Writer's Notebook: Dave Embree, part 3

This is part three of "extras", the parts of my interview with Dave Embree that didn't make it into the final version as published in the August issue of Christian Standard magazine.

This final post features some random quotes and comments based on Tim's 41 years in the campus ministry.

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The need for campus ministers

We currently, among the associated college ministries associated with Christian Churches, have roughly a hundred fifty ministries. If those were evenly dispersed, which they are not, that would be three per state in the U.S. And in the two states with most college students, California and Texas, we have virtually nothing in the way of campus ministry.We have some new plans, I think, going on in those states, but nothing much.

Right now I’m not aware of any Christian Church schools offering a specific program in campus ministry. Even if it’s only one occasionally traveled, there could be a concentration of classes that I would be happy to help set up with anybody, just with existing offerings at a particular school.

Reaching college students today vs. 40 yeas ago

Some things we do really differently, some things we don’t.

 A while back I came across a copy of one of the newsletters we used to photocopy and hand out to students, whereas now we do it digitally. I went through the whole thing – it was from 25 or 30 years ago – a lot of the events we do are very similar.

We do a lot of back to school stuff. Students now are used to professional looking stuff and if it doesn’t look professional they won’t give it the time of day. We put a lot more emphasis on design because students get thousands of messages online every day, and trying to distinguish one message as being relevant to you among all that noise, is really different.So we try to be professional, we try to be present.

Over the years, one of the benefits of being here along time is that we have sort of a favored status. We have the benefit of getting to do some things on campus that other groups don’t. I’m not gloating against them, but we’ve proved ourselves to be good partners with the community.

We want to be present with the students every place where we can. We’ve always wanted that, it’s just harder now because, again, they stay in their rooms.

We try to do electronic marketing, which is difficult. We provide of lots of venues for people to connect with us, via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

But one of the things that’s really changed, we have to put a lot more really personal appeal on things. Broadcasting is almost worthless. Narrow-casting works.

We used to put out clipboards for people sign up for stuff. That hardly happens anymore, even for things like mission trips. We took a group to Kenya last summer. I think every single person who went on that trip went because I asked that person if they would go with us.

In years past we had exciting mission trips where we had people turn in applications and we really went through the applications and some people didn’t get to go. But now that’s not happening, even with Kenya – how exciting is that – people want to be asked, they want know that’s relevant to my life.

When I first started in campus ministry, a guy told me three sure ways to gain attention on campus: sex, alcohol, and food, and since we could pretty well eliminate the first two, we had to focus on the food.

Food isn’t a draw anymore. Universities have recognized that if students were complaining about the food, they needed to make the cafeterias really good. In the dining halls students usually have about 10 different options. Always have burgers, always have pizza. Last time I ate there, I had Moroccan food.

We had a freshman outreach program that was really successful for about 10 years and then it just faded out in a matter of two years. It involved a meal on a Wednesday night, building a freshman community. We talked to them about freshman stuff.  When we investigated why this went from boom to bust, the respond we got was, 'Well we can go there and kind of hang out, but you’re only going to give us one option for food. Sometimes we don’t like that option. Over here at the dining hall we get 10 options. So Thanks, but we’d rather have options.'

Which is also one of the things that has reduced participation in out Spring mission trips. 'If we go with you, you’re driving. You decide when we stop, we don’t. Over the course of the week, if we decide we’d just rather not work today, you’re still going to want us to work. So we’d just rather go home.'

And I talk to good kids in our ministry who didn’t go on our Spring Break trip, kids who love Jesus. I asked them what they did for Spring Break. 'Oh, you know, I went home and just chillaxed for the week.'

You know, you could have gone down with us to the border and spend time in Mexico. 'Yeah, maybe I’ll do that next time, I don’t know.'

We ask people to pretty much go social media free. They hate it. We’re asking them to leave their 'home town', which is their online community.

We do more pop up events on campus. Last week we did a Make Your Own Slime event on campus. I asked the guys who did it, how do you think it went in terms of real outreach? Most of the people just made their slime and left. We had CCH info taped to every bag, but about three people wanted to talk to us about why we’re doing this and so on. So it was get what I want and get out of here, rather than I want to get to know you guys and what you're about.

Our students are growing smaller and smaller worlds for themselves instead of bigger ones. One of the corollaries of social media is people will say, I’ve got friends all over the world. But because of the metrics of social media, which are primarily binary, over time you expand your connections to more and more people who believe exactly what you do. And so you have more connections but less choice, less options. Those things are very age, socio-economic, to a certain extent, socio-political and ethnically stratified. And so you have 5000 Facebook friends, but the majority of them look like you, watch the same things, listen to Taylor Swift or hate her, just like you, and shop at the same stores.

Preparing students to be leaders in the church

The students who will get engaged in our ministry or any other campus minsitry are going to know way more scripture than you think they might otherwise know.

That’s another big change. Students in the mid 70's to the 80's at lest had a modicum of biblical knowledge. The students now in many cases have had very little exposure to the Bible. In many cases they’ve had more exposure through Veggie Tales than anything else. And whereas I think VeggieTales are marvelously cleaver and hysterical, that’s not a great way to teach the bible.

But students who come out of a campus ministry are going to know more about the bible that you might think. They’re going to know more about serving than you might think , and as a matter of fact they're going to see how integral serving others is to the Gospel. They’re probably going to have a much better view of of their responsibility to the rest of the world, in the United States and beyond. Some of them are going to have really particular leadership skills.

I’m taking roughly ten students through our small group leadership program called Pipeline this semester. I do usually five to ten per semester. Those guys are going to be really valuable to local churches and they’re going to be better trained than you might think.

But we need a whole lot more leaders than we’re producing, and we need a whole lot more leaders from among our churches who can be getting that training through campus minsitry, but who don’t know about campus ministry, so they’re not going to get trained.

One of the best things one of our alums said, was, 'When I came to the university it was to get a degree, so I’d know my way around the classroom and know how to be a teacher. What I didn’t expect was, I figured out my way around the church and I figured out how to serve there. I figured out what it’s about and how effective I can be. This is the most important thing I learned in college.

We want to produce as many people like that as we can.

Years ago IVCF advocated that churches should work towards not just trying to prepare students to survive the university campus, but to prepare them to go there with the goal of making a difference themselves, to see themselves as campus missionaries. And Intervarsity even encouraged churches to have a commissioning service where they would essentially set aside their recently graduated high school seniors who were heading off to college as that church’s missionaries to the campus where they would be studying.

I love that

Staying excited about campus minsitry

Here are some really good characteristics of students these days: they are innovative; they have remarkable (and remarkably useful) tech skills.

When they catch a vision, they are capable of great investment and sacrifice and impact.

They are capable of great compassion, especially when they encounter real pain in real lives.

What does it take to engage them? You've got to start with the "why" regarding anything. If they become convinced of the validity of an idea, or ministry, or spiritual path, they will go all out, and though they tend to have short attention spans, they really do value the sort of longer-term relationships with older believers who can keep them pointed the right direction.

As with all believers since the original disciples, they often figure out the truth through serving others, though they have to learn the difference between serving in love and "mandatory volunteer hours".

I speak often of how all the great awakenings in American history have happened at times when the "nones" were in the ascendency, and I have great hopes that this generation will get really excited about Jesus as have previous generations when other pursuits turned out to have no real glory.

Writer's Notebook: Dave Embree, part 2

This is part two of the rest of my interview with Dave Embree, the parts that didn't make it into the final version that's available in the August 2019 edition of Christian Standard.

TR: How are students different today than they were in 1978?

DE: Students are pretty much different in every way.

Although, just this past week I was talking with a student who I had lunch with, and he was wearing tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a t-shirt, and had kind of a scruffy beard, and I said, You know what? You could have been one of mys students in 1978. You look exactly the same.

When it comes to things like lifestyle and expectations of the university experience, everything is different.

In the 70’s, when we still had the tail end of the baby boomers coming to the college, then we went through Gen-X and the Baby Busters and Millenials and now we’re getting Generation Z. So four different transmutations of youth culture.

Let me give you four changes.

In 1978, up through the mid-80’s, there was real meaning to the term “poor college student.” Students left home expecting to have virtually nothing when they were in college. We had people who were staying someplace for 50 bucks a month, and it might be a basement that occasionally flooded.

One guy I knew lived at the top of a stairway that didn’t lead anyplace except to an attic, and had put sheets of plywood out in the rafters of the house, where he had a mattress on one, a small dresser on another, and I think he had a hot plate on another. And he was proud of the fact that he lived on 50 bucks a month.

In the 80's we started using the term ‘premature affluence’. There was this assumption that when you went off to college, that should not reduce your level of comfort. So residence halls at the university got nicer and they started developing more suite-style housing.

It suddenly became big business in Springfield. They switched away from from converting old houses into rooming houses, now instead building nice apartments. Over the years I could point out to you which apartment buildings were the hot student housing at the time, but each successive set of complexes that was built was more and more luxurious.

These days our ministry houses are a little enclave of 1-story buildings in a sea of four and five story apartment complexes, most of which have been built within the last 10 years, all of which are set up with suite-style living. Students rent a bedroom with private bath, and then they have access to a common space. So it sounds like the old boarding house, but these students spend 600 bucks a month per person, so a 4-person suite is $2400 or more. Some are $750.

How is that possible? It’s student loans! So the student loan burden becomes heavier and heavier.

The two reasons why students who have made commitments to God about missions or other forms of ministry are marrying the wrong persons or student debt.

The second way students have changed is academically.

Students have always grumbled about general education requirements. They’ve always grumbled that college is too hard. These days we even have parents who say college is too hard. You shouldn't fail students. And some of these students are coming from ‘no fail’ high schools, so they come and they’re not academically prepared for college. When they don’t do well, they’re angry at the institution or at the instructors.

I’ve taught at the university part time in the department of religious studies since 1984. In the early days the students might shine about this or that, but these days I’m just as likely to have students come to my office and say, I was a straight A student in high school and I’m getting a D in your class. You tell me what’s wrong. 

Well, let’s look at the grade book. We’ve had 5 pop quizzes, you’ve had zeroes on all five.

Well, you expect us to read. I just don’t read. 

Well, if you want to get an education, you need to read. Also, you didn’t turn in this assignment.

You didn’t tell us it was due.

We read through the syllabus on the first day. I assigned it to you on the first day.

Well you didn’t remind us. 

It’s in the syllabus. Everyday we have a full teaching schedule, why would I take time out to remind you of something you already knew about.

Well that’s unfair. 

Socially speaking, this is where things have dramatically changed. Let me recommend a book. An acquaintance of mine named Tim Elmore, who has a ministry called Growing Leaders, has written a book called Marching off the Map, in which he has really nailed Gen-Z, a lot of what they’re about.

One of the big issues the university faces is getting students to come to class. Studetns like to stay in their rooms. One of the things you’ll hear frequently on campus is, Over the last 2 days I binge watched Game of Thrones or binge watched Breaking Bad for the 3rd time. Maybe they’ll go down to the dining room, or maybe they’ll just call out and have food delivered to the room, once again paid for with college loan money.

There’s a ridiculously high number of students who believe they’ll never have to pay off their student loans, perhaps based on what some presidential candidate said in the last election.

They prefer to have the buffering effect of social media. They prefer to have editing capabilities about themselves before they expose anything. A few years ago I read something that claimed the average student spent an hour a week polishing their Facebook profiles. So I bounced that idea off some of our students and the answer I got was, Oh, no. People spend a lot more time than that.

You’ve probably heard acronyms like FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. Interestingly, that’s more true of missing out online.

I get bad reviews from students because I won’t allow them to text during class. That makes me a bad professor. They’re afraid. What if somebody gets engaged? What if there’s a really good meme that gets around and they don’t know about it until after class?

There’s a corollary, FOLO – Fear Of Living Offline. Researchers use FOMIRL, Fear of Meeting in Real Life. Students have often so carefully constructed online versions of themselves that they believe that would be shattered if some of the people they know online were to meet them in real life.

Many of the "None of the Above" students grew up in a family that was practicing Catholic or Baptist or whatever, but they’re quick to deny labels. There is still significant popularity of the term spiritual but not religious, which in many cases means what I call a Chinese buffet approach to spiritual life. You pick and you choose whatever you want to add together.

Let me share with you my greatest disappointment in the campus ministry. When I began in 1978 we were still sort of the first wave. In 1963 there were exactly three campus ministries associated with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. When we established in 1977, maybe we were around the 60th. Still a pretty new phenomenon.

I thought, this is one of the best kept secrets. We need to get the word out to the Restoration church in general.

Many of our kids have been to big conferences or church camps where they heard about bible colleges, and praise God for bible colleges, praise God for the training they do. But 85% of our kids don’t go to bible colleges, and those kids are often never told about campus ministries.

We get 5 or 6 thousand freshmen at Missouri State every year, and many of them are from church homes. But in an average year, we probably have fewer than half a dozen students whose parents or youth minister or anybody. come to meet us before they come. That’s my biggest disappointment in campus ministry, the lack of networking with the church.

Writer's Notebook: Dave Embree, part 1

Dave Embree (cchonthe.net)

I've known Dave Embree for more decades than either of us wants to admit. I've admired his approach to campus ministry for just as long. That's why I was so pleased when Mike Mack, my editor at Christian Standard magazine, gave me the go ahead to interview Dave for the August 2019 issue.

I met up with Dave at the Missouri Christian Convention in late March and spent an hour talking about campus ministry. My wife had rattled off a list of other people I should keep an eye out for who I could also talk to if I needed to get quotes about Dave. She was concerned I wouldn't get enough from our interview.

"This is Dave Embree," I said. "He loves to talk!"

And he did. The transcribed interview notes came to about 6,500 words. My assignment was to produce an article with 1,200 to 1,500 words.

I encourage you to read the slightly-less-than 1,500 word interview at ChristianStandard.com.

Over the next three weeks I'm going to post some of the parts that didn't make it into the published piece. Starting with Dave's answer to my question about how he got started with the campus ministry in Springfield, MO.

Remember, I warned you. He likes to talk.

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In the late 60's, early 70's, Christian churches were planting campus ministries rather rapidly.

Based upon what they had seen take place at Columbia and what had already taken place at Rolla, Christians from churches around Springfield and the Lebanon area started coming together to plan a campus ministry. Woody Wilkinson had actually tried to do some things on campus himself and found out that at that point the university was pretty averse to particular churches doing outreaches on campus. So Woody kind of backed off and threw his support behind people coming together.

So initially people from probably five Christian churches in Springfield and the Southern Heights church in Lebanon came together to form a board of directors and charter in 1977.

At that point they started holding bible studies on campus. They wound up purchasing a house, because their model was Columbia, a couple of guys on the board having been Mizzou alums, and they just knew that’s what you do.

They decided they could at least partially finance the campus ministry by renting to students. So they had purchased a house, and renovated it in order to hold the maximum number of students in not all that really big a house.

In the 1977-1978 school year they had preachers coming in to do Bible studies on Thursday nights and had had maybe five students living in the house.

This was at a time when there was a lot of town/gown conflict and the neighbors didn’t really want students living there. And they technically were out of the proper zoning area, so the city came in and said you can’t have this many unrelated people living here, which made it less financially feasible.

 At the Missouri Christian Convention over Christmas break, I was going to school at Joplin at that point, and had come up to the convention because my parents were there.

I saw this display for the SMSU [Missouri State University was known at the time as Southwest Missouri State University]  Christian Campus Ministry, and a friend of mine from Ozark was actually setting it up. And I said, "Hey, I didn’t know there’s a campus ministry at SMS."

He said, "There isn’t really, we’re just getting it started."

I said, "That’s great, I really support campus ministry, having grown up near Columbia and Roy Weece having already impacted my life." And that’ all I knew about campus ministry."I think that’one of the best things going right now."

He said, "I think you should apply for the job."

I said, "Well thanks, but I’ve never really spent any time on a university campus and I’m going for a 5 year degree here at Ozark and I’ve only completed four years of it, and I just don’t think I’d be any good at that."

He said, "It would really be good for you to go through the process of applying for the job, even if you don’t expect to get it."

And I said, "Yeah you’re right, I ought to do that."

But I didn’t.

I saw the same guy at a youth ministry conference on the OCC campus, and he said, "Hey Dave, I never got anything from you about the job."

I said, "Well, I’m doing youth ministry right now and I'm in school and I'm married and there’s a lot going on and I’m not sure I’ve got time to be applying for a job."

He said, "I've been talking to the board about you and how you do youth ministry, and we think we’re interested in you."

I said, again, "I have no experience in this. I know nothing whatsoever."

He said, "Why don’t you just trust God and submit an application and see what God says about it."

And I said, "That’s a really good idea."

But I didn’t.

And then in February, I see the same guy at the preaching and teaching convention at Ozark, and he said, "Dave, been waiting for your application."

I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been winter and I just haven’t gotten it done."

He said, "I’ve been talking to the board and they’d really like to meet you."

I said, "I’d like to talk to these guys and tell them what a great job they’re doing, but I just don’t think I can work it in."

And he said, "Would you think about applying?"

I said, "I’ll think about it and pray about it."

But I didn’t.

And about the first of March I get a phone call, and he said, “Dave, we’ve been pursuing people for the campus ministry, and every door we’ve opened has been slammed shut in our faces, except for you. And you keep kind of nudging it shut, but you haven’t slammed it. Would you come up and talk to us?

And I was really ashamed. I’d said to him three times I would send him something and I never had.

And I said, "Yes, I will come up and talk to you."

So a week later I drove up to Springfield and they were great people, and they had such a great vision and I loved talking to them. And they talked to me and asked my ideas about discipleship and pastoring and all sorts of things and they liked what they heard.

At the conclusion of that meeting I said, I think you guys are on the right track. I think you’re going to have a wonderful ministry here. I'm not the guy for it, but I trust that God will send you the right guy."

They said, "OK, OK. Could you come back next week and bring your wife?"

And I said, "You realize, I'm not the right guy for this job."

And they said, "Well can you come back and bring your wife?"

And I said, "OK."

I brought Joyce up the next week. And they talked to her and she talked to them and they we all talked some more together and at the end of that meeting, I said, " I just praise God for your vision and commitment. I will be praying that God will send you the right person."

They said, "would you pray about you coming?"

I said, "Well sure, but I don’t have any training for this.  I haven’t finished my degree at Ozark. I'm just absolutely not what you're looking for."

They said, "Just pray about it and talk to us again in 2 or 3 weeks."

Couple weeks later I get home from a church board meeting.

Joyce was gone, but there was a note on the table that said, "Had to run to the store. Will be right back. Oh, the board from Springfield called. They asked if you were still interested in the job. I told them Yes. They’re voting on you now. Call them back."

I thought, They’re voting on me? How can they be voting on me? I thought we had another week.

 About that time Joyce comes back and I said, "They’re voting on us?"

She said, "Yeah, I didn’t know if you’d talked to them and maybe told them something."

I said, "No. We've talked about this and prayed about it."

She said, "I don’t know if I can live in the middle of noisy Springfield right by the campus. I'm a small town girl."

I said, "I still don’t know that I know anything that I would need to know to do that."

About then the phone rang and he said, "Dave, we just voted unanimously to hire you. Will you come?"

I said, "Just a second", and I put my hand over the pine, and said, "Joyce, they voted for us, what do we do now? "

And she said, "If this doesn’t look like God railroading us into something, I don’t know what it would be."

And I said, "So you think we ought to go?"

She said, "I don’t think we have a choice."

And I said, "So I guess we’ll go."

So we came.  On July 1st, 1978, we moved to Springfield.

And all I knew was, Roy Weece is a good campus minister and I can try to do some things I know he does, and that’s it.

Writer's Notebook: Greentree Christian Church

As part of Christian Standard's annual listing of attendance and growth statistics for Christian Churches, the editors asked me to choose from a short list of growing congregations in Missouri to do an interview and write a short ministry highlight piece.

I chose Greentree Christian Church in Rolla because I had already heard many good things about the congregation, and because the senior minister is Tim Cook, a fellow graduate of Central Christian College in Moberly. He and his brother, J Allan, were a few years ahead of me, attending at the same time as my older brother, Scott.

It was great to get in touch with Tim Cook and talk with him about the long and steady growth of Greentree Christian Church. Much of what we talked about made it into the published piece in the May 2019 issue of Christian Standard. But there were other aspects of the itnerview that didn't make the final cut. Here are a few quotes:


"Our adult ministries guy does a great job, trying to keep things going every week, running special adult education programs at all times of the week. I’m a strong believer in really good children’s ministry and youth ministry programs
. . .
We emphasize missions. This is a very generous congregation. We have an annual offering that goes to some mission endeavor someplace. With matching funds we reached up to $400,000 one year, for safe houses in the persecuted church. We do that every year. One year it will be stateside or even local here, and the next year it will be international.
. . .
We work hard on outreach we run Awana and Upward and annual programs that the community looks forward to. We host Food Bank distribution, kindergarten registration, and other community events.
. . .
A year ago we hired a women’s minister and that’s had a solid impact.

I believe the Sunday morning worship service is the driver of the church and it has to be healthy and it has to be inspiring. Pretty much steady growth.

The old building we were in had 25 parking spaces. We got up to 500 in three services. Had already purchased land before I came, with nothing done with it. We built a gymnasium and started having church functions. We added on some education space and saw an immediate 30% increase from that. When we went to our third phase and went to our big worship area on Greentree, again we saw 30% growth
. . .
We go out to Bennett Springs, which is a beautiful park, on the first Sunday of every June, a Baptism Sunday. We match it with a big church picnic and people are already putting their names on a list. We have a baptistery in the church and will baptize them at any time they desire. Most of our baptisms are private. They want a few family and friends to be there for that.
. . .
Volunteer opportunities include a hospitality team, missions committee, and bereavement ministry, to name a few.
. . .
Extracurricular activities take place seasonally, including co-ed volleyball and men’s basketball open gyms, and church league softball."

Rocky Fork Fellowship: Writer's Notebook (part 2)

Rocky Fork Fellowship Groundbreaking Ceremony

Last week I posted portions of an interview with Scott Rice, the current Rocky Fork Fellowship chairman of the elders.

I also spent about an hour talking to Mark Butrum, RFF Senior Minister, and  Chris Collier, Executive Minister. What follows are some of the things we discussed that didn't make it into the article in the October issue of Christian Standard..

The Building Project

Chris: There’s a lot of people working on the building project. Don’t give me all the credit, and I’ll accept all the blame. I hope it relieves Mark to do what we need him to do, what he’s skilled to do.

We’re blessed to have a lot of people in the church who have experience in construction, experience working with the county. Through those people we’ve been tied into others. We’ve been leaning heavily on the professionals we’ve hired for design and engineering. That’s why it’s not fair to say I’m the guy doing it all, I’m just collecting the data, collecting the information.

Mark: Chris did a huge amount of work with cost reductions – right size, right price comparisons. Bringing all that into perspective. One of his talents is being able to pull data together and make it so we could and read it and make decisions together. It’s OK to have all this raw data, but unless you put it in one place and say, this is what it might look like, you can’t really make decisions, you’re just pulling numbers.

Chris: There’s some balance there of faith vs. fact and what you see on paper. We took a faith step in identifying the budget point. We’re still trying to hold to that budget, we’re not done holding to that budget. It takes a lot of moving things around and deciding . There’s so many options. From what kind of paving we’re going to put in the parking lot all the way to what kind of building this is going to be, how big, what the span is, how many fixtures in the bathroom.

Mark: Keeping some of our core values in mind, stewardship is very high . We want to come out with a finished product that is not only reasonable and what we can afford, but also matches the expectations of the future we want to get into as far as future growth.

Chris: Stewardship is more important than professionalism.  All indications are this is not the end of what we do, but we have to start somewhere. We looked at huge scale down to smaller than what we finally rest on, trying to fin a balance. It would be awesome if we outgrew it in 3 to 6 months, but at the same time we want to expect what ‘s going to happen. I hope it’s always about how this is going to help us accomplish our mission.

Mark: We keeping harping on it: this is a tool. We haven’t arrived. We have people ask, when are you going to become a church? They don’t see us as a church yet because we don’t have a building. I’m OK with that, but we need to change our mindset that the church isn’t the building. This is a tool, it doesn’t mean we haven’t arrived yet because we haven’t built it. There’s so much more to do.

Mark: Vision leaks. We've got to talk twice as much about vision and mission to overcome that. So we’ve got to have this balance. When we started this campaign, we knew this was the beginning of something that will probably never end. We’ll probably always be campaigning for something, whether it’s more staff or another building, a second campus, another church, plant. Something, we’re going to be constantly in this cycle of collecting funds, and not just tithing to keep the church going. We’ve got to keep the vision out front more than the other. We struggle with keeping the campaign out there. We struggle with talking about both and getting those two back in synch again.

Balancing Growth and Mission

Chris:What makes RFF unique is that family welcoming atmosphere. We have to be careful. Some of the churches I’ve attended have fallen into accepting that it can’t be done, or accepting that there’s nothing you can do about it., that if you get to a certain size, you can’t keep doing that. I don’t agree with that, I don’t agree that we always have to say society or culture has changed and people won’t come to church. It’s because nobody asked them or challenged them or got to know them enough to bring them along.

Mark: One of the things we want to do this year is to look at how we reach people. We’re refocusing a lot of energy on that right now. How do we reach people, how do we bring in new people, how to create an environment where people who are coming to RF will bring in their friends and feel comfortable about it, will want to do that. How do we, once they're here, whether it be for a picnic or special event, how do create an on-ramp to RF? It goes down to every one of us. We all have to be mission minded. We have to in a place where we know, I’m accountable for the people I invite.

Mark: Every weekend we get a sheet of people that were here the 2nd or 3rd time, or who was missing. Chris and I and other people in the church take names from that list. We text them, Facebook, call, however we can get hold of them and and say we missed you. We’re not trying to be the attendance police, but we missed you. Is there anything going on, is there a divorce or split or kids are sick. Reach out to people let them know you care. We find that when we make a special effort to do that, there’s an attendance spike the next week. You may make contact with one neighbor and suddenly there’s two families coming, because a neighbor or family member they know, someone who used to come, they’re coming back too. That’s awesome. I’m paraphrasing Andy Stanley, but we want to be the church where unchurched friends invite their unchurched neighbors. We want to be that kind of church where it’s perpetual motion, exponentially.

Mark: When we put a building up out here, we’re going to have people coming out of the woodwork to come visit us. I say visit us. How are going to get them to come back a 2nd, 3rd, 4th time? The infrastructure has to be ready for that. Small groups, things for their kids, all that has to be ready for them.

Rocky Fork Fellowship: Writer's Notebook (Part 1)

In the October issue of Christian Standard is my story, Mission-Driven Success, about how Rocky Fork Fellowship is dealing with the challenges brought on by their rapid growth. It's a follow up to the piece that appeared in Lookout two and a half years ago, Fellowship in a Small Town.

In preparation for the story, I conducted two interviews. The first was with Scott Rice, the chairman of elders. What follows are the parts of our conversation that didn't make it into the limited space of the published article. I think you'l find them informative and challenging.

Next week I'll follow up with the unpublished portions of another interview I did, this time with Mark Butrum and Chris Collier.

But first, Scott Rice:

"Five years ago I was just dreading the day that we were going to have to buy land and then build a building, because neither one of those things seemed affordable or even possible at all.

The school building gave us an incubator to work within that wasn’t very expensive, but it also provided people a safe place to come worship that wasn’t unfamiliar to them. They already kind of knew the school building so they could walk through the door and experience a service with the feeling of a church building. That’s who we were really setting our goal on was to find people who weren’t already attending church somewhere and let them have a comfortable atmosphere to attend. It really did help us that way. Honestly if we could create that same atmosphere in the new building, we’re going to try to do that. It’s going to be a challenge in its own way.

If I was to walk in here and never had been in a church before, what is it that is going to make me feel uncomfortable? A lot of it’s in the song choices or the way we dress or the traditions of standing up and greeting people around you, those kinds of things. We try to look at it from their perspective.

I want to get a cup of coffee. How many times have you been in a church where you couldn’t bring a cup of coffee into the sanctuary? Even the terminology, like sanctuary., things like that. Those are all valid terms, but people who don’t use them regularly just unfamiliar to them. It’s just one more thing that might make them feel uncomfortable. 'Meet me in the sanctuary'? I don’t even know what that is.

Another challenge is to get people behind the idea. It would seem intuitive that people would want us to be in a building, but then again, we’ve been in the school for ten years and they may thing, why don’t we just stay here, this is comfortable.

I have a feeling, the people of Hallsville themselves have kind of scratched their heads at who we are. Our founders, our leaders, weren’t people who grew up in the local community. All of us are from somewhere else. Hallsville, like a lot of small towns, has a tendency to think of itself as a network of people who have been here awhile who have a vested interest in the community. And now we’ve got an outside group that has come in and is seeing great success. There was maybe some questions about who we were and our motives, questions of whether this was even necessary. And may questions of these people are outsiders and they’re succeeding. They’re becoming a force in and of themselves.

We’ve had some people in our community who have had their kids raised up in these schools, so we’re getting involved in the graduations and local sports and those sorts of things. The familiarity of who we are now has begun easing. We’ve also begun having people who are from the established Hallsville community who have been attending and can help deliver that message to their friends and family members, to say “These people are all right, they’ve done a good thing.” We haven’t had any significant pushback.

There’s some resistance that you feel from the community itself, that we don’t need another church. Why would you decide that you should start here. You’re pulling from where we would like to pull from. You-re a competitor in the community, rather than a group with the same goal.

You address that resistance by staying focused with what you’re trying to do. You stay in communication with them, you engage them, you respect them, you honor what they’re trying to do as well. You don’t run them down, and you don’t try to take people from them, you don’t try to pull their members form them. If people come on their own, that’s something we don’t have any control over. You’re focus is on people who aren’t already attending. Beyond that you wish each other well.

You have to try to stay ahead of the curve of growth with staffing and programs and budgets. People were coming and coming but we had to bring on more staff, we had to expand our eldership.

Sometimes we wanted to stay ahead of the curve but couldn't afford it. Sometimes it was happening so fast we couldn’t get it done. There were many times we didn’t have things in place that needed to be in place, like certain parts of the by-laws weren’t done, or policies on how we handle things. Sometimes we were making decisions as things were already happening.

It's important to pay attention to the members that you have while also engaging the new ones that are coming in, and not dropping ball with them leaving out the door behind you without you knowing it. Paying attention to who you have as well as paying attention to who you might be getting.

Growth brings with it a lot of new ideas. Sometimes they’re helpful and sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re not mission centered - Rocky Fork’s mission. They’re nice to have, they’re community oriented, but they’re not about making disciples. So sorting through all things is difficult.

Pulling everything through the filter of our mission helps to explain why we might not participate in fund raisers for s sports team or a community banquet or a community event, why we want to dedicate our resources and our time to just that mission.

The mission is to make disciples. We used to say to make disciples by connecting with one another, growing in Christ, plugging them into services, and leading them to bring others to Christ. It’s a constant circle. We’ve shifted our language now to simply Making Disciples, with an emphasis on helping people to make Jesus the most important relationship in their lives. They will do more than just call it their church home, they will be invested in it. That’s how we’re trying to reinvigorate us to refocus.

The challenge of having a large percentage of unchurched people, they don’t understand what the commitment of being a good church member or a good Christian would entail. It’s exciting because you’re seeing the people grow, but it’s challenging because you’re trying to keep them moving in the right direction.

Ultimately it all goes back to God’s working in our lives and in this community. Now that’s hard to say because I’ve seen other people who feel like God is working in their project also, and it just doesn't go as well. So I don’t know how to reconcile all that.

Some of the things we were blessed with, through him was a set of people who were very skilled and organized and motivated and committed. There was a small group of people who were really ready to pick up and to do the hard work to make this happen, for a long term commitment. They were blessed to secure a preacher who came in with skill sets already through his job history, but was new enough in the ministry field that we could afford him. There was a good match up right there.

And then our community was hungry for this kind of church. A church that isn’t wrapped up in the traditions of how it’s been for a hundred years. A church that can deliver the Christian message in a kind and genuine and well done way.

For whatever reason, the people of Hallsville found that to be inviting, and decided to come.

We want to do it in a good way, we don’t want to cut corners. We take this seriously. We do it with an openness and a transparency and the idea that we’re on this same journey with everyone else. The church leaders and the staff are all gong through the same things everybody’s going through. We want to do this altogether."

Dennis and Linda Messimer: Writer's Notebook

Dennis and Linda Messimer and their grandkifs

For the February issue of Christian Standard, my editors wanted to share stories of couples who had spent a lifetime in partnership in both marriage and ministry. I was blessed to be assigned to write about the partnership of Dennis and Linda Messimer. You can read that article in the current issue or online.

As usual, not everything from my interview with the Messimers made it into the 1,100 word published version of the story. So here are some more bits and pieces from the interview:


Dennis and Linda met on Thanksgiving Day in 1966. Dennis had come to Ozark Bible College that fall to pursue a 5th-year graduate degree. Linda was a freshman that year.

Dennis' father was a professor at OBC.

"Mother called to the dorms to see if anyone was around and needed a place to eat Thanksgiving dinner," says Dennis.

"We hardly knew each other when we got married," Linda says. "We met that Thanksgiving Day because I was heading home for the holiday and the car broke down, so I was stuck in Joplin."

Getting married was not in Linda's plans at the time. "I wasn’t getting married for another ten years, and I certainly wasn’t going to marry a preacher. But I fell in love. When we decided to get married, I decided I was going to be a preacher’s wife."

Belgium

In 1970,  at the urging of Harold Fowler, the Messimers went to Belgium to help begin a Bible College, a plan which never actually came to fruition.

"In Belgium we helped start two churches that are still going," says Dennis. "At least, last we knew they still were. It was a group effort with others. Belgium has very few non-Roman Catholic churches. It was a blessing to be a part of starting these churches.

"When troubles come, you just work through it," Linda says. "God sends his little angels, like Guy and Thelma Mayfield. He was a chaplain during WWII in Italy. He took those soldiers and evangelized Italy and started a Bible College in Italy. He ended up with his wife teaching school in Germany when he retired. They would just show up on our doorstep when we were ready to give up. Literally unannounced, we would open the door and there was Guy and Thelma. That happened, I know, at least three times in Belgium. God just took care of us. Once we got to South Africa, we had been in Belgium seventeen years, and we didn’t need that kind of encouragement as much. We didn’t get so discouraged to where we were ready to go home."

South Africa

"In South Africa," says Dennis, "we worked with some churches. I felt like our work with the preachers of The Church of Christ Mission was a real privilege. Most of them were under-educated but extremely dedicated individuals. Some of them would start a church a year and some of them had as many as 15 churches that, like a circuit riding preacher, they would keep going and feeding the elders of those churches so the elders would have something to say on Sundays."

"One of the things that give us both a lot of joy is leadership training," agrees Linda. "One of my greatest joys is to see people that I’ve taught teach others. To encourage them to stretch, to encourage them to do it, gives me a lot of joy."

"She got involved with the Christian Women's club in South Africa, "says Dennis.

"If anyone made a decision to follow the Lord, I did a Bible study with them." says Linda. "It was a way to meet people in the community, and it was a way to meet non-Christians and other Christians. It was good fellowship and a great way to evangelize."

Dennis adds, "According to their rules you couldn’t talk about baptism."

"...but you could read scripture!" Linda adds, "I read lots of scripture. Extra scripture! And that led to some baptisms."

Raising Children on the Mission Field

"I would put all three children down to sleep somewhere and then go back into the room and help with the home Bible studies," says Linda. "I did that until Brent came along, and then it was too much. For the rest of those years, I did one bible study per week, and someone else taught the kids. That was my time to be in fellowship with the church people and have our kids be with other Christian kids."

"One thing we did," Linda says, "was not create a subculture for our kids. They grew up in Belgium, they went to Belgian schools, they had Belgian friends. They felt part of the culture. OK, they were different, but they didn’t feel that different. I think that is very helpful. The kids who have the most trouble seem to be the ones who weren’t as much a part of the culture. We were very blessed that the schools were good in both countries. Our kids went to Catholic schools in Belgium, and obviously there were some teachings that were not biblical, and we just dealt with those at home. In South Africa, all the schools our kids went to were advertised as Christian-biased”.

"In South Africa, the president of the PTA was from Scotland, one of our good friends was German," Dennis says. "There were some Chinese, a few of Dutch background, and more that were British background."

"It was a little melting pot of all nationalities," Linda adds.

The Messimer family

"Brent was only 11 or 12," Dennis says, "when Brent and one of his friends went for a walk with me to see someone. The people weren’t there, so we headed back. On the way back there was a man lying on the ground. He had some bullet holes in him, with blood. Someone asked me if I thought he was going to die. Just in the five minutes since we had passed that point and gotten back, there had been this shooting."

"It was a crazy place to grow up in," says Linda. "I think one of the worst times was when Brent’s friend, who lived across the street, called and said, they just shot my dad."

"We protected the kids as much as we could," she says, "but we felt like God wanted us there and we never really. In spite of all those experiences, we never really though about coming back. We were where God wanted us to be and we did a lot of praying with the kids. We did a lot of talking through those things with the kids. Everybody else’s kids were going through the same thing."

"The Lord got us there," Linda says. "When you’re so sure that you’re where the Lord wants you to be, we never thought about leaving. We thought about being smart and being as safe as we could make ourselves. Do we get a gun or not? We said, no we’re not going to get a gun. In South Africa when you use a gun you have to shoot to kill, and we weren’t going to do that."

Hospitality

"The easiest things to cook for a crowd of people, "Linda says, "is spaghetti, and if it’s wintertime, soup."

"She learned in Belgium how to make soup," Dennis days, and Linda adds, "Belgians make good soup."

"There for a while," Dennis says, "it would be oven roasted chicken with rice."

"At first, all I could cook was spaghetti," Linda says, "and then I finally learned to cook chicken, so I was confident about my baked chicken. Now we’re back to spaghetti because the crowds are so big."

"I've hit a stage in my life now where I just can’t do it anymore," she says. "For a while we had international students in for a meal every Sunday, put this past year I just haven’t been able to do it. They come – often – but not every Sunday."

The Church That Does the Recovery Program: Writer's Notebook

A few of the FCC-Belle Celebrate Recovery peeps

The story behind The Church That Does the Recovery Program, my current article in the October issue of Christian Standard magazine, begins nearly two years ago when I was doing research for a different story for Lookout magazine. My Lookout editor, Kelly Carr, wanted a listicle about rural and/or small churches reaching out to help their communities (Small Churches -- Big Impact, 2/12/17).

I sent out private Facebook messages to several preachers I know from our days together at Central Christian College. I wrote several more blind private messages and e-mails to churches in rural Missouri that I found in the Directory of the Ministry.

 I also reached out to David Fincher, President of Central Christian College, to ask if he knew of any such community outreach programs among CCCB's supporting churches. I've gotten some of my best story ideas from David, and he didn't let me down this time. He sent me a short note in response:

"You should talk to Mitchell Seaton at First Christian Church in Belle, Missouri. They have had a great outreach to many of the hurting people in their community."

So I wrote an e-mail to Seaton and received back an 800-word detailed description of First Christian Church's experience with Celebrate Recovery (CR), a very small part of which was included in that article.

I knew, though, that the time would come when I would tell that story in more detail.

A Sunday morning drive through the hills and hollers of the Ozarks followed. Mitch invited Karen and I to "interview" the members of one of the Sunday School classes. There wasn't much interviewing required, as this crowd of friends, all involved in one way or another in the Celebrate Recovery program, led me through a wild and crazy hour of stories and confessions and tears and laughter.

My editor, Michael Mack, after reading the finished manuscript, told me "Dude, love the quotes. Very compelling and I laughed out loud several times."

There were plenty more quotes that didn't make it into the 1,500 word article.  So here's your chance to hear more from the people at First Christian Church in Belle, MO. You will laugh out loud, you will be challenged, and you might even cry.

Tim Long 3, on what happened after he got arrested in the parking lot of the church after a Sunday morning service:

“I came back the following Sunday to church. I couldn’t take it no more. June 14, 2014, was my first day clean and sober. It was Father’s Day. I went to church because my daughters had asked me. 

I said, I’m done. I was done with it at that point. 12 days later they start the recovery program and I’m in jail again. I had warrants that I was still cleaning up. It took a while to clean the mess up that I had created behind me. . .  I felt God’s hand on me when I was in jail, I said we’ll work this out. I’ll sit here, I’m good. I’ve run out of options. 

The following week I came to the recovery program. I was at the ground level. The second week of the program they handed me a book and said, here, why don’t you do the lesson. I kind of giggled a little bit. “You know who you’re handing this off to?” 

I’m in a position now as ministry leader of CR, and I get to watch what guys like Kevin, Tony, and Mitchell got to watch through me, those aha moments. I get to watch them through guys like Todd and Pete, not just their recovery from drug addiction, but their recovery from life, moving forward, being the men and women god has intended them to be. When you’re going through it yourself, you don’t see it, but people like Kevin can tell me about the progression he sees people go through. 

The church people have been 100% supportive, and they’re not afraid to let you know where you’ve fallen short, or what you need to work on or give you the praises that keep you pushing forward."

Anna Long:

"I told him (Tim 3, her husband), he said he was coming to church, and I said, if you have a warrant, Tony will arrest you. I warned him and he said, I don’t but if I do I’ll deal with it. 

I came in a year before the recovery program started. I came here as a child, and then came back. I came in because I was at a low point in my marriage and everything else and needed to be around people. There was a lot more space in the pews. This Sunday School class at the time, there was like five of us. The stories that people were willing to share helped so much. 

CR has opened things up. We’re a little louder, so it opens it up to talk to everybody. We’re kind of loud and crazy but we love Jesus.

A lot of times people will come to CR first and then everyone tells them, come to our church. It doesn’t matter if you’ve tried church before, try our church. And then a lot of times then, again, Mitchell’s sermons are very relatable and they feel welcome and accepted when they come in the door."

Tim Long 2 (Tim 3's dad):

"Yesterday is 21 months clean and sober. I spent over 40 years out on the dark side, doing my will only. When i was a kid I used to spend my collection money by skipping church and going to the bowling alley. 

First time I came in here I heard Mitchell speak and he was right in my head talking to me. I even asked him, what did they teach you at that college, mind reading? You need to stay outta there! 

I came to CR to see about getting rid of my addiction, and I was in it for a while and then I asked Jesus Christ to take my addiction and he did. It’s now not about the addiction anymore, it’s about the recovery to change my life and living my life the way Christ wants me to live. 

That’s why I’m here. All these people here, the whole church they work with you, they help you, they lead you. The whole church is my accountability partner now. 

When some of us started coming, we asked Mitchell, are you going to be able to keep your job with all these rough people coming in? He said ‘This is a hospital for sinners, not a house for saints.”

Celebrate Recovery members playing with kids at FCC-Belle VBS

Denene Gehlert:

“When I came to CR, I’d been an addict my whole life. It was OK to come. I felt like everybody from all walks of life are being real here. 

It’s OK for me to come in and talk to others. They’ll help you through it and carry it. 

The realness of other people helps because people come in and think that can’t tell their story because their problem is so dark CR has made it OK for people from all walks of life to come in and be accepted. These are good Christian people who will take you as you are and say, we’ll help you with this. We all have problems and everyone can see. 

Tony Baritech:

It’s OK if you’ve got a problem. This is where you should be if you’ve got a problem. Romans 3:23. I’m one of those people. We’re family here. We walk through it all together.

Mitchell Seaton:

The impact and scope of CR:  “It's been an adjustment for sure. And we're still adjusting. But they're still coming, and they're lives are being changed by the power of Christ. This has brought on all kinds of changes to our approach. it's not just addiction. But really any of life's "hurts, habits, and hang-ups" (which is a Celebrate Recovery line). Depression. Anger. Sexual Addiction. Codependency. 

Church discipline: "Though we are patient to allow God's Spirit to convict, we also know we must play a role in that, too."

Clayton Johnson:

"Before I started coming to CR I was an atheist. I didn’t believe in Christ. The only time I went to church was for a wedding or a funeral, and I thought I was going to get struck by lightning for walking through the doors. 

I had multiple people tell me to come to CR and through CR I found Christ, I started coming to church, I’ve been baptized, I’ve been redeemed. 

Becoming one of the leaders for CR, as encouragement leader, has been wonderful. I believe last year we had more CR baptisms than we had baptism out of the regular church program. It’ changing lives. It changed mine. I went from a non-believer to a faithful, grateful believer, and I tell everybody now.".

Sundi JoGraham, on the close-knit community of CR and FCC-Bel:

"A friend said, the other day, I feel like the Sunday School class is the church. The people in this room, we do life together. 

We go to Carrie and Kevin’s to play whiffle ball. I remember going to my first whiffle ball game and seeing all this diverse group of people from all walks of life. You’ve got ex-convicts and ex drug dealers and a cop, you’ve got all these people. We were all playing whiffle ball together and eating hot dogs together. That’s the body of Christ, is doing life together. We have cried in this room together, we’ve been real and raw. It’s been amazing to watch. 

Margie Baretich:

"When I came there was maybe 50 or 60 people. Now we have probably as many children here as we did adults back then. 

The CR program here, I can’t even express the amount of hope that it gives me. 

We have a boy that’s in prison. Watching the transformations that I’ve been to see, gives me hope that’s still possible for my son. 

It has given me a different perspective in my work as well. I’m a paramedic, 28 years, and I go get the same people time after time after time for the same abuses, the same drugs, or for the same beatings from the same person and I have been jaded in the past. Here we go again. 

Now I understand addiction so much better and the life struggles than I did before. Now I have a diff perspective in my work. I can say with all honesty now, when I’m picking up somebody for the 43rd time, there really is hope. I know it’s there. 

Contact CR in your areas and give it a chance, you’ve got everything to gain."

An exchange during the group decision that highlights the unexpected and extraordinary relationships developing at FCC-Belle:

Tim Long 2: We tried to get Tony to come work for us, but he wouldn’t. 

Tony Baretich (police officer): No joke, I was offered a large monthly stipend to look the other way, but no. 

Tim Long 2: And now we got motorcycles and Tony don’t. 

Tim Long 3: I’m very happy that you didn’t take that offer.

Tim Long 2:

Broken Chains is part of CR, a Christian biker program. It brought me in to where I could have a bike again. I got rid of my bike and wasn’t going to get another one because of the lifestyle, but it’s allowed me to do other ministry work. 

That’s one of the things that is really amazing me is doing ministry work. When I was new, Mitchell would talk about ministry work. The other day I was standing around talking to guys about Jesus and a few months before I would have rather hit you than to talk about Jesus. I came on kind of fast. 

It’s crazy, the transformation is totally amazing. The acceptance and guidance they give is great. I’ve never met people like that my whole life.

Kevin Brown:

We came to FCC 5 or 6 years ago. Tony invited Morgan (his daughter) to come. I wasn’t sure how we would be accepted, because I had been divorced, twice. At that point there was 70ish attendance, probably. 

I’m thrilled we started at that point. I believe we were put here at that certain time. I didn’t even know Mitchell, but we hit it off immediately and became really good friends after some earnest conversation. It was good. 

So we were able to see the beginning and to see the wave start to swell. It was phenomenal. 

Everything they’re saying is 100% true. There was hardly nobody in this classroom. 

If you can help one person, and I believe there’s been more than one person that’s been helped, that gives me hope. 

Yes, we have people out for whiffle ball because God has blessed us to have a place where we can do that, and we absolutely love it. It’s not the whiffle ball, it’s the talks after whiffle ball. That’s the cool part. 

I was on vacation and met someone from Redding, CA. They’re from a Christian church out there, and they’re going to start a CR program. I said, that’s fine, but get ready to get your heart to broken. It’s been a huge blessing and it’s been quite the ride.

Margie Baretich:

When our boy was arrested, if that would have happened when I was in that plastic church we used to go to, I would not have had this acceptance, this love, this encouragement. I would have had to hide that, to put on a brave face or go elsewhere. But here, we’re not looked down upon because of what our child did, we’re love and accepted and carried through.

Tony Baretich:

The day before he left to go to prison, 30 some odd people from this church showed up. Mitchell got permission from the county sheriff and everybody got to say their piece and I love you’s and the body of Christ was alive and active. It wasn’t just words, they showed up.

 Tim Long 3:

Everybody’s situation, everything that has happened, is a chaotic mess of just beautiful. 

I couldn’t be where I’m at today without Tony and Marge’s struggles. It brought a whole new light. 

I always frowned upon . . the way I grew up there was only one way to handle that kind of situation, what he did. But what he did is a sin, but it wasn’t any difference than me being a drug dealer, spreading poison on the street. God used that to open my eyes. I’m on the register to go and see him. 

Each person’s struggle is unique, but if you can look at it and put it into perspective of what you’ve done, and the forgiveness you’ve accepted and offered, there’s nothing out of God’s grasp.

Clayton Johnson:

A sin is a sin is a sin. God still loves you, god works with sinners. There’s an acceptance for the many different walks of life that everyone has come from. I’ve buried two daughters, I’ve buried my parents. I’ve lost a whole lot in my life. Whenever I was going through all of that, I stayed so far gone, I didn’t know who I was. I literally did not recognize myself looking in a mirror.

Sundi Jo Graham:

People don’t let you stay stuck where you are. I was going through a bad time a few months ago. I teach people how to have healthy coping mechanisms and how to talk about their problems. But Tony and Mitch showed up to ask what was going on, to tell me I couldn’t lock myself off like that. If you hurt I’m going to hurt with you. If you celebrate I’m going to celebrate with you. 

Tony Baretich:

I love Mitchell so much; I’d bury a body for him. There have been leadership issues, but the one constant is their obedience. Mitchell doesn’t take the easy way out. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s how to have healthy confrontations with people.

If you would like to learn more about the Celebrate Recovery program, go to http://www.celebraterecovery.com/

In Print: Do Not Call Conspiracy Everything This People Calls Conspiracy

“And then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).  

Now that’s a conspiracy theory that can change the world, if only we keep our heads about us and stay on message. 

My article, Do Not Call Conspiracy Everything This People Calls Conspiracy, is in the April 2017 issue of Christian Standard. When I wrote the article, shortly after the November, 2016, election, I had no idea how timely it would remain.

I highly recommend reading a book I referenced, Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, by Rob Brotherton (Bloomsbury USA; November 17, 2015).  If you read it with an open mind, seeking truth, it will challenge you to question why you believe the things you believe, and to resolve to be more diligent in "taking every thought captive."

A few quotes:

When it comes to conspiracy theories it’s tempting to think that our belief - or disbelief - is based on fair assessment of the facts. But the reality is that our beliefs are shaped by our overarching worldview more often than we might like to admit. As I said, the conspiracism is a lens through which we view the world - and we all have a different prescription. Few people credulously accept every theory, and few staunchly reject every suggestion of conspiracy. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, mildly skeptical of conspiracy theories across the board, but unwilling to write them off completely. (page 97) 

More than three quarters of the students [in a study] admitted to having one or more paranoid thoughts on at least a weekly basis. Around a third of the students admitted to having a paranoid thought more frequently.
 . . .
Paranoia goes hand in hand with conspiracy theories, but conspiracy theories aren’t exclusive to the fringe, because paranoia isn't exclusive to the fringe.
. . .
Likewise, there’s an element of truth to the idea that conspiracy theorists tend to feel relatively alienated and powerless. But this, too, is a more universal experience than the stereotypes would have us imagine. Psychologists have long understood the importance of feeling in control, and it’s not a desire exclusive to people on the fringes. We all want to believe that we understand our circumstances and are master of our own destiny. (page 109) 

By painting conspiracism as some bizarre psychological tick that blights the minds of a handful of paranoid kooks, we smugly absolve ourselves of the faulty thinking we see so readily in others. But we’re doing the same thing as conspiracists who blame all of society’s ills on some small shadowy cabal. And we’re wrong. Conspiracy-thinking is ubiquitous because it’s a product, in part, of how all our minds are working all the time. (page 243)

In Print: Uphold the Cause

I am the alien.

Scriptures describe us as sojourners, refugees, and aliens. Our biblical identity as a peculiar people and the “set-apart ones” doesn’t put us in a class above others. We’re not better because we know the King. Quite the contrary, our status carries with it the promise that we can expect to be among the outcast, the odd ones, and the oppressed.

If I believe I’m an alien, I won’t easily choose political options aimed at protecting my own status, whether legal, financial, or societal. I have no status, other than that of a pilgrim temporarily on mission in a foreign land, looking forward to going home.

My alienated status will lead me to identify with others who are strangers in my adopted country. Whatever my opinions about the legal and political issues surrounding immigrants and refugees, I’ll choose to show them kindness and to uphold their cause along with the Lord.

If I choose to believe I’m among “the least of these,” it will change the way I approach political issues.

Read the rest at Uphold the Cause in the March 2017  issue of Christian Standard .