The Next-Wave » Dan Kimball

Should the Church Accountant be the One Called the Worship Pastor? By Dan Kimball

publisher — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 02:23:48 +0000

The title of this article and question that I ask is not one I am totally serious about – and not really suggesting we actually do call the accountant the worship pastor. But I do have the question of how we have overwhelmingly defined “worship” to primarily be music and singing.

I have become very aware of the power of words—and the power of defining words. In the Christian culture we have created I don’t believe we can ever assume anymore when we say the terms “gospel”, “Jesus”, “salvation”, “inspired”, ”evangelical”, “evangelism”, “missional” etc. we all mean the same thing. I have learned (and sometimes the hard way) that you need to be asking definitions of terms with specific meaning to understand how someone else uses a term that may differ from your definition.

One of these terms is “worship”.

If you were to ask most teenagers and young adults what comes to their minds when they hear the word “worship” it will likely be singing. I understand why they do, as we have pretty much defined worship to them over the past 20 years or more as worship = singing. Now it is totally true that we worship as we sing. But that is only one aspect of worship. We have subtly taught (in my opinion) a reductionist view of worship limiting it primarily to music and singing as what defines the word and practice.

I try to pay attention to reasons why we define worship mainly as music these days. And it is not too difficult to discover. What do we call the person in a church who leads the band or singing? It is normally the “worship pastor” or “worship leader”. When our music leaders say, “Let’s now worship,” that is when the singing begins. When a sermon begins or when the offering is received we often don’t say “”Let’s now worship” like we do when the singing starts. When we think of Sunday gatherings of the church and when does worship happen, we generally think of the singing – not the teaching or the sacrifice of people who are worshiping by volunteering time in the children’s ministry or other things happening. You look the Christian albums and as we call them “Best of Worship” or “Worship Greatest Hits” that reinforce the idea that music is the primary—or even only—form of worship. I just read on a Facebook post how a group was bringing in a guest person to “lead worship” and of course this guest person was a musician. We constantly, constantly reinforce by how we use that word casually all the time that it primarily means music and singing.

I recently attended a college-age gathering, and after the time of musical worship ended (I personally try to always say “musical worship” ), the person up front who announced that the offering would be taken referred to it as a time of sacrifice as we give our finances as an act of worship. The word sacrifice really stood out to me as being defined with worship.

I also fully am aware that there are times when “worship” occurred without any actual physical sacrifice. but when you study the whole of the Bible, you will see that worship so often involved the sacrifice of something. Romans 12:1-2, after the first 11 chapters teach on the act of Jesus and His sacrifice for us, tells us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices.” This kind of sacrifice includes all areas of our lives, and it is costly. We choose to refrain from something we may otherwise want to but is could be sin, so we sacrifice aligning ourselves our ways to God’s ways. The Old Testament was filled with times of coming to worship and sacrificing something. Generally something that was costly with animals or grains – as it showed that worship was a sacrifice of something worth something to the worshiper, but offers it back to God who owns everything anyway. You read in 2 Samuel 24:24 “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”

What is intriguing is that as we primarily define worship as singing, in terms of sacrifice – singing doesn’t cost us too much. We mentally and emotionally bring ascent to our thoughts as we sing and focus on God. But we aren’t really sacrificing something. Are we? Maybe I am wrong and would love to hear other thoughts. But it is pretty easy to come into a room and sit and then “worship” by singing (which is worship). I am super glad in our church we have worship times of singing. So I am not saying at all that I don’t thoroughly believe we worship in major ways as we sing. But what I am saying is that worship through singing doesn’t involve much sacrifice or cost us. It is probably one of the least sacrificial ways we do worship. Worship it is of course when we sing. But I can’t say it is too much sacrificial worship.

As you look at sacrificial worship, in today’s world what are the two most sacrificial things that do cost us something as we worship? It seems to be our time and most of all, our finances.

At the college-age gathering I attended, I watched the bags being passed around for the offering, and maybe one out of every 20 people put anything at all in the offering bags. I fully understand that people give online, and people may give bi-weekly or monthly, so this isn’t an accurate representation of how much actually was given that morning. Still, this interesting to watch response to the request for financial sacrifice served to illustrate how easy it is for us to worship God when all that is required is singing a few songs, and how difficult it is for us to worship God by giving financially or giving up some of our precious time.

In hyperbole way, I have been thinking about why we use the title of “worship pastor” or “worship leader” to designate the person who leads an area of worship that doesn’t cost us to much to participate in with our singing songs. So why don’t we switch the title to the person who does lead or oversee the area that people generally sacrifice the most – is finances – so shouldn’t the title of “worship pastor” or “worship leader” be the person who oversees the finances of the church? Usually the church accountant. Isn’t that person the one who truly oversees the most sacrificial worship of the people of the church, not the person who leads the music when people sing?

Now in our church, we don’t do this. Our bookkeeper is called the bookkeeper. It would be confusing calling the accountant the “worship leader”. We actually try not to use too many titles for people and on our bulletin we don’t even distinguish between paid staff and key volunteer leaders in our church leading major areas of ministry.

But I am curious about whether anyone also has thought of this? Whether we unintentionally have reduced the power and true meaning of the word worship by generally assigning the title to the person who leads the music? Have we incorrectly and unintentionally taught youth, young adults to think of worship primarily as singing by how we title roles and use the term? Try listening in your church gatherings to how the word is used during the gathering. I know in our church we try our best to always say what aspect of worship we are doing. “Let’s now worship God as we sing” “We are now receiving our sacrificial worship of giving finances” etc. Even on our actual offering envelope it says “Sacrificial Worship” instead of just giving or offering. Try paying attention to how you generally see the word “worship” used in the Christian world in general. It is fascinating. Words matter. Definitions matter.

Dan Kimball is the author of numerous books, including They Like Jesus But Not the Church. He is also the pastor of Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California. This article originally appeared on his blog – www.dankimball.com. He is part of the creative team launching the Origins Project.

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Review: Erasing Hell By Francis Chan – An Important Book and Topic By Dan Kimball

publisher — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:38:41 +0000

Yesterday I got to hang out with Francis Chan as we are 1-hour-and-15-minute away neighbors now. He moved up to the San Francisco area and I am down in the small but wonderful village of Santa Cruz on the beach. It was good to catch up and we had a great time chatting about many things including church and the deconstructing church experience I went through after some weirdness being on a megachurch staff that I was on (by the way, I do love megachurches but when they get unhealthy like any church big or small, it gets weird).

We talked about evangelism, home churches, and structures of leadership in churches. Francis and I had some great discussion and also talked about writing books and publishers…. And we also talked about hell.

I wrote an endorsement which is in Francis’ new book “Erasing Hell: What God said about eternity, and the things we’ve made up”. So the topic of hell was obviously one to talk about because the book came out on July 5 and I had read the manuscript. As I wrote in the endorsement, “Erasing Hell is an extremely important book”. I can’t overstate that. The reason is because hell is an important topic because it does effect a lot of things both now and eternally.

I KNOW WE NEED TO FOCUS FOREMOST ON LIFE ON THIS EARTH AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NOW AND TO COME. So this is not a “pray to Jesus so you avoid hell” type of thinking I have or what Francis wrote about. It is true that faith in Jesus and what He did on the cross effect eternity and hell for sure. I talk about the joy of knowing Jesus in this life. And about the life-changing aspect of following Him here. That is the foremost message and how I explain what it means to know and follow Jesus. But that doesn’t mean I just forget or downplay that there is an afterlife. Which is a lot longer than this life.

Hell is a topic I have been thinking about for years and I wrote an article last year in Outreach Magazine you can read here. And another about universal reconciliation here a few months ago. I have read a lot of books on hell, both Christian and not Christian and explained why in those articles. So to me, Francis’ book is an important one and as I read it, many times I felt like crying. Mainly because I felt and understood the struggle he had writing it. Wanting to talk about it, but also not wanting to talk about it. But also knowing it it too important to not talk about it, even when you don’t want to.

I’ll let the words in the beginning of the “Erasing Hell” explain this that Francis wrote:

“If you are excited about this book, you have issues. Do you understand the weight of what we are about to consider? We are exploring the possibility that you and I may end up tormented in hell. Excited would be the wrong term to use here. Necessary would be more fitting.” …… “Even as I write this paragraph, I feel sick. I would love to erase hell from the pages of Scripture.“

I so resonate with those words he wrote. And at Vintage Faith Church, I know I hate talking about hell. But I also know I must talk about it. I sensed the same thing from Francis in this book which is why I connected with it at a deep level in that regard.

What I really, really appreciate about this book is that:

it comes from a heart that is broken about hell. The pages themselves almost weep it is so heartfelt written. I know that sounds kind of corny, but it is true. This is written from a broken heart on the topic and that makes all the difference.

it stresses how even when you wish something wasn’t in Scripture or in the words of Jesus, we have to be very careful we don’t then ignore it or create something else from our own human thinking or hopes – instead of what is in Scripture. If we create theology or beliefs from our own hopes or feelings of what God is or isn’t like, in many ways we then create God in our own wishful image, rather than what He revealed in Scripture. We may say we don’t want to follow a God as described and revealed in Scripture, and that’s a choice we make. But then whether we realize it or not, we then create and follow our own version of “God” instead of what Scripture does reveal. We certainly may not like when hell is in the Bible (who does?). But when we alter Scripture or create a God or Jesus from the parts of Scripture we like while ignoring other parts is other words is not good biblical hermeneutics in my opinion. Very often (sadly) I keep hearing people describe Jesus, but only talk about aspects of His teachings that they like while ignoring other parts of His teachings. Or entirely ignore Paul’s writings or other parts of the BIble and dismiss them as being wrong or not inspired. So we can do a pick and choose Jesus and a pick and choose God using passages from the Bible that align with our often good and understandable hopes or desires. But again, this is not good biblical hermeneutics. It may align with culture easier and may then be easier to talk about God to those who don’t know Him. But we then aren’t faithful to the whole of Scripture and what God revealed in Scripture about Himself. Again, one may not believe in the Scripture as inspired. So they then can do that and say that Paul was wrong or focus on parts of the Bible and not others. But for those who do believe that the Scriptures are fully inspired, then we have to be so careful with creating theology to match what we may wish God is like or isn’t like.

it is not a “here is every answer on hell” book, but it leaves questions and mystery in places about hell where questions are needed to be left. But it also states what is more clear in Scripture and in the teachings of Jesus too.

it is not a just written with a “pray a prayer so you get to heaven and avoid hell” mentality. When a reductionist form of the gospel happens and following Jesus for people is about avoiding hell, that is not what they Bible teaches. The sadness of if that develops, it then becomes easy to ignore those in need and desire to see change happen in this life and just wait for “heaven”. Jesus taught on the Kingdom of God here and to come. And for those who follow Jesus, our role is to be involved in justice, compassion and caring for the needy. What I appreciate about Francis, is that he is very passionate about those in need around the world. In fact, I don’t know how public he will be about this, but for those who may even think this book is written because it is a hot theological topic right now and is jumping in and will generate big book sales and money etc. – Francis is not making any money from this book. He is giving all the money to charities and to the needy that comes in from this book.

it is from a pastor, but Francis also brought in theologians to help with this book. For one, Preston Sprinkle, the co-author of this book has a PhD in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland. But it didn’t end there. he also had scholars from Cambridge University, St. Andrews University, Westmont College, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary also involved in looking it over for theological credibility. So Francis has theologians (multiple ones) look over the book so it wasn’t just Francis’ thinking on it.

I could go on quite a bit about this book as you probably can tell as it is an important book. Not just for the topic and the theological education in it, but that this topic really is about people’s lives. I will be getting it for our staff and it is something I highly recommend for people to read no matter where you stand or not stand in beliefs on this topic. Eternity is real. And we can’t ignore this topic, because hell is in Scripture. I am thankful that Francis didn’t avoid writing on this topic. And there was angst in writing it and and I know he didn’t want to write about. But it is too important not to. Because people are important to God and this is not just a theological topic, but it is about people.

You can watch a video that was made while Francis and co-author Preston Sprinkles was writing the book here. And read the chapters and more about it here where you can do the “Look Inside” function to see the Table of Contents.

Lord, help us understand the truths of Scripture. The ones we like and the ones we may not understand or like. But keep us faithful. And may our hearts break as we approach this topic and what the Scriptures say or don’t say about it. “All Your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal.” (Psalm 119:160). “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12). “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:11-13).

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Vintage Faith Church Offers Internships by Dan Kimball

publisher — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:17:21 +0000

We are thrilled to be offering internships at Vintage Faith Church starting Fall 2011. They are non-paid internships, but we are providing free housing in an intern house.

You can read more here on the VFC web site about the Protege internships - and what steps to take if you are interested in this.

Jesse West oversees the internships and can answer any questions. You can email him at jesse@vintagechurch.org

Santa Cruz is a small beach town and an extremely expensive place to live. But God worked in someone’s heart and life to buy us a house to use specifically for interns. It is a large 5 bedroom house with an additional cottage in the back, right near downtown and half a mile from our church building. So interns will have no expenses for housing.

You don’t have to be in seminary to be part of this, although we have a partnership with Western Seminary in San Jose. If an intern goes to seminary, they get a really great tuition discount. Roles include youth ministry, children’s ministry, local and global compassion, music and creative arts.

This past year was our first year with Protege and we had 8 interns living in the home and serving on staff. It has been a great year and look forward to seeing what will happen this next year and who God will bring.

So, if you are interested in knowing about the Protege internship – go here to read more and contact Jesse West.

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Hell, Universal Reconciliation, and Evangelism by Dan Kimball

publisher — Sun, 08 May 2011 10:19:25 +0000

If you want to just jump to the actual article in Outreach Magazine go here. Below are further thoughts on it.

I am passionate about hell. That sounds odd – but I am not passionate about hell itself, but passionate about studying what it is because of the seriousness of what it is. I am passionate about it as I don’t want anyone to experience it. Sort of like when you study cancer, you are doing so in order to learn how to have people relieved of it not just because you like studying it. So my passion for studying hell, is because of care for people not just because of morbid curiosity.

I wasn’t raised in a church nor steeped in any type of fundamentalist or dogmatic religious upbringing (which seems so many have had in one form or another which then can understandably shape a lot of our reactionary theology). So my journey into hell studies was more of a “what is this scary thing that the Bible mentions?” when I would be encountering it as I read the Bible.

It was fairly easy to discover that the descriptions of “fire”, “worms”, “darkness” etc. were more metaphorical to paint a picture of the horror of what the reality of this “hell” is. I wrote about this in an Outreach Magazine article in 2010 you can read here.

I have read about every book I could fond on the topic of hell. The history of hell throughout the world. Various world religions that also believe in some concept of hell (which are many that do). Christian books written on the topic as well as plenty of non-Christian books written on the topic. Anything I could to understand a breadth of thinking and scholarship of all kinds. I can learn so incredibly much from all types of writings and thoughts throughout the ages.

I recently wrote another article about the discussion being held on universal reconciliation and hell for Outreach Magazine. There has been wonderful book reviews on the latest writings out there (I particularly enjoyed and learned a lot of from my good friend Scot McKnight’s blog). So the article I wrote for Outreach Magazine is more of the longer term thinking of ramifications of all this discussion. In particular in terms of evangelism. My biggest concern about the recent discussion on hell and the afterlife is considering how it could impact evangelism. If a universal reconciliation view is held, how does that impact the passion, spark, need, desire, energy, weight, strategy, thinking and effort towards in this life going out of our way to share the gospel with words and deeds with others. Probably 99% of us came to faith in Jesus ultimately through the gospel being articulated with words and explanation. So yes, deeds are important – but words and Scripture are how we end up having clarification to the truths of the gospel.

You can read the new article in Outreach Magazine here. It just came out in print but they put it online here early. They called it “Dan Kimball on Heaven, Hell and Evangelism” which does sum up what the topic is. Although it is more “What Dan Kimball understands the BIble to teach on Heaven, Hell and Evangelism”. Gabe Lyons is on the cover of this magazine looking very New York adventurous (it is a great article about Gabe in this issue very worth reading). Gabe is someone I totally respect and got to spend a weekend with him and some others recently on a retreat. The Q conference just happened in Portland Gabe puts on, which was also a great experience.

I believe am consumed with hell to some degree because I don’t want to see anyone be experiencing hell. I know nothing rests on me, as it is all about Jesus, the cross, atonement, faith and salvation which saves from hell. But in the way you do see things happen in the New Testament, is that God uses people to teach and speak about Jesus, the gospel, salvation etc. so we do have our part in it. Yes, we can have “hell” in this life through horrible, evil things that happen to people. But hell eternal is a long time and a lot longer than only this life. I am a wishful annihilist (those who won’t be in the new heaven and earth simply cease to be) for sure. And who wouldn’t want to be a universal reconciliationist and want to see everyone saved in the end?! But from all the scholars I respect and trust the most (in unison) they all don’t hold to those views. So I may wish for something, but contemporary scholars such as NT Wright, Scot McKnight and others – don’t hold those views. I have to be faithful not to my own emotions and wishful thinking about theology but be faithful to what the Scriptures do teach themselves and what trusted scholarship and church history backs up. It isn’t easy, as my heart would long otherwise on some things – but I am not God and I can’t shape my own theology to my own personal preferences or wishes.

Scot McKnight in his most recent book “One Life” wrote in Chapter 12 about the afterlife and states emphatically that he believes in hell because Jesus believes in hell. Scot also believes in not just a “hell” on earth, but hell in the afterlife. Scot states: ”Hell is a person’s awareness of being utterly absent, which is what “death after death” mean, but in the presence of God like C.S. Lewis wraiths yearning to be observed and present but deeply aware that they have declines both options.” You have to read the whole chapter to see the full context of this quote.

But Scot’s description reminded me of NT Wright’s description which was:

“It dawned on me several years ago that when somebody says “no” to God and refuses to worship the God in whose image they are made, saying “I’m not going to worship that God,” then what happens to their humanness is that it progressively ceases to bear the image of God. You become like what you worship.

You become like what you worship. You reflect the one you worship. It’s one of the great truths of spirituality. So my way of describing it is that once this life is over, people who have decided not to worship God cease to bear God’s image. The thought of an ex-human being is something that some people find shocking and horrifying. In a sense, it is shocking and horrifying. Think about people we know!

That should give us pause. That should cause us to pray for them and to weep over them. So I don’t say this with any relish at all.” - N.T. Wright

All I know is that whatever “hell” is – I will never, ever give up praying for people and intentionally building trust and relationships with people to share the good news about grace, forgiveness, and eternal life. Not just share about how to avoid hell. But sharing about life here on earth. Life to the full. Knowing Jesus here on earth and the joy that gives. And how we then join in on mission living out the teachings of Jesus and helping others who experience “hell” on earth. Yes, there is in my best understanding an eternal hell. But we must not only think of the New Heavens and New Earth to come and “hell” in the eternal life to come. But about a life following Jesus and knowing Him here and all that goes with that. If you know me, that is 95% of what I share and talk about – not just about hell. But I don’t avoid hell either.

Well, I thought this was going to be about 5 sentences and just post a link to the Outreach Magazine article I was posting this for (which is here) but with the topic out pours my thinking and heart.

—

Dan Kimball is a pastor, author and thinker. He contributes to Next-Wave regularly by allowing us to repost articles from his blog. This is one of them.

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It’s Over – Trends in Churchland by Dan Kimball

publisher — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:12:37 +0000

I have been liking the TV show “Portlandia“. I am probably more interested in the show because I lived in Portland for a year and I am up there a couple of times a year teaching. I also have family and friends there. I love Portland… apart from the misty rain. BUT…. I found this video clip “It’s Over” so humorously true.

We can get caught up in forms of “It’s Over!” in Churchland.

Generally, out of good intentions, we are looking out for new forms of ministry that will effectively see people come to faith and grow as followers of Jesus. As innovation and excitement becomes the standard, do we begin to feel “It’s Over” and then want to move on?

I remember being challenged and even told how wrong I was about implementing new forms of worship and the use of art in a church. But then 10 years later I visited that church and saw them using the same things in worship they fought against us doing and said was silly. My bad-Dan side was thinking “It’s Over!” If they are now doing this we better then stop. And then I had to realize how dumb and self-centered that thinking was and quickly repented.

At conferences there sometimes can be a “What’s the newest thing?!” feeling out there. Again, out of a good heart and intentions. We want to be serving God on mission and learning what is happening out there. But we also need to discern when our interest moves to more concerns of personal experience or the cool factor or keeping up on things in the evangelical world.

One day will we be saying “Multi-Site Video Venues?” – “It’s Over!” …… “Missional?” – “It’s Over!“…… If we look back, I can name several things I think we have done the “It’s Over!” with in Churchland.

I am finding that we must, of course, be scanning the horizon for what is new and what God is doing. I don’t see it as trendy, but if it is effective on mission and doesn’t compromise Scripture then I think we should be using any method if it is appropriate in our context of mission. If I shift from a normal cell phone to a smart-phone, I don’t see that as trendy. I see it as having an effective form of communication. I believe the church naturally should be doing the same with how we go about our mission.

But with the quickness of change that happens in our “normal lives” and also in the church, I am finding myself more immersed in Scripture and theology and truth which is our bedrock. What we know about Jesus comes from Scripture and the witness of those who have gone before us. So our anchor, our understanding of Jesus – is from Scripture primarily. And our theology isn’t trendy (or shouldn’t be). Cultures do change and forms of what we do will change. That is why being grounded in Scripture is so incredibly important. So whether normal cell phones, or smart cell phones or normal church meetings or multi-site meetings – our bedrock and truths we hold are not “It’s Over!” if a new cell phone is designed.

At the same time, I have met and talked with church leaders who put tradition and not changing at such a high value and they would totally be looking at this video of “It’s Over!” and using it for their argument of claiming we all jump on trends and we should just stick with tradition. And as I have now said many times “If tradition gets in the way of mission, it is sin”. If what we do gets in the way of people coming to know Jesus and growing in their faith etc. So just because one doesn’t have an “It’s Over!” experience because they are traditional, does not mean they aren’t trendy. They just stuck with a trend from a certain time in history and then chose not to move from it and when you trace origins of most things we do in church as “tradition” it did actually come from the trend of that time period. So the question is, in those churches (or any church) are we seeing new life, growth, followers of Jesus making a difference in the world etc.?

Some thoughts after seeing this video clip……What will our next “It’s Over!” be in the church. And what are our truths that are never “It’s Over!” even though we may be shifting other things? That is what I believe we have to be paying most attention to midst everything else.

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Scholar Dan Wallace at Vintage Faith Church by Dan Kimball

publisher — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:46:01 +0000

Scholar Dan Wallace at Vintage Faith Church

I’m typing this as I sit in a packed Open Forum this afternoon at Vintage Faith Church. Dan Wallace spoke today in our gatherings and then we scheduled him for a time of open questions. Dan is a professor at Dallas Seminary who has expertise on the the formation of the New Testament and New Testament documents. He gave a message in the gatherings called “Is What We Have Now What They Had Then?”. He addressed the criticism about the early church and Constantine shaping the New Testament and life of Jesus recorded to make Christianity what they wanted to. He also directly addressed the issues that Bart Erhman raised in “Misquoting Jesus“.

It was so encouraging to see the worship gatherings packed and the open forum packed as well. I truly believe that people want to explore issues like this. And why I believe more than ever do we need to be teaching apologetics, addressing doctrinal issues and truly thinking about why we believe what we do. I don’t agree when I hear it said sometimes that people in our emerging culture aren’t interested in these things. The crowded room and response to this shows the desire to think and learn. Apologetics isn’t directly what drew me into wanting to follow Jesus - it was learning about God’s grace, love and I believe God’s Spirit. But as I explored this grace of God, I also was incredibly in need of wanting to know what I was believing did have rationality to it. That the story and events of the Bible is not simply mythical or human created. So apologetics became a huge part of my faith transformation and still is to this day. I probably have more apologetics books than any other type of book. It is assuring knowing there are intelligent reasons for faith. And although we cannot prove the Bible is inspired and not merely human thinking, we can certainly have enough evidence and reasoning behind it to have confidence in it.

Dan was great and the questions people are asking here are really great. I couldn’t be more happy with how this forum is going and listening to the type of questions being asked. We need scholars in our lives. The reality is that pastors and leaders in the church rely on scholars who know the original languages and spend their lives and time deep in study and research. So I am thankful for the work Dan does. And for my good friend Scot McKnight and other theologians who I know I need desperately in my life and ministry.

Dan is here at Vintage Faith Church and spoke as part of the series called “Q-5: Questions of Theology and Culture” and it has been going really well. Next Sunday, Alan and Deb Hirsch will be with us and Deb will be sharing her story and teaching about this issue of homosexuality and the Bible. I believe that we need to address the cultural questions and issues of the day and not avoid them. But how we do it, I believe is important. I just know that it is refreshing sitting here in a crowded room with people asking challenging questions of Dan and the interaction happening here. We will be having an Open Forum next Sunday night also with Deb.

On a side note, with it being Halloween today I was quite surprised to see Hemie in the 11 AM gathering who chose to dress up like me for Halloween. It was pretty funny and pretty weird seeing that. But here is me and Hemie and her Halloween outfit and wig she sculpted.

Looking forward to next week with Deb Hirsch and the week after that I will be teaching on the Old Testament passages which seem to describe God as violent, told people to commit genocide and murder, all the blood of sacrifices we read – which seems to directly contrast Jesus who spoke about peace and love.

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Looking for the Real Fruit by Dan Kimball

publisher — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:49:25 +0000

[This article first appeared in the Aug10 Issue of Next-Wave and was republished from dankimball.com]

Living Out the Fruits of the Spirit

Kicked off our summer series today at all three gatherings at Vintage Faith Church. We will be in this series all summer and be teaching through Galatians 5 and each fruit of the Spirit.

Started today by playing a “Guess the real fruit vs. artificial fruit” game. I went and got some very real looking fake fruit and then matched them with real fruit from the grocery store. In the morning gatherings our daughters came up and played the Vanna White role and held up each fruit and then I had votes on which fruit was the real one and which one human-made one.

It was fascinating when one of them would fool a great percentage of people. And my point was that humans can produce very real looking artificial fruit but they are not real ones – and we can produce works of action, go through motions of Christianity, try to produce “fruit” on our own – but we really can’t. If the Christian life is simply a matter of doing our best, there was no need for God to send the Holy Spirit to help us. The fruit of the Spirit wasn’t intended to be a list of goals for us to produce – it is the Holy Spirit through us who produces fruit. But how often we can produce things through human-effort which looks good perhaps for a season, but is not true fruit of the Spirit. How easy it is to get caught in the routine of that. And also the discouragement of failure on our own efforts. Or not breaking free from a sin pattern because we attempt on our own strength and not the Spirit’s strength.

So I spent time trying to even visually show this. We brought an actual grape vine on the stage and I then walked through John 15 where Jesus talked about the vine and what it means to remain in Him to produce fruit.

A main goal of this series is to try and put tangible ways of taking what often becomes Christian phrases taken from the Bible such as “Walk by the Spirit” “Led by the Spirit” “Remain in Him” but really try and show what this looks like. Not just use the terms and say we should be doing these things, but what does it mean when these things are said? How do we walk by the Spirit? How are we led by the Spirit?

What we are doing this summer too, is having mid-week groups where they will all go through a study book while we are teaching 6 weeks of the series. The series is 10 weeks, but for 6 weeks we will do a study. We are using Bill Hybels “Fruits of the Spirit” study book. It is a good book but the cover looks more like an brochure for life insurance or bank investments or something like that. So we are going to have a “create your own cover” time the first mid-week meeting and we will then have paper to paste on and cover the banking looking cover and put something more “fruity” on it.

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Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Missions by Dan Kimball

publisher — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:15:39 +0000

I am a columnist for Leadership Journal and was writing an article for a particular issue, dealing with addictions as the theme of the issue. I have been wondering recently about a certain addiction.

I love reading blogs and enjoy interacting on this blog and reading people’s comments. I just read that my blog made the list of Top 60 Church Blogs which was interesting, as I rarely check the stats of this blog. So reading how they determined the top 60 blogs by traffic, links etc. was quite interesting and I am glad it is read or linked to by people if it encourages them. The list of the 60 blogs had some wonderful blogs that I didn’t know existed and ended up scanning and reading several of them. I ended up spending 30 minutes of time doing so. Which brings me to the question I’ve been asking recently…

Could blogging, twittering, Facebook etc. be addictive – and if so, can it actually get in the way of mission? The answer may be obvious, but when we spend time doing something, it takes away from time we could be spending doing something else. So do the hours we can spend on blogs, twitter, Facebook and even reading about missional things on blogs take away too much from the time that we could actually be on mission and spending with people in real life?

I am not planning on stopping my reading of blogs, as they help me in mission. I love being encouraged and learn so much from other blogs. I love connecting with people on Facebook as well. But can it become such a part of our lives and even addictive to where the time spent reading about mission grows proportionally out of balance with the time we actually spend on mission? 30 minutes here. And hour there. it adds up. Am I spending proportional time on mission with people and not just reading about it? I think I have been guilty of this at times.

My top StrengthsFinder strength is “Learner” – which means I get energized by taking in information. In StrengthsFinder the top five all build on each other. So what I like as a “Learner” is not just random information as it needs to serve a purpose and tie into my other strengths. But what this means as a “Learner” is that I easily can get absorbed into reading blogs, twitter etc. primarily about mission, leadership and what other church leaders are learning and doing. I have found that I can easily sit and spend 30 minutes browsing and reading blogs.

Last week I was about to head home after a meeting, and I was looking forward to reading the comments of the thread going on Scot McKnight’s blog. However, I got a text message from a friend who told me that another friend’s band was playing in town that night. I initially was thinking I wouldn’t go, as I was looking forward to being home and catching up on blogs and this comment thread. But then I thought, “What the heck? I need to be out on mission, not just reading about mission or blogging about it.” So I went to the show and spent a couple of hours in great conversations.

Then I started thinking… over the course of a week when I spend hour… or two…. or four being on-line reading blogs or Facebook. I could have used part of that time – even an hour of it, to be having lunch or hang out with someone outside the church world.

As I am processing this I wonder:

- Do others struggle or think about this?

- How much time/hours per week would you estimate you spend on blogs, Facebook?

- How much time/hours per week spent with people outside church in comparison?

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