Tag: church

The Elephant in the Room on Sunday Mornings

I’ve always hated the following way some preachers (and other public speakers) begin a talk:

Preacher: Good morning!

Congregation (weakly): Morning.

Preacher: Oh, let’s try that again. You can do better than that! Good morning!

Congregation (stronger): Good morning!

After being thoroughly chastised for not being excited enough, the audience repeats the greeting a little louder.

I guess what bothers me is the implication that we all need to be cheery and excited and full of faith and ready to conquer the world.

Frankly, that’s just not the case for many of us in the room. In fact, it may be the opposite. It may be that being at the end of our rope is what brought us here to church in the first place.

I’ve always felt that our churches need to acknowledge the hurt in the room on a given Sunday morning. After experiencing three deaths of my loved ones in the past four years I believe it even more.

Mom & Dad, 1995 (our wedding)

And as Mother’s Day approaches and I remember my mom’s 10-year descent into Alzheimer’s and all that entailed…as I recall her death and having to tell Dad…as I look at her photos and remember her as she was before that evil disease hijacked her brain and body…I feel this pain even more and feel strongly that churches should address the pain in their midst. Mother’s Day is not just about honoring the moms in the room but should also be about acknowledging the pain in the room from all the missing moms.

Almost half of the Psalms are songs of lament—expressing our pain and suffering back to the Lord without sugarcoating it. Henry David Thoreau said it well: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Can we not acknowledge this better in our services?

Keith and Kristyn Getty explain their approach to leading worship with these thoughts in mind:

We sing, as the Psalms train us, to help us bring all of our lives, failures, successes, losses, gains, dreams, and ambitions into gospel perspective. Our singing can prepare us for every season of life, and sustain us through every season of life. We don’t need a musical escape from our lives; we need to gaze on the Savior of our lives—our refuge and help and comfort.

(From Sing!: How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church by Keith and Kristyn Getty, p. 47.)

What do you think? Should our churches do a better job of acknowledging the pain in the room? And if yes, how so?

Update: After I wrote this post, I came across this from Facts & Trends on how churches should handle Mother’s Day.

From my library: Wounded by God’s People

Card catalogue data
Wounded by God’s People: Discovering How God’s Love Heals Our Hearts by Anne Graham Lotz (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2013)
Category: Christian living
Format: Kindle
Pages: 240 (in the hardcover version)

This is the second book I’ve read in January and thus the second book of 2017.

First paragraph

As I look back on my life, it saddens me to acknowledge that some of my most painful wounds were inflicted by religious people—Gods people. Those who have been the most hurtful, those who have been the most unkind, those who have betrayed, slandered, and undermined me have been those who have also called themselves by God’s name. They have been considered Christians by themselves and by others. Yet they have been men and women whose words and behavior are inconsistent with what they say they believe and contradict what God says. Even now, I shake my head in near disbelief as I recall some of the painful experiences I will share with you in this book.

Why I read this book
Like the author, I have had my share of hurts and woundings, many of them from God’s people. This past year has been no exception. I picked up this kindle book a while back when it was on sale, but I read it last week and it was perfect timing. At the beginning of a new year, with fresh, new goals, it seemed the right time to unshackle from some of the hurts that were holding me back still. And while forgiveness is a continual effort, I felt like this gave me a good start.

The book in a paragraph
Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Billy & Ruth Graham, has written about how we get hurt by others, especially by Christians, and how we deal with that hurt. She opens up the bandages to show us the wounds in all their gory detail and empathizes with us about the pain they inflict. But then she goes deeper and shows us how to recover and even forgive. She uses the story of Hagar in the Bible as a running theme throughout the book. (Hagar was the servant of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. You may remember that, when Sarah couldn’t seem to have a child, she told Abraham to be intimate with Hagar. This produces a son, Ishmael, the beginnings of the Arab and Islamic worlds.) Lotz pulls many lessons from the account of the hurt that Sarah inflicts on Hagar and applies it to our modern lives.

The bottom line
We must forgive those that wound us. Forgiveness is not a feeling or a one-time act, but a continual choice we make to love the other person (although love is different from trust). And we show that forgiveness through specific acts of love toward that person.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
You may be tempted to think this is a book for women, but I found it to be engaging and applicable to men and women. Even though Lotz gives examples of her own wounding, she keeps the book grounded in Scripture. She is both sympathetic to the wounded while gently prodding them to do what they already know they must do: forgive. And everyone has been wounded, so the book applies to everyone. I highly recommend this book.

From my library: The Five-Star Church

Card catalogue dataThe Five Star Church
The Five-Star Church: Serving God and His People with Excellence by Stan Toler and Alan Nelson (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999, 2012)
Category: Church administration
Format: Kindle
Pages: 230

This is the fourth book I read in June, and the 15th book in 2016.

Bottom line
When you go to a five-star hotel, you expect superior service and an outstanding product. What would happen if we as church leaders endeavored to raise the bar and have a five-star church?

About the authors
Stan Toler is a minister and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene and has written 100 books. Alan Nelson is a leadership expert, especially in identifying and developing 10-18 year olds.

Why I read this book
As someone who is interested in improving the systems that run a church, I read this book with special notice of the role of a church secret shopper and their help in improving churches.

Format of the book
Each chapter is divided into four sections: (1) a narrative fable where we follow the fictional account of a couple of ministers learning from the general manager of a five-star hotel, (2) an explanation of the principles and applications, (3) a question and answer section, and (4) a “Doers Section” with ideas for implementation.

What I’ve learned
Many of the principles in this book I was already aware of; we had implemented most of them at the church where I recently served. But there were some great reminders as well as some questions I had never thought of before. Certainly improving the church to five-star level is not the only thing our churches need, but it’s an important factor if we are to reach the unchurched and grow, not decline like most churches.

Favorite quote

A market-sensitive church need not compromise on its message, but it must change its methods if it is to meet the spiritual needs of people. Excuse my soapbox a second, but a market-oriented church gives people what they need in the way they like to receive it. Seems to me, that’s what Jesus did most of the time.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
I recommend this book to any church leader (but especially a senior leader) who is looking to improve their church. It’s also a good resource for church secret shopper ideas.

Appendices
There are some good resources in the back of the book, including surveys for secret shoppers and other forms.

Other related books
Mark Waltz has much to say on this topic in his trilogy of books First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences in Your Church, Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, and How to Wow Your Church Guests: 101 Ways to Make a Meaningful First Impression. From a business perspective, much of The Disney Institute’s Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service translates into the church world.

2016 READING CHALLENGE: The Year of Courage

I’ve always loved to read. I have a memory from my childhood of Mom bringing home boxes of books that she saved from being destroyed. She worked for the county school resource office at the time (mainly caring for and sending out films and filmstrips–remember those?), and they were getting rid of old books from school libraries to make room for new ones. To someone else, those boxes may have seemed like trash. But to me it was a treasure chest.

Later, in early adulthood, I went through a time where I said I loved to read but finally realized I wasn’t really reading. I think schooling does that to you. You have to read so much that you really don’t want to read that you don’t have time for what you do want to read, and you just get out of the habit.

That’s when I started making reading goals and began to really read. And over the years, I keep learning how to get more out of what I read.

I can truly say that reading is one of my favorite things to do. It’s a place of comfort for me, but also of challenge.

I’ve known so many people over the years that were like me years ago: a desire to read more, but they just need a little push. A little accountability.

That’s one of the reasons I’m starting a new group this semester that will be different from any other group we’ve done at NorthStar. It’s called the 2016 Reading Challenge.

Here’s the lowdown:

Day: The last WEDNESDAY of each month
Time: 7:00-8:30pm
Leader: Randy Elster
Location: NorthStar campus

  • We will read one book a month.
  • We’ll meet once a month, at the end of the month, to discuss the book.
  • During the month we’ll stay in touch via email, this blog, and possibly other means to encourage each other and make sure we’re on track.
  • This will be a year-long group focused on a theme, so that each book that year will be tied to the one-word theme. The 2016 theme will be “courage.”
  • Even though it’s a year-long group, the commitment is month to month. So you can drop out and back in when needed, or if you don’t like the book that month.
  • The books will not all be Christian books. They will include Christian and secular, fiction and nonfiction, and include many genres: history, biography, business, leadership, self-help, and more.
  • Though not all the books will be Christian, we will approach each book and discuss them from a biblical perspective.
  • The group will support a habit of lifelong learning and part of the discussions will be around how we grow personally and apply what we learn.
  • The group, as the name implies, is a challenge both to read more and to read more thoughtfully, taking every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5).

This group is for:

  • Readers who want to have a little more structure to their reading and want to discuss what they are reading with others to gain new insights and to see how what they are reading compares to a biblical worldview.
  • Nonreaders who want to read more but would like the discipline and accountability that a group like this would give.

And here is the tentative book list:

  • 02/16 Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear by Max Lucado
  • 03/16 Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters by Jon Acuff
  • 04/16 Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
  • 05/16 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
  • 06/16 Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
  • 07/16 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • 08/16 Brave: 50 Everyday Acts of Courage to Thrive in Work, Love and Life by Margie Warrell
  • 09/16 The Courage Quotient: How Science Can Make You Braver by Robert Biswas-Diener
  • 10/16 The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
  • 11/16 Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud
  • 12/16 Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough

Interested? Join us!

Register: northstarchurch.org/group
More info: randy dot elster at northstarchurch dot org