirement, education, healthcare, housing, transportation, and food, as well as the environment.”

I completely agree.

I have one question – as an institution, an influence, where is the church in all of this? Answer, who knows, no one is talking about it.

I am calling out Christian leaders to focus on Building a Gen-Gap Bridge. There are many names for generational identity, I chose four: Traditionalist, Boomer, GenX and Millennial. The point isn’t to argue over titles or birthdates, it’s to acknowledge that these completely different perspectives and ideologies are not trying to figure out how to get along or what the future holds for the church. The four generations are each stuck thinking that they know what’s best! I’m begging you, “please look up!” Look up from your past, your opinions, your positions and power – long enough to see there’s work to be done. Who’s going to do it?

The old guard wants to keep everything the same or worse, go back because to them, “it worked,” “God moved,” and churches were full. In the past, older saints would die and gloriously go on to heaven, forcing the church to make a change. The new guard (twenty and thirty somethings) say go forward because the church lost its way, its love, it’s passion for the poor, and the immigrant. The church became all about judging and what it stands against. This new generation wants the church to be known for what it stands up for. A church for justice and compassion.

I believe that longevity and health care has given us longer lives with no tools to deal with the social, cultural, and financial ramifications when people might live to one hundred years old. In 1900, very few lived to eighty-five;  in 2010 there were 5.5 million; and in 2050, there will be 19 million. That’s a lot more healthy, feisty, and articulate old people!

This longevity equals tension, and it means that pastors stay in the pulpit longer, and congregants (who are old, but not necessarily mature) stay active and vocal in the church. The power and money dynamic continue to push the current young generation to either rebel against their elders or just vacate traditional churches to start their own churches and movements.

This generation, currently sitting in builder/boomer churches, are just waiting out the leaders until their time comes. And, it looks like that time will never come. They’re staying in the traditional church because they: love their family, love their church, and love their community. That’s good, right?

They’ll eventually leave because the pain of staying will outweigh the pain of finding something where they can have a voice about what church looks like and sounds like. Or, the way money is spent and how ministry takes place outside the church, where there are physical and social needs in their community. Eventually, they will just leave. Why? Because two or three generations above them hold all the power and influence about how the church operates.; because their only input is to volunteer in the “ministries” of the church because the older folks have “served their time, and they’re tired;” and because they are weary of being seen as “kids,” or “youngsters” or just lumped into the the whole “youth” category. Many of them haven’t been a youth or student for over a decade!

Look at the facts.: next-gen leaders are willing to walk away from an established building, a long history of a presence in the city, deep family connections (sometimes two or three generations worth), and tons of friendly, familiar faces just so they can experience a church where they are valued beyond their labor, availability, and “youthful” appearance on websites and church bulletins.

• They will walk away because they want to see change lives.
• They will walk away because they want to have input.
• They will walk away because they want action outside the church building.

The builder/boomer prophetic words of revival and “souls getting saved” or the promise of getting younger board/elder members (like in their fifties) will no longer keep them.

What are you doing to build a bridge?

My wife and I are putting our time, effort, money and connections into young pastors who believe the church can thrive in this current culture. These men and women are not afraid of social media or the political climate, they want to engage with the passion and love of Jesus to embrace a broken world.

I was at a friend’s church yesterday, Jason Neville – Praise Chapel , when I saw this guy worshipping God with his hands raised. Then I saw his watch on his left wrist. Then I saw his watch face on his watch on his left wrist, with his hands raised, worshipping God. I know, i’m not supposed to be distracted by such things like a watch, but I was – so judge me.

This guy’s digital watch had some kind of branding on it. I was several feet away, but I could see it was a letter, like an “F” or something. That’s when it hit me, “wow, I never thought about a branded watch face before.” I wonder if I can do that on my Apple Watch. It turns out, you can!

First I needed an app to design a font. A logo will work, but the watch face is kinda small, so a single letter or similar is better. Yes, you can do color, but that just makes it harder to see from a distance. I needed a simple app that let you control font style, color and background. I already had it and had used it before. It’s called Typorama.

First I used the app’s Watch Face template.

Just tap on the letters to change them in the app. Ignore the warning and click continue anyway – they don’t know what your creative jam is.

Then I choose a letter, mine’s a “g” because I like g’s – I have two of them 🙂

You’ll need to experiment with the app yourself to get the results you’d like. Just a hint, if you want to add the time and date and other info below your branded watch face, you’ll want the letter to ride high on the screen.

I recommend a white letter on black background, but feel free to do whatever.

Save it to your photos, I created a watch face album for organization purposes.

Once that’s done you open your watch app on your iPhone.

And go to Photos at the end of your face selections.

Click ‘custom’

Then click ‘add photo’ at the bottom

Select the photo of your brand (letter or logo) and click done.

Scroll down to add things to your watch face.

And click ‘save as your current watch face’ if your happy with it.

That’s it. You’ve branded your Apple Watch face.

That’s right! It felt like LOVETOUR 2018.

Three months ago Robin and I experienced something that has never happened to us before – I was terminated from a ministry transition plan (succession plan). Short story, the church leadership did not want to move forward with me. I mean, honestly, there have been a few times I could have, should have been fired from ministry before, mainly because I was being a turd. This was different. I wrote a blog post about What Happens When You Fail? a couple days after our last Sunday at the church.

I would love to tell you that the experience was humbling, but it felt more like humiliating. We experienced pain at levels of betrayal that we had not experienced before. I know you’re thinking, “haven’t you been in ministry awhile, this couldn’t have been your first heartbreak?” Actually, yes, this is our first major blow to our core. Go figure! I mean, Robin was raised in church, and as a Pastor’s kid she has seen a lot of crazy stuff. I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home, so yeah, I thought Churches were more… hmmm, morally responsible, and that sort of thing. However, I’ve seen plenty of situations where power and immaturity in the church has made for combustible confrontations. Thank God I never let that reflect on my love for Jesus or His love for me. Idiots happen. Bullies happen – #dealwithit.

After a few days of grieving, spinning and feeling like zombies, I started getting phone calls, emails and texts from friends. They would say, “hey, can we get together?” I would say, “sure, I’ve got some time on my hands, why not?” The first few friend meet-ups really got a earful of grief, just plain ol’ “this ain’t pretty” kinda stuff. There were a lot of tears – which is super embarrassing to have a couple of guys in a restaurant bawling, “could you please bring some more napkins,” I would say to the server. Then one by one our amazing, kind friends would do what friends do – just listened and loved on me. One friend said, “I just wanted to look you in the eyes and make sure you were okay,” (cue more tears). Come on! How much more biblical can you get than that?

It didn’t stop with just a few meals. For a solid two months I got texts, emails, phone calls and a calendar full of local friends for meals. It has been very overwhelming to receive that level of love! For forty years we’ve been on the giving end of love NOT the receiving end – not to this extreme. We have people praying for us constantly. I think that’s the only thing that has sustained us. It’s folks reminding us that they are praying. I told God, “Hey, a lot of our friends are watching out for us, you gotta come through on this one.”

#LoveTour2018

So for those of you who want to know how we are doing, we are still believing forward and restlessly leaning on the grace of God.

So to wrap up the lovetour, let me just tell you, from Robin and myself, THANK YOU for your friendship, love, kind words and prayer. You are the best! You have shown us the meaning of Sympathize with One Another.

We think we live in tumultuous times.

If we are truly listening to the signs in our culture, politics, education, healthcare and even religion, its all there in the full inglorious-cacophony of our own humanity – we’ve lost our minds.

Our conversations have been reduced to name-calling and sound-bitten tweets hoping to go viral (like a disease). It feels dire and divisive even within our specific tribes.

However, are things really that bad?

I’ve been reading an amazing book, Introduction to The History of Christianity (3rd Edition, edited by Tim Dowley) and came across SEVERAL hundred chunks of history, spanning the two thousand years since its beginning, where the Church flourished in the absolute chaotic environments of political and cultural upheaval. I mean absolutely horrible periods of persecution, death and societal ostracizing.

I’m not trying to say that we are NOT living in difficult times or that we are NOT living in the “end times” (although the Church has had more “rapture alerts” than Trump’s had lawsuits), its just that I hear people say, “It can’t get any worse.” Really? Just a quick glance at the past tells me, “oh, it HAS been worse – much worse!” Maybe it’s just that I feel so ill-prepared to face the challenges ahead and so helpless in finding handles of truth. Shouldn’t I be content to simply label these times as INSANE? And I mean that in the most non-PC, insensitive way – WE ARE CRAZY. I know you’re fighting the urge to say, “I’m not crazy… it’s THEM – THEY’RE crazy.” Sure, but who’s “they or them?”

Modern Day Peace Meets

I just read this morning that there was a Congress of Christian Leaders (CCL) to “Bridge the Divide in Evangelicalism,” like a good ol’ modern-day Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. It seems that word “divisive” is synonymous with Christian. We need a new apostle Peter (they called him the bridge-man between Paul & James) to come in to pray some sense into the saints or a neo-Paul to stop and drop some Ananias and Sapphira raca on folks.

Cool Church History Stuff

I came across a refreshing letter written during the second century (that’s like in the 200 A.D. range) that tries to defend Christianity to a possible official (secular or saint). The letter is so simple and elegant in its description of what is supposed to “set us apart.”

Here is chapter five of An Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus. 

“Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

I’m still exploring the different ways the first and second century Church dealt with strange beliefs, cultic practices and powerfully charismatic leaders who were off their Biblical rocker. You already know the main ways, excommunication, branded a heretic and sometimes even put to death. It was pretty messy.  If I find anything interesting in Church history (which is ALL OF IT), I’ll let you know. So, if I get in some cultural knock-down-drag-out-fight over something, I’m going to remember to do this, “A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult.”

If it’s a plan to do lunch with a friend and they cancel, you just reschedule and try again.

If it’s a succession plan to follow a founding pastor and it falls apart AFTER you’ve dedicated a year of your life, love and time into the people you believed you were called to serve, then you were “ALL IN” and sold your home and moved to the city you planned on investing in – well that’s a whole different kind of failure.

You go through the checklist: Did I miss God? Was I blind, stupid or just over zealous? Didn’t I see the warning signs? Didn’t I get input and advise from friends? No, No, Yes & Yes. Check, check, check.

So, what happened? We took a risk and it didn’t turn out like we thought it would. We jumped and landed on a familiar, foundational platform of faith. We weren’t in control (we thought we were and then realized- we’ve never been in that kind of control). We have lived by faith and trusted God for over 35 years. Each leap turned out really well (and we’ve had several) – this one didn’t… yet.

So, we are grieving, trying to gracefully end our relationship with the church and pivot to what God has for us next.

So how can you help? Praying for us is awesome. Believing with us is affirming!

Failing Forward

I told a friend last year, “I want to fail more.” Of course, I thought it would be more along the lines of the “cancelled lunch” type. I needed to fail more because I was so afraid of failing. I remember hearing Laurie Beth Jones (who wrote Jesus, CEO) talk about failing forward. That moment you realize you failed while MOVING. You were taking ground, pushing the boundaries of your own insecurities and inadequacies – not half committing, not playing it safe.

If I had played it safe I would have stayed where I was and wondered, “but what if.” You may have read all the success quotes about Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or even Ray Kroc. It’s different when you live it and not just read about it. I wanted to live it.

So we’ve got some new boo-boos which will turn into scabs and then later, scars. But remember, they are all on front side of our body. Because, we failed forward.