2012 Guatemala Trip in Pictures

If you’d like to get the full update of our 2012 Guatemala trip click here to read the update. This is our trip in pictures…

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Guatemala Trip Recap

On Friday June 15th around 10:30pm Ethan and Stephen arrived back in Denver, safe and sound after a long week of travel. Thanks to everyone who prayed for us and to those who contributed financially to this trip. We wanted to take a few minute to share some stories and pictures from our time in Guatemala. Read more

Going to Guatemala!

Hey everyone,

As many of you know, for the last two years New Denver Church has been developing a partnership with a church in the small Guatemalan village of San Pablo la Laguna (to read more about our decision to work in Guatemala check out the New Denver website). Our strategy is to establish a relationship with this church and their pastor, Antonio Moxnay, in order to contribute to lasting change over a long period of time. We are focusing all our efforts on this one village. Read more

Spring 2012 Update

Though it’s only May, it actually feels like spring has been here for a while as it decided to make an early appearance in Denver this year. While the warm beautiful weather is always welcome, we were sad to see winter come to an early end since it cut short an already poor ski season. Oh well, hopefully we’ll have better snow next year! Despite the lack of snow sports, the Redden family has had no lack of activity to keep us busy. Read more

It’s not personal, it’s just business?

Just shy of two weeks ago, the sports world watched as Peyton Manning said goodbye to Indianapolis after thirteen incredible seasons with the Colts. 11 Pro Bowls. Four-time league MVP. Two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl victory and a game MVP to boot. His total career passing yards equal more than two trips around the earth. But after four neck surgeries and a looming $28 million contract payment looming, Jim Irsay decided it was time to say goodbye to one of the greatest quarterbacks in league history. When the news broke, experts quickly jumped in to provide an explanation of why Irsay made the decision. The consensus: just good business. It’s not personal, just business. Then I watched Peyton’s press conference. He never made it more than a few sentences without choking up and fighting back the tears. For something that was just business, it sure looked personal.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or perhaps gave up all media for Lent (if you did, stop reading this), then you know the sports news cycle has focused an inordinate amount of attention over the last two weeks to where Peyton would go next. All those questions were put to rest this week when it was announced that Peyton and I will soon be neighbors. Well, we’ll at least be living in the same metropolitan area – Denver, Colorado – as Peyton signed a 5-year contract that could be worth up to $96 million dollars. So everyone in Denver is thrilled, right? Well, not exactly.

You see, Denver already has a quarterback. And unless you spent the last six months under the aforementioned rock then you definitely know who he is. Tim Tebow set the sports world on fire last season with his last-minute comebacks and his unabashed commitment to a very public expression of his faith. He took a hapless and hopeless 1-4 Broncos team and by force of will, turned them into a playoff team. It wasn’t pretty, but he won. Moreover he won over the people of Denver, including me. Despite my admiration of his strong faith and character, I was a skeptic of Tebow early on. As one writer put it, “He throws like he’s chucking a ham and runs like he just stole a toaster!” It wasn’t always pretty, but as the season progressed you just couldn’t take your eyes off him. He won me over. He won this city over.

So when the news came that the Broncos were signing Peyton, I wasn’t shocked, but I was a little disappointed. For Tim, sure, but also for myself and other loyal Tebow fans here in Denver. He worked hard. He earned the love of (most of) the fans. He earned the right to lead this team. But when you have the chance to get a hall-of-fame quarterback, you jump on it. I get that. It’s just business, it’s not personal. So why do I feel disappointed? Why are people calling into the Broncos radio show blasting John Elway and the Broncos’ management? If it’s just business, why is everyone so upset? Why are so many people taking it so personally?

The fact is, it is personal. Life is personal. When we say things like “It’s just business” we’re often just trying to make ourselves feel better by justifying a decision that hurts others. Every day people have to make difficult decisions that impact the lives of others, often in very negative ways. These decisions are part of life, and yes they are part of business (and ministry). They cannot be avoided. But let’s not kid ourselves by saying that they’re not personal.

In a conversation with his disciples about the cost of following him, Jesus once asked rhetorically:

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Matthew 16:26)

It’s probably a good question to ask in situations where we feel tempted to tell ourselves “it’s not personal, it’s just business.” Because from the lens of eternity, it seems more likely that we’ll all look back and say “It’s not business, it’s just personal.”

Ecclesia National Gathering, Day 2

New Denver Church is part of the Ecclesia network of churches, and this week I’m here in Washington DC for our annual national gathering. Here’s the focus of this year’s gathering from the website:

Our focus this year is on how our churches can function as centers of reconciliation, where we learn through the power of the Spirit to live as one reconciled family of God across racial, economic, and generational lines.

I’ll share my notes from the conference, but my standard disclaimer applies – these were the thoughts that captured my attention but may or may not make sense taken out of context. If you have questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

Read more

Ecclesia National Gathering, Day 1

New Denver Church is part of the Ecclesia network of churches, and this week I’m here in Washington DC for our annual national gathering. Here’s the focus of this year’s gathering from the website:

Our focus this year is on how our churches can function as centers of reconciliation, where we learn through the power of the Spirit to live as one reconciled family of God across racial, economic, and generational lines. Read more

Thanks for the reminder Jeremy Lin

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or shun absolutely all sports news, then you’ve probably heard of Jeremy Lin by now. The New York Knicks point guard has come out of nowhere to take the sports world by storm. Lin was an undrafted free agent coming out of Harvard, and after being picked up by Golden State he played sparingly and was eventually dropped. He landed briefly in Houston before being cut again. He was then picked up by the Knicks but sat at the end of the bench until injuries to superstars Carmelo Anthony and Arare Stoudamire forced him into action. He made the most of his opportunity, scoring more points in his first five starts than anyone in NBA history.

Now I have to admit, I hate the NBA. Ever since the league went from being a team game that highlighted great rivalries between cities to promoting individual players and often glorifying thugs who happened to be good at basketball, I lost interest (somewhere back in the ’90s). But Jeremy Lin quickly caught my interest, not only because he is an incredible Cinderella story, but also because of his outspoken Christian faith. The inevitable comparisons were made to Tim Tebow, but it quickly became apparent that Jeremy Lin is his own person and represents a different perspective on Christianity.

This became apparent to me after reading Michael Luo’s great piece in the NY Times, ‘Lin’s Appeal: Faith, Pride and Points.’ The article is Luo’s intensely personal reflection on how Lin’s success is about so much more than basketball. Luo was the first to open my eyes to how Lin is beautifully representing his faith in a way that is true to his culture and heritage. His success has made Lin the very public face for a vibrant but often overlooked segment of American Christianity, and Keith Bradsher’s piece in the NY Times pointed out, he’s also making waves in China where Christians are still persecuted for their faith.

Then this week I read a great post by Carl Park over on the Gospel Coalition’s blog where he builds on Luo’s reflections on why Asian American Christians are connecting to Lin differently than they have to Tebow. Park does a great job of pointing out that the experience of being an Asian-American Christian is quite different from that of Anglo-American Christians, though that experience is not as widely known. The controversies of the Anglo-American church have not been their controversies. They aren’t experiencing the decline of the broader American church but are actually experiencing vibrant growth. The Asian-American church has an important voice in the conversation about Christianity in America that has been largely unheard. Park’s hope is that Lin-sanity is changing that:

Linsanity, for Asian Americans, is only partly about basketball. More significantly, it’s about that outside experience being recognized by others and, even further, evolving into inclusion. Can what happened to Lin in the NBA happen to him and other Asian American Christians in the broader American church? Can it encourage Asian American Christians to give more of their gifts and leadership to the community—and Community—at large? It sounds grandiose, insane. But, as we’ve seen the last two weeks, insanity happens.

After living in central Asia and eastern Europe for an extended period of time and traveling regularly throughout my life to serve churches around the world, you’d think I would be more consciously aware of the importance of learning about faith from other cultures. But it’s so easy to become ethno-centric – to spend time primarily with people who look and think similarly to you. It’s easy to only hear the loudest voices and assume they represent the whole picture of what God is doing in the American church. But Jeremy Lin has reminded me that even though we share the same citizenship – both on earth and in heaven – we have very different experiences of life and faith. There is much to learn from those who are different from me, but it is easy to forget that. Thanks for the reminder Jeremy Lin.

 

 

 

**Image from Flickr user nikk_la, used under Creative Commons license .

The Celebrity Pastor Phenomenon

Over the last three days I ran across three articles by three different authors (Mike Breen, Skye Jethani, and Rachel Held Evans), all exploring a common phenomenon – celebrity pastors. I have to admit that I laugh a little bit even typing those words. They just seem so antithetical sitting there next to each other. Rock stars are celebrities. Movie stars are celebrities. Professional athletes are celebrities. But can pastors really be celebrities?

celebrity |səˈlebrətē|
noun ( pl. celebrities )
a famous person. the state of being well known.

Sure, pastors it seems definitely can become well-known. Jethani points out in his article, “Before Osteen, Warren, and Driscoll, there were Moody, Spurgeon, and Whitefield. Celebrity pastors are not new.” But in the technology-driven age we live in, there are more pastors who have celebrity status than ever before. So is there a problem with pastors being celebrities? Maybe.

Breen is quick to point out in his post “Obituary for the American Church” (an exploration of what he believes are the three primary sins of the American church today – celebrity, consumerism, and competition…I’m sure it’s coincidence that they are all “C” words) that Jesus himself would fit the definition of celebrity. He was a well-known figure, even in his own time. But throughout the gospels we see Jesus playing this strange dance with his followers and with his growing celebrity. When the crowds got too large he simply slipped away to be alone. Or just when it seemed his movement was reaching a tipping point and the masses were flocking to him, he would share something incredibly difficult and people would leave. Nowhere is this more evident than in John 6. The chapter begins with Jesus feeding 5000 miraculously and then following it up by walking on water. He had some serious momentum going. So what does he do with it? Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life, and the only way to have the life he offers is to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:53-58). The crowd’s response, “On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”…”From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (John 6:60,66).

Breen makes the point in his article that Jesus was famous, because he was doing significant things. There is an enormous difference between being famous and being significant. Jesus’ goal was to be faithful to the work the Father had given him, even if that compromised his celebrity. He said the hard things that needed to be said, regardless of the consequences. Faithfulness was his measure of success. My question is – do pastors who achieve celebrity in large churches and leadership conferences today have that same commitment? Some do, but I think it’s a question every pastor has to ask themselves, myself included.

What concerns me most about the rise of the celebrity pastor is what Skye Jethani points out in his article, “The Evangelical Industrial Complex & the Rise of Celebrity Pastors.” Jethani points out that the flame of celebrity is fueled systematically by what he calls the “evangelical industrial complex.” This is the complex “Christian” market that sells books, small group resources, preaching resources, DVDs, CDs, and a myriad of other products based on the teachings of high-profile pastors of large churches. Jethani reveals the rather obvious tactic that if content publishers can latch onto a pastor at a large church, they have a sort of guaranteed market in that pastor’s congregation. I believe his insights are as insightful as they are disturbing. Celebrity is inflated by a system whose primary goal is to make money. So the loudest voices – the ones heard onstage at leadership conferences and who get the book deals with the most marketing – aren’t necessarily the most significant, insightful or faithful, just those who can reach the largest market.

So what is our response to all this? Good question. It is a complicated issue with disturbing implications, and I’m not sure there is an easy answer to how we respond. But for those of us who endeavor to lead God’s church, I think the question Mike Breen poses is a good one to ponder. So I’ll leave you with that:

In what ways are your decisions made by a subtle undercurrent of ambition and a hope for celebrity?

The Danger of Awareness

At a recent New Denver Church staff meeting we were discussing the Outside magazine article by Bill Gifford about Lance Armstrong and his LiveStrong foundation. It’s an excellent article, and I’d recommend you click the link and at least skim it before reading this post. If you don’t have time, here’s the teaser from the beginning of the article:

It’s Not About the Lab Rats

If Lance Armstrong went to jail and Livestrong went away, that would be a huge setback in our war against cancer, right? Not exactly, because the ­famous nonprofit donates almost ­nothing to scientific research. BILL GIFFORD looks at where the money goes and finds a mix of fine ideas, millions of dollars aimed at “awareness,” and a few very blurry lines.

The article raised an interesting question that we discussed as a staff: Does contributing to awareness about a need or cause make you feel like you’re helping without actually helping? The article raises disturbing questions of whether we really know where our money goes when we contribute to organizations. Gifford makes the point that most people who buy the little yellow “LiveStrong” bracelets believe that by doing so they are contributing to cancer research and helping to fight cancer. The truth is that none of that money goes to research. While the value of the LiveStrong programs that the money is used for is debatable, the point is that whether or not buying one of those little yellow bracelets actually helps in the fight against cancer is questionable. Yet everyone who has bought one or contributed to LiveStrong did so, because they thought they were helping the cause. And after they had done so they felt like they had helped. So did giving in this way effectively anesthetize them from feeling the need to continue contributing to this need?

These days there are hundreds, probably thousands, of organizations that claim to be working for the common good by addressing the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of our world. The question is, how much of that work is engaging those needs through action and how many are just raising awareness? And at what point does contributing to awareness about an issue make us feel like we’re helping when we really aren’t? Where has our awareness anesthetized us from actively engaging? This conversation helped reinforce our desire at New Denver to develop strong relationships with the people and organizations with whom we partner to contribute to the common good of our community, our city, our country, and the world. We need to make good choices about where we invest our time and resources and ensure that we aren’t just raising awareness about issues but also actively engaging the issues. Awareness is a good thing – a necessary step before engagement. But it’s not the final step.

To close this post I’ll throw out some deeper and more personal questions that this raised for me, and I’ll come back in a later post (more likely a series of posts) to address them. Has the way we’ve presented Jesus and the gospel effectively anesthetized people from discipleship (the process of actively following him with their lives)? By focusing on gathering large crowds to church on Sunday and teaching about Jesus have we raised awareness about him and given people the feeling that they’re following him when they really aren’t? Have we truncated the full message of the gospel into the plan of salvation (read Scot McKnight’s book King Jesus Gospel to understand what I mean by that) and called people to a decision instead of discipleship? Has doing so given them the impression that their journey of faith is complete when in fact they have only taken a first critical step?

Awareness is an important and necessary first step, but it cannot be our last step.