Here's a kink

Like I've written previously I've been listening a lot to Mark Driscoll in Seattle. Recently he was speaking on the church in Corinth and relating it to his church in Seattle. His main theme was the city is the center of culture. If you want to affect culture reach the city. Media, business, trends all flow from the city. Paul went to the cities and from there Christianity flowed out. It got me thinking about our future church launch. We had been looking at growing, suburban areas around Charlotte, identifying several possibilities. Then as I listened to this message I began to give it deeper thought. The downtown (Uptown) area of Charlotte is booming. Condominiums are shooting up everywhere, the south end is becoming an incredibly chic area, so many people with so much influence. So my wife and I drove down there today, and there is so much there. There are a few churches down there moving in the same direction so we wouldn't be exactly groundbreaking, but I don't know. It's a scary thought. To be honest, a church in the burbs, while certainly challenging, doesn't scare me like the thought of an uptown church. Where do we start, will we connect, will we succeed? Is that where God is calling us to be? What a radical concept. Aren't all successful megachurches in some upwardly mobile suburb on the outskirts of town safely removed from the unplanned fluidity of a large urban center? I don't know, it's late, I'm tired, but we're definitely going to be praying about this. A church that affects the city from the inside out. Seems like a no-brainer, but all our churches are on the outside looking in, or ignoring the in. hmmmm.

Some videos I did

Here's a couple videos I did for a new young adult ministry at the church I'm attending. It's my first foray into animated graphics. Check it out.

http://g8rben.zippyvideos.com/

Good Stuff

I'm listening to a lot of speaking from Mark Driscoll. He's the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. I read some of his writing in a compilation from Relevant Books, creatively called The Relevant Church... A good read but Driscoll's essay was the only one that really caught me. He laid out the true nature of a "postmodern" or equally cliche, "emerging" church. I use quotes because it's gotten too trendy within the modern generation of church leaders. If you throw around the right phrases and words you show yourself to be cutting edge and beyond the understanding of mere mortal pastors. I heard a tech guy talking about this last week within the computer world. You toss out these acronyms and phrases to show you're on the inside whilst making those on the outside feel like ding dongs. Anyway, obviously I've hit my own nerve on this issue. Going back, I say he hit the real issue, because he laid out a truly biblical basis for a modern, missional, relevant church. No pomo mumbo-jumbo. I told my wife as soon as I read it that he got it. It was foundational, more importantly it was biblical. That seems so simple, but my HUGE issue with a lot of the emerging church movement is it's tendency to lose sight of Scripture in search of psuedo-spirituality, that often leaves the fundamental truths of our sin and the absolute necessity of Jesus' death on the cross as a sort-off optional thing. Driscoll doesn't do that. I began getting the podcast of his sermons. His church is reaching my demographic. It's one of the fastest growing in the country and you know what he does? Gets deep, talks theology, talks scripture and people are coming to Jesus. Good stuff. That's the model. I knew it was, I was never convinced of all that postmodern Christianity was trying to be, and Driscoll clarified my thoughts, he's doing what I've been thinking, but could never quite get my brain around. It was kind of what we were moving towards at my previous youth group. Going beyond the seeker model and digging into God, but Driscoll has taken it to the next level. He's taken hold of where God wants His church to go. At least in my opinion. Go to his web site or get on iTunes and subscribe to his podcast. Good stuff...