Cringe communication #3: Cult of personality?

3 September, 2014 — 4 Comments

This is another post in a series where I give some real-life true stories of what I call cringe communication from the church. Click here for the introduction to this series where I suggest we can improve the communication of the church by eliminating cringe communication.

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One church in New Zealand that often features in the media is the Destiny Church led by Bishop Brian Tamaki. I want your feedback: do you agree that my example below in this post is bad communication? If not why not? Continue Reading…

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How to host your own curry and politics night

26 August, 2014 — 2 Comments

The 3 yearly general election is happening in New Zealand next month which is something I like taking notice of. I enjoy talking to people about politics, so a few days ago I held a “politics party”.

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It was specifically for people who weren’t sure about the political system, perhaps because they were young and haven’t be eligible to vote before.

There’s this thing I say to people when it comes to voting: Continue Reading…

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Some Christians do amazing good

21 August, 2014 — 2 Comments

In my doctoral research I interviewed people outside the church who have never been Christianized. If you’ve read other things in this blog you’ll probably know that there wasn’t a lot of positives in the perceptions people outside the church have of the church. However, some amazing good had been noticed by these people outside the church, and in this post I explain this significant contrast.

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The interviewees noticed some Christians who were committed to the practice of their faith (rather than just belief), specifically: Continue Reading…

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Why the Church is to Blame for What’s Wrong in the World

13 August, 2014 — 11 Comments
This is a guest post from Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader. He has been a Baptist pastor for decades and is currently the Christian Commitments and Church Relations Manager at World Vision New Zealand. Last month I critiqued singing in church services (Church music: a wicked sin? & Majority resort: church singing). In this post Mark introduces his definition of worship:

I’ve decided that the Christian Church is responsible for most of what is going wrong in our world. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and it’s the only conclusion the evidence (admittedly all anecdotal) will let me arrive at.

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In particular it’s the public corporate worship events that the Church offers week after week that are to blame. Church services. These are the events that we depend on for the spiritual formation of the Christians in every church community.

Continue Reading…

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Church services and the London Transport Museum

8 August, 2014 — 3 Comments

This week Emma the children’s pastor who I work with was commenting on bringing a child to our Sunday church service for the first time and how overwhelming the place seemed for this child. It reminded me of my visit to the London Transport Museum last year, not because it was overwhelming, but because I was having problems figuring out what they wanted me to do.

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I visited the London Transport Museum for a few reasons: Continue Reading…

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The church is not a spiritual place

31 July, 2014 — 9 Comments

The heading of this post is the first perception of my list of nine perceptions of the church from people outside of the church. It comes from the idea that spirituality is seen as being outside of religion and Christianity. If you situate yourself within the church, try for a moment imagining being someone outside of the church who has never been Christianised yet has an appreciation of spirituality.

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One person outside of the church that I interviewed articulated a key issue for locating spirituality and religion (Christianity) like this: Continue Reading…

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Reader survey results 2014

28 July, 2014 — 3 Comments

A month ago I asked for some feedback in my 2014 Reader Survey. The number equivalent to about 10% of my regular unique visitors participated in the survey – I really appreciate the time these people spent giving me this kind of feedback, if that was you: THANK YOU!  This post contains a summary of the results. The list of other blogs people follow is really interesting.

what-role-do-you-play-in-the-leadership-of-the-church-graph-2 Continue Reading…

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Majority resort: Church singing

23 July, 2014 — 20 Comments

Last week my post Church music: a wicked sin? used a quote from Saint Augustine to support my discomfort with what seems like an over emphasis of singing songs in church services. In this post I continue that theme with a theory that explains why so many people are bored or disinterested in the singalong part of church services, which perhaps even gives reason to why some people leave the church, or why some never fully check-in.

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A theory I have about singing songs in church is that probably about one-fifth of people are actually “worshiping” through this activity we call “worship”. I wonder if this one-fifth are people for whom “Words of Affirmation” are their primary “Love Language”.

Continue Reading…

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Church music: a wicked sin?

16 July, 2014 — 24 Comments

I’ve never really felt comfortable with what seems to be an over emphasis of singing songs in what gets defined as “worship” in church services, and now I’ve found an ally: one of the early church fathers, [Saint] Augustine of Hippo from the 4th century.

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About a week ago I was driving when Radio New Zealand was playing an excerpt from Davinia Caddy’s book “How to Hear Classical Music (The Ginger series).” It was one of those moments that shed light on some of the church service things I think about. Caddy writes:

Continue Reading…

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Please take my reader survey: one year of blogging!!

1 July, 2014 — 1 Comment

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog, and I want your feedback! I’ve set up a short survey using Survey Monkey with 17 brief questions that you could probably click though in 90 seconds (a little longer if you give me specific feedback) – it is totally anonymous.

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Over the last 12 months I have written 30 posts and there have been 382 comments. It has been a bit of an experiment that has gained momentum as the year has progressed. I would love to hear your feedback on how you think it’s going, what could be improved, and anything else you think might be helpful.  Thank you!

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