Mike Devries posts an image of the churchtrap t-shirt…. I wonder if there’s a quantity discount? Could be even bigger than Sim-Church.

Continuing a theme this week (?), the appetizer from Lunch with the Barna Group was

What if we, as the church, have gotten really good about drawing people into our weekend church services? What if we have gotten really good about engaging them in worship, teaching, and fellowship during these weekend services? ….What if in doing this, we have actually been “doingâ€? church for our congregants rather than releasing them “to beâ€? the church. What if in doing this, we are actually doing more of a spiritual diservice to them in the process?

Also fresh from the “blogs that mention Barna” department, Desert Pastor is Helping Local Congregations Navigate the Emerging Church Revolution by summarizing four pieces of advise from George Barna’s Revolution, the one that J.Lee Grady dislikes so hotly. Note the quote that Grady seems to miss: “George Barna explains that ‘Joining the Revolution does not mean forfeiting your congregational identity or church distinctives. It means acknowledging advancing your bond with the universal Church and ratcheting up your commitment to serious Christianity’ (p.136).”

So while we’re still reimagining church… there’s of course the question of what is church? to which there are of course different answers, including a pleasantly pithy definition:

“A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there” — H. L. Mencken