New Approaches to New Evangelicalism - Special Session in Denver

Here's a shout out for a session I organized for this weekend at SSSR in Denver, Colorado, on contemporary Evangelicalism in the US and abroad.

Image by Andwar via Flickr

Competition among sessions this year at SSSR is fierce!

So many great sessions in each slot, but you just can't miss the session on New Approaches to New Evangelicalism. Our session brims with brilliance through the work of excellent scholars doing fascinating research. You can count on this being a stimulating time with plenty to chew on.

New Approaches to New Evangelicalism
Westin Tabor Center
Room: Teller

Organizer: Gerardo Marti, Davidson College

One Way Out: Examining the ‘Evangelical Exit Clause’ for Central America
Robert Brenneman, University of Notre Dame (rbrennem@nd.edu)

Exporters of Religion: Evangelicals in Global South Impact Other Countries with the Gospel
Stephen Offutt, Boston University (soffutt@bu.edu)

Reconstructing Social Space at Willow Creek Community Church
Peter Mundey, University of Notre Dame (pmundey@nd.edu)

The Emotional and Aesthetic Dimensions of the Local Church Rock Scene
Kevin McElmurry, University of Missouri (Klm143@mizzou.edu)

Plan on meeting us Saturday October 24 @ 3:45pm-5:15pm.

Instant Cool: Explaining the Diffusion of "Contemporary" Church Culture

Church Marketing Sucks, a website concerned with the use of contemporary marketing techniques by church leaders, recently provided a list of great media resources for churches freely available online. Through sites like these, we have a privileged window into American religion. Why? Because understanding the circulation of these media materials gives us an alternative means for understanding the widespread diffusion of "contemporary" church culture.

Image by mufan96 via Flickr

We know contemporary churches use rented facilities. Not just movie theaters and high school auditoriums--churches are using bars and coffeehouses, community centers and warehouses, even lake shores and parking lots. How do these church leaders focus spiritual attention in these architecturally challenging sites?

Well, what's happening is that even churches who do not have specially-designed or "megachurch" aesthetics are adopting sharp media imagery to promote an exciting "vibe" that directs devotional attention and speaks to quality (and money) even when the church is just starting out.

Take a look through the free resource sites listed by Church Marketing Sucks below. Each of these congregational ministries have longtime experience producing entire suites of visual materials that compliment and accentuate message series:

• Elevation Church
  
• Lifechurch.tv
  
• Northside Christian Church
  
• Stuff I Can Use (Southeast Christian Church)
  
• The Church Box (Four Corners Community Church)
  
• CreativeMYK
  
• Muddy River Media

Clicking and exploring these sites, you get a sense of what non-high liturgy, "contemporary" churches are bringing into their services.

(For church-researcher types, these materials provide fodder for understanding seeker churches, new paradigm churches, and emerging adult spirituality.)

But, I'm writing this post to make a particular point: The availability of these materials points out an aspect of the modern diffusion of church culture. Here's what I see.

The internet is allowing more easy accessibility to media resources. Churches which have produced these materials (and are frequently asked by scores of other church leaders who literally salivate over obtaining such things) are seeing the extension of their local church ministry as giving away these resources--at zero cost.

See, churches that produce these materials are well aware of the money and time invested in the creation of media materials that have an inherent disposability to them. They'll never be used again in their church (since churches don't "repeat" sermon series). So they are happy to have them used by others and see their investment put to good use by others.

In other words, providing media resources to other churches (after they have been used in the base church) is understood to be part of the missional outreach of the congregation.Graphic materials are viewed as tools (modern, necessary, missionary tools) that can be easily adapted by like-minded ministries who are perceived to be essentially partnering with them to spread a message they already believe should be widely promoted.

Because these media items are used in many different churches across the nation (perhaps the anglophone world), and because church attenders are highly unlikely to know the materials they see were originally used somewhere else, there is an unacknowledged yet powerful diffusion of Christian visual culture -- at last a type of Christian culture.

And because we have not studied this, I speculate that the diffusion of style, ambiance, and ethos of religion embedded within these media materials is reinforcing particular boundaries of similarity and identity.

In the research literature, this is a type of "institutional isomorphism." But I won't go into all that now. It's enough to say that researchers DiMaggio and Powell* defined imitating or "Mimetic Processes" as coming from similar external conditions. In particular:

Uncertainty encourages imitation.

What does this mean for how "contemporary" church culture is widely reproduced?

Let's look at how this works. Using DiMaggio and Powell's framework, predictors of similarity (or "isomorphism") are based on premises like this:

Principle 1: The greater the centralization of resource supply, the more it will change to resemble the organizations it is dependent upon.

Application 1: There are only a few churches willing to give away these media materials, so the dependency on these few churches raises their influence as models for how to "do church."

Principle 2: The more uncertainty, the more an organization will model it's structure after successful firms.

Application 2: The means to growing new (and struggling) churches is highly uncertain, so leaders look to the successes of other, usually much larger and media-rich, churches.

Principle 3: The more ambiguous the goals, the more an organization will mimic a successful one to establish legitimacy.

Application 3: A mission statement like "Reaching our community with the gospel" is quite ambiguous, so church leaders quickly become alerted to widely accepted models of ministry and absorb their media practices.

These are not exhaustive, and certainly the principles are not directed soley toward understanding the use of media. Nevertheless, these principles provide a quick peek into the dynamics of isomorphism that can be applied.

Other important aspects are how organizational models can be diffused is through employee migration, which in the case of churches would include the movement of clergy, lay leaders, as well as members between churches. Larger churches with well-institutionalized media ministries more quickly diffuse their media-intelligent people in comparison with smaller churches which are not likely to have as extensive of media practices.

Also, organizational models are spread by consulting firms, which in the case of leaders is usually accomplished through church leader conferences. Highlighting and discussing the use of media is a common aspect of "contemporary" church conferences.

I've come a long way in this post, something I thought I'd shoot off much more quickly than I did. Here's my main point.

In short, I've come to think that the accessibility and wide-spread use of church media materials gives us an alternative pathway to grasping how the cultures of "contemporary" churches can be understood. For me, this highlights that the occurrence of "contemporary" churches are not isolated phenomena--and most of us know this.

Further, it also suggests that "contemporary" churches are more tightly networked with each other than we usually think, specifically around assisting one another to reach similar goals with similar methods. Media materials provides a tangible means to enact those networks.

*P. J. DiMaggio & W. Powell, "The iron cage revisited" institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields", American Sociological Review, 48 (1983), 147-60.

Inside Look: Andy Stanley's North Point Church Describes Creative Process

Quick post: The media department of Andy Stanley's North Point church in the Atlanta area posted a blog today walking through their creative process for a new sermon series.

North Point in Atlanta is a large, multi-site church that invests time strategizing their communication process.

This is more than just "making sermons interesting." The ambitious effort to craft ideas based at the heart of Christian concerns that connect to a mainstream audience is routinely performed.

Here's one video that came through this particular process.

Promo: "Losing Your Religion" from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Of course, North Point is not alone in their concern to craft image-saturated, symbolically-rich content. In my own research I've described Mosaic in Los Angeles and Oasis in Hollywood at length (yes, yes, "read my book...").

Nevertheless, it is important to realize the degree to which religious creativity is channeled through the construction of mission-driven religious content.

iPhone Church - Religious Media Jumps on the Digital Bandwagon (Again)

As part of their expanding digital offerings, Pastor Wayne Cordeiro explains a new service provided through the IT department of New Hope Church in Hawaii. The "iPhone devotions" borrows the iconic Apple style to communicate relevance to the digital literati.

New Hope on iPhone from Peter Thourson on Vimeo.

Even more, entire church services at New Hope can be streamed live.

It appears that New Hope Christian Fellowship, a large Foursquare Church in Hawaii, is the first to launch iPhone services on July 4th of this year. A press release indicates that "live streaming to the iPhone was one of the most requested features from church attendees" and that the live streaming capabilities of the 3.0 software allowed this to happen.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

"Typically, churches are years behind other organizations when it comes to technology and innovation. We have tried to reverse that trend and pioneer new ways to spread the Gospel using the most current tools available," explains New Hope's Technology and Innovations Director, Michael Sharpe. "We don't mind the long hours and stress that comes with innovating because we know that if we can come up with something useful, it can be used by other churches around the world."

You can check out their dedicated e-church site here.

Religious Nones Spark Even More Sociological Research

Quick Post: The annual meetings of the American Sociological Association and the Association for the Sociology of Religion have kept my last several days full bouncing between meetings, presentations of research, catching up with friends, and a little bit of sleep here and there.

Scholars don't accomplish much all by themselves. While it can be a lonely business, and we can publish papers with our names on it, the foundation of our work is how we all participate in larger conversations on broad topics and questions. These large, yearly get-togethers become critical for our work.

Image by ruSSeLL hiGGs via Flickr

In attending these conferences, one of the most important things for me to do is to listen to what other people are paying attention to. This year, so much attention is focused on "religious nones." Religious Nones are people who do not mark a religious preference or affiliation on surveys. The percentage of Nones have gone up (lots of news this year on this like here), but we are still trying to figure out what this really means.

Everyone agrees on one thing - being a Religious None does not mean a person is an atheist.

Religious Nones is a survey category, and it can be asked in a lot of ways. For example, there are people who go to church and others who do not. Among those, there are people who go to church who believe in God (as we expect), but there are people who go to church who say they do not believe in God (not many). This simple example shows how there are different ways to discover types of Religious Nones, adding further complications about what it means.

In a session with sociologist Michael Hout, he demonstrated using new data how over the past decade the proportion of Conservative Believers becoming Religious Nones is greater than any other religious group. Conservatives are moving toward Nones more than any other segment of the religious population. Hout thinks this may be due to the growth of attention on the Religious Right from the media - he showed a striking parallel between the two - and that Conservatives are eschewing the label of religion to get away from the stigma of being part of those fundamentalist-moralistic crazies.

Think about that for a moment. If Conservatives are leaving a label, are they leaving religion? Or is something else going on?

In short, are Religious Nones less "religious"? Hmmmm...

Image via Wikipedia

Well, we frankly don't know in part because we do not have a commonly agreed definition of what it means to be religious. Working with notions of "atheism" doesn't seem to help either. But other research out there seems to suggest that we need to pay attention to how people are defining and living out their religious practices rather than relying on these survey scores.

There are probably lots of ways to be a Religious None.

Still, the notion of a Religious None has filtered it's way into congregational leader's thinking about ministry for a long time. Here's one thought -- From my own research, I believe much of the vitality we see among entrepreneurial evangelicals comes from the attempt to craft a church that will appeal to a growing culture of "Religious Nones". This has some relationship to the "unchurched" or "seeker" ideas of the last decade.

Catch the irony here - creating church for people who have rejected religion. Doing so is based on crafting our own understanding of who is rejecting "church," "God," or "religion" and why they do. Then create church (in language, ritual, style) that seeks to overcome those things.

Anyways, this is only one of several dozen ideas that flow through my head as rich information and new perspectives are being brought by the bright, curious, and ambitious scholars I encounter here every day.

West Coast Evangelicals - Playful, Passionate, Proactive

Hanging out with West Coast Evangelicals at Thrive 2009 -- through Bayside Community Church, it's a new conference attracting several thousand enthusiastic attenders.




Religious Innovation in Sacramento

California is birthing another wave of religious innovation through a very active megachurch you may never have heard of -- Bayside Community Church.

Image via Wikipedia

Talk to any Californian. No one would have predicted a dynamic religious movement coming from Sacramento. Maybe San Francisco? L.A.? Sure. But not the distant land considered by many to be a suburb of the Bay Area. Now, Sacramento has built up a vibrant metropolitan community that participates, even accentuates, an interesting mixture of the the rich aesthetic and economic ethos of both Southern and Northern California.

With a nicely architectured site in Granite Bay, the large "mother church" of Bayside hosts several thousand attenders at their weekend services. At a glance how Bayside shares several characteristics with Saddleback Community Church:

• a growing urban population,
• an active economy,
• a range of cheaper housing options,
• and much land still available to build facilities.

The casual-yet-practical style of ministry includes:

• a clear-talking preacher who's written best-selling book,
• a musically-versatile worship pastor with muscle shirts and cool hair,
• and an army of smart back-room administration-savvy paid and volunteer staff who accomplish the welcoming, assimilating, and energizing ministry for this local population.

But all that's happening at the Granite Bay site is just a beginning.


Growing "Thriving" Churches

Bayside also has had great success initiating other congregations in the area - eleven so far, and more on the way. These churches aren't competitors but spiritual colleagues who together produce a dynamic, cooperative network of ministry around Sacramento.

The combination of enthusiasm and the practical demand of talking and training leaders led to the creation of the Thrive conference, now heading into its 6th year.

This conference is "hot." The 2009 conference completely "sold out" six weeks in advance.  Over 2,600 attenders plus another 450 volunteers makes 3,000+ participants this weekend.  

Thrive is cool, fun, and interesting. It brings together prominent speakers and authors from around the country Franklin Graham (son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of the non-profit organization Samaritan's Purse) was a highlight this year.

A re-run of last year's conference produced by Bayside is available on youtube:

And views into this year's 2009 conference are just now being posted:

Also, they are already planning for 2010 and making room for over 5,000 registrants.  John Maxwell is a headliner, Hillsong worship is coming in from Australia, others are being confirmed.

The success of the conference (did I mention this year it sold-out six weeks early?) is spurring another new development, a new network for church innovation.

I'll write more about this new network -- what it highlights about American religion -- real soon.

Christianity Today Editor Suggests "Church Shrink" Conferences

A senior managing editor of Christianity Today, suggests evangelical churches need to become more demanding and that conferences on "How to Shrink Your Church" should be promoted.

Mark Galli says, "I'm not kidding."

What churches need to do is "introduce the harder edges of the gospel" and preach in such a way that attenders actually leave "because they see, finally, what Jesus is asking of them."

That necessitates creating new church conferences to show leaders how to manage decline as pastors demand more from their members.

Yes, welcome to the Church Shrink Conference with special workshops on "Exit Ministries" and answering the question "My Church is Growing, What Did I Do Wrong?"

For Galli, evangelicals may appear successful, but actually they have "succumbed" to "an emotionally and spiritually shallow culture."

He finds his evidence in a new book Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace.

Co-authors Shayne Lee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere argue that the growing ministries profiled in their book are not strict in doctrine or strict in behavior. Instead, their ministry growth is the result of crafting slick marketing, sympathizing with felt-needs, and appealing to local culture.

Galli is not convinced such growth is the kind of "growth" Christianity needs.

Citing older -- and highly controversial -- research found in Dean Kelly's 1972 Why Conservative Churches are Growing and Laurence R. Iannaccone's influential 1994 essay, "Why Strict Churches Are Strong," Galli claims much of evangelicalism's past success has been due to the demands of doctrine and behavior placed by these churches on their attenders.

The underlying argument of this research is that strict churches draw people into greater participation in their churches, greater solidarity with other believers, and a greater sense of purpose in living to a harder-edged gospel -- especially in comparison with liberal, mainline churches.

Image by cromacom via Flickr

 

Strict churches, therefore, grow more and faster than looser, low-commitment congregations.

Galli admits (I'm sure reluctantly) that "Many churches are growing because they preach a God of second and third and fourth chances, and a faith that gives palpable hope, joy, and acceptance. What's not to like?" 

He concedes that the "gracious aspects of the faith" are attractive.

Yet, Galli goes against the strict church research to argue that strict Christian groups are small. "The more strictly you adhere to the teachings of Jesus, the smaller the church will 'grow.'" 

What is his core belief? Galli believes that theologically better churches with strict moral standards may be numerically small, but they are spiritually superior despite less attendance. "These theologically conservative and morally strict communities are not winning converts by the tens of thousands." 

Of course, Galli is conveniently ignoring that most morally "non-strict" communities aren't growing either.  Galli is also dismissing that 1) few churches are large (like 1,000+ attenders), and 2) the "accommodation to culture" has been happening even among "strict" evangelicals since they began. 

(See my recent posts on the ministry of Charles Finney.) 

Never mind all that.  There is a clear vision in Galli's mind of what churches should be like, and this new book really irks conservatives like him who hope that the future of American religion does not follow any of these various developments.

Instead, Galli believers pastors and leaders in "superficially successful" churches need to introduce the difficult demands of the gospel. And this introduces us to the tricky notion of how to measure any congregation's "success."

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps Galli would object less to the ministries of Mosaic or Oasis as I describe them. While these are certainly not conservative churches in his mold, they do call people to high standards while simultaneously accommodating to a changing culture. I don't quite know.

I'm confident strict churches will survive well into the 21st Century, but I am not so sure that the development of evangelicalism as a whole will follow this path ignoring an accommodation to the life circumstances of people's contemporary situations.

Finney's Altar Call and the Quest for Efficient Evangelism

I just can't seem to get Finney out of my mind. One more post...

After lingering with Charles Finney's memoirs for the past week, it finally struck me that Finney's use of altar calls contrasts markedly from his own, personal process of conversion. It's not until you read his memoirs that you realize that his public ministry of evangelism is quite different from his private experience of conversion. But after reading through his whole book, I think I understand how the altar call connects to his own life experience.

Image via Wikipedia

Finney mentions summoning attenders to make a public commitment early in his preaching ministry. But it is not until he talked about "the anxious seat" well into his memoirs that I understood what the alter call was intended to accomplish.

The very beginning of his memoirs is devoted to how he found his own commitment to Jesus. In particular, as Finney wrestled with his own salvation he found himself unable to pray. He could not find the ability to give himself over to God. He went in and out of his house, talked with others, and went walking the streets, roaming and anxious, and still found that he could not find contentment for his own soul.

He eventually looked over to the woods, a quiet stretch of land up a hill and away from other people. It was there that he went in private -- apart from the company of others.

There in the woods, Finney finally prayed out his confession and commitment, releasing himself, discovering a sweetness reconciling to God in prayer, and finding joy and rest for himself. When he committed to Christ, he committed to preaching the gospel of Christ.

As Finney began to preach, he was struck by the response to the messages. He tells story after story throughout his memoirs of people who agonized over their salvation and were overcome with anxiety over their spiritual state. Attenders moaned during church services. People regularly fell out of their pews and onto the floor. Both men and women fainted in the fellowship.

The consternation and disturbance hits all social classes and all professions both in America and in England. Beyond church services, Finney regularly made house visits (often late at night and often at great inconvenience) to counsel and pray over individuals moved near the point of insanity over their spiritual destiny.

I think Finney empathized with these struggles. He recalled his own turmoil before committing to Christ.

As a pastor, he wanted to save people from such pain.

Image by Martino's doodles via Flickr

See, Finney was convinced that an individual who clearly understands the gospel and their responsibility to respond to it will experience emotional distress. From his experience and observation, the gospel provokes an emotional agitation, a deep disturbance that persists until the person makes a personal and proper response to God.

It is therefore out of a pastoral concern for the crisis experienced by near-converts that Finney crystallized his notion of "the anxious seat." Individuals who understand the gospel begin to occupy the anxious seat; they experience a type of physical agony that mere rest will not take away. The seat becomes a place of torture -- the unmoving agent stuck sitting amidst the stirring of their own conviction.

Image by wheat_in_your_hair via Flickr

For Finney, the altar call delivers people from their anxiety. It takes them out of a passive state to an active one. By inviting attenders to respond to the message, the preacher delivers convicted persons from their anxiety and toward spiritual ease in the elation of obtaining salvation through their active repentance. The preacher and volunteers steer each person out of their anxiety by giving them assurance of their salvation by pointing to their standing and coming forward as a physical mark of their commitment to Jesus.

In the end, while Finney's own conversion was private it emerged from a state of utter distress. Finney hoped to ease people from such emotional pain by directing them to a standardized response that moves them productively -- even efficiently -- toward salvation and emotional comfort.

Yes, altar calls are efficient means toward salvation, allowing more converts to find their way into Christian fellowship than if they pursued it without direction privately. But for Finney the use of alter calls emerges not for the sake of efficiency alone, but rather a pastoral concern to deliver people from spiritual agony toward spiritual elation. In this sense, finding salvation is simultaneously a means to find healing.

Charles Finney and His Calculated Ministry

Finished reading Charles Finney's memoirs published in 1876 last night. Much of the book focuses on his plea for innovation for the sake of evangelism.

On a recent trip to California, I stopped in a religious store that sells a largely unsorted collection of used books. I was looking for treasure, and I found it.

Charles G. Finney. Image via Wikipedia

On the floor and at the end of a row of "overflow" books that would not fit on an already overstuffed bookshelf I found an unassuming green book, yellowed with age and frayed at the spine. The square-ish little bundle had a simple title: CHARLES G. FINNEY - and that was enough for me.

The 477 page book, complete with a portrait of the famous evangelist, turned out to be a first edition of his autobiography, a book published by Oberlin College (a school built almost entirely on his reputation, fundraising, and booksales) after his death in consideration of the great importance of his life.

The book is a fascinating read. For me, the value of the book is to see Finney's own view of his theological convictions and his methods in his approach to gaining converts. Finney is the original seeker-sensitive preacher.

Toward the end of the book, Finney writes,

Image by Nate KS via Flickr

"In religion as in every thing else, good sense and sound discretion will, from time to time, judiciously adapt means to ends.

The measures needed will be naturally suggested to those who witness the state of things, and if prayerfully and cautiously used, let great freedom be given to the influences of the Holy Spirit in all hearts."

[emphasis mine.]

His call for "great freedom" comes as a striking, summary statement after reading the many, many stories of conversion and revival. In short, the book is a plea to earnest Christians for innovation in the service of evangelism.

Finney often uses terms like "calculation," "means," and "measures" throughout the book that indicate his conscious consideration of methods to provoke conviction and move people to make public commitment toward the gospel.

Indeed, for Finney the lack of revival in any place pointed to a lack of consideration of proper methods. On page 155, he writes, "The great failure of the ministry and of the church, in promoting religion, consisted, in great measure, in the want of a suitable adaptation of means to that end." And on page 154 he writes, "There must be an adaptation of means to the end to be secured," namely conversion.

The means-end discussion is constant through the book, both in its successes and in its failures.

Finney "invented" the altar call. Image by openg via Flickr

Here's one of his most important methods -- many of you may remember that Finney essentially invented the "altar call," the practice of preachers summoning attenders to move to the front of the service as a sign of their dedication to Jesus and meeting others there who will talk and pray with them, giving them spiritual assurance.

The book tells stories regarding his first use and continual experimentation with altar calls and the use of "the anxious seat" to provoke people to commitment.

Finney's practice was to arrive in town and spend much time living there, even two or six months at a stretch, getting to know people and speaking to them as directly and as plainly as possible.

Although he was criticized by both members and ministers for the failure to use a more religious oratory style, Finney strenuously argued that he would rather be understood than thought merely eloquent.

On page 94 he writes,

Image by Dave Siberia via Flickr

"My habit has always been to study the Gospel, and the best application of it, all the time. I do not confine myself to hours and days of writing my sermons; but my mind is always pondering the truths of the Gospel, and the best ways of using them. I go among the people and learn their wants. Then, in the light of the Holy Spirit, I take a subject that I think will meet their present necessities. I think intensely on it, and pray much over the subject on Sabbath morning, for example, and get my mind full of it, and then go and pour it out ot the people."

Finney's preaching was more like a conversation. "How completely they were in the dark in regard to the results of that method of addressing people!" he wrote. "The used to complain that I let down the dignity of the pulpit" and "that I talked to the people in a colloquial manner."

Finney usually spoke extemporaneously, speaking from a brief outline, in order to talk to the assembly with the greatest freshness and spontaneity possible. "Indeed, people have often said to me: 'Why, you do not preach. You talk to the people.'" This is one of the ways his "preaching" was set apart from the well-prepared, written-out, and read-aloud sermons of his contemporaries.

He later summarized his ministry, saying,

"Wherever I went, the word of God took immediate effect; and it seemed only necessary to present the law of God, and the claims of Christ, in such relations and proportions as were calculated to secure the conversion of men, and they would be converted by scores."

Finney practiced and continually called for deep prayer for revival, and always attributed the work to the Holy Spirit. Image by Sacred Destinations via Flickr

Finney "called" people to public affirmation of faith in the context of an understanding of their local cultures and common concerns at home and at work.

But don't think that Finney believed conversion was merely an outcome of human manipulation -- far from it. Finney spends much of the book (and writings in other books) talking about the centrality of prayer for revival. And Finney attributes nothing to his self, rather to the efficacious working of the Gospel when properly presented.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit according to Finney. The difference between himself and most of his contemporaries is that they failed to properly understand the working of the Spirit and failed to call individuals to take responsibilities for their personal, active response to the Gospel.

Video Profile of Influential Pastor Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Seattle

Mark Driscoll, a contemporary pastor recently profiled in The New York Times, was interviewed on Nightline. 

I wrote last month about Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill, Seattle, as an example of one brand of contemporary evangelicalism.  Driscoll was recently a highlighted speaker last week at Leadership Network's Innovation 3 Gathering.  

For those interested in things like what Driscoll looks like and the ambience of his church, here's a brief video on his ministry. 

Boxing for Jesus

I just couldn't pass up pointing out a church that uses a boxing ring in services to attract new members.

Boxing, not from New Life Church. Image via Wikipedia

I got my copy of USA Today on Monday at the Davidson College campus to find inside the first pages a story about a church that transformed the altar to a boxing ring to attract new members.

Yep. Boxing for Jesus.

I know what you're thinking. This is another crazy California church. Or maybe somewhere in New York, right? Ok, the Bible Belt? Guess again.

Downtown Sioux Falls, SD. Image via Wikipedia

In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Pastor Alex Klimchuck of New Life Church transformed his altar into a boxing ring. The "Saturday night Slam" pits amateur boxers against each other in order to "reach out to those who aren't already going, who think church is boring."

Mirroring the dramatic illustrations of pastors from Amy Semple McPherson to modern day "comtemporary" preachers, pastors like Klimchuck are integrating messages with sensual "object lessons" that integrate ideas and concepts for those gathered.

Thirty year old Pastor Klimchuck is aiming for twenty-somethings, saying, "The truth is, the church is having problems getting young men inside them. So we ask, 'What will reach the guys?' This seems like a perfect answer."

In this church, fighting on the platform became a metaphor for spiritual battle (of course!). In the earlier part of the 20th Century, Amy Semple McPherson dressed like a football player to make much the same point. Churches like Willow Creek and Mosaic routinely use dramatic images through dance, drama, and design of services to make unforgettable points.

On the surface, these may seem frivolous. But the intent to create an interesting and engaging church service stimulates efforts like this. Younger church attenders are seen as requiring much more visual stimulation.

And the additional emphasis on reaching men is a theme seen in the rise of cowboy churches aimed to win very "masculine" men and the explicit emphasis of on men by contemporary church leaders like Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill, Seattle.

The Three People in Every Megachurch

Reporting from the Innovation3 Gathering in Dallas, Texas -- I just finished giving a presentation that breaks down the members of every megachurch. "There are only 3 people in your church," I told them.

The best and most recent information on megachurches available was collected by Warren Bird (Leadership Network) and Scott Thumma (Hartford Seminary). They invited me and a small group of other scholars to look through their data. Here's a small sample.

I used focus group transcripts to look at the process of joining a megachurch. I call it "The Three People in Your Church":

The powerpoint is presented here as a "movie". Enjoy!

Also, you can read more on megachurches here.

Innovation 3 Gathering

I'm traveling today to Dallas for a pre-conference consultation with megachurch leaders at the Innovation3 Gathering, organized by Leadership Network. It seems about 1,000 people are registered for the conference.Dallas, TX, Image via Wikipedia

This gathering is a new type of conference, one that focuses less on plenary speakers and more on face-to-face dialogue.

The website says,

Innovation3 is a chance for you to do some real networking. You won't just be adding "Facebook friends", but you'll be interacting one-on-one with peers that will help you sharpen your views and collaborate to help change the world.

Parachurch organizations like Leadership Network interested in spreading and stimulating innovation really love these kind of conferences. It's a chance to see people you've heard of, get "behind the scene" details on how things actually work, and hear directly from some of the biggest names in pop-Christianity today. The list of presenters and churches is quite impressive -- evidence of how Leadership Network continues to maintain its credibility of providing worthwhile programming. Scroll over the "Featured Innovators" on the front webpage to learn more.

Anyways... if I hear anything interesting I'll let you know.

I leave early from the conference. From Dallas I'll head to Berkeley, California, to speak at the Earl Lectures at the Pacific School of Religion. If you're there, come say hello.

Cool Pastor Steven Furtick Draws Fire for Fashion

Steven Furtick, 28-year-old pastor of Elevation Church, is founder of one of Charlotte's newest megachurches and used to getting attention. After three years and over 4,000 attenders, Elevation is considered one of the fastest-growing evangelical churches in America. Now, his sense of style has been the source of some local comment.

The Charlotte Observer characterizes the pastor of Elevation: "Part spiritual athlete, part rock star preacher, Furtick is the talk these days in Charlotte religious circles." True enough. Now the talk has turned to his sense fashion.


Focus on Fashion

Last week in a quirky interview, the Observer decided to run a "style" question-and-answer piece focused on Furtick and his fashion sense. Here's a sample:

Q: Do you wear designer clothing?

I like certain lines. I love Monarchy, mainly the shirts. I like Antik Denim jeans.

Q: Do you have a favorite brand of jeans?

I like Rock and Republic Jeans. We buy a lot of jeans from Jordano's. We also like to Shop at Saks Off Fifth at Concord Mills. I like to go to Pure Denim in South Park.

(On a personal note, I don't understand most of what Furtick is talking about. No one's asking me, but I wear Docker's and 501's from Kohl's. Anyways...)

In the interview Furtick is both revealing and practical in covering:

Q: What piece of clothing can't you live without?
Q: Do you have any fashion role models?
Q: What fashion advice can you give to other ministers?

I found that Furtick's wife Holly supplements her husband's interview by making one thing clear: "The preacher's wife is responsible for his look."

(See the interview and some pictures with Steven Furtick.)


Fashion Draws Fire

But that's not the end. What's interesting is that some readers apparently balked at church donations supporting the young pastor's wardrobe.

The columnist, Dannye Romine Powell, called them "a bunch of pious fuddy-duddies."

Powell makes the point that the hubbub is "more about culture than religion." And she's right. There's no surprise to most that styles of fashion have changed for pastors. As culture changes, style changes.

But more importantly clothing worn by leaders on the platform signals the culture and identity of the church. Whether pastors wear torn jeans, Hawaiian shirts, or some sort of liturgical vestments (I've seen them all and more), visitors draw cues about the priorities of the congregation.

In the fashion interview, Furtick says, "You will see a person with a piercing, and a person with a suit, and the person with the suit is probably a guest, and the person with the piercing is probably a staff member." Elevation is not a suit-and-tie church.

Savvy pastors are more aware of their public profiles -- just like any other person who is dependent on first impressions for their livelihood. They come to understand which markers are important and how they come to be defined by people. Identifying fashion trends and becoming intelligent on matters of personal style is an important source of credibility.

Even further, dressing "in style" among evangelicals like Furtick is another way of communicating the contemporary relevancy of religion. The message and morality of this Southern Baptist Church is still quite conservative, but the earnest attempt by church leaders like Furtick (and Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill and Erwin McManus at Mosaic and Phil & Holly Wagner at Oasis and Naeem Fazal at Mosaic Charlotte) is to translate this orientation in a way that navigates immersion in today's urban/suburban lifetstyle with a vital Christian commitment.


More on Elevation

• Charlotte Observer did a nice profile of Elevation Church in Charlotte back September '08 with an article titled "Cool Pastor, Hot Church."
• A few pictures give a glimpse of the pastor and the ambiance of the services.
• Pastor Furtick also keeps his own blog.

Mark Driscoll is American Evangelicalism’s Bête Noire

Don't miss the extended article on Mark Driscoll, the "cussing pastor" of Seattle's Mars Hill Church in the New York Times. (FYI: Bête Noire is french for dark beast and is used to refer to an object or abstract idea that causes fear or has the potential to cause large harm.)


For those of you who may have missed it, The New York Times this week features a concise profile of one slice of contemporary evangelicalism that resonates with my own published research on both Mosaic and Oasis.

The profile of Mark Driscoll and the Seattle's Mars Hill -- a church with 7,600 attenders -- is compelling and throws more light on how religion is continuing to shift in America.  Longer and well-written, it's a treat to read.

Bottom line: This ain't your grandma's church:

Driscoll represents a movement to revamp the style and substance of evangelicalism. With his taste for vintage baseball caps and omnipresence on Facebook and iTunes, Driscoll, who is 38, is on the cutting edge of American pop culture. Yet his message seems radically unfashionable, even un-American: you are not captain of your soul or master of your fate but a depraved worm whose hard work and good deeds will get you nowhere, because God marked you for heaven or condemned you to hell before the beginning of time.

Yet a significant number of young people in Seattle — and nationwide — say this is exactly what they want to hear. Calvinism has somehow become cool, and just as startling, this generally bookish creed has fused with a macho ethos. At Mars Hill, members say their favorite movie isn’t “Amazing Grace” or “The Chronicles of Narnia” — it’s “Fight Club.”

In little more than a decade, his ministry has grown from a living-room Bible study to a megachurch that draws about 7,600 visitors to seven campuses around Seattle each Sunday, and his books, blogs and podcasts have made him one of the most admired — and reviled — figures among evangelicals nationwide.


The “modern evangelical machine” is a product of the 1970s and ’80s, when a new generation of business-savvy pastors developed strategies to reach unbelievers turned off by traditional worship and evangelization. Their approach was “seeker sensitive”: upon learning that many people didn’t go in for stained glass and steeples, these pastors made their churches look like shopping malls. Complex theology intimidated the curious, and talk of damnation alienated potential converts — so they played down doctrine in favor of upbeat, practical teachings on the Christian life.

Driscoll disdains the prohibitions of traditional evangelical Christianity. Taboos on alcohol, smoking, swearing and violent movies have done much to shape American Protestant culture — a culture that he has called the domain of “chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists.”

Moreover, the Bible tells him that to seek salvation by self-righteous clean living is to behave like a Pharisee. Unlike fundamentalists who isolate themselves, creating “a separate culture where you live in a Christian cul-de-sac,” as one spiky-haired member named Andrew Pack puts it, Mars Hillians pride themselves on friendships with non-Christians. They tend to be cultural activists who play in rock bands and care about the arts, living out a long Reformed tradition that asserts Christ’s mandate over every corner of creation.

God called Driscoll to preach to men — particularly young men — to save them from an American Protestantism that has emasculated Christ and driven men from church pews with praise music that sounds more like boy-band ballads crooned to Jesus than “Onward Christian Soldiers.” What bothers Driscoll — and the growing number of evangelical pastors who agree with him — is not the trope of Jesus-as-lover. After all, St. Paul tells us that the Church is the bride of Christ. What really grates is the portrayal of Jesus as a wimp, or worse.

(Picture via Jim Bryant / P-I.)

This reaction to the “feminization” of the church is not new. “The Lord save us,” declared the evangelist Billy Sunday in 1916, “from off-handed, flabby-cheeked . . . effeminate, ossified, three-carat Christianity.” In 1990 a group of pastors founded the Promise Keepers ministry dedicated to “igniting and uniting men” who were failing their families and abandoning the church. In recent years, mainstream megachurches — the mammoth pacesetters of American evangelicalism that package Christianity for mass consumption — have been criticized for replacing hard-edged Gospel with feminized pablum.

Mars Hill — with its conservative social teachings embedded in guitar solos and drum riffs, its megachurch presence in the heart of bohemian skepticism — thrives on paradox. Critics on the left and right alike predict that this delicate balance of opposites cannot last. Some are skeptical of a church so bent on staying perpetually “hip”: members have only recently begun to marry and have children, but surely those children will grow up, grow too cool for their cool church and rebel. Others say that Driscoll’s ego and taste for controversy will be Mars Hill’s Achilles’ heel.

Cover via Amazon
Driscoll is author of the bestelling book:

The Radical Reformission:
Reaching Out without Selling Out



UPDATE: For one response to the NYT's piece, see the Hot Air blog.

Here's also a brief blog post justaposing Driscoll with another "influential" pastor.