Anti-venom for a consumeristic church?

People sometimes say that the modern Western church has become severely consumeristic. It's has become a competitive "industry" where different churches vie for a slice of market-share by having the snappiest service, the best children's program, or even the most compelling preaching. People sometimes say that the church has become consumeristic, and people are sometimes right.
The thing is, we have needs right? Don't we need an environment where we can focus on God? Don't we need to hear a sermon that will challenge or encourage us? Don't we want to feel like our kids are being taken care of and discovering the love of Jesus? I dunno... Sometimes?
The thing I am wondering is, maybe there is a cure for consumerism that doesn't leave us feeling like no one cares about us.
Here's the thing I'd like to try, and I'd love for the five or so people that occasionally glace at my blog to consider this as well.
What if we prayed for the leaders in our churches? What if we prayed that God would be near them, and they would know His deep love for them? That they would discern His leading and they would have courage to pursue it with passion, determination, and boldness? That God would rebuke their wayardness? What if we prayed that God would hold them up in their weakness, and bless their strengths, and give them humble hearts to do the wild and treacherous work of leading the church?
I'm not going to suggest that the result of this will be that we will suddenly feel like the church is meeting our needs, whatever that means. It might mean that we could start to have a little more confidence that God is with us as a community, and He is leading us as a community. If this was the case, we could at least know, maybe, that even if we didn't feel like all of our needs were being met, we could see that God was still taking us somewhere together.
I don't know. Maybe not... but maybe.

"Sent People" Sermon

Here's a little sermon I gave on what it means to be a sent people. It's part two of a three-part vision series we are doing.
At the end, there is a question for reflection. The sermon ends after that, so if you feel like you're getting a long time to reflect, that's why: it's over.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/xsyb4yjkz8.mp3

Why Connect?

At the Launch, we talk a lot about being God's "sent" people. We are not here to live for ourselfs, but instead, we exist more for everyone around us. But here's a confession: I'm not very good at being "sent". I'm very good at being selfish. I tend to look after me. I tend to do things that will be good for me. Sometimes I realize this and think to myself, "Dang. I've got to be praying more. I'm so focused on myself. I need to connect with God so that I can be more focused on others."
I was having one of these conversations recently (not actually with myself, but with my wife) and I got a bit of a wake up call. Ultimately, I shouldn't be praying just so that I can be more focused on others, but rather, I should be praying in order to stay connected to my God who loves me and gives me life. This is not to say that I don't want to be focused on others- I'm just saying interaction with God is good in itself. It's not supposed to be a means to an end, at least certainly not exclusively. I want to share in the peace and joy of Jesus, AND I want to be a different person because of it.

Furniture and Change

My office is in an old, old building. It's awesome. I love it. There's a parlor around the corner, and recently, the facilities manager of the building rearranged all the chairs and couches and the piano. All that stuff.
We talked about it, and I guess he was a little nervous that people would not receive the change too warmly. I'm only guessing, but I would assume that the reason people may not like the change is because they were used to the way it was. From looking at it, there was certainly nothing wrong with the new setup.
This got me thinking a little. Furniture is movable. Sometimes it gives the impression of permanence, and sometimes the stuff might be challenging to move around, but it can be done. It's not permanent.
I think sometimes we treat a lot of things we do or have done like it's furniture. We like it, we got used to it, and we think it's permanent. The fact is, sometimes rearranging things can give us a fresh perspective that's incredibly helpful. Sometimes we may even have to get rid of the once beautiful sofa which is now stained and musty. We're still thankful for all the years we got great use out of that couch, but it's time for the couch to go.
It's so easy to fall into this trap of doing things as a church a very particular way. We do it cause it worked, and then maybe at some point, whether or not it still works, we keep on doing it because it makes us feel safe. I'm just as susceptible to this as anyone else. Sometimes there are new, more effective ways of doing things, and sometimes old methods work great. Sometimes that chair that was banished to the attic comes back out decades later to make a stylish reappearance.
I just don't want the value to be that we don't change things. We need to change things.
What if we never switched to the telephone because we really liked the telegraph?

New Music Player!!

After a great deal of tinkering and toil, I'm very pleased to announce the new music player, which plays music! It's right there on the sidebar. Check it out. I will try to add more music on a regular basis.

Multi-Cultural Church

Here's a church that I would say has a successful multi-cultural congregation. What's one way they do it? Hip-hop music. Check it out.

Here's an article by the pastor, Efrem Smith:
http://msainfo.org/articles/building-community-in-a-multicultural-church

Here's his church:
http://www.sanctuarycovenant.org/joomla/

They have a potluck and hang out on the day of their annual meeting too. I thought that was interesting!

To Save a Chef

I watch a fair amount of TV. Thanks to the internet and iTunes, I can catch up on the years of TV that I missed when I didn't have a TV. Yes!
So I've been watching old episodes of Top Chef, a competitive chef elimination showdown!
Anyway, a ways into the season a situation occurs where one of the better chefs, Elia, has kind of a bad day and is in danger of being eliminated. It was looking pretty bad for Elia, but then another chef (who also had a shot at elimination) stepped in and said she would resign so that Elia could stay in the competition. They don't ever tell us if it was actually Elia who would have been eliminated, but the judges accepted Mia's resignation instead of eliminating someone.
I think about how Elia must have felt, knowing that someone else gave up their chance at winning the competition for her sake, and I think that must have been really motivating for her. Knowing that someone cared enough about her and wanted her to succeed bad enough that this person would give up her spot so that Elia could continue, must have helped her work pretty hard to succeed.
I hope this isn't too terribly cliché, but I was struck by some of the similarities between the situation with these chefs, and our situation with Jesus.
Jesus gave up his life for us. But it wasn't only so that we could be a part of the big party, it was also so that we could do the work that he wants to do: sharing the gospel through these lives we've been given by loving the people around us in the way he loves and giving ourselves to a world in desperate need.
The analogy breaks down of course, because Mia might have been toast anyway, and Jesus didn't give himself up for us because we were doing so well in the game. But I felt there was still a little something there.