Concerns

The above images are from a video shot by Jason Vanderhill, of me "entering" a 20 foot bonfire. We were trying to see how close we could get to the fire w. out melting - I think maybe 5 feet and then it was unbearable - I think this series of pics looks really cool. (Click image for larger, and better image).

I subscribe to about 15 different podcasts - everything from church stuff to Comedy Central and CBC. One of the ones I subscribe to is run by a church planter in NYC, who moved to Manhattan from Saddle Back church.

His church grew quite quickly and is now in 3 services with several hundred people - after only about 5 years.

The podcast I listened to disturbed me. It was called "Summer Reads 2007". These were books they were recommending pastors read. Every single book was a secular book on leadership, marketting and communication.

What concerned me was the complete imbalance in their recommendations. Of course pastors need to be aware of trends in culture, we need to communicate well and we need to lead well. But I was alarmed at the lack of any books on the spiritual disciplines - prayer, fasting, developing the inner spiritual life.

It seems that pragmatism is the new Deity among North American evangelicalism. No wonder we are growing big churches, that have virtually no effect on the surrounding culture. We are "attracting" people with our slick managerial skills, our relevant sermon series and our knowledge of contemporary culture. So people get converted to an evangelical version of their present world.

Is it any wonder that the lifestyles of evangelicals are virtually identical with those of non-evangelicals - same divorce rate, same use of our money, etc.

Sorry about that rant - it just stuck out to me so pointedly in this particular podcast.