Faith

Churches use metrics and polling to try and figure out what works, what doesn't, and to gain some insight into the world around them. I'm a fan of metrics. They are a great way to observe what's going on and learn. For metrics to be usable the points measured and the way they are measured is important. This is where I've seen an enormous number of churches go terribly wrong.

Churches put a lot of time and thought into marketing themselves. The church marketing community has grown so large and vast the are even sites that parody what churches do. Some churches have marketing people on staff. And, every year millions and millions of dollars are invested in church marketing.

Yet, I submit that churches should do no marketing. Am I crazy?

Churches aren't like other organizations. I regularly hear about them being compared to non-profits, aid organizations, or other volunteer organizations. This misses the mark in a big way and I'm not talking about the God factor. Let me illustrate what I mean.

Take a homeless shelter. There are 2 groups of people at them. There are those who are there running the place, feeding people, and working for the mission of the homeless shelter. Then there are the homeless people that are served. This is pretty straight forward.

The mission of the church (Matthew 28:19-20) is to go and make disciples of all nations. But, if you look at the church staff they are typically interacting with Christians around activities centered on Christians (like worship). Of the non-staff members only a small percentage volunteer and most of the volunteer time is spent on activities like worship, bible studies, and other things that are targeted at members of the congregation. The rest of the non-staff members attend Sunday morning worship on a semi-regular basis. This is a majority of the church.

Notice the difference? The members of the church and what they do doesn't revolve around the mission of the church.

Have you noticed that many churches aren't really communities? Some claim to be communities and a handful actually are. But, many churches are actually organizations that look more like a business with a congregation consuming services and products put out by the church staff and a handful of active volunteers. This is a problem happening at my church and something many of the churches leaders would like to change.

My first article appeared on the fshbwl, today, called "What If We Dropped the Word?". It's an article about the word evolution. This comes on the heals of my 2nd guest hosting spot on the Swim Podcast.

All this theological stuff is getting to be a bit fun.

Have you noticed all the bagging on the church in recent years? Sometimes it's the worldwide church. I've herd people call them ignorant or that they just don't get it. Sometimes it's the local church. I've herd people criticize it for not being the way they picture or want it. Sometimes it's a denomination. People love to argue who is right and why. I'm not talking about a discussion, I'm talking about an argument.

The Fishbowl is a faith based, non-profit community website that recently launched.

The idea behind the fishbowl is to explore faith from a number of different angles. Each day a new piece of content will come out in one of the 7 different categories. On Mondays it's content about World Views, Tuesday it's the Swim Podcast, etc.

How often do you think that if people knew the truth they would act differently? Or, if they just felt what you felt it would convince them to change? Or, if you could just get them to try something they would see that it's important and change?

About 5% of the people in the world say there is no God. According to the Pew Forum, the atheist population has been increasing at about 220% in America. In an effort to understand atheists and this modern day movement I've started to ask some tough questions. One of the first that came to my mind was, is there a way to know that there is no God? I'm talking about moving beyond belief into concrete testable knowledge. After digging through the different possibilities I've come to the conclusion that there is no way to know if there is no God. Let me explain my reasoning.

A lot of people I know would tell you they have found the truth or that they are searching for it. But, is that really the case? I have a friend who says he is searching for the truth. But, he is not praying, not reading up on science, not studying philosophy, not seeking out logic, and rarely seeking to take this search outside his own mind. Is that searching for the truth? On the flip side I have friends who sit in circles of people who share the same beliefs as them, they read only books that tell them what they are looking to hear, and they discuss topics with people who won't challenge them on it. Is this really searching for the truth? In both cases here I don't think these people are searching for the truth. They might be searching for peace of mind. They might be searching for what is comfortable. So, what does a search for the truth look like? Let's take a look at a few characteristics I've noticed.