Bringing New Life into Old Churches

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Carl Simmons

If you’ve been in a church long enough, you’ve observed that it goes through life stages just like anything else. However, every congregation belongs to a living Savior. Churches don’t need to die—but sometimes they need to be resurrected. That’s where this book comes in.

changing courseTerry D. Smith. Changing Course: Leading Older Churches in a New Direction. 216p., $12.00, ChurchSmart Resources.

Regardless of the reasons for decline (and it’s usually many reasons working hand in hand), Terry Smith makes it clear that reviving an older church begins with God, in prayer, and is manifested by leadership that is will to embrace, then promote, then facilitate change. It doesn’t “just happen” (as the much of the entropy/”historical drift” that put the church in this position in the first place did).

The second half of the book does a better job of dealing with the particulars of being a course-change church. Chapter 7, “Keeping the Remnant Connected,” is particularly useful, as it recognizes 1) that there can be spiritually vital people within a dying church, and 2) because they’ve stuck it out, these are the people who are critical to turning a church around. By caring for these people and getting them to embrace the change that needs to happen, change can truly begin.

Likewise, the chapter on interim pastors (often a critical piece for a turnaround church) was enlightening, as it points out the irony of utilizing retired pastors to help old churches to transition: “So they implemented their 1960s ministry philosophy in a 1990s setting. And many people loved it.” (He does hasten to add that not all interim pastors fit this mold, and that there are many more, better-trained, and sometimes even vocationally called “intentional interim pastors” these days.)

Smith has been involved with his share of “course-change churches,” including two separate stints at his current church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. “I suppose this book is a memoir and a manual,” he says. “[I]f God can do it for a 110+ year old church in precipitous decline, a dying church if we are honest, He can do it for your church as well.”

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Looking Ahead by Getting Back to Basics

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Carl Simmons

Although this book is built for those seeking a vision for their church (especially those in leadership)—and is quite helpful in that—the heart of this book is decidedly simple: Commit to actually living out the gospel, and just watch where God takes your congregation from there.

milton visionMichael A. Milton. Finding a Vision for Your Church: Assembly Required. 256p., $14.99, P&R Publishing.

As Michael Milton puts it elsewhere: “[T]his book is not just for ministers and lay leaders. This book is about the church is for all of us who are believers in Christ, who are members of that holy bride that Christ is perfecting. Now, more than ever, we need to think biblically about the church.”

And think biblically we do. And yet this is about vision, and as Milton points out, vision starts with a burden. What has God placed this group of believers together for, at this time? This book will help you and your church to process that together.

Although the book isn’t broken out into sections, there’s clearly a flow to it, as it moves very specifically (in both chapter titles and content) from values to “seeing” (souls saved and Christ triumphant, respectively); to the more outward stages of gathering, growing, and sending; then finally to more nuts-and-bolts issues such as preaching, worship, fellowship, outreach, and prayer. The implementation phase is explored further in the book’s two appendices.

That said, the part that resonates with me most here is the belief that a biblical approach to church is possible. (I know, I set the bar high, but that’s kind of what we’ve come to at this point.) Perhaps the most intriguing and illuminating piece comes near the middle as Milton equates today’s American church with the Jesus approaching the woman at the well in John 4. I’ll let you discover for yourself how the analogy unfolds, but suffice to say that in contrast to many of the postmodern/appeasing approaches today, he reminds us, “You need to see that harvest time is right now, that the post-Christian mind-set of our neighbors does not intimidate almighty God.” Likewise, it serves as a slap in the face to us: Never — write off — anyone. Because God hasn’t: “If you become spiritually desensitized to the plight of the lost in your community, if you possess just a little unbelief about what God can do, then confess it, get rid of it, and wake up to the glory of the gospel.”

Finding a Vision for Your Church, hopefully, can help to serve as part of that wake-up call for churches, as well as the individuals who populate them.

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Turning Your Chronos into Kairos

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Carl Simmons

I’m gonna lead with the good part here: At its best—specifically, throughout its exercises here—Daniel Henderson gives us some practical tools to work with, to indeed turn our chronos (measured time) into kairos (time truly engaged with God, and others).

And with that, the bad: It takes an awful lot of chronos to get to the payoff here.

deeper lifeDaniel Henderson. The Deeper Life: Satisfying the 8 Vital Longings of Your Soul. 272p., $15.99, Bethany House.

I can almost hear the publisher discussion here: “Hey Daniel, you’ve got some great training tools here. D’ya ever consider writing a book?” (To be fair, the conversation could’ve gone the other way around, and the publisher took this pretty much solely because of the tools herein.) Bottom line: The exercises that are the real meat here are only 40 pages of this book (with 165 pages of intro/”book content,” and an additional 65 pages of appendices of fairly familiar stuff).

To be fair, for someone whose light just came on and has realized that there is a deeper life in Jesus to be had, this could be a very useful book. At a certain point, though, I found myself flipping quickly.

I finally did stop flipping at Chapter 7 (of 8), “When Shall I Do It?” where the chronos/kairos issue is explored. Really, the book could have started right here (although it’ve only been 80 pages if it had). Here, for me, was the point of the whole book: “Every seemingly mundane minute, when spent with another person, carries the potential of a kairos moment.”

The exercises that follow not long after connect us better with God and give us a deeper knowledge of ourselves, and thus equip us to better spend those kairos moments with others. I’ve used something similar to the opening exercise (which admittedly I lifted from Blackaby’s Discovering God), where the reader charts life experiences with God and looks for the patterns therein. I also liked the exercise that connects our life struggles with the attributes of God we need to become more aware of, as well as the exercise designed to point out the gap between our “declared” values and our “demonstrated” values. And so on. The whole section’s pretty useful.

In fact, I suspect this book would have been much more useful/readable if the exercises had been somehow directly wrapped into the chapters—or just had new chapters written that did directly tie to the exercises.

All in all, there’s definitely some bang to this book. Whether it’s enough for your buck, though, is a whole ‘nother matter.

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Aging with Grace — at Any Age

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Carl Simmons

A.W. Tozer once said, “Here’s a test to see if your mission in life is finished—if you’re still alive, it’s not.” That quote doesn’t appear in this book, but it easily could have.

I’m getting to that age where I have to at least start thinking about many of the specific issues in this book—and most of my friends are even closer. Even without my own daily reminders, though, Ecclesiastes 7:2 reminds us, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” Thus this book serves as a reminder to all of us, regardless of age, to “lay it to heart”—and more importantly, do something with it—while we still can. And, that “while we still can” extends far longer than we often think.

richinyearsENJohann Christoph Arnold. Rich in Years: Finding Peace and Purpose in a Long Life. 192p., $12.00, Plough Publishing House.

Arnold, grandson of Bruderhof founder Eberhard Arnold and now well into his 70s himself, writes with the grace, clarity and energy he demands of his readers. Despite the physical and sometimes mental limitations aging can bring, Arnold asserts that everyone has a purpose that can be lived out until our last day on earth, and encourages each of us to forget about what we can no longer do and get on with what we can do:

Just as we fear getting old, we also fear dying. But we will never fully conquer these fears until we realize that we were not just made for this world, but for something greater. If we see death as a stepping stone into another world – as part of a continuum of the human experience and not as the end of it – we can better deal with it.

Although the individual chapters would be considered topical—addressing such issues as loneliness, dementia, accepting the increasing lack of independence/mobility, finding reconciliation and peace with friends and family, and of course “saying goodbye”—they thankfully don’t read that way. The feel is actually quite warm and meditative, and regularly illustrated with stories or friends and relatives who’ve lived out, and through, the ideas and issues being dealt with here.

In short, and to end with the author’s own words: “Growing older can be a gift, but only if we surrender ourselves to God’s plan. Then we can stop complaining about things we can’t do any more and realize that God is finding new ways to use us.”

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FINALLY.

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Carl Simmons

Let’s keep this one short but personal….

I haven’t talked about this at length on this blog, but as many of you know (or at least have deduced), I’ve been the better part of unemployed for more than three years now. Between freelance gigs, unemployment (then, federal unemployment — which, as you probably know, expired for 1.7 million of us [and growing] a couple months back), and temporary gigs we’ve been able to hang on, but the plane could see the ground/side of the mountain/[insert metaphor of choice here] looming close.

That changed last night.

After four months of interviews/talks/what have you — not to mention the 500+ resumes and dozens of interviews before that — the job offer finally arrived. And, needless to say, I accepted it. 🙂

Thus, starting probably sometime next week (pending background check and myriad other paperwork/”onboarding”), I’ll be serving as Coordinator and Editor for The Christian Character Project, a K-12 curriculum being created for charter and Christian schools. This next year oughta be more than a little chaotic, but I’ve done chaotic — in fact, I’m pretty sure I created the roadmap for it (don’t tell anyone; it makes me look better if we keep it a secret). Another start-up project, and obviously this one has a payoff close to my heart.

(Phew.)

By the way, if any of you are Christian-curriculum writers, I could probably use your services going forward. (And for what it’s worth and from what I already know: The curriculum is very question/inquiry-based, with a decent amount of Scripture/commentary in addition.) Lemme know.

In the meantime: Onward….

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You No Longer Have ANY Excuses :)

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Carl Simmons

(aka, carlsimmonslive is now also Carl Simmons FREE….)

I know, I know, I’ve been talking a lot about my books lately. Well, I’m not done just yet.

Those of you who, like me, are avid music fans have probably discovered NoiseTrade by now, where musicians (especially of the alt-acoustic and/or alt-Christian variety) offer their albums as free downloads, although one can also leave a tip and/or pay the proper price if they so choose. The music gets a chance to be heard, the artist gets (somewhat) paid, the “buyer” gets to learn about new music with minimum financial risk, everybody wins.

Well, now they’re branching into books—and for once in my life I’m an early adapter by choice. Click HERE and discover for yourself. (FWIW, there’s also books by John Piper, Matt Chandler and Dave Ramsey, and there’s only two pages of nonfiction books so far. See, I really am an early adapter this time.)

What you’ll find are the four out of seven books I’ve written (and specifically, the ones I currently own the rights to): Lay It Down (which is still awaiting news from elsewhere, so get it while you can), and the recently “out of print” Seasons 4-6 of the From Disciples to Disciplers series (Growing Others, Growing in Leadership, and Growing in Your Mission). And again, they’re yours for FREE, if you like (although a tip would be cool, too).

createspace coverSeason 4 coverSeason 5 coverOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

If you’re ever had an interest in my writing… and the fact that you’re here kinda suggests that… this is your big chance. You no longer have any excuse to at least not try each of them. And I’m willing to bet you’ll get something out of them when you do. After all, that’s why I’m still pushing them. You’ve got five years of my creative life/God-wrasslin’ in writing, and I refuse to believe it’s all for nothing.

So there it is. Now, GO FETCH. 🙂

And then spread the word. ‘Cause other people like good cheap stuff, too, you know.

And thanks.

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The Covers Have Landed!

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Carl Simmons

Those of you who like pictures more than text will enjoy this post. 🙂 Because the new From Disciples to Disciplers covers are here, courtesy of the illustrious Marion Simmons…. Enjoy….

Season 1 coverSeason 2 cover  Season 3 cover

Season 4 cover

Season 5 coverOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAGranted, the covers for Seasons 1-3 won’t be used in the immediate future, but Marion wanted to work through the whole series and thus we’re ready for that if/when the remainder of the series reverts back to me (although Season 1: Growing in Jesus, in particular still seems to be performing reasonably well and was in fact charting on Amazon yet again yesterday).

Probably next week: Some minor but still good news—especially for those of you who like a cheap book…. Stay tuned….

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Once More into the Breach

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Carl Simmons

Happy New Year, y’all. While I continue to await good news from other sectors, there is something I can take into my own hands here—since that’s where they were thrown back into….

This time last month, Seasons 4-6 of the Growing Out: From Disciples to Disciplers series officially went out of print, and the rights reverted back to me. Thus, I’ve been spending some time editing and reformatting the content so I could make them re-available. You can still find the originals on Amazon for the foreseeable future, of course; but I can actually get paid for these ones, so I wouldn’t at all mind you purchasing these new editions. 🙂 It should have some fancier covers forthcoming (I’ll use the old ones below for now), but you would be buying it for the content, after all.

So first, said purchasing information, then I’ll get on my soapbox about why they deserve to once again see the light of day…

Season 4: Growing Others — book here, Kindle version here
Season 5: Growing in Leadership — book here, Kindle version here
Season 6: Growing in Your Mission — book here, Kindle version here

GO4Let me start here: “Once more into the breach” is more than just a literary way of saying “they’re baa-aack….” The fact is: Growing Others is truly the centerpiece of the entire Disciples to Disciplers series—the objective reason this series had to be written. (I have my personal reasons, too.) Anyone who’s worked through Seasons 1-3 in their own lives—in other words, you’ve developed and deepened your walk with Jesus, learned how to live it out among those people you most care about, and discovered some of how God’s created you and why—now needs to address this question: How do you take what God’s already revealed to you, turn around, “step into the breach” and help someone else walk through those same issues, rather than stamp them with a “saved” sticker and leave them to drown?

I still have yet to see another small-group study on the market that addresses this. (Books, yes, but not a single study to help groups/churches process this together.) And, put simply, this is where the American church has failed miserably. People get plateaued or stuck, and leave, because a critical point has been overlooked – the people coming in the door and/or just coming to Christ? They need you. And guess what? You need them, too—more than you know. So pick up a copy of Growing Others and learn how to stand in the breach for yourself (and others).

GO6For that matter, I don’t see another study out there that explores how to genuinely flesh out a God-given vision (i.e., Season 6: Growing in Your Mission), and not a whole lot of books either. Whether it’s a new ministry, a church plant, or whatever God’s put on your heart to develop, this study will help you process it and “make the dream real.” It’s pretty stinking unique, if I do say so myself. And I just did.

GO5And yes, there are studies on leadership already out there, although they’re more about developing obvious leaders. Growing in Leadership focuses on the rest of us—arguably the majority, in terms of the church—whose spiritual maturity has led to positions of spiritual leadership but who aren’t “natural-born leaders.”

Also: If you’ve ever used these—or just got inspired to do so—spread the word. Tell your buds; start a group in your own church; go put up a review on Amazon (under the new versions now) or elsewhere; and help get the ball re-rolling here.

As always, thanks. This series means a lot to me, and so does your help.

— Carl

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From the Head to the Heart (but not quite to the hands)

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Carl Simmons

Even though this book comes up short on the how-to’s of spiritual formation, it does a good job of provoking you to get off your butt and actually pursue it. However, you’ll probably want to do that long before you finish the book itself.

saucyRobert L. Saucy. Minding the Heart: The Way of Spiritual Formation. 344p., $21.99, Kregel Publications.

If you think I sound conflicted here, you’re right. This book’s heart is in the right place, and so are a lot of its words. It genuinely moved me to want to act—and then didn’t give me a lot to actually work with. But let’s start with some of that provoking stuff, because it’s well worth considering:

The picture of continually walking may be unpleasant and tiring to us…. We may have never thought of the Christian life in this way. But in reality, we may be practicing it by relegating our spiritual walk to well-defined religious activities…. The rest of our life—whatever else consumes our time—is not part of the journey. It’s a vacation. It doesn’t count.

Robert Saucy spends a lot of time addressing the problem of our “fat and hard” hearts. A lot of time. An important point he makes throughout, though, is that our minds determine much more of what’s in our hearts than we normally give it credit for. Indeed, “The point is that an emotion is always interpreted [by the mind] before it has any effect upon the person.” And thus, our minds need transforming.

Saucy does provide some ideas on ways to approach this—by meditating on God’s Word (especially via lectio divina) and community (which, I have to admit, is about the time I started mentally checking out, as we were already 200-plus pages in by the time this was even touched upon). But he spends a decidedly small amount of time on this, compared to the amount of time he spends telling us why it’s important. Any reader will be sold on the idea 100 pages before getting any kind of answer to the question, “OK, so how do I do it?” (And realistically, most readers were probably sold before even picking up this book.)

Granted, it’s almost all good content—well-presented and biblically solid. That said, I would’ve lost a bunch of the secondhand examples/illustrations here, for reasons that are by now obvious. For that matter, the dozens of sidebars here add pretty much nothing to the book, aside from length.

In fact, it feels very much like a visit to a wise old seminary professor, to learn the answers to some very specific questions regarding spiritual formation. He regales you with a depth of knowledge on the subject. You know he’s walked it himself. And yet, two hours later, you realize he has yet to answer your question. And that he probably won’t.

And so, you thank him for his time and his heart for Jesus, say “good day,” and move on.

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It’s the End of the World as Paul Knew It

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Carl Simmons

As C. Marvin Pate points out from the get-go, “[The apostle] Paul was a product of three worlds: Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian.” This collision of worldviews (and the sub-worldviews within — e.g., Caesar-worship, Stoicism, Platonism, and especially the “Judaizers” so often confronted in both the Acts and epistles), then, heavily informed Paul’s responses and eschatology throughout much of the New Testament.
And as we edge closer to the last days, Pate gives us both a sense of the original context and a lens through which we too can begin to “see darkly” at least some of what Paul saw and often openly confronted.
apostle of the last daysC. Marvin Pate. Apostle of the Last Days: The Life, Letters, and Theology of Paul. 320p., $22.99, Kregel Academic.

Between the two bracket-chapters of Paul as “apocalyptic seer” and a summary of Paul’s end-times theology are in-depth analyses of each of Paul’s letters from an eschatological viewpoint—and again, the particular contexts he’s responding to in each of those letters. (Actually, the pastoral letters are treated in a single chapter.)

Quite a bit of time is spent on Paul’s responses to Jewish Merkebah mysticism, which I confess I knew nothing about prior to reading this book (think of it as late OT/early NT-era kabbalah), especially in the chapter on Colossians. The Roman imperial cult (i.e., Caesar as god) gets its fair share of examination here, too, especially in the chapters on Ephesians, Colossians and the pastorals.

It’s probably obvious by now that this is a very scholarly book. It’s not for everyone. Still, for those who can put in the work, Apostle of the Last Days will bring you deeper into Paul’s world—as well as deeper sense of the world to come, where Jesus awaits—and a better sense of how to respond to today’s own collision of worldviews.
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