White-Knuckled

Imagine riding a motorcycle.  Not just any motorcycle - a drag bike like this one.

You begin going through the gears...First...Second...Third...Fourth.  Your speedometer tops 100...then 150...then 200.  The engine on your bike is whining.  The stripes on the pavement have gone from dashed to solid.  The objects to your left and right are indiscernable blurrs. 

You're holding on for dear life, right?  Your knuckles are white - you feel like your hair is on fire.  You don't even taste the bugs that you're eating and you swear you can feel the skin peeling off your face.  Can you relate to that?

For all the youth directors and counselors out there, maybe a better analogy is driving the church van full of teenagers on the interstate...

In either case, you're holding on for dear life, praying that a deer or other obstacle won't run out in front of you.  You keep the throttle maxed out and hope for the best.  There is very little opportunity for maneuvering or braking.  You find out just how long you can hold your breath.

This is an accurate description of what ministry is like for me right now.  We have had seasons like this before, where so many things seem to come together at once and it all seems a little overwhelming.  The rush is indescribable - it's a combination of joy, excitement, and sheer terror.  If I had hair, it would surely be on fire.

I posted a few weeks ago about our success at inviting friends, neighbors, and family members to church.  I've served a larger church and if attendance fluctuated by 50 or 60 on a given Sunday, it was hardly noticable.  In a smaller church, adding half that amount still adds up to 20-30% of your worship attendance.  That's a shock to the system!  Since July 18th, many of the people we invited have stuck around and become regulars with us.  Very exciting.

A new school year has begun - the youth and children's ministry are getting back in the swing and we're gearing up for Confirmation to begin next month.  At the same time, we're trying to figure out how to get the new kids and their parents plugged in.  (now accepting creative ideas)

We're doing something that many churches aren't doing and we're actually expanding our Sunday School to add one or two classes.  At the same time, we're beginning to make preparations to add a second Sunday morning worship service in hopes that we can spark even more growth.

The sanctuary is about to get some renovations with the addition of a video system.  A new projector, screen, and the expansion of our A/V booth.  Our capabilities in worship will increase exponentially. In fact, worship will probably morph somewhat with that capability.  We're even exploring whether or not we will need a weekly bulletin as we go forward, or if we can just create a monthly newsletter.

As if that wasn't enough for our trustees, there is some talk about taking advantage of the housing market and shopping for a new parsonage.  *If you're a member and you're reading this, don't be alarmed - it's still just talk.  If it's a feasible possibility, we'll report to you later and you'll be a part of this decision.

Two and a half weeks from now, we'll have a guest preacher.  Rev. Bert Neal will bring our Sunday message and hopefully we will have several people from his launch team as our guests as well.  Bert is new to our district and is a "parachute-dropped" church planter.  As Bert brings the sermon and leads our worship, the plan is that our church will become a partner in this new expansion.  It's exciting to think that our small membership church can help build a new congregation in the next county that will launch with more people than we already have.  Join us in praying for Bert and Sacred Praise UMC, set to launch in March of 2011.

There is so much going on that I'm sure to be forgetting something.  (Oh yeah, we're doing a new church directory for the first time in six years, and we're beginning work on nominating next year's church leadership)  Things are at the edge of control and in some cases, out of control - for us that is.  I just keep holding on tight and trusting that God will keep things moving in the right direction and keep my head above water.

Pride

It's been a while since I bragged on my church.  It's not that I don't love the people here, I'm just bad at stopping to praise them on my blog.

Before I brag, let me give you some background...

For the last eight weeks, we've been in a conversation about the "E-Word."  What's the E-Word you ask?  I'm glad you did. 

That's what we've been calling evangelism for the last eight weeks.  What are the first images that come to mind when you hear the world evangelism or evangelist?  For me, it's probably some blowhard, fire and brimstone preacher wearing a worn out suit  with white socks and pants that haven't been introduced to the tops of his shoes who doesn't make much sense, but makes a lot of noise anyway.  Or maybe a plastic woman with LARGE pink hair and makeup done by Sherwin Williams who asks you to send in $50 and she promises she will pray for you.

Evangelism is a word that has been taken over by some ridiculous people for some less-than-reasonable endeavors.  It's been abused and misused.  For many, it has taken on a wholly different meaning that it was originally intended to have.  For that reason, it has become something that we dare not to speak of in polite company, as well as the truly lost art form of sharing faith with others.

Evangelism is quite simple when you strip away all the false connotations.  It's about sharing our faith with others.  It's about being a source of God's good news to the rest of the world - painting a picture of hope in hopeless situations and becoming the answers to the prayers that we pray.

At the conclusion of this sermon series, the challenge was issued to each member in attendance: bring someone to church with you.  Sometimes that's the best start to sharing faith with someone else.

We set the date for July 18th.  We talked about it, we prepared for it.  I began to get discouraged when a handful of members told me that they just didn't have any unchurched or dechurched friends or that they just couldn't talk their friends into coming.  I honestly wasn't expecting much at that point.

Sunday at 10:55, I broke away from a conversation with a member to get settled into the sanctuary.  As I turned the corner I was overwhelmed.  The sanctuary was packed! 

We've grown slowly over the last three years as a church.  In terms of membership, we've just barely outpaced deaths in the church with new members.  Worship attendance has grown from 65 to close to 90 on average and each time we convert regular attending visitors to new members, new visitors take their place as regular attenders. People are finding faith for the first time and are growing, not only as disciples, but as disciple-makers.

Imagine seeing anywhere from 80 to 95 people on a normal Sunday.  Imagine that it's July and people are on vacation, so 80 is a solid attendance number.  Imagine walking into the sanctuary and seeing 120 people!  We had at least 33 guests on hand Sunday.  At least 17 of those had never seen the inside of the sanctuary before.  People brought their family members, their neighbors, their coworkers, and their friends.

I was blown away.  I immediately got anxious with excitement but couldn't wipe the smile off my face.  You see, I'd been praying for this day especially for months now.  Some of my leaders had been praying with me weekly about it for over a month. 

The most exciting part for me?  Probably the looks on the faces of our own members.  I've seen that look before.  It's the one that says, "Look what I did.  Aren't you proud of me?"  And I am proud of them.  I'm especially pumped because they've figured out how to do this and for many of them, this is only the beginning.

I always tell people that the math is simple.  Imagine if we all did our best to bring others to church.  Who have you invited lately?  Who will you invite next Sunday?

If you're reading this and you are the person who hasn't been invited, come hang out with us.  The preaching is ok, but you won't find better people anywhere.

Red Rover

Do you remember playing red rover as a kid?  I remember playing a few times in elementary school, along with red light-green light, tag, and hide 'n seek.  These were fun games.

Red rover was my favorite though, because it required teamwork.  For the "speed-challenged" kids, this was a way to be on a winning team.  Do you remember how it worked?

Two teams were formed and kids would stand hand-in-hand in lines facing each other.  One team would call out, "Red rover, red rover, send Susie right over!"  When they called out Susie's name, she had to run across from her team to the other and try to break through the line.  If the team could "catch" her, they could keep her.  If she broke through though, she got to take another person back over to her team.  Eventually, one side would keep everybody, and everybody got to be a winner.

Kind of like the church...

No, not the institution of the church, but the community of Christ followers, bound together by the Holy Spirit.  We stand, hand-in-hand (ideally) facing the rest of the world.  We call out a name, we share our faith, we serve others - and one by one, people run our way.  Our goal is to "catch" those people and make them a part of the Church (again, not the institution, but the community).

At Mt. Bethel, we're talking about evangelism.  Too often, in this game of red rover, we spend too much time enjoying holding hands to call people over.  Or even worse, we consume our time refusing to hold hands so we can call people over.  When we have our act together though, our purpose is to call people out of the world and invite them into a relationship with Christ.

Once we start calling people over, we learn that that is the easy part.  My question to you is, "once someone starts running your way, do you know how to catch them?"

Imagine a salesman.  He knows his product well and it's a great product.  He has a friendly face and people like to engage in conversation with him.  He has a weakness though.  He can't close the deal.  He is incapable of asking someone if they would like to buy his product.  How long do you think this salesman is going to have a job?  How much commission do you think he's going to take home with him?

See where I'm headed?

If we pray for opportunity to reach others for Christ and we do invite them, are we able to close the deal?  If an unchurched friend came to you today and asked about your faith and how to become a part of that faith, what would you tell them?  Would you be able to tell them about Jesus and the love of God?  Would you be able to lead them through claiming that for themselves?

Red rover is a losing game if you can't figure out how to catch those who run your way.  That's tragic when you consider that we're playing for the Kingdom of God.

"It's Like Family Here..."

I read something thought-provoking this morning.  Part of my study for the sermon series I'm in the midst of is reading Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism.  Martha Grace Reese spent years of note-taking in the trenches of the local churches all across the country to put together this project.

The chapter I'm on is a dangerous one - it's about the true health of relationships within the congregation and how that impacts our ability to be evangelists.  She says that "churches where people snap, snipe, pull power plays over the budget, then go home to fried preacher for Sunday supper don't do good evangelism for the long haul!"

What really got me is that one church that appeared healthy, but proved not to be authentically healthy once you dug a little deeper, was one where several of the people made the comment that "it's like family here."

I laughed when I read it, and if your experience has been like mine, you probably are laughing too.  The statement that "it's like family here" is the number one excuse to NOT do evangelism in the local church.  If we were to make a pullstring doll resembling a stereotypical church-goer, this would be one of the three sayings for the doll, along with, "Good sermon preacher" and, "We've never done it that way before."

Let's examine that statement for just a moment: It's like family here.  Now, think about your family.  Not just your immediate family, but the whole group that gets together for a family funeral.

My mother's Aunt Phyl passed away two weeks ago.  Family from all over the lower 48 converged on the small Indiana town where she and Uncle Marvin lived.  Now, understand that this is probably the more "normal" side of my family (sorry Dad).  My grandfather was one of four children who grew up in an Indiana farming family during the Great Depression.  There were two sons, Dick and Rex (Uncle Dick is a story for another post - let's just say they broke the mold on that one).  There were two daughters, Phyllis and Barbara.  Each went on to get married, have children, and build their own lives. 

Within that family, we have a portion that we affectionately pass from person to person.  The rule is that the last person to marry into the family officially becomes the relative of these people.  The rest of us do our best to retain deniability for these family members, simply because they're weird.  My Uncle Miguel was the last to marry into the family for 20+ years, so for that time, he kept his "inheritance."  After that time, I was the first to get married from my generation, so when the wedding rehearsal dinner came around, he presented, with much pomp and circumstance, a certificate of ownership to my bride-to-be.  You could tell he had been waiting a long time for that moment. 

That sounds harsh, and I assure you that it's all in fun.  It's a joke that we've gotten many miles out of and will continue to get miles out of as long as somebody remembers the people we're passing along.

The decendents of this part of the family, I'm told, had a singing contest at my great-aunt's funeral service.  Picture Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and you're getting the idea.  Yes, someone like Eddie really does exist, camper and all.

I love my family, but I'm not sure that this is the best image for a healthy church.  If my family spent that much time together each week and lived in such close proximity, someone would go to jail for murder. 

Is this the best we can do as the church?  Am I expected to WANT to spend that much time with crazy cousin Eddie?  Or is the church supposed to be something more? 

No, I don't think it will be utopian.  Conflict is an inevitable part of life.  But if you're suggesting that we shouldn't grow and reach others because you might lose that sense of family, you're lying to yourself. 

Church should rise above what we know to be family.  It should be the example for families to aspire to - where the member's actions, growth, and initiatives are supported.  Where love, support, and accountability can be found. 

"While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.'  He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?'  Pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'" (Matthew 12:46-50)

To an Unknown God

One of my biggest frustrations with the cultures of our church and our country is the mindlessness that we tend to approach things with.  Almost daily, I get an email with numerous factual inaccuracies, listen to a minister preach the words of men rather than the Word of God, or spend time clearing up false gossip.

Too many people slug their way through life sharing a single brain with thousands of other people, often using that single brain to complain about how our freedoms are being stripped away by the right or the left.

As we continue our series on Primal with a week on what it means to love God with all our mind, Mark Batterson points out that most people have stopped living out of imagination and started living out of memory.  "Like teenagers who don't know how much they don't know, we're so proud of our one-dimensional knowledge of the Creator and creation." 

The truth is that our brains have the capacity to learn constantly for the next 3 million lifetimes.  We get lazy though and make excuses for why we're not constantly learning.

As a Church, we've actually managed to propigate this problem.  We've gone from being a place that people could explore life and faith and a leading place of learning to a group that protects the status quo and actually encourages groupthink. 

When we stifle creativity and progress, we lose the privilege of directing that creativity and progress in our culture.  When we decide that the Kingdom has come and shall never change, our influence is lost in the lives of people who need our influence.

Paul, in his trip to Athens, noticed at first that there were large numbers of idols (Acts 17: 16-28).  Among those was an altar with an inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.  No wonder, in the presence of so many pagan influences, someone decided to become agnostic. 

The scholars of Athens (the center of education at the time) hadn't eliminated false religion from the area, probably because their perspective wasn't a spiritual one.  Unfortunately, the local synagogue hadn't combatted false worship with any success either.  What this tells me is that the synagogue passed the buck for learning to the philosophers and opted instead for being protectors of the status quo.  Paul preached to reclaim that influence for the Athenians by pointing out the altar and saying, "Let me tell you who this unknown God is..."

How often are we guilty of defending the status quo at the cost of losing our influence in the lives of others?  How many times have we fought over trivial things only to discredit ourselves with the people we should be witnessing to?

As Paul was sharing the message of Christ in Athens, the philosophers that gathered around quickly dismissed Paul as a "babbler."  Now, there is the fact that the message of God confounds human wisdom, but I believe this name calling went even further than that.  I believe that this message challenged the status quo for the philosophers and threatened their own authority within the culture.

If we, as members of the Church, desire to love God with all our minds, then perhaps we should look at what our true goals are (hint: see Matthew 28) and what we're doing to move toward that goal as well as what we're doing to hinder our own progress.

Are we aspiring to a greater life, to the coming of God's Kingdom, or have we settled for what we have and feel like we have to defend what's left as it erodes under secular influence?  I believe that if we aspire to greater life, to lifelong learning, and exploration of God's creation, we will draw a crowd and win influence because we will be the people that others want to be around. 

How badly do you want to spend this afternoon with someone who is dull and non-ambitious?  How willing are you to take the advice of someone who has settled for a meager life over someone who has experienced the fullness of the life God has given them?

God doesn't need to be unknown to the world.  But in order for Him to be known, we must first know Him and then be able to help others meet Him.

Prayer and Fig Trees

I'm in the midst of preparation for Sunday's sermon.  This week, we'll be talking about the spiritual discipline of prayer.  Last week was about study and meditation and there will be a post coming today or tomorrow, as promised about those disciplines.  For now, I'm focused on prayer.

I'm preaching a text that isn't included in the lectionary and you may not hear in many churches because of its complexity, unfortunately.  Mark and Matthew tell a story of a hungry Jesus who finds no figs on the fig tree, gets mad, and causes its demise.  The tree wilts on the spot.  You can find Mark's version of the story at Mark 11:20-26. 

In studying this passage, some things began to resound with me having to do with the survival of the church.  I think its speaking to me this way because I've been in the presence of some conversations lately about the survival of the local church and how things are changing in today's climate.

Just this week, a church member recited some statistics during a church council meeting.  Studies show that all mainline denominations are shrinking at a staggering rate.  Older generations are dying off and younger generations simply aren't finding what they're looking for in many of our traditional churches (no, this isn't going to be a knock on traditional worship or traditional ways of doing things).  Meanwhile, I've recently read an article by the Alban Institute on what might be an underlying cause of these symptoms.  The article reminded me that when we consume ourselves with these depressing statistics, we have the tendency to retreat into a survival mode.

We begin asking questions like: "How will we secure our financial future?"  "How do we show people that what we're doing has some great meaning?"  "How do we assimilate more people into what we're already doing?"

That's not going to work.

Those were some of the problems that the Pharisees and the temple leaders were trying to address in Jesus' time.  You see, just before Jesus cursed the fig tree, he spent some time in the temple confonting some of the deficiencies of the leadership.  The fig tree became a symbol of what would happen to the temple if it was found fruitless.

God has plans for his temple to become not just a Jewish place of prayer, but a house of prayer for all nations.  Note that I said nations and not faiths.  Part of the problem with the temple is that you had to become Jewish to pray there - contradictory to God's plans.  The Jewish temple must become a place for all people to pray, to encounter God, and to nourish their faith.  If the temple and it's leaders couldn't bear that fruit, or wouldn't bear that fruit, it would, like the fig tree, experience destruction.

I would encourage us, as Christians and church leaders, to learn a lesson from the fig tree.  In the face of decline, we should ask how we can preserve what we have, but how we fall in line with God's will.  Instead of trying to hold all things in, we should reach out with reckless abandon.  We should be inviting in all people of all nations by loving them and caring for them wherever they are.  Forget about numbers.  What are we doing to make a difference to the 60+% out there who don't know Jesus?

It was Jesus who said, "Those who love their life will lose it and those who hate their life will keep it for eternity."  The same can be said for the church.  Kudos to the churches and church leaders out there who have figured this out and are witnessing others' lives changed by Christ through the devotion of other Christians.

No Future

I have a habit of printing off interesting articles and allowing them to pile up on my desk.  I was going through my stack yesterday and found an article entitled "No Future for Methodists Unless Change Occurs, Say Leaders."  It's an older article, from March of last year, but the message is one that needs to be heard by every leader and member of the local church.

I'm a first-generation United  Methodist.  My mother was raised in the Catholic Church and my father in the Southern Baptist Church.  Ever wondered what happens when you mix those two together?  You get a United Methodist!

I believe myself to be very ecumenical in my approach to ministry.  Jesus is Jesus, whether you're Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian, Disciples of Christ, Lutheran, or Presbyterian - or non-denominational for that matter.  I also see value in the denominational structure because there are just some issues that we, as Christians, will never come together on.  I will always struggle with the Baptists because I believe in baptism as a sacrament that needs only be done once and infants are eligible.  I will disagree with Catholics because I believe that we should observe an "open table" in Holy Communion - that it is offered to all, just as the grace of God is offered to all.  You get the idea.

Back to the article.  It talks about how membership in Protestant churches has been down over the last several decades (since the 1950's actually).  United Methodists are the second largest denom to Baptists and we're still 8 million strong, but the only places we're showing an overall increase in numbers is in parts of Africa and SE Asia.

Half of Gen-Xers and Millenials have left the denom and some have found homes in other churches while others haven't found a need for the Christian community at all.  The UM's that remain are getting older and whiter.  Younger people aren't coming in and the future, according to the Council of Bishops, is looking bleak.

I sit in church meetings regularly and I have frequent conversations with church members.  Everybody's concerned with where the young people have gone.  Average age at Mt. Bethel is probably around 60 with very few young adults, youth, or children.  Survival is going to be painful for the long-time members of churches like Mt. Bethel.  In the first half of the 20th century, if you built a building with a steeple, people would miraculously appear and they would attend faithfully.  They'd put up with bad preaching and watered-down missions and evangelism.  Times have changed.

The churches that are growing don't wait for people to come to them, they are reaching out to people.  And they're not doing it in a way that promotes faded-out traditions but focuses on meeting the needs and interests of people that have either never been a part of the Christian faith or were once a part of the traditional church and were wounded or left unfulfilled.

Things will have to change.  No, not every church will need to convert to contemporary worship and not every pastor will have to figure out how to sport the untucked striped shirt and gelled hair (thank God).  We will have to take a look at our structures though - go from a hierarchy approach to a team approach.  Every member has to figure out how to be a minister to others, looking to the pastor for leadership (discipleship) and inspiration and encouragement.

People come to church because they're looking for something and their options are wide ranging with more churches in communities that offer more ministries.  People are hungry for what's missing.  If we refuse to feed them for the sake of tradition or for the sake of our own comfort or power, then we have a problem.  If that's the Methodist way, then I don't want to be Methodist.

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In the same vein, kudos to those pastors out there who are pushing limits and helping their people reach others.  Grace to the pastors that are planting new churches with the sole purpose of reaching the unreached.  And to the lay leaders that hear this call and have the desire to see things change, feel free to visit Mt. Bethel anytime - we have others who have the same desire, but you can never have enough voices.

Self-Evaluations and the Future

I must confess, I HATE doing self-evaluations. Evaluating something in particular, such as a ministry event, is good and needs to be done, but self-evaluations are just painful. This is one of the downsides of ministry in the UMC.

Every fall, every UM minister completes a self-evaluation for "effectiveness in ministry." That's followed up with an evaluation by the Staff-Parish Relations Committee and another with the District Superintendent.

I'm down with the goal setting and follow-up on last year's goals, but there's a couple of things I struggle with.

First, how you define "effectiveness in ministry" determines how you'll evaluate yourself. I'm not always sure how to begin that one. For decades, we have tried to find that perfect equation of new members vs. new Christians vs. financial giving that will give us a quotient to determine if we are truly being effective in ministry. It's been about as successful as the BCS has been with determining who should play for the national championship. I think for some appointments, there is a "difficulty of schedule" that has to be factored in because of geographical location, existing practices fo churches, and effective (or ineffective) lay leadership. A mediocre minister who doesn't apply him or herself to their work that is in a suburban or downtown setting with great resources and tremendous leadership will almost always show bigger numbers than a great, hard-working minister in a poor, rural community or in a church frought with conflict. All we can do as pastors is trust that our District Superintendent knows our situation and can relate to where we are.

For those of you who think that numbers don't really matter, all I have to say is "read Acts 2:47b". When the church is doing what it's supposed to, it will grow. According to Natural Church Development, it actually multiplies rather than just adding to its numbers.

My second issue is with self-esteem and self-perception. Remember in school when you'd do a project and the teacher or professor would tell you to grade yourself? I had one high school teacher that would do that regularly with papers we had written and she would average our grade with hers for a final, official grade. I confess that I've never hesitated in that situation. Even when I may not have applied myself or may have turned in something that was thrown together, I immediately gave myself an A+ (some of you are smiling, knowing that you did the same). I watched friends who were either more honest, or just thought less of their own work give themselves B's and C's. Why on earth would you do that?

When it comes to these self-evals, how can we truly engage ourselves in them? To evaluate yourself poorly is to intentionally, in my view, bring down your self-esteem. To give yourself high marks is to avoid reality and not face your own growing edges. Is this really the best way?

This year, I was pretty tough on myself. We've accomplished alot in the last year but it's almost all been below the surface. It's been changes in practice, leadership, and hopefully attitude, but nothing that will show numbers as results. I was critical of the low numbers of professions of faith and the decrease in church membership this year (we cleaned up the rolls) - but the criticism got good results. The SPRC's evaluation took most of those comments and put them on the shoulders of the church as goals for 2009. The CHURCH will strive for better outreach, evangelism, and missions.

All in all, the evals went well. My new superintendent affirmed my work and the work of the church - that's always good to hear when you have a first year DS. Before I left his office, he told me to plan to stick around at least another year. That's good news - hopefully it means that I'll get to see the church grow in faith and in numbers in 2009 and 2010.

Vision of Effective Evangelism (4 of 6)

For Mt. Bethel, effective evangelism must take place. You can call it whatever you like. I'm aware that the waters of "evangelism" have been muddied over the last several decades and has become quite profitable for the greedy and disappointing for the lost. So, whether you call it evangelism, outreach, witnessing, sharing, leading the lost, or prefer to let your actions do the talking, it needs to be done here and it needs to be done right.

That has a couple of implications for Mt. Bethel:

First, we must move our focus away from unfaithful members. They can join us in the mission if they want to, but they are not the mission and we must stop wasting energy. We have to turn our attention to the unchurched and new residents. Since my first week here, I have had several people present me with the names of members who had fallen off the church's radar that I was asked to call and invite back to church. Suprisingly, most of these names were the family members of the people that were giving me the names!

In ministry, I've learned that you can spend infinite amounts of time and energy trying to coax a wayward member to come back and never show fruits. I've also learned that a simple, gracious conversation with a total stranger, when I'm receptive to the Holy Spirit, can bear fruit too great to count. Our job cannot be to collect those who don't want to be there for whatever reason anyway - it's the ministry equivalent to herding cats.

The second implication and the tricky part will be the "how." We will need to establish "bottom shelf" methods for early and easy success for a group of people that haven't seen contemporary evangelism.

Last summer, I heard a sermon delivered by David Walters at the Lawrenceville Campmeeting. He shared with the congregation what he believed was a "bottom-shelf truth." He explained it by using his household as an illustration: Those of us who have small children who like to play with things they shouldn't, learn to place the delicate, complicated, advanced things on high shelves. Likewise, that which is left on the bottom shelf, within the grasp of a 2-year-old, is fair game and accessible to that child.

In our churches, we have to remember that not everyone has been a follower of Christ for 20 or 30 years. In fact, if we are making disciples like we should, most of the people in our churches won't have been Christians for long at all. We have to establish methods of ministry that can be effectively used by someone with a week of faith-experience, just as well as someone with a lifetime of faith-experience.

When we overcomplicate things and insist that people memorize lengthy scriptures or "rules" for accepting Christ, we limit who will do evangelism and where. Outreach doesn't have to be hard. It can be as simple as carrying someone's groceries for them or giving a bottle of water on a hot day and showing that you do these things out of your love for Christ.

One of my favorite ideals comes from St. Francis of Assisi: Preach the Gospel (be witnesses to the Good News) at ALL times - and when necessary, use words.