Category Archives: ministry

The Last Semester

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Today is my last first day of school EVER…probably. Let me clarify what I mean…today is the first day of spring semester at Luther Seminary, where I have been a student since 2006, and from where I will graduate and receive a master’s degree (in Theology & Pop-Culture) this coming Memorial Day weekend. I added the modifier “probably” at the end of the first sentence because I have made that statement once before in life — on my last first day of college — because I never thought I’d go back to school after getting my bachelor’s degree. But the saying goes, “never say never,” and I’d assume that whoever first said that also meant it to mean “never say ever,” since never and ever are often synonymous. I highly doubt I will go back to school again, either for another M.A. or the life-stealing Ph.D, but who knows. Never say (n)ever.

Looking back on my experiences as a seminary student so far, it’s been an interesting personal and educational adventure. Please don’t misunderstand that to mean it has been anything but a positive experience, but there’s been a lot of “stuff” involved beside just going to class and studying. For instance, it was a major life change going from working full-time at a church (and loving my job, for the most part), making decent money (relatively speaking for someone recently out of college and working at a church) and basically feeling comfortable in life (even being able to put money into savings every month) … to being a full-time student (after a three year break from school, a break I thought would last the rest of my life), making basically no money (except the small amount I made as a barista at Caribou–until I quit after only two months, and then the money I made donating plasma for a year–a job that caused my mom and many others to worry about/for me), yet still feeling relatively comfortable in my life (even though I have been stealing from myself by spending the money I put in savings to buy things like rent, gas, and of course macaroni and peanut butter & jelly).

So here I am, about to start my final semester of seminary. Four classes, an independent study and an optional audited course are all that stands between me and a piece of paper stating that I am more intelligent than I was before…supposedly. I have taken some great courses in my three semesters and two J-terms at seminary thus far, but looking at my schedule (and even reading the syllabuses, or is it syllabi? that’s a weird word, huh?) and the courses I’ll be taking over the next four months or so, I think I’m probably more excited about this semester than any of the others. The courses I’m taking sound really interesting, they’re being taught by excellent professors and if I’m able to learn even 53% of the stuff I’m hoping to, it’s going to be a great semester. I’m sure you can count on reading about some of the things I’m studying as the semester goes on, and I actually think that some of my assignments (papers, projects, videos) might end up on here. In fact, the major writing assignment for one of my classes is to create/write a blog in which I “reflect theologically on popular culture.” Done and done.

In case you’re interested, here’s a list of the courses I’m taking along with the things I’m most excited about each…

  • Singleness, Marriage and Family – the focus of this class is to develop a biblical and theological understanding that will allow me to help individuals, couples and families deal with the realities (struggles, joys and everything in between) of life, with some attention given to scientific approaches of counseling.
  • The Spirit, the Church and the Triune God — the final installment of the three core systematic theology courses, the others being “Creation and the Triune God” and “Jesus the Savior and the Triune God” (both of which I’ve already taken). In this Trilogy, there is a course focused on each part of the Trinity, and each studies what theologians throughout history have written about the Father, Son and Spirit; but then the challenge becomes turning that new knowledge into understanding and then practice for ministry and life, which is my favorite part of the class.
  • Proactive Ministry in a Media Culture — this is the course where my blog will temporarily become “homework.” The class is going to focus on issues like media literacy, social networking, religion and violence in media, the shape of education in a media culture, and the question “what is ‘real’ anymore?” We are also going to create two short videos documenting faith stories/journeys as assignments for class. The only negative thing about this class is that it meets on Monday nights during the games for my basketball league.
  • Ministry for the Sake of the World — this course serves as my senior seminar for my degree program, so much of the work will draw on writings and learning from previous courses as I attempt to bring it all together into an explainable vision/mission strategy for transformational ministry with younger people (the MTV generation) in a world influenced by pop-culture. Reading through the syllabus for this course, I was drawn to a sentence stating that the objective of the course is to “utilize a theology of hope as a compass for moving [young adult] ministry out into the world to witness to the Gospel and care for all of God’s creation.” I really like that objective. I also like the writing assignment from this course to pick either a song or a scene from a movie or TV show that has led me to feel something deeply and then (in two pages) explore why I feel the way I do when listening to (or watching) it, and what questions does this song or scene seem to ask me?
  • The Meaning Project: faith & facebook (independent study) — I mentioned this study in a previous post about social networking (I also included a video of Demetri Martin from The Daily Show). Basically, the study is an examination of how things like social networking sites, reality television, music, movies and other “texts” of pop-culture influence the faith and values of college-aged young people (18-22 year olds). To help with the project, I spent two weeks this past summer at a Bible camp interviewing counselors and conducting surveys. There’s no excuse for why I am just now working to finish the study, I guess I’ve just been lazy, but I’m excited to finally focus some time to work on it and see how it turns out.
  • Ethics I (course audit) — I am probably going to attend this class, but most likely won’t do any of the work (which means I also won’t get credit for it, which pretty much defines what it means to “audit” a class). I don’t actually need this class to graduate, but I’ve wanted to take it for a while, and since I’m already taking four classes and doing an independent study, I thought it would be better/easier to just go to class to learn what I could from lectures (and not have the pressure of doing all the reading or writing the papers). About the course, according to the academic catalog, it’s “an overview of various ways that Christians make moral arguments and decisions. The focus is on methods and models important for moral discourse and the relationship of theological ethics and its biblical, historical, and confessional sources to insights from philosophy and other disciplines.”

Well, I should probably stop writing about my classes and actually drive to campus so I’m not late for class.

when faith gets boring

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Being a “Christian” — or whatever name people of Jesus-style faith prefer to call themselves (e.g. “believers” or “followers”) — is not always easy or fun. It gets complicated, difficult and confusing to live “like Jesus,” and at times it just doesn’t seem worth the effort. I know this to be the case because I’ve been a Christian my entire life, and it’s been difficult the whole time. I get annoyed by preachers who teach about Jesus and preach about what it means to be one of his followers by making the Gospel into a rule book and Jesus is the ultimate example that we are supposed to imitate in every way, all the time. Call me a heretic, but I just don’t think that’s how it works, plus it’s not possible. Jesus was God. I believe that to be true. Jesus was a human. I also believe that to be true. Yet just because Jesus knew what it meant to be a human being doesn’t cancel out the fact that the dude was also the Almighty, and so even though he understood the tension we feel living between the temptations to do bad even though we knew we should do good, he was God incarnate, a perfect human who was without sin. Except of course, when he went to the cross to bear the punishment of all our sin (past, present and future); and all those sins were crucified with him–in him–so that we do not have to face the punishment (death) that we deserve.

This is the end of my sermon,

and the beginning of someone else’s.

Vince Antonucci is author of the book I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt (Baker, 2008). The book came out today, but Relevant Magazine ran an excerpt from it a few months ago under the title “When Faith Gets Boring.” I think it’s fantastic and I thought it’d be appropriate to run an excerpt of the excerpt here (an excerpt-squared, as it were). Please take note that any ellipses are my own, so whenever you see dot-dot-dot (or “…”) it means that I skipped over something to shorten what I’m sharing here. You can get a copy of Vince’s book on amazon or read the full excerpt on Relevant. Here’s a little sample…

Excerpt of an excerpt from I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt by Vince Antonucci (Baker, Relevant)

Walking through the front door of a church building [for the first time] was like passing through a portal to a different world. So much was unfamiliar. For the first time I heard about “propitiation,” “puppet ministry” and “potluck suppers.” I stood for “fellowship,” knelt for prayer and sat on a hard wooden bench (which they called a “pew”). I saw more polyester in one morning than I had my entire life. I experienced church snack time, which consisted of little pieces of cracker and small plastic shot glasses of grape juice. A man explained that we would be singing hymns 11, 52, 17 and 63. I almost yelled out, “Bingo!”

But it’s now 17 years later. I’ve gotten married. I have two kids. I’ve gained a few pounds. And I’ve gone from having never walked into a church to having 17 years’ worth of Sundays in church buildings. And with all that experience (not to mention the few extra pounds) under my belt, I can tell you that there is something very familiar about most of the Christians I’ve met. Unfortunately, it’s not that they remind me of the people who populate the pages of Scripture…

But when I look around at Christians today, I see people who just wear a T-shirt for an adventure they’ve missed out on. We’re missing the journey. We’re stuck in the same dull routine. We’re missing out on the joy and fear and laughter and doubt and mystery and confusion of following Jesus, of taking great risks for God, of praying dangerous prayers, even of being spiritually attacked…
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Focus Group Faith: Get paid $500 to go to church!!!

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This may sound like a scam on craigslist, but it’s actually a real ad that The Drew Marshall Show ran last June in the Toronto Star (newspaper). Drew hosts a radio show in Canada and they were trying to recruit participants for what they called “The Five Churches Experiment” (The actual newspaper ad read: “We’ll pay you to go to church! $500 to visit 5 churches!”). What was the catch? In order to be chosen (and paid) to be part of the experiment, applicants had to be “pagan/new age/agnostic/ atheist/whatever… someone with no church background.” Two people were selected for the experiment (one male, one female – they agreed to split the money) and over this past summer, they attended various churches in the Toronto area and then shared their thoughts/reactions on-air (Drew’s radio show) and online (Drew’s blog). In addition to their written summaries of each church, they also evaluated the churches on some categories like the building, friendliness, tunes, preaching and institutional vibe (each category was given a score of 0 to 4, where 0 = Brutal, 1 = Whatever, 2 = Nice Try, 3 = Good On Ya, 4 = WOW!). Canadians are great, eh? To be honest, I haven’t read/listened to everything on this, but I think it’s a really interesting idea for a study. Of particular interest to me where the three reasons they gave for doing it,

  1. to model for the Christian community, healthy dialogue NOT debate.
  2. to provide accurate observations from a real live objective “outsider” to anyone from the Church who might actually be interested.
  3. to provoke discussion in a numb and desensitized culture, begging for authenticity!

If you’d like to read more about this unique experiment, follow these links.

Journey… worship “untucked”

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journey-logo-bw.jpg

For the past few months I’ve been working at a church to help start a new worship service. The service is called Journey and it will meet Sundays at 5 pm starting this Sunday (January 20) at Calvary Lutheran Church of Golden Valley. The pastor for Journey is a friend of mine named Kevin Johnson who is a great speaker and author (look him up on Amazon to check out all the books he’s written), the worship leader is a talented young guy named Ben Hertle (who is also a driver for Simon Delivers) and I’ll be serving as the community director (while continuing my studies at Luther Seminary, until I graduate in May). I’m excited to be working with Kevin and Ben and I believe the three of us bring together a lot of valuable experiences that will enrich the overall ministry of Journey.

If you live in the Minneapolis area and are interested in checking out a refreshingly simple, engaging and authentic worship service, Journey might be a good fit for you and your friends. We’re calling it worship “untucked” because the three of us don’t usually tuck in our shirts, and we think there should be a church where other “untuckers” can come to worship as themselves…so feel free to wear your best jeans and t-shirt if that’s your style, or if you feel more comfortable dressing up for church, that’s fine too. Journey is not just for young adults — there are no age restrictions — although the style of music and messages will probably connect with people in their younger adult years. Journey is for people who are seeking relevant expressions of faith and real experiences with God in and through a worship community that is rooted in Jesus Christ.

If you’d like more information (including directions) you can go to the Journey webpage or just come check it out on Sundays at 5 pm starting January 20 (note: Journey will meet at 3 pm on Super Bowl Sunday, February 3).

Tom goes to Africa (my dad’s blog)

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My dad is currently living in Africa. Not permanently, but he is living in Tanzania for the next three months to partner with Tumaini University – a Lutheran University in Iringa – and the Iringa Diocese to help them fine-tune their administrative procedures and do long-range planning. In the states, he is a philanthropic advisor (development/fundraising) at Luther Seminary, he is also an ordained Lutheran pastor and a former college president; and it is because of his experiences in both academic and ministry settings that he was asked to help the Lutheran church in Tanzania. As a way of sharing some of his experiences during his time in Iringa, he is writing a blog called “Tom goes to Africa.” He has only written two entries so far (he just got there last week), but it has been fun to read what he has been doing so far. For instance, he visited a church in a nearby village this morning and during worship there was an unexpected surprise. Here’s the story in his words,

During the singing of one of the choir anthems, I heard a chicken clucking loudly. I thought there must be a chicken pen just outside the open window. When the offering was taken, I realized that someone brought the chicken to church to give in the offering. The chicken, along with the rest of the offering, was brought to the altar and placed beside those of us seated there. It was well behaved. After the service, all non-cash gifts given during the offering were auctioned off in the sanctuary. Not only was the chicken well behaved, but must have been very good, because it fetched $3.50. We were told later that the one auctioned in the Cathedral in Iringa only went for $1.00.

Someone brought a chicken to church to give for offering…how funny is that? I attended a suburban mega-church this morning and I’m imagining how people (including me) would react if someone brought a live farm animal to give as their offering. Looking past the humor of the situation, how powerful a witness is it when you realize that the person who gave that chicken might not have had any money to give; but they did have a chicken (a “well-behaved” chicken!) and giving that chicken as their offering was probably a great sacrifice to the person and their family since it most likely provided them with eggs and, eventually, meat. Still they chose to give it as an offering of thanks anyway. It reminds me of the story of the widow’s offering found in Mark 12:41-44 (also Luke 21:1-4). Here’s the story from Mark’s gospel,

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

Mark 12:41-44 (NIV)

I am excited for my dad that he has this wonderful opportunity (and proud of him for doing it), but I am sad for me and my family (especially my mom) because we are going to miss him. My mom is going to visit him for a few weeks at the end of his time there, but aside from the emails and occasional phone calls I get from him, I will have no contact with him until he comes home at the end of March. I am thankful for the innovations in technology-communication that allow me to have even this limited contact with him while he is on the other side of the ocean, but I am also thankful for my dad’s ability to understand enough about technology that he is brave enough to write a blog so that others (not just me and my family) can learn from his experiences. Selfishly, I’d like to ask you to pray for my dad, the people he is working with and their efforts to provide quality education for the people of Iringa; and I invite you to read along as Tom goes to Africa.

A few final observations from my dad on his first week (especially his first Sunday at church) in Tanzania…

Men sat on one side and women on the other, for the most part.
Liturgical dance is alive and well in Kilolo – there was dancing during every choir anthem.
God can sing louder, even than a great African choir. Even though it thundered and rained on the metal roof repeatedly during the worship, the the pastor just went on, without the aid of a microphone.
Time was suspended for one day. All that mattered was that the people were together worshipping God.
I have yet to see anyone using a cell phone while driving a car.
I’ve only seen about five people smoking cigarettes any time during this first week.
It would be impossible to be on a low carb diet here.

If you somehow missed the first two links to his blog, click here to read it.

Media in church: good or bad?

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Does your church use video or other media tools to enhance the “worship experience?” Throughout the last five to ten years churches have been in a mad rush to install or update the technology in their sanctuaries and worship spaces. Projectors, screens, lighting and sound systems are all part of the new church media world, but are all these media options – no matter how cool and seamless they appear – helping or hurting the church’s ability to communicate the gospel message? This summer, FaithVisuals.com ran a conversation series on how visual media influences people, as both church-attending Christians and ordinary human beings living in today’s world. The two-part chat featured Shane Hipps, author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Church. The people from Out of Ur (the blog companion to LeadershipJournal) got permission to put the two-part conversation on their site. Regardless of whether you live and/or work inside the church/ministry world, think the use of media in church is God-ordained or straight from the devil, or even if you haven’t formed an opinion yet…I think this is worth a quick read. Here are the links,

  • Is Video Technology in Church Manipulative: The unintended consequences of using visual media in ministry (part 1)
  • The Ever-Changing Message: How visual technology always impacts what we preach (part 2)

texting at church

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I was sitting in church a few years ago when the pastor started his sermon with a series of questions, inviting the people in the pews to raise their hand if their answer was “yes.” Do you bring your cell phone to church? Nearly everyone’s hand went up. Do you leave your phone on during church? About the same amount of hands were raised. Do you ever use your phone to text? Quite a few hands went up, mostly the younger people in the crowd. (Remember, this was a few years ago when texting was not as common). The last question… Have you sent or received a text since the service started tonight? A scattering of hands went up throughout the sanctuary, although not as straight-armed as before, followed by some embarrassed yet honest laughter (the kind of laughter you have after being exposed for something that isn’t all that bad, but you still didn’t want everyone to know about it…especially not everyone at church). Although I can’t actually remember what the pastor went on to talk about – come to think of it, I’m not really sure if I went to church that night or if a friend told me about it later – but I’m sure the point he was hoping to make as an introduction to his sermon was made.

Text messaging is a fascinating thing to me, not so much that it exists or that people use it as a form of communication, but that there is such disparity between who does it and how often. I have spent several hours of my life “teaching” my mom how to use different kinds of technology, including how to text. I put the word teaching in quotes because teaching usually implies a person learns something and then has the ability to use the skills and/or information that has been learned. While my mom has “learned” how to read and sent texts, her understanding is quite limited and it has an incredible way of disappearing without warning; meaning that I will inevitably be asked to re-teach her, so the teaching and learning moves in cycles. I find myself getting frustrated by this, but I realize it’s just a glaring example of a generation gap. When it comes to technology, I speak a different language than my mom, and as a result, I see things in a different way than she does. My mom’s phone bill probably includes about 5 text messages per month. In comparison, my plan includes 400 texts per month. I had dinner with some friends last week and they shared that their teenage daughter sent and received a total of 3,500 texts last month (thankfully, she has unlimited texting). [Note: I verified this total with my friend and it turns out that his daughter's highest monthly text total is actually 5,300...wow!]

In today’s digital world, it has often been said that people are either natives or immigrants*, of course, we all know who the natives are (the young people) and we can distinguish them quite easily from the immigrants (the not so young people). While many of today’s church and business leaders are natural born immigrants, some are attempting to learn a new language (become natives). For instance, Leith Anderson, pastor of mega-church Wooddale in Eden Prairie, Minnesota – and known for his national radio ministry Faith Matters – was recently interviewed by Leadership Journal (the article is titled “Is Powerpoint Fading?”). As a veteran pastor, Anderson offers an experienced perspective on preaching and the ways he believes technology can both help and hurt the communication of the message. Borrowing from Aristotle’s classical teaching that there are three necessary elements of effective communication – word/truth (logos), passion (pathos) and character (ethos) – Anderson clearly states that “The best communicating is done by a person of good character, well spoken, telling the truth.” The relationship between media and the church is an interesting and tricky one, and this article sheds light on just a few of the issues that pastors and church leaders will be forced to face for a long time. If you’d like to read the full interview with Leith Anderson—including an innovative example from Wooddale about inviting congregants to text message their questions following a sermon and then putting their questions on the screens—click here.

* There is some controversy over who first used and/or popularized the terms “native” and “immigrant” in reference to individuals in our modern digital world, but from my limited research, it seems Marc Prensky is at least one of the front-runners. For an interesting analysis on the origin of these terms, read this post from Prensky’s blog.