In the last several weeks my friend and former partner in crime, Tim Stevens, had his most recent book released. I read through Pop Goes the Church before it was published. I just finished reading through it a second time with a group of teammates. We’ve been discussing several chapters at a time. That’s led to some fun conversations about our responsibility to engage people in our community.
I’m a little biased, but I really love this book. It captures Tim’s heart for reaching today’s culture for Jesus. This book will stretch your thinking about how we can leverage the pop culture to reach people where they’re living. Here are some highlights from my reading:
- “Most Christians would never think of inviting an unchurched person to their church.”
- “In truth, the culture is actually shaping the values and faith of most people around us.”
- “It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are; if what you are saying is lost in translation, then your message isn’t going to get through.”
- “It is very difficult for us to consider that there are people in our communities who never go to church–not even at Christmas and Easter–yet are deeply spiritual people.”
- “Every church makes a choice in how to respond to the pop culture, and the choice it makes determines how much of an impact it will have on its community.”
- “It made Jesus very angry when the religious leaders of his day made rules that were not in the Bible and imposed them on everyone else.”
- “I think much of what is available in the Christian market is cheesy and lacks authenticity.”
- “We truly do not care whether what we do is original or not–we just care if it works.”
- “I want as big a crowd as possible. But our goal is to turn the crowd into a church. So we approach every service asking what we can do to help people take steps beyond the weekend experience.”
Anyone else read Pop Goes the Church yet? What are your thoughts?
I read this after Rev. Yates told me about it. I’m glad I purchased the book. I don’t work for a church, and therefore I don’t hold a church leadership role, but I found just as much insight on a personal level. Tim’s thoughts and Scripture references truly resonated with me. As a Christian and a filmmaker, culture and Christ go hand-in-hand as far as I’m concerned. I love seeing churches like Granger (and us at NewSpring) taking the initiative Jesus modeled for us to actually meet and know the culture and world the lost live in. This doesn’t mean every church needs a rock band, flashy graphics and creative video content; each community is different. The Church is responsible for knowing their community, its needs and positioning itself to meet them. If I am the church, then that sets the bar for me, but especially for corporate church bodies. Its like Tim points out several times, our culture, especially pop culture, is crying put for Jesus and they don’t even realize it. If the Church ignores these cries, it is a real shame.
Like the lyrics of Lee McD’s song say, “You are bigger than we let You be.” I think its time the Church realizes just that and starts using the means God has created for us to impact this world for His Kingdom.
Great read and I pray I hold to the passion this book helped ignite in me!
Yea I started reading the first couple chapters (gotta finish it soon) and love it so far!
LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. It totally changed my paradigm about church and the true purpose behind it. He blew my mind when he asked the question: “If your church disappeared, would your community even notice?” Wow!
I am half way through now. Great book. Really has me thinking about all the implications of technology and what might happen if we wake up a few more years down the line and the Church continues to be a late adopter like it has with every other cultural shift in history.
Just starting chapter 4. “Christianity has an image problem.” (p.58) No question about that.
Yes I read it a few weeks ago. I thought it was a great book and thought provoking. DJ is right in his comments about the church needing to position itself to reach the community at a level they relate to.
Had the chance to preview this book and I really felt that it captured the Biblical mandate of Jesus to go into the world and to engage the world, rather than to run from it.
Favorite chapter, “Mary, your church sucks!” (had me hooked after that one)
I can’t wait to start reading this book!!
I read it, and I love it!
Tony – the your quote, “I want as big a crowd as possible. But our goal is to turn the crowd into a church. So we approach every service asking what we can do to help people take steps beyond the weekend experience.”
Help me move beyond this thought. On the surface it seems okay, so where are we going wrong? Are you saying we want to assimilate the people (make everyone the same)? Hence, we lose our identity.
Thanks for the blog. I look forward to it, a fellow pastor in Alexandria, IN.
Michael
Michael, first of all, that’s Tim’s quote from the book, so he’d really be the one to respond. Secondly, I’m not even sure I understand your question.
tony
Let me try again. In Tim’s comment, which I should ask him about, is Tim simply saying we try to make people into who we already are in the church. We take the ’seeker’ convert them, and want them to become like us, follow our traditions, etc. As a result we have molded them into ‘church people’ and the new Christian loses their individuality because we don’t want them to have it, since we are uncomfortable with it.
Does that make any more sense? I’m just looking to go beyond this quote and know how I can help the people of my church move beyond wanting to make everyone like them.
Michael
[...] I finished reading Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens this week. The book offers a solid challenge to churches that try to avoid culture as opposed to using our culture to reach those who don’t know Jesus. Tony has a good review of the book here. [...]