Change Without Compromise, part 2

If you look through the comments on my "emerging theory" blog, you'll find this:

I was just searching the net and found your blog entry about the conference at NorthRidge. I would love to hear more of your thoughts regarding the conference: delivery, message, and content. Was it practical/applicable or was it simply informational for you?

It was posted by Scott - a man I don't know in any way at all. Just so we're clear, Scott is a complete stranger to me (as far as I know). But he asked a very good question, and I thought I'd answer it. My previous post ("Change Without Compromise") addressed it in some ways, but I'll try to stay to the parameters Scott set forth...

Delivery: Change Without Compromise was delivered almost exclusively by Brad Powell. Brad is a very effective communicator. He is passionate, genuine, articulate and engaging. It would be very hard to critique Brad as a speaker. Someone older than I might say he was too sarcastic at times, but not those of my generation.

He's clearly making an attempt to look young and therefore "relevant" to culture, which I admit did bother me some. From his hair style to his clothing choices, he seemed just a small bit like he was trying too hard. Like most postmoderns, my radar for "poser" is on the hyper-sensitive setting, so maybe I'm being too hard on him...

Message: Brad's message is a fine one - sometimes churches simply must change. In fact, Brad would argue, all churches must be always changing to be "relevant" to the culture. Here I disagree, but more on that later.

As for the "sometimes you just have to change" message, he's absolutely right. Far too many of our American churches look like museums of the 1950s. They are completely uncomfortable, completely irrelevant, completely unacceptable - frankly - to the vast majority of Americans. And change is HARD, another message that Brad knows from deep and painful experience. He encouraged everyone at the conference to pursue the necessary changes as if "playing to an audience of One" - which is precisely what we should all be doing.

The steps he offered and the advice he gave for implementing change were often spot-on, I think. He affirmed for me some theories of change I'd studied, but also offered a level of personal experience I hadn't encountered before. I found myself genuinely infected by his "if we could change, you can change" mantra. Rarely has a church faced such an uphill battle as Temple Baptist (now NorthRidge). While I might not whole-heartedly endorse where they are now, it's certainly a vastly better place than where they were.

Content: The content of the conference was pretty much a long series of group sessions led by Brad, centered around the fundamental message of change (without compromising Biblical truth - an emphasis I really appreciated). But, as I mentioned above, some of the particulars I had a hard time with:

All churches must be always changing to be "relevant" to the culture: Not true, folks. In a word, here's why: multi-generationalism. If we foster multi-generational churches, we will have various people "in house", as it were, that are relevant to other like them by default. Want to be relevant to 70 year olds? Have some 70 years olds in your church. How about skater kids? Have some in your church. 40-something businessmen? Have some in your church. Authentic community fosters authentic relevance. The truth is that attractional model churches live by this truth and don't even know it - they've created an artificial environment that is "relevant" to only one slice of culture (primarily upper-middle class white suburbia) . And they wonder why they can't reach postmoderns!

Excellence honors God and inspires people: Wrong again. Excellence can honour God, but it can also be fake, or at least look fake. Excellence can inspire people, but it can also intimidate them or give them a "watch and see" (while the "excellent" do their thing) mentality. God desires our best, not our excellence. If your best is singing a bit off key, go for it! But Brad boldly declared that we shouldn't let such a person sing before the congregation - ever! He literally posed the age-old situation: what if aunt Sally tells you she's "got a song in [her] soul" and wants to let it out? Brad's answer? Tell her "good, but keep it there" because none of us want to hear it. I seriously almost cried during the conference at this point...

Our competition is bars and malls and restaurants and such, so we must look as good or better than them: Again, wrong. Our "competition" is sin and the sin nature and the Devil. Maybe add materialism and sex to the list too. In short, our competition is Darkness, and we have the Light. But we are in no serious way "competing" with the shiny temples of American consumerism, are we? Is it any wonder that Attractional models seem to only attract people who would otherwise spend their Sundays at these shiny temples of American consumerism? Oh wait, don't Attractional models often at least look like shiny temples of American consumerism? Yes, friends, they do and they often are.

So once again, I find myself arriving at the same place. Attractional model churches (including NorthRidge) seem very good at evangelizing, especially a specific demographic (that happens to be ginormous in America right now - Boomers). But they seem inherently designed to stifle authentic community, without which they will never reach the coming postmodern wave.

I hope that helps, Scott.

Hatushili