What could be gained by having smaller churches:

1. More intimate fellowship. Everyone instantly becomes more accessible because there are far less of you.
2. The giftings of each member would more readily find output. In a larger church, the math says there will be numerous people with the same or similar giftings but the opportunities for gift exercise within that local body will not be proportionally increased.
3. Accountability comes with more intimate fellowship.
4. Church discipline is more realistic because of familiarity though by no means easier.
5. Increased percentage of undesignated giving freed up to be forwarded to the Cooperative Program.

Because of the Southern Baptist Cooperative Program the amount of money given to missions should in no way decrease if churches were to be constituted around a smaller number. In fact, with smaller churches with presumably smaller operating budgets a higher precentage of the church’s offerings could be dedicated to the Cooperative Progam.

Example, a church of 50 members giving $10 weekly, 10% percent of which is forwarded to their State Convention (i.e., $1 per person or $50 collectively) who then forwards 35% to the Cooperative Program, in the end gives $17.50/week to missions collectively. Split that group of 50 into two groups of 25 whose churches are able to give 20% of their undesignated receipts to their State Convention of which 35% still makes it to the Cooperative Program, ends up giving twice as much (half the group, but double the percentage times two).

All this to say that while one may assume that a larger church is able to give more to missions, the reality is rather the opposite due to the operating costs associated with large buildings, properties and staffs. A smaller church is freed up to give a greater percentage provided monetary cooperate responsibilities are at a minimum. A larger church is not able to give more, but requires more to keep the operation running.

What is gained by having larger churches:

1. Attendees can remain anonymous, avoid confrontation and remain uncommitted much like a movie-goer.
2. More money may secure greater amenities for the members (big screens, coffee shops, bookstores, etc).
3. Less impetus for members to exercise spiritual gifts in a congregation that has professionalized the ministry.

The benefits of a smaller church far outweigh the superficial, comfort-lending benefits of the larger.

Instant messaging, email and Facebook are all decidedly awesome. You chat will your peeps, get lots of SPAM mail, and eavesdrop on your “friends’” lives via wall posts, photos, and intelligence-bending status updates. All in all it’s a huge chunk…*cough* waste…of time, but you enjoy it. In fact, you may be reading this on Facebook because I’ve set it to automatically import my blog posts as notes and a notification of a new imported note came across your Facebook feed or mini-feed or whatever they now call it. However you’ve come to read this you may now be wondering what this comfortably stout green man to the (upper-)left with no arms, nose or mouth has to do with “social networking.”

I hereby submit to you that Digsby will change your life. He’s an IM client who lets you chat simultaneously on Yahoo, MSN, Google, AIM, and ICQ while also checking all your email accounts (GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, pop, etc) and also serves as a living geiger counter, giving you notifications of all the Facebook tremors and earthquakes. One minute he pops up saying you’ve got a new SPAM mail…which, by the way, you can delete (or Mark as SPAM) directly from the client. The next minute he whispers in your busy little working ear that Susie Sassalot has a new wall post. And what greater joy than when in the next minute you get an IM! That’s Digsby, just flipping his orange lid. Go on, punch his face with your mouse and give him a download. He’ll change your life.

I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t read our president Danny Akin’s emails. I guess one excuse is that they’re usually lengthy and numerous; but this latest email sent out to the student body and published on his blog is truly worth a read and hereby receives my commendation.

Below are Akin’s thoughts prefacing an article which he included in his email:

The secular media and some pollsters are: 1) arguing that many evangelicals are considering voting for Senator Barack Obama and 2) attempting to provide a rationale for why they could morally justify voting for him. Attached is a lengthy and compelling argument by Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University that puts to rest such “foolish talk.” Read this thoughtful response and see if you can find it morally conscionable to vote for “a president of death.”

I would likewise encourage you to read Professor George’s “thoughtful response” which you can find in-full on Dr. Akin’s blog at the following address: http://betweenthetimes.com/2008/10/14/why-faithful-evangelicals-cannot-vote-for-barack-obama.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He serves on the President’s Council on Bioethics and on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). George is a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey.

With Dr. Akin’s permission to “send it to whomever” I have created a PDF which you can use to attach his entire email and the article by Professor George to an email of your own and/or to print to share with others.

Download PDF (48kb)

The easiest way to find out what people think of you is to ask them, and usually after some prying, you can get it out of them if they’re friends enough. This was the scenario today.

Since almost all my co-workers are fellow seminarians we get into all kinds of deep theological questions like matters concerning the problem of evil, the rationality of hell, determinism, and whether we would let our kids marry shortly after puberty as is well-nigh the argument of a below-tagged New Testament professor here at Southeastern. Of course, none of us have kids, but we like to speculate equally on this subject as we do on others of which we have none, like sovereignty. So, what most naturally arose during this conversation on raising children to be mature adults by foregoing this recent phenomenon “adolescent” (cf. The Myth of Adolescence) except homeschooling.

In the course of the discussion it came out that two of my friends and coworkers with whom I’ve now been acquainted for approximately a year both thought I was homeschooled.

“What, so you really thought I was homeschooled?!”

“I had to ask.”

“Gandhi.”

No, I was not homeschooled! I reckon my mom would have killed me and my older brother by now had we been homeschooled.

photo credit: Mc Morr

Charles Latham in his antifolk song My Perfect Church offers this bit of truth-in-jesting cynicism concerning spirituality:

I pray from my toilet seat, “Make my holy life complete”

My god hears me when I speak, can yours say the same? My god lets me have my way, I can pray for it not to rain today, I can chant cars off the motor way when I’m late for work. My god grants financial miracles and the rules are always flexible, my god watches my vehicles when they’re parked in the street.

My perfect church is built only for one: where I am the priest and the congregation, my one regret is that no one can come, it’s gonna be awful lonely in this private heaven.

My god likes human sacrafise, his services demand a price and mine’s the only blood he likes, no virgin’s will do. He can’t heal me should I go blind, he can’t burn a bush or absolve my crimes, he can’t turn my water into wine but he can point me to the bar.

My perfect church is built only for one, where I alone experience salvation. My one regret is that no one can come; it’s gonna be awful lonely in this private heaven.

He gives me no creation myth, the commandments end with the fifth, the prophesies are pretty hit or miss but I don’t give a damn because every day’s a holy day and you can’t work on a holy day, my god wants me at home to pray, begging for more things.

My perfect church is built only for one, where I am the priest and the congregation, my one regret is that no one can come, it’s gonna be awful lonely in this private heaven.

There’s an MP3 of the song available on what looks to be a legit (i.e., not illegal) site.

The second presidential debate is tonight starting at 9:00PM (EST) at Belmont University.

C-SPAN is offering a live video feed for free.

Here’s a link which you can paste into VLC or WMP:

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

Alternatively, you can watch with the players I’ve embedded below:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Sirius-XM satellite radio merger is set to go in effect tomorrow. Until today I was really excited about the merger. I had heard XM was going to add an a la carte service whereby subscribers could pick the channels they wanted on their plan much like you pick what you want on your plate at Bob Evans. Also, the companies were assuring that everyone’s radios would continue to work. After all, who wants to have to buy a new unit or worse yet, have their built-in dashboard XM or Sirius stop working while the two satellite giants are merging to supposedly offer better service to subscribers! No I said the audiophile.

So, with these hopes high in heart, I checked out the details of the merger offering which goes in effect tomorrow. I was well disappointed by my findings. The main push is for XM users to upgrade their plan for $4/month to get “the best of Sirius.” “The best” being the best and sounding the best to potential clients includes the following channels: two Howard Stern channels, NFL play-by-play, NASCAR, Martha Stewart and Playboy. To be blunt, I’m going to go with more of a no than a yes.

Out of all the offerings of Sirius they pick these? There’s got to be a money issue behind this; either that or marketing statistics which say that an overwhelming number of satellite radio users are men, but that doesn’t really explain the Martha choice. I don’t imagine too many truckers toggling between NASCAR, Playboy and Martha Stewart.

Additionally, what about family subscribers? Driving on the way to the beach for the family vacation with the toddlers car-seated like fighter pilots listening to Stern and bunnies. This seems to be a question they’ve preempted with a FAQ:

What if I don’t want some of the content (i.e. channels with frequent explicit language)? XM offers two “family-friendly” options that will not contain any of the “XL” channels that contain frequent explicit language, and these packages will be offered at a discounted monthly rate from that package’s standard monthly rate.

As to what the “family-friendly” packages are have yet to be revealed. More Martha Stewart and another NASCAR? Let’s hope not. How ’bout some music please.

Overall, the merger seems disappointing and I haven’t even told you about the need to buy a new radio receiver if you want to get the rumored a la cart service. I guess just plain old XM will have to suffice for the time being (which I love by the way). =)

We pay all our bills online. And, to be honest, going paperless for many of our accounts was less about creation care (i.e., saving trees) and more about having less clutter. It’s pretty sweet that going paperless not only provides for less clutter but also in a real way saves trees. So consider the below and consider switching whichever accounts permit to paperless in order to have less clutter and more trees.

On another note, isn’t Citi bank one who’s on the verge of going the way of Fannie Mae? The paperless, tree initiative might be the least of their worries. Nonetheless, woo-hoo trees!

Thursdays in the chapel services here at Southeastern we pray for North American missions, and today the gentleman who was asked to lead in prayer started by saying, “Sweet Jesus…”

I wouldn’t recommend starting this way given the cultural connotations.

Mark Driscoll interviews “indigenous missionary to the hip hop culture” Lecrae about his background and hip hop music in order to showcase his new album, Rebel. This is a guy I’ve been listening to for a while. It’s great to see he’s getting exposure and getting interested in Reformed theology (surprised to hear that he’s been influenced by Piper?). Amen and amen.