Craig Schwarze - 04 September 2008 03:17 PM

I think if we created a church that young urban men flocked to, the girls would come as well. That’s part of Driscoll’s thesis - get the young men and you get everyone…

I’m concerned we’re loosing sight of what should be attracting people to church ... and ‘hot’ chicks and available / single men isn’t it!

Angus Johnson - 04 September 2008 03:24 PM

Craig Schwarze - 04 September 2008 03:17 PM

I think if we created a church that young urban men flocked to, the girls would come as well. That’s part of Driscoll’s thesis - get the young men and you get everyone…

I’m concerned we’re loosing sight of what should be attracting people to church ... and ‘hot’ chicks and available / single men isn’t it!

I suspect that Craig was short-handing the thesis. I know several young Christian woman who have stopped attending Church after they met/dated/married non-Christian men. There tend to be more women in Church than men, so Christian men are more likely to meet a Christian wife, and they will continue to come to Church as a couple. Therefore if we get the men in, they stay after marriage; if we get the women in, they frequently don’t continue.
(NB: I have used Christian and Church-attending as synonymous; I do realise that this may be wrong, but attendance is measurable and observable)

The problem with leaders extolling their recipe for success is that it is almost always post hoc fallacy.

You can grow a mega church by being charo prosperity gospel based. You can grow an (American) mega church by being a crazy televangelist. You can grow a mega church by being a young, passionate, conservative ‘dude’.

What’s the common factor? There isn’t one.

Driscoll could have been a crazy Christian zionist in Texas and grown a mega church. He could have been a pente televangelist and done the same. We can’t underestimate the force of personality (in the right time and place) in all this.

All these leaders have two things: themselves and their (eventual) strategy, which they generally articulate after the fact, not before it, and that’s not counting the role of chance/luck/good fortune along the way.

You can duplicate the strategy, but you can’t duplicate the leader. Their recipe of success is the combination of both (plus a thousand other factors outside their control) - strategy as the only ingredient is like trying to bake a cake solely with flour.

If I go and listen to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs talk about their business success, I can’t walk out and grow the next Microsoft or Apple.

Success is a factor of a zillion different things, time, place, history, need, luck, personality, strategy, perseverance and so on.

Sure, you’ve got to try something if you want to get anywhere, but there’s no single-ingredient that anyone, no matter how successful they’ve been, can sell that will produce the magic pudding of success (mmm.. magic pudding..).

Also, there is a giant church where young urban men flock to. It’s called Hillsong.

Not true regarding Hillsong. They appeal more to blue collar than urban professional types. And they have the same issue as evangelical churches regarding gender imbalance.

I would have thought demographically that would have been similar to Mars Hill across campuses (young people from the suburbs), but I’m only guessing, you’re saying they are more urban professional?

Gender imbalance may still be the case in relative numbers, but in absolute numbers there would have to be a lot more young men there than any other one single place.

Annd just another thought, but we’re so (written) word and idea focused here in Sydney, we love to discuss all the latest ideas and strategies and thinking, but when it comes to execution, we’re generally pretty hopeless imo.

It’s like we’re huge soccer fans who spend all week reading about it and discussing strategy and tactics, but when we run onto the field we discover - to our horror - that we’re just as ordinary as everyone else and all that chatter didn’t prepare us much at all for the actual game.

How many strategies-of-the-month have we seen run through the pages of Southern Cross for instance? Who remembers the A/B/C/D ‘Uluru’ model (or whatever it was), for instance?

It’s great if you can articulate everything that’s happening on and off the field in great detail, and know exactly what everyone should do, but if you can’t kick a ball, what are you doing?

The real action, and the real learning, is usually in the doing.

You don’t get good at soccer by reading and talking about it. You get good at it by playing the damn game! Training helps obviously, but you can spend all your time ‘training’ in the gym and still not know how to kick a ball or score a goal.

Damn, we’re such idea fetishists, and so petrified of failure we’re always looking for the sure-fire strategy that guarantees success that we forget to actually go out and play the game, until someone foreign comes along and says “Hey, you still need to play the game!”

It’s like we need permission to put down our books and go and actually kick a ball.

Driscoll is the flavour of the month at the moment (and not undeservedly so), but it’s up to us to have the courage and go and actually play the game, where we might *gasp* even lose. But that’s the point, after all.

So, how’s your personal evangelism going, Luke?

Luke

There’s much food for thought in your last two posts.  I recall Bill Hybels acknowledging quite openly that he had no clearly articulated strategy in place when he started Willow Creek.  And a well-known theologian commented (not at all critically) that Hybels’ combination of personal devotion to Christ and extraordinary entrepreneurial skills made it highly likely that he would have ‘succeeded’ regardless of which strategy he employed.

Having said that, I find it very helpful to be challenged by people like Mark Driscoll.  I need to reflect on the things he’s said - some of them I know I will ultimately reject - and see what the Lord might be saying to me through him and his ministry.

Finally, yes it’s all too easy to sit around feasting on ideas and not learning anything about the ‘game’!  Thanks for the encouragement not to fall into that trap.

Bob

Who remembers the A/B/C/D ‘Uluru’ model (or whatever it was), for instance?

That was a description of a church lifecycle, from rise to decline. It’s a valid and useful model, but it’s not an evangelistic technique.

I have to echo Gordo’s sentiments. Fair enough that your illness leaves you bed-ridden - but it seems a bit crook to sit and complain that all the able bodied people just aren’t doing enough…

Luke Stevens - 04 September 2008 04:31 PM

The problem with leaders extolling their recipe for success is that it is almost always post hoc fallacy.

Hi,

Very true Luke!

We never hear from the numerous others who had a similar recipe but were in a slightly different place/different time and never made it to megastar status.

There are also other very successful church plants in the U.S. with similar theology to Mark Driscoll’s such as Tim Keller’s Presbyterian Redeemer Church group in New York but Tim’s style, personality and aspects of his approach are quite different to Mark D.’s.

Similarly, there are numerous very successful new churches in the U.S. with dubious theology and dodgy leader behaviour.

The full name of the post hoc fallacy is:
post hoc ergo propter hoc = after this therefore because of this
and it is a massive trap in church planning and planting. 

Grace & peace,
Terry

Jean Marlow - 04 September 2008 04:05 PM

I suspect that Craig was short-handing the thesis.

Thanks Jean. I certainly wasn’t ‘having a go’ at Craig or what he said specifically. I’m pretty sure from what I’ve read of Craig’s many other postings that he’s not the type to go for superficial solutions to church growth. However, I just wanted to refocus the discussion (in this thread and the numerous recent discussions that seem to be looking at single guys and girls in church) so we don’t loose sight that it is both the good new of the risen Jesus, and evidence of Spirit changed lives (ie loving others) that should attract others to our gatherings. In other words we shouldn’t be “attracting” one demographic (eg just the guys) but all demographics.

Gordon Cheng - 04 September 2008 05:13 PM

So, how’s your personal evangelism going, Luke?

Pretty good, just making my way through the Six Steps to Encouragement. Haven’t found the chapter on internet trolling though yet - must be toward the back?

I have to echo Gordo’s sentiments. Fair enough that your illness leaves you bed-ridden - but it seems a bit crook to sit and complain that all the able bodied people just aren’t doing enough…

Well, yeah, being bed-ridden is a wee bit of a problem.

In any case, I’m not saying people aren’t doing enough, but it’s what you do that matters. I’m just pointing out that ideas which people are excited about may not necessarily be good or meaningful ideas. And even if they are good ideas, they’re still just ideas - at some point have to get on the field and play, and that’s a whole different world.

But the good news is some American dude has come and given us a fair boot up the date to go and do just that, so we now have permission to do so!

It’s funny though, you can tell when there’s more excitement than substance going around when a critical voice (mine, in this case) gets howled down with personal comments of “Yeah?! But what are you doing?” Stick to the arguments people :P

--

Terry, yes, that’s exactly it, thanks :)

Luke Stevens - 04 September 2008 05:36 PM

It’s funny though, you can tell when there’s more excitement than substance going around when a critical voice (mine, in this case) gets howled down with personal comments of “Yeah?! But what are you doing?” Stick to the arguments people :P

Howled down? I think not. If the criticism is, however, that people like to sit on the sidelines and criticize, it invites exactly the question of what the criticizer is doing. Are they themselves sitting on the sidelines pointing out the faults of others? Or are they playing—in the sense of telling the gospel to others, and praying for its advance.

I imagine that if I was bedridden (and I do have some personal knowledge of long-term debilitating illness), one of the things I would be doing would be praying. Another might be devoting time to talking about the gospel on internet forums with people who didn’t know anything about God—especially if I had some ability to express myself well through typing.

Anyway, if you are doing training courses, good for you. But as you said,

Training helps obviously, but you can spend all your time ‘training’ in the gym and still not know how to kick a ball or score a goal.

So I think the question stands. What are you—the one who is criticizing people for sitting on the sidelines—doing?

Classy as always Gordon - there’s no road like the low road.

You might want to read my posts again, and my response to Craig. it appears you’ve missed the point completely, or chosen to ignore it. Terry and Bob got what I was talking about, maybe re-reading their posts would be helpful for you too.

I don’t want to get into an am-I-pious-enough-to-have-an-opinion debate (I wasn’t aware there was a threshold), but let’s say that trying to think critically and sharing my thoughts here for myself & able-bodied people are a part of my small contribution while, you know, bed-ridden.

If you want to go after me personally (Step 5?) rather than stick to the general debate & actually engage with the arguments presented then that’s up to you, but I’d prefer to stay on topic.

Thanks for sharing what you imagine you would do if chronically ill though.

edit: clarification

Luke Stevens - 04 September 2008 09:12 PM

Classy as always Gordon - there’s no road like the low road.

<snip>

Thanks for sharing what you imagine you would do if chronically ill though.

Hi Luke

I’m sorry about this reaction.

The question stands of course, as well as the offer to come around and visit that I sent by PM a while ago.

I think it’s not a comment you would have made if you’d been paying careful attention during the 6 Steps to Encouragement course, as to details about my personal situation.

I think it’s very easy to be a critic from the sidelines. But I believe life and doctrine go hand in hand, and the person on the sideline making the criticisms has not always understood this. So sometimes the argument ‘You should stick to the argument’ fails to pay attention to the reality that the person advancing the argument is not themselves anything more than a critic. And being a critic is not, in itself, a valuable contribution.