Monthly Archives: March 2008

Exalting Suburban Christianity

Today I received an email about a “Good-Time gospel Jubilee Show” coming to Fort Wayne next month. It sounds pretty neat. One line describes it as “family friendly” and “affordable,” at only $12 a ticket. By today’s standards, for a special event like that, $12 is a bargain.

And that got me thinking about how much our culture is geared to the middle-class and above, and disregards low-income people. Christian pop culture, like everything else, is geared to suburbanites. The Christian concerts that come through town, Christian workshops and conferences, even some of the ticket-required Christmas programs and dinner theatres that local churches do–they all require discretionary money. And that’s what Christian suburbanites have in abundance.

I once resided in that world, and saw no problem. Now I attend a church populated by low-income people for whom $12 is out-of-bounds. Take a family of five to an event like that, at $12 a pop? No way. Maybe you splurge once a year. But it’s not discretionary money. You’ll miss that $60.

And so–is this event truly “affordable”? Is the Third Day concert affordable? The Living Christmas Tree? Only if you’ve decided that you are absolutely not attempting to draw poor people. And I guess we (yes, we) suburbanites are generally okay with that.

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A Few Thoughts About Apples (Not the Computer)

pacificrose_200.jpgI grew up loving Golden Delicious apples. Our family preferred the Delicious family, whether Red or Golden. Jonathans also had a following in the Dennie clan, but always secondary to Delicious. I personally have always preferred Golden.

In recent years, my preferred apple has become the Fuji. I like the consistency, the taste, and the juiciness.

But now along comes the Pacific Rose apple, which Scott’s has had for the past two weeks. Sweet, juicy, a pinkish-red hue–absolutely splendid. The best apple I’ve ever had. And evidently, they are becoming popular.

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Most Powerful Hollywood Christians

Beliefnet lists the “12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollylwood.” There is a page for each person, along with info about why that person is included in the list. I raised my eyebrows a few times as the next page appeared and I saw the name. But the descriptions were quite interesting.

  1. Mel Gibson
  2. Denzel Washington
  3. Patricia Heaton
  4. Tyler Perry (writer and director)
  5. Ralph Winter (producer)
  6. Angela Bassett
  7. Martin Sheen
  8. Martha Williamson (producer).
  9. Kristin Chenoweth (actress)
  10. Philip Anschutz (producer)
  11. Howard Kazanjian (producer)
  12. Scott Derrickson (director)
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Evangelicals and Politics

Greg Boyd has become one of my must-read bloggers. He’s a pastor and intellectual-type guy who voices, with solid rationale, many of the views I hold but can’t articulate in any convincing way. He recently participated in a debate on “Evangelicals and Politics” with Chuck Colson and Shane Claiborne (author of the incredible The Irresistible Revolution). On his blog last week, Boyd recapped some of the exchanges from that debate. Interesting stuff.

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Preaching Vs. Blogging

An interesting piece called “Preaching vs. Blogging.” It compares the two mediums (media, whatever) with a chart. For instance: preaching includes voice inflection and body language, but blogs have a delete button and audience feedback.

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Larry Norman: RIP

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Larry Norman died Sunday morning. He and Randy Stonehill were kings of the Christian rock scene during my college days. I never heard Larry Norman in concert, but I know his music well. Songs like:

  • Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music?
  • Shot Down
  • I Am a Servant
  • Why Don’t You Look into Jesus
  • The Six O’clock News
  • Sweet Song of Salvation
  • The Great American Novel
  • I Wish We’d all Been Ready (bet you didn’t know that Norman wrote that classic)

A while back, I bought the CD, “One Way–The Songs of Larry Norman.” A variety of contemporary artists cover some of his best-known songs. Rebecca St. James rocks out on “Sweet Song of Salvation,” and Larry Howard absolutely kills with “The Rock that Doesn’t Roll.”

There is a message from Norman’s family on his website, and gobs of messages left on his message board.

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Ordinary Attempts at Evangelism

In the past, I’ve been through a lot of different evangelism training. The mere word “training” is intimidating to many Christians. Certainly Evangelism Explosion went far beyond what ordinary Christians could master. Campus Crusade and the Navigators give you a booklet to use, but even then, you need training in how to use it.

I just came across an article by Randy Seiver called “Clearing the Bench.” It really resonates with me. He’s part of an organization, Off the Map, that teaches people to make “ordinary attempts.” He describes this as, “Simple, doable practices that most people are already doing, but now they will do intentionally. Some of them don’t even require speaking.”

I’m very intrigued by this. Not because it’s revolutionary–it’s not; lots of other people have written about natural, lifestyle witnessing. But it sounds like their organization may have put together something that would appeal to the common folks in my church.

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