Tag: Church

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Hybrid Church is here to stay

In my last post, I talked at some extent to what is commonly known as the hybrid homeschool model approach to education. This is the route I think many public schools across our land will end up taking. But hybrid models aren’t only for schools or businesses. They’re also for churches!

Having previously worked in a private school, I became accustomed to teaching via Google classroom and using other technology to educate my students. But at that time, I understood that not everyone wanted to embrace social media or technology. What COVID-19 has done is force many in the older generations to embrace these outlets while forcing many in the younger generations to learn both people and life skills.

The same is true in ministry. Staff who ministered on the platform have had to learn how to minister pastorally. Staff who ministered pastorally have had to learn how to shepherd online. And staff who were the tech experts have had to learn how to educate both platform and pastoral staff and everyone else in between. Data is gold is so is anyone who was an online pastor before the coronavirus hit.

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has said that how leaders treat those in their organization now will define their organization’s brand ten years from now. I couldn’t agree more. A pandemic is no reason to stop ministering. Preaching, teaching, small groups, family ministry, discipleship, worship, etc. must go on! Yes, we may have to alter our approach and do ministry in a different way, but if that is what works, it beats the alternative of not working at all.

We can and must go back to doing old school ministry. Remember those cards, phone calls, and signs in the yard. But, we must also do new school ministry or ministry done in a way “that’s never been done like that before.” In times like these, hybrid ministry is the only solution that works. Hybrid church is the only way to go!

Every church and ministry has a plan for how they are going to re-open (or they should if they don’t) and that is a good thing! Let’s just make sure our plans are proactive and not reactive. For example, next gen leaders, you don’t have to wait on your city or county’s board of education to make a decision before you decide what your ministry ought to do. In an optimal world, it should work both ways. The school can learn from the church and the church can learn from the school. Many churches will be up and running before schools are. It just depends on which region of the country you’re in. What I am saying is that in some places, the church bus can be rolling out before the school bus. You don’t always have to wait to see the “big yellow fellow” (the school bus) rolling and students sitting in their classroom desks before thinking it is ok for your students to come back to church and or go out somewhere.

While many summer camps and vacation bible schools have been cancelled, don’t sit and sulk about what could have been. Be innovative. Do now what you always wanted to try. Give it a shot! Who knows – it might just work! There’s no better time than the present. The reward is worth the risk. And find out what else might be out there! Here is one such online opportunity and there are many others. This may just be next gen’s finest hour! When parents become the primary disciple makers of their children and where this Summer becomes “a summer of outreach” to your local community. Who says the hybrid church can’t make a difference?

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Creatures of Habit

Experts say it takes 30 days of doing something over and over before it becomes a habit. For example, if you stop going to church for 30 days, you have made a habit of not going to church. If you work remotely for 30 straight days, you have made a habit of working remotely. The Coronavirus is forcing our hand and making us change many of our habits.

Habits are powerful forces of nature because they have the ability to affect our lives without us even thinking about them. We get in the habit of turning off our alarm clock in the morning, brushing our teeth, and pouring a cup of coffee. Before long, we don’t think about doing these things. We just do them while we think about doing other things. It’s kind of like perfecting an art such as playing a piano or dribbling a basketball. After hours and hours of practice, the drill becomes routine.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes that relate to habits. A body builder by the name of Rocky Detwiler says,

“Your thoughts become your words.
Your words become your actions.
Your actions become your habits.
Your habits become your lifestyle.”
(original quote says “Your habits become your character. Your character becomes your destiny.”)

Business expert Jon Gordon says, “Culture drives expectations and beliefs. Expectations and beliefs drive behaviors. Behaviors drive habits. Habits drive the future.”

But the quote I love best about habits comes from the Bible. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

In other words, go to church! Make it a habit. But what if I told you these verses weren’t primarily about going to church. What if I told you these verses were about God’s people drawing near to Jesus by being the church (v. 22). Church isn’t a place to go. It’s a people to be. That’s why v. 24-25 talks about love, good works, and encouraging others. These are the things we have to work at, to make a habit of, not just getting out of bed on a Sunday morning and stumbling our way to church. Church isn’t something you do. It’s something you are.

Church isn’t a play, a practice, or a performance. It’s a people connecting with God and with each other through His Son Jesus Christ! And this can happen anywhere! This can certainly happen in a church building but it can just as certain happen online in digital community. Will it be different? Yes. Will it be better? That may depend on what age bracket you talk to. What’s important is that we make it a practice, a habit of meeting together, whether that’s in digital small groups or in Sunday School.

I remember an old Baptist preacher telling me we drive our cars to church and park in the same parking spot every week only to go in the church and sit on the same pew every week (at some churches, it may be listening to the same sermon every week, but I won’t go there, LOL). For some church folks, the Coronavirus could be a good thing in that it makes them think theologically about what the Bible says a church is (we call this ecclesiology). It’s good to park in a different spot. It’s good to sit in a different pew. Why? Because where you park and where you sit at church has nothing to do with cultivating the habits that Hebrews 10:24-25 speak of. As a good friend of mine says, “let’s stop doing church and start being the church.”

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Legacy

Legacy or Legend?

Buzzwords come and go but the buzzword being heard in the church today is the word legacy. Legacy is an important word in next generation ministry (NGM) because of the command for parents to hand down the faith that they have been entrusted with to their children and to their children’s children (Deut 6:1–9; 2 Tim 1:5, 14). The faith must be passed onto the next generation if the church is going to thrive. Churches and families partner together in the process of passing down the faith to the generations that succeed them. The by-product of parents and leaders successfully handing off the baton of faith is the creation or continuance of a spiritual legacy. It is more important for next generation parents and leaders to possess a spiritual legacy than it is to be a world-renowned legend.

NGM is a very progressive model of ministry and is future-oriented in that its advocates are always standing high and looking out over the horizons to see what lies ahead. However, there is some danger in this trail-blazing approach if balance is not kept in proper perspective. Our natural tendency is to look ahead when we think about passing on our faith to the next generation. After all, our thoughts are on the next generation. However, what we cannot forget is the spiritual legacy from saints past that precede us and has brought us to this point in time: Abraham, Jacob, Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, the prophets, the apostles, and the list goes on.

Because of my conviction to value the faith of my predecessors, I recently made a lifetime investment. I was offered a special deal by Lifeway to buy a total of nineteen books written by spiritual giants of the faith from ages past. Here is the ad that sold me on making the buy:

The voices that shaped your faith in an exclusive collector’s edition to read and pass down for generations to come

Augustine. Bunyan. Chesterton. Edwards. Luther. Murray. Spurgeon. Wesley.  

The Legacy of Faith Library guards the good deposit handed down by champions of the faith whose messages are as applicable today as the time in which they were written. This contemporary collection of the classic texts preserves the author’s words while presenting them in custom bound, leather editions with gilded edges, ribbon markers, and a careful typesetting to guide and enhance your reading experience.

The eight-volume set includes a total of nineteen books and is presented in a handcrafted, mahogany cradle designed to display this one-of-a-kind collector’s edition.

We need the witness of the Church.

We need to hear the voices of those in the past to be faithful in the present. We need to remember stories of heroism under trial—Augustine defending Christianity against its pagan critics and Luther standing before the Roman Catholic magisterium. We need to defend the faith with the wit of Chesterton and the humility of Andrew Murray. We need to embrace Jonathan Edwards’ all-surpassing vision of the beauty of God and John Wesley’s evangelistic urgency. We need to recapture Charles Spurgeon’s ability to proclaim the liberating power of the gospel and John Bunyan’s ability to make these truths accessible even to children.

Church history is important! We have a lot to learn from the Christ-followers who came before us. As I begin reading these books, I plan to include excerpts from the books on this blog. I think it is very important that we highlight the past as we continue to forge new paths in the future. In doing so, our legacy as next generation parents and leaders will only be that much stronger!