Here’s a poor preacher:

What makes a good preacher?

Ready, go!

In the age where anybody and their brother can broadcast on “the internets” (case-in-point: This guy), the following may not be all the spectacular. But last night at Immersion, the ministry I’m blessed to be a part of, we broadcasted our service to the world in a way that hasn’t ever happened for us before.

I started webcasting the sermons a few months ago by taking my laptop up on stage, firing up the ol’ webcam via UStream.tv, and pressing “start”. It worked for awhile, but I think the viewers were getting a little tired of looking at the right side of my face every week. (Not to mention the fact that laptop internal microphones are exactly equipped to handle the 85-95 dB’s that our band puts out!)

One of the main parts of our vision at Immersion is to be “Immersed in Culture.” We want to be forever reaching out with the love of Christ in culturally relevant ways. With churches like LifeChurch.tv and Seacoast pioneering the digital path for the 21st century church in America, last night I felt as though Immersion joined the revolution of sharing the reality of Christ in culturally relevant ways.

The following video is last night’s service from beginning to end (and a little more! I forgot to turn the camera off for awhile after the service was over.) If you’ve never been to Immersion, this should give you a pretty good picture of what we do. If you live somewhere that’s not near the Des Moines area, please feel free to join the webcast every week at 7:37pm at Live.BeDeviant.com!

Perhaps it’s the donning for a new year. Perhaps it’s the inspiration from my friend Rhett. Perhaps it’s the buzz surrounding the most recent announcements from Apple at Macworld 2009. Whatever it is, I’m feeling goal-oriented six days into the new year.

With that, 2009 proves to be an exciting one and there’s a few things that I want to experience and/or accomplish. In no particular order, here’s my list:

1. Build interactivity into my preaching and teaching: I’ve just recently come to the conclusion that the last thing most people need to hear is another sermon … And that’s what I do for a living. By and large, a non-Christian world is watching and is not impressed. At all. Some of it is squarely on the shoulders of Christ-followers, but a large majority is just sheer ignorance of how life outside the Christian bubble works. Simply put, people are tired of being preached at and want to take part in what they’re being told. A shared experience, if you will.

In light of that, I want to build interactivity into my preaching and teaching of God’s word. I just discovered a live-texting service at Jarbyco.com, a service which, amongst other things, allows listeners to text in questions to the preacher while they are preaching and have them answered in real time. I’ll be integrating this into my message this week at Immersion, and I want this week to be the first of many where skeptics and sold-out Jesus folk alike can have access to the person in the pulpit. (This is part of breaking down the “fourth wall” as I discussed in an earlier post.)

2. Get simple: From house decor, to the food I put in my body, to my schedule, to our finances, to the way that I approach graphic design, the name of the game in 2009 boils down to one word: Simple. The world is complex and loud. I don’t have to buy into this. Pruning and getting as “lean” as possible is my goal for a prosperous 2009.

3. Integrate digital life into my church: 3 out of every 4 people are online in some fashion. Information is exploding in a way that history has not seen. Social media sites are some of the fastest growing sites ever. A new generation is speaking a new language, and the vernacular is largely digital. To effectively be the church, you must speak the language of the culture. If you don’t do this, you fail. Not “the Church”, but certainly your church. If you tell a non-English speaker that they just won one million dollars without translating that good news into a language that this non-English hearer can understand, the power is lost. The message, no matter how powerful it is, gets “lost in translation.”

People can’t understand what you’re saying.

So it is with Christianity. If our services, messages, outreach events, and discipleship efforts don’t migrate, at least in part, to the digital arena, we will be far less effective than we could be (and should be, in my opinion.)

4. Lose some poundage: I’m not in dire need to lose a ton of weight, but as I get older I’m finding that “lighter is better.” 5-10 lbs. max. I’d like to get under 210. Current weight at the gym this morning: 217. (Update: Want to see how others are doing in their New Year’s weight-loss goals? Follow Des Moines Juice on Twitter to watch the “Juice Fitness Challenge” unfold.)

5. Procreate: Bring life into this world. 2009 is the year that many would never thought happen: I produce offspring. It shall be glorious.

What about you? Do you have any goals that are just bubbling forth from your unclouded, simplified, fit cranium? Do share. In the meantime, here’s to 2009!

Have you ever watched a sitcom where the actors are huddled around a kitchen table and taken notice where they sit?

The most noticeable example that sticks out in my mind is “The Cosby Show“: Theo, Cliff, and Claire may be enjoying a nice Sunday morning brunch; perhaps a stern warning to Theo about the dangers of teenage drinking. No matter how many of the Huxtables were gathered around the table, you never saw anyone sitting with their back to the camera.

Ever.

Why? Because this is what people in the industry refer to as “the fourth wall. ” It is the invisible boundary that says, “I am here acting, you are there watching. No matter how much I want to portray real life events, there is a ‘fourth wall’ between us that boundaries us. I cannot get to you and you cannot get to me.“

For some, this is a hindrance. For others, it is a blessing. For some, it maintains the allusion that “I am different, I am other, I am actor.” For others, it is a real obstacle to connecting with an audience.

Take notice of this the next time you watch something on TV or catch a play at the local theatre: No one ever sits with their back to the camera (or audience.) I never really though much about this until I majored in TV broadcasting in college. It smacks of “duh”, but if an actor or broadcaster is sitting with their back to the audience, no one can see them.

Seems obvious, right?

But no matter the “stage blocking” there is still the “fourth wall.“

Why am I belaboring this point? An interesting discussion has popped up in the Twitterspehere about “the fourth wall.” Preachers, whether they know it or not, experience the “fourth wall”, the invisible boundary between us and the congregation. Because of that, whether conscious or not, there is an element of “performance” that sneaks into the delivery of even the best preacher. I have experienced it, and I know others have to.

The question as of late is “how do we break through the fourth wall in a digital, global, and relativistic world?” Luther felt this tension in his time. He stepped down from the pulpit and preached from within the congregation, wandering back and forth through the aisles as he taught (a practice that continues in most Lutheran churches to this day.) How do we, as modern preachers, teachers, and communicators “wander through the aisles” of our modern day congregations?

Solutions abound, we’ll discuss some of them in part two of this “Fourth Wall” series. Stay tuned!

I told a story last week at Immersion that made people gasp. It spoke to the notorious stinginess of those who follow Jesus. I couldn’t tell if the gasps were “agreement gasps” (“Oh no you dih’int!”) or “horrified gasps” (In Sunday School, I once saw a little boy pick his nose and munch on his nasal treasure like it was a crisp, autumnal apple or a fistful of Cheetos. That was a horrified gasp moment). But they were gasps nonetheless.

I told the story of how when I used to work in the service industry, waiting tables, no one ever wanted to work Sunday morning brunch. I could never figure it out. Even the hardiest partier could drag themselves out of bed by 10am and paste on a “server smile”. Right?

“What gives?” I thought.

“It’s the Christians,” was the reply from my co-workers. “The Christians always come in on Sunday mornings for brunch after their church service and they don’t tip. At all. Christians are the worst tippers ever.”

When I heard that, it was like a kick in the gut.

Why?

1. Mostly because it was true. We don’t tip very well. As a matter of fact, we’re pretty cheap. What makes this worse is that we paint “cheap” with a religious sounding veneer and call it “being a good steward.” Nothing like hiding behind the Bible to camouflage your stinginess.
2. Because God is so generous. We are most like God when we are being generous; generous in all things, but especially with our dough!

Las Thursday I laid down the “Fat Tip Challenge.” The FTC asks you to lay down more than your normal tip next time you go out to eat. Usually put 10% down? Try 30%. Are you a 20% tipper? Bump it up to 50%. If you’re feeling really crazy, try a 80, 90, or 100% tip next time you dine out! Make up for all those lousy tips from other Christians throughout the years.

God says, “I own the cattle on a thousand hills.” As children of this great and generous God – the God who owns everything – can’t we afford to part with a few more of those tightly-pinched pennies? God can afford your generosity. So go on, be generous!

Are you a server with a tip (or non-tip) horror story? Let us hear you. C’mon … Let it out .

Rhett Smith absolutely knocks it out of the park on this one. Peep this:

“I wonder if we as preachers have helped condition people to often not think for themselves. They are so used to coming to church and hearing advice on how to do something, that anytime we leave the how to steps out they are paralyzed. I wonder if we have gotten away from the mystery and some of the parable style teaching of Jesus that often makes you scratch your head and say, “What?” Giving how to advice and laid out steps does not lead to transformation of people’s lives in my experience, at least not internally. But rather, engaging them in God’s Word and allowing them to wrestle with the meaning and action for their own lives is powerful.”

Amen! I had a woman call me today telling me how her daughter has gotten into the wrong crowd. “We just need to get her into church, that’ll fix the problem,” is what she said to me. Wrong!

Going to church is not the fix-all.
Putting your child in Sunday School will not automatically “fix” them.
Your pastor cannot and should not take your place as parent.

I said it once and I’ll say it again, pastors over-function for their people. Can I get an “amen”?

Don’t forget, we’ll be broadcasting my sermon for Immersion tonight, starting at (approximately) 8:15pm CST. Make sure you join us! Tonight is the second week in our series, “What Does the Bible Really Say About…” This week: Sex. Buckle up, it should be fun. Oh yeah! If you want to check out last week’s talk on marriage, hit us up on the Immersion podcast (link opens to iTunes).