Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 11:47 pm

What You Need

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (0) |

I recently came across an interview with a pastor at an influential church in the United States talking about church planting.  The two prongs of the discussion basically covered successes and failures in church planting.  A large portion of the interview was focused on challenges in church planting and conversely what is needed to "succeed" in planting a church.  The pastor gave a list of three things that are clearly needed for success-(1) charismatic leader, (2) leader who can communicate well, and (3) leader who is adept at strategic thinking.

What I first found interesting was the complete collapse of needs into the Senior Pastor.  A gifted person is what is needed most.  Of course, how one defines "success" plays a large role in these perceived needs.  If we are defining success as gathering the most people as quickly as possible to the church then of course a more pragmatic turn is liable to be taken.  Don't get me wrong I understand that if the pastor cannot communicate, is terribly awkward with people or is not a strategic thinker then the church will face challenges.  My problem is not that the pragmatic is considered, but rather that is the sole concern. 

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 11:49 pm

Following up the Harvest

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (1) |

I attended Harvest Crusade in Orange County, CA this past week.  For those of you who are not aware of Harvest Crusade it is a ministry started by Greg Laurie that hosts a yearly evangelistic outreach event.  For the past twenty years Harvest Crusade has seen thousands of people come to Christ at the Angel's Stadium in Anaheim, CA.  At the end of each night of the outreach event Laurie invites those who wish to put their faith in Jesus Christ to come down to the field in what is in effect a massive alter call.  As a believer it is encouraging and beautiful to watch as droves of people make their way down on to the field to take their stand for Jesus. 

This year I had the privilege of serving as a follow up liaison of sorts for our church.  Once the event is over Harvest Crusade collects basic information from all of those who came down to the field.  The information cards are then sorted and given to a representative of a church in the individuals residential area in order to make follow up contact.  The idea being to intentionally connect these folks with local churches in their area as opposed to simply hoping they take the initiative to find a church themselves.  It was encouraging to see Harvest Crusade's effort to fill a gap that is often prevalent in outreach events.

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Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 10:35 am

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Monday, August 2, 2010 at 6:56 pm

A Lament Long Overdo

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (0) |

"The Lament Psalms offer important resources for Christian faith and ministry, even though they have been largely purged from the life and liturgy of the church.  Such purging attests to the alienation between the Bible and the church."-Walter Brueggemann

I remember that my high school football team was not very good (this is being generous).  The usual enthusiasm and excitement over Friday night games had been replaced with other opportunities and events.  Of course, the perceived solution was the traditional "pep rally."  As each new school year began the "pep rally" was designed to inspire hope and engender enthusiasm for the upcoming football season.  The players would come out in their jerseys marching in as though they were kings in a kingdom desperate for a true hero.  This of course was teamed with loud music that would build excitement and energy.  However, once the gymnasium emptied and students meandered back to their classrooms nobody truly believed that all was well.  Certainly nobody was truly inspired to see past reality and accept the false premise that in one short summer our football team had become the best in the County.  In fact, even the players still lacked hope and truth be told held fear that another summer of hard work would result in a losing record.

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 1:29 pm

Contemplative Conference-goer: an Introduction to Temptations of the Christian Conference

Posted by julieannbarrios | Comments (0) |

My guess is that if you are in full time ministry, or have been in the last twenty years, some of these names may sound familiar to you-- Urbana, Passions, Youth Specialties, Simply Youth Ministry, Catalyst, Q, and those are just the ones I hear about from my little corner of west coast mega-church-land.  I first attended Youth Specialties as a youth ministry intern.  To be more accurate, I sort of attended the conference.  I spent more of my time walking from booth to booth awed by the eye candy as I wandered through the large exhibition room.  I am sure there was far more substance to the conference than I now recall, in fact far more than my immature little 19-year-old soul had the ability to recognize, but, nevertheless, I had fallen into one of the subtle (maybe not so subtle) temptations of the Christian conference—the temptation to consumerism. 

 This is not the only temptation of the Christian conference. Here are several others that I have observed: temptation to good feelings, temptation to grandiosity, temptation to coolness, temptation to change something, and temptation to over-criticism.  Though many of these overlap, my hope in addressing each of these nuanced experiences might serve as opportunities 1) to convict me and keep my heart abiding in the midst my two weeks of conference mania (Catalyst West Coast followed by Q), and 2) to help us all be mindful of these temptations and stay in tune with God’s Spirit.

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Monday, April 12, 2010 at 8:52 am

Prayer and the Church Fathers

Posted by Kyle Strobel | Comments (1) |

I am going to be blogging through portions of Christopher Hall's volume Worshipping with the Church Fathers. Here, I want to focus on the section looking at prayer, and focus specifically on the chapter entitled: "The Basics of Prayer." Hall has done the church a great service through his trilogy on the Church Fathers, and this one is no exception. The Fathers, while foreign to many of us, serve to orient all of our theologizing, and they held a balance between the church and academic rigor in a way no other age (arguably) has. I was struck by a quote from Maximus the Confessor on the nature of theology and prayer in this regard: "Prayer and theology are inseparable. True theology is the adoration offered by the intellect. The intellect clarifies the movement of prayer, but only prayer can give it the fervor of the Spirit. Theology is light, prayer is fire" (86). 

Hall quickly turns his attention to one of the major, if not THE major, issues in prayer - self-deception. In his words, "We are deeply, horribly, infinitely self-deceived. And our fundamental self-deception manifests itself in a deep-seated tendency to lie about the true state of affairs in our lives." The focus of many of the Fathers therefore was on the heart as the voice which God hears in prayer. Tertullian states, "God is the hearer - not of the voice - but of the heart," and Cyprian goes on to say,

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 1:47 pm

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Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:18 pm

Temptations in Preaching: To Be Significant

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (2) |

For those of you who have been following this series of posts we will be diving into what I believe to be a third temptation in preaching, to be significant.  Thus far, we have explored the temptation to be original and the temptation to be masterful.  As I have stated in previous posts each of these temptations will have a certain degree of overlap, but nonetheless I believe each to have its own distinctives and symptoms. 

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Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 10:19 pm

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Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 6:37 am

Spiritual Formation and Church Services

Posted by Kyle Strobel | Comments (4) |

I have been thinking a lot lately about the role of church services and spiritual formation. It seems to me, as I am musing about this, that the most dangerous thing to do in a church service is to get people excited. Out of all the emotional experiences we go through, it seems to me that excitement is the most potentially fleshly and easiest to manipulate. Excitement is easy to use from the pulpit as a way to manipulate people to do what you want them to, whether that is giving money, getting involved, evangelizing, etc. This goes back to the blog I did earlier, suggesting that much of the evangelical church has bought into a kind of prosperity gospel. We do not orient our values around money, but around experiences of excitement.The revivals seem to have been predicated on excitement, and the wake of the revivals was faith that did not last but flashed brightly only to fade quickly.

In light of this, is there a "safe" ethos to create in church services, or an ethos that leaves less room for the flesh to prevail? I worry about excitement because, while it is certainly a part of the Christian life, it often is tied together with victory, which the Protestants have tended to push against replacing it with the cross. Humility, rather than victory, is the proper end of man, because the victory is not ours but Christ's.

Do we just leave this up to the shepherding task of the pastors, who, through a true knowledge of their flock can faithfully discern where God is moving in their congregation, or is there a general ethos we should help create in our church services? Any thoughts? 

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:40 pm

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 12:11 am

Temptations in Preaching: To Be Masterful

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (0) |

Perhaps you find the title of this series a bit odd, but as mentioned in my initial post, I have discovered that there are great temptations in pastoral ministry when it comes to preaching.  Last week, we explored the first temptation, to be original.  This week we will explore the second temptation, to be masterful.

As with originality, it must be noted up front that mastery in ones vocation can be couched in a very positive and in fact admirable sense.  I have no doubt that there is great virtue in truly honing one’s skills and learning to be as effective and accurate as possible when preaching.  That being said, with each virtue I suppose there may be a potential vice.  So, I would like to explore the ways in which mastery can be a dangerous temptation leading the preacher away from dependence upon God.  In essence, to be masterful in our preaching is born out of an unhealthy desire to be in control.  We will investigate this temptation by exploring how it plays out in three areas of preaching. 

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Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 7:07 pm

Temptations in Preaching: To Be Original

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (0) |

As I noted in my introductory post a few days ago, I will be exploring what I believe to be temptations that pastors face in the ministry of preaching.  Much of this has been born out of prayerful reflection on my own preaching life.  I have found that many of these temptations have surfaced for me, and it has struck me that perhaps others are tempted in the same ways. 

Our first temptation is, to be original. 

How many sermons have we heard?  How many Bible studies have we walked through?  Many Christians could create a database of sermons they have heard based on topic.  Of course, depending on their background and church affiliation this may vary.  Sometimes churches themselves recycle a particular sermon series every couple of years.  I would imagine that pastors have perhaps heard even more sermons, lessons, studies, etc. than your average parishioner.  So, as we approach a passage or a topic which will take center stage the following Sunday through our sermon I would imagine many of us experience "preaching schizophrenia".  We hear the voices of other pastors, seminary professors, commentary writers, evangelists...In fact, if we have been preaching for several years we hear our own voice.  Whether we have been preaching on the exact passage in front of us or not, chances are we have covered similar concepts.  We may feel like we have used up all our "good stuff".  So, we wade through the litany of angles, interpretations, illustrations, etc from others and even from within ourselves.  

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Monday, January 18, 2010 at 10:16 am

Light in Darkness

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (1) |

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/world/americas/18church.html?ref=globa...

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Friday, April 16, 2010 at 12:58 pm

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