I am pretty sure that is what happened to Angela Angelovic (Yes that is her real name) aka Pop Star Mom. She parodied Rhianna’s song Disturbia with her own version of Disturb Mama in honor of Mother’s day. Now, we have heard a few criticisms that Mother’s Day at Shoreline wasn’t very Mother’s Dayish, but why would you ever think, especially if you have been coming to Shoreline for awhile, that we would do something normal?

Next week, our whole band will be playing guitars made from cigar boxes and rubber bands.

Then, at the very end, there’s a page that you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.

Kind of crazy huh? That is the only way I can describe yesterday. Total God day. Yesterday started back in January when God gave me the idea for the Easter message while I was working out at the gym listening to the new Coldplay song “Lost”. And it just progressed from there.

I remember sitting in a Shoreline Insider meeting back in the fall and saying we could have over 1,000 people in attendance on Easter, but not really sure if I believed it myself. I remember saying a couple of months ago on a Sunday morning that the Rave’s corporate office gave us permission to do a 9:45 service in another theater, but that the only way this was going to happen was if God miraculously brought us all the equipment. Thanks to Tom Longefellow and East Bay Church in Daphne, AL, who graciously offered all their equipment and even some of their staff to run it. East Bay’s last service was on April 5th and we are in discussion right now about absorbing them and Tom helping us launch a Fort Walton Beach campus in the fall. But just like this endeavor, there are a lot of obstacles God is going to have to get us through. A big thank you to Tom, his family, and team.

Finally, all the volunteers… wow! Words cannot describe how proud I am of all the volunteers who stepped up yesterday. Volunteers who never attended one of the services yesterday because they wanted to give up their seat to someone who was far from God. Volunteers who cheered me while I was walking between theaters and I was thinking I needed to be cheering you. You are the reason this is happening. I actually felt like a boxer between rounds as I walked between theaters. Volunteers were patting me on the back and sending me into the next theater with encouragement to “get another knock out.”

What I really loved about seeing all the volunteers serving yesterday was that they all “got it.” That it wasn’t just about doing their duty, but it was about the vision. You could see it when they started showing up at 5:30 yesterday morning. You could feel it when you walked through the lobby at 8:30. You could sense it in the pre-service meetings in the adult and kids services. The feeling that we are part of something that God is doing that is so big. Bigger than ourselves individually and bigger than us as a church.

If you volunteered yesterday, I say a big thank you! I thank God for you. I have already received e-mails about what yesterday did in the lives of people. I would like to encourage you to attend Shoreline Insider this Thursday, 7 pm, at the Destin Community Center and bring some of your stories with you.

Now, for numbers, after a better count from our children’s department and adding the service from PJ’s in last night, we are sitting somewhere around 1,100 people who have attended our 4 Easter Sunday services. But we still have 1 more to go tomorrow night at McGuire’s. I am really excited because the people I have invited and have been praying for, my neighbors who are all bartenders, told me they are coming tomorrow night.

I can’t wait to see what God does next with us. Hopefully it won’t involve whales or Kool-Aid.

Another mystery to me is how people just quote statistics without any explanation. I just read yet another post where a pastor quotes that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. The “50% divorce rate” gets quoted a lot because it is sensational and shocking. Fortunately, it’s not really true unless you meet very specific criteria. According to the annual “State of Our Unions” marriage study, here are some of the factors that decrease your risk of divorce within the first 10 years of marriage.

• Annual income: If you make more than $50,000 per year, your odds of divorce are 30% lower than those making less than $25,000 a year.
• Waiting for marriage: If you wait until you’re 25 years old to marry, your odds of divorcing are 24% less than someone who marries at 18 or under.
• Waiting for children: If you wait until you are married for at least 7 months before having kids, your odds of divorce decrease 24% versus a couple having a child before marriage.
• Family history: If your parents are married, you’re 14% more likely to stay married than if your parents had divorced.
• Religion: If you practice a faith, you’re 14% more likely to stay married than if you don’t.
• Education: If you attend college, even for a day, your odds of divorce decrease 13% as opposed to a high school dropout.

This study summarizes all of these statistics pretty well by saying: “If you are a reasonably well-educated person with a decent income, come from an intact family, are religious, and marry after age 25, without having a baby first, your chances of divorce are very low indeed.” Even if you just meet a few of the criteria, your odds of divorce are still a lot lower than the nationally advertised 50% rate - but you never hear that, because it doesn’t sell as many newspapers or get as many people to your marriage series.

It is a mystery why pastors don’t give the full statistic. Maybe if we break that word down - “pa” and “stors.” No one knows what they mean, either. So I guess pastors will remain a mystery.

You could get hurt because you weren’t prepared. Well, yesterday I said that as we finish up this series of posts on why we design our worship services the way we do, some of you might get hurt. Here is the 12th and final conviction that we, here at Shoreline, have about Worship services.

12. It takes unselfish, mature followers to offer a service targeted at reaching unchurched people.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says when we think of our needs when it comes to worship, we are being childish. Church members demonstrate incredible maturity when they take into consideration the needs, fears, and hang-ups of the unchurched and are willing to place them before their own needs.

In every church there is the constant debate raging between the concepts of “service” and “serve-us.” Most churches end up tipping the scale toward the “members of the church” side because they are the ones who pay all the bills. Offering a service geared toward the unchurched means intentionally tipping the scale back the other way toward the unbeliever, which requires members to be unselfish. It requires members who are willing to create a safe environment for the unchurched at the expense of their own desires, preferences, and traditions. Enormous spiritual maturity is required to put somebody else’s needs ahead of you own.

Jesus said, “Your attitude must be like my own, for I, the Messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve.” Unless this unselfish, servanthood permeates your mind and your heart, you may not be ready to make Shoreline your church.

That will teach you to go to your blog reader without your armor on.

A lot of good ideas, like trap windows, just never pan out, do they? The good idea that we have been talking about is gearing Sunday morning services to unchurched people. Let’s look at 2 more convictions.

10. A service that is geared toward the unchurched is meant to supplement your responsibility of sharing your Christ relationship with others, not replace it.

People generally find it easier to make a decision to follow Christ when they are among a group of people that support that decision. Worship services geared to the unchurched provide the atmosphere to enhance and confirm the personal stories of the members who attend there. When someone who is unchurched attends a service that is designed to reach the unchurched and comes with a friend who invited them and sees the crowd and thinks, “Hey, there are a lot of other people who believe this. There must be something to it.”

There is incredible persuasive power in the witness of a crowd of believers worshiping together. For this reason, the larger our service grows, the greater a tool it becomes.

11. There is no standard way to design a service that attracts the unchurched.

This is because people who don’t attend church are not all the same. Some want a service that makes them feel like they are a part of it; others want to sit passively and watch it. Some like quiet, meditative services; others like high energy services. The style that works best in Destin might not work in DeFuniak Springs and vice versa. It takes all kinds of services to reach all kinds of people.

There are only 3 non-negotiable elements of one of our services that are…. not negotiable:

1. Treat unchurched people with love and respect.
2. Relate the service to their needs.
3. Share the message in a practical, understandable manner.

All other elements are secondary issues that we can’t get hung up on. Our services in the Rave, McGuire’s, PJ’s, and Graffiti, though similar in those 3 elements, are very different when it comes to the style, based mainly on the people we are targeting.

We do not believe that because we dress casually, have dramas, and play cover songs that these things will automatically cause unchurched people to flock to Shoreline. If all people were looking for was a quality production, they could just stay home and watch TV where millions are spent on a half-hour program.

What really attracts a large number of unchurched to church is changed lives - a lot of changed lives. People want to go where lives are being changed, where hurts are being healed, and hope is being restored.

Tomorrow I will close out this series of posts and I have been saving the best one for last. I must warn you, though, it might hurt… but not as bad as falling out of a trap window.

Not me, of course. I have never done that. I am asking you why you do that as I have seen some of you doing that. At least I think it was you. Anyway, since you are done with that, now you can pick up where you left off reading on Thursday about some convictions about worship that we keep in mind when we design our worship services.

8. The needs of Christ followers and unchurched often overlap. They are very different in some areas but in many areas they are quite similar. We try to design our services to focus on needs of both unchurched and of followers of Christ. For instance, both groups of people need to know what God is like; both need to understand the purpose of life; both need to know why and how to forgive others; both need help in strengthening their marriage and families; both need to know how to deal with suffering, pain and grief; both need to know why materialism is so destructive. People do not stop having needs once they begin to follow Christ.

9. We try to specialize our service according to our strategy and purposes. Many churches like Willow Creek hold a seeker type service some time during the week and then add a believers type service at another time of the week. This has not been an option to us for a number of reasons.

One was because of our desire to keep things simple and to flow with our purposes of connecting with God, each other, and the world. When we started Shoreline, we were committed to keep things simple. Since then we have had to fight to keep our structure simple and avoid complexity creep. The tendency for most churches as they grow is to continue to add more and more programs until not only is the process so complicated, but the effectiveness of the ministry is watered down because of spreading itself too thin. When we started , we asked ourselves, “What are we asking people to do?” And surprisingly we answered ourselves, “Attend a worship service, belong to a Life Group, and serve with their gifts.” To add another service to ask people to attend would be in violation of our commitment to simplicity and focus. Therefore, we decided that our worship services would be designed for anybody to connect with God and that our Life Groups would be the next step where people could grow relationally and spiritually.

There are many reasons why this is a win-win situation; It takes the responsiblity of spiritual growth and discipleship off the staff and places it on other believers. That is beneficial as it allows more people to be involved in minsitry and serve with their gifts; it allows the staff to become administers and facilitators; and the people who are hungry for more will be satisfied because growth comes to those who pursue it. Which, by the way, all of those reasons have biblical precedent.

The question then becomes, “Why should Sunday morning be given to reaching those who are far from God?” In surveys where unchurched are asked when would they most likely attend church, almost every single one said, “If I ever did, it would be Sunday morning.” And if you asked people in the church, when were they most likely to bring friends, again, it would be Sunday morning. Even in today’s culture, people still think of Sunday morning as “the time you go to church.” So that is why we decided to use Sunday morning for targeting the unchurched and using Life Groups for the next step for the follower. Now there are some exceptions to both of those, but they are the exceptions and not the rule. Those exceptions will be the topic for a future post.

Services that target the unchurched are nothing new. Only the idea of using Sunday morning for that reason is a recent variation. Earlier in the previous century, Sunday evenings were generally recognized as the “evangelistic service.” I still see some churches advertise Sunday evenings as “evangelistic services,” but I doubt many unchurched people show up. Shoot, church people aren’t even going to church on Sunday night! That is a trend that started 15-20 years ago.

As a matter of fact, I think they were the ones I saw passed out at the park last Sunday afternoon.

I do however like to read good blogs, which is why I don’t read this one. However if you are still reading this one, I will continue on post on convictions for worship. Let me give you some more…

6. God expects us to be sensitive to the fears, hang ups, and needs of the unchurched when they are present in our worship services. This is the principal taught in 1 Corinthians 14. In verse 23, Paul commanded that tongues be limited in public worship services. His reasoning? He said it would look like foolishness to the unbeliever. He didn’t say that tongues were foolish, just that that they would look foolish.

I believe that there is a larger principal at work here. The point Paul is trying to make is that we must be willing to alter our worship services when there are unchurched present. God tells us to be sensitive to the hang-ups of unbelievers in our services.

When you have guests over to your home for dinner does you family act differently than when it is just your family at the dinner table? Of course they do! I wish mine would. But you pay attention to your guest’s needs, making sure they are served first. The food may be the same, but you may put out your good china or present the meal in more thoughtful and creative way. The table conversation is usually more courteous. Is this being hypocritical? No. By doing these things you are being more sensitive and showing respect to your guests. In the same way, we try not to change the spiritual food in one of our services, but the presentation is more considerate of the guests that are present.

7. A Worship service does not have to be shallow to be sensitive to the unchurched. The message doesn’t have to be compromised to be understandable. Making the service comfortable for the unchurched doesn’t mean we have to change our theology, it means making the environment of the service welcoming. Making the environment welcoming is done through how we greet guests, the type of music we use, the bible translation that we teach from and the kinds of announcements we make during the service.

The message is not always comfortable. In fact, sometimes God’s truth is very uncomfortable. But we still must teach the “Word of God.” Being sensitive to the unchurched does not limit what we say but it will dictate how we say it.

Here is the thing to remember, the unchurched are not asking for a watered down message. They expect to hear the bible when they come to church, even if that church is in a bar. What they do expect is to hear how the bible relates to their lives and hear it in a way that says we respect and care about them. They are looking for answers, not to be scolded.

Unchurched people wrestle with the same questions that Christ followers wrestle with: Who am I? Where did I come from? (read these in an Indian accent like from Heroes) Where am I going? Does Life make sense? Why is there suffering and evil in the world? What is my purpose in life? How can I learn to get along with people? These are not shallow issues.

I will have some more of these convictions for you next week. I could come over and read the rest of them to you but that might make you uncomfortable. So I will just continue them on Monday. Until then, read a crummy book.

Some 4 years ago, we had an idea hatch about starting a church that would cater to the churched as well as the unchurched; that we could craft services that would make people comfortably uncomfortable. That someone who has beeen following Christ for a while could be stretched in our services but at the same time, that person who wouldn’t call themselves a follower of Christ, would feel comfortable enough to come back again. Sometimes it can be tough reconciling the 2, especially in worship

Yesterday, I gave you 3 convictions about worship; today let me give you 2 more that have to do with the unchurched.

1. Unchurched people can watch Christ followers worship: Unbelievers can observe the joy that we feel when we worship God. They can see how we value the teaching of the bible and how we respond to it. They can see how the bible has answers to the problems they are experiencing in life. They can notice how worship seems to encourage, strengthen and even change us. They can even sense when God is moving supernaturally in a service although they won’t be able to explain it.
2. Worship can be a powerful witness to the unchurched person but only if the presence of God is felt and the message is understandable: In the book of Acts, chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost, the disciples “worship service” was so full of the presence of God, that it attracted people from all over the city. In fact, so many were attracted that 3000 put their trust in Jesus in just one day. Why did those 3000 put their trust in Christ? Because they felt the presence of God and the message was understandable. Both of these elements must be present in order for a worship service to be effective with the unchurched.

First, there must be a sense of the presence of God in a service. It is the sense of God’s presence that melts hearts and destroys barriers.

At the same time, the worship and message need to be understandable. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit miraculously translated the words of Peter so that everyone could hear it in their own language. This ability to understand caused them to put their trust in Christ. Even though the presence of God was evident, they wouldn’t have known what to do if the message hadn’t been understandable.

I have noticed that when unchurched people watch Christ followers relate to God in an intelligent, sincere manner, it creates a desire in them to know God, too.

Here is what this means to you: Understandable message? Nothing. That is my job. A sense of the presence of God during worship? Your job…no matter who you are. Whether you are the worship leader or one of the congregation, as you worship God in Spirit and truth, you help cultivate the felt presence of God there.

This makes the weight of worship in the context of Shoreline’s vision of making a service comfortably uncomfortable fall on you. The more you worship in Spirit and in truth, the more they (Unchurched) shall see and put their trust in the Lord.

Or maybe the Holy Spirit could lay some worship eggs in their heads and when these eggs hatch, they will worship God. Sounds gross though. More on worship tomorrow.

One thing that you would never expect is for me to post a blog. So I thought I would catch you totally off guard and try to do a series of posts. I want to do this because as we have gotten bigger, there has been an on going debate about worship in our church. A lot of ideas about how our worship should be are flying around out there. I will be the first to agree that it is a difficult endeavor to try to do worship that reaches the churched and the unchurched, but it can be done. As we get bigger, we have to fiercely fight to keep the vision in tact. So, I will attempt to give you a few convictions that I have about worship and the vision of Shoreline.

1. Only true followers can truly worship God. Worship can only come from true followers. When we worship God, we do it by expressing our love and commitment to Him. People who are not followers of Christ simply cannot do this. The main point is that it is God, not man, who is the focus and center of our worship
2. You don’t need a church building to worship God. In the book of Acts, the apostle Paul said that God does not live in temples made with men’s hands. Therefore, we will worship wherever God has us meeting, whether it is a movie theater, the community center, a bar, a coffee shop or a club house. For where ever we worship, there is the church.
3. There is no correct “style” of worship. Jesus only gave 2 requirements for legitimate worship; in spirit and in truth (John 4). God isn’t offended by different styles. In fact, He probably enjoys the variety. It was his idea to make us different anyway. Shoreline’s style speaks more about the culture we are engaged with than our theology. Our worship will always be targeted to engage the culture we are trying to reach. So, even if we do a 400 year old hymn, it will be tweaked to fit the culture. It will be done, though in spirit and in truth.

Tomorrow, I will deal with worship and how it speaks to the unchurched. Until then, try to imagine a worship service without hate and war.

It is a sad time for Shoreline this week. One of the founding families of the Shoreline Church and part of the original launch team is moving. Matt and Sandi Metcalfe and their children are yet another casualty of the economic situation in Destin and have moved to Alabama for work. They have worked with us for close to 12 years, first in Merritt Island where they were an important part of the TNT youth church there at East Coast Christian Center. Then they were the first family to make the trip up here to launch Shoreline.

They are the most faithful and loyal people I have ever met. I seriously mean that. Matt would have followed us wherever we went. When we were in the planning stages for Shoreline and everyone was sitting around figuring out what they we were going to do because as part of the launch team, you had to do whatever had to be done. I remember Sandi saying, “I will do anything but the kids ministry.” Well, never say that as they have been running Shorebreak Kids for almost 4 years now.

During this time, they have been our neighbors, employees, and ministry partners but most of all our friends. We know that they will still remain friends but they will be missed greatly at Shoreline. Their relationship is not over with us and are already after being in Alabama for just 1 day, looking for a possible sight for Shoreline Alabama.

We will be honoring them this Sunday, so make sure you hug them and thank them for the years of service and influence on our kids. If you would like to bless them financially, I would encourage you to do so.

I just hope Matt doesn’t have severe diarrhea.

I will miss you Matt.

Matt the man