Our staff has been talking a lot about the word atmosphere lately. We host a teen summer camp every year and our mission is to “create an atmosphere where teenagers can receive from God.” We believe that if you can get teenagers out of their day-to-day environment and into a place where the atmosphere has been created to EXPERIENCE God, then they will see Jesus for who he really is. It’s pretty simple.

Our mission on Sunday morning is closely related. Our goal is to create an atmosphere that allows people to EXPERIENCE God. Create an atmosphere that invites investigation and engagement.

So on my whiteboard this week is a question, “What Creates Atmosphere?”

I’ve written down a few things (in no particular order):

1. Prayer - the foundation and bedrock to any atmosphere.
2. Audio/Video/Lighting
3. Hospitality - greeters, ushers, guest services, etc.
4. Buzz - stories; little things that produce big talk
5. Lead Pastor and Staff Team
6. Preparation - you don’t invite guests to your house for dinner and not be prepared.
7. First Impression Perspective - What do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell?

By no means is this exhaustive and I’m sure a lot of it depends on the church. I would love your input. What are you doing to create atmosphere?

Another cultural current facing the church today is the EXPERIENCE expectation. People don’t just want information, they want engagement. They don’t want goods, they want service. Check out the Experience Economy by Pine and Gilmore. I heard these guys speak at Catalyst last year.

Look at restaurants - people don’t pay for food as much as they are paying for atmosphere. Some of my favorite places are the one that have created great atmospheres.

Look at reality tv - I know, I know….. but seriously, people want engagement. They want experience. They want to feel like they are right there and a part of it.

Then look at the church - for most, there is a major disconnection between their day-to-day lives and the fifty-year time warp they enter when they walk through the front doors of the church.

So what does this mean? Should we simply entertain? Acquiesce to the culture? Let the “market” determine what we say and do?

A major responsibility of the leader is to know and read the cultural currents and then figure out, innovate, and create a way for the church to stay at a position of intersection with culture.

Is that Biblical you say? I Chronicles 12.32 says, “Men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Here was a group of cultural interpreters.

A leader unwilling or unable to do good cultural interpretation will put the church on a path toward irrelevance.

There are several important cultural currents influencing the church today. Yesterday I posted on the current of Hyper-Options. Another current is spirituality.

Spirituality is on the rise and yet the church isn’t the dominant location for exploring this interest. Doesn’t this tell us something as leaders? Leonard Sweet says this is the fourth spiritual Great Awakening in American history, but it’s the first led outside the church.

Some recent examples have been the new “spiritually-based” tv shows. NBC has two: Revelations and Medium.

Another example is the salt stain Mary image on an underpass in Chicago.

People are exploring spirituality. They are no longer boxing it up as something you unpack only on Sunday mornings at church. Spirituality is part of life. It’s part of every human being. Spirituality is Monday morning at work, Tuesday night in front of the tv, Friday night at the bar and Saturday morning sleeping in until noon. Every part of us is spiritual because we are all created in the image of God.

This is another current the church must take notice of and chose whether or not to jump in.

This is a follow up post to my earlier entry.

You are seeing more Megachurches today than ever before.

Research by Scott Thumma, PhD of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research says, “the rise of hundreds of these large churches in the last several decades implies that his new pattern of congregational life has a particular resonance to and fit with the changes in modern American society and culture.”

At the same time, more and more denominational churches are closing their doors every year. The trend? Hyper-options. People want the options the Megachurches can present. Americans want the big feel. They like the crowd. It lends to the “experience.”

ABC News ran an article on churches where members can “not only pray, but work out in a gym, eat at a food court or browse in a book store.” Megachurches are popping up all over America and are offering sports leagues, day care, arcades, after-school programs, cafes and Bible study facilities.

The truth is, it’s harder to grow a church from 200 to 800 then it is from 5000 to 9000. Once you reach a certain threshold, momentum and options and “experience” are all on your side. Just the fact that you have a big crowd means something is going on. That attracts people.

Scott Thumma says, “Once a congregation reaches a critical mass of around 2000, its numeric strength alone becomes a powerful attraction. You hit a certain size and you can become self-generating.”

So, what’s the future of the small church? I don’t know. But there’s definitely a cultural trend we must all be willing to look at in the face…. sooner rather than later.

Last week I posted some questions I had on my white board:

1. What is the church doing to intersect culture?
2. Where are the cultural points of entry?
3. How does the church remain missionally faithful yet challenge culture in a way that invites investigation and engagement?
4. What are some of the cultural currents the church is facing.

I want to post some answers to the last question this week.

Hyper-options is a cultural current facing the church today. Do a quick scan of your local supermarket. There are like a hundred different potato chip possibilities. That isn’t snack options - pretzels, popcorn, and cheese curls - it is strictly potato chips. And toothpaste? There are forty-eight Crest options alone.

So what? This kind of choice in almost every department of life leads to a “demand for options” mind-set. If the only chips in existence were standard potato chips, no one would complain if there weren’t kettle chips, ridged chips, natural chips, ranch chips, or cracked black pepper chips. But if you walked into a store today and all they offered was one choice, you would feel cheated as a consumer.

The increase of options has a closely assoicated phenomenon leaders will have to face in the future: the megastore. Lowe’s, The Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Kroger have swallowed up a good deal of the mom and pop stores.

Maybe the implications aren’t instantly transparent. But their impact is being felt. Even the average person in small town USA is getting increasingly accustomed to one-stop shopping where convenience and options are at their fingertips. Like it or not, this has permeated the church arena.

What does this hyper-options mean for our churches? How does the church measure up? Is the church a one stop shopping meagstore, or is it a small mom and pop operation?

Here are some questions that have been rolling around in my head the past few weeks. I decided to get them out on the board.

1. What is the church doing to intersect culture?

2. Where are the cultural points of entry?

3. What are some of the cultural currents the church is facing?

4. How does the church remain missionally faithful yet challenge culture in a way that invites investigation and engagement?

Your comments are welcome and will probably help us navigate this “post modernity” thing that everyone is talking about. I may post some of my answers after a week of thinking it through.

In an effort to appear relevant, I see churches attach labels to themselves and their programs. They call themselves post-modern or emergent. They label their worship contemporary or modern. Their messages are relevant and applicable.

I think a rule of thumb is that if you have to say you’re something, you probably aren’t.

Margaret Thatcher said, “Being a leader is like being a lady, if you have to go around telling people you are one, you aren’t.”

The same holds true for the church. The moment you have to say you’re relevant or emergent or post-modern, you’re not. I think we ought to let the church just be the church. In a quiet, confident sort of way.

I play basketball every Tuesday night at the church with a bunch of my friends. What I’ve learned is that the guys that are really, really good don’t have to talk a lot of trash. Why? Their skill sets them apart. They got it. They’re not trying to make up for anything. They’re not insecure. Their confidence allows them to keep their mouth shut. It’s the guys that talk trash that are making up for a lack of skill (which, by the way is my number one strategy: if I can’t keep up with you in skill, I’ll try to get in your head).

I think we need to be confident that the church has what it takes to challenge and reinvent culture. We don’t have to talk a lot of smack and hype things up just to get people to recognize that. We just need to let them see it.

I don’t know… maybe sucks is too strong…. maybe I’m irritable. But churches across the country just do a horrible job with their communication.

I realize that churches everywhere are struggling with the issue of relevance and how to communicate effectively with culture today. I oversee the communication department at my church so I am always faced with the question, “How do we communicate better?”

Here are some thoughts of mine when it comes to why church communication sucks:

1. We use words that people don’t understand.

I love the look on unchurched peoples’ face when we use words like born again/saved, hallelujah, righteousness, the blood of the Lamb. I remember what it was like for me when I decided to follow Christ and the guy asked me, “Are you saved?” I had no idea what he meant.

2. We over use phrases or words and they become inauthentic.

This one probably applies to preachers more than anything. Have you ever known someone that says, “Praise the Lord” a lot? Or “brother” or “amen” or “glory to God” or “Father God?” The list could go on and I’m sure you could add a lot of examples.

3. We use the same cultural analogies that the Bible uses even though they are no longer relevant to our culture.

Jesus spoke of being “fishers of men” because of the location and time that they lived in. When we say “fishers of men” now we loose people. It took me a while to figure out what that meant when I became a Christian. Or what about, “the harvest is white” or “goats and sheep?” Where has the creativity gone in the church to explain the Kingdom of God in simple, modern-day analogies?

I’m sure you have some examples to add or comments that would further this list. I would love to hear them. Let’s put a list together (or a manifesto) of why church communication sucks and what we can do about it.

Great new origins newsletter from Mosaic (Erwin McManus’ church in Los Angles). Probably some of the best thoughts on postmodernism that I’ve read.

Here’s some pieces:

“This goes back to the question of relevance. Our goal is not to be liked by culture, to imitate culture, and not even primarily to be relevant to culture. Our goal is to challenge culture, create culture, and renovate the world. But in order to do this we have to find our voice.”

-Well said. I think the church loses focus and begins wandering down another different path in the forest when we try to be relevant to culture.

“That’s why whenever I see a church web site heralding, ‘we’re postmodern’ or ‘postmodern worship’ I always think, too bad. They’ve chosen against being ‘from tomorrow’ in favor of being ‘from the past.’”

-What a statement! I want to be ‘from tomorrow’ not ‘from the past.’

“Let’s begin with this: To me, there’s nothing really edgy about trying to be edgy because ‘edginess’ doesn’t come from imitation. That goes for artist, poets and pastors. The leaders that intrigue me are the ones I suspect get up in the morning [or the middle of the night] wondering how to change the world.”

-I want to meet this guy. Being edgy today does not position you to be edgy tomorrow. Having a passion to change the world is the only position that will navigate all the trends and cultural influences of our time.

Does this resonate with you? What’s your response?