Thursday, June 30, 2005
What Does It Say...
...when the legacy media takes on Joel Osteen? What's most interesting is it is not the usual church hit-piece, CBS sees in Osteen pretty much the same stuff that many of us in the Christian community do.
Internal pressure to achieve such "success" remains; however, insidious. How can a Christian leader know he/she is doing well? What metric matters. Great effect in the lives of ten people is a wonderful thing, but can it pay the bills? Thousands in the pews pays the bills and a whole lot more, but are those lives really affected, or just spirtually entertained?
Semper Gumby wonders about what mischief can result from one of the more common metrics.
SmartChristian said on Tuesday
It's seriously pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I think my post from yesterday, "All About Jesus" provides the first step in solving this dilemma. We need to focus on Jesus and stop worrying about whether we are succeeding or not. Ministry is not about us expressing ourselves -- it's about Jesus expressing Himself through us. We need to let Him worry about success or failure and just do the best we can to to be His people. The only metric that matters is the metric that tells us how close we are to being the people thaqt Jesus would have us to be.
Houston may be nowhere near heaven or Hollywood, but on Sunday mornings, it feels like a little of both.To be honest, this coverage makes me happy. When the legacy media is so ready to distinguish Osteen's ministry from the rest of us, it reduces the external pressure for other churches to follow suit. To be honest, Osteen is beginning to remind me of the breakout minsitries of an earlier age like say Robert Schuller. EVERYBODY knows there is something different about them -- even if the secular don't understand exactly what it is.
Joel Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest evangelical church in America with 30,000 weekly attendants. With a TV ministry, it's watched in at least 100 countries.
His production staff and studio rival any network. As CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts reports, Osteen looks like an anchorman, talks like a Southern salesman and runs this congregation like a CEO.
Internal pressure to achieve such "success" remains; however, insidious. How can a Christian leader know he/she is doing well? What metric matters. Great effect in the lives of ten people is a wonderful thing, but can it pay the bills? Thousands in the pews pays the bills and a whole lot more, but are those lives really affected, or just spirtually entertained?
Semper Gumby wonders about what mischief can result from one of the more common metrics.
SmartChristian said on Tuesday
The mantra of small groups continues to echo the halls of churches. EVERYONE needs to be in a small groupThis is just another way of stating what I am talking about -- it is not the program that matters, it's what the program accomplishes.
To tell you the truth, I'm not interested in small groups per say, I'm interest in BIBLICAL COMMUNITY LIFE. And the fact is most small groups in the church today fall very short. So, give me Christian shared life and one another ministry in what ever size group it comes in.
It's seriously pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I think my post from yesterday, "All About Jesus" provides the first step in solving this dilemma. We need to focus on Jesus and stop worrying about whether we are succeeding or not. Ministry is not about us expressing ourselves -- it's about Jesus expressing Himself through us. We need to let Him worry about success or failure and just do the best we can to to be His people. The only metric that matters is the metric that tells us how close we are to being the people thaqt Jesus would have us to be.
