Webbed…
+ Christian bookstores across the country are in a bit of trouble. Check out a package of stories from Christianity Today here, here, here and here. Changing retail patterns from local stores to internet), the shift of music purchasing to digital downloads, a broadening market for spiritual or values material in other venues, consolidation of independent stores into larger chains, on-line self-publishing that can market niche books and more have contributed to bookstore struggles. But the most interesting observations note that Christian bookstores have become almost too Christian: “the typical Christian bookstore is bland and predictable. “Folks are looking for something different. We should surprise and delight our customers….”In order to offer “something different,” bookstores may need to become “third places,” a term coined by author Ray Oldenburg in The Great Good Place. Third places are inviting alternatives to home and the workplace (think Starbucks)…. A tribe of more traditional Mosaics or Busters might shop in a conventional Christian bookstore, but fewer young adults are doing so….Traditional Christian bookstores are often embraced by more conservative Christians as safe places to shop, with no worries about sexual content, profanity, or wild theology. The larger Christian chain buyers may consider themselves gatekeepers of appropriate content. However…this newer generation “is less willing to be sheltered and cloistered. Adults might think they are ‘dining with the Devil’-but younger adults are more comfortable thinking of themselves as exiles in a Babylonian culture. They tell us, ‘We don’t need you to caretake our content-we can make these decisions.’ They are skeptical of places that feel antiseptic or too polished.”
+Again, Willow Creek Church has taken steps to respond practically to the changes suggested by the massive Reveal survey. The shifts include adjusting Sunday services to include expository Bible teaching, deeper worship songs, Scripture reading and more elements that were anathema in the seeker-driven days, and abolishing the mid-week service for believers in favor of theology and Bible classes. The most compelling quote: “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people”…. most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough. “Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church”, Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers.”
+ Let’s all hope this was an awful April Fool’s joke. If not, it’s just plain awful.
+ Check out Lessons from Odd Jobs. Some truly intriguing stories along the way.
+ A quote worth pondering: “Christians come to see that both their sins and their best deeds have all really been ways of avoiding Jesus as savior. They come to see that Christianity is not fundamentally an invitation to get more religious. A Christian comes to say: “Though I have often failed to obey the moral law, the deeper problem was why I was trying to obey it! Even my efforts to obey it has been just a way of seeking to be my own savior. In that mindset, even if I obey or ask for forgiveness, I am really resisting the gospel and setting myself up as Savior.”
To ‘get the gospel’ is to turn from self-justification and rely on Jesus’ record for a relationship with God. The irreligious don’t repent at all, and the religious only repent of sins. But Christians also repent of their righteousness. That is the distinction between the three groups-Christian, moralists (religious), and pragmatists (irreligious). (Tim Keller)
Posted in Monday Meanderings
