How to tell if you’re “seeker-friendly.”

HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE SEEKER-FRIENDLY

12. You think evangelism is handing out copies of Purpose Driven Life.

11. You think The Five Solas are a youth worship band.

10. You think Calvinists worship a little boy and stuffed tiger.

09. You think Bounce dryer sheets do great at stopping Hypostatic union.

08. Your pastor got saved (four times) at Billy Graham crusades.

07. You think Jesus would have had more success if He was just a bit nicer to the Pharisees.

06. You openly blast people who disagree with Oprah as being too narrow-minded and judgmental. Jesus would never be that way!

05. Your pastor did so preach on the book Romans! Romans 13:8-10, where it tells us how to get out and stay out of debt! (They gave away $10 gas cards that week too.)

04. Instead of “sin” your Pastor uses the word “oopsie.”

03. You think Paul Washer is what Jesus did to Paul’s feet when he was at the Last Supper.

02. You think ‘church discipline’ is the Technology Pastor yelling swear words at the iBook to get it to work.

01. Becoming Emergent is like coming out of the closet.

A million thanks to Berry and his friends for this list and a million more thanks to Berry for the M&M characters!

Stay tuned: next week I will reveal the list of How to tell if you’re “word of faith.” Also see How to tell if you’re Emergent.

The top 30 signs that you might be an “Emergent.”

I found the following list on another blog along with additions by those leaving comments to the original post. They were so poignant that I chose to post them here for the readers of Reformation Nation but I only had 29. So I added number 30 myself to round out the list. Enjoy!

The top 30 signs that you might be an Emergent:

30. Your church has replaced the pulpit with a bar stool.

29. You once read a good story about some Jewish people and a cross.

28. You engineer every conversation so you are able to use the phrase, “you can’t put god in a box,” and laugh like you’ve said the funniest thing in the word.

27. You make everyone define everything before you begin a conversation. Since this takes forever you never really have a conversation.

26. You think hell is a construct somewhere in Tennessee.

25. You think everything is a metaphor for something else.

24. When you hear the word “Orthodox” all you think about is the great food at the Greek Festival every year.

23. You think “Patristics” is a new brand of snack food.

22. Church history started when your pastor was born.

21. The only Creed you know is a once-popular musical act.

20. You only curse around fundamentalists.

19. You leave your church because the sermon was not obscure enough.

18. You refer to your local assembly as “church,” “synagogue,” or “mosque” depending on who you are talking to.

17. Your blog is a rant about how everyone else rants too much.

16. You brag that you have never been pinned down theologically on any issue.

15. The only thing you are sure of is that others cannot be sure of anything.

14. You bring your own wine to communion.

13. You are offended when someone says they are going to “Preach the Gospel” or “Teach the truth” believing they should just “Tell a story.”

12. Instead of a tract, you carry a can of Play-doh in your back pocket.

11. Your website links to Green Peace and the Democratic National Convention just because conservatives are against it.

10. You start a Christian blog, but leave it blank, fearing that you might offend someone.

9. You are not any good at art, yet you continue to present the Gospel by painting stick figures on recycled paper.

8. When you present the Gospel, Heaven is renamed The Matrix and you call Christ Neo.

7. Your church caters from Whole Foods.

6. Every sermon illustration begins with “The other night I was drinking a beer and . . .”.

5. You have yet to read the book of Romans believing Paul was too modern in his thinking.

4. Your car has a bumper sticker that reads “I think my boss is a Jewish carpenter but I can’t know for certain.”

3. You don’t worship on Sundays because everyone else does.

2. You evaluate truth by asking how many people hold to it. If it is too popular, then it is wrong.

1. When someone calls out your name you get angry saying, “Don’t label me.”

HT: Parchment and Pen via Sicarii

Also check out How to tell if you’re seeker-friendly.

Coming soon from Reformation Nation:

How to tell if you’re word of faith.

Who is exalted? (Parody)

New lyrics to an old classic.

I could think of a few churches where this song would fit in rather perfectly.

Smoke, mirrors, and some very bad hermeneutics.

This is a classic! The man in this satirical video uses some ingenious methods in an attempt to prove that Jesus is not God. Although the video is in jest, it illustrates the absurdity of how some go to great lengths to make the Bible say what they want it to say, including denying Jesus’ deity (like Jehovah’s Witnesses).

Although the video is funny, the ramifications of those who deny Jesus’ deity certainly isn’t.

HT: Submerging Influence

Support a starving Christian in America.

Although this video is purely satirical, it’s teeming with truth.

Designated smoking room in church.

Athough this is complete satire, how long do you think it will be before a church actually does this for real?

If you liked this video, you’ll enjoy these:

Prosperity Praise

Me Church

Me Worship

Drive-Thru Church

Mr. Seeker-Sensitive Mega-Church Pastor

We salute you “Mr. Seeker Sensitive Mega-Church Pastor.”

Chris had this great video featured on A Little Leaven. I’m sure you will get a kick out of it!

If you enjoyed this video, check out:

Prosperity Praise

Me Church

Me Worship

Drive-Thru Church

Can you guess where that verse is?

Can you cite me the book, chapter, and verse where the following passage can be found from The Message?

“How well God must like you–you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road, you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.”

Does this even seem vaguely familiar to you?

This would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Sad because people actually consider The Message to be a legitimate Bible “translation.” Rick Warren quotes from it often and XXXChurch passes it out as their “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” Bible.

Well, here’s the answer:

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! Psalm 1:1 (NASB)

Out of the mouth of babes.

This kid gives a wonderfully candid response to the question “If you weren’t a Mormon, what would you be?” How come so many adults are incapable of grasping this?

What if . . .

Just a little “holiday” humor.

What if you took the top four health, wealth, happiness, and prosperity teachers, dressed them up as elves and had them dance to some upbeat “holiday” music? Well, wonder no more. Simply click here and watch for yourself!

HT: A Little Leaven & Elf Yourself

How many light bulbs?

I found this gem on Symphony of Scripture.

Q: How many charismatics does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One, since his hands are in the air anyway.
A: Three, one to cast it out and two to catch it when it falls!
A: Twenty one, one to change it, and twenty to share the experience!

Q: How many Calvinists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. God has predestined when the lights will be on.

Q: How many hyper-Calvinists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. If God wants the light bulb changed He will do it Himself!

Q: How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 10, as they need to hold a debate into whether or not the light bulb exists. Even if they can agree upon the existence of the light bulb they may not go ahead and change it for fear of alienating those who use fluorescent tubes.

These were all good, but one was missing so I thought I’d add my own: How many evolutionists does it take to change a light bulb? None. They figure it will change itself in a billion years.

How to start your very own seeker friendly church.

The Reformed Gadfly had this funny post on how easy it is to start your very own seeker friendly church. All you need is a hip retro visual and a cool tune to get started. I can only imagine what would have become of Christianity if only the Apostles of the early Church had as much “vision” (your buzzword for the day) as the men running the mega-churches today.

Paul Eugene is back.

As if the first one wasn’t bad enough.

“That’s the way the Lord made me, to move, and to groove.“

He even offers tips for success. (That seems to be the popular thing in Christendom right now).

Relevance: What a wicked mistress.

Someone e-mailed me the pictures below and it got me thinking about how the world’s standard of what’s in and popular constantly changes. I then reflected on the modern church and its incessant efforts to be cool, hip, and relevant by stooping to the world’s standards to attract people.

As the modern church does everything possible to be cool, hip, and relevant, I thought I’d pose a question: What happens tomorrow when what was cool, hip, and relevant becomes uncool, unpopular, and out of style? What then?

See, God is always relevant. He never goes out of style and doesn’t need man to dream up new schemes to attract people to church.

When you use the world and its gimmicks to make God relevant, you will always have to come up with new gimmicks because what the world says is popular and relevant today will inevitably change tomorrow. When you let the world dictate how the Church should operate, the glory will depart.

To illustrate my point, check out the pictures below from a 1977 JCPenny catalog, and behold for yourself what a wicked mistress “Relevance” can be.

Enjoy your stroll down memory lane:

Become a Better Ewe!

I simply couldn’t pass this up. Check out the complete post from the October 20th entry on Steve Camp’s blog Camp On This.

“If you do not seek God because you believe Him to be supremely valuable,
then you are a hypocrite. To seek God for any reason other
than His own glory as Creator, Lord and Savior is to be a hypocrite.
It is the reason that the health and wealth gospel
is not simply a deficient view of the gospel,
but actually “another gospel” and will lead people to hell.”
-Pastor John Swanson,
River Hills Community Church

Joel Osteen’s new book “Become a Better You” is surprisingly not doing so well in the 10-40 window.

Found this little gem on Four Pointer’s blog. This parody from Tom in the Box is steeped in truth. Click here or on the above picture to see the post.

Sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from crying.

It’s shameful that the “preachers” highlighted in this video (Copeland, Dollar, Murdock, Hinn) are, more often than not, what comes to mind when the world thinks of Christians.

Bumper sticker fun from the Pilgrim’s Project blog.

Mrs. Pilgrim over at the Pilgrim’s Project blog came up with a few good sayings for bumper stickers. She listed them on her post Bumper Sticker Fun.

• 1.  “So…Life began with static cling and a chicken-soup smoothie?”
• 2.  “How dare you judge me for judging others?”
• 3.  “I’ll stop preaching at you when you get saved.”
• 4.  “‘Good enough’ does not appear in the Bible.”
• 5.  “You don’t need Jesus? Oh, you think you’re better than I?”
• 6.  “Pubblik skool: 4 a gud edyucashun.”
• 7.  “‘Tolerance’ is not a synonym for ‘love’.”
• 8.  “Would you rather your mom loved you, or tolerated you?”

My favorites are numbers two, three and seven.

The Erasable Bible

Sin as an animated pharmaceutical commercial.

This is a great short animation on sin that uses the same concept as those annoying  pharmaceutical commercials. Thanks to the guys at Revolution in Christ for posting this treat.

Prosperity Praise commercial (satire).

From those witty guys who brought us Me Church and Me Worship, now comes Prosperity Praise!

If you enjoyed all these videos, you’ll love this one too: The Drive-Thru Church.

Too good to not pass on.

I just had to pass this on. Thanks to Seth from What Um for this comical gem.

Erasable Bible

Check out the new Erasable Bible video. (Parody)

When praising God and aerobics collide.

You only need to watch a few seconds of this (a few minutes for those who are really daring) to understand that when Christians try to mimic the world by walking like the world, talking like the world, acting like the world; but with a “Christian” version, it leads to disastrous results like this. Furthermore, the praise and worship of God was never meant to be infused with aerobics.

The Price is Right theme song and Prosperity Teachers

The theme song with this video (albeit loud) is so poignant.

Me Church

The modern “Church” finally has a commercial that epitomizes their philosophy. (Parody)

Me Worship

The modern “Church” finally has an album that reflects them.

Drive-through “Church”

You’ve enjoyed the irresistible offers presented in the Me Church commercial. You’ve sung the tunes from the Me Worship album. Now enjoy the ultimate experience that this self-absorbed, narcissistic generation has to offer: First Trinity Unity Community Church of the United States presents the new drive-through church whose motto is that they “get your order right the first time, every time, all the time and on time, until the end of time… how can we feed you today.” (Parody)