Last week I was visiting my friends at Newsong in Irvine, California. Dave Gibbons had invited me to speak with the community about some of the ideas in my book, With. This video is a few minutes from my message about the importance of how we see the world. Drawing from the story of Mother Teresa, I unpack why the challenges facing the church in the West are the result of neither resources nor motivation, but rather vision. And by “vision” I don’t mean the kind of organizational BHAGs that seem to occupy many ministry leaders’ thoughts these days. Instead I mean the ability to see with eyes of faith; the kind of sight granted to those minds the Holy Spirit has illuminated to see the world differently.…

A pair of architects in Belgium have created an unusual structure–a see-through church.  It’s not a functional building, but rather a piece of public art that stands ten meters high. The design consists of 100 stacked layers and 2000 columns of steel plates. From some angles it looks like a traditional church with a steeple. But change your location and the solid walls become so thin they disappear in the sunlight.

Take a look at more photos here.

The architects said they were motivated by the growing number of abandoned churches in Belgium, and the declining role of religion in the highly secularized country. They have titled their structure “Reading Between the Lines” because it “extends this idea of transparency onto the church and equally onto the…

What do the Disney and Playboy corporations have in common other than peddling fantasies, pencil-moustached founders, and rodent mascots? They seem to occupy very different worlds. One is the global leader in family entertainment. The other is the most recognized distributor of adult entertainment. But these two companies share an interesting bit of history. In fact, it’s possible that the Disney Corporation would not be what it is today without Playboy. Let me explain.

In the late 1960s Walt Disney covertly purchased 47 square miles of swampland in central Florida. His intent was to build an “experimental prototype community of tomorrow” or E.P.C.O.T. In a short film presented to Florida legislators about the project, Walt laid out plans for an actual city with 50,000 residents, hotels, offices, factories,…

Happy Thanksgiving, from General Zod.

This weekend the General reminds you to use your digital devices as Zod intended, and not while driving. Obey your authorities this weekend…and kneel!

Megachurches are predominantly white, suburban, conservative congregations led by baby-boomer pastors. That is what an infographic about floating around the web lately has revealed. It’s based on research compiled by Forbes, The Christian Post, and Leadership Network.

For the most part the stats look very positive for mega and gigachurches (yes, that is a term now being used widely). These massive congregations, unlike many other churches, are still growing. They’re expanding staff, seeing increasing budgets, and have an optimistic outlook.

But buried in the positive stats about megachurches may be signs of challenges ahead. Could a bubble be forming that when it finally bursts will require the mega-model to be reengineered? Are we seeing the maturation of the megachurch movement into a sustainable and long-term model for…

Read part 1.

What I find most interesting about Tony Jones’ thesis is the way it can explain far more than just the Emerging Church Movement. I think contemporary youth ministry may also help us understand the rise of the megachurch movement in the late 1970s and 80s (and probably other movements as well). The number of megachurches exploded in that time from just 10 in 1970 to over 500 by 1990…most started by baby-boomers with youth ministry backgrounds.

Remember that the whole notion of a youth culture really emerged after World War II. Television, rock ‘n roll, and the economic boom after the war resulted in a generation of young people with disposable income and the opportunity to express themselves in ways foreign to their Depression-generation parents.…

Did the modern youth ministry movement create the Emerging Church? That’s the question Tony Jones addresses in a recent blog post. While presenting a paper at an academic conference, Jones fielded questions from professors of youth ministry primarily from evangelical colleges and seminaries.

Jones said to them, “You all have strong feelings about the emerging church movement, most of them negative.  Well, you are directly responsible for the emerging church movement.”

He went on to describe how contemporary youth ministry shuns the “accoutrements of power (vestments, titles, special roles and rites). Instead, youth are encouraged to engage all of the practices of the community equally.” In other words, the rejection of structural authority and the focus on a flat structure of relational authority which has marked the…