A Peek Inside The Christian Atheist

I’m humbled by so many of you offering kind words about The Christian Atheist. My prayer in writing this book is that people all over the spiritual map would be moved to a more intimate and fruitful relationship with Christ. Today, I want to share part of a chapter that people have let me know they found helpful.

Worry Is not Your Friend

Worry (or not trusting God) has been a significant issue in my life. Although I believe in God, I’ve trusted more in my own abilities than I have in his faithfulness. For Christian Atheists, our worry proves we don’t trust in God as we claim to. We think, I know God’s a good God and all that, but I’ve got this situation handled. And when it turns out we don’t have it handled, then it falls to us — not to God — to fix it.

Worry reminds me of my feelings about snakes. I hate snakes. I hate them worse than Indiana Jones does. It was a serpent that seduced all of mankind into the fall, after all. Coincidence? I think not. Snakes in general freak me out, but bringing venomous vipers into the equation adds another diabolical dimension. My family lives in a heavily wooded area, where we’re basically besieged by poisonous snakes.

One day, when my son Bookie (whose real name is Stephen Craig) was about two years old, he was playing on our front porch. We were all doing different things around the yard when suddenly we heard Bookie squealing with delight. He was jumping up and down, calling out, “My fwend! My fwend! Daddy, look! He’s my fwend!”

I strolled over and asked, “Bookie, where’s your fwend? Is it an imaginary fwend?”

Bookie chirped, “No, Daddy!” and pointed excitedly.

“Look! My fwend!” And there, directly at his feet, was a small rattlesnake. In case you didn’t already know, a rattlesnake is not your fwend. I jerked Bookie away from the snake, then stomped on the snake’s head and crushed it —  immediately after I first cut off its head with a shovel.

Many of us treat worry like our fwend. We don’t consciously think or talk about it that way, of course, but how we live tells a different story. We clutch worry to our chests like our favorite stuffed animals from childhood. We have many different euphemisms to mask this sin:

“I’m concerned about something.”
“I have some issues I’m working through.”
“I have a lot on my mind.”

Using such substitute terminology makes me sound like I’m really smart, like I’m an important person with big things going on. What they don’t do is make me sound like I’m a worrywart.

But no matter what you call it, worry is still sin. In Philippians 4:6, Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything. Romans 14:23 says, “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” That’s pretty clear to me. Worry is the opposite of faith; therefore, it’s sin.

When we live by faith, we believe that God has everything under control. But if we start to worry, how we live says the opposite. If we are worried about losing our jobs, we are essentially saying that our jobs are our providers. But isn’t God our provider? What if God has something else planned for us? And what if, as unpleasant as it may be to think about, the path to that “something else” is through some pain? Will we still trust in God to provide during that time?

Worry, in essence, is the sin of distrusting the promises and the power of God. It’s choosing to dwell on, to think about, the worst-case scenario. It’s faith in the bad things rather than faith in God. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (NLT). In this verse, you could also easily translate “fear and timidity” as “anxiety, tension, and worry.” Fear doesn’t come from God. It’s a tool the evil one uses to distract us from our true purpose here.

In Matthew 6:25,  Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” The Greek word Jesus uses for “life” is psuche (SuE-kay). It doesn’t just mean your breathing life, the force that makes your body go. It actually means every aspect of your life, taken together in total: mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. It means your yesterday, today, and future life. Jesus is simply saying don’t worry about anything.

The Christian Atheist may do everything humanly possible to ensure a situation’s positive outcome, and still worry, I can’t just let this sit. I have to do more. But if we’ve honestly done everything we can, by definition we can’t do anything more. And in many cases nothing’s going to go wrong anyway; there’s really nothing you can do about a nonexistent worst-case scenario. So in our powerlessness we settle for the only thing left within our control: we worry.

Worry is a control issue.  People are often obsessed with trying to control their circumstances. And while some things in life are within our ability, many things aren’t.

Just last night I sat on a plane, hoping to make a connecting flight. As we were grounded on the runway, time seemed to fly, chipping away at my chances to make my connection. Even though I had zero control over the situation, I glanced continuously at my watch, consumed with worry — as if my worry had any bearing on the outcome. (In case you’re wondering, after our plane landed, I could have given Usain Bolt a run for his money, sprinting across the airport just in time to catch my final leg home.)

Worry indicates we’re not willing to let God handle certain things —  at least not in his way, and certainly not in his time. Matthew 6:27 asks a practical question: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” I wonder how many hours worry has shaved off the end of my life? (Now I’m really worried.)

Fortunately, God’s power and love have enabled me to genuinely overcome much of my worry and unjustified desire to control. I know I still have a long road ahead of me, but I’m going to share with you some of my journey so far.

If you haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy yet, you can order it through any of these booksellers:

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Christianbook.com, and Mardel

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Upcoming Series: Forgotten Virtues

Right now, we’re in the middle of a series at LifeChurch.tv called FAQ. It’s been great to answer the tough questions people wrestle with, both as believers and non-believers.

Next up, we’ll be doing a series on Forgotten Virtues. In it, we’ll be talking about:

1. Honor.
2. Purity.
3. Loyalty.
4. Integrity.
5. Gratitude.

Here’s the trailer our Media Design team created after a video shoot in a nearby abandoned town.

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The Code: Keeping it Brief

As we started to write out our values, we had more material than we could include. We wanted to keep The Code short enough that people could take it all in and remember relevant points during the course of ministry. Who says 13 is an unlucky number?

10)    We always bring our best. Excellence honors God and inspires people.

11)    The only constant in our ministry is change. God is always doing a new thing. Why we do what we do never changes. How we do it must change.

12)    We don’t recruit volunteers; we release leaders. Volunteers do good things but leaders change the world.

13)    We’re living in the “good old days.” We’re thankful for God’s blessings today and expect even more tomorrow.

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The Code: Writing the Unwritten

Instead of relying on unwritten rules to communicate our culture, we took the time to document them. None of these values are new. Bit by bit, they were woven into our conversations, meetings, and events. But having them written down allows us to communicate them effectively to new leaders and serves as a reminder and inspiration to our current leaders.

Here are a few more, and I’ll share the remaining ones tomorrow.

6)    We will do anything short of sin to reach people who don’t know Christ. To reach people no one is reaching, we’ll have to do things no one is doing.

7)    We will lead the way with irrational generosity. We truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive.

8)    We will laugh hard, loud and often. Nothing is more fun than serving God with people you love!

9)    We will be known for what we are for, not what we’re against. There are already enough jerks in the world.

How do you communicate your church’s values?

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The Code: Reworking our Values

Pastor Steven Furtick sent me an interesting book called The Orange Code, How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause.

The book shows clearly how to connect emotion and passion to your values. After visiting Elevation Church, I saw Pastor Steven’s version of the Code (or the values) for Elevation Church. He inspired me to rework our values and connect them more directly with our cause.

I’ll share with you a few of them a day throughout this week.

1)    We are faith-filled, big thinking, bet-the-farm risk takers. We’ll never insult God with small thinking and safe living.

2)    We are all about the “capital C” Church! The local church is the hope of the world and we know we can accomplish infinitely more together than apart.

3)    We are spiritual contributors not spiritual consumers. The church does not exist for us. We are the church and we exist for the world.

4)    We give up things we love for things we love even more. It’s an honor to sacrifice for Christ and His church.

5)    We wholeheartedly reject the label mega-church. We are a micro-church with a mega-vision.

How often do you revisit the values for your church?

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Christian Atheist Case Discount

Many of you have asked how you can make The Christian Atheist available to your staff, leaders, or small groups at your church. We’ve negotiated with the publisher and a book distributor to offer you a significant discount.

 You can get a case of books (32 copies) at 22% - 41% savingscompared to ordering elsewhere (50% off retail). Here are the details on how to order.

And don’t forget that if you want to teach some messages based on The Christian Atheist, you can find free resources from the Practical Atheist series on OPEN.

Thanks for your enthusiasm about The Christian Atheist. We’re really excited to see God use it to transform people’s lives!

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Why Participate in One Prayer?

If you’re trying to decide whether your church should take part in One Prayer, I wanted to share some potential benefits:

• People who don’t go to church take notice when churches bicker and tear each other down. You can show them something different with One Prayer. Instead of just talking about Jesus, we display His love through a unified and global biblical community.
• It’s a great way to bring energy to your church during what typically might be a slow season.
• One Prayer can help your people shift their focus outward through community service and outreach projects, as well as an offering to inspire generosity beyond the four walls of your church building.
• It’s the perfect opportunity for corporate prayer and fasting.
• If you’ve been wondering whether video teaching would work at your church, One Prayer is a low-risk way to try it out.
• You can build new relationships with churches in your community. Team up with them on a service project or simply use it as the reason to reach out and make a connection with other pastors. You never know what might result from those relationships!
• One Prayer is a chance for your church to experience something global. So far, churches from South Africa, Guatemala, Great Britain, India, Nigeria, Honduras, Australia, Bolivia, and more are participating.
• It gives pastors 3-4 weeks off from teaching, while other great spiritual leaders bring new perspectives to your church.

Now is the ideal time to register your church for One Prayer 2010.

If you’re already signed up, we’re glad to have you on board! We’d love it if you tell other pastors about One Prayer.  We don’t want to leave anyone out that wants to participate.  Don’t assume that everyone knows…they don’t.  Please take the time to invite your networks of relationships to join with us all. We’ve prepared some resources to make it easy for you to spread the word.

I’m really excited to see what God does in and through our churches during the third year of One Prayer!

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Campus Facebook Strategy

We’re in the process of overhauling our LifeChurch.tv website, and I’ll have plenty of details to share about that in the coming weeks. But for now I want to let you know how we’re employing Facebook at a campus level.

Currently, www.LifeChurch.tv has individual campus pages with specialized content management tools for each of our locations. To some extent, this solution met the need of sharing information about upcoming events and campus-specific information. But the tools were hard for our teams to use, and it relied on people visiting our site to keep up with the latest information.

Recently, we’ve been shifting much of our campus-specific content to Facebook. As Facebook has grown (currently over 400 million active users), it’s become a place where more and more people are connecting with each other in a meaningful way—keeping up with friends, uploading photos, sharing links and videos, and learning more about the people they meet.

We’re just starting to roll out custom Facebook pages for our campuses. Here’s a look at the page for our Oklahoma City campus, and some of our reasons behind this transition:

• Instead of forcing people to come to us (our site), Facebook allows us to go where they’re already active online. Instead of trying to be a separate destination, we get to integrate with their lives.
• The outreach potential is huge. Example: we post  a baptism photo and tag the person in the photo who is getting baptized. The photo shows up on that person’s Facebook wall, as well as in their friends’ feeds, giving them a simple way to share their new life in Christ with their Facebook friends.
• In addition to conveying information about events, classes, etc., Facebook creates the opportunity for community and connection. It serves as an online representation of the campus, where people can get to know each other, ask questions, and keep up with what’s happening in people’s lives and the life of the campus.
• It reduces bloat on our LifeChurch.tv site and allows us to be laser focused with our content there.
• We don’t have to re-create the wheel. Facebook is already accomplishing many of the goals we have for our campus communication. By leaning on their tools, it frees up time and development resources in the long run.
• It’s free!

We’re also providing our teams with some basic and advanced training so they are equipped to get the most out of their Facebook presence and interaction.

Is your church using Facebook? If so, what are some challenges and advantages you’ve experienced there?

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