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VisionCaster™? Is that from Fender?

I have a '65 Fender Telecaster™. It's a great guitar. One that makes me sad as I rarely get around to playing it.

Bought it from the son of my parents' next door neighbours in 1978. For $300. Three months later that son wanted to buy it back. I declined. But that isn't the reason for this post.

In the few minutes I had to read blog posts yesterday, I did manage to read one of my favourite bloggers. This blogger is of the more Emerging/Emergent type rather than missional (and yes, Virginia, there is a difference). The post mentioned this person's church, with a link. I clicked. And wandered around the "really cool church" site for a while.

What surprised me was how much this apparently emerging church resembled all the other North American "heading towards megachurches (h2m™)". The senior leader spoke at lots of conferences, wrote books and was an all-round cool person. The team players weren't much different from those you'd find in any other expression of h2m™.

Even the opposite-gendered spousal unit of the senior leader was on staff. In the role of VisionCaster™.

Now, VisionCaster™ ain't from Fender and doesn't play all that well for me. The action's set way too high and the intonation is terrible. (That's a guitar joke.) In fact, I despise the term. It speaks of control (and hints of casting spells). It says that this person casts the vision (that they have supposedly heard from God) and the loyal gathered follow.

I don't buy it.

I'm well aware of the proverb, in the King James rendering, that says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." It's the one used to justify the vision casting role. Even if to do this, the text must be eisegeted rather than exegeted.

If the casting of vision played such a central role in the church, one would think it would be easily found in Scripture. Yet, I don't find VisionCasters™ in the New Testament.

Well. OK. There was Simon the Sorcerer.

What I find is a community gathered together, praying and hearing from God.

In fact, zipping back to Proverbs, Eugene Petersen translates the passage,

If people can't see what God is doing,
they stumble all over themselves;
But when they attend to what he reveals,
they are most blessed.

In responding to issues in the Antiochian church, the apostles say, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us..." Peter didn't stand up and say, "I, Peter, the rock on whom our Lord says the church will be built, declare that this is God's vision..." James did not stand up and say, "Hey, I'm Jesus' younger brother. It's a bloodline thing. I've heard from God and..." John didn't stand up and say, "Any other vision than my vision is di-vision!" You get my drift.

The iMonk does a fabulous job of taking apart some of the present titular nonsense in the world of evangellyfishism in How Many Different Kinds of Pastors Are There?

Well Michael, I'd add VisionCaster™ to the list. Right next to Cultural Architect. Geez!

I need to go pick up my guitar and play. Just like (a long ago) yesterday. And hope we don't get fooled again.

Proverbs 29:18, VisionCaster™

To My Missional Leader Friends

Please. I beseech thee.

In the name of all things good and true.

And.

Especially, in this time of economic downturn. When you could help a graphic artist out.*

STOP DOING YOUR OWN CHARTS & GRAPHICS

Just because you have tools that let you do it, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD.

They hurt our eyes.

Stop it.

Just.

Stop it.

BTW. This goes for the rest of you wannabe designers. PowerPoint is NOT a creative tool. Period.

OK. I feel better.

*Although I make a part of my living designing animated and broadcast graphics, I do not consider myself a graphic artist. Not even remotely.

It's All About Me, NPD and Church Leaders

In one of Imbi's many interviews for her documentary on the church & church leadership in the 21st Century (coming later this year), she asked one of the recognized church leaders (I can't remember which one) why there seemed to be so many leaders in the church suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

His response was that as actual community means so little to the church in the west, it becomes an attractive place for people who crave power. We only know potential leaders via their external presentation - as we've not experienced them in community enough to know both their gifting and their flaws. (This leader's response was in light of how seminaries and/or the church might weed out folk like this. Part of the response being that churches need to be the sending agencies - rather than people "deciding to get their M.Divs" or even "preaching for a call.")

I've had the misfortune of working with someone suffering from a severe case of NPD. This three para excerpt I've pulled from Emily Yoffe in Slate is accurate, and rather scary,

A recent study titled "Leader Emergence: The Case of the Narcissistic Leader" describes how narcissists have skills and qualities—confidence, extraversion, a desire for power—that propel them into leadership roles but that when true narcissists are in charge, other aspects of their makeup—a feeling the rules don't apply to them, a need for constant stroking—can have "disastrous consequences." Yes, we're talking about you, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. After Blagojevich was caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat, he reveled in the opportunity to appear on talk shows, making the case that he himself was a victim—self-pity being a favorite narcissist refuge.

A line from a New York Times profile of him is as trenchant a description of narcissism as is found in most psychology textbooks: "[He] is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush." There it all is: the sense that other people don't matter, the belief others are instruments for the narcissist's use, the self-admiration.

Narcissistic personality disorder is not simply about taking normal egoism to extremes. NPD is one of fewer than a dozen personality disorders described by the American Psychiatric Association. These differ from the major mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and manic-depression, which are believed to have a biological origin. Personality disorders are seen as a failure of character development. Others include anti-social personality disorder (these people are also commonly called "sociopaths" or "Bernie Madoff") and borderline personality disorder (think of Livia Soprano). NPD has been officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association only since 1980, but descriptions of this syndrome go back to ancient times. The name for it, after all, comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, the beautiful boy who was unable to love until he saw his own reflection in the water and died pining away at his image.

For the NPD church leader, church is all about numbers and size. The church reflects who they are. And provides them with the lifestyle they believe they deserve. NPD's are particularly gifted at winning affection by selling you what you want to be sold. "Converts" in their churches, to them, are really an increase in their adoring fandom. And should you choose to stand up to them, beware. They will stop at nothing to destroy you. Someday soon I'll tell you my story where I dared challenge an NPD church leader. Let's just say it was a very expensive costly decision on my part.

UPDATE: I should add that as I've spent a lot of the last 3.5 years engaged in producing videos and media materials in the missional vortex - this area of the Christian conversation is not immune. People who suffer from NPD will look for whatever area to build a following - to aggrandize themselves. If missional is the new, new then expect more than a few NPD types to join the characters on the platform. (How easily we build platforms in what many of us had hoped would be a plaftormless new world of the church - amidst and among rather than above. What was it Solomon said? Oh yes, "vanity, it's all vanity.")

UPDATE 2: Dan @ City of God has a good response with some good links to read, as well.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Bad Puns et Moi

I live for bad puns. The groans that follow are pure delight. 'Tis the fault of my red-haired, Irish grandfather, who inflicted this diss-ease on his son, and that son on this, your humble writer.

My sons and daughter shudder when puns trip effortlessly from their tongues - the gift that keeps on groaning.

That groans are preferred to laughter is part of the illness. In my twenties, I ended a relationship with a young woman who laughed at all my puns. She missed their point. I did not miss her. (Please note I resisted an obvious pun at the end of the previous sentence.)

Imbi won my heart partially by the look of pure malevolence my puns would engender from her beautiful face. Ahh, at last someone with whom I could share my life - pun-filled as it might be.

Joseph Tratakovsky comments in Today' NYT [via],

It is said that Caligula ordered an actor to be roasted alive for a bad pun. (Some believe he was inclined to extremes.)

Puns are the feeblest species of humor because they are ephemeral: whatever comic force they possess never outlasts the split second it takes to resolve the semantic confusion. Most resemble mathematical formulas: clever, perhaps, but hardly occasion for knee-slapping. The worst smack of tawdriness, even indecency, which is why puns, like off-color jokes, are often followed by apologies.

But in the end of his comment, he notes that one of my heroes, Edmund Burke, loved to pun,

...low as puns may be, they have been known to appeal to the loftiest minds. Samuel Johnson hated puns, but his friend Edmund Burke, whose intellectual powers daunted even Johnson, was notorious for pun-making (e.g., “What is [m]ajest[y], when stripped of its externals, but a jest?”)

But perhaps my favourite story from Tratakovsky's comment, was Lady Margot Asquith delicious, pun-ripened response to Jean Harlow's mispronunciation of the dear Lady's first name,

“My dear, the ‘t’ is silent,” said Asquith, “as in Harlow.”

Take a moment, if you must.

Humor

This Isn't Working

I may I have posted this before. I'm posting it again. I see myself singing this to a number of the so-called leaders of the church in North America. Feel free to join me on the chorus.

The Boomers featuring Ian Thomas.

The New Alternate

Perhaps it's just me. And I have been working really long hours. But this just struck me as funny.

...he and Erwin McManus are taking an alternate route away from the popular “multi-site” road. Rather than use a video feed for the many Mosaic campuses like most multi-site congregations who use a central pastor on video, Mosaic has opted for using speakers from individual sites. This allows many people to receive training in both sermon preparation & presentation. [emphasis added]

Imagine that. A really live preacher. In a real live location. Dang. What will they think of next?

multi-site video preachers, real live preacher

Important Net Reading Material

Ed Brenegar is a good friend I met through blogdom on these interwebs. He's provided me with wonderful wisdom both personally and via his blog. Today it's via his blog. I'm running out the door to The Evolving Church conference (and will back hard at work later today, Dave.) Read Ed on Three Communities and Change. (Clay Shirky was one of the triggers for his post.)

The business and governmental institutions of our world as currently organized are incapable of adapting to the rapid changes that have been happening in global society. And I would add to this list traditional social, educational and religious institutions as well.

Each is attempting to survive in a time of chaos. Each attempting to find some sort of continuity from day to day, from one crisis to the next.

Many of these institutions since the end of the Second World War have lived in an era of expansion of their programs and complexity of their organizational structures. As they have grown, operating efficiencies have provided these institutions financial capital to expand their reach. All that is now ending as global economic contraction happens.

Please read it all.

Ed Brenegar, Everything IS Changing

Green Beer?

Yep. It's St. Paddy's day. Which means, of course, certain people... drink green beer? How does that work, exactly?

Rewind 1600 hundred years. It is sometime in the early 5th century. A man from what we know call Wales, captured by Irish raiders, makes his way back to the verdant green isle after six years, enslaved. He later returns to the land of a many of my ancestors to share the Good News. Legend has Patrick banishing snakes from the island. (Though that didn't stop lots of them from leading churches elsewhere.)

Between the myth and the man lies a story of a man committed to sharing his faith, no matter the personal cost. His work had such a lasting impact on Ireland that he is later named one of the patron saints of that always gorgeous, often troubled island. And March 17th is celebrated in his name - a national holiday in Ireland and an excuse to drink green beer in much of the rest of the Irish-infected world.

My last name is Irish. (Either a derivative of MacKinnon, or a misspelling of Keenan or Kennedy.) I ofttimes claim my celtic heritage. The reality is that I'm probably half-English, a quarter-English Jew, and a quarter Irish - making me a typical Canadian mutt. And as that mutt, I raise a glass to Patrick - an early model of the missionary life. There will be no green beer for me. I'd never put dye in a glass of Guinness. But I may just wander down to Allen's on the Danforth and enjoy the sights and sounds of those hungry for a home they've never known - whether from Ireland or not.

St. Patrick's Day

How to Rebuild a Bent Toadley & Other Church Mysteries

This post was prompted by my good friend, Grace. Her prophetic gift is to "kick at the darkness, 'til it bleeds daylight," as Bruce Cockburn would put it.

A year ago, the circus came to Lakeland, Florida. But this was a new, improved circus. A circus where the tattooed-man was the ring leader. Stealing plosives from Emeril, he claimed he'd "bammed" thousands into healing. He told stories of visiting heaven and hanging with Paul in Paul's Shack. (Not to be confused with Paul Young's Shack, of course, which is a work of fiction.) 100's had been raised from the dead. (I think they were just sleeping - worn out by all the bamming.)

But 'twould seem there was some bad bammin' happening in the midst of all the good, productive bammin'. Right after the seething mass of hucksters anointed apostolic leadership placed a kingly-ringly on one of the fat fingers of the tattooed-man and spoke prophetic words of power over him, Bent Toadley's bammin' came to a sudden halt. The bride of his youth no longer appealed to him. He'd walked with her limp for too many years. He wanted a new model. He'd already picked one out. The seething mass of prophesying hucksters anointed prophetic leadership were in shock. Their god had not kept them abreast of Bent's private bammin'. What were they to do? (Prevaricate mostly, I'd suggest.)

Fast forward an eternity. Well, (pregnant pause) maybe nine months. Bent's got a new wife; "the old is gone, the new has come." And now he's really, really sorry. IT'S RESTORATION AT THE CIRCUS TIME FOLKS. STEP RIGHT UP TO SEE THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Well, at least at the old PTL headquarters, where mourning-starved Rick, the Joiner holds sway.

Now Strang(e) Com's "Makin' the Grade" Lee, editor of Personality+Mag, took great offense to the rapid-fire restoration of the Bent One. (In fairness, Lee has been consistent in his critique, after an initial bit of mild enthusiasm for the Lakeland Circus.) Mourning-starved Rick was pissed. He was apparently really really busy, so he didn't have time for tact (or rational, nay biblical, thinking for that matter),

I think what you call "the Lakeland disaster" would be disputed by multitudes of people who got healed or touched there. If you are such judge of this what gives you the credentials? What moves of God have you led? What have you built? Paul the apostle claimed to have authority for building and for tearing down, but what gives you authority to tear down the work of others is having built something yourself.

I, Todd, Bill and Jack all know this is a very serious matter, and are treating it as such. I am deeply offended that you would call our work "a travesty." The Lord had far more grace for sinners than for the self-righteous, who He had no grace for at all. I am personally far more concerned for you than for Todd.

And for all of you folk who know how church marketing sucks and were concerned about Toad's brand; one he'd worked so hard to build - you'll be happy to know that his former Canadian charity has changed its name and Toad and mourning-starved Rick now control the Fat Frier, err, Fresh Fire brand. They hope to bringing the ignition to a stadium near you really soon. Just as quick as they can get the Toadster freshened up for his adoring masses.

Our God is a Consuming Fire

Speaking of fire, Cross and the Blowtorch Switchblade author, and Times Square Pastor, DW, has a word from the god of the 911 pilots. At least, that's what it sounds like to me. The Northeast is gonna burn, baby burn. Perhaps DW should be sent to his room to exegete Hosea and the entire New Testament. I'd just keep him out of the Apocalyptic last book. No more listening to Talking Heads. And if anything should burn, it would be his collection of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins books.

The Wizard of Ads quoted Luke 12 (don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows) this morning while also quoting this great line from "Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (who) said with tongue in cheek during the French Renaissance 450 years ago, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”" Our God does not give us a spirit of fear, but rather strength, love and self-control as Paul reminded Timothy.

Not So Hot - But Still Fiery Little Rascal

And then this from the "Church of the Little Rascals" wing of North American Evanjellyfishism; young noble Perry, apparently flying at 30,000 ft with neither oxygen nor a parachute. In a wonderful display of logic, that can only be asphyxia related, he decided he should define missional for the huddled masses gathered at his feet - or where his feet would be if he wasn't flying at 30,000 ft sans O2:

Missional = Attractional.

'Yep, boys and girls, bringing folks to the shows at yer megabox churches is the new meaning of missional. That's how we fulfill the Great Omission Commission. Never mind what those stupid little jackass bloggers (who actually allow comments on their blogs as they are NOT afraid of disagreement) have to say. I, noble Perry, will define all the important words for you. Lest you get confused. (BTW. It's probably best if you let me 'splain the Bible to you. You probably wouldn't understand it on your own.)'

Let me take a moment to be serious. (A moment's about all I could handle.) Little Rascals like noble Perry speak from such exalted positions because of the numbers of people who've joined their church - and believe me, it is "their church". But numbers only tell a very small part of the story. Read my son Liam's post here to help unpack this further. Where the Kingdom of God is actually manifested, societal change is evidenced. I would debate that actually occurring in most instances of the North American megachurch.

A Chicago-based pastor recently took a shot at the "missional conversation" bragging on the 1000 baptisms at his franchising church while suggesting the missional folk had no converts. I have one question for said pastor. If you are achieving such success in your main church and its franchisees mostly in the northern Illinois area, along with all the other megachurches that seem to populate Chicagoland, why is Chicago one of the most corrupt cities in North America. I'm just asking.

Further, if it's all about numbers then perhaps you should give up bacon and shellfish and cede leadership to Smiley "Wow, Nobody Every told me to Read the Old Testament" Joelsteen™. His numbers are certainly bigger than yours. Even young Ed Jr. has paid homage to the smile-encrusted wonder from Houston.

Those of you, who so easily ignore pajama-clad bloggers like moi, have chosen to conveniently forget that many of us held senior positions in churches just like yours. We've tripped over the bodies left lying in the wake of your "godly" leadership. We chanted your mantras of "getting more people saved." We drank the kool-aid, came close to dying, but have managed to survive.

One of the reasons you so virulently attempt to write us off, is that you know there's truth in what we are saying. You have a measure of guilt (at least for a while longer) for the people who you've hurt, and in some cases destroyed, in your quest for Fire™. You know deep down inside that you are more concerned with building an audience of "saved" people than you are with building Christ's Kingdom. In Christ's Kingdom we must decrease and He must increase. In your kingdom, you grow to be 30,000 feet tall, with the little people far below you.

And since you have such a hard time with being critiqued, perhaps this one last note might help: do yourselves and the rest of us a favour. Read a book from way back in the last millenium (1999 to be exact) called The Cluetrain Manifesto. It's even available online to read if you can't afford a copy since every last penny needs to go pay the big mortgage you have on your church. It will help you understand why the "little people" are, in Paddy Chayefsky's words, "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." Heck, read Clay Shirky's recent post on the death of newspapers to get an idea of how little you control the discussion - in spite of your exalted self-opinion.

Say arrogant, stupid things - prepare to be fisked.

Live with it.

Oh, and noble Perry, Balaam ignored his language-gifted ass at his own peril. Though you seem to be doing well enough speaking out of yours.

UPDATE: My friend Brad adds powerfully to this discussion.

CharismaMag, David Wilkerson, Lee Grady, Perry Noble, Rick Joyner, Todd Bentley

Missing My Blog

That's me who is missing my blog. I have lots to say. Ideas galore. But every waking hour is spent working.

One of the joys of owning your own production company (or co-owning it in my case - Imbi and I have been married almost 26 years and in business together for almost 25) is that you work when you have work. And. Thank you Lord. We have an avalanche of good work. While Imbi is also finishing her Master's thesis - a very interesting documentary.

All that said, if you find yourself missing my pithy comments (yah, right) you might find Liam Kinnon to be a more intelligent commentator to fill any void. He's been blogging a little more regularly of late. (Though, methinks that may slow down in this coming week. I'll let him tell you why...or not.)

Liam Kinnon