Time and time again, the question of why acapella churches of Christ have no instruments is raised. Sometimes , it is simply because a visitor stumbles into an acapella church and sees no piano, organ or big band blaring. That gets the visitor wondering if the instruments are being tuned that week or something more dastardly has happened such as an “instrument” thief broke in the building and stole the piano, organ or every instrument in the big band.

Well, nope, it’s not an “instrument” thief. It is just a belief that the Bible teaches instrumental worship is wrong and acapella worship is correct. Sometimes, adherents to the acapella churches will say it’s because the Bible doesn’t expressly say instruments are permitted or required in worship, therefoe, they forbidden. But most often (and I’m saying this as a member of an acapella Church of Christ), I’m told it’s because the Bible states plainly in Ephesians 5:19 that God wants us to make a “joyful melody in our hearts.” Ephesians 5:19 doesn’t say make a banging sound on drums or smash the keys of an organ or piano, or even blow as hard as you can via something brass like a trumpet, tuba or French horn. No, no, no, my friends who are adamantly against instruments insist that Ephesians 5:19 says we are to only make a melody in our hearts and that melody is clearly acapella music.

I understand where supporters of non-instrumental worship are coming from, but whether that passage is interpreted correctly does not concern me. It doesn’t concern me because the early New Testament church did not have instrumental music and when I say early, I mean the first two or three decades . . . the 30s, the 40s and the 50s. Then, you know what happened? The Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians in, arguably, about AD 60, 61 or 62. Way before Paul wrote Ephesians 5:19 and way way before that letter was circulated to all of the early church, there were no instruments in early Christian worship.

So, whatever argument non-instrumental proponents pit against instruments, they should simply leave Ephesians 5:19 out of the discussion of why the early church did not use them. There is a better argument and that is to figure out where early Christian worship came from. That, my friends, was from the synagogue worship of the Jews, the worship all new Christians had experienced and understood, was from the synagogue.

The synagogue worship in the early first century consisted of scripture reading, prayers, teaching and acapella singing, all of which was also found in first century Christian worship. The early Christians didn’t simply make up their worship, they patterned it after something they already knew, adding communion and prayers “in Jesus name.”

I didn’t footnote this little rant of mine, but the concept of our Christian worship coming directly from Jewish Synagogue worship came from a book I read during seminary/preaching school (the acapella Church of Christ name for seminary), either Everett Fergusons’s Early Christian Worship or a small book on early Christian worship by F.F. Bruce.

As far as arguing about whether instrumental music in worship is correct or not, that is not a big thing on my radar. I simply don’t want people who are against instrumental music to use Ephesians 5:19 for their reasoning because understanding the verse was written 30 years after non-instrumental Christian worship had become the norm, makes that precise argument pointless.

Peace y’all,
Brian

P.S. Please leave a Facebook comment below the related posts section (scroll all the way down)

The post Don’t Use Ephesians 5:19 to Argue Against Instrumental Music appeared first on B. Thomas Free Bulletin Articles.

Sundays and Wednesdays

Church buildings come in all shapes and sizes and one thing many of them have in common way too often is their emptiness. A lot of small to medium sized church buildings are left empty except for Sunday worship services and Wednesday night classes. Occasionally, the church buildings will fill up on a Saturday for a festive wedding and then a funeral happens every so often and there is that 3-5 day period each summer when the building is used for vacation Bible school.

With congregations facing more and more people exiting through the back door and fewer people walking through the front door to replace those members, some churches are seeking to show themselves as relevant to their communities, however, the number of these congregations is not nearly large enough. But kudos do go out to those who try to reach what Dr. David T. Olson of The American Church Project estimates as the 85% of unchurched Americans that surround our church buildings, our church buildings which are unused (on the average) over half the time.

We Can’t Do That

I recently posted on Facebook a question about churches and how they present themselves to their communities on days that aren’t Sunday or Wednesday. I was overwhelmed by the amount of responses I received. A couple answers presented reasons why some churches do not engage their communities by offering their building to outside groups.

The first reason raised was fear. Some churches simply are afraid of what might happen in their building, especially if they let “those people” in the doors. If you aren’t familiar with the fortress mentality seen within some churches, you are blessed. But there are congregations who are afraid that if they let people inside their buildings, such as drug addicts at Narcotics Anyonymous meetings or alcoholics at AA meetings or any person with a problem who may seek help at a Celebrate Recovery meeting, that trouble will ensue. That fear may include theft, weapons brought onto the property, etc. Fear does keep some congregations from actively engaging their community within the four walls of their often empty church buildings.

The second reason raised was a cousin of fear, this problem is called liability. What happens if someone trips or falls and then sues the church? That is a logical concern and I’m sure we can all, as ministers, find some Bible verse to say, “Hey, don’t worry, if you’re doing the work of Jesus, everything will be just fine.” Sometimes, even though we shouldn’t have to have it, we feel we need more than just re-reading Matthew 6:28-34 to be assured of that.

Here’s a little bit more material assurance for those church leaders who want to do good for others but might have that liability fear lurking in the background. Facility Use Agreements. You may be able to get these anywhere, but through a quick Google search, I found one offered by Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. You can download a PDF form of a Facility Use Agreement from their site. Read this entire article and you’ll see the link.

Basically, insurance companies realize engaging the community is part of doing church. Just make sure your church has a good liability or umbrella policy. Your insurance agent should be able to easily help you with this.

A Growing Trend?

I was overwhelmed by the many ministers who shared what their congregations do in the midst of their communities. The ministers who responded were from small towns and big cities. For example, Preaching Minister Patrick Barber of East Point Church of Christ in Wichita shared that one of their members offers yoga classes to the community on Monday nights. On Tuesday the East Point congregation offers a Ladies’ Day where homemade Teddy Bears are sewn and then given away to newborns at the hospital. They also host a quarterly Red Cross blood drive and a monthly basketball night.

Danny Dodd, minister at The Levy Church of Christ in North Little Rock listed how his church building is used outside of typical worship times. “There are AA meetings; Upwards basketball–as well as practice for other kid’s basketball and soccer teams; the building is used as a polling place; daily preschool; it’s a graduation site for the area “Youth Challegne” program; area businesses use the building when they need larger group training facilities. We also hold Dynamic Marriage classes; Dave Ramsey classes; Boy Scout meetings; and we offer our building as a site for home school conferences and classes.

There are many other ways church buildings can be used by local residents and outside groups. The following were offered as examples of what churches are currently doing: offering space for Spanish congregations, Chinese dance classes, SAT/ACT tutoring, business networking meetings, testing for online charter schools, daily daycare, home owner association meetings, free health clinics and health screenings, a business center to train people looking for work, ESL classes, parenting workshops, marriage seminars, physical therapy, high school football team feedings and moms play groups.

Dreams

A concept some churches have undertaken is helping members of their local community with fulfilling their dreams. What could be more relevant than helping people use the talents God gave them to pursue their goals and dreams? Churches do this currently by offering training to help enhance work skills but this could also be done via writing workshops for aspiring writers and entrepreneurial workshops for budding start up founders. These types of workshops can typically cost up to $100 per person depending on the presenter. You as a church could fill your empty building on a Saturday and help fulfill the dreams of a budding entrepreneur or an aspiring writer. If you are in a large city, you may get 50 to 60 people to take advantage of the workshop you offer. If you are in a smaller town, you should expect to get 20-30 people to attend the workshop, maybe more. It all depends on your pre-workshop publicity. And remember, about 80% of the group that visits your building that day could be unchurched.

There is no guarantee people in your community will visit your building on Sunday simply because they visited on a Saturday to receive some writing or entrepreneurial tips or to give blood or to take part in a parenting seminar. At least they will know your congregation is trying its best to be relevant by caring about those people in the community surrounding the building.

What Are Your Experiences?

Does your congregation open its doors to outside organizations in your community? Has it helped your congregation be better known to the community? Do any of your members dislike outsiders coming into “their” church building?

I look forward to your thoughts.

The post Are Empty Church Buildings a Thing of the Past? appeared first on B. Thomas Free Bulletin Articles.

I thought some people who browse this site might find this slightly humorous since it
relates to church and even mentions Justin Bieber.

(Learn more about Foursquare. )

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Summit is a very good place to learn a lot about ministry, the how to’s, the whys and the many new methods people are using in the field of missions and every new type of ministry that exists. I’ve often said if they could combine the Tulsa Soul Winning Workshop vendors with the classes and lectures at Summit, I would be in ministerial heaven.

I guess I can admit now, I’m a very geeky person, I love ministry and I love the restoration movement.

The Perfect Afternoon Lecture for Me

Since I consult with churches on social media, I of course found the topic of a late afternoon lecture to be enticing. This lecture would be all about social media, how to do it right, etc. I would enjoy this. Only about five people showed up, but it was interesting. Lots of good tips were given. The speaker had written a couple e-books and I began looking up info on the author/speaker/social media expert. I investigated his Twitter accounts for his books and for his social media program he sells. I think it goes for $39.95 or something like that. Basically, I began researching the author/speaker/social media program salesman because the intro to the presentation smacked of a sales job (I guess it was those slick cool looking postcards). But it may have just seemed that way to me.

As I investigated his Twitter accounts, I discovered one thing they had in common (not his personal account, but the accounts used to sell his material)….. they were filled with fake Twitter followers. I was a bit peeved that a social media expert talking at a Christian university on how to do social media the right way had Twitter accounts filled with fake Twitter followers (there are a couple services that show fake, inactive and good Twitter followers.)

That’s a lot of Fake Twitter Followers

Two of his accounts had over 80% fake Twitter followers and over 90% fake Twitter followers respectively. The next day, I was advised to go to this man directly and ask him about what I had discovered. He was very nice about it. We talked a lot about social media and he was shockedthat his accounts were filled with fake followers. We even talked afterward for quite a while about his social media e-book and one I was writing too. We discovered that we were both from the Chicago area so we wound up talking about pizza, the Cubs and more. I’ll have to admit he was a really nice guy. But back to the fake Twitter followers, a very frowned upon practice by social media experts, at least most of them…..

He told me he contacted the guy who set up his Twitter accounts or the man who was in charge of them now, can’t remember which it was and there is a distinction. I was told that the problem would be cleared up immediately. He didn’t want fake followers. This social media expert that speaks often at Christian colleges and universities thanked me for bringing this problem to his attention. He sounded very sincere.

Fast Forward

Fast forward four months later and the two Twitter accounts I brought to his attention now had 78% fake Twitter followers and 91% fake Twitter followers respectively. I guess his guy didn’t take care of the problem or the offensive nature of fake followers wasn’t really that offensive.

While this man was friendly as anything and gave some good social media advice, I would suggest your school, your church or your company find a social media expert who does not have fake Twitter followers. There’s a lot of them out there and we (social media consultants) all pretty much give the same advice.

Now, there is nothing you can do to keep fake accounts from following you and you may just follow them back unknowingly. Eventually, those fake accounts will be deleted. But I think an acceptable rate of fake Twitter followers should never rise above 10% and your inactive users may rise up to about 25% but those should be the limits. Just imagine a social media savvy unchurched person browsing your church site and then they spend a few seconds investigating your Twitter account only to find you have a wealth of fake Twitter followers. They’d probably cross your church of their “maybe visit” list. Make sure you hire a social media consultant/expert who is against fake followers in both word and deed.

If you want, send me a note and I’ll tell you how many fake Twitter followers you have on your account and give you some tips on what to do to optimize your social media accounts, whether they are personal or for your church or ministry.

To get even more information, you may want to read one of the following books about social media. (just ignore any advice to buy Twitter followers you may find in these books)

The post How Many Fake Twitter Followers Should Your Social Media Expert Have? appeared first on B. Thomas Free Bulletin Articles.

The above image is a screenshot from the movie Beat Street. That movie, released in 1984 did for break dancing and rap music and graffiti (hip hop) what the movie Colors did for gangs in 1986, it caused the phenomena to spread all across the United States.

Until today, I thought it portrayed a very realistic look at the slice of life in 1984 called Hip Hop. I found out it wasn’t so sugar coated as portrayed by Harry Belefonte in this film. That’s what researching for a blog post will do for you. My Beat Street bubbles have burst : (

Well, the title of this blog post speaks about the Lord’s Supper and whether or not we should treat it each Sunday as a funeral, which is often done, or as a celebration.

In the movie Beat Street (spoiler alert) one of the main characters was Ramo, a graffiti artist. Near the end of the movie, he dies while chasing a fellow graffiti artist who was spraying his “tag” (name) on one of Ramo’s masterpieces like seen in the image above.

Celebration or Funeral?

When discussing the memorial plans for Ramo, his best friend Double K (Kenny) says they will hold his memorial at the Roxy, a night club known far and wide for being THE place where break dance battles were held, hip hop artists would perform and DJs always played the newest rap songs. Double K would invite Melle Mel and the Furious Five to perform and a gospel group from the Bronx. “This won’t be a funeral,” he stated. “It’s going to be a celebration.”

Often times, and I’ve been guilty of it too, we treat the Lord’s supper talk as a funeral message and not a celebration. Are both styles appropriate in talking about the bread and about the cup? I think so, but too often we tend to make it a somber few moments each week. Of course, there are churches where it is never somber, but they may be the exception to the rule.

We should celebrate with joy the sacrifice of Jesus’ life at least as often as we lament his having to die for us. A good mixture of both is probably in due order.

The post The Lord’s Supper – Sad Funeral or Happy Celebration? appeared first on B. Thomas Free Bulletin Articles.

Why are some churches successful at using social media and others aren’t? While I haven’t found any stunning success stories, there are some small successes. For example, Zach’s House, a microchurch network in the Dallas-Ft. Worth I began a few years ago has used Twitter effectively on occasion.

Our microchurch network does not meet in a typical building but meets instead in a nursing home each Sunday and in homes, Starbucks, a pizzeria and anywhere else unchurched people gather in their daily lives. On it’s face, Zach’s House is social. In the beginning, I opened up a Twitter account and began following people in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, the region covered by our local ministry. My goal was not to harvest people and make them into what I wanted or what I believed God wanted. My immediate goal was to befriend people. That’s all I did. I had a good mix of followers from the DFW area and some from around the United States and the world.

If you want to see my Twitter strategy in full, you must read my post, “What Was the Purpose of Twitter Again?” I basically followed the strategy found in the blog post which consisted of becoming friends and offering help anytime I could. It’s all about adding value to the lives of others.

Through this Twitter account, I became friends with a few tweeps who attended or would like to attend one of our gatherings at a local pizzeria or to feed the homeless with us. And while not social media, we have also used Craigslist to find people for a community football game and for a homeless feeding. I’ve also had a few tweeps read devotionals I’ve written and shared through Twitter. So again, not much success but I think it’s great to befriend people for the sake of friendship. God provides the rest.

Next time, I’ll let you in on a little secret on why churches fail at social media. Please leave some of your Twitter successes in the comments section below.

The post A social media harvest is possible appeared first on B. Thomas Free Bulletin Articles.

The Twitterverse is huge. Of course, it isn’t Facebook, and praise God for that. Now, I understand the purpose of facebook, it’s to play games, stalk old classmates and to bother people with invites to all kinds of things. But what is the purpose of Twitter?

Twitter is a unique being. I can’t say exactly why I love it so much, but I’ve been hooked since day two. Unfortunately, on day one I stared at a blank screen, not knowing what to do. Then I followed my first twitterer, tweep or whatever you call us and I was hooked.

Over the past few years I’ve taken long breaks from Twitter due to computer problems. I don’t use twitter from a smart phone, I do it all from a desktop or when I’m out with my laptop. I have about 700 followers and I follow almost as many. Some might say, “Oh, he doesn’t know much about Twitter. After all, look at the size of his . . . list of followers. Yeah, it’s small.

Twitter isn’t all about having the most followers. And that’s good. Because if it was, I’d be one great big Twitter failure. I think like many twitterers do, that Twitter is about adding value to others. Some may scoff at that notion. No, some people do scoff at that notion. But in a way, Twitter imitates life and life should always be about adding value.

Over my first few years on Twitter I have been blessed to do the following:

• Encourage many people who have shared in tweets their sadness or frustration

• Helped a lady in Amsterdam find her lost passport

• Guided a few people toward job leads

• Along with many others, helped disseminate information that fueled an “almost” revolution in Iran

• Put forth an effort, along with many others (especially @Ziabatsu) to stop a woman from committing suicide in Indonesia.

• Offered good content via tweeted links and re-tweeted links

• Made some friends along the way

The accomplishments above on Twitter are minor in nature. However, I think those things are what Twitter is about or how it should be used. It’s fun to take part in some of the hilarious or stupid #hashtags, but for me, I want to offer some help when the opportunity arises, some interesting content when I can, and levity anytime it is worthwhile.

How about you? Do you add value to the lives of your followers? Even if all you do is tell dumb jokes on Twitter, you’re adding value to some sad follower of yours. Do what you do best and the value to others will come. Whether that is in real life or in the Twitterverse.

Please leave your comment below because I’d really like to know what you think. Also, please share this post with others or like it on facebook. Any of those things would really provide me with some value.    : )

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