Evangelical Growth in Britain

Interesting article on the growth of Evangelicalism in Britain.  Interestingly, the article goes beyond immigrant Christianity. Money quote: "Evangelical Christianity might be heavily African-influenced but it’s also spreading among the natives as well. Yesterday I attended an Evangelical service for a friend's baby's naming ceremony (not a baptism, as we papists call it – this group don’t believe in infant baptisms).

The happy clappy thing is not my scene – I’d need at least four Stellas before I could get up and dance in a church without dying of a cringe-related stroke – but it’s easy to see why Evangelical Christianity is rapidly spreading in the UK. The median age of this church was about 20; in most Catholic parishes in London you're considered an energetic young go-getter if you're under 75; the Evangelicals have many working-class members, while very, very few

The Evangelicals also aggressively court people of other faiths, including Muslims – while the Catholics would rather meet other religious leaders at (preferably tax-payer funded) interfaith meetings where they can spout platitudes about faith communities, as if religious identity is fixed, not a choice.

And in three decades of living in London I have also never seen so many people of different racial backgrounds united in a feeling of brotherhood – Londoners generally tolerate each other, and muddle on, but whether it’s the NHS surgery or the Notting Hill Carnival, the theme is begrudging tolerance, not affection. A small church can do far more for race relations than all the state-subsidised quangos and anti-racism campaigners in Christendom.

Many Catholic and Anglican churches are packed on Sunday mornings with young parents trying to get their kids into the best schools, and it shows – the air is thick with hypocrisy. In contrast the Evangelicals, whether anyone likes it or not, believe, and it shows. Doubt and scepticism are fine things but a religious community that does not believe in its own message will wither and die, and be replaced by others. I’m not remotely surprised Evangelical Christianity is on the march in England."

MTV Aims to Reach Millennials

MTV is retooling for the millennials:

"Life amplified," is MTV's current slogan. The network is in pursuit of stories that reveal and explore characters' vulnerabilities. Authenticity, Shore and others say, is a critical component.

"About the biggest put-down in the millennial world is to call someone fake," said Carol Phillips, president of Brand Amplitude, a Michigan consulting firm. "They want to see experiences that feel real."

Snarkiness, the currency of Generation X, doesn't carry the same appeal, partly, the researchers said, because millennials experienced a less hierarchical upbringing than did Gen Xers. Parents of millennials assumed the role of life coach or friend, a phenomenon called "peerenting."

"Millennials come from families that are more democratic and worlds spin around the kids," Shore said. "This has created kids who have a sense of power, a sense of voice and kids who need to be listened to."

MTV already was overhauling its programming in 2009 when Shore came on board. That summer it had launched "16 and Pregnant" and in December it added "Teen Mom" and "Jersey Shore," two gritty reality shows that were a dramatic pivot from the sun-drenched escapism of "The Hills." The series reversed MTV's ratings slide and landed the network back on the cultural map.

"Jersey Shore," with its over-the-top partying and fighting, is partly a story about the search for love and acceptance — eternal themes for youth. And the show even gives an occasional shout-out to the unit most important to millennials: their families.

"The characters themselves have become something of a family, and their moms and dads have been part of the show," said Van Toffler, president of the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. "Before our evolution you would not have seen parents on MTV."

Now MTV is rolling out a new slate of shows, both scripted and reality, that hopes to speak to millennials in their own language. While it fell short with "Skins" and "The Hard Times of R.J. Berger," MTV scored with "Awkward," which debuted in July. MTV's millennial mantra that "smart and funny is the new rock and roll" applies to the irreverent comedy. "Awkward" centers on 15-year-old Jenna Hamilton (Ashley Rickards), a witty nerd who is invisible at school until a freak accident, which everyone assumes is a suicide attempt (it wasn't), makes her suddenly notorious.

While writing the show, "Awkward" creator Lauren Iungerich, a member of Generation X, put together her own focus group at her former high school in Palos Verdes. She and her writing staff spent a day interviewing students.

"We asked them everything, about sex and relationships, and we picked up their slang," Iungerich said. "What fascinated me was the kids spent an hour-and-a-half talking about their mothers. They often feel they are competing with them. Their mothers are trying to stay youthful and even wear the same size of clothes."

In the show, two mean girls snap a cellphone photo of Jenna getting undressed in the locker room. They text a shot of Jenna and her exposed breast to the entire school. Her youthful mother tries to help by suggesting Jenna get a boob job, which she doesn't want.

"I wanted the show to be true to the kids and what they are going through," Iungerich said.

The quest for genuine voices is seeping into new reality offerings too. On Oct. 11, MTV launches a documentary-styled program, "Chelsea Settles." The show's 23-year-old heroine, Chelsea Settles, struggles with a tough decision: stay in small-town Pennsylvania with her seriously ill mother or move to Los Angeles to work in the fashion industry.

Unlike the rail-thin blonds who populated MTV three years ago, Settles is black and weighs 324 pounds.

Two scripted shows scheduled for next year revolve around millennial themes. The Doug Liman-produced "I Just Want My Pants Back" is about a group of 20-somethings in Brooklyn navigating relationships, based on a novel by David J. Rosen. And MTV will introduce "Underemployed," a comedic stab at one of the biggest challenges facing young adults: overcoming the weak economy.

Along with helping MTV find a new pop-cultural relevancy, the focus on what Shore calls "radical audience intimacy" is paying dividends. The network just ended its seventh consecutive quarter of year-to-year ratings growth. According to the Nielsen Co., nearly 1.2-million people on average watched MTV during prime time in 2011. "Awkward" has had an average of 1.9 million viewers its first season, and the network says it is watched online (in full or clips) 1.4 million times a week.

"We want the audience to be our muse," said Shore. "When we get that right and become a reflection of our audience, then that's when MTV is at its best."

The Euro Crisis: Where we are Now

Good summary from Ezra Klein in the Washington Post: Europe is caught in a long bout of something that we're very used to seeing after financial crises: extend and pretend. The underlying reality of their dilemma is that there are hundreds of billions -- or maybe more -- in losses for someone to take. If Greece and Ireland and Portugal take them, that means default and likely exit from the Euro. If they default, that means defaulting, in large part, on loans owed to German and French banks, which could cause a banking crisis in those countries. For them not to default, however, means that taxpayers in other European countries have to take those losses.

The solutions to this crisis that are economically plausible are not politically plausible, and vice-versa. As economist Carmen Reinhart told me, "If the policymakers were to be proactive, they would restructure Greek debt alongside bank recapitalization and at the same time, restructure both Portugal and Ireland as well." That is to say, they would do it all at once. But the sticker shock to that strategy would be enormous.

What is proving politically plausible is to do just enough to survive the week, and do it in the nick of time. We've seen that over and over again in this crisis. But the irony of this strategy is that it's likely making a resolution harder. The longer Europe spends under this cloud, the harder it is for them to grow. The harder it is for them to grow, the worse these debts become. And the worse these debts become, the harder they are to pay off. The cost of denying the problem is to make the problem worse. But for Europe's leaders, that is, at least for now, an easier price to pay. Actually fixing the problem might ultimately be cheaper, but it requires a wealth of political capital and continental unity that they simply don't have.

Thank you Park Place Church of God

Thank you to Park Place Church of God for contributing $1,500 to send us their very talented youth pastor Josh Wieger.  Josh will be joining me in doing two 3W Seminars:  Liverpool and Paris in December.  The goal of these seminars is to discuss ways for reaching young people and the challenges that most churches face in this area.  Josh is an emerging leader who is doing a great job at Park Place and has a lot to teach all of us. The rest of the costs for the Seminars will be picked up by our Next Gen Fund which helps train and prepare the next generation, as well as give emerging young leaders a global platform to share their gifts.  This will be a great experience for the churches, for the youth, and for Josh himself.  We try as much as possible to create these kind of synergistic win-win moments at 3W.  We're grateful to Park Place for supporting us as we try to engage the younger generation. 

Oldhams and Jamie visit Egypt

Ken and Keli Oldham and their daughter Grace went with Jamie last week to visit Egypt for the first time.  They are our newest Three Worlds team members.  Get to know them a little better and read about their adventures at their blog here.

The Oldhams are still needing financial support to make the move to Egypt.  So please contact us if you or your church can help us.

Evelyn Skaggs Passes Away

This morning we learned that Jamie's grandmother, Evelyn Skaggs passed away in Seattle, Washington.  Evelyn served as a missionary to Egypt in the late 40's and early 1950's before Jamie and her family moved there in the 1980's.  She was a much beloved person in the Church of God had a large influence on many people who went on to become leaders.  This is a big loss for many people.

Evelyn was obviously very special to us.  Trips to the Pacific Northwest always involved visits to see Grandma.  She was like a grandmother to me, and was a GREAT great-grandmother to Marco.  She was extremely sharp, was very well-read, and was a total joy to converse with for long periods of time.  Even when I was without Marco or Jamie after we moved to Asia and Europe, I would often make the drive up to Seattle from Portland just to visit her.  We could talk politics, religion, or baseball.  I liked to write for her and she was one of the three people I always picture in my head when I write this diary.

She traveled all over the world and touched many people.  But as kind as she was, she was absolutely impossible to beat at Scrabble.  She loved the game and knew how to clean everyone's clock.  On our last couple of visits as she closed in on 90 years of age, she had sympathy for me and intentionally tried to lose at Scrabble to me.  But she couldn't.  Even her half-hearted efforts at beating me ended up scoring too many points.

As we travel around the world, people often ask about Evelyn.  Nowhere more so than in Egypt where she is a much beloved saint who blessed so many people.

In the past few months, she took a turn for the worst.  First in June, and then she struggled through the next few weeks. We were able to tell her that we loved her in a recent phone conversation and we last were able to visit for Easter of 2010.  We had hoped it would not be the last time we could be together.  But she passed away peacefully at 10:30PM--fittingly on a Sunday.  We will miss her greatly.

Thanks Germany!

Last weekend, I attended the annual conference of the Church of God in Germany.  The events location rotates between Fritzlar in the center of the country every other year, and then to the north and south on the other years.  This year, it was in the North at a campground south of Hamburg.

As usual, the Germans put on a great conference.  The campground was beautiful, and the events well-organized.  In General, I remain so impressed with the German Church of God.  The pastors are wonderful, there is real unity amongst the leaders, multiple generations attend their annual conference, young people in ministry are tracked, and they reach out to Europe and the world.  They are a well-functioning Church of God in comparison to many other places.  We are so thankful to them for allowing us to base ourselves here in Germany.

The leaves are starting to fall on the trees and the weather is now consistently in the 60's.  We're about to go into my favorite time of the year--Autumn.  It's so great to live in a four season location again.  Best of all, I have quite a bit of time at home now with Jamie and Marco before my next overnight trip.  This is on purpose, as we are trying to slow our schedule down for Marco's sake.  Jamie just got back from Egypt yesterday and the Oldhams and the Langfords are still with us for one more day.  On Sunday begins a "long stretch" of being home and sleeping in the same bed, and not having to put things in a suitcase for more than 30 days.  I'm really looking forward to it.

I plan to spend these next few weeks focusing on Jamie and Marco first.  Then I will be catching up on a lot of work as well as preparing for the numerous 3W events coming up in the Fall and Winter.  And perhaps I'll finally get to see some of Berlin.  I still know so very little about Berlin since I am never here.  There are more museums per capita in Berlin than anywhere in the world.  Perhaps we'll get to get out some and see some new things.

The Speed of Languages

Fascinating facts about the languages we speak from Time Magazine:

English, with a high information density of .91, was spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Mandarin, which topped the density list at .94, was the spoken slowpoke at 5.18 syllables per second. Spanish, with a low-density .63, ripped along at a syllable-per-second velocity of 7.82. The true speed demon of the group, however, was Japanese, which edged past Spanish at 7.84, thanks to its low density of .49. Despite those differences, at the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages would have conveyed more or less identical amounts of information.

To Twittle or BookFace? That is the Question.

Of the many things that we covered at our Three Worlds Staff Meeting this past week was the use of media.  Unfortunately and fortunately, new media platforms are available to all of us in this new age of the internet.  Communications via the internet has become a very important part of missionary work.  It's a great way to keep supporters updated, to post prayer requests, to get rapid responses regarding things on the field, to keep in touch with missionaries and for missionaries to keep in touch with their families.  It's a blessing. It's also a curse in that it is very time consuming.  I spent a couple of hours today just making a dent in all the business emails that accumulated while I was attending the German conference this weekend.  The diary needs an entry, and then photos need to be taken and posted.

This diary is going on its ninth year now.  The average for a blog is 5 years and they disappear.  Nine years is A LOT!  Especially as i try to write on average every 3 days.  If you were to go back to the beginning you would probably find that, yes indeed, this diary averages one entry per 3 days over 9 years.  Hundreds of thousands of words have been posted here over this past decade.  That's a good thing, but it takes time.  A lot of time, yet it is how people communicate and pay attention these days.  That's just fact.

But now "BookFace" has entered the picture.  And everyone BookFaces each other.  Many people don't read blogs anymore.  They prefer the short entries on BookFace.  Worse yet, now there is a whole generation of people who prefer Twittle.  They twit each other to death--little sentences telling people that they are getting their haircut or cut their toenails while watching the Jets game.

All kidding aside---it seems like the older generations really do tend to swing toward websites and blogs.  While younger people go for BookFace and then the super young love their Twittle.  In other words, you have to communicate in different ways for the different generations.  That's a good metaphor for how it works in the church as well.

We briefly toyed with the idea of closing down the Diary.  But I know that quite a few of you (we only have 3 readers) really prefer the diary and have followed it since the very beginning.  You might not appreciate having to switch over to Bookface or Twittle.  So we have decided to keep the diary alive.  Let us know your thoughts on this.

So what does this mean for 3W? That was one of our questions at our Staff Meeting.  3W is already on BookFace and Twittle.  But it looks like it's time for me (Patrick) to start contributing a lot at both places.  Furthermore, there will be more super exciting episodes of GBR (Gateway Berlin Radio) in the future.  And there is our e-newsletter which I hope you all subscribe to.

So that's it....I'm gearing up.  In the second half of October I am going to start BookFacing on 3W and Twittling at 3W's twittle account.  So there will be 3 places to find us.  Personally I much prefer the diary where all thoughts can be elaborated on.  BookFace will drive me nuts.  And Twittle even nutser, if that's possible.

I'll have to re-calibrate my mind and writing for these very different formats.

Oh, Marco has just informed me that it's actually "Facebook" and "Twitter."  Thanks, Marco.  For those that are interested, you will be able to follow me shortly at Facebook and Twitter.   We'll see you there the 3rd week of October. The Three Worlds media presence will grow...as I watch my time disappear into a giant black hole of media involvement.

Three Worlds can be found at:

Facebook:  Three Worlds

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/3WCHOG

We'll go full-power in late October!!!

Stop and Say a Prayer...

It's Friday September 16th and I just dropped off Jamie and our newest 3W team members the Oldhams at the airport.  Ken, Keli, and their daughter Grace are going to Egypt for the first time today to see their future home.  This is a very big deal!  We need to pray about this--that all goes well, that they all stay safe, and that it is a great experience.  Their two smallest children remain back in the USA.  As for Audrey, she is an American working at our church in Liverpool alongside her husband Zach.  They're a great young couple that I wrote about in my last post.  Audrey grew up in Egypt, just like Jamie and they both went to the same school at different times. Imagine moving your whole family to a different city.  Now imagine moving them to a different country.  Now imagine moving them to a country that is in great transition where there was just a revolution.  That's what is happening with the Oldhams, so we need to keep them in mind this week and after this week as well.

They continue to need some serious financial support to make all of this happen.  So spread the word that there is a need and an urgency about all of this.

Our 3W Staff Meetings finished yesterday with an emotional time of prayer for the Oldhams.  It such a big deal to have a whole family move to the Middle East.  But this is what they feel called to do and we are going to support them in all they do.

Thanks to the 3W crew for being great workers, for helping out in the kitchen, and for the amazing time of interaction.  Everyone is an important part of the effort.  And thanks for all the laughter.

In a few minutes, Marco, Zach and I will head out to the annual conference for the Church of God here in Germany.  We will be joined by our 3W teammates, the Simpsons from Bulgaria who are on their way to the USA for home-assignment.  Jamie and the gang will be back almost exactly 7 days later.  Once again, stop and say a prayer.