by Tom Sine

As we race into the 2020s, we have suddenly been awakened to an accelerating global COVID-19 Pandemic that few saw coming. Those of us in North America are rapidly joining countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East in dealing with this new Coronavirus Pandemic.

While most churches is the US have canceled services or re-routed their services on line, they have also instructed members of how to care for them selves and their families. 

However, in checking a number of church web sites, fewer have outlined ways to also reach out to neighbors. Both established churches and new church plants need to join those reaching out to our neighbors; many of whom are facing a daunting range of new challenges.

Like the New Parish Community that is empowering churches to become community change makers, couldn’t your congregation join others in displaying the compassion of Christ?

These challenges provide an opportunity for all our churches to step up. It is an important opportunity to join those who are seeking to support families and individuals, not only in your congregation but also those in your neighborhoods who are at risk in a range of ways, in addition to COVID-19.

One possibility for your church is to “Partner with local, state or federal agencies or trusted non-profits with public health expertise to provide training on COVID-19 for members of your church or community. This could be conducted in person, or online through webinars for example.” (Preparing Your Church for Coronavirus [COVID-19])

Another possibility is for your church to join those that are particularly focusing on the underserved where you live. They may need help with health care costs, child care, food provision as well as assistance in connecting them to the appropriate health care providers during this health care crisis. Perhaps your church could collaborate with other churches in your community to develop these kind of resources for those who are underserved.

One of the most interesting examples I have come across is a cluster of churches outside of Chicago in a village called Wilmette on the North Shore. What is unique about this cluster of churches is they have, over time, learned to work together.

Like churches in all our communities, they have cancelled services. What is unusual, is the creative range of ways they are reaching out to neighbors that we could all learn from. 

In “Wilmette, Kenilworth and other North Shore residents stand ready to assist their neighbors during the COVID-19 pandemic. While religious services at area churches have been postponed, their outreach is still there for anyone who needs help”. For example, “Pastor Brian Smith, pastor at Wilmette’s Trinity United Methodist Church, is compiling a list of area residents who have offered their services to go to food or drug stores and buy groceries or get medications for senior citizens, the disabled or regularly housebound individuals who cannot do it themselves during the COVID-10 crisis.

‘We are here to help each other,’ Smith said. ‘It does not matter if the person is a member of our church.’ Those interested in volunteering their services to help for this purpose can contact Smith. . . He reminds the public Trinity’s regular services have been postponed but its food pantry is still open and available to those in need.”

Another pastor, “Rev. Wayne Watts. . . at Wilmette’s Saints Joseph and Francis Xavier Church, sent an email to parishioners and other interested individuals asking them to remember the many hourly wage earners and those who suffer loss of tips and other income because of the pandemic. ‘I am committed to feeding the hungry,’ he said. ‘If you would like to help, you can make a financial contribution.’

In his email message, Watts set up a link to where interested individuals can make a financial contribution to help with food security for those in need. If you know of anyone in our parish with a need, you can me at wwatts@archchicago.org.

The community’s local website, nextdoor.com, already has several area residents offering their help to those in need. Many residents have asked about food for children attending local schools who are on free or reduced lunches.

‘We have just confirmed that at Avoca (Dist. 37), we will be offering take-away lunches for families who qualify for free-or-reduced lunch waivers-on days when remote learning is scheduled,’ said Kaine Osburn, superintendent of Dist. 37. ‘This is in addition to directing any family facing food insecurity to a local food bank. We will have more details as we get them.’” (“Wilmette, Kenilworth residents help each other during COVID-19 pandemic”)

Couldn’t your church join others who are reaching out to not only those in your congregation but your neighborhood as well? Imagine the difference you community could make in the lives of the vulnerable in your neighborhood.

Tom Sine www.newchangemakers.com

I enjoyed offering a Futures/Creativity Workshop at First Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids last March.  

As I was leaving  the Workshop Pastor Randy Buursma shared “that First CRC Church has always been a “two-fer” congregation.”  I asked “what does that mean?”

Randy said “several years ago when I first came to the church being a ‘two-fer’ meant members attending Sunday morning and Sunday night.”  He added, “Now he said it means members attending twice a month.”

Randy’s experience is not unique.  I am finding over the past decade more and established evangelical and mainline churches have also been experiencing a sharp decline in attendance. How do we fix the drip?

A couple planting a new church here in Seattle started with meeting for worship twice a month to make it easier to get started.

As American Christians become more affluent not only is their attendance declining.  So is their annual giving. 

According the State of Church Giving 2015.  Sampling 11 of the major American protestant denominations their members gave 3.02% of their income in 1968 and only 2.17% in 2015. How do we fix the drip?

Even more concerning is these members and their congregations gave even a smaller share to neighbors in need.  In 1968 these churches gave 64% of their giving to benevolence as compared to only 34% in 2015. How do we fix the drip?

Research show members in established evangelical and mainline congregations also have less time to volunteer to reach out to those in need. How do we fix the drip?

How do we fix the drip in established churches?  How long can reduced participation and giving continue in evangelical and mainline churches before the vitality of congregations disappear?

For this blog I suggest that some of us who are older can help fix the drip before it begins by supporting Gen Next as they launch!

Young leaders who are planting new churches and seeking to make a difference are often facing even more daunting challenges than established churches.  

Recently we were fortunate to have JR Woodward, from V3 Church Planting Network, meet with church planters in our home.  He provided some very helpful insights, based on discipleship models in early Methodism, to enable members in these new plants to be better stewards of both their time and money as followers of Jesus.

I am encouraged to find that many older leaders, in our established churches, want to find ways to support the young starting these new church plants.  However, I find that few of them recognize how much more difficult for this generation to launch economically than when many of us got started. 

First, millennials are saddled with much higher school debt than older generations.  School debt is averaging almost $40,000 for recent college grads.  Some seminary grads I have met recently, that want to plant churches, are carrying over $100,000 in college and seminary debt.

Second, housing costs take a much higher percentage of total income  for millennials than they ever did for Boomers or Xers. 

Christine and I are enjoying experimenting with one alternative housing model to help a new generation launch, plant churches and make a little difference in times like these. 

Over 20 years ago Christine and I bought an old house built in 1910 here in Seattle that was divided into three separate flats to experiment in intergenerational living we call the Mustard Seed House.

We offer reduced rent.  Every week we share a meal, checkin time and prayer once a week and seek to be mutually supportive.  We also garden together once a month, enjoy the produce and enjoy sharing in hospitality with friends as well.

Our top floor is a three bedroom flat. Trevor and Hilary and their two young sons live there.  They are very invested in planing the new church I mentioned earlier with Converge.

Christine and I live in the middle floor which is a two bedroom apartment with our pup Goldie.  

Dan & Lisa live in our basement unit which is a one bedroom flat.  They are also involved in the church plant with Trevor and Hilary though they are employed elsewhere.  We enjoy learning from them.

Finally, Luke, a recent grad from Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, also lives in a separate unit in the basement that we call our “monk’s cell” that has it’s own bath. Luke is an active member at an ElLCA  innovative congregation that also attracts a lot of younger Christians here in Seattle called Church of the Apostles. 

One way, those of us who are older followers of Jesus, can both reduce the drip and increase our investment in growing the church is to open our homes to a new generation of change makers in times like these!

We would be happy to email you a copy of our community contract at Mustard Seed House and answer any of your good questions.

We would also be interested in any ideas you have come up with to SUPPORT A NEW GEN OR REDUCE THE DRIP IN CHURCH PARTICIPATION IN TIMES LIKE THESE!

twsine@gmail.com

In the few days after Christmas, we’ve seen families in new church plants here in Seattle realize they have given their kids new tech toys not realizing these toys are often not a “treat” but a “trick.”

Smart Toys and Secrets

For example, in a recent report on NPR, a new talking doll called Cayla has some serious issues and has been banned in Germany. She sings, talks and listens perhaps too well. A child can ask and a question like “can I tell you a secret?”

Cayla responds, “Sure go ahead: be very quiet though. I promise not to tell anyone; it’s just between you and me because you are friends.”

But anything said to Cayla isn’t secret at all according to NPR. The toy makers are able to listen in learning information about the intimate details of a family’s life including their purchasing habits.

Compromised Smart Toys

Santa’s “Internet of Toys” needs to come with an urgent cybersecurity warning according to Elisabeth Leamy in an article in the September 29, 2017 issue of the Washington Post. “The FBI is cautioning that internet connected toys, also known as “smart toys,” can be compromised by hackers.”

The article goes on to warn these “smart toys” can be compromised by hackers. They can learn your address, learn you children’s names, download your kid’s photos and listen in on conversations.

Imagine how the data collected from “smart toys” could be used to put your children at risk. In response, some European markets have taken these toys off the shelves. In the US child protection agencies encourage parents to disconnect the internet function.

Interact With Advertising

This new “trick or treat” technology can also dramatically increase the capability of corporations to collect information on family purchasing habits to narrow-cast adds to your and your children’s lives.

As you know every time we adults interact with our technology corporations collect information so they can keep targeting us with adds to the product we were looking at.

One example. four weeks ago I did some online research for a new lawn mower to replace my old one that died. You guessed it. I continue to get lawn mower ads every time I go online.

When we give our children smart toys or other devices which capture personal data, we are opening doors for them to be targeted by advertising. We are, in a sense, creating a relationship between them and a third party that we as parents have cannot supervise.

Why Church Planters Should Care

So what does this new “trick or treat technology” have to do with new church planting?

Many of those who are attracted to new church plants are from the millennial generation. Millennials are the first digital generation so they are likely to be among the first parents to have to navigate “smart toys” for their kids.

Even beyond smart toys, there is the proliferation of smartphones, digital assistants and other devices which children can quickly learn to use.

Technology isn’t neutral. It’s a major part of our culture, which means it matters to how we create disciples, including disciples who know how to parent well.

How are you teaching people about technology and discipleship in your community?

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Tom Sine

Tom Sine is a founder of Mustard Seed Associates and the author of Live Like You Give a Damn!: Join the Changemaking Celebration. Tom earned his Ph.D. at the University of Washington and has taught at the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University, and Fuller Seminary in Seattle. He speaks widely at colleges, churches, and missions conferences around the world. He and his wife Christine live in an inter-generational community in Seattle where he works with individuals, churches and organizations to foster new ways of affecting organic, lasting change in various sociological contexts.

The tech revolution didn’t begin with the iPhone in 2008. It began 500 years with the creation of the printing press.  That innovative technology transported people all over the planet into this new modern world.

How a 33-Year-Old Unleashed Technology on the Church

This year we are celebrating the radical action of a 33 year old named Martin Luther.  Martin not only broke away from the Catholic Church he used this remarkable new technology to make the bible available to all people not just the clergy.

As a consequence young Martin Luther became one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. This movement spread the gospel all over the world teaching believers how to study the Bible for themselves to follow in the way of Jesus.

In order to faithfully pass on their faith to the next generation many of these of these new protestant denominations created sets of doctrinal propositions. Too often these doctrinal statements were placed on the same level of authority as the scripture itself.

Today church planters report that young people, who were raised in churches that insisted that they “pledge allegiance” to a set of doctrinal statements, are looking for something more.  They are looking for a more personally engaging approach to scripture to learn more about how to authentically follow the life and teaching of Jesus in their entire lives.

New Technology Shaping the 21st Century

All our lives have been forever changed by the creation of new technology from the internet, the IPhone and coming soon Virtual Reality.  Young Christian innovators today, like Martin Luther, are seeking to use this new tech to share the story of Jesus. Even the American Bible Society, like Martin Luther, is using the internet to share biblical resources more broadly so people can read and study the Bible for themselves.

However, in spite of this growing access to scripture globally we are seeing Christians in America “are spending less time with the Bible and ascribing less authority to it than they used to.” According to Barna Research.  They added “Led by millennials, 19% of Americans see the Bible as ‘just another book.’”

Roxeanne Stone, Barna’a Editor-in-Chief states, “It can be hard to have a sense of the Bible being an authority when you have a universe of knowledge at your finger tips.” With accelerating influence of the new tech we do indeed have access to not only to a new “universe of knowledge” but also a broad range of competing world views.

This new reality will increasingly challenge not only the leadership of new church planters, but also Christian educators and increasingly Christian families who want to raise their young in the way of Jesus.

How to Take Scripture Seriously in the World of 24 Hour Tiny Screens

I can remember in the 70s and 80s when parents attempted to control their children viewing one screen in the living room with varying degrees of success.  In the 90s we started to see multiple screens in families for the first time…including teens with their own TVs in their rooms.  Parents began to lose screen control.

In 1995 I remember parents in the Temescal Community in Berkley California who found a successful way to regain control of media in their family.  Bill and Cherrie had two pre-teens.  They decided to have only one screen in their home which they used primarily as a video play back unit.  They took their two kids to the library once a week to select the videos they wanted to watch in the coming week.  Other families in their community supported this initiative supported this form screen stewardship.

However, today young parents tell me the only sense of influence they seem to have is how early to let them have their own screens.  Many parents tell me that once their young master their tiny screens they feel an increasing sense of a loss of control. What is your creative response?

I honestly wonder, with a growing number of church leaders, how much influence can 45 minutes of bible stories on Sunday have when Pew Research tell us kids are on their screens 8 to 9 hours a day.  Do any readers know of parents that are finding ways to not only control screen time but to also take family time to share about the way of Jesus every week?

I am told by leaders in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship have college students put their iPhones away in their back packs at the beginning of their bible studies.

I heard of one church plant group which have a bucket in which everyone deposits their iPhones before they study scripture together…focusing singularly on their Bibles and their conversation.  How does your community steward the use of the tiny screens you carry with you?

Please respond to 2 questions so we can share them on the v3 site:

1. What are the creative ways you are enabling members in your church to engage scripture to become authentic followers of Jesus?
2. What are the imaginative ways as parents you not only enable your kids to responsibly responibly steward their screens but also learn to follow in the way of the servant Jesus?

Send your examples today to: twsine@gmail.com

Reposted from: The V3 Movement

Violence at the recent white supremacists’ demonstration at Charlottesville, Virginia alarmed Americans of all races across our country.  I suspect many are surprised to learn that white supremacist, fascist and Nazi movements are all rapidly growing in America.

Christians of all cultures are having to ask the important question: As followers of Jesus, how we can be agents of racial reconciliation in times like these?

The best single Christian resource I have found on racial and reconciliation is this article from Sojourners Magazine.

For those who are involved in important work of church planting, like my friends in the V3 Movement, I have some very good news!  There is rapidly growing new movement of multicultural church planting going on in America today.  The even better news is that we can all be a part of it in our existing congregations and in planting new expressions of church.

Turning to a New Model of Ministry

At core this new movement is based on a new ecclesiology that I first discovered in Rodney Clapp’s important book, Families at the Crossroads.  In it, he points out that the New Testament has little to say about family.  However, what it does say is very radical.

Clapp reminds us of Jesus new radical description of family: “Who is my brother, sister, mother of father but he who does the will of God?” He suggests this scripture implies to become a follower of Jesus is to become a part of a new “first family” that transcends race, class and culture.

The social history of the first century church is filled with remarkable examples of followers of Jesus who indeed were creating new communities that routinely cut across race class and culture. It was a powerful witness that God was powerfully at work doing something new.

In the 80’s, the homogenous church planting efforts urged planters to create new churches on the pragmatic premise that it is easier to create new congregations with people of the same racial, cultural and class background. However, I find few young church planters who embrace that kind of pragmatism which led to 11 am Sunday morning becoming the most racially divided hour in American life.

There are a growing number of not only new church plants but also traditional congregations that are seeking to become richly diverse examples of that new “first family” that Jesus called us to join.

An Example for Consideration

At the beginning of this new millennium, First Covenant Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which was planted by immigrants from Sweden 140 years ago, found itself in in an increasingly racially diverse community.

The Spirit of God woke them up to this new opportunity. They started a host of new programs such a tutoring program in the racially diverse schools in the community to engage both students and parents. Now 80% of those who participate in these community programs are non-Anglo.

This led leadership in the Evangelical Covenant Church in America to start an aggressive new church planting program that included the goal of half of all new church plants would be multi-cultural and multi-racial.  They also mandated creating new plants where a greater share of both congregational time and money was invested in serious change making both locally and globally.

Efrem Smith planted Sanctuary Covenant Church in a richly interracial community in north Minneapolis in 2003.  It started with 22 people and grew to 900.  It was 40% black, 40% white and 20% Latino and Asian.  They drew upon the music, food and culture of all groups and all were invited into leadership.

Efrem spoke at one of our events at Mustard Seed Associates in Seattle in 2008 describing his growing congregation of 900 and their commitment to neighborhood transformation.  They started a Community Development Corporation to help the church provide a broad range of ways to empower their most vulnerable neighbors.  Remarkably Efrem told me that over 50% of the church budget was invested in local and global mission in those days.

The Evangelical Covenant Church is a part of God’s good news helping people in multicultural church plants all over America to discover we are all a part of God’s new first family.  Over 30% of members in this denomination is multicultural and that number is growing.

One of the brilliant elements of this important growth of new and older multicultural cultural churches is a leadership training venture called “Journey to Mosaic.”  Essentially leaders join a week-long bus trip where they sit with a leader from a different race or class than and you share your different responses to experiences that include spending a day with an African American Pentecostal church, to working and visiting with farm workers in Fresno to hanging out with the homeless in LA.

One white participant told me that he quickly discovered that he and other white leaders didn’t have all the answers, and what’s more, that they needed to become serious students of other cultures if they were going to be a constructive part of these new multicultural congregations.

I don’t know of another major denomination in the United States planting more multicultural churches or churches that are investing such a generous portion of their time and resources in making a difference in the lives of neighbors who are increasingly having difficult time supporting their families.

This your invitation, in a racially and culturally divided nation, to join our “Cov friends” by creating and planting new racially rich congregations that look more like the “new first family of Jesus” in times like these.

Multicultural Church Planting in a Racially Divided America

I have always been impressed at how Mennonite churches, as followers of Jesus, are consistently among first responders to engage crises facing their neighbors when tornados, floods and other natural disasters strike their communities.

Another kind of tsunami is likely to impact lives of many of our friends and neighbors starting in 2018. The projected deep cuts in a range of social programs including food stamps, disability payments and health care by the US.. government for 2018 will make it increasingly difficult for many of our friends and neighbors to sustain their lives and families.  As the specific cutbacks become clearer in the coming months, it will be easier to identify the impacts on both the people in our congregations and communities.

Don’t these coming cutbacks offer an opportunity for your church to become a first responder, before these cutbacks hammer the lives of those in your congregation and local community?

Couldn’t leaders in your church:

• Immediately identify those in your congregation and neighborhood who are likely to be directly impacted by these projected cutbacks?
• Start to work now, with others in your church and community, to develop a plan for compassionate response?
• Join other churches that are moving from simply stocking food banks and offering handouts to creating new forms of social enterprise and neighborhood empowerment that will enable our neighbors to become more self-reliant to make it through these tough times?

Here are some examples of what innovative new forms of community empowerment look like that could enable those in your congregation and community to become more self-reliant.

Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) has successfully established businesses and social enterprises in poorer communities in emerging economies around the world to enable neighbors to move from dependency to self-reliance.  I find many people don’t know this same kind of economic innovation is happening in the U.S.

One of the best places to learn how to create new social enterprises is to contact ASSETS connections in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They report: “At ASSETS we create economic opportunity and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership to alleviate poverty and build vibrant sustainable communities.” ASSETS started with help from MEDA and the support of alumni from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

ASSETS offers a range of economic services from a women’s business center to providing consulting in starting social enterprises. They also sponsor the Great Social Enterprise Pitch, an idea incubator and business plan competition for concepts that use business revenues and models to have a positive social or environmental impact in the Lancaster community.

ASSETS shared one example of what this kind of economic empowerment looks like. Jennie and Jonathan Groff started employing refugees to help them produce Dutch treats at The Stroopie Company. For example, recently Kalidah, a Syrian refugee with five children, settled in Lancaster with the help of Church World Services. Jennie and Jonathan have made it their mission to not only hire and train refugee workers, like Kalidah, but they also offer free English classes every day at work. The Groffs have employed 16 refugees and are looking forward to continuing to use their business not only to make products but to support their new neighbors as they get established in the Lancaster community.

Messiah University,  Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, also offers a similar competition every April for students in the school of business. The competition is a major community event. One team of winners started a furniture building business using repurposed wood. They are committed to employing and train young unemployed men.

The Colonial Congregational Church in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota offers their own social enterprise  competition called Innove’. To participate all you have to be is under 35 and have a good idea.  You don’t even have to go to their church.

Leah Driscoll and her team one first place in the initial competition. While working on her master’s degree, Leah learned that the Twin Cities area has one of the largest “food deserts” in the United States. Almost 300,000 people have no access to reasonably priced food or fresh produce. They wind up spending an excessive amount of their income at corner stores that charge excessive prices and rarely have fresh produce.

Leah and her team won first place with their concept, “Mobile Market.” They bought one old municipal bus and transformed it into a traveling market. It offers reasonably priced groceries and fresh produce and visits different neighborhoods every day. It pays for itself without church charity or government aid, and also provides a service to the community. When I met Leah last October, she told me that she and her team are going to buy four more buses to expand this social business.

It is important to add at this point that community empowerment involves more than starting social enterprises. It also includes initiatives like community gardening to increase the ability of people to feed their families.

In 2004, Arvada (Colorado) Mennonite Church, started a community garden that is still providing a place for immigrants from Laos and Russia to improve the diet of their families by adding fresh vegetables. Goshen (Indiana) College also has one of the leading programs in sustainability. Recently several grads from this program have helped the Pulse service program in Pittsburgh to transform some vacant land into the Kinkaid Community Garden.

In my most recent book on those in the millennial generation creating new forms of social innovation, I celebrate some very good news. Because millennials, 19 to 36 year olds, are the first digital generation, they are much more globally aware of the issues of economic, racial and environmental justice.  The even better news is that a higher percentage of these millennials want to invest their lives in serious change-making. As a consequence, a growing number of corporations are adding a social mission in order to hire millennials.

This presents an important opportunity to our churches, because they are facing some very bad news.  According to Pew Research, those in the millennial generation are disaffiliating from most churches in the U.S. at an alarming rate. Evangelical churches are discovering that putting on a “hip show” and having the pastor wear skinny jeans isn’t working any more.

So here are the two opportunities for Mennonite church leaders to prepare for the coming cutbacks in 2018:

1. You can enable your church to be among the first responders to the 2018 cutbacks by starting to prepare now to create new ways to empower friends and neighbors before the cutbacks come;
2. You can also invite the young people that are still in your church to help create and launch these new social innovations.

In this process, your church might not only play an important role as first responders to the new  waves of social cutbacks in 2018.  You could also discover, by inviting the innovative ideas and initiative of the young in your church, that you might gain a new generation of creative leaders to help guide your church into the turbulent 2020’s and beyond.

Please let me know what innovative ventures your church creates and launches and the way that young innovators are involved to share with others.Write me: twsine@gmail.com.