One of Collective Soul’s best songs. Huge sound with mysterious lyrics most can relate to.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/_m0bI82Rz_k[/youtube]
Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find
Lay me on the ground
Fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find
Oh, heaven let your light shine down
Mars Hill Church Financial Update August 2014 – "The Most Trying Circumstances in Our Church's History"
The following August 2014 financial update was sent to members of the Mars Hill Church in Albuquerque, NM. Discussion to follow:
This particular letter is specific to the Albuquerque church but gives information about the church as a whole. August giving was under budget:
During the month of August, we received $1,552, 817 and expenses were $2,222,274, so our net over expenses (loss) after depreciation and capitalizing assets was ($647,768). Our income target was $1,842,414 and we missed this target by almost 16%. The average giving per adult attendee per week dropped in August to $39.08 from $44.16 in July.
Reports from insiders are that September’s giving has been much worse church wide. According to this letter, Mars Hill’s CFO Kerry Dodd expects another loss in September. The memo projects some optimism that current giving will level out and return October to more positive territory but, according to my sources, giving is down again in September. Also, they will begin paying Sutton Turner’s severance in October. On the upside for Mars Hill, Albuquerque bucked the trend by coming in with higher than projected giving numbers.
LOCAL UPDATE – MARS HILL ALBUQUERQUE
– Tithes were $104,120 which was 141% of the $73,757 budget for August.
This appears to be a more candid approach for Mars Hill and I suspect leaders at each campus received one regarding their location.
Justin Dean Clarifies His Statement About Growth at Mars Hill Ballard
I posted last week a statement Mars Hill Church spokesman Justin Dean made to the Ballard News-Tribune about Mars Hill Ballard. He told the paper that the church was growing and I wondered how that could be based on reports from those who attend there.
Some of those comments were posted at the Ballard News-Tribune. Go read those at this link. Now in an update to the article, Dean explains:
Dean contacted the BNT today to clarify what he meant in his statement he emailed to the BNT on September 10.
“As there has been some confusion around my statement I’d like to provide some clarification. … While our Ballard church has seen recent growth, particularly as families return to church while being absent over summer months, the reality is the Ballard church is currently much smaller than it was a year ago. We do believe Mars Hill Ballard is in a solid financial position and has a great leadership team in place to effectively care for the additional people they will take in from U-District and Downtown Seattle,” wrote Dean.
Readers can assess that one. Is a church growing if attendance picks up for one Sunday or people start doing what they stopped doing due to vacation? At least he acknowledges the declines.
A little later in the statement above, there is another head scratcher. Ballard is in a solid financial position? Ballard is a location, not a separate church. If Mars Hill is facing the worst budget crisis in church history how can Ballard be solid?
The Christian Right and the Search for a Usable Past
The final session I attended at the Conference on Faith and History was titled “The Christian Right and the Search for a Usable Past.” Gregg Frazer, Professor of History at The Master’s College chaired the session and provided closing comments.
Three papers were presented:
1. “Fallen Walls and Open Doors: An Analysis of David Barton as a Christian Historian,” by Matt McCook, Professor at Oklahoma Christian University.
In my view, McCook started out on thin ice by referring to Barton as an historian. However, from there, the presentation improved as he revealed many familiar illustrations of Barton faulty historical work. Not surprisingly, McCook called for historians to present the narrative accurately without efforts to shape the past into a politically useful one.
Quotes/paraphrases:
A religiously ambiguous Thomas Jefferson is not useful to the Christian right.
Walls such as have been established by David Barton must come down.
2. “Popularizing a Usable Past: The Providence Foundation, Kirk Cameron, and the Legacy of Francis Schaeffer” by Grove City College graduate Charles Cotherman who is now at the University of Virginia.
Cotherman compared and contrasted Kurt Cameron’s movie Monumental with Francis Schaeffer’s How Shall We Then Live? Both efforts used history to effect the culture war and both were less than stellar on historical precision according to academic historians. However, Cotherman presented evidence that Schaeffer’s efforts resulted in the intellectual betterment of some evangelicals who went into scholarly work via Schaeffer’s inspiration. However, such results are not likely to derive from Cameron’s movie. The amateur historians recruited by Cameron are too fact-challenged to lead to any positive result.
Quotes/paraphrases:
Cameron’s Monumental reflects decrease in public intellectualism.
Schaeffer would roll over in his grave at the praise for the aesthetics of the Monument to the Forefathers.
3. “In the Stream of God’s Sovereign Plan”: Providential History and Nostalgia in the American Quiverfull Movement by Emily Hunter McGowin student at the University of Dayton.
Emily discussed the historical revisionism of G. Botkin who is at the forefront of the Quiverfull Movement (having many children and raising them in accord with strict gender roles).
Quotes/paraphrases:
Members of the Quiverfull movement are members of restorative nostalgia.
Nostalgia tells it like it wasn’t.
Summary/discussion:
Gregg Frazer then summarized the papers and hit his sweet spot with a couple of quotes/paraphrases that summed up the session:
Complicit in the promotion of bad history are the media, political organizations, churches etc. who invite David Barton to speak.
Historical revisionists find what they set out to find.
Gregg was right on target and even though difficult encouraged Christian historians to keep “pushing the boulder up the hill” in a Sissyphus-like effort to bring historical integrity to Christians. Probably many Christians would be surprised to find out the extent of the distance between Christian historians and Christian advocacy groups on matters of historical accuracy.
Ted Cruz Wins Values Voter Straw Poll
Ted Cruz has won the 2014 Values Voters Presidential Straw Poll.
Cruz is attractive to religious right culture warriors who make up the Values Voter campaigners but, in my opinion, he is unlikely to resonate with the GOP mainstream or independents. To illustrate, Cruz had this to say about David Barton in 2013:
David’s historical research has helped millions rediscover the founding principles of our nation and the incredible sacrifices that men and women of faith made to bequeath to us the freest and most prosperous nation in the world.
If this is his view of Barton’s historical revisionism, then, in my view, Cruz’s grasp of the founding principles has been skewed. Mitt Romney won the straw poll in 2007 and then went on to get the GOP nomination in 2012. Other than that, no winner has captured the GOP nomination. I doubt Cruz will change that trend.
Probably the award for Most Tasteless Hyperbole has to go to second place finisher Ben Carson who said:
Dr. Ben Carson, a conservative commentator and neurosurgeon, on Friday likened the health care law to slavery.
“Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing to happen to the nation since slavery,” Carson said, speaking at the Values Voter Summit. “And it is slavery, in a way.”
While I recognize problems with Obamacare, I would much rather pay a little higher premium than be enslaved. I admire Ben Carson for his medical accomplishments and I used to think of him as a reasonable person. In my opinion, he is tarnishing his reputation with this move into politics.