Every once in a while (actually, more often than I might like), I find my mind working in a stream-of-consciousness manner, chasing what might initially seem to be unconnected rabbit trails, that only lead back to one another. Sometimes these intellectual flights of fancy end up being quite productive; sometimes they don’t. Sometimes I share them with you; sometimes I don’t. Today I’ll sahre one of those thought streams with you.

I was listening to NPR on my way to the church the other day when they had a little blurb about Starbucks continuing to make headway into the music market, this time by signing Joni Mitchell to their label which already features Paul McCartney. This set me to thinking about Starbucks and what they have created. One of the great successes of the Starbucks franchise is that they have succeeded, not just in marketing a product, but an image and possibly even a community.

Starbucks is one of the few major companies that is fairly lenient about giving away their products. If you know someone who works at a Starbucks, chances are, you’ve received a free drink at one point or another. While this seems counter-productive to the more pragmatically minded folks, it actually makes great sense because when someone sees you walking around with the famously branded cup with a smile on your face, they’re going to want a coffee drink they didn’t realize they were craving until they saw yours.

Starbucks furnishes their facilities with comfortable couches and chairs and music. In other words, they’re not just selling a product, they’re selling an atmosphere. What’s interesting is that they are selling an atmosphere that is both welcoming and a bit intimidating. How many people knew what a “Barista” was before the Starbucks invasion? They use their own language and expect you to adapt, knowing that once you do, you’ll feel like part of the “in” crowd and the experience will be all the more meaningful to you.

In other words, while maintaining a welcoming environment, part of the appeal of the Starbucks experience is that they are (or were) “other,” they used words that other people didn’t use and they were making drinks that (at one time), no one else was. Instead of dumbing things down to make them mor “accesible,” Starbucks understood that part of the allure was the sense of being a bit different. Of course that no longer holds true as there is nearly a Starbucks or copycat on every corner, but Starbucks has, at least in a sense, helped set the standard for this trend.

Part of the reason that this interests me is that many churches adopt the exact opposite approach of wanting as many people as possible to feel as comfortable as possible. Hence, the largest church in North America preaches the Gospel of Self-Esteem rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 4:3).

The church is called to be the “pillar and buttress of truth” (2 Timothy 3:15) and when we forsake our “otherness” so that others will feel comfortable, we are actually foraking our identity. We ought to take every step possible to ensure that we are warm, welcoming and loving communities, but we are not free to align the content of our message with what people will want to hear. We cannot run the church like a traditional business. Numbers are not always a key indicator of success, disciples are (Matthew 28:18-20, etc.).

As far-fetched as it might initially sound, I’m becoming convinced that part of what the success of Starbucks teaches us is that there is a balance between being “other” and welcoming. It does not have to be one or the other.

• Read Surprising Insights From the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them by Thom Rainer
• Read The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles For Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary by Joseph Michelli
• Read Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends, edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Charles A. Anderson and Michael J. Sleasman

This past week at our Vacation Bible School, we talked about several of Jesus’ kingdom parables. This past Sunday, I followed up with some extended thoughts on what has come to be known as the parable fo the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). There’s several textual clues which point tot he fact that the “point” of the parable is not the section about the younger brother as we most often take it to be. Luke 15:1-2:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.

The section about the Prodigal is preceded by two shorter parables about seeking what has been lost. There is a shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep for one that has been lost and a woman with 10 coins and also loses one. Neither the shepherd nor the woman says “Oh well, I have plenty,” instead they both seek that which has been lost, understanding its inherent value. The obvious point here is that Jesus was seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10), represented by the “tax collectors and sinners” that were coming to hear him.

But as much as they, and we, relate to the younger, Prodigal brother, that is not the only point of the parable, as evidenced by the introduction (Luke 15:11): “And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.” We might in fact say that this is a parable about the father more than it is about either one of the sons. But as much and as rightly as we focus in the Prodigal, he is not the only son. Upon hearing the celebration of the younger brother’s return, the older brother comes in from the field to find out what was going on. After being told by a servant, we find that his reaction was not that of the father’s, for he was “angry and refused to go in” (Luke 15:28).

I’m afraid that many within the church relate to the older, begrudging brother as much as we do the younger, prodigal son. Yes, we’ve experienced that gracious moment of repentance, coming home to the Father’s welcoming, warm, loving and strong arms; that moment of forgiveness, but after that, many of us have come to play the role of the begrudging brother as much as we have the younger brother. Obviously, the older brother represented the Pharisees and Scribes who “grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Many of play this role quite blatantly, complaining about people who have seemingly been in the fatih not as long as us yet seem to receive more of God’s blessing and we complain that that’s somehow not fair, we deserve more. I’ve always thought it was interesting that the father not only goes out to meet the younger son, but he also goes out to “entreat” the older brother (Luke 15:28). God truly meets us where we’re at in life. But the older brother wouldn’t have any of it, and so often, neither will we. We’ve been in the faith longer, those blessings should be ours.

Perhaps we don’t play the role so blatantly. Many of are quite good at constructing neat, tidy little coloring books of what we think the faith “ought to look like,” and when someone colors outside of our pre-made lines, when they don’t cross their theological “i’s” and dot their theological “t’s” the way we think they should, we begin to complain to God that we’re doing things the way they ought to be done, not “those other people.”

Perhaps we play this out a bit further and a bit more subtly. The more I’ve meditated on the implications of this, I’ve come to see a lack of evangelism as an outworking of the “begrudging brother” syndrome. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to think that tehre is no such thing as a “failure” to evangelize, there is only refusal to evangelize. The truth is that many of us refuse to evangelize because when we open up the doors of the church with the key of the Gospel, we let many of “those” people, “hurting” people and we’re not quite sure we’re up to that challenge, wo we just keep things to ourselves. May we be reminded that our arms need to be as open as God’s.

• Read Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer
• Read Let the Nations Be Glad! by John Piper

As you know, last week was our annual Vacation Bible School (here, here and here) at Grace Community Church, Glen Rose where I pastor. As you also know, we did not implement a formal “altar call” method of evangelism. This, however, does not mean that we neglected teh Gospel, it just means that while we are zealous for boys and girls to come to know God, we don’t believe that convincing children to walk down an aisle is the best means to that end.

Two of the resources that we used come from the Way of the Master ministries: the $1,000,000 bill and the Ten Commandment coins. These resources use the easy-to-remember method of evangelism utilizing the Ten Commandments as an immediate method of demonstrating our need for a savior. Depending on the age-level of the audience, you ask as few as two or three questions: Have you ever told a lie, have you ever thought anything else was more important than God, have you ever hated someone? At only three questions, guilt before a holy, just judge has been demonstrated.

This method, of course, must be combined with an effective presentation of the person and work of Christ, but it is an effective, quick and for some reason, non-offensive method of demonstrating our guilt and need of a savior.

• Visit the Way of the Master website

Let the Town Crier cry for you. He’s trained for this, he’s developed lung capacity and the ability to yell lots of stuff while walking and ringing a bell; talents which do not come easily nor without much sacrifice. You have to want to be a Town Crier: you have to want it! Fight for it! Don’t give up the dream of a bunch of links on a Friday! Some things are just worth fighting for. I’m not sure if this is one of them. Welcome to the Weekly Town Crier, where I present to you some of the things that caught my eye this past week. Enjoy.

See what I hear at Last.fm.

Sign up for eMusic, find lots of DRM-free downloads and help me earn free downloads in the process. Everyone wins!

Read as Nepal reviews its recent decision to strip a young girl of her “living goddess” status.

Read about the NBA’s potential problem of crooked refs.

Read about a top cellist hanging up her bow to become a paramedic.

Browse the week in photos from Yahoo.

Read about the death of Tammy Faye Messner, formerly Tammy Faye Bakker.

Read about the woman who may face criminal charges for kissing a painting.

Read about professional poker players facing off against a computer.

Read as WFAA Dallas/Ft. Worth reviews the recent Fort Worth Jandek performance (I opted to go see Bill Mallonee, formerly of the Vigilantes of Love the next night instead and I’m glad I did because I had the distinct privilege of witnessing one of the most powerful musical moments I have ever experienced in a song by opener Doug Burr [visit his website], one of my new favorite artists, but back to Jandek):

It felt like a mistake. Back when he was a hermit, the weird secret of Jandek was intoxicating. But now that he’s here, standing onstage for all to see, Jandek is no longer Jandek: He’s one more performer trying to entertain us with his music, and not doing a very good job at it. To put it bluntly, Jandek is among the worst singers on earth.

Browse as the Columbia Dispatch profiles the “Jazz 20 you should know.”

Read as the Guardian Unlimited examines Harry Potter’s actual literary legacy.

Read as Christianity Today ponders about the “whisper of Christ” in the Potter series.

Read this Christianity Today piece which wonders what Jonathan Edwards might have thought about the Harry Potter series.

Read this Books & Culture piece which urges us to pay attention to the band The Arcade Fire.

Read the LA Times piece profiling the growing house church movement.

Read about the students who claim in a lawsuit that the creator of Facebook actually stole their idea.

Read Christianity Today’s review of the new Rocket Summer album Do You Feel.

Read Pitchfork’s review of the recently reunited Crowded House’s new album, Time on Earth.

Read Rolling Stone’s report that Joni Mitchell has officially joined with Paul McCartney in signing to Starbucks’ Hear Music label.

Read as Randy Johnson hints that his MLB career may be over.

Read about Florida’s attempt to solve many “cold cases” by giving prison inmates playing cards.

Read about the CO professor who was recently fired, but not for his comments likening 9/11 victims to Nazis.

Read about congress’ recently proposed “luxury” tax on cigars.

Read about the Ft. Lauderdale Mayor who is angered by public homosexual sex and has said: “we will not accept this activity in the name of being inclusive or tolerant.”

Read about the San Antonio pastor struck dead by lightning.

Looking for an idea for your next date? Try “Dinner in the Sky.”

Reminisce about when the Yips met the telephone.

Read Pitchfork’s review of the latest album from Austin band The Gourds, Noble Creatures.

Wonder whether Oscar the Cat can really predict death. Or maybe he’s actually a killer cat?

Read as Justin Taylor points us to the new iPhone optimized ESV website.

Read about blues singer Etta James who is in stable condition after being hospitalized for complications following abdominal surgery.

Read about iPhone sales falining to meet some expectations.

Read as Obama says that “sex education” for kindergartners is the “right thing to do.”

Pray for the family of Ray Ortlund, Sr., who recently went home to be with the Lord.

Read this piece which claims that Japanese women and Icelandic men live the longest.

Read as Curt Schilling says that “Barry Bonds’ and Mark McGwire’s refusals to address accusations of steroids use are tantamount to admissions.”

As you know (because you’ve been with us all week and read here and here), we at Grace Community Church are in the midst of our annual Vacation Bible School. We use the VBS/Backyard Bible Club curriculum from Children Desiring God, the children’s-ministry arm of Desiring God Ministries. This is our third VBS and our third year using this curriculum. I’ve received several e-mails asking about this curriculum, so I thought I would just post a few thoughts today.

There are currently three sets of curriculum (I’m not sure what we’ll so next year!): God Always Wins, Things Hidden and The Call of God. Each consists of five lessons. For those of you who are familiar with Desiring God, you know that the content is both accessible yet God-centered and theologically sound.

This year, we’re using the “Things Hidden” material which deals with five of Jesus’ Kingdom parables. The curriculum begins by reminding the children that just because we can’t always see some things, that doesn’t mean that they’re not real. We cannot see the fish under the water from above, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not swimming around. But if we get SCUBA gear, then we can see everything. The things of God often work in similar fashion and Jesus understood this, that’s why He told parables, because some people would understand what they were really about and others wouldn’t. Except, we don’t need SCUBA gear but faith, which God gives to His children.

Each lesson comes complete with illustration suggestions, discussion options, prop suggestions and application questionsf and a memory verse and reproducible work and take-home sheets. One thing less-motivated people might find frustrating is that there is only one master-curriculum which each age-level must make age-appropriate. In other words, the teacher must adapt the curriculum to the age being taught. Yet this is hardly a significant drawback.

Despite the “one-size, you fit all” approach, the material is easy enough to adapt to a variety of ages (it is geared for first through sixth grades), so it takes minimal effort to adapt. It presents clear, Biblical principles, drawing heavily on the sufficiency of Scripture, the centrality of Christ and the glory of God. These are concepts that, for whatever reason, we have convinced ourselves that we must “grow into,” yet the curriculum clearly demonstrates that these concepts are easily grasped by children of many ages.

One of the things I really like about the curriculum is that they discourage the traditional “altar call” approach to children’s evangelism. While this may seem odd to some, because after all, aren’t we after “decisions?” No, we’re after conversion and that is the work of God, not man. Children (and many adults) are easy enough to get to walk and aisle and even say a prayer if you so desire, but that hardly means that it’s genuine. Instead, we want to instill them with biblical truth and pray that God will work through that. We clearly present the Gospel from day one, adding more depth as the week progresses and we make every effort to ensure that there is adult follow-up, but our goal is lifelong disciples not a night of numbers.

I highly recommend this curriculum and the theology behind it. I’d love to hear thoughts from others who have used the same material or even the Sunday School material, which we also use.

• Visit our church website
• Visit the Children Desiring God ministries website

I don’t think there’s anyone consistently writing such God-centered, Christ-exalting, worship-inducing lyrics as the people at Sovereign Grace Ministries. However, with that having been said, I don’t listen to a lot of their music for some reasons of personal preference (please note, I have stated upfront that these issues are “personal preference”).

Much of the music produced by Sovereign Grace Ministries has a very “produced” feel to it. If music were a tabletop, theirs would be slick, you could slide things right across with little to no effort. I’m not sure if that makes sense to you or not. I’ve had this conversation with several people, some of whom understood what I’m trying to say and others who didn’t. I’m really not sure of another way to word what I’m trying to express other than that much of the music sounds very “slick.” All of this to say that I always look forward to the lyrics of the Sovereign Grace releases, but not always the music. And so arrives Asleep In A Storm, a “remix” project by Jeremy White, a member of Grace Church, San Diego.

Remix projects can be a mixed bag at their best. The idea is to give existing tracks (most of which were considered “finished”) to a producer (oftentimes a DJ) who then, as you might guess, “remixes” the songs. Sometimes this means little more than some electronic or other flourishes, while others it means the track is nearly completely deconstructed. As the Sovereign Grace website says:

This remix CD features songs from the vaults and more recent offerings, from Mark Altrogge’s “I Stand in Awe” (written in 1986) to Bob Kauflin’s “In the Valley” (originally recorded in 2006).

The material here is stellar and includes some of Sovereign Grace’s most solid offerings. As might be expected, there is no question about the God-centeredness of the lyrics which continually serve to set our affections Godward through Christ. The question, however, is how this strong lyrical material will fair under the “remix” treatment. Overall, it stands up quite well.

White does a good job of leaving the lyrical melodies intact, which then become the foundations of most of the tracks. With that having been said though, many of the tracks will be quite a startling change for many. White’s production is clean and crisp, with the vocals clearly at the forefront, which is appropriate with such clearly content-driven material. The style is loosely based on “dance” music and this is perhaps one of the few drawbacks as some of the beats feel a bit contrived (particularly the openings of “Across the Great Divide” and “For Me”).

Yet even with a couple of missteps, this is a strong release. White’s remixing never overshadows the material and in many instances, greatly enhances the songs. There is a warmth of tone to many of the tracks that the original, highly-produced originals seemed to lack (at least for me). It’s interesting that it took a remix project to strip the varnish off of some of the material in order to show the truly great songs underneath.

I’m looking forward to listening as Sovereign Grace continues to expand their musical horizons, continually pointing us to Christ along the way.

• Order Asleep In a Storm
• Download the “Across the Great Divide” track for free

As I noted late yesterday, we are in the midst of our annual Vacation Bible School and we are using Desiring God’s Things Hidden: A Study for Children on Kingdom Parables curriculum.

For those of you familiar with this curriculum, you know that there is no specific “altar call” or “sinner’s prayer” or “prayer of asking Jesus into your heart as your personal savior.” Those of you unfamiliar with this curriculum might think that’s a bit odd for a curriculum specifically designed for Vacation Bible School outreaches. After all, isn’t that when we get all those kids to make “commitments?” If you’re not leading children down the aisle, then what are you doing? In reflecting on this, I’d like to quote from the introduction to the curriculum, written by Sally Michael:

The goal of this curriculum is not to lead a child to “accept Jesus” or to pray a conversion prayer. It is relatively easy to lead children to make such a step but in many cases, the child really doesn’t understand what he is doing and does not experience true conversion. This is not to say that childhood conversions are not valid. many are in fact valid, lasting, true conversions. But after only five lessons, it is very possible for children to respond to the teacher’s desire that the child “accept Jesus” only to please the teacher, because it looks like fun, because someone else is doing so, or for any number of insignificant reasons. Is this true conversion or just a response to persuasion?

This indeed is a different approach to much children evangelism and this is much of the reason why we use this curriculum. Conversion of the soul is up to God. Our job is to get children to think spiritually and awaken spiritual interest in children, feeding spiritual hunger by exposing them to truth. We continually proclaim the Gospel throughout the week, inviting children to speak with an adult if God is indeed drawing them, but we do not have a “mass altar call,” because, as Sally Michael has pointed out, it’s easy enough to get children to walk down an aisle and even say a prayer or sign a card, but true conversion is the work of the Lord, not man.

Please continue to pray that God would glorify Himself and add to His kingdom during this time and I praise Him that He has not left the most important job in the world up to man. we are to faithfully proclaim, we are to obediently disciple, but far be it for us to raise the dead (Ephesians 2:1-10, etc.).

• Visit our church website
• Visit the Children Desiring God website for great, God-centered children’s resources