Sometimes I wonder why I still have a blog. I’m incredibly inconsistent in my posting, but I’ve finally become OK with that. Facebook and Twitter have severely neutered the popularity of blogs, but I continue to love the medium even if few read what I write. It helps me keep track of my life. Just the other day, I was wondering when a certain event happened. Since I knew it happened in the last six years, I was able to look in my archives and check the date.

I’ve been somewhat off the grid the past week or so. It wasn’t for a lack of ideas or comments.

We’re trying to sell our condo.

It’s insane, really. We’re satisfied with where we live and it has served us well. But as we look towards the future, and our desire to spend the rest of our lives here in Walnut Hills, it feels like time to transition from a condominium to a house. Even the market is a bear right now, we’re thinking that there’s not going to be a significant upswing in the next couple of years, so why not now?

This decision was a significant one for our family, but we decided to go all out. In this market, it isn’t enough to just list your home—it means making your home attractive to the buyer. Our constant HGTV watching has been helpful in this process because we believe that we now know the common selling mistakes. Despite having a beautiful place, there was a list of projects that we had been thinking of for a while. I made a spreadsheet (an obvious sign that I’m a dork) and it numbered over 80 different tasks. I took some vacation days last week in order to work the list. By Monday of this week, we made it completely through.

Among other things we rented a storage unit, decluttered, made multiple trips to Goodwill, and painted practically the entire home, cleaning it from top to bottom. I’ll admit that because of the working conditions and stressed involved, Kelly and I had a couple of arguments. But when it was all over, we were happy and pleased with the process. For you voyeurs out there who are curious to see the finished result, I posted some of the photos the realty photographer took of our place. To peek at them, click here.

We’ve been really appreciative of friends who have offered support. Multiple people have told us that they’re praying for us. It seems kind of peculiar; there are much greater needs in this world than us selling our place when he don’t have to. But that’s why we’re not sweating it. It if happens, praise God. If not, we’ll be content to stay where we’re at . . . and we’ll have a practically new place.

I’ll keep you posted.

Now that I’ve had a week to digest it, I’ve decided to record the events of last Friday night that resulted in damage to my Ford Explorer. It’s a long story, but I’ve repeated verbally so many times this week that I thought a written record would be helpful.  And, yes, it’s so long that I broke it up into sections to make it easier to read.

INTRODUCTION

As a preface, I should note that I didn’t sleep well last week. I think it was the heat. I tend not to get the most out of my sleep during the summer (I sleep best in cold weather). Combine my bad sleep with a loud bang at 3am and I immediately woke up.

It sounded like a large dumpster hitting the pavement. I was aggravated that Rumpke would drop off a dumpster in the middle of the night, but I then heard a motor burning up. That’s when I realized there was something more here. For safety’s sake, I grabbed my collapsible metal baton and headed out toward the street. Still half-asleep, I could only tell that there had been an accident and my African-American neighbor from up the street was yelling at a guy in a wrecked car.

SIDE NOTE: I established the guy’s race because it will come into play later. It reminds me, however, of how bothersome the identification of race in a story can be when it’s trivial information. Many times I’ll hear people say, “So this black guy came by. . . ” when the guy’s race had no bearing on the story whatsoever. If you’re in the habit of doing this in your stories, it’s about time that you stop.

SURVEYING THE SCENE

So, anyway, my neighbor was yelling at the driver in the car who was very, very drunk . . . and also black (reference the previous note and stick with me here). So drunk was this driver that he had clipped the median with his car and crashed into my car. Two other neighbors were out there (their race is unimportant to the story) and told me that the driver had rammed my car and was trying to escape. Unfortunately for the drunk driver, his front tire was shredded and he wasn’t going anywhere. Still, that didn’t deter my neighbor from opening the car door and yelling at him. The drunk driver kept hitting the gas, but all it did was drive his bare rim into the road.

I immediately tried to defuse the situation by identifying myself as a pastor. I know this sounds silly, but there’s still some respect for pastors out there. At least, I figured, that might keep anyone from getting too crazy.

I called the police, but it was a busy night; there was the Jazz festival downtown, in addition to a sold-out Reds game which we had attended earlier. As the police were nowhere to be found, I told the drunk driver that he should step out of the car. He was incoherent and not paying attention to me.

A NEW CHARACTER

Then, a dude came running up the hill. He yelled out, “That’s my cousin! He dropped me off down at the corner. I told him not to drive!” After yelling at his drunk driver cousin, he came over to me to talk.

“Is this your car he hit?”

Yes, I responded.

“It’s O.K., he has insurance.”

I was reassured. But then he told me something else.

“Well, I have a couple of felonies on me, so I’m going to get out of here before the cops come.”

Brilliant. I can’t blame him, really. And since he wasn’t in the car at the time of the accident, I told him to have a good night and refocused on the scene.

TALKING DRUNK

You see, at this time I realized that my neighbor, the one who happened to be black, was also drunk. He kept going back to his house and coming back to the accident scene to talk. He, however, was making more sense than the drunk driver who, at this point, was sitting down on my front steps. So my neighbors continued to survey the scene, talking and wondering how the cops hadn’t arrived in twenty minutes.

At this point, the drunk driver was on his feet, claiming that he wasn’t actually driving the car. This made my drunk neighbor angry, causing him to start cussing at the driver. In the midst of some adult language, to which I wasn’t particularly paying attention, something caught my ear.

It was the N-word.

The drunk driver (who was black) called my drunk neighbor (also black) this slur.

This is when I started to pay attention to the conversation, specifically as my drunk neighbor said, “I dare you to say that to my face again.”

CONFRONTATION

At this point I moved towards them as the drunk driver, yet again, dropped the N-bomb. I had grabbed my neighbor’s left arm but he used his right arm to deliver a fore-arm shiver.

The drunk driver, standing on the curb, was knocked back, lost his footing, and landed with his head to the pavement.

I grabbed my drunk neighbor, telling him he couldn’t do that (despite the fact that he just did). My neighbor has a good house, nice car, great job— a lot to lose for an assault to a drunk driver. My neighbor yelled at me, telling him that he’d hit me too if I called him the N-word. Duly noted, but irrelevant, I told my neighbor to get out of there.

It was then that I turned to look down at the drunk driver. He was lying in the road and blood began to pool up under his head. He was totally still, so I feared that he might actually be dead. I stood over him and saw that he was breathing—always a good sign. I felt a little better.

Still, since he had been drinking and knocked unconscious, he urinated himself as I stood over him.

But at least he was alive.

And still, no police.

REMEMBERING WHERE I LIVE

I failed to mention that all this took place on a busy night on our street. People were returning from the jazz festival. And (invoking race again) since the festival attracts mostly African-Americans, and there is a high density of African Americans in my neighborhood, it was a constant flow. As I stood over the drunk driver, pools of blood and urine underneath him, the cars driving by slowed down to watch. People asked if he was OK and I could only answer that we called the ambulance (something my sober neighbors did after the confrontation).

Then, as I stood over the drunk driver, a car full of four black young men stopped beside us. They said nothing but just stared. I’m thinking that they were wondering what this white dude was doing hovering over a knocked out black man. I (somewhat confidently) yelled out, “Don’t worry. He’s breathing. We called the ambulance,” and looked back. They continued to stare, and then drove off.

I was glad they did.

FINALLY THEY ARRIVE

Still not hearing sirens, I ran inside to tell Kelly to grab a towel for the guy; I didn’t want him to lie bleeding in the street. By the time I came back out to the street, the police had finally showed up.

Twenty-five minutes later, mind you.

The first office on the scene was assessing the situation and could tell that there was an altercation after the accident. He asked me what happened and I had to tell him the truth; no matter how much I like my neighbor, I wasn’t going to ignore the fact that he had assaulted the dude. Upon hearing the story, the officer said, “Well, I’m not even going to worry about the assault.”

Alright, then.

In the same vein, another officer came up to me and asked, “did you punch that guy for hitting your car?”

“No ma’am,” I responded.

“Well I would have,” she said.

And now I know.

CONCLUSION

So my car will finally go into the shop next week. The damage almost totalled it. I still haven’t heard whether or not the drunk driver had insurance.

I’ve told this story a few times during the last week. Some people have viewed it as yet further proof that city life is crazy. And I can’t really refute that.

But this is my neighborhood. This is where I live. And regardless of the craziness here, I absolutely love it. And I’m going to continue to love it despite all the imperfections it displays.

It’s a broken world. I’m just doing my little part to fix it. And I can’t do that unless I live in it.

I was out of town when LeBron James made known his intention to “take my talents to South Beach.” I had planned on writing up my view on the situation but discovered this week that Bill Simmons took the words right out of my mouth. He opines:

In pickup basketball, there’s an unwritten rule to keep teams relatively equal to maximize the competitiveness of the games. That’s the law. If two players are noticeably better than everyone else, they don’t play together, nor would they want to play together. If the two guys have any pride at all — especially if they play similar positions — then getting the better of each other trumps any other scenario. They want that test. Joining forces and destroying everyone else would ruin the whole point of having the game. It’s like a dad kicking his young son’s a** in a driveway one-on-one game. What’s the point? When LeBron and Wade effectively said, “Instead of trying to whup each other, let’s just crush everyone else” and “If these teams end up being uneven, we’re not switching up,” everyone who ever played basketball had the same reaction: “I hate guys like that.”

Link: The Sports Guy

Having attended two Reds games in less than a twenty-four hour period, I’m on a baseball high. I’m a little dismayed that the Reds are playing great baseball yet have fallen to 1.5 games behind the Cardinals in the division. St Louis has yet to lose since the All-Star break, but the two teams they’ve played have been prone to self-destruction. I’m going to venture to say that they’ll come back to earth fairly soon. I like Cincinnati’s club. Sure, we have some bullpen holes, but so does the vast majority of MLB teams. If the Reds win Thursday afternoon, that’s winning two straight series since the break. And if they continue to do so, we won’t have to worry about the Cardinals.

Plus, I was loving the atmosphere last night. It’s been over a decade since I saw the ballpark (er, Riverfront Stadium) that engaged.

Anyway, what I really want to reflect upon was the spectacle I saw on Wednesday night. Stephen Strasburg has been anointed for awhile now as baseball’s next big thing. His start, combined with a competitive Reds team, led to a midweek sellout a Great American Ballpark. While I saw a decent amount of Strasburg shirts and signs, do not misinterpret the crowd: the masses wanted to see him get beat. He lasted 5 2/3 innings and struck out 7, yielding 3 earned runs.

My reaction to his greatness: eh.

Look, I get it. Strasburg can throw stuff that not a lot of guys have. But he does so from a total power perspective. Greg Maddux, he is not. This is not to say the Strasburg isn’t impressive, but he’s not lights out yet. Heck, what I’ve seen recently out of Reds pitchers Mike Leake and Travis Wood has been much more impressive.

Why am I being this critical? Because of how people are dealing with him. Since I attended yesterday, I was interested to see how the media would react to his outing. The Washington Post (albeit his team’s hometown newspaper) waxed on elegantly about Strasburg’s performance. ESPN (gotta love ‘em) dropped this gem: “A day after his 22nd birthday, Strasburg pitched beyond his years again, passing one of his toughest tests.” I also heard Strasburg performed open heart surgery on a patron between the fifth and sixth innings, but I’ve been unable to verify this fact.

I tend to rebel against the hype.

I find the times in which we live fascinating. We’re so excited about what could be that we’re ignoring what’s happening now. LeBron James’ “Decision,” a live broadcast where millions of viewers tuned in to see which NBA team would benefit from his “talents,” should be proof enough of this. Both these phenoms can do amazing things, but beyond expanding their bank accounts, what has it brought? The Nationals are still horrible and most Clevelanders still haven’t witnessed a championship.

Hype is interesting, but it isn’t filling.

I kinda feel bad for Strasburg. The bar is now set unreasonably high. Unless he retires as one of the greatest to play the game, many will view him as a failure. And I’m not convinced that he’s wired to deal with that. Barring injury, he’ll have an amazing career. But will we appreciate it?

In baseball, as in life, we ought to be careful of putting our hope in a future that’s almost impossible to come true.

I was peed on.

I can freely admit it. After a long day of set-up at the North American Christian Convention in Indianapolis, I was unfortunately saturated while walking back to my automobile. And, yes, the offender was female. As a simple Tweet cannot properly explain this situation, and because many have doubted that this is a true story, I’ve decided to relate the story in detail with the assistance of visual aids. You see, as I waited for our moving truck at the end of the convention, I took the opportunity to return to the crime scene and snap some photos on my phone. Sometimes, seeing is believing. So journey back with me, won’t you?

At approximately 4pm on Monday July 5th I was walking south from the Indianapolis Convention Center towards a parking lot adjacent to the Lucas Oil Stadium. This path took me underneath a set of train tracks. Image 1 will give you a view of the trek back to my Explorer.

Note the large building in the right side of the photograph. It is a power plant that is very loud, and passing underneath the bridge meant that I couldn’t have heard my attacker even if they were brazen about their actions.

At the time, I was searching for directions on my iPhone; I was spending the night with my sister and her family and I’ve only been there a few times. Thus, I was both walking and typing in my phone and my eyes were focused downward. This is why when I felt some wetness on my arm, I originally thought nothing of it; all my city marathon training has ingrained in me the fact that underpasses usually drip water. But I noticed that I was no longer under a bridge, but at the separation point between two bridges, as you can see in Image 2.

It was at this moment that I was again sprinkled. Noticing that I was no longer under a bridge, and thinking it could actually be starting to rain, I glanced up.

And a saw a moon.

But it was the afternoon.

And therefore it wasn’t THE moon.

No, it was a woman in her twenties using the bathroom.

On me.

I will refrain on going into further detail as to why I know this was a young woman. I’m just asking that you trust me on this one.

For the remainder of this retelling, I will refer to the woman as Cynthia Story—Cindy for short. Why, you ask? Because the following graffiti was etched into the bridge where the crime was committed. In my mind, this is Cindy’s regular restroom spot and she has claimed it by engraving her name into the nearby steel.

The question that looms large here is why was Cindy using the bathroom in public and, specifically, on me? As I revisited the scene of the crime, I think I have figured this out.

Cindy really had to go. We’ve all been there, right? It’s usually much easier for men to participate in public urination and Cindy was faced with a problem: where could she go where she wouldn’t be seen? Somehow, she made her way to these railroad tracks and took solace in the space between two bridges. From ground level, she would have been obscured from sight. No one would have known. And to fully understand this, observe Image 4 and her perch:

Cindy was facing a concrete wall with barrier to the right and left on her. While she thought she was hidden, her rear end was fully exposed to the sidewalk below. I’m sure when she first began doing her business, she looked to the ground seeing only roadway. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When I finally realized what was happening, all I could think to do was yell “HEY!” at Cindy. She was obviously startled and fled immediately. I didn’t bother to chase her down; what would I have done anyway? I drove the entire trip to suburban Indianapolis with my arm extended. Upon arriving at her house, my sister insisted I take a shower immediately. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

Believe it or not, I wasn’t that angry about the entire situation. Sure, there are moments in life where we feel like were getting . . . well . . . that we have our own personal Cindy’s who are doing their business upon us. In the past few years of my life, I’ve felt this way many-a-time. So when this happened literally, all I could do was laugh. I’ve been milking this story for a week now.

It was just a good reminder for me not to take things too seriously. I tend to do that more than I usually admit. I’m not sure if I’m completely reformed, but I’m getting there.

And no matter how much some of you reading this dislike Cincinnati, I’ve never been peed on here. Thanks, Indianapolis.

For the past month, my life has been dominated by the world’s game. I’m sad that I won’t get the chance to view any more games with my family and friends. As the Spainiards hoisted the World Cup trophy earlier today, it’s now prime time for me to summarize my thoughts about the 2010 tournament.

• While I loved watching the tournament (running a cable TV line into my office was well worth the effort), the overall play was incredibly average. I can’t recall any one match where the play was compelling. This tournament provided some moments, but it was lacking in stellar games.
• South Africa was a decent host, but attendance and field conditions were concerns that were validated. FIFA would do well to allow the US the opportunity to host another Cup, but they couldn’t care less. They’re making too much money to care and they’re an arrogant organization.
• The United States probably would have advanced further if Charlie Davies were on the squad. Still, Bob Bradley was a sub-par manager; his passive leadership and poor decision-making led to our ouster. I still see progress in the USMNT and predict a World Cup Final appearance in my lifetime.
• FIFA head Sepp Blatter is completely out of touch with reality. His refusal to consider any use of instant replay is archaic. The man is hampering the game and making the sport look silly. Yet one of the many reasons why main stream America might never embrace the sport.
• This tournament will long be remembered for poor officiating. The players continue to exploit this with cheap fouls and dives. FIFA must better prepare their referees to manage the flow of the game. And I cannot recall any cards assessed in the tournament to players taking a dive. Until the referees have the guts to call this out, the game will be plagued by wussification (everyone looks like the Italians). Until this happens, Americans won’t buy in.
• I’m not convinced Spain was the best team during the tournament, but they forced the best teams to succumb to their style of play. They’re perfect poster children of this World Cup.

And a few final thoughts about today’s final match:

• It was a sad game and the referee made it so. He doubled the record number of cards assessed in any final and was inconsistent in his awarding (awarding yellows when they were petty fouls and refusing to red card certain infractions). The professional fouling made for an ugly game.
• And the way that FIFA instructed officials to call the game contributed to the game winning goal. On the original volley toward the box, Iniesta was in an offside position but the Dutch defender got a foot on it. The new ruling says that the linesman shouldn’t call offside unless the player actually touches the ball, so the play continued off the poor clearance and it later returned to Iniesta’s foot. In the old rules, Iniesta would’ve been given a free kick. As it is, what happened happened.
• I’m not saying that the Dutch were the better team today, but Spain was far from superior. The game should have came down to penalties. It would have been a fitting end to a boring match.

Still, it’s all over and I can now remove the television from my office at work.

Packed weekend. We’ve been enjoying it. A few things as I recap:

• Our city is pretty awesome. Things are looking up all over the place. Our Friday evening on Fountain Square was great. Good food, great vibe; I love that our daughter can grow up in the midst of some incredible times for Cincinnati.
• I thoroughly enjoy our men’s group on Sunday. Our discipleship at Echo is intentionally structured to let the men and women learn from each other (a la Titus 2). This gives us dudes the opportunity to discuss things that probably aren’t appropriate for mixed company . . . yet we meet at a restaurant . . . in public.
• The US’s performance in the World Cup was pretty depressing. It’s not that they lost, but who they lost to and in what fashion. This was our best team ever, but our team wasn’t really that good. What really kills is that the bracket will never get much better than this. And what’s even worse is that I feel that our coach put our team at a disadvantage. Using two subs by halftime is an admission that the starting line-up was flawed and, as commentators continue to excuse the loss as our team was “exhausted,” understand that it is our coach that contributed to this exhaustion. I still think American soccer is improving, but it has gone as far as possible under Bob Bradley. By the way, I’m pulling for the Dutch now.
• Nice night down at Great American Ballpark. Embarrassingly, that was my first game of the season. I’ve practically watched all of their games, however, on television. I know this sounds lame, but I almost prefer watching at home. It’s crowded, hot and sticky, and despite a huge HD scoreboard, they rarely show replays. Still, our Redlegs are looking good. We’re a little shaky in parts of our roster, but I think they’ll keep us interested in baseball until the fall.
• Sidenote on tonight: Justin Bieber was in concert tonight at the same time as the Reds game. Both events let out at the same time tonight and chaos ensued. I ended up walking home from downtown. While moving through the crowd a dad, who looked about my age, asked who won tonight. After I responded, I asked back, “And did Justin Bieber win tonight?” He meekly answered yes and I knew that I had emasculated him.
• Because of our busy weekend, I had to wrap up my sermon prep before the weekend started. I’m absolutely loving preaching through Exodus. You might have to check back with me when I have to preach on provisions for the tabernacle but, until then, it’s pretty cool. Teaching about the first plague tomorrow night. If you don’t have anything happening, swing by and join us at Echo tomorrow night.
• Finally, my daughter has officially hit her stride in cuteness. She’s very huggy and kissy on me right now and continues to say the sweetest things. I’m doing a little traveling during the next couple of weeks and it will pain me to be away from her and Kelly.

In short, life is good.

I find that I tend to use bigger words in average conversation now than I did just ten years ago. I’m not sure whether it’s the fact that I’m involved in academics or that I finally know some big words that have brought me to this change. It might simply be that I used to think I couldn’t be both deep and down to earth and I’ve finally come around. Regardless, sometimes nothing else makes quite the same impact as tossing out some polysyllabic words. In my life’s context, constantly dealing with people who know everything, you have to sometimes let ‘er rip.

And that’s the preface to this post’s title. It’s really not that complicated, but it’s the first thing that came to my mind when I started writing this post.

Let’s break down this phrase: “ecclesiological false dichotomy.” For starters, “ecclesiological” is the theological study of the church— how we Christian folk do stuff. And we all understand what “false” is, true? Finally, “dichotomy” basically means “split into two parts.” Often, a dichotomy can simply refer to choices: choose one or the other.

So when I’m thinking of “ecclesiological false dichotomy,” it’s an instance where the church has made/must make a decision, but the choices offered are not really the only choices. What led me here was an article at the interestingly named website “Church Marketing Sucks” that discussed a major outreach in Atlanta, Georgia. Almost 80 churches in the region will be cancelling their weekend worship services at the end of July in order to go out and do service projects. It reminded me of something I read a few years back where a church did the same thing. I was so fascinated, I even saved the pastor’s quote in a Word doc: “we need to spend less time GOING to church and more time BEING the church.”*

I’ve refrained on commenting on this for awhile, but it has finally worn me thin. I personally know quite a few churches who have done this same thing. They have great intentions and do some very good things while cancelling their worship services.

But they are misguided. And I think I’ll go as far to say that they are actually wrong.

And here’s where the “ecclesiological false dichotomy” comes into play. People would have you believe that there are only two choices in this issue: 1) Going to church or 2) Being the church. But it’s much more complicated than this. As I’ve already offended some of you who think this is an phenomenal idea, you’re likely crafting a response in your mind that creates a false choice. Go ahead and pick your poison:

• “Serving is an act of worship. All they’re doing is choosing a different way to worship.”
• “Those churches will do more good in those two hours of service than they would have worshipping in their church.”
• “The world will be more impressed with the church being out serving than inside singing”

I’m sure there are others I didn’t think of. In the end, those who dare to critique cancelling services for service are offered only two reactions: buy into what we’re doing as brilliant or come off as a negative, stick-in-the-mud Christian who doesn’t have a heart. Frankly, I am not satisfied with those choices.

So now that I’ve decided to criticize, let me offer my full critique. I ask that you grant me some patience as I break this down. And it all has to begin by asking “why?”

1. Why do Christians gather every week for “corporate worship” (a.k.a. the worship service)? Why do we sing songs, read the Scriptures, pray, and have communion together? My response: we gather on Sundays to worship together because it is the biblical/historical mandate; this is what the first Christians did, it’s what those immediately after them did, and it’s what the church has done for almost two-thousand years. By and large, most Christian worship services still adhere to these basic elements of a corporate worship service because it’s in the Bible (Roman Catholics might frame this answer differently, but they’d still agree that the Bible offers a template). Ultimately, our Sunday worship gatherings are regular and consistent because it is what the church has been called to do throughout its existence.

Protestant Christians don’t view corporate worship as sacramental (that is, something we must do for merit) but rather as something we do out of love, honor, and respect for God. Yet we must understand this: what we do in corporate worship has a definitive purpose—to please God. Even though we might want to be “seeker sensitive” and not offend any non-Christians in our midst, the service is intended for believers to worship God together. So when the world criticizes the church for coming together on Sundays to worship, we mustn’t be surprised. They don’t understand why we do this. We do it for the Lord.

2. That said, we must admit that God also has called us to do good works; we cannot be “so heavenly minded that we do no earthly good.” Yes, good works are good. As of late, churches have started to see this as one of our callings. Social justice, once only the tool of liberal Christians, has been reclaimed by evangelical Christianity. Jewish mystics refer to this as “tikkun olam,” or “repairing the world.” We are finally doing good works in our communities and throughout our world.

3. But we must admit that we’ve become rather proud of ourselves. This is not good. I know this is low, but I’m going to unleash some wisdom of Jesus to confirm my point.

“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.” Matthew 6:1**

Yikes. You see how this is difficult? While we are called to do good works, we should be careful of letting people know about them. Yet I continually hear of churches around the country cancelling worship gatherings to go out and serve. This is fascinating because I don’t attend any of these churches. So, somehow, the word of these acts of righteousness is getting out; we’re not as subtle as we think.

And here I will insert a quick sidebar: why are many churches motivated to do service outreach/projects in the first place? We’ll usually explain that we’re just trying to do some good in the world for Jesus. People tend to enjoy service because it makes us feel good (I’m reminded of the episode of Friends where Phoebe tells Joey that there’s no such thing as a truly unselfish good deed). But, more than this, I believe that there are many churches who see outreach as an opportunity to add to the flock; I’m not talking about the traditional “win-lost souls-to-Jesus” addition, but rather the “I-wish-our-church-was-as-outward-focused-as-this” addition. Listen, I’m a minister and I’ve been there. We already go to extreme lengths to make our congregations look attractive. Church service projects can be used in the same way—as a way to steal sheep. There, I said it.

4. Good works aren’t performed by Christians only. I think this is something we must readily admit: Christians aren’t the only people doing good things in the world. There are Muslims and atheists and Buddhists who do as many good things as we do. Heck, even corporations allow employees to take off work to do service projects, so our pride is usually misplaced. Still, I would offer that just as all truth is God’s truth, all good works belong to Him as well. But let us not deceive ourselves that only we are the only ones who do good.

5. Ultimately, these churches hold to a theological misunderstanding. Churches cancel worship services to do service projects because they equate manual-labor worship with corporate worship. “Worship is worship,” they claim, whether it’s painting a house or singing hymns together. But this is neither biblical nor consistent. It’s not biblical in that, while our service can be worship (observe Romans 12), it isn’t the same thing as corporate worship; there’s a textual difference between working a soup kitchen (good works) and the Eucharist (communal/corporate worship). And it’s not consistent because we don’t encourage abandoning corporate worship for other forms of worship. If I use this logic (that service projects and corporate worship are equal) then a walk in the park on a beautiful Sunday is the same thing as worshipping with the church. Eventually, if I adhere to this thinking, the church itself is irrelevant and I can do just as well living the Christian life on my own.***

And that’s what lies behind this false dichotomy: a confused view of worship. We Christians worship through service, we worship through fellowship and friendship, and we can even worship alone. But our communal worship, when the church gathers specifically to give praise to God, is something all-together different. And it was never intended to be abandoned or replaced by whatever we prefer.

I’m not only offering critique here. Here are a couple of thoughts that can work towards solutions.

1. First, we shouldn’t be afraid of being criticized for worshipping together. The world mocks Christians continually, especially for taking time out of their week to gather to worship God. “Isn’t there a better way they could spend their time,” people ask. I find this fascinating: are you telling me that these critics waste no time during their week? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that a couple of hours with the church isn’t any sillier than watching a Desperate Housewives marathon. Christians need not be apologetic for the time we spend worshipping together.

2. And perhaps the most simple solution: why not do service projects on a Saturday or on a Monday night or any other time of the week. And if it must be done on Sunday, there’s nothing wrong with worshipping corporately in the morning and serving later that afternoon.  But why completely cancel the service? At the very least, if there is no other time, couldn’t you gather first as a church and have a shortened worship gathering? We shouldn’t be forced to choose. You can both “go to church” AND “be the church.” Cultivating pride in the fact that our church isn’t afraid to cancel worship in order to do service projects exposes traces of a shallow Christianity; it makes as much sense as fasting from God to make Him happy. Even if we are doing this with the proper motivation, it’s self-defeating.

In the end, I’m just asking church leaders to ask ourselves “why?” Why are we doing this? Are we doing it because it’s what God wants or because it’s what we’d prefer that God want?

Dichotomy is rough, eh?

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*As I read the Church Marketing Sucks article I was sure that, somewhere on the webpage, the phrase, “be the church” would be found. Sure enough, someone used it in the comments section.

**Contextually, I might be using this verse broadly. Some will say that the “acts of righteousness” referred to religious disciplines and not to serving in general. Maybe someone should write an article about it.

***Frank Viola wrote a book entitled Pagan Christianity that would take an entirely different perspective of this issue. He believes that the majority of what churches do today (such as owning buildings) is unbiblical and should be abandoned. He would likely endorse the idea of calling off corporate worship to do service projects. While I disagree with many of his assertions that serve as the basis of his thinking, at least his thinking toward the conclusion would be logical.

I thoroughly enjoyed my Father’s Day. Wake up, watch soccer, eat fantastic Mexican (if you’re in Cincinnati and you don’t frequent El Rancho Grande, you have issues), and preach at Echo Church. The older Kaelyn gets, the more I enjoy her company. She’s becoming her own little person. Sure, she still throws a fit here and there, but overall she’s fantastic. I can’t wait for her to continue to mature. I’m anticipating some fascinating conversations in the years to come. Our little creature of habit loves ending her day by viewing one of her shows.

The advent of the DVR allows us to easily record her favorite shows for viewing at her bedtime. We she was smaller, she loved a show on TLC called Peep and the Big Wide World. While she still enjoys an occasional viewing of this program, it’s no longer her passion; she has made the transition to PBS shows. But instead of enjoying the puppet characters of Sesame Street, she has chosen another genre altogether.

Kaelyn’s latest obsession is the PBS show Dinosaur Train. It’s a computer animated show produced by the Jim Henson company (at least that’s somewhat close to the Muppets). The premise is that a dinosaur family (Pteranodans and an adopted T-Rex) learns about their kind traversing the dino-world on a train. But not only can the train travel distances, it can also travel through time by entering a tunnel. This is the vehicle by which the dinosaurs learn all sorts of things, and the information is passed along to the child in an entertaining way.

But more so than any other of her programs, this show has started to annoy me in endless ways. I try not to pay attention to it, but it’s somewhat grating and I have to get it off my chest. Even though you might be unfamiliar with my gripes, I present to you my list:

1) I have yet to observe any money exchanged in this dinosaur world and yet tickets are necessary to ride the train. What kind of currency do dinosaurs use? And how do they hang onto it, as I’ve never seen it in their hands and they have no pockets?

2) So the dinosaurs developed the technology not only for rail travel, but for time travel as well. If they were this technologically advanced, why couldn’t they avoid becoming extinct?

3) And if these dinosaurs could harness the power of time travel, why are they limited to traveling only in the dinosaur era. I would be interested in episodes that had the dinosaurs assaulting serfs in medieval Europe.

4) The conductor on the train always declares, “Time tunnel approaching.” But this is a false statement. The tunnel is stationary; it ain’t going anywhere. In reality, the train is approaching the time tunnel. I’ve attempted to explain this to Kaelyn, but she isn’t having it.

5) The show continually references the difference between carnivores and herbivores (meat-eaters verses plant-eaters). But they manage to do this without recognizing the major flaw in the show’s premise: one day, when the T-Rex grows up, he will eat his Pteranadon family. I eagerly anticipate this very special episode of Dinosaur Train, the cultural parallel to Jessie Spano’s caffeine pill abuse episode on Saved By The Bell.

6) In a holiday version of Dinosaur Train, the family celebrates the winter solstice. I can predict why producers did this: no one wants religious wars being waged during children’s programming, so assert that the prehistoric era was before Judaism and Christianity, so the dinosaurs wouldn’t celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas. But winter solstice is a pagan holiday, created by humans who (supposedly) lived after dinosaurs as well. So in an effort to be politically correct and religiously neutral, the Dinosaur Train teaches my daughter to be a good pagan. SIDENOTE: I will continue to deprogram my daughter from the many pagan rituals she will be exposed to throughout her childhood.

7) And, finally, when the paleontologist ends the episode by relaying his “scientific expertise” he often admits that he’s just speculating. So they’re teaching these kids “facts” that aren’t necessarily facts, but he’s still smug about it.

In the end, I know I should just lighten up. Kaelyn now knows more about dinosaurs than I do (even though she would be expelled from the Creation Museum). I ought to simply be thankful that it isn’t Teletubbies.