A Lot To Live Up To

Letter to Diognetus: 2nd Century

"Christians are not distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity. The course of conduct they follow has not been devised by the speculation and deliberation of inquisitive men. The do not, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of merely human doctrines.

Instead, they inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly striking way of life.

They live in their own countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every land of their birth is like a land of strangers.

They marry, like everyone else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring.

They share a common table, but not a common bed.

They exist in the flesh, but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing the laws by their lives.

They love all men and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned. They are put to death and restored to life.

They are poor, yet make many rich. They lack everything, yet they overflow in everything.

They are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor they are glorified; they are spoken ill of and yet are justified; they are reviled but bless; they are insulted and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if raised from the dead. They are assailed by the Jews as barbarians; they are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to give any reason for their hatred.

To sum it all up in one word, what the soul is in the body, that is what Christians are in the world."

Church Advertising: What's the Difference?

What is the difference between these two ADs?

Both are from churches.
Both confront a topic the church is not comfortable dealing with.
Both want people to attend the events associate with them.
Both are creative.
Both are hard to forget.

However, the second AD requires out of the box thinking.  It does not rely purely on shock value.  In comparison the shock value of the second AD is low.  Is it head-scratching without explanation, yes (a church hosting a bra drive?), but not too shocking. The first is suggestive and the second thought provoking.  The first communicates sex and the second communicates a cause and information.

The first AD is also bate and switch. The person interested in a sex life that does not suck, will go to the advertised website only to find a video filled with discouraging statistics about how society has mishandled sex, not steamy videos of the couple.  The site also reveals the need for another step before you get the better sex life, "Oh yeah, we led you here to mainly tell you about our church."

Mood killer!

Now, I am all for a biblical understanding of sex and how God's version of intimacy is so much more enjoyable, satisfying and "exciting." But the first AD looks more like a Viagra AD, then a church teaching series.  It mimics cultural advertising in the fact that it lacks intelligence and is aimed at a lowest common denominator audience. While the second is honest and authentic.

Then again, maybe I am just be bias.

Organized Religion Is Big Business, But Should It Be?

"It's the economy, stupid . . .

Big Businesses famously roll on in this country because we're scared of letting them fail. And if there truly is an American business that's too big to send swirling down the economy's drain, it's the Organized Religion Industry (O.R.I). For an industry of which the major American branch (Christianity) uses as its mission statement the anti-materialist words of a poor carpenter, the O.R.I has done all right in the rapacious fray known as the American economy."

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Pushing People Forward

Have you ever been volunteered for something? Ever been in a line of people and had no one step forward to accept a challenge, but saw everyone step back making it look like you were the one to step up?  Well, TNL has doing that to people in the past weeks.

As TNL prepares to host Denver's Biggest Bra Drive we have been purposely pushing other people, businesses and organisations into the lime light. We have not wanted to be the recipients of all the attention and focus.  We have actually tried to redirect any attention to others involved in this event. People like Andrea Ball, who will be preforming. Organizations like Free The Girls, who is actually collecting and distributing the bras.  Businesses like the Gothic Theater and Cafe 180, where the event is held and who are providing a pay-what-you-can dinner for the event (respectively).  Not to mention, that Jesus is the sole reason for all of this.

TNL is not looking for press. We are not looking to be the center of attention. We are not looking to be seen as cool, progressive or holier-than-thou.  We just want to be a community who seeks to be active in setting wrongs right, dispensing mercy and walking humbly (behind the scenes) with our God. 

Why Would a Church Hold a Bra Drive?

Usually church is a place where you go wearing your "Sunday Best" not a place you go carrying your underwear.  So, why would The Next Level Church partner with Free The Girls to host Denver's Biggest Bra Drive?  Church is no place to talk about "unmentionables," right?

Wrong!

When you think about it, the church is the perfect and most appropriate place to have a bra drive when you understand:

• Pound for pound bras sell for 5 times the cost of other used clothing items in Africa.

• Bras are the number one demanded used clothing item in Africa. When large containers of used clothes arrive in Africa bras are always the first items taken.  Followed second by shoes!

• A women who wear a bra in Africa is seen as having disposable income, a job and being more self reliant.  This makes her less of a target for adbuse and mistreatment.  Simply put, an African women who wears a bras is less liekly to be raped!

This bra drive is about mercy, justice and love. All things the church should be about! With this in mind how could the church not host bras drives all over the US?

“Truly I tell you, whatever you 

did for one of the least of these

 brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."  

-Jesus

What Will Be The Top Religion Stories of 2012?

From the Hunffington Post.  Notice any trends within the trends?:

1. The only American-born world religion will have its first resident in the West Wing, as the American people will send a Republican administration to the White House that includes the country's first Mormon President or Vice-President.

2. The Book of Mormon will be on the New York Times Bestsellers list throughout the Fall '12 campaign.

3. The Chinese government will completely de-criminalize being Christian, seeing this as a necessary step towards their goal of overtaking the USA as the world's top economic superpower.

4. Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims will begin to agree on at least one thing: that the Antichrist is living among us -- as a prominent, deceptive, spiritual man who pretends to bring hope for all of humankind.

5. As Pope Benedict XVI is about to turn 85 years old, there will be rampant speculation within the Catholic Church as to his future, his effectiveness, and whether or not he may retire. Pundits will continue to compare him to Celestine V, the Pope who quit in the 13th century.

6. If a papal election happens by the end of 2012, we may see for the first time a supreme pontiff whose first language is Spanish. The Honduran cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga is a strong possibility.

7. Church and synagogue attendance will drop by a full 10 percent in 2012, after holding steady or seeing slight increases over the previous two years.

8. People will begin to distinguish between attending "brick and mortar" religious services from "virtual" attendance.

9. Ministers, priests and rabbis will begin to embrace virtual ritual and observance. You can always make a minyan on-line.

10. More than 30 million residents of the USA, on average, will attend virtual religious services at least once a week by the end of 2012. Christians will take Communion. Jews will say Kaddish.

11. The spirituality of food will burgeon, just as food shortages begin to spark regional wars and conflicts in parts of the two-thirds world. Articles, books, blogs and conferences will be held by Christians seeking to develop traditions similar to Islam's halal and Judaism's kashrut.

12. One of the world's most popular evangelical Christian preachers will launch a virtual religious service as a new aspect of his weekly electronic ministry.

13. The winter solstice -- Dec, 21, 2012 -- will come and go and the world will not end, despite weeks of intense tabloid speculation that the Mayan calendar, constructed a millennium ago, foretells the apocalypse for that day.

14. The Mayan discussion will be seen as silly by most of us, but will nevertheless fuel a desire in millions of people to re-examine the meaning of life as the Gregorian calendar turns to 2013.

And that at least -- the renewed human desire for meaning -- never changes.

Jesus, Bras and Common Grace

This past December our church (The Next Level Church) was displaced from its regular meeting place.  The church where we gather on Tuesdays was having a women's candle light tea, so we got bumped.  Needing a place to go we hatched a crazy idea of renting the music venue right by our new offices.  Seated it would hold 500, standing a 1000.  But instead of just doing our thing at the Gothic Theater, we decided to partner with a charity.  It seemed self serving to do otherwise.  To make a long story short, the night was a great success.  Not because of the number of people, but because we more than triples our goal of raising $5000 for Charity:Water.

Well, in a few weeks we are getting displaced again and guess where we are going?  You got it, the Gothic. Only this time we are partnering with a organization started within our community, Free the Girls.  Although, this time we are not looking to raise any money.  We are collecting bras.  Yes, you read correctly bras!  5000 bras to be exact.  TNL is hosting Denver's Biggest Bra Dive.

So why is TNL doing this?

Are we trying to look edgy and progressive? No.

Is this a desperate attempt of a church community that has been declining for over a decade? No.

Are we hoping to look cool by jumping on the social justice band wagon? No.

The reasons are simple: People.  Both locally and internationally.

We were not hoping to get more people to come to TNL, because our attendance the week after the last Gothic event was one of the lowest in a long time.  We were not hoping people would give money to TNL because the last Gothic event actually cost us money. Not only did we have to pay to rent the theater, but we did not take an offering that night either.  So, the event actually cost us double!

But our community made some amazing relational connections:

• with the owner of the Gothic.  He was SUPER skeptical of a church using his building. A place where Dimmu Borgir, Gwar and Timbaland  have all played.  But now he thinks we are doing some good work.
• with the Gothic staff. As a staff they have "prayed" against another church in the area.  Now they are promoting our event on their marque, website, Facebook page and in their AD for the Westword.
• with the house production manager. He probably thought he got the sucker's end of the job having to host a "Church" group using his building, until we told him we were doing a beer tasting back at our offices!  He come over for the hand crafted beer by indigenous TNL brewers (Bottom Line Brewery) and stayed until we closed the place down just before midnight!
• with our neighbors.  The quasi retired guy who lives across the street from our offices came last time.
• with our friends, coworker and family. After the last Gothic event we heard story after story about people's atheist, agnostic and non-church going friends, coworker and family who came and supported Charity:Water.

In the end, these events common ground to foster common good and common grace.  They are not just charity fundraisers.But a church community sharing the grace Jesus Christ. They are about people living what they believe to be true about God, mercy and jsutice. And that is why we are doing it all over again.