The Spit Bucket

Who really gets the main stage at Christian Conferences?

                                                                                                    

Conference Cowboys

 

 

It’s that time of year again when our inboxes are flooded with promotions for the biggest, slickest Christian conferences ever. Pastor conferences.  Media Conferences. A world of Willowcreek Conferences. Even a Greeter Conference.

No matter what  Christian conference you attend, they have a few things in common:

·         they are usually 3 days long

·         are held in swank place other than a church basement

·         and most important, offer you a discount rate at an equally swank hotel if sign up for “early bird registration”.

Most conferences these days have a pre-conference, covering in-depth issues and intense training, that are too deep and intense for the main conference. There’s also an exhibitor’s hall with lots of free candy, live music during after hours events and a goodie bag of free stuff (including coupons, pens, and and official conference T-shirt) you get when you sign in for your official conference name badge. But the biggest draw of Christian conferences is the keynote speaker, or as I refer to them, conference cowboys (CC) for their ability to wrangle in high attendance numbers to these evangelvents. 

A CC usually falls into one of three categories:

·         a pastor with a booming church whose rubbed shoulders with Bono

·         a Christian activist who brought awareness to a social justice cause

·         The quasi-Christian celebrity: a nationally recognized CEO or politician who found faith only  after a subpoena or looking at the polls

 

You can spot a CC at a conference by the fancy name badge. The CC name badge is decorated like a high ranking officer’s, with dangling blue ribbons and big gold letters, making him the five-star general of the three day tour. Attendees like myself wear the enlisted personnel conference name badge, void of any decorations, bearing name and hometown, one of which is spelled wrong.

 

I enjoy conferences and have had the privilege to have held workshops at a few of them. Since I’m not a conference cowboy, my workshop is usually on the last day, during one of the time slots that are hard to fill since many of the attendees are racing for their planes.

 

But as much as I like conferences I also hate them.  They tend to mess with my faith. Often times, I attend a conference with hopes of getting motivated and refueled, but end up jealous, confused and worse yet, weary about what Christians are really glorifying.

This usually happens on the next to the last night of the conference, in an auditorium with an air conditioning unit set on Arctic blast. Somewhere between the encore performance of the hip band and the CC’s little too long "talk", I realize Christian humility has left building. It might be that the CC is not as sincere as I’d like him/her to be.  Or I start coveting a bigger better ministry than my own. Or I get snubbed by a church web designer whose podcast was highlighted in Outreach magazine.

  

But then it hits me. Maybe the CC I’m supposed to be listening to at conferences isn’t the guy with the goatee on the promotional materials…but Christ. After all, it’s about HIM, not us.

 

So if you go to a conference and find yourself nibbling the $8 nuts  in your mini fridge out of frustration, use that time to have a one-on-one workshop with JC. Share with Him the gunk that came bubbling up during the conference, from your doubts to your desires.

 

Who knows, maybe that’s what conferences are all about.

 

Bootleg Faith

 

Are you stealing someone else’s signal from God?

Finally, guilt caught up to me.

Actually, it wasn’t guilt, but Jonna, another resident in our high rise condo building that had a non-secure WiFi signal.

With full bars yet.

And you know the rest. Just like I’m accustomed to do at Starbucks and other coffee shops, I turned on my laptop and sucked off her free signal.

Until last week.

Jonna caught up to me and put a security code on her signal.

So I broke down and got my own wireless modem and spent half a day talking to technical support in India trying to figure it out.

While I didn’t feel remorse for tapping into her free signal, it made me wonder, am I tapping into someone else’s signal to God?

It’s so easy to say I’m a devote Christian. I read my Bible when nothing is good on TV. I’m kind to bad drivers in SUVs who are on their cell phones. I pray twice a day and always throw in an extra quickie “please no deer” prayer before a long Wisconsin road trips.

But when it comes to my hearing directly from God, I admit, I’m guilty of sponging off other’s signals, from pastor to friends, even shaky two bar signals from popular TV evangelists.

And complain that I don't hear from God. The truth is, if I expect finding something in my inbox, I better invest in MY OWN  signal.

How?

Morning devotions.

Make them more important than your morning coffee. After all, Bible reading is the caffeine on Christianity.

Prayer with your ears, not with your mouth. So often, I’m guilty of ordering God around, as if He needs to follow my agenda. Yeah, right.

Have a spiritual intention each day.

Ask Go, who or what cause should I put on the top of your prayer list.

Finally, unplug from the ugh.

Tune into God’s natural signals from nature, whether it’s the sounds of birds tweeting or the smell of spring blossoms or just noticing some aspect of nature you haven’t before. Sans ipod, PDO or fave five.

Make sure your network is unsecure.  You read that right. Forget security codes and ACCESS DENIED WARNINGS. Others, from neighbors to coworkers to fellow latte lovers, may need to sponge off YOUR signal, especially on your ffabulous ive bar days.

So Jonna, whoever you are, feel free to sponge off of me.

 

That's Not What it's About-reach

Outreach Resources of the Year.
So it’s that time of year when Outreach  Magazine announces its Resources of the Year Awards.
After reading the winners, I have to ask, Is that what it's about?
Lots of them were by hip cool pastors  from big churches offering “miracle gro” advice to other hip cool pastors.
Others were about selling your soul on Ebay or peppermint filled piñatas. Fun reads, catchy titles, but is that what it’s about?
There were a few kits, the hamburger helper of entries, offering instant outreach ideas, all as easy as cheesy beef stroganoff. They were targeted towards none other than the single mom.
But as far as I could tell, none of the nominations were intended to be read by the “lost” population the church is  trying to reach. No tools to share with the pregnant teen or  crack addict who’s turning tricks for a fix, yet alone the African orphan or evangelical turned atheist.
The winning tools were for us, inside the church, not those outside of it.
That’s why the Spitbucket made their own nominations for Outreach Resources of the year. These  titles can’t be peeped on faith based websites, but are helpful tools to connect you with those who’d rather wrestle a pit-bull than sit on a pew. Or more importantly, to get believers out of the pews and wrestle real issues.
Winning Entries
The Faith Club
Three mothers, from three different faiths (a Muslim,  Christian and Jew) talk openly about their beliefs and differences while  working on a book project. Yeah, it’s real. The Faith Club has inspired several online and live Faith clubs around the country,  getting real dialog  doing between the different faiths.

Getting Played
This book, like the Faith Club, won’t be found on a Lifeway book shelf but it will lead the reader to community action.  While attending a forum hosted by the book's author, I met several community leaders from non-faith based orgs around Chicago, all on a mission to help the A-squared female.  Use this book as a catalyst to create partnerships between your church and community leaders, bringing  awareness to this critical  issue.

The Spelling Tests of third graders from any inner-city public school.
No, you can’t find these on Amazon. But if reading them doesn’t motivate you to start  a tutoring program, nothing will.

Honorable Mentions
Of course, my mother as well as countless TF customers would recommend Hood and Life After Birth (but  they weren't on the judging panel).  These books aren't  hooks to bring  teen moms and urban teens  into your world,  but  are boats  to bring you into their's.

Back to Outreach’s list.
A few titles did catch my eye. Zach Hunter's  Be The Change written by a kid who's doing something other than writing text messages. And another, a 28-page booked from Intervarsity Press on Sexual Abuse. A nobody author—as it should be—with an issue that nobody likes to talk about but everyone needs to listen to-- sexual abuse.  You can’t read it and ignore doing something about it.
Now that’s it’s about-reach.

Eye Heart NOLA

Rebuilding New Orleans, Still.
Is that powdered sugar  from a biegnet on your chin or drywall dust?  My husband and I decided to do a Matt Deed (in honor of his recently deceased brother). A Matt Deed is an act of kindness that stretches you in ways that yoga poses cannot. But that’s how we ended up going to New Orleans and working on Katrina rebuilding projects.
We joined work crews from Urban Impact at Castlerock Church in Center City.
Anyway, when we told many of our Windy City friends about our plans,  many had the same response, “They haven’t cleaned that city up yet?”
Ya see, in Chicago, we’re too busy complaining about potholes and the Cubs to think about anyone else.
So for a week, we joined crews with Castlerock Church and Urban Impact.
While the biegnets in the French Quarter were as tasty as ever, some parts of New Orleans looked like time has sat still since the fall of 2005. These aren’t the pictures you peep at a tourism website. The spray painted “search circles” were still on the front of homes in the 7th Ward, along with rusty water lines from where the flood waters settled. While rehab efforts were happening, they would be as sporadic as a four leaf clover amongst the weeds: one freshly painted rehabbed house would be nestled between an abandoned home and a recently bull-dozed apartment complex. So many neighborhoods were struggling for identities—should we be rebuilding or re-locating?
Our week-long project was  rebuilding a small church, The Rock Of Ages, in the 7th Ward. For the most part, it was a “feel-good, warm-and-fuzzy” experience, the stuff that makes up McDonald’s commercials and political speeches. We met FEMA trailer survivors, people who were rescued from their attics, families who lost everything but their hope. One man said to us, “It’s easier for the poor to survive than the rich. We already know how to make it on nothin’. The rich do not.”
But working on Katrina Rebuilding also brought up questions that you’re afraid to have. Ones about social injustice, government flub ups, and just how many germs lurk in a port-potty?
But my biggest question dealt with noticing an able body man who sat across the church every day, just watching us and nursing his forty ounce.
I wanted to scream out, “Hey—why aren’t you helping?  This is YOUR neighborhood—and only MY vacation! Shouldn’t I be the one sipping an umbrella drink watching YOU?”
That’s when it hit me that while we can rehab a neighborhood, only God can rehab the heart, my heart included.
All in all, it was an eye-opening experience. But now I’m back in Chicago, where the extent of my problems consist of rush hour delays and over starched shirts from the cleaners. But I refuse to let New Orleans leave our minds and hearts.
If you have the chance to help with the Katrina Rebuilding project, by all means do it. Send a team or send a few bucks.  Peep our project director’s blog here. Or put a word in to the Big Guy for those helping out.

Aborted Workshop

Christian Youth Conference Says No to Teen Mom  Topic
A few weeks back, I submitted a proposal to do a workshop on What Juno Didn’t Tell You  at a national youth convention. This workshop would deal with teen pregnancy within the church. Considering close to one out of every three young ladies will get pregnant before the age of twenty, I thought I’d be packing my bags  for the Nashville  this fall.
Not.
It got bumped and I can only guess what to… 101 Uses for Marshmallows in Youth Ministry. Is Your Ministry as Cool as your Face Book Page? How to speak Starbucks.   
So I’m venting.
But I’m beyond bummed. I’m frustrated.
So many times, the church forgets the purpose of the church. Are we bypassing real needs to be trendy? Do we use finances to start a teen mom program or to buy an XBox for the fellas? Do we forfeit new air conditioning for the sanctuary to fund a daycare for single moms? Do we tell young girls to choose life… but choose not know  know what to do once she does have a child?
I don’ t know the answer to these questions, but I’m sure if men got pregnant, things would be different. 
Meanwhile, if you want to host a workshop on this topic for your own church or community, let me know. It's all ready to go.

When a non-seeking loved one dies

Last month, when the phone rang at 7 am, we had no idea how that call would change our lives. My husband’s younger brother got in a car accident...

Not a mere fender bender, but the kind of accident that shakes up a small town.  Matt hit a tree during the wee hours of the morning and was thrown from his car on a back country road.

And Matt wasn’t driving back from choir practice, either.  In spite of all of the prayer and conversations his family had with him, Matt resisted God. He had a bad experience as a teen and hadn’t felt comfortable in the pews since. Matt was kicked out of youth group when he needed God the most.

The first night after the accident, the doctor’s outlook was grim. My husband spent the night with Matt in the hospital room, holding his hand. He prayed and tried to find a Bible passage to make sense of it all. As he read Psalm 23 and prayed, Matt squeezed his hand back. Was that Matt’s way of letting us know that he was finally saying yes to God ? Was it code for the sinner’s prayer?

While the doctors said the hand squeeze was only his body’s reflex, we believe otherwise. We have to believe otherwise.

Within 72 hours, Matt took his final breath.

The next few days were full of painful emotions and unthinkable thoughts. The worse being, where is Matt? Did God give Matt a mulligan? Did Matt accept Christ during His last call? And if Matt didn't make the cut, how could heaven be a happy place for his parents?

While you can’t make it to heaven on someone else’s faith, there are passages in the Bible that can give comfort when you experience the loss of a gospel-resistant loved one. Please post your faves.

JOB 33 14-28

Starbuckola

What’s a cup of  Starbucks worth to you?
While I was trying to reboot my body with a cup of home brewed Foldgers (approximately 39 cents  per  pot),  I turned on the tube and saw the hottest news story perking since Paris’ days behind bars: the price of Starbucks is increasing an average of nine cents per cup.
I am not a Starbucks fan, but it is a trendy and acceptable Christian addiction.
If I want a cup of burnt tasting coffee, I’d head for a truck stop and nab a cuppa joe, disguising the taste with highly-flammable powdered creamer. Don't ask how I know.
Now imagine for a moment…if Starbucks Junkies gave up their low-fat lattes once a week and put that $4 to a better cause, just think of what we could do.
If the average Starbucks junkie slept through Sunday morning service without an AM caffeine fix,  he could help someone living with AIDS in Botswana.
Or, if the Christian caffeine addict gave up her lattes for a month, she could support a child through World Vision for a year.
Or, for forfeiting the same amount of trende  grande, one could pay for corrective surgery for a child with a cleft palate.Giving up one’s daily frappucinno addiction for an entire year could do something bigger, like help supply clean water to a third world country. Not to mention the savings in natural resources. By drinking a cup brewed by our vintage Mr. Coffees,we could keep a few million paper cups from ending up in a landfill.
Just think, by giving up Starbucks, we can change the world one cup at a time.
Or, we can pay nine cents more and expect the same daily grind.