2007 February — wadehodges.com

Anti-Megachurch?

Filed Under: Leadership

I’ve recently had a couple of playful conversations with some friends who want to know exactly when I became anti-megachurch. I’ve also gotten a couple of emails from folks saying in essence, “Yeah, we think megachurches suck too!”

This is all in response to the article entitled “We Can’t Do Megachurch Anymore.” Here’s the deal on that title. We didn’t pick it. We sent the article in titleless. The editors of LJ gave it that one. I think it’s a good title in that it makes you want to read the article. It does, however, give the impression that the article is an anti-megachurch rant. It wasn’t intended to be that at all. In fact, take the title off and read the article and I don’t think you’ll come away saying, “Man, those guys are down on megachurches.” The title creates the expectation and then you see what you’ve been told to look for. When we wrote it, our goal was to tell the Garnett story and how God is bringing change to one particular former megachurch. It’s a descriptive, not prescriptive, tale.

The title can actually be interpreted in two different ways. It all has to do with how you say the word “can’t”.

If you say it in a highbrow “I can’t believe you just asked me if I’m looking forward to the next Britney Spears album” sort of way, it sounds like we’re saying we’ve long since transcended such base megachurch ambitions. Click here to hear what I’m talking about.

If you say it in an Oklahoma redneck “I think that tornado is headed straight for this trailer park” sort of way, I think it takes on a whole new meaning. Click here to hear what I’m talking about.

Since the title of article is here to stay, we’re choosing to read it the Okie way. We haven’t consciously chosen to stop being a megachurch. We’re trying to faithfully play the cards we’ve been dealt.

The truth is that if our building filled up with people passionately worshiping God and being transformed into the likeness of Christ for the good of the world, Greg and I would be happy to start doing seminars describing how we were able to help a former megachurch get her groove back.

And yes, I spent more time putting this post together than I should have.

Update: Last night an angel of the Lord told me that I really needed
to change the first voice, so I did. And yes, this post has earned me a double eye roll from Heather.

Technorati Tags: dork

February 15, 2007 By Wade 17 Comments

2007 Tulsa Workshop

Filed Under: Church of Christ, Tulsa Workshop

You can find the latest info about the 2007 Tulsa Workshop here. As usual, Terry and his team have done a great job putting together a stellar event. I’m looking forward to it. Hope to see you there.

February 14, 2007 By Wade 2 Comments

A Question or Two

Filed Under: Church, Emerging Church, Theology

Here’s a good question that came in at the end of the comments of this post.

Is it possible for a local church to be both attractional and missional and still make an impact on the culture ? For example : Can we still invite people, have gospel meetings, seminars,vbs, etc. and also reach out to the community with kind expressions of love , compassion ,personal evangelism ( or whatever term you may use) . Outreach that goes way beyond what occurs at a building . An honest question.

It seems we do tend to talk about attractional and missional in terms of either/or rather than both/and. Do they have to be held in opposition to each other or can they actually complement one another? Would you say that Jesus’ ministry was both attractional and missional?

Some might say that the term missional means more that just doing things away from the building. When we say missional are we actually meaning incarnational or are those terms synonymous or do they mean two different things?

I recently heard a leader explain the reasoning for making changes in a worship assembly as being done in order to be more missional? Is that the right term to use to defend such a move?

No answers here yet. Just questions.

Whaddyathink? Are we making too much out of the meaning of words or does the way we use these words actually end up shaping our approach to ministry or at least betraying our underlying assumptions about how it should be done?

Are we really changing the way we do church or are we continuing to do what we’ve always done while making ourselves feel better by calling it something new?

Technorati Tags: missional, attractional, incarnational

February 13, 2007 By Wade 10 Comments

Put Your Money in the Box

Filed Under: Church

Sam sent me this article and it reminded us both of something we did at the church we both used to work with. Instead of passing the offering plates, we put an offering box at the back of the room and simply reminded people that it was there each week. I don’t remember there being much of a difference between the amount given when plates were passed or when the box was left at the back. I wonder if there have ever been any studies done about which method generates the most response.