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By Richard Hamilton, April 27, 2007 10:45 pm

After a winter of enduring the painful and humorous auditions of thousands of Americans and after the trimming process of Hollywood, the hype of American Idol has reached a fever as pitch. The field has been cut down to the ten contestants who will tour the nation this summer. Tonight, contestants will stride out onto the stage and be judged on their appearance, song selection, stage presence, and most importantly, the quality of the vocal. The chosen ten seek the votes of the masses and know they will sweat out the elimination the following night. It is all a very slick package.

There are times when a church gathering is treated like an American Idol show. The judges roll in, give their initial responses in their facial expressions and then give their comments on the way out the door. Did the service start on time? How was the song selection? Too many hymns or praise songs? Were the right instruments used with their volumes at the correct level? How long was the sermon? Was there enough humor? Did the speaker make eye contact with all parts of the audience equally? Was that video clip or drama necessary and appropriate? All that we want to avoid are the words, “First of all preacher, I really like your outfit”

Churches should seek to be prepared and orderly in their cooperate worship. The issue is when someone who should be coming as a participating worshipper instead comes to a worship gathering expecting to be entertained, patted on the back, and fed. The Bible does give us a metaphor in which leaders “feed the flock,” but it is not the only metaphor. The Bible also mentions disciples growing from spiritual infancy, moving from liquids to solid food. My niece is 16 months old and has been feeding herself for months, yet there are some “long-time Christians” who still complain about not being fed. This sort of attitude accentuates the age-old gap between clergy and laity, between those on the stage and those who aren’t. This is simply a tentacle of a beast (some of you need to calm down and think scary squid, not prophecy in Revelation and Daniel) that thinks of church as a place and an activity when it is a group of people committed to transforming the world. The church is not a place or activity; it is a group of people.

The church is called to be the united body of Christ; this cannot be a reality if we come to be judge or to be a minority coming to perform and then be judged. So enjoy American Idol and let’s all hope Sanjaya gets voted off, but realize that the judge hat is put away when we are seeking to be the church.

Quick Hints:

It still shocks me how people are “famous for being famous” in our society. All it takes to be a celebrity is to be on a reality show or have bank. It is no wonder with the excessive amount of entertainment news. The question is why America has such a hunger for stars?

Isn’t it sad how physical appearance dictates so much in our society? There have been several times I have been watching Idol and wonder how a person is still in the competition. They are getting the hormonally charged adolescent vote despite being the worst contestant in terms of talent.

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By Richard Hamilton, April 15, 2007 10:47 pm

American churches have certainly done their share of global missionizing. Chances are, if you are part of a church, it supports some international ministry, churches, church planting organizations, benevolent humanitarian work. I wonder, however, what we are hoping to accomplish with these efforts. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not belittling cross-cultural evangelism, nor am I questioning the intentions of missionaries. I am, however, questioning American Christian expectations of these works. I wonder if we are evangelizing for Christ or for western American culture. Are we hoping people will encounter Christ or conform to our culture? Here are a few trends that concern me:

American cultural and social values are enforced internationally. Venerating American traditions is bad enough here in the states, but I’ve heard of churches that celebrate the 4th of July in Europe.

American educational models of discipleship dominate many missionary works. One simply needs to look at the failings of our public education system to see the problem with this.

American political structures have become the international model for church polity. Does anyone really believe that we have perfected church governance by mixing pseudo-biblical principles and the 7 habits of highly effective people?

Cheesy American “praise” music has found its way into churches world-wide. Someone along the way was able to convince missionaries that translating the words was as good as translating the culture.

Here’s the deal, Americans (especially religious ones) think its all about them us. This is reflected in left-behind pop-Christian end times theology, “seeker sensitivity”, the “worship war(s),” the list goes on. The American Christian colonization must end, but until we take the focus off of us and return it to Christ, I’m afraid it won’t.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 22, 2007 10:38 pm

Because most people do not feel up to entering the debate arena, many Christians retreated to what I call “hit and run” evangelism. Christian bookstores are full of products to help these endeavors. My favorite product: the “Testamints.” Maybe you have seen them. Admittedly, I have even eaten a few. They are the mints, usually located by the register, that are wrapped with a Bible verse. Christians who do not feel qualified or prepared to debate can simply leave a punily named mint with a morsel of God’s Word for their unsuspecting friend or coworker to discover. This type of evangelism, although well intended, lacks the genuine connection many people are seeking. A church I once worked with decided to get groups together on a weekday evening to go visit people in the community. As a gesture of goodwill and with the intention of being friendly, they made sand-art cookie jars. Attached to the jars were usually a Bible verse and the contact info for the church. I thought it was a great idea. This small southern community was still very open to people coming to their homes and the combination of cookies and art was genius. The first night I showed up, we grabbed a few cookie jars and headed on our way. When I read the tags, I was stunned. A few of the jars had something like “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. -Luke 13:3″ written on the card. With some tweaking, the visits proved to be very successful for that church, but it makes me wonder what these well-intentioned people were hoping to accomplish. I think we hope that if we leave tidbits of faith around, we will not have to win over our friends with eloquent arguments and we will have still done our evangelistic duty.

Evangelism does not have to be like this. In fact, these approaches usually are not very effective because they do not take into account what people really need.

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By Richard Hamilton, March 21, 2007 10:37 pm

I often wonder what thoughts enter people’s minds when they hear the word “evangelism.” Often, evangelism is a thing of dread and terror. It causes many Christians to break out into cold sweats. To feel nauseous. To get all tongue-tied. Maybe a more important question is what thoughts enter the minds of those on the receiving end of Christian evangelist efforts. It’s quite likely they have been on the receiving end of a failed evangelistic attempt more than once. Often, the very thought of someone talking to them about Jesus makes them want to run for the hills.

Why is this? Why has evangelism become such a negative idea for so many people?

I believe it is partly because of what we [Christians] have made evangelism. Usually when churches “teach” evangelism, they teach how to debate and argue their points. “Be sure and cover this list.” “Argue this point.” “Throw in this Bible verse here.” “And never admit you don’t know or you were wrong.” Even the language we use brings to mind Court TV (“apologetics” and “evidence that demands a verdict”). Do not misunderstand me. There are times to defend Christian faith. There are times to discuss and even debate, but in many cases, debate is the only evangelism people know. I see two problems with this. First, a debate is a win-lose situation. When we enter a debate over faith and religion, it is with the unspoken understanding that someone will lose. Evangelism should be win-win. Second, debating takes a certain set of skills and a lot of prep-time. In High School I was on the debate team for a year. My event was called “Congress.” Each student submitted their legislation in advance and we came together to debate each document’s merit at competitions. At my first debate match, I came with a printout of each bill neatly tucked in a file folder, assured I was well prepared. As I passed through the classroom door, into the room where the debate was to be held, I noticed that everyone there had boxes upon boxes of material. Newspaper clippings. Computer printouts. Books. Magazines. Statistics. Analysis. Boxes and boxes of debate prep. Then, the debates started. High School students would stand behind a podium and rattle off quotes and statistics a mile a minute, all the while judges as stern as Simon Cowell (although luckily for me their criticisms were written not verbalized) critiqued your every word. I learned something that day: formal debate is for a select few. This is may be why many Christians leave evangelism to the “professionals”: paid church staff.