A little while ago, I lamented the notion of “high threshold membership” as possibly just an appeal to brand loyalty. What is the alternative? If the threshold for membership is set really low, it could be perceived as being as easy to leave as it was to come. My thought is that if you make it really easy for a person to join the message that is unintentionally communicated is that membership is not highly prized and it is a fairly disposable thing. Literally, “easy come, easy go.” This is typically the model of membership in church-growth oriented churches. While it is desirable for the front doors to be wide open to allow people in, they are also wide open to allow people out.This isn’t to say that church-growth oriented churches don’t care or don’t notice when people leave, the point I’m trying to make is what message is unintentionally communicated by this approach.

The problem is that both of the approaches I’ve listedI don’t pretend to exhaust the possible approaches to membership here, I’m just hitting on two popular ones. are based on the wrong models. In the olden days, there was one or two churches in a town or village. You didn’t have a choice to go church shopping because transportation was not rapid or easy. You went to the church you lived close to. Membership was a serious thing then for a few reasons. First, the sense of community that existed back then meant that most people wanted to belong and part of that “belonging” meant the local congregation. Second, membership was important because it could be given and denied. While we’re used to abuse of this kind of control, I don’t believe it was as prevalent back than as it is now. The reason was because everyone from the pastor down took it quite seriously. When a person evidenced salvation, they were admitted to membership. When they sinned unrepentantly, they were excommunicated. These things meant something in a small community. The option didn’t exist to walk down the street to Church Y and press on.

Both of these things would have been true not just in the West after the Reformation, but also in the early church as being out meant that you were cut off from the entire Christian community. During the Middle Ages in the West, things got muddied but if you were excommunicated from the Roman church you were pretty much cut off.The confusion was over what you could get excommunicated for. Sin was a pretty minor offense but if you dissed the King, Bishop or Pope, or failed to pay your taxes, you were in trouble.

‘Membership’ more than a name on a roll and it is more than brand loyalty. It is commitment and relationship. Membership exists because of our unity in Christ. Playing games with ‘membership’ is not the answer.

So what does it all look like now? In our self-actualizing, consumer-oriented, market driven culture, how does church membership work? Are our only options porous membership, high-threshold membership, or no membership? Consumerism is the water in our fishbowl. It is the atmosphere we swim in and we’d be foolish to think it didn’t affect us. It certainly affects our views of membership. The PDF I cited in my last post on this subject correctly noted that “People ‘hold membership’ in stores like Blockbuster or Sam’s Club. I got my Wegman’s Shoppers Club card by putting my name and address on a form. The discounts keep me coming back. We carry this way of belonging into the church.”

So if the discounts the author receives from the Wegman’s cardWegman’s is a grocery store chain in NY, PA, MD, NJ, DE and VA. I looked it up. keep ’em coming back, what keeps a person coming back to church? A membership card? Deep discounts on salvation? No, I think on this issue my thinking is most starkly formed by something I heard Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan say during a talk on the church’s vision. Tim said something like “Don’t come to this church because you like the preaching. Come to this church because you share the vision.” I think Tim is spot on here.

The way America works is consumerism. Emergent churches want to buck that trend. Fine. I have my reservations in regards to Capitalism and I think it is an unhealthy attitude in the church of Christ. But as I’ve said, it is the water in our fishbowl, what are you going to do?

Well, what I think you can do about it is not evaporate membership or make some artificial high level to attain it. Teaching about commitment and unity is important. People should commit to a body and stick by that commitment. Americans are particularly bad at sticking to commitments for very long. We need to have our thinking on this reshaped by the Scriptures. I fear that the other methods and models are still bound by consumerism.

The other part of the answer is relationships. People will stay together because they are bound together, bound to each other. Because they share the love of Christ together. In this way, membership should be easy to initiate. A person showing up at church with an interest in what is going on should be welcomed by the people. Hospitality may be listed as a spiritual gift, but it is also a command to all Christians (Rom 12:13, Heb 13:2. & 1Pt 4:9). I fear that we can use the notion of it as a spiritual gift in order to neglect it.

‘Membership’ more than a name on a roll and it is more than brand loyalty. It is commitment and relationship. Adding a name to an official list is not a bad thing nor is setting some standards, but in the end, membership exists because of our unity in Christ. Playing games with ‘membership’ is not the answer.

Not that you’d notice though. Most of the changes are below the surface. I upgraded to WordPress 2.0 today. It was mostly painless but I felt kind of uneasy deleting almost all of my website. Weird feeling deleting everything I’ve worked to bring together.

The changes aren’t really visible on this side of the curtain, but behind it there are some really cool updates. The majority of the work on WordPress 2.0, I’m told, isn’t even visible to me. It is all beneath the hood where I daren’t dabble.

There was a recent announcement that WordPress had struck a deal with Yahoo! which sent fear into my soul. Yahoo! has a way of dorking up just about everything they get their grubbies on. Fortunately, that isn’t the way it is working. Yahoo! won’t own WordPress, they want to be a first class *cough* *cough* blog hosting service and so they want to offer the good stuff. WordPress and Moveable Type (I guess they struck a deal with them too) are the good stuff.

So that’s my adventure in WordPress today! Enjoy. Not that you’d notice at all. Readers a always like that.

First, they aren’t a “church” they’re a “Christian center”. Second, their pastors are the husband and wife team of Walter and Cindy Hallam. Isn’t it great that God gave them both the gifts and calling to the pastoral ministry? Even though women are not allowed in that role? Third, if you attend you get entered in a raffle to win a house!

The rational for the house giveaway is “Biblical”:

“This year, we are going to be able to bless someone with a brand new three-bedroom home,” says Pastor Walter Hallam. The Bible says in John 14:2 that there are mansions in heaven for us, and that Jesus has prepared one for each of us. So, Pastor Hallam came up with “Home on earth, Mansions in Heaven,” as a theme for the church’s annual watchnight service.

Ugh. That’s based on a bad translation and then taken to mean the wrong thing. How cheesy can you get? “Home on earth” is right! Consider Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

If you click on their “Live Broadcast” link there is an ad for a CD set titled “How to be Irresistable to God”. Kind of puts the doctrine of “irresistable grace” on its head doesn’t it?

Gosh, there is just so much wrong with this it makes my head spin!

A week ago I dropped my Powerbook!! It broke the hinge and my mouse fell and broke also. I ordered a new mouse yesterday and it arrived today. It is a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 4000. This is a small, 4-button mouse. Left and right click with a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel clicks, scrolls left and right. The horizontal and vertical scroll is pretty cool. The forth button is a tiny button that is well placed so you don’t hit it on accident. By default, it is a zoom button but I remapped it to do Exposé. The tracking on this mouse is much better than it was on my Kensington PocketMouse. The Kensington cost a bit more, was slightly bigger and had poorer tracking. Like the Kensington, though, the dongle goes into the mouse to turn if off and prolong battery life. Where the Kensington had a door that the dongle slid into (which is what broke) the Microsoft moust has the dongle clip into a slot in the bottom. A more robust design.

The mouse is something that Microsoft has done well all along. My only beef is when they have too many buttons in places you can’t avoid hitting. Kind of like this.

Shiira Project is a web browser for OS X that I just came across and figured I’d give it a whirl. It has the things I like from Safari, FireFox and (yes) IE for Mac. Customizable buttons (FireFox), fast rendering and good RSS handling (Safari), a web page chache and a drawer that handles all the different options (IE for Mac) and tabbed browsing (Safari and FireFox). It rocks!

That is not to say that it is perfect. It is still developing so there are somethings it doesn’t do. Java is still pretty quirky and it doesn’t remember passwords and stuff. It has tremendous promise thought.

We all know that the judge in Pennsylvania shot down mentioning Intelligent Design in the classroom. I have a few thoughts on the whole issue. Here is a PDF of the ruling.

First, the battle is being fought in the wrong place. We needn’t be trying to introduce ID in the classroom (even by mentioning it in a one minute statement) while the majority of the scientific community totally rejects it. With that kind of momentum against it, it is too hot an item for a court to give it a decent hearing. Also, I really hate politicizing the classroom. It is horrible for the children who are supposed to be taught there. Know what is being taught in the classroom and tell your kids the truth at home.

Second, why on earth are we expecting the courts to decide what is and what is not good science? This is another reason I believe the battle should not be fought in the schools. It is a technical, academic issue, not a legal one. Consider the judge’s comments:

Science cannot be defined differently for Dover students than it is defined in the scientific community as an affirmative action program, as advocated … by Professor Fuller, for a view that has been unable to gain a foothold within the scientific establishment. – p. 70-71

See, he is looking to the “scientific establishment” to determine what is appropriate science to be taught in the classroom. Get ID a fair hearing in the scientific community and you can begin to introduce it to the classroom.

Third, one of the problems with ID is that is seems to be “finding God in the gaps.” This is a problem with the entire creationist argument. It unwittingly adopts a naturalistic approach to the world and then tries to plug God into the gaps of our understanding. The net effect is shrink the domain of God’s providence to the boarders of our understanding. Before we understood gravity we thought God moved things. Once Newton understood gravity God was made to take a step back. ID does the same. Again, from the ruling:

ID is at bottom premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed. – p. 71

Expert testimony revealed that just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow. – p. 72

Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich. (2:15 (Miller); 38:82 (Minnich) (irreducible complexity “is not a test of intelligent design; it’s a test of evolution”). Irreducible complexity additionally fails to make a positive scientific case for ID, as will be elaborated upon below. – p. 72

This is a bad maneuver to use in public. It makes it sound like the scientist is winning by explaining away the gaps.

Finally, I don’t think ID ever had a chance of getting a fair hearing. The ground rules are written such that only naturalistic explanations are even entertained. The possiblity that naturalistic explanations might not be accurate or true is irrelevant. Consider:

In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere. – p.49

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. – p. 64

While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. – p. 65

Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify. – p. 65

It is notable that defense experts’ own mission, which mirrors that of the IDM itself, is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world, – p. 67

What has happened is that science has been redefined as naturalism, some believe for the best. Miracles are excluded by definition. Creationism of any sort is excluded by definition. It is as if the scientific community has enclosed themselves in a bubble. ID didn’t have a chance because the playing field was never a fair one.

One interesting thing I learned from the ruling is that the school board sent out a newsletter explaining why ID was being introduced. Judge Jones quoted (misquoted?) some of it in the ruling as proof that ID is not science. It seems that the school board may have shot themselves in the foot with that one.

In a very large sense, this is no laughing matter. It turns out that there are unsafe levels of mercury in tuna. Again. This was a problem in the 70s and sadly it is back. Mercury is a very bad thing to be poisened by.

Okay, now for the old joke. Did you hear that Ford is recalling the Mercury line of cars? Yea, it turns that they have unsafe levels of tuna in them.

Joost Nixon is the brother of a friend of mine from California and an internet acquaintance of mine from a few years ago. I met him when he had moved to Idaho to work for Credenda/Agenda. Since then, Joost has moved to Spokane and is pastor of Christ Church there. One of the ministries of Christ Church is St. Anne’s Public House, an excellent audio resource. The whole thing is a Christian analysis of the culture we live in. Even more, it is free. You can download it or get a free CD.

This month’s theme is incredibly timely: rest. In the holiday season we get so busy and stressed that a study in rest is just what we need.

Buried in there is a commentary from Joost on Bono. Joost says that his efforts to ignore Bono routinely fail. Mine too. Bono is such an enigma to me that he seems to press into my thoughts more often than I expected. Joost has some very good and helpful observations about Bono’s spiritual success and failures. I think Joost has put Bono in perspective for us.

First, some definitions. Consumerism: a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchasing. “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Brand Loyalty: The net effect of successful marketing. Buying a specific brand because of the brand regardless of quality or price.Am I guilty of this in regards to Apple? Possibly. However, I maintain that Apple is still a superior computer and that the price for the hardware is justified.

Recently I was involved in a discussion on the topic of church membership. My points were 1) the Bible says next to nothing about official church membership, 2) church membership does nothing to prevent church hopping/shopping, 3) non-members can still be afforded things like benevolence and pastoral visits, and 4) church discipline can be exercised against non-members.

I’m afraid that “high membership threshold” may simply be more marketing, this time employing brand loyalty. The “Levi’s” of church growth, if you will.

I was told that this was the “old” way of thinking about church membership. Missional churches have set a high threshold for church membership. There is a membership covenant that members are expected to live up to. Not everyone is a member because members expect more out of each other. I was referred to the book Shaped by God’s Heart by Milfred Minatrea. Minatrea surveyed missional churches and found that they tend to set very high expectations for membership. Frankly, I was surprised. I thought that with the post-modern attitude many of these churches have they would not have a formal membership at all! Amongst other reason, Minatrea lists:

A cultural reason: it is an antidote to our society. We live in an age where very frew want to be committed to anything–a job, a marriage, our country. This attitude has produced a generation of “church shoppers and hoppers.” Membership swims against the current of America’s consumer religion. It is an unselfish decision. Commitment always builds character. (p. 32)

One church, citing Minatrea, says (PDF) “Skeptics ask how does that church enforce those expectations. The answer is they don’t have to because those expectations are part of the culture of the church. When your church culture is shaped by God’s heart people want to participate, sacrifice, and get involved – not cut corners.” The pastor advocated revisiting the issue of a “membership covenant”.

That struck me as a word game. In the end, those who are committed are committed, those who are not are going to walk when they feel like it anyway. We can define membership however we want, in the end we have no way to enforce it. And that way my point. We live in a culture of consumerism. I don’t like this church or they discipline me? Great, I just walk down the block to Church X and start all over. This is the environment we live in! In the early Puritan days or in the Middle Ages, there was only one church in town. You didn’t go shopping, you didn’t have a choice. If that church exercised discipline on you, you were cut out of not just the church but a large portion of that society. Heck, in the Middle Ages they could execute you if it was bad enough! That doesn’t exist in our society today. So we can play word games with membership, in the end it comes down to commitment.

That is where the term “brand loyalty” comes in. On the way to work today I drove behind a pickup truck for a while and I noticed that in the window it had a big number 8 and a smaller italicized 3 (or the other way round, I don’t really remember). These were the numbers from NASCAR racers. This brought back to mind a piece I heard on NPR this summer which really helped me understand NASCAR better. NASCAR is all about brand loyalty. You get a favorite driver (somehow) and you watch them and root for them. You buy a flag for the front of your house. You buy Tide instead of Cheer because Tide is a sponsor and Cheer sponsors that other guy. You put a sticker on your car with their number to show your loyalty.

So these missional churches are trying to shun consumerism by embracing a high threshold for church membership. But instead might they not be embracing consumerism in its highest form? Might not this idea of church membership simply be an expression of brand loyalty? Here’s what I’m thinking. I hate consumerism/capitalism applied to the church as much as anyone. I fear that church growth can be an example of it when some things are sacrificed for the sake of “seeker”. I would rather have an effective church membership that would prevent someone under discipline walking up the block and carrying on. I’m just not sure that in our democratic/capitalist culture it is a possibility. Instead, why not teach about commitment and unity? Why not preach what the Bible says about being “members of the same body” (Eph 3:6) and “individually members one of another” (Rom 12:5)? In other words, tell them what the Bible says, expect them to live up to it and let the Holy Spirit convict them as to how to live that out in our culture? In the end, I don’t disagree with what that pastor I cited above had in mind. I think a church that is focused on Christ and treats him as holy and glorious will be a place people want to be at. I’m simply skeptical of playing games to gain commitment.

I’m not saying that we should abandon membership, I still support that. I’ve started working on a study of it. But I just don’t want us to expect too much out of a membership role or membership covenant. I’m afraid that “high membership threshold” may simply be more marketing, this time employing brand loyalty. The “Levi’s” of church growth, if you will.

See Part II

This (MP3) is funny because, well, it’s funny but also it makes me wonder why it hasn’t been done you when we have these and these?