We are raising a generation of deluded narcissists - Dr. Keith Ablow

Disclaimer:  I only know of Dr. Keith Ablow by name and the occasional time I see him on the news.  Apart from sharing a birthday with him I know very little about the man.

In this op-ed the gloves come off as he describes the up-and-coming generation. He writes:

A new analysis of the American Freshman Survey, which has accumulated data for the past 47 years from 9 million young adults, reveals that college students are more likely than ever to call themselves gifted and driven to succeed, even though their test scores and time spent studying are decreasing.

Psychologist Jean Twenge, the lead author of the analysis, is also the author of a study showing that the tendency toward narcissism in students is up 30 percent in the last thirty-odd years.
This data is not unexpected.  I have been writing a great deal over the past few years about the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults, particularly as it regards turning them into faux celebrities—the equivalent of lead actors in their own fictionalized life stories.

On Facebook, young people can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends.” They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem. They can choose to show the world only flattering, sexy or funny photographs of themselves (dozens of albums full, by the way), “speak” in pithy short posts and publicly connect to movie stars and professional athletes and musicians they “like.”  

Using Twitter, young people can pretend they are worth “following,” as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame.

He goes on to argue that this generation's narcissistic bubble will burst one day.  And with that will come lots of suicides and homicides (one might argue that we are already there).

I only bring attention to this because Dr. Ablow is no evangelical Christian and is probably not friendly toward the church.  If the secular folks are saying such things then where is the church in this mess?  Sadly, we are part of the problem.  Long ago we capitulated to the narcissism when we adopted 'seeker-friendly' and 'market-driven' strategies.

For those perceptive folks out there here's a question:  How will we reach the coming generation who thinks that it is all about them?  Will we cater to them even more or will we have the courage to get into their faces and tell them the truth that the world doesn't revolve around them, that it never has and that it never will?  This is a relevant question for pastors, elders and church planters.

The Church As a Business? Part II

Here you will find part II of the aforementioned story.

Key takeaways:

1) What it is the antidote to seeing the church as a business?  Become familiar with the book of Galatians.  Luther was deeply impacted by this epistle and it served to guide his ministry.

2) Become familiar with the Reformation doctrine of vocation (here he cites Os Guinness but others could be consulted as well).

3) Understand the culture instead of trying to "engage the culture".  Why?  The culture isn't interested in dialog with the church.  

The Church as a Business?

The idea of the church being a business or learning from business has been going on for at least the last twenty years.  At one point I was influenced by Leith Anderson's book, Dying for Change, in which he argued for a new way of doing church.  He used an analogy based on an advertising jingle:  "This is not your father's Oldsmobile."  His church, Wooddale Church, was just a few miles down the road from my church.  I saw many peers switch churches over that motto and the business model he employed which treated people like consumers.

In seminary I recall being encouraged to read The E-Myth by Michael Gerber.  The "E" in the title stands for entrepreneur.  Gerber's thesis is that non-entrepreneurs can start, initiate, and sustain all sorts of businesses.  How?  By utilizing the methodology of franchising.  Apply that to the church.  If a non-entrepreneur wants to plant a church all he needs to do is find a model that he likes and 'buy-in' to its methodology.  In the franchise model all of the problems have already been addressed, and all of the challenges have been anticipated.  All you need to do is follow the methodology and your church will prosper.  It is sad to see so many church plants following this path.    

Today I was surprised to read this story warning the church not to use the business model for ministry.  I was even more surprised about where I found the story.  Out of Ur is the blog for Leadership Journal and for years that journal encouraged churches and pastors to change the way they operated.  It argued that if the church was to be effective it needed to be relevant.  This drive for relevance led to consumerism and applying business models of management.

This is only part one of the story so I plan to follow-up with another post. 

Planting Confessional Churches

Over the weekend I listened to a fascinating interview about planting confessionally reformed churches.  The interview featured two OPC pastors planting churches in very different parts of our country.  The Rev. Brad Herzog, is planting an OPC church in Queens, New York.  The Rev. Mark Winder is planting a church in Collierville, Tennessee which is near Memphis.

What is particularly striking is that both men are using a "no frills" approach to ministry:.evangelism guided by presuppositional apologetics, expository preaching, catechetical training, and prayer.  I say "no frills" because I don't get the impression that they are starting with a budget of $500,000 or more so that they can hire a worship leader, and administrative help (that's pretty much the way it is done in the PCA).  What's encouraging is that both men are seeing fruit from their labors and God is growing their churches.  Last year we had the privilege of having a medical student from the Queens church worship with us as he worked on his residency at a local hospital.

We in the PCA have a skeptical view of such church plants.  Few think that they will succeed and even fewer want to try (sadly I've also seen us neglect such groups who come to us looking for guidance).

Go here for the interview.  

Race maps of America | Mail Online

Bet you can't identify this major U.S. city as represented by this map (double click to see a larger image).  The color coding is based on U.S. census data from 2000 (the most recent census data has not been released).  Each dot represents 25 people.  Pink = white, Blue = black, Orange = Hispanic, Green = Asian, Grey = other.  Any guesses?  Give up? 




The answer: Detroit.

A digital cartographer has used this data to create similar maps for other major U.S. cities.  Click here to see similar maps of other major U.S. cities.

USA Religous Map - County by County

I love maps.  Some time ago I saw this map and was fascinated by the data.  By double clicking on the map or by going to this website, County Counting you can see a larger version of it. The colors indicate predominant religious groups.  A county with a black dot in it indicates that the group corresponding to the color claims at least 50% of the population. 

Of interest to me is the upper mid-west.  My denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, has a less than stellar record in church planting in this region (that's an entirely different story).  Perhaps our problem is not doing enough demographic work into the predominant religious groups in a particular city or county.  For instance, one might decry the lack of reformed theology in the states of MN, WI, SD, ND, IA and NE but those states all have a large measure of 'reformation theology' as represented by the Lutheran tradition (note: I'm well aware that all Lutherans are not equal but those wishing to plant reformed churches in this region would be wise to become very acquainted with Luther and Lutheran theology not to mention Roman Catholicism.  In some places/states 2/3 of the people are either Lutheran or Catholic). 

The map was created by The Glenmary Institute, a Roman Catholic organization focused on their mission outreach to the United States (http://www.glenmary.org/).  They have quite a few other maps that detail various aspects of their research on the religious make-up of this nation.  Enjoy!