The way of Jesus, when properly understood is dangerous, disappointing, and even disturbing.

Many in our country is reeling from the attack at the Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina. John Stewart’s words ring true in the ears of many: this a terrorist attack, and the result of America’s lackadaisical approach to systemic problems of gun violence and racism.

We want something to fix.

“Take down that Confederate flag!”

“Pass stricter gun laws!”

Or even… “Pastors should carry guns.”

These are real problems, that as John Stewart, and even President Obama have said that we will probably continue to ignore. But even if we did solve those problems, our efforts would have very little power compared to dangerous, disappointing and disturbing hospitality of the Emmanuel Wednesday Night Bible Study.

The Way of Jesus is Dangerous

You’ve probably seen the clip, where alleged shooter Dylann Roof stares blankly while friends of the victims express their grief. The entire scene is heart wrenching, but nothing more than the words of one woman, who speaks of hospitality:

“…as we say in Bible Study, ‘we enjoyed you.’”

The way of Jesus is dangerous because it begins with hospitality. Hospitality, by definition, requires making space for someone or something different.

What is different is unknown. What is unknown could be dangerous.

When the Priest and the Levite passed the beaten man on the road to Jerusalem, they weren’t just avoiding inconvenience, they were avoiding danger. When Ananias opened his home to the angry and zealous Saul of Tarsus, he was taking his life into his hands. When Jewish Christians invited Gentiles into their churches, they were opening doors to the unknown ways, and unknown intentions of a different race.

Paul (the once murderous Saul) describes The Incarnation this way:

Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2

We often want to skip straight to the cross. But to get to the cross, Jesus first had to empty himself. Hospitality is making space for others. For the God of the Universe, it is a personal, dangerous and costly act.

From Hospitality to Forgiveness

The words “we enjoyed you” continue to ring in my ears. They immediately cause that dry heave of tears that never come. But when people look at the men and women of Emmanuel saying “I forgive you,” it doesn’t always bring the same reaction.

The words “I forgive you” often lose their power. We throw them haphazardly at little slights. But to find something to enjoy about someone who hates and has hurt you? It seems unnecessary, unrealistic, or shameful.

Paul describes incarnation as a sort of hospitality. Incarnation is Jesus’ modus operandi. But reconciliation is Jesus purpose.

When we act hospitable, we invite others into our space. When we forgive, we give up what we deserve.

“Every fiber of my being is hurting,” said one of the victim’s friends, “but I forgive you.”

The pain, anger and anguish of having a friend taken away is something that a victim owns. Forgiveness is voluntarily giving that away.

Hospitality says that no space belongs to us alone. Forgiveness says that no feelings, no matter how painful, belong to us either.

Forgiveness alonne should be unreasonable or impossible. That is, unless you’ve practiced hospitality.

Enjoying Others

Hospitality, when practiced, is the art of enjoying others. You cannot open your home selfishly. You cannot put down your phone, close your laptop and talk to another person unselfishly.

You cannot learn another’s language, culture or pain out of selfishness.

You cannot listen to someone else’s story if you are waiting to tell your own.

You cannot take pleasure in a foreign cuisine, learn from a new book or consider another’s opinion while comparing it to what you already like.

Enjoying others comes with no prerequisites and no preferences. Not even your comfort. Not even your safety. Jesus emptied himself. He took the form of a slave, coming in human likeness.

Forgiveness is Teachable

When great acts of forgiveness take place, the outside world stares slack-jawed. We treat Elizabeth Elliot like a saint for returning to those who killed her husband. We look at the stories of truth and reconciliation in South Africa and Rwanda as unimaginable, fairy tales of a far off land. We hear of Amish families embracing the family of the man who killed their children, and we are quick to write it off as another odd Amish trait.

These are extraordinary stories.

But the shouldn’t be. At least, not for followers of Jesus. He took the form of a slave, coming in human likeness. Before he forgave people, he enjoyed them.

But teaching forgiveness must be done at an angle. You can’t address it directly. You can’t say to a grieving woman or man “just forgive them.” You cultivate forgiveness by practicing hospitality.

How does your church community train for hospitality?

The post We Enjoyed You: Forgiveness and the Cost of Hospitality appeared first on Chris Morton.

Social Media is often the first way people will encounter you. It’s a contributing factor to your search rankings. It’s a sign that you are alive and participating in today’s world.

Social media is not sexy. It’s not (necessarily) going to drive a lot of traffic to your website. It’s not going to make you the coolest new church or ministry in town.

It is like one of my clients has said, “table stakes.” Like the phone book decades back, it’s part of doing business.

In my day job, I help individuals, businesses and non-profits tell their story with content and social media marketing. I try to apply the same rules to myself, and to our church community, Austin Mustard Seed. Although, as a landscaper too busy to care for his ugly yard, I don’t always represent the ideal I want for others.

Churches have to be on social media. But they need to be there thoughtfully, purposefully and personally. Here are eight
ways that your Church should be using social media

1. Know when to turn off your social media

For Churches, embracing social media does not mean wholesale acceptance and rampant use. It means defining and clearly teaching how to engage with it. Church Leaders should take time to consider some “dos” and “don’ts,” and then speak about them publicly.

A few might include:

• Do post about upcoming events
• Do post quotes from scripture or like minded thinkers
• Do connect with first time visitors ASAP.
• Don’t be online all the time. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
• Don’t get involved in whatever viral argument is happening on Facebook
• Don’t post anything that would take explaining to an outsider

2. Having presence is more important than coolness

What’s more important than having the world’s coolest Facebook page?

1. Having one.
2. Having accurate information (contact, location, website).
3. Updating enough (multiple times a week) to be clearly alive and involved.

Get those things down and then you might try to be cool.

3. Post about people, not just the band

Former worship leader Glen Packiam makes the point that many churches talk about Jesus but post pictures of the band. It’s an easy mistake, especially for churches than come from a strongly “event” focused mentality.

My favorite moments on social media with Austin Mustard Seed is hearing when someone is sick, seeing pictures of new babies or hearing about a cool trip. In other words, our best use of social media as a church is about connecting to each other, not about promoting our “brand.”

4. Start with about content for outsiders

Good Social Media informs people about the content they need.

Always start with content before social.

Specifically, start with content for outsiders. Those who become a part of your Church community might not always be paying attention to your Church’s social media. Those who are trying to learn more about your church community will be.

The key is to make sure you are using your website to answer questions, and then using social media to point people to the answers.

Take a moment to consider “who are the outsiders I’d love to see come to my church?” Then go write a blog post for them. Then post on social media.

5. Schedule

You can be on Social Media without being on Social Media all the time. The key is to plan ahead, and have access to the tools that will help with that. A few include:

• Facebook’s native scheduling tool
• Hootsuite or Buffer to manage and schedule multiple accounts and platforms
• IFTTT to easily post in different places at once

6. Have a plan

You might be asking now “yeah, but what do I post?” This is a really silly question for churches, since they are content machines.

Consider what it would take to publish consistently. Put it on a calendar, then execute. For instance, on Twitter, you might publish three times a day:

Morning: Scripture or thoughtful quote
Afternoon: Link to latest blog post
Evening: Link to a FAQ page

7. Focus on community over statistics

Define what your social media win is. Define it around experiencing community. Don’t just try to get a lot of Facebook likes or Twitter Followers.

Who are those people, anyways?

A win might include:

• Seeing new visitors become Facebook friends with longtime members
• Church members “liking” eachother’s posts

8. Create share worthy moments

People like to post about thoughtful ideas and evocative moments. Are you teaching in a way that’s Tweetable? Are you creating Instagram-worthy environments?

This is not pandering, and it’s nothing new.

Great preachers always have a clear concise point they want to make. They often use pneumonic devices to make their ideas stick. Make a compelling point in 140 characters. Put it up on your screen, and if it’s good, it will get shared.

The easiest way to do this is by having experiences that are, well, FUN. Create opportunities people enjoy and want to talk about, and they’ll talk about it on social media.

This is simply contextualized ministry. Serving in a way that makes sense to the environment of your people.

What do you wish you more churches were doing on social media?

Click to share on Facebook or Twitter.

The post Eight Ways Churches Should Be Using Social Media appeared first on Chris Morton.

All death is tragic. Suicide especially.

The death of Robin casts a particular shadow on those of my generation. Aladdin and Hook are the stories of our childhood. Patch Adams, Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting taught us how to grow up.

Depression is tragic. When it affects someone like Robin, we are all hurt.

Depression is also normal, natural and must be responded to within the church.

We can’t eliminate depression or suicide. But we can, and we must, become a refuge for those who experience it.

Let’s admit we have a problem

Depression has been a lifelong companion for me. It makes up some of my earliest and strongest memories. It hovers on the horizon of my future.

The first time I remember something akin to depression was an intense loneliness I experienced around age eight. Like many High Schoolers, I struggled with a sense of hopelessness and self-hatred. I lost all motivation and moved lethargically for most of my junior year.

In college, depression got in the way of my relationships. When I was down, others felt the need to withdraw. I was cynical, angry and very, very dark. Who could blame them?

When I get depressed, it’s incredibly obvious. I start wearing dark clothes. I stop caring for my body. I duck around corners to avoid friends. I stay awake all night and sleep all day.

When I was 23, a mentor of mine told me “Chris, we like you. You are very broken right now. We want to find you some help.” They made some calls and helped me find a counselor.

It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Which is why it strikes me as complete and utter insanity that so many churches have no idea what to do with the depressed.

The “D” Word

Why was I 23 years old before someone helped me get help?

I cannot tell you the level of frustration that this question holds for me.

Depression is woven throughout the story of scripture. David wrote about depression. Jesus prayed through depression.

Depression is common. Depression is physiological. It can begin as a natural response to difficult circumstances. Unaddressed, it can become a lifestyle. In time, it can rearrange your brain and become your new normal.

Depression is not, by definition, demonic. (Although I’m sure they don’t help.)

Depression is not cured by just reading your Bible and praying.

Depression is also not a bad thing.

The (other) reality that the church can no longer ignore

There’s a lot of talk about what the changes in culture that the church can no longer ignore. Much effort (my own included) has been put into helping the church think missionally. Such teaching has been mostly theological (explaining the Missio Dei or mission of God) and somewhat ecclesiological (forming missional communities.)

There is another more functional reality that the church can no longer ignore: Our society is moving towards greater emotional openness.

People want to know and be known. This is why Louis C.K.’s disturbingly authentic brand of humor rings true. This is why Tina Fey can be open about all the awkwardness of her life as a woman. This is why Brené Brown can talk about shame and vulnerability and get millions of Youtube views.

The internet allows for both anonymity and broadcasting. Our world now has endless safe havens for people to share fears and air grievances.

The culture is revising its expectations for “putting on a good face.” We’re rethinking what it means to make a good impression.

We are becoming collectively aware that life is hard. We are championing those who know how to articulate that.

Or to put it more coarsely:

We’re tired of the bullshit.

We need places to tell it like it is.

Five Features of a Safe Church

1. A Theology of Darkness

Scriptures are full of a theology of darkness, although it seems vague or completely absent in many churches. God created out of darkness. The psalmist claimed that the darkness was his closest friend. Jesus’ ministry often led him to places of darkness.

God is light, and in Him there is no darkness.

We are not God.

Therefore, in us, there is darkness.

Many churches try to avoid darkness. We sing happy songs. We tell stories of victory. We hide our fears and shortcomings.

Accepting the darkness inside of us is not the same as sinning. Being tempted is not a crime. Feeling depressed is not a sign of failure.

Why does David call the darkness his only friend? Why did Paul describe the agony of this thorn in the flesh? Because ignorance of our darkness is how we become captive to it.

We need to name our darkness. We need to feel its prickly coldness. We need to surf along its edges.

Knowing our darkness is key to knowing who we are. It is crucial to knowing what to pray for. It is often the place we meet God.

2. Vulnerable Leadership

It’s hard these days to be a charismatic leader. You just have to look to Seattle.

It’s often said that if you want something to be found at the core of your church, it has to be championed by the senior leadership. If you want church to feel safe, your pastors, elders and ministers have to set the standard for vulnerable openness.

This doesn’t mean telling everyone everything. Some struggles should be private. However, it does mean that you must discuss your own growth trajectory.

Rather than telling the congregation “This is what the Bible says,” you say “Here’s what I have learned/am learning/need to change because of the teaching of Jesus.” Knowing the church is safe means leadership demonstrating a willingness to risk vulnerability.

3. Emotional Intelligence

Remember how Jesus said, “let your yes be yes, and your no be no?” This is pretty hard to do. Some of us are bad at saying no. Some of us are afraid of saying yes.

One step to improving this ability is improving our overall emotional intelligence. While there is a lot to this process, it begins with knowing and articulating your emotional state.

A safe church community must include those who have matured past the point of being ruled by their emotions. They know how to respond appropriately to explosive moments, overwhelming tragedy or pure joy. They also model this for others.

If you want to be a safe church, display emotional intelligence and disciple others to do so as well.

4. Storytelling

One key to knowing that you are in a safe place is knowing you can tell your story.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. We’re conditioned to describing ourselves as our jobs, our families or our conversion experience. We are full of unwanted insecurities.

Telling stories requires both bravery, forethought, and believe it or not, structure.

Bravery is institutional, not individual. It comes from seeing others tell their story and knowing that people will respond with appreciation and love. Bravery is developed by seeing this modeled by leaders and friends.

A little (but not too much) forethought is necessary. Good stories have a beginning, middle and end. Preparing is also a sign of respect for the listener.

Structure is a time and place set aside for storytelling. This could be a formal prayer request time at the end of a small group meeting. It could be an invite to lunch with the expectation that “we will share stories.” At Austin Mustard Seed, we spent this summer telling stories and asking discipleship related questions in gender specific groups. Our hope is to instill a desire for storytelling.

5. Safe Spaces

If our churches are to become safe, we’ll have to create safe spaces intentionally.

A safe space is a time and place that welcomes. It avoids putting people on alert and is relationally appropriate.

For insiders, already accustom to a church’s ways, a small group can be a safe space. For outsiders, having deep conversations in a stranger’s home is likely unnatural and unsettling. Since so many in the west have preconceived notions or even toxic baggage about the church, it can be very hard to make traditional church buildings a safe space.

Vox Veniae, a church in East Austin, intentionally set out to create a safe space. They took over a small boarded up building. Later they found out it had been the location of a deadly shooting.

Instead of moving right in, they took a year to clean the place up, and offer open houses for the community to discuss how the space would be used. On Sundays now, the space features dark ceilings, low lighting, both chairs and couches and calm music. It still feels like a club, but now, it’s a safe one.

They’ve also helped plant two churches in the last year, in order to stay small. It’s hard to feel safe in a crowd.

Robin Williams death should remind the church that if we do not learn how to respond to depression, we will all suffer the consequences.

How is your church becoming a safe place?

Get the word out! Please 

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The post What Will It Take to Become a Church for the Depressed? appeared first on Chris Morton.

There’s the burden of maintaining a big, empty and often very dated looking building. There’s the ghost of happier days that seem constantly to haunt their memories and gatherings. There are the aging saints who struggle to make it out on Sundays, who seldom find friendship or support throughout the week.

Many churches feel stuck. This can be due to a lack of ideas or energized leadership. Sadly, it is often due to specific individuals, committed to maintaining their power or preferences.

Why do we sit around asking “why is my church dying?”

We need to remember that we serve a God of resurrection! If we are willing to die to ourselves, including our fond memories of the church that used to be, we can be resurrected to become something new.

Here’s are six bold moves I’ve seen or studied that  can be used by God to resurrect your church.

1) Foster a Fresh Expression

Have you ever seen a sapling growing off the side of an existing tree? It thrives because it can rely on the resources of the other plant.

A Fresh Expression is a new church or congregation that develops out of a new approach is used to share the message of Jesus with a different group of people. An existing church can foster a Fresh Expression by providing meeting space, finances, and friendship to men and women dedicated to reaching this different group.

In the U.K., the Fresh Expressions movement has brought new life to the many churches. It has led to planting 518 Fresh Expressions over the between 2002 and 2012. This has also led to the launch of Fresh Expressions US, committed to bringing the best ideas and practices from FXUK to the Americas.

2) Adopt a Church Planter

All around the country, there are missionally-minded, apostolically-gifted church planters that “parachute” into a new city.

These women and men have a strong calling from God to see new churches planted for specific cities, neighborhoods and people groups. However, they often are outsiders. They desperately need help finding their place in their new home.

Find a church planter to adopt. Invite them to speak on a Sunday. Buy them a beer. Ask them their story. Cover the cost for babysitting or for their kids to go camping. Be their friend.

Your church might never turn around. Which is okay, especially if you’re using your remaining time to help build something new. (Tweet this)

3) Re-Plant

A replant is the probably drastic, ambitious and the most difficult of all the options. Re-planting basically means pretending that your church is gone, and reorganize the remaining members into a church planting team.

You take down the sign. You stop meeting on Sundays.

Your goal is not to re-envision your church. The goal is to become a different church, with a fresh understanding of what it means to be a church and a new take on your role in the surrounding neighborhood.

Legend has it that Einstein said “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” You can’t do this without outside help and new thinking. Probably you would need completely new leadership.

If your church is brave enough to change and focused on their locality, this is the bold move for you.

4) Reboot

With a new version of Batman and Spiderman coming out every eight years, we all know what a reboot is. You take the most important features of a character and their story, and reimagine it for a modern day and place.

So how do you discover and revive these key elements of your church’s identity? Mark Lau Branson suggests the process of Appreciative inquiry in his book Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry and Congregational Change.

AI is a change management technique that involves the entire body in the process of discovering what is best about a church,and building on that. Branson suggests that you should look over the history of your church and use these steps to form “provocative proposals” about what the church could become.

1. Focus on an area of the church’s life and mission.
2. Name the best examples of this in recent memory.
3. Name specific factors that contributed to the church’s ability to be faithful to this mission.
4. Building on the “best of what is/was,” envision “what might be.”
5. Write out a proposition of what is possible, express as it is already true.

Granted, this is more of a renewal process than resurrection process. Some churches maybe “too far gone” for it to help. However, the process is worthwhile no matter what, even if it only serves to bring back good memories of the church’s heyday.

5) Transfusions

Some churches may never turn the corner. That doesn’t mean they can’t have a meaningful kingdom impact somewhere else.

I’ve seen a few churches do this. My favorite example was an older church that merged with a new plant. The new plant had succeeded in reaching young adults and young families. The older church helped them even things out.

It’s sad that church transfusions don’t happen more. The reason is that it is hard, and one group will have to completely surrender their identity.

But we’re all on the same team here, right?

6) Retire

One of our supporters at Austin Mustard Seed is a small house church that used to be a much different church. As they got smaller, they sold their building. Then they began meeting in a home, and put all their money in a foundation. They’ve used the cash they have from selling their building to build up the next generation.

Retirement is one of my favorite options because it allows you to “choose how you end.” Instead of fading into obscurity or squandering resources, you get to be a blessing for untold generations to come.

The truth is, all churches have a beginning, middle and end.

But with Jesus’s resurrection power and the Holy Spirit as our guide, new life is possible.

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The post Six Bold Moves for Resurrecting a Dying Church appeared first on Chris Morton.

So was my church.

So were my friends.

I got my first job at 18 in a call center on the other side of town. It was only a 15 minute drive away, but it was a different world. The majority of those I worked with were other races, many African American. For the first time in my life, I heard real stories of being pulled over by cops for “driving while being black,” and worse.

Like most in my Gen Y cohort, I would have adamantly told you “I’m not a racist.” The fact was, I was actually ignorant about the systems that enabled the racial divide in our society.

That’s how I feel when I read the #YesAllWomen hashtag.

Ignorant.

Confused how to help.

When I hear the stories like floating in the hashtags, it is so sad and so overwhelming that it is easier to go on with life as usual. The message of #YesAllWomen is that for 51% of the population, “usual is not okay.”

When I started to become aware of the systemic injustices, I went through a very personal education. I spent time in parts of town I had not known about before. I read books like Divided by Faith that showed statistically how ingrained racist attitudes were in the church. I even moved across the country to participate in a multiracial church.

All of which leads me to the question: What kind of educational opportunities do we need to move forward, as a society, with our treatment of women?

These days, when churches address gender, they seem to focus strictly on functional questions like “can women preach or be elders?” When I read #YesAllWomen, it strikes me that dealing with these functions  avoids foundational issues of how we view men and women.

One of the best ways to understand the church is like a “movie preview of the coming kingdom.” In other words, the church should look like a society that follows Jesus teachings, not just people with an additional religious layer to common societal life.

I don’t know how to get from here to there. I don’t even understand all that is happening, it’s hard for me to imagine a different church. I have a feeling that’s how many men feel.

So, instead of pretending to have answers I’ll ask the following questions. (Forgive me if they are the wrong questions.)

1. What does it mean to be made in the image of God, both male and female?
2. Do our church structures automatically demote women?
3. What words do we use, both existing church language and common societal language, that promote sexist or hurtful behavior?
4. How do we teach boys in church to respect women?
5. What jokes do we have to stop making?
6. Are there events, organizations or types of entertainment that we should avoid because of how they portray women?
7. How can men better handle their struggles with shame, rather than turn it into hatred towards women?
8. Why are large sections of the church behind culture in this?
9. What lies does the church propagated about women?
10.  What opportunities should the churches create to empower and equip women?

Is your church wrestling through these questions about gender? If so, what are you learning?

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The post You Have Our Attention #YesAllWomen. Please Teach Us How to Be Better. appeared first on Chris Morton.