This scene played out a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I see—and participate in—scenes like this every week.

This is the texture of the new evangelism. This is the true heart of being “missional.” This is how today’s spiritually hungry people are finding a real relationship with Jesus.

The men who circled Candace included Jim, a university professor and researcher; Don, a widower; and Rich, an airline pilot. They had just experienced a community Lifetree Café program entitled “The Bible: Real? Relevant? Reliable?”

Since they had become regular Lifetree attendees, they knew, respected, and liked Candace, who is another regular attendee. They wanted her response to their major questions and doubts about the Bible. “For the next 75 minutes,” Candace said, “we talked about the purpose of the Bible, life after death, what it means to be saved—you name it.

“All of them kept asking me questions. And the really amazing thing was, I had a biblical answer to every question they asked,” she said. “I had always been so reluctant to enter into discussions about Christian doctrine, afraid that I’d let Jesus down by saying the wrong thing or coming across as judgmental. But in that environment, with those people, whom I’ve gotten to know, trust and like over the past year, sharing my faith was completely natural and easy.”

Candace is a “lamp on a lampstand.” She’s not a preacher. She’s not a door-knocking evangelist. She’s not a hard-sell “closer.” She’s a friend. And she’s effective. She naturally converses with her friends about another one of her friends—Jesus.

Candace’s story exemplifies several things for any church wishing to effectively impact lives with the Good News:

1. Make everyone a minister. Establish a culture of the priesthood of all believers. Remind (often) everyone that the real ministry of the church is everyone’s calling. The paid staff are merely trainers and encouragers to those who actually “shine the light.”
2. Promote seed planting. Help your people understand their role in spreading the Good News. It’s not their job to convert anyone. They’re simply called to plant the seeds of faith. God does the converting. Paul explained the division of roles in 1 Corinthians:  “I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.”
3. Train your people. They need practical help to be natural faith conversationalists. How do they engage their friends in meaningful and non-judgmental conversations that include faith? (A great resource for this training is God Space by Doug Pollock.)
4. Let your people practice. Provide safe opportunities for people to talk about their faith. Churches often tell their people to get out and share their faith. But they neglect to provide opportunities for people to practice doing that. That approach is as fruitless as a swimming instructor who merely lectures students without putting them in the pool to practice. (I love how Lifetree Café supplies the “pool” for believers to practice their faith-sharing skills every week.)
5. Celebrate the stories. Set aside time for your people to tell everyone about their recent faith conversations and where they’ve led. People find encouragement and recommitment when they hear how God is working through ordinary people, their fellow believers.

Candace reflected on her time with Jim, Don and Rich. “It certainly made a believer out of me. People really are hungry for spiritual truths. And God places Christians in the right place at the right time.”

So, they committed millions of dollars for beautifully executed ads on national television and in print.

Local congregations often get the polish-our-image bug too. They join back-to-church marketing campaigns and create their own colorful advertising.

All of this activity and expense is a response to the foreboding clouds descending on today’s church. Sinking attendance and membership. Waning influence on the culture. A realization that the vast majority of visitors and new members are merely unhappy refugees from the church across town.

“Obviously, we have an image problem,” they say. The solution? “We need to adjust the public’s perception of us. People aren’t coming because they don’t know what they’re missing.”

So the faithful’s tithes and offerings get rerouted to TV commercials, billboards and yard signs.

Sometimes the ads tempt some unchurched and dechurched people to visit. But the ad campaigns’ dreamy images don’t resemble what the people actually find at First Church on the corner. So they don’t return.

A few years ago a Canadian church body created a highly visible, very well done, web-based campaign. It gathered a wide audience through its lively and playful treatment of tough questions that people face. The website invited open conversation, questions, doubts and dialog. The creators hoped the interaction would send people to their local churches to continue the conversation. But since the local church experience was the same old routine from the past, the fill-the-pews strategy failed.

Advertising one image and delivering another is a perilous marketing plan. Some years ago the leaders of an American supermarket chain mounted a campaign touting their stores’ customer focus. They invested in the advertising but they failed to do the hard work of actually creating a customer focus in their stores. The public laughed the ad campaign off the air.

The lesson: Work on the product first. Earn a new reputation before touting it.

Rather than trying to polish the exterior veneer, church leaders would benefit from working on what’s inside. A few examples:

• Be genuinely welcoming. Eliminate the judgmental tone that the public unfortunately identifies with Christians.
• Devote prime time for real dialog and real questions.
• Activate the laity. Inspire the priesthood of all believers.
• Create immersive experiences that encourage each person to sense the presence of God.
• Focus crisply on “the one thing”—a growing relationship with Jesus.

The unchurched and the dechurched need more than glossy ads. They need the love and acceptance of the healthy body of Christ.

Recent Barna research revealed that most people (61 percent) cannot recall gaining any spiritual insights the last time they attended church.

Part of the problem stems from uninspiring content—answering questions no one is asking. (I recently sat through a sermon about theological speculations on vegetarian dinosaurs.)

And part of the problem has to do with garden-variety poor teaching methodologies. Teachers fail to engage their people in learning.

The best teachers and preachers know that communication/learning is two-way. People need to actively engage in the process if they are to gain new insights.

To help facilitate this type of engagement, many teachers ask questions. But all too often their questions fail to evoke learning or engagement. Most of these well-intended but poorly crafted questions seek factual recall. They’re closed-ended questions—the type that beg a pat answer, usually pre-determined by the teacher.

Watch this actual scene from a children’s Sunday school class as the teacher asks a closed-ended question. (The answer she’s looking for is “manger.”)

Sadly, this scenario is painfully common. Why do teachers ask such questions?

Asking a closed-ended question to a room full of people, waiting for one smarty-pants to cough up the one correct answer, is a hopeless waste of time.

This poor teaching methodology is not limited to children’s ministry. Just this week an adult colleague of mine told me of a veteran church teacher who baited his class with a question that sought his pet, pat answer. He finally wrote his pre-determined answer on the board.

My friend said, “From there he lectured for 45 minutes. We weren’t really discussing or thinking—just regurgitating. Needless to say, I will not be going back.”

If you wish to engage your people—of any age—ask open-ended questions. Ask questions that evoke different thoughtful responses from each person.

For examples of good questions, go through the gospels and underline every question Jesus asked. You’ll find an abundance of open-ended questions that caused his people to think, grapple, and make personalized discoveries. Examples:

• “Why did you doubt?”
• “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

If you want the kind of ministry that makes a difference in the lives of your people, dig into questions that matter. And ask questions that cause your people to plumb deeply and reflect on what God is stirring in their souls.

I’ve seen churches make good use of video, and not so good use. I’ve watched the searing story of a faith-filled church member who was dying from a terminal illness. And I’ve sat though a pointless screening of a clip from a Hollywood sequel.

So, how can you use film and video to enhance a sermon, talk, lesson or seminar? Here a few tips.

 1.      Use the medium for its strengths. Film and video combine pictures and sound to draw in the audience. So, use video to depict a scenario that adds visual and audio meaning, or evokes an emotion, or provides context. Don’t use video just to add a video component.

2.      Show the right length. What’s the right running time? Just enough to tell the story, make a point, or evoke the emotion. Then stop. Sometimes that means 30 seconds. Sometimes it means 30 minutes.

3.      Let the film speak for itself. Resist the temptation to translate it or interpret it for your audience. Let your people think. Let the Holy Spirit work in them. Jesus rarely interpreted his parables. He usually let them stand on their own. Sometimes a film’s message and impact are all you need, without sermonizing at all.

4.      Invite your audience to unpack the film. Show a clip, then pose a good question for people to discuss with someone next to them. This allows everyone to reflect, talk and find individual meaning. These “pair share” conversations work with any size group, from two to 2,000 and more.

5.      Use good stuff. “Good” means it’s captivating, surprising, related to your message, and memorable. Hollywood movie clips, though slick, are often overworked, predictable and forgettable. And on-line Christian stuff is all-too-often hokey, stilted and just embarrassing. So, choose carefully. Create your own videos, using the true stories of people in your community. And try the powerful true stories in Group’s new Lifetree Film Clips.

6.      Stay legal. Most pre-recorded DVDs are generally restricted to home use only.  Know and abide by copyright laws for public exhibition in venues such as churches. Read details here for permitted uses. Many churches also buy a license from CVLI.

Move your people. Use film carefully.

Is God counting on you to “win souls,” to “close the deal”? Or, is your job to carefully plant seeds? Or, should you just “let your light shine’?

One thing is clear. Faith is a relationship. It’s not an academic subject to be mastered. It’s not a commodity to be pitched in a hard sell. It’s a relationship.

We work with this understanding every week in Lifetree Café, a community event that consistently draws those who do not yet have a relationship with Jesus. One of our Lifetree hosts, Mikal Keefer, recently reflected on the expiring life of a man who was consistently drawn to Lifetree but often challenged the gospel messages he heard there.

Here’s the story, in Mikal’s own words:

*    *    *

Jerry and Ruth attended Lifetree often, always spicing up conversations with a quick wit and thoughtful observations.

A few months ago, I received an e-mail from Jerry. He’d been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and wanted those on his email contact list to know.

I fired back a response right away. I wondered if Jerry’s confidence in reincarnation held now that he was looking down the barrel of a fatal diagnosis.

Pancreatic cancer is as close to pure evil as a disease can get—it’s often diagnosed too late for any treatment to be of much value.

Jerry was quick to respond. “Sure. Drop by.”

The first time I sat on his couch, talking with Ruth and Jerry, I asked Jerry what he expected to happen when he died. Jerry gladly told me. He’d be reincarnated and, he was confident, he and Ruth would be together again. “We’re soul mates,” Jerry said, gently taking Ruth’s hand.

We spent several hours together and I assured Jerry that he was missed at Lifetree.

“I miss it, too,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’ll feel up to coming again.”

Driving away, I was torn. I’ve been in the presence of many Christians who are facing death. None of them have ever faced death with more hope or confidence than Jerry—and Jerry didn’t know Jesus.

Jerry never made it back to our Lifetree Café, never again cocked his head, raised his hand, and asked a question that set the entire room to thinking. We’ll miss him.

And in a sense, I felt like I’d failed somehow.

I was raised to believe that when you believe in Jesus, you’re headed toward the sheep side of the equation come judgment day.

But I can’t make that happen.

Jerry was looking for something—had been all his life.

I believe that something was God’s love in Jesus…and I hope he found it.

One moment I carry with me from my time visiting with Jerry, one bright nugget I hold close…

I was leaving and Jerry was too weak to stand. I shook his hand, and Ruth gave me a hug. I’d mentioned that my wife was traveling in Italy and Ruth said, “Well, you tell your wife that while she was gone you were out doing good deeds.”

Jerry, Ruth, and I had talked about the barrage of phone calls Jerry was receiving from Christians who wanted to convert him. He took the calls but he was annoyed. He felt disrespected. Jerry knew the Gospel—he just didn’t believe it. He didn’t lack for any information.

I’d suggested that, perhaps, there were two reasons he was getting the calls.

Some were from people who’d been raised like I’d been raised: they felt it their duty to tell people about Jesus and to try to close the deal. Jerry was clearly approaching his expiration date; it was now or never to tell him about Jesus.

And some calls were motivated by people who actually cared about Jerry. They knew that, for themselves, there was peace in knowing Jesus, that death wasn’t the end for those who knew Jesus.

The trick, I told Jerry, was in sorting out which motivation prompted a call. “The first batch—you don’t need them. Tell them to get lost,” I said. “But that second bunch are people who love and respect you. Who are willing to risk saying something that might anger you because they care for you. You need as many of those people in your life as you can get.”

That satisfied Jerry.

So as I took a step toward the front door of their condo that day I said, “Unfortunately, this doesn’t count as a good deed because I actually like you. If you two were jerks—then it would be a reportable good deed.”

Jerry laughed and said, “Well, count it anyway.”

I looked at him and said, “That gets me to ‘nice’ deed. If you’d become a Christian as a result of our time together, then it would be a good deed. So what do you think, Jerry? Did you come to Jesus as a result of our time together?”

Jerry’s eyes twinkled as he paused, thinking. “No. Actually, I think Jesus came to me today.”

But first, a couple of caveats. I’m not a professional musician. But neither is the majority of pew sitters. I’m in good company.

And, I propose that worship music has a primary purpose: to collectively communicate with God with adoration and love.

With that, here are 5 simple wishes for the musical side of worship.

1. Select singable songs. Stick with the solid, inspiring winners. If a song’s lyrics tie directly to the subject of the sermon but the song is a musical dud, please spare us.
2. Music leaders, accept your role as encouragers of others to sing. Resist using the microphone to amplify your vocal gymnastics that may be artistic but impossible for us mere mortals to follow.
3. Refrain from projecting video images of the musicians on the big screens. Help us focus on God.
4. Set the sound levels of the musicians so as not to overwhelm the combined voices of the community of worshipers.
5. Try moving the musicians out of sight. Set up in back. At least once in a while, help us simply listen, sing, focus on the words, and worship.

“Everything on earth will worship you; they will sing your praises, shouting your name in glorious songs.” Psalm 66:4

The article cited declining church membership, especially among the young, as a nagging cause for the problems plaguing Christian schools.

But I wonder if the picture is a bit more complex. I wonder if the academic product itself is losing some luster.

Allow me to pose some questions. I’d love to hear your answers.

1. Do Bible colleges and seminaries have a clearly defined goal? And is that goal in concert with the students’ goal for a higher education? As a former student, and as a parent and an employer, I’ve looked to academic institutions to equip students to succeed in the work world. That’s the top priority, the first reason students and their parents would part with their tuition dollars. Do schools embrace this top priority?
2. Do Bible colleges and seminaries accept the responsibility to prepare students with practical skills, in addition to theory and theology? Some years ago we polled people in full-time ministry. We asked if they felt their colleges and seminaries adequately prepared them for real ministry. Only five percent said yes.
3. How are faculty members chosen? What is the top hiring priority? Is it the true demonstrated ability to effectively teach, inspire and equip students? Or, is it other stuff, such as academic pedigree, authored books, or name recognition?
4. Do schools pursue a customer focus? Are they passionately dedicated to customer (student) satisfaction? If so, you’d expect to see evidence such as regular follow-up with students and past students. Have you received follow-up questionnaires inquiring about how well your education prepared you for real-life ministry? Has your college or seminary asked how they might improve their service?

And a bonus question: What’s with this thing called tenure? Is this really working to maintain a staff of consistently top performers who serve their students?

I have a number of friends who serve in Christian academia. They’re good hard-working people. I just wonder if the system is serving them and their students as well as it might.

What do you think?

In my last post I described these people as PIBOs—Present in Body Only. Though they may show up, their hearts and minds are elsewhere. I suggested we need to discover how to better reach them. Some readers wondered what that might look like.

I’ll provide some discoveries. And you’ll want to do your own research—with your own PIBOs. Sit down with them. Interview them. Ask what stirs them—and doesn’t stir them—about their church experiences. Just ask and listen. Don’t defend or scold or cajole. Just listen.

As I’ve interacted with PIBOs, I’ve found they exhibit many similarities to the vast unchurched population. I’ve spent a lot of time with these people through my work with Lifetree Café, which really focuses on them, their needs, and the avenues to their hearts.

These people are not disinterested in God. They’re just not too interested in how the church typically packages faith pursuits.

A New York Times piece on Sunday described the growing population that’s “running from organized religion.” But the writer, Eric Weiner, said he and others without a particular religious affiliation are not running from God. In fact, 93 percent of these non-affiliated people say they believe in God or a higher power.

But they’re looking for a way to connect to God that looks different from church-as-we-know-it. Here are some of the characteristics Weiner and his friends would like to see:

• Highly interactive
• Celebrates doubt
• Encourages experimentation

The people we may be tempted to write off as disinterested don’t want to be passive spectators. They want to be an active part of the faith conversation. They crave a place that acknowledges and embraces that even faithful people experience doubt and questions. And they long for a faith expression that isn’t so predictable and regimented.

Our work with Lifetree is one form of experimentation to connect with these folks. We’re learning as we go. The Times writer said he’s not looking for someone to “invent a new religion, but rather a new way of being religious.” He’s in tune with countless others we’ve surveyed in our work to more effectively reach today’s people (the unchurched and the PIBOs) with the message and love of Jesus.

A Virginia newspaper this week described a  woman who said her local Lifetree Cafe’s relaxed atmosphere “makes her comfortable about asking questions or voicing her opinions.”

A sign inside that (and every) Lifetree Cafe reads:

You’re welcome just as you are.

Your thoughts are welcome. Your doubts are welcome.

We’re all in this together.

God is here, ready to connect with you in a fresh way.

These church attendees are Present In Body Only (PIBO). They may be counted as members of a church’s flock, but their hearts, minds and souls are not engaged by what’s happening at church. They are among the legion of church attendees who, according to George Barna, never experience God at church. They attend out of a sense of duty, or to accompany a family member, or simply out of habit. For PIBOs, the church worship experience—even at grandly produced services—is a spiritual yawn. The worship recipe (half upfront monologue and half sing-along) in use at churches small and large does not stir the PIBOs.

Many church leaders may not recognize these people as PIBOs–or care that their hearts and minds are not in the room.  Because PIBOs satisfy the score that leaders track–head count–they serve their purpose just as they are.

But PIBOs provide the most accessible low-hanging fruit for any mission-minded church. They are very reachable–if a ministry chooses to care enough, to listen enough, to change enough, to reach them.

In these days of declining church attendance, the PIBOs give us a prime opportunity to reach the spiritually dry with the Living Water of the real Lord. But we must be willing to explore new ways to engage this unengaged, unreached segment.

After a couple thousand years, I guess we’re still peculiar. But I’m just not convinced that everything we do to differentiate ourselves from the rest of society really helps the cause.

Some of our peculiarity comes from the jargon we love to use in the church. Those of us “on the inside” have become so comfortable using the insider language that we’ve lost touch with how odd we sound to the majority of the culture.

Most of these words aren’t bad. They’re just odd, misleading or puzzling to John Public. For example:

“Your walk.” As in, “How’s your walk with the Lord?” Our friend John imagines we’re burning a few calories doing laps around the church parking lot.

“Student.” John knows this term describes a person of any age who attends a school or university. But we twisted “student” to refer exclusively to a teenager–who may or may not even attend school.

“Campus.” John uses this word to refer to the vast grassy acreage that encompasses the various buildings of a university. We, however, use the term to describe any location, large or tiny, at which a church service is held. It even works to denote that old cinema we use for our satellite location.

“Love on.” While the rest of the world talks about loving people, we prefer to love ON our people. As in, “We’re just gonna love on the ladies at the women’s retreat.” I don’t want to think about how John pictures that.

Peculiar. We’re so separate we don’t know how peculiar we are.