The Bible/Book/Best Marketing Story Ever Told?

Posted on October 29, 2008

Ever feel uncomfortable carrying your leather Bible around? Now you don’t have to. The Book is a glossy, magazine-style version of the New testament filled with modern images to illuminate the ancient text. Everything from Coca-cola to Angelina Jolie, all in your New testament–the Good News translation or TEV.

Dag Soderberg, former marketing guru and former CEO of one of the largest advertising firms in Scandinavia, is the visionary behind this project. Soderberg says the aim of this edgy Bible is to get non-readers to read the Bible. He notes that the text is more powerful than the church. Is there agenda? They claim no agenda and write:

“The goal is to drive an emotional reaction and get people to think, discuss and share. It’s meant to trigger bigger moral questions. It in turn will help people to understand the common heritage between all religions through the Bible’s text. We hope people will find the images, design and layout intriguing—intriguing enough to talk about the actual stories in the Bible and what the morals and lessons mean to them and to each other.“

Ten percent of Stockholm turned out for the release of The Book. Bible sales in Sweden increased by 50%. Director of Marketing for The Book points out that “smart, educated, urban influencers, young, who know in their heart of hearts that they should probably have read the Bible but never have.”

It appears that Soderberg’s impetus isn’t evangelism; it’s moralism and education. To discuss and learn the morals of the Bible, to learn our history, to be touched by its message. Other literary texts are scheduled to undergo similar publication. Will you be picking up a copy?

You can preview The Book here and order it from Amazon and read an NPR interview here.

Fresh Stats for Mission in America

Posted on October 29, 2008

The following stats on church in American are culled from The American Church Research Project, which is endorsed by the Lausanne Movement and led by David T. Olson.

  • According to George Barna, 47% of American adults attended church on a typical weekend in 2005. This is not accurate. Only 17% of the US population attended an orthodox Christian church in 2007. Nine percent of that is evangelical church attendance. The rest is Roman Catholic and Mainline attendance. Of course, church attendance does not account for all believers, but these figures are staggering nonetheless.
  • While the US population has increased, church attendance has remained the same, resulting in a net loss of church attendees. Numbers from actual counts of people in orthodox Christian churches show that 20.4% of the population attended church on any given weekend in 1990. That percentage dropped to 18.7% in 2000, and to 17.0% in 2007.
  • Evangelical church growth slowed down significantly in the last year – from an average growth throughout this decade of 0.8%, to a gain of only 0.3% in the last year.
  • More Catholics and Mainliner are switching to Evangelical churches than vice versa, meaning that Evangelical growth through the conversion of the unchurched is limited.
  • The church plant rate declined until 1937, then grew until it had doubled by 1957. Then it entered a period of steep decline from 1957-1970, reaching the lowest point in history. Since then it has increased marginally. Many, many more churches need to be planted in the U.S, just to keep up with population growth. These statistics also show that the strongest ratio of church attendance is in the South. Two thousand five hundred additional new churches are needed per year to keep up with population growth.

For more info go to www.theamericanchurch.org or download this presentation.

Increase the Community in Missional Community

Posted on October 28, 2008

I sat down with Nate Navarro (a minister at ACL) this morning to discuss how we can improve the health of our City Groups (what we call missional communities). We focused on the three main areas of City Groups–Gospel, Community, and Misson. Most of the time was spent discussing Community. Here are a few things we came up with:

  1. Share your community building stories with others, leaders and other Christians.
  2. Cast vision for steady state community every week. Rehearse the four practices of City Groups every time: SHARE life and truth, PRAY for one another and the city, ENGAGE peoples and cultures, LOVE one another. Deconstruct notions of the CG being a Bible Study or Community group.
  3. Encourage families to serve as a kind of community anchor. Singles and young adults gravitate to families because they are more flexible in schedule and lack that family influence. Key families in City Groups can cultivate more community by having an open door, open dinner policy.
  4. Leader availability makes all the difference in promoting steady state community. If the leader is inaccessible during the week and weekend, it will inhibit steady state community. If he/she are available and having people over all the time, it makes a big difference.
  5. Create space for social connectivity apart from the weekly CG meeting and mission. Meeting for two or three hours a week is not Christian community. We have to be creative and committed to loving, serving, and enjoying one another throughout the week. Throw parties and invite neighbors.

Take away quote from Nate: “Our people are two beer people. Solid.”

Wisdom for Beginning Planters

Posted on October 28, 2008

Some things to keep in mind as you begin planting, especially if you are bivocational:

  • Continually ask the Spirit to help you adorn the gospel of Christ in the workplace and the church. What happens at work doesn’t stay at work. The whole gospel should affect the whole of your life. Work should be mission. Labor to close the gap between the sacred and the secular. Make notes of pastoral insights on how to bring the whole gospel into the workplace.
  • Continually ask the Spirit to give you great discernment in where to focus your precious time. There will be a ton of things you can do in the early stages of church planting. You shouldn’t do all of it. Make lists and prioritize. Separate the immediate from the distant. A detailed five-year plan for the church shouldn’t be at the top. It will all change in the first year anyway!
  • Do not compromise your own communion with God for the “growth” of the church. Don’t rely on the fumes of gospel ministry to minister the gospel. Rather, continually delight yourself in the God of the gospel in order to proclaim and incarnate the gospel of God.
  • Do not compromise your family life (devotions, hang time, dates) in order plant the church. If managing your own household is a qualification to be a pastor (1 Tim 3), your marriage to be a public display of the gospel (Eph 5), and your children eternal souls, then don’t diminish the gospel by neglecting your family for email, blogs, books, meetings, and so on.
  • Don’t try to plant a church of 250 or whatever number suits your fancy. Too many guys think they need a #2 by the time they get 25 people because they are trying to be a church of 200. Because they are visionaries, they want to bring the future into the present. Not everything in the future needs to be in the present. As an early stage planter, you have the privilege of focusing on things on a small scale. Focus on the essentials of Gospel, Community, and Mission. Be simple, faithful.
  • Allow bivocational tension to press you into deeper prayer, not overworking. In the sovereignty of God you are where you are. More than anything he wants the challenges of planting to press you deeper into communion with him and intercession for the church and the city. Don’t replace prayer with overworking.
  • Fundraise like a madman if you haven’t. You can relieve the financial stress by fundraising. Target non-profits and private donors. Be able to articulate your vision in 60 seconds. Have several ways of explaining your vision for several different audiences (buisnessman, potential core team member, unbeliever). Darrin Patrick raised 200,000 before planting The Journey. Fundraise in community. Get your core team to do artwork on a brochure, stuff envelopes, mail to their contacts. Multiply your potential donors by spreading the love.