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A while back I entered a blogging tournament. We were asked to answer this question:

“What is your best marketing and/or outreach idea for under $500?”

Here was my answer:

Give Presence

What is the best way for a church to spend $500? Give Presence. (No, not Presents… though that might be part of giving presence.)

People today are tired of commercials (TV and radio), door hangers, junk mail, email spam, surveys, and telemarketers. Most people only get annoyed by such things, and this is especially true when such marketing stuff comes from the church. They think, “If that church has nothing better to do with its money then send me junk mail, I’m sure not going to attend there and give them my money!”

The best thing we can do with our “Marketing/Outreach” budget is to give presence by joining the community in what they are already doing.

We can join the people in our town and city where they already are, and do what they are already doing.

Typically, with such a strategy, a church planter doesn’t need to worry about how to gather a crowd or get the word out about a big event, because the city (or whoever is organizing the event) is already doing such things.

So go to your local Chamber of Commerce or city website and get a community calendar, as well as a list of civic organizations and community service events. Then be present at as many of these events and projects as possible. Be the most active, joyful, service-minded citizens your city has ever seen.

For the Fourth of July Festival, join whatever the city is doing.

Serve free hot chocolate at the New Year’s Parade.

Build homes with Habitat for Humanity.

Volunteer at the homeless shelter.

Give out free beads at Mardi Gras. (Ok, maybe not that one.)

To effectively reach our culture, we need to stop trying to do our own thing. Instead, go to where the crowds are already gathering. It’s easier, cheaper, and frequently, a lot more fun.

Far too often, churches feel the need to “do our own thing” and we often end up competing with the community we are trying to serve. But if we decide instead to come along side the community, and be present with them in whatever they are doing, then we will build relationship with them and be a true blessing to the community in the way God wants us to be.

In the comment section below, share some ways that you have joined with your community to give presence and bless the community in which you live.

Is our Culture Becoming Post-Christian?

By Jeremy Myers

14 Comments

I recently read John Burke’s book No Perfect People Allowed. This is another book that every Christian should read.

In the book, he makes the statement that we no longer live in a postmodern era, we now live in a post-Christian era (p. 15).

Is our Society Post-Christian?

Apparently, Christianity has already lost the war against postmodernism.

(I personally don’t think it was a war that ever should have been waged in the first place. Christians are to engage, embrace, and redeem culture, not fight against it.)

In his book, John Burke explains how the church can operate and function in a culture that is “post-Christian.”

Atheists think Christianity is Growing

Ironically, as I was reading this book about how to live as Christians in a post-Christian era, I ran across an exchange between atheist Christopher Hitchens (author of the best-selling book God is Not Great) and Suchin Pak (correspondent for MTV news). She announced to him that our culture was becoming increasingly Christian. She said, “Our audience is more religious and conservative than we assume.”

When he heard this, Hitchens replied, “I really hate to hear that the young are becoming more Christian. If that’s true, that’s the worst news of the night!”

So here we have two leaders both coming to different conclusions about our culture. The Christian says we are becoming post-Christian, while the atheist is alarmed that we are becoming increasingly Christian.

I guess it’s like the debate over global warming. Some say the polar ice caps are melting while others, who note that this it the coldest year in a century, are predicting a new ice age.

So what do you think? What have you observed in your community and with your friends? Is our society and culture “Post-Christian”?

The Great “Post-Christian” Opportunity

If you want to know what I think, the following picture sums it up nicely.

While institutional Christianity is quickly dying, there is rapid expansion in the number of people who are seeking to follow Jesus in organic, missional, relational ways. While the number of people who “go to church” might be decreasing, the number of people who seek to “be the church” is increasing.

In my opinion, this is a good and healthy thing, and provides a great opportunity for a post-Christian church to truly live and love others like Jesus in the world.

The Death of Churchianity is Near!

By Jeremy Myers

13 Comments

In his book, The Multiplying Church, Bob Roberts writes this:

Let’s start a thousand churches over the next ten years, each one running a minimum of two thousand members, and in just ten years we will turn America upside down with the gospel! That would work, right?

Wrong – that scenario just happened over the past ten years, and there are fewer people in church today than ever before.

How can that be?

How could we have spent billions to start two thousand megachurches and yet have fewer people in church and a society that largely feels the church is antagonistic?

The answer (in my opinion) is that most of the people who start to go to those new churches are not new Christians, but people who were already Christians and who transferred to the new and exciting church. Most of the church plants grew by transfer growth, not church growth. Others have pointed out the supporting statistic that every year about 4,000 churches close their doors … forever.

Most “Religious” Groups are Dying

Then today, I was reading an article called “Change-Seekers” in World Magazine, which summarized the major study of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (available here). The study revealed that currently only 51% of Americans are “Protestant,” down from 60-65% in the 1970s. The only “religious group” actually increasing in numbers are those who identify themselves as “non-religious.” They comprise 16% of America, and have nearly doubled in number since the 1980s. Then the author of the article says this:

Despite the church growth movement and the proliferation of megachurches, evangelical Christianity is losing ground. Growing churches often have high turnover. [Are they going to other new churches with a better show?] The issue is not how to gain new members but how to keep the ones churches already have.

Christians are Anemic

In The Multiplying Church Bob Roberts says that problem our churches face is that we are not seeing true life transformation in those who attend our churches.

I found this insightful, especially since on Friday, I read a book by Neil Cole called Cultivating a Life for God in which he reveals a way of discipling people which has resulted in amazing life transformation in the people that have done it worldwide. But the beauty of what he proposes is that this life transformation does not depend on the systems and structures that have come to be known as “church.” Instead, his proposal is simple, free, and easily reproducible. I just started reading his newest book, Search & Rescue, which appears to be an updated remix of Cultivating a Life for God.

It is my opinion that the way we do “church” today is more often than not a hindrance to the spread of the gospel and the making of disciples.

The Death of Churchianity

The death of churchianity is coming, and while it saddens me when churches close, I am also excited because I believe that a new movement of God is coming upon His people whereby we throw off the things that hinder what He is doing in our lives, communities, and countries, and embrace a new (actually old) way of being the church.

This new/old way will not need millions of dollars to sustain itself the way churchianity does.

It will live out the gospel among the people of this world by serving, living, and loving them, rather than just teaching facts.

Unlike churchianity, this new way of following Jesus will transform lives and communities. It will not require advanced degrees of education, high-powered leadership structures, costly buildings, expensive advertising, salesmanship routines, light shows and Hollywood gimmicks.

Those who leave churchianity won’t need experts to interpret Scripture for us, or to organize our discipleship programs and outreach events. Following Jesus outside churchianity won’t be limited to a single day, or a particular event.

When churchianity dies, we will stop going to church and simply be the church, the body of Christ. The death of churchianity precedes the resurrection of the church.

Therefore, since churchianity is dying, and we shouldn’t fight it. Churchianity is on life support and is begging us to pull the plug (which is why I wrote my book, Close Your Church for Good.

And as Churchianity fades away, I am beginning to see glimmers of light as the grime from centuries of tradition is scrubbed away, and the glory of God begins to manifest itself among groups of Christians who just want to live life like Jesus in their communities.

(Note: After writing this post, I learned that before he died, Michael Spencer wrote a book called Mere Churchianity. I haven’t read it, but it looks good.)

They Don’t Like Jesus or the Church

By Jeremy Myers

6 Comments

A while back I read Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus, but Not the Church. I highly recommend this book since it does reflect the thinking of a lot of people in our communities. However, I ran into a whole group of people today who don’t think much about Jesus either. They don’t like Jesus OR the church!

My family and I attended the Scarborough Renaissance Faire today in Waxahachie, TX. We went last year, and loved it so much, we bought a season pass this year. Today was opening day.

One of the things that amazed me last year, and was impressed upon me again today, is the amazing community of this place. I have never, in my entire life, witnessed such a close-knit and fun-loving community as I have seen at this Faire. I ache to find a group of believers that can even come close to such a sense of community as this. They are an odd bunch of people, with strange clothing, behaviors, and language, but they all love each other and welcome everybody, even those who are very different from them with wide open arms. The church has a lot to learn in this area.

Anyway, as we were strolling around, taking it all in, we came upon a certain vendor booth where they were selling juggling sticks. I have always been amazed by this, so stood there watching. One of the stick twirlers (Lance), came over and offered to teach my whole family how to do it. As we learned, we talked.

He soon found out I was a pastor, and immediately began calling me “Pastor Jeremy.” As we talked, it turned out that he has a pretty pessimistic view of the future of humanity. I said, “I don’t know… I’m pretty hopeful.”

He said, “Why? What is your hope in?”

You can’t ask for a better opening than that, so I said, “My hope is in Jesus.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Jesus!? Yeshua the Carpenter? That Jesus? You hope in him? How can a dead guy help us today?”

I decided to not get into the resurrection yet, and so said, “Well, as people believe in Him for eternal life, and live their lives according to His example and teachings, their lives are changed, and whole communities and even countries can be changed for the better.”

He said, “Who sold you that lie? I have never met a single person whose life was significantly changed for the better because they followed the teachings of Jesus. Jesus was a fraud, and so is the Bible, and so are his followers.”

I was astonished. He has been living in the United States his entire life, and has never met anybody who he thought had been positively influenced by Jesus! So I asked him what his hope was in, and we talked for about another 20 minutes or so about his lifelong search for truth which culminated in discovering the Mayan seven-fold spirit agreement and how, like trees, we can dig our spirits deep into the earth, and throw the energy up into the atmosphere.

I really didn’t understand most of what he was talking about.

He said he learned all this from his spiritual adviser/babysitter named Merril. I also met Merril, who hasn’t cut his hair in 38 years, is missing most of his teeth, and talks a lot about Mayan calendars and spiritual auras.

Lance gave me the name of a free online movie to watch which he said would open my eyes. I have already watched the first 15 minutes and am excited to watch the rest. After I watch it, I’ll make a blog post about it and tell you what what movie it is. I hope that by respecting him and his beliefs, and by watching this movie, he might be open to talking more about Jesus next week when we go back to the Faire.

As I think over my conversation with him today, and after watching only 15 minutes of the movie, I have two questions I want to ask him. First, I want to ask him why he dislikes Jesus. I imagine that the Jesus he dislikes is the Jesus of religion, not Jesus of Scripture. There is a vast difference between the two.

If this turns out to be the case (that he has a skewed view of Jesus), then I want to ask him if, in his lifelong quest for truth, he has ever read about Jesus from Scripture, rather than just hearing about Jesus from others.

Anyway, I hope to build a friendship with him over the next six weeks, which I hope will last for many years, and maybe allow our family to become friends with others at the Faire. These people are some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life! I wonder if they need a Faire Friar…

Church Plant Rant

By Jeremy Myers

1 Comment

Below is a post from Gary Lamb (which is no longer available on his site). Lots of people see glory in church planting, but what most don’t realize is that to plant in such a way that genuinely reaches lost people, there’s more gore than glory.

Here is what Gary wrote about that:

Every church planter I meet says they are starting their church to reach those that are disconnected from God. Many of them grew up in church, became Christians at a early age, and don’t even have a relationship with someone far from God, but they are going to reach those far from God. I listen to a lot of podcasts, watch a lot of videos from other churches, and it breaks my heart to know they are doing a lot of things and a lot of things well, but reaching those far from God is NOT one of them.

I have learned that most church planters REALLY don’t want to reach those far from God, they really want to do church in a cool way. There is a difference. Just because you have great video, loud music, dress casual, and use movie clips doesn’t mean you are reaching those far from God.

I honestly believe most planters would freak out if they started having to deal with the issues that come from reaching truly unchurched people. It is messy, ugly, scary, and actually can keep you from growing because it scares the hell out of those who grew up in church.

We had a person on our staff a couple of years ago who came here because he wanted to be part of a church that reached unchurched people. The first time his wife sat next to a couple of lesbians, he was rethinking that. This guy was a nice guy, but he couldn’t handle the ugliness that comes with reaching those that are far from God. He literally walked around the church on Sundays with a look of terror in his eyes. He didn’t want to reach lost people, he wanted a church where he could come and wear whatever he wanted and impress other Christians because he was at an church with a little edge. It wasn’t long before he was running for the hills. He couldn’t handle the messiness of reaching those with problems. The sad thing is he isn’t alone. Most guys can’t handle it.

When I say it is messy, I don’t think most guys understand what I mean, so allow me to walk you through my week that just got done. This is a pretty typical week at Revolution and the side 99% never see.

I have a bottle of pain pills worth about $400 on the streets sitting in my desk that one of our people’s spouse brought me after finding them. The name on the prescription isn’t the name of the person who brought them because they were bought on the street.

I had another one of our people lose their job for stealing thousands of dollars from the company they work for.

I have a addict in our church who has relapsed and in the process is about to lose EVERYTHING and he doesn’t even know it.

I set up an intervention for an addict that will take place this week. This is his last chance and he doesn’t even know it.

Last night I was at the ER until 3 in the morning because one of our people took a razor blade and slit both his wrists, his neck, and took around 80 sleeping pills. He’s alive, but I have to say it was the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life.

All of that was just from this week. That is the life of reaching those disconnected from God. None of those people care how “cool” our church will be tomorrow. All they care about is we have created a place where they can come with all their crap and feel loved and connected.

I’ll be honest and tell you that there are times when pastoring Revolution freaks me out. There are times when I think it would be easier to do what most guys do and plant a church that really is a place for other Christians to come hang out and talk about how we are reaching unchurched people instead of doing it. I think that would be easier, but we would not be charging the gates of hell with that mindset. There are enough guys around doing that and doing it well.

Canton didn’t need another church. Canton didn’t need another church with loud music, casual dress, and “relevant” teaching. Neither do most of the towns where guys are planting. However, Canton did need a place that was loving the unlovable. It needed a place that was willing to get it’s hands dirty and deal with the messy crap that takes place in the lives of those far from God.

When a guy wants to tell me they are starting a church to reach the disconnected, I always ask them if they are sure they want to do that. I don’t think they understand the cost that comes with it. It literally can almost kill you at times.

BUT, if they do understand the cost, they will realize it is nothing compared to the reward of seeing lives changed with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is worth whatever cost there is. I would put everything on the line to continue to do what we do because the payoff is so huge.

Most guys won’t.

end rant.

Thanks Gary, for laying it out for us!

2013 UPDATE: I am not a fan of church planting any longer. I now believe that we don’t plant churches, we simply be the church by loving others whom God places in our life. Simple. Easy. Natural. …And it looks like Jesus.

Give Presence

“What is your best marketing and/or outreach idea for under $500?”

Give Presence

Is our Culture Becoming Post-Christian?

Is our Society Post-Christian?

Atheists think Christianity is Growing

The Great “Post-Christian” Opportunity

The Death of Churchianity is Near!

Most “Religious” Groups are Dying

Christians are Anemic

The Death of Churchianity

They Don’t Like Jesus or the Church

Church Plant Rant

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