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,…

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…

Is social justice an essential part of the gospel? The question has been raging for decades, and in some circles the matter was settled long ago. But a new generation of evangelicals with a strong inclination toward social engagement is reviving the debate. But I’m increasingly convinced that we are framing the debate incorrectly, and missing the point as a result.

The latest example came last week when Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (my alma mater) hosted Jim Wallis and Al Mohler to debate the role of justice in the mission of the gospel. Wallis, the president and CEO of Sojourners, affirmed the centrality of social justice in the gospel, while Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said it was an implication of the gospel but not…

Ingredient Five: Illuminating Worship

Now I’m venturing into dangerous water–worship. Opinions are strong about what kind of worship is best, right, and even permissible in the church. And we all have our cultural and personality-based preferences. But I can best describe my bent as illuminating. By that I don’t mean theatrical lighting and lasers. I mean worship that illuminates a vision of who God is and the reality of his presence with us.

Ideally worship at Church³⁶⁵ would not be where people come to be “filled up” for the next six days, but where we gather to see the cosmos as it really is–a God-with-us world in which Christ is reigning. Everything would be positioned to help us see this reality and diminish the false visions we’ve ingested…

Ingredient Four: Decentralized Service

Over the last few years my travels have been taking me more regularly to Portland, Oregon. Portland is weird, and that’s how they like it. But it’s also inspiring. I’m thinking of Rick McKinley and his church Imago Dei. Rick and the leaders at Imago have done a great job inspiring their people to serve the community in Portland. But when members of the church approach a pastor about starting a new ministry, Rick has trained them to always say the same thing: “No.”

I know, it sounds counter-intuitive, but there is brilliance behind the madness. Leaders at Imago Dei know that in most cases there is another church, agency, or non-profit already engaged in the work. So rather than reinventing the wheel…

Ingredient Three: Vocational Discipleship

Last month I met with David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group, to discuss our new books. He wanted to talk about how the themes in my book With: Reimagining The Way You Relate To God fit with the research he lays out in You Lost Me: Why Young People Are Leaving Church…And Rethinking Faith. Central on David’s mind was rediscovering a theology of vocation. Here’s a quote from his book that articulates the problem:

For me, frankly, the most heartbreaking aspect of our findings is the utter lack of clarity that many young people have regarding what God is asking them to do with their lives. It is a modern tragedy. Despite years of church-based experiences and countless hours of Bible-centered teaching, millions

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Ingredient Two: Cultural Flourishing

As I discussed in my first book, The Divine Commodity, when church institutionalism grows out of control, we come to believe that programs rather than people are the vessels of God’s Spirit and mission in the world. When this occurs we begin to honor people for their involvement in, or service for, the church. But what they do with the remainder of their time gets little attention. When this assumption is reinforced over decades, a hierarchy of importance is established with church leaders (pastors and missionaries) at the top. Others are then only celebrated when they behave like pastors or missionaries, or when they leave their “worldly” professions to devote themselves to “full-time Christian service.”

What I’m describing is the contemporary Western church’s abandonment…

A few weeks ago I had lunch with Darren Whitehead from Willow Creek. Darren is a great bloke (I can say that because he’s an Aussie), and we talked candidly about our experiences in the church, in leadership, and the way we see church adapting to the shifting culture. Toward the end of our lunch he asked me if I’d ever considering working on a church staff again. “I’ve learned never to say never,” I replied, “but it would have to be a very different kind of church.”

“Like what?” he asked. I rattled off some half-baked answer, but his question has lingered in my mind. What kind of church would I want to help lead?

As I’ve ruminated on that question, I’ve gone back and read a…