My best life now: Joel Osteen
Today I think I’ll come out of the closet, and admit that I have become a regular listener and, yes, a fan, of Joel Osteen, the smiling preacher and bestselling author from Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas.
I haven’t read his books, and I don’t watch him on TV, but I listen to his sermons while I run - 7 or 8 of them over the past several weeks - and (here’s something I rarely say) my life is better because of it.
This doesn’t mean that I endorse everything Joel says, or everything he ever has said, or what he is probably saying right now to make me regret this. Those who criticize Joel for preaching Christianity lite are partially right, though not as right as they think.
Here’s how I like to put it: No Christian should listen ONLY to Joel. But EVERY Christian would do well to listen to him some.
No Christian should listen only to Joel. He just doesn’t get into the Scriptures enough, and there are whole sections of the Bible I can’t imagine him ever preaching on. (Sodom and Gomorrah: When God Blesses You With a Chance to Relocate!)
But every Christian would do well to listen to him some. Joel just has a way of pushing you back up on your feet and refilling your faith tank. It isn’t just positive thinking that he’s teaching, but rather faith-filled thinking. You could call it positive thinking that grows out of your identity in Christ.
In the few messages I have heard, Joel has told us (Us? He has a way of talking to a hundred thousand people one at a time) how God can help us let insults roll off us, how to treat people more considerately, and how each of us is responsible to develop and use the talents God gave us without worrying about the talents he didn’t give us. It’s simple stuff, profoundly preached, and it inspires people to live better lives.
I need to learn from that. Even if I think I preach the Bible more completely than Joel, I want to learn from him how to hone in on inspiration and life-change. Otherwise, why preach?
PS - I also get regular doses of Rob Bell and Andy Stanley too.
Seeing ourselves through untrained eyes: Hemant Mehta
As I continue to read through I Sold My Soul on eBay (atheist Hemant Mehta’s exploration of churches) I find myself amused and often embarrassed by his observations. At one contemporary church, for example…
When the band started playing, it was just after the 8:30 start time, but there were fewer than forty people in the church. But by the time the band had finished singing and the pastor got up on stage, the crowd had more than doubled in size. I noticed families with young children walking in without any visible indications of guilt…Was the music so unimportant to them that they decided to come only for the “main event”?…Furthermore, in a small community church such as this one, I imagine people would know one another better than at a larger church. The people in the congregation, therefore, might know the people on stage who were singing and would surely respect them enough to show up on time. I didn’t see that respect being shown, though (pp. 70-71).
When did he visit our church? 
unChristian - by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
We’ll know in a year if unChristian really is as life-changing as I have made it out to be in my preaching. I’ve gotten hot about other books or concepts before, only to forget them. But the truth in unChristian is too important for that.
The research behind this book shows that 91% of those under 29 think that the best word to describe evangelical Christians is “antihomosexual”. 87% choose the word judgmental and 85% said we’re hypocritical. And Kinnaman and Lyons show that these aren’t people who don’t know us. This generation has a surprising familiarity with church. They have been to our Sunday Schools and VBSs and camps. And this is what they see?
unChristian lays out not only problems but paths toward solution. With God’s help, the truth here will help focus my preaching and our church into a rebirth.
unChristian gets a 9 out of 10 from me.
unChristian
I have been talking a lot about the new book unChristian, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Today I found out that Kinnaman did an interview with Time magazine a short while ago on the basics of the church’s image problems with twentysomethings. It’s a short article with a good summary of Kinnaman’s research and the challenge before us.
He is not here.
I visited a beautiful church building last night - really pretty, in a high-church-yet-contemporary way. They had a pipe organ AND drums, and although the drums are well-hidden, they’re a gorgeous set of maple wood Pearls that match the sanctuary nicely.
Anyways, I saw a banner in the loft above the sanctuary with the message: “He is not here. He is risen.” I understand the Easter implications, but do you really want a banner in your sanctuary announcing that Jesus is not here?
Change or die. Alan Deutschman on what works
In my first post on this topic, I griped (eloquently) about how hard change is. But healthy change is obviously possible. After all, some people, some companies, and even some churches change. What motivates them? Here’s my simplified version of what works, from Deutschman’s Fast Company article:
- Reframing. People already know that smoking kills. They may also think that the damage has already been done, and that life without cigarettes isn’t really living, and besides THIS cigarette won’t kill me. Death may be too much to think about anyway, so they shove it out of mind. And smoking is a way to cope with loneliness, lack of meaning, even depression about poor physical fitness. So the challenge is to reframe the picture by showing how much life can improve when someone quits smoking. Maybe they can play golf again, or walk a mile without chest pain, or sleep better and feel better.
- Thinking big. You’d think that small changes are easier than big ones. Not so. A person who needs to lose weight, for example, could make small dietary changes and experience the pain of sacrifice without losing much weight. Often wholesale changes are easier to stick to. There’s a clean break from yesterday and today is a new day.
- Support. You can lose weight on your own. Theoretically. But if everyone in your house begins to eat healthy to support YOUR new healthy lifestyle, your chances are a lot better.
As I look these over, I see (again) mistakes I made in trying to start small groups. Few people are against them (OHHH those few!) but if they’re as valuable as I think, we need to reframe the picture so everyone can see it. And we’ve tried to start two or three at a time in the past (hoping they’d spread like bird flu), and never got past those two or three. AND we tried pinning them like a third arm onto the existing church program, rather than realigning everything and declaring a new day.
Bottom line: Change invites the heart into action by calling people to live a new and better way, and by providing support along the way. Sounds like just the sort of thing Christians ought to be good at.
Change or die. Or die changing.
In the May 2005 issue of Fast Company, Alan Deutschman published an article, now considered an instant-classic, called Change or Die.* (He has since published a book with the same title). For my next few posts, I hope to hammer some of Deutschman’s wisdom into shapes we can use.
In the article, Deutschman starts by showing evidence that most of us, when faced with the REAL choice between either change or our own PHYSICAL DEATH will NOT choose change. This shouldn’t be surprising. How many people quit smoking once they hear that smoking could kill? How many of us switch to a healthy diet when we know what trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup does? Deutschman takes it further though, quoting a study that shows that even a high-octane wake-up call like a heart-attack or stroke doesn’t make people change long-term.
His article explains why this is, and goes on to examine some things that DO work to help people change. Deutschman’s concern is with applying his lessons to business. Mine is applying them to churches and Christians, both of which theoretically and Biblically need to know how to change. More on that in a future post.
Here’s the thing, though. Any minister who might read this knows the difficulty of standing on the high ridge between change and status quo. On one side are people who have BEEN the church for decades (or at least years) who don’t want change. On the other side are folks who listen to Rob Bell and have been to some crazy church called “The Rock” or “Mosaic” who think that singing tunes from the late 90s is the definition of hide-bound traditionalism. Either side could pull us off the ridge.
And then there are people who just want to shake things up, perhaps due to Cylon-possession or an emotional imbalance that adores chaos. They’ll jump up on the ridge and push us off in any direction they can.
And it seems that the vast majority of churches that we hold up as examples of positive change are ones that began as homogeneous units - i.e., 95% of their original members were in their 20s.
So it SEEMS like the choices are the ones posted in my title. Change. Or die. Or die changing.
*(Thanks to MHCC member Chip Eichelberger for pointing out this article).
Is Christianity a religion of peace?
My father-in-law recently pointed me to an interesting article called “Who Gets to Define Islam?”, a review of a new book by Lawrence Wright called The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. George W. Bush, Muhammad Ali and a host of other public figures say that Islam is a religion of peace (and therefore terrorists cannot be true Muslims). But it isn’t that simple, as Prothero says in his closing paragraph:
The Looming Tower gives the lie to the idea that there is one Muslim world. It also steers clear of the pious foolishness that no real Muslim could crash a plane into a building of innocents. After all, those who steered those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were convinced that no real Muslim would refuse such an honor.
OK, but what about Christianity? Who gets to define it? What would a real Christian do or refuse to do? The problem for Christians, as for Muslims, is that there is no one Christian world. The two presidents in my lifetime who were the most vocal about their Christianity are George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, two men with entirely different ideas about faith and war. Which is correct? Is either?
Is Christianity a religion of peace? From the things Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, you’d think so. But many of us seem to prefer an Old Testament style of conflict resolution. No wonder Christianity, like Islam, has a bad image problem.
The danger of being a change agent
I’m leery of finding too much wisdom in Machiavelli (for fear of appearing too, well, Machiavellian) but he sure got this right:
“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
This explains why, for example, no politician wants to take the lead on health-care reform or a new energy policy. We may need them, but too many of us are “well off under the existing order of things”.
In politics, in business, and in the church, successful leaders are those who can convince people that tomorrow is at risk even though today is pretty good. A rare quality, indeed.
PS - I found this quote today at the great blog Signal vs. Noise.
Weight-loss, self-discipline and racial enequality
Here’s my summary of a little parable I just read in the book Divided by Faith, by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith.
Imagine that two friends, Maridel and Parker, decide to lose weight by checking in a six-week camp-style program (O.K., a “fat farm”). Upon arrival, they are separated and sent to different compounds.
In Maridel’s compound there are weights, running trails, aerobics classes, basketball courts and every other kind of exercise equipment you can think of. Maridel is surrounded by people in great shape who constantly testify to the wonderful benefits of good health. And the food is always healthy and delicious.
Parker’s compound is different. There is no exercise equipment other than the great outdoors. The staff members are all overweight, and nearly all of them have tried and failed many times to keep the pounds off. The food is delicious and plentiful, but it is loaded with calories and fat. Recreation is provided in the form of a large TV and lots of movies.
Maridel and Parker don’t see each other until the first weigh-in after two weeks, and each knows nothing of the other’s compound. At the weigh-in, Maridel is 12 pounds lighter, but Parker has actually gained a couple of pounds. Maridel can’t believe that Parker is wasting this great opportunity. She chides him for his lack of will power and tells him that if he will just discipline himself, he can lose weight. And Parker agrees. “I’ve got to eat less, and get outside and walk more” he tells himself. “I can do it! There’s no one stopping me. It’s up to me.” But it is incredibly hard for Parker, given the environment at his compound, and the best he can do is maintain his present weight, while Maridel continues to shed the pounds.
Emerson and Smith use this parable to illustrate the problem of racial inequality in America and our difficulties in diagnosing the problem. White evangelicals tend to think of solutions in terms of individuals - personal responsibility, vision, and self-discipline. All of these are valuable, but they fail to account for the structural problems in America that contribute to inequality. As a result, whites believe that race problems are solved if we simply treat each other with kindness and make discrimination illegal. If we can all “just get along”, there is no racism, right? And if it’s against the law to discriminate in the job market, housing, and schools, then everybody has equal opportunity, right?
Parker and Maridel each have to make a choice to lose weight, and then work hard to make it happen. But Maridel’s chances are dramatically better. For Parker, it would take immense self-motivation and discipline to do it.
And being isolated from each other makes understanding nearly impossible.
More on this eye-opening book later…
