Andy Rowell

Church Leadership Conversations

  • How do we as pastors respond when CNN and comedian Jon Stewart make fun of Christian preoccupation with the end of the world?

    At a minimum, I thought you might want to be aware of the recent CNN and Jon Stewart segments which feature some preachers speculating about the end of the world.  I hope you will read below why I think Stewart responded like he did and how we as pastors might respond.   

    You may have to click twice on the You Tube links below for them to play.  They are both 5 minutes long. 


    In light of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the Middle East (See     CNN’s timeline here of the conflict), there has been some news coverage of Christians who are predicting the end of the world.  See the example from CNN here or above.

    But not all evangelical Christians believe as these fiery preachers do.  The people featured believe in premillenialism (See the Wikipedia article).  There is a decent article at the BBC website Millennialism, Premillenialism, Dispensationalism which outlines a few of the main Christian perspectives.  The very reputable National Association of Evangelicals has a very simple line about what evangelicals agree upon about the end of the world in their statement of faith:  “We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . and in His personal return in power and glory” (italics mine). 

    Comedy Central comedian Jon Stewart has a segment (that you can watch here) in which he makes fun of the news coverage.  Some of it is downright hilarious. 

    But towards the end of the segment Stewart mocks a line by Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series, who is shown in a Good Morning America interview.  Lahaye says, “There is no alternative.  You either accept Jesus or you will go through terrible times.”  Stewart is incredulous and makes fun of the idea as ridiculous.  It is disconcerting to see Stewart make fun of perhaps the central tenet of Christianity – “accepting Jesus.”

    But before we are too hard on Stewart, we need to ask ourselves why Stewart sees plenty of reason to ridicule the whole "accept Jesus" shebang. 

    Because of all these reasons, we should not be surprised when Stewart and others say things about Christianity that trouble us.  Though they may bear ultimate responsibility for their own views, we as Christians are not giving them much help. 

    Here is how we might help Jon Stewart and our congregations have a better understanding of the current Middle East crisis and its implications for “the end of the world.”

    1.        Rather than mental ascent, might we instead emphasize that following Jesus is a courageous adventure which brings good and God’s light into all the world? 

    2.        Rather than firing up the ignorant, might we instead thoughtfully, responsibly and passionately teach people how to read the Scriptures?

    3.        Rather than demonizing the media, might we instead continue to invest in the Taylor University new media program, Act One, Los Angeles Film Studies Center and other Christian Hollywood organizations who are developing competent Christian media professionals?   

    4.        Rather than continuing to buy the Left Behind books, might we instead promote solid books on the book of Revelation from scholars at some of our best evangelical schools? 

    a.      The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation by Craig S. Keener (Hardcover – Jan 1, 2000). Palmer Theological Seminary. 

    b.      Revelation (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) by Grant R. Osborne (Hardcover – Nov 1, 2002).  Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

    c.      The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.).) by G. K. Beale (Hardcover – Oct 1998).  Wheaton College.

    d.      Revelation (New Cambridge Bible Commentary) by III, Ben Witherington, Ben Witherington III, Bill T. Arnold, and James D. G. Dunn (Paperback – Sep 15, 2003).  Asbury Theological Seminary.

    5.        Rather than trying to interpret the book of Revelation using Fox News, might we instead remind people that Jesus said no one would know the day (Matthew 24:36)? 

    6.        Rather than thoughtlessly cheering on Israel, might we instead echo the letter sent by 40 evangelical leaders in 2002 who urge the President to “employ an even-handed” policy toward Israel and its neighbors?

    If we do these things, Jon Stewart may still ridicule Christianity, but I bet we won’t be as easy a target. 

    1.        Might it be that “accepting Jesus” sounds like simple mental ascent that seems to Stewart quite trivial? 

    2.        Might it be that Stewart associates Jesus with the preachers who he showed on television who yell in their preaching and seem to be attempting to persuade the uneducated through fear? 

    3.        Might it be that there are not enough outstanding media people in Hollywood who are thoughtful Christians for him to rub shoulders with? 

    4.        Might it be that there are not enough vocal thoughtful Christians who ask how the book of Revelation was originally intended to be read?

    5.        Might it be that many of the doomsday prophets of the past have been wrong when they have predicted a certain day, month or year?   

    6.        Might it be that evangelical Christians are famous for supporting Israel for religious reasons and have thus seemed to overlook the suffering of people who are perceived as Israel’s enemies?

  • How to Use Microsoft Word Documents to Write Blog Posts

    I was always having problems writing blog posts in Microsoft Word and then pasting them into TypePad as a post.  I learned one thing to try.  Save a copy of your document in Microsoft Word as a "Web Page, Filtered."  This will get rid of a lot of that nasty Microsoft Word formatting that messes everything up.  Then paste it into your blog.

    Be careful though that you have another copy of your document because you will lose all of the Microsoft Word formatting except for links.   

    Here is Microsoft Office’s article entitled About using filtered HTML

    You can also try using this tool after you have filtered the HTML: http://www.textism.com/wordcleaner/

    Note from later that night:

    After reading the comment below, I couldn’t resist downloading the Beta version of Office 2007 because you can blog with it.  Beta means it still has errors they are working out.  They say you should backup everything before using it.  It costs $1.50 and is good for free until Feb 1, 2007.  If you do get Office 2007 Beta, when it comes time to install it, click "Customize" and keep your previous version of Office.  This is what I did.  The big news with the new Microsoft Word is that the new documents will not be: .doc but rather .docx so you won’t be able to open them in an older version of Word!  Yuck!   

  • Why and how I got www.andyrowell.net (my own domain name)

    From now on I am going to be telling people to go to www.andyrowell.net for my blog rather than www.andyrowell.typepad.com though they will both actually point to the same webpage.  For example, I will have www.andyrowell.net on my email signature. 


    Why I got my own domain name:

    1. I think the advantage is that I will be able to keep andyrowell.net for as long as I keep paying for it.   I can change blog platforms or website providers and I can take www.andyrowell.net wherever I go.  For example, if I get tired of TypePad, I can just move andyrowell.net to another blog provider. 
    2. It is also easy to remember for people: andyrowell.net. 
    3. I found a couple of people who are using .net after their name (www.brianmclaren.net or www.laurenwinner.net) so I thought I would do that too.  (www.andyrowell.com was already taken by an investigative journalist who has written a book). 
    4. I could have called gotten churchleadershipconversations.com  But that seemed kind of long to me and I thought perhaps my interests might morph over the years. 
    5. I also thought this would be valuable experience.  For the next organization I’m involved in, I will know how to get our own website name.
    6. Sorry if this seems egotistical to have my own website named after me.  I was driven to this because I had an old blog with a name even I couldn’t remember: www.FirstMoveThyself.blogspot.com and there are a lot of other annoying, distracting, obscure, confusing, "cute," "clever," names for blogs out there.  See my list of blogs I check for a sampling.  I don’t mind the names but I hate it when I have to look more than 2 seconds for the name of the author once I get to the site.   


    How I got andyrowell.net

    I bought the domain name andyrowell.net from GoDaddy.com I was sorry to use GoDaddy for my business because of their tasteless SuperBowl ads but TypePad has directions on how to set up a domain with them.  (For you TypePad users see: Domain Mapping with GoDaddy)  I felt like registering a domain was trying something "really technical" so I went with the most popular provider. 


    Here is what I paid for at GoDaddy:

    12001-1 .NET Domain Name Registration – 1 Year                $8.99 + $.25  = $9.24

    7001-1 Private Registration Services – 1 Year                                        = $4.99

    =

    Total (US Dollars):                                                                             $14.23

    This is a $14 experiment I suppose.

    Note about too much blogging about blogging:
    I admit I have had a number of recent posts about blogging.  It is really annoying when bloggers blog about blogging all the time.  But I’m trying to help people who are new to blogging by sharing the tricks I’ve learned.  It may save someone some pain and frustration.  Click on my category "Blogging" to the right to get all of my posts where I have talked about the tools I use for blogging.  Thanks for bearing with me.  I’m aware that in general I want to talk about church leadership on this blog.