I still get a newsletter and updates from a church back home in Killeen that I have’t attended in over 8 years — how do they keep finding me??  I’m to lazy to tell them that I’m not coming back haha.  Anyway, recently I got a letter from the pastor of this church that disturbed me a bit.  Some background; the church was pretty much dying, and apparently there was some inner turmoil about the time that this new pastor took charge.  They have nearly twice the number of members than active attenders and were struggling to make ends meet which resulted in the sale of their south campus building.  They have an aging downtown facility which they claim is outdated and will not provide for future growth so they are selling the current facility and building a new bigger and better one soon.  They just kicked off their capital campaign which was the topic of the most recent letter.  In it, the pastor stated:

“Our new facilities will give our church family the space for meaningful worship, Christian education, fellowship, and recreation.  We will have a greater opportunity to share in ministry, outreach, missions, and to invite others to Christ and His church.”

My question, and what I take issue with, is this — can a building influence worship?  Or, SHOULD a building influence worship?  I just don’t buy the tired excuses “I can’t worship to that style of music” or “I can’t get into worship sitting in a pew”.  I think that line of thinking results from a misunderstanding of what worship truly is.  Christian culture has (in my opinion) done a great job of narrowly focusing the definition of worship to what we do on Sunday morning before the sermon.  Terms like, “worship leader” and “worship music” and even “worship service” seem to place more emphasis on the event than on the act or art of worship.

If you cannot worship in an environment, the environment is not the problem; it’s a heart issue.  I cannot imagine “because the drums were too loud” being a valid excuse when Christ asks why we did not worship Him.  “The service was too crowded” doesn’t cut it either.  We are called to worship in spirit and in truth — that call is not environment dependent.

This was in the Communities in Schools North Texas (CISNT) chapter newsletter which went out to over a thousand volunteers, teachers and others who invest time and resources into this non-profit organization that has no religious affiliation.

More than 200 mentors prepared to start helping kids.

Following a huge investment of sweat equity in CISNT families and programs over the summer, The Village Church (Highland Village and Denton) challenged members to give more by investing an hour a week in the life of an at-risk student in their community as a mentor. The congregation accepted that challenge, and on Sunday, October 14th more than 200 individuals attended a CISNT volunteer orientation and mentor training at The Village Church campus in Denton.

The depth of this partnership is exactly what is needed to truly impact students and make lasting change in the community. Thank you to The Village Church leadership for their trust in Communities In Schools of North Texas, and especially to the individuals who are willing to give so much of themselves as mentors to at-risk students.

CISNT has about 1000 volunteers at the various public schools they are involved in and they said that this was the largest group of volunteers they ever trained at a single time! What I see happening here is not that we got 200 church members to participate in a program helping students. I see hearts of men and women being stirred in a way that leads to action — this stirring is only done by the Spirit, not a convincing pastor or staff. I’m not living in some pipe dream either and I know that a lot of people volunteered for other reasons but as a whole I see our church being a place where the Spirit is pulling on the hearts of men and women until they act.

On a similar note, we’re buying an Albertsons! Well, a building that was recently an Albertsons. The price tag was 4 million of which we’ve raised 3.3 million in about 2 months. No sermon series on giving or clever campaigns — again, the Spirit moving hearts into action. Matt and the elders want to pay cash for the building which means we’ve got to raise the other 700,000 before they close on the property. Soooo, if you’ve got some loose change or a few grand laying around feel free to make a donation

It’s exciting times at the Village Church; we’re looking forward to what God will do next.

I got to hear Eric Mason from Epiphany Fellowship preach tonight (he’s filling in for Matt this week while he’s in Asia) – he brought it. He preached on brokenness, which I don’t think anybody can really get enough of. What really got me thinking – aside from his sermon – was the mission of Epiphany Fellowship: to reach the Hip Hop generation. He described this generation as one who since birth has been exposed if not engulfed in the hip hop culture. This made me wonder, are we (the Church) just selling a brand of name or are we reaching people where they are at with the Gospel? Are we engaging culture or just trying to make “them” more like “us”? A guy in my home group that used to go to Fellowship Church was telling me about their Miami, FL church plant and how it wasn’t going over very well. They are trying to push alternative rock, white American contemporary Christianity to a culture that sees no relevance in our tight fitting rock-star jeans.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
…
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. – Acts 17: 16-17; 22-23

To engage a culture you have to get in it, walk around, get to know it. Maybe it means hanging out with the guys from work instead of going to ANOTHER bible study. Maybe it means joining a non Christian group in college (and not lamenting over how pagan they are). Maybe it means loving our neighbor IN their neighborhood.