Page 1372 – Christianity Today (2024)

“Plato was wrong,” John Updike writes toward the end of one of his short stories, “what is is absolute. Ideas pale.” Updike’s prose is rarely pale in the two-volume edition of his short stories recently published by the Library of America. It chases after physical objects more often than ideas, capturing a resplendent vision of creation’s praise. Indeed, despite the timespan these stories cover—from 1953 to 2008—and their immersion in the changing social mores and material commonplaces of the American middle class, they astound most in the persistence of their praise. “So: be joyful” one story directly admonishes, and the rest quickly step in line. This dependable contentment renders these momentous volumes, though bound in tight cloth with a ribbon marker and sheer, crinkly pages, affectionately companionable. When Updike described a golden retriever as “endlessly amiable,” “as if life were a steady hail of blessings,” I reached to scratch the book behind the ears, so accustomed had I become to its own panting cheerfulness.

Such cheerfulness has irked some readers. James Wood, for one, has disparaged Updike’s disingenuous theological staginess. As these stories testify, Wood is right to note the lack of gripping metaphysical debate in Updike’s fiction. Belief is too secure, too confident, and—like that retriever—too creaturely to muster up the agonies of a Dostoevsky or the fierce apologetics of an O’Connor. Perhaps Updike’s early loves, the benign P. G. Wodehouse and the bumptious G. K. Chesterton, loom too influential. Yet this dearth of skeptical brio is in part due to a conviction, taken from Updike’s reading of Karl Barth, that the modern subject does not get to set the terms of Christian belief. For example, the early story “Dentistry and Doubt” promises to tackle the question of belief but sidesteps argument with an image of God’s sovereignty over good and evil. Birds in the tree outside the dentist’s window enact the drama of a fallen world being reconciled in Christ: “the wrens and the starlings, mixed indistinguishably, engaged in maneuvers that seemed essentially playful.”

For one who comes to Updike looking for an existential defense of Christianity, as I did when I first read him, these stories may surprise in their essential playfulness. Though I grew up an hour east of Updike’s hometown of Shillington, Pennsylvania, I did not read him until college. A professor, seeking an illustration for some classic of American literature, referred to the moment in “Pigeon Feathers” when the young David Kern lies in bed, his hands held out, palms up, praying for Christ to prove his existence by touching them. The passage invokes an existential crisis of faith. David’s hopeful response to the seeming stillness, resonant in that professor’s warm baritone, promised tantalizing consolation: “would not Christ’s touch be infinitely gentle?”

When I went looking for the story after class, hoping to tether my ship of faith with some hard-won literary insights, I discovered instead David’s visual attentiveness. Existential ideas paled beneath the story’s illuminated surfaces. When David kills some pigeons roosting in the barn to placate his aging grandmother’s fear for the furniture stored beneath them, Updike lavishes the pigeons’ feathers with luxurious descriptors and stately pauses: “And across the surface of the infinitely adjusted yet somehow effortless mechanics of the feathers played idle designs of color, no two alike, designs executed, it seemed, in a controlled rapture, with a joy that hung level in the air above and behind him.” The sentence is characteristic of Updike’s style, thrilled but languorous in the “controlled rapture” of its details. Unlike many of his post-Hemingway contemporaries, Updike does not shy from piling on the adjectives. In one story a typical Updike stand-in character muses, “It is a chronic question, whether to say simply ‘the sea’ and trust to people’s imaginations, or whether to put in the adjectives. I have had only fair luck with people’s imaginations; hence tend to trust adjectives.” Overindulging this trust can lead to unintended comedy, however, as when he describes a lifeguard’s leg hairs as “umber anthers dusted with pollen.”

Yet what shines so pervasively in his short stories is the ability to burnish everyday routines with those carefully chosen adjectives. He may not convince us with weighty theology, but he does give us a grammar for praise. When our sins harden us to God’s goodness, Updike not only reminds us of it, but he surprises us with specific gifts, faithfully retrieving them for us to taste and see. In these stories, the famous chronicler of adulterous affairs (twice profiled on the cover of the magazine Time) appears less as a lascivious provocateur than as a patient archeologist, polishing each fragment of human desire for our inspection. True, several stories explore the moral failings of marriages gone awry while simultaneously celebrating infidelity’s sexual pleasures. Yet this is a function of what we might call, with all due respect, Updike’s shallowness. In one of the adulterous stories a man tells his lover, as he ends their affair, “For me it was wonderful to become a partner in your response to textures. Your shallowness, as my wife calls it [ … ] broke a new dimension into my hitherto inadequately superficial world.” When I was recently asked if I could justify having students read Updike’s sensual descriptions, I should have responded that such shallow sensuality would do them good. I should have confessed that, prior to reading Updike, mine was a hitherto inadequately superficial world.

To become adequately superficial, Updike shows us, requires a three-dimensional body. His bodies taste and touch; they smell. Inured to the air-brushed fantasies of advertising’s generic bodies, where individuality is erased in the effort to produce so many Pavlovian prods of desire, we need the vibrant specificity of Updike’s sentences. There bodies have hair and moles, they wobble and go gnarly, they pulse with moist warmth and glisten in the afternoon sun. “The Happiest I’ve Been” includes an unforgettable description of a high school girl at a party playing Ping-Pong. As she “lunged forward toward the net the stiff neckline of her semi-formal dress dropped away and the white arcs of her brassiere could be glimpsed cupping fat, and when she reached high her shaved armpit gleamed like a bit of chicken skin.” A gleaming bit of chicken skin. Sentences like this celebrate fully imagined bodies made visible not by lust, but gratitude. This gratitude impels Updike’s final story, “The Full Glass,” to transform an old man’s daily glass of pill-drowning water into a serendipitous occasion for joy. For in that glass, “he’s drinking a toast to the visible world, his impending disappearance from it be damned.”

That impending disappearance haunts many of these stories, not merely the last. Yet the fretful specter hints at its own new hail of blessings. Updike’s sensually precise prose bears within it, however waning its characters’ personal belief, a theological conviction about the particularity of created things—that they will be made new. To see the details of the world right there before your calloused eyes is work enough; yet those very details suggest another, larger, more enduring gift. At the end of a story about the many stories he wanted to have written, the writer-narrator confesses to have provided only an outline in place of what should have been a fuller story. Yet it is the details that suggest a story’s further developments, not an outline. The story ends with a guess, a hunch, based on a single detail:

Details. Details are the giant’s fingers. He seizes the stick and strips the bark and shows, burning beneath, the moist white wood of joy. For I thought that this story, fully told, would become without my willing it a happy story, a story full of joy; had my powers been greater, we would know. As it is, you, like me, must take it on faith.

Reading all the gleaming details gathered in these stories, I tend to believe him.

Scott Dill is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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A massive new study on American Jews reveals some interesting tidbits about how today's Jewish community views Jesus, and how American Christians view Jewish identity and Israel.

Among many findings, Pew Research asked American Jewish adults, "What is compatible with being Jewish?" They found that the majority believe a person can be Jewish even if he or she works on the Sabbath (94%), is strongly critical of Israel (89%), or does not believe in God (68%).

In stark contrast: "Believing in Jesus, however, is enough to place one beyond the pale," notes Pew. Only 34 percent say that believing Jesus was the Messiah is compatible with being Jewish. (Jews of no religion (47%) are more likely than Jews by religion (30%) to say this, as are those with a high school diploma or less (48%) vs. college graduates (28%).)

However, the fact that 1 out of 3 American Jews today do see belief in Jesus as compatible with being Jewish (including 35 percent of Ultra-Orthodox Jews) may seem surprisingly high for those who follow the fortunes of Messianic Jews. For example, a new multi-million dollar Messianic center (previously profiled by CT) that recently opened in an Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood has drawn much scrutiny. (Among top concerns told to the Jerusalem-based Times of Israel: "They will make inroads because they are offering free services to the community and unconditional love.")

Additionally, when Pew Research asked "What does being Jewish mean in America today?", majorities say remembering the Holocaust (73%) and leading an ethical life (69%) is essential to their Jewish identity. Of interest: More than twice as many say "having a good sense of humor" (42%) is essential than "observing Jewish law" (19%).

On the subject of Israel, researchers found that American evangelicals feel more strongly than American Jews on several topics. For example, "Twice as many white evangelical Protestants as Jews say that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God (82% vs. 40%)," notes the Fact Tank blog.

Pew Research also examined the "interesting groups" of Americans of Jewish background who are no longer Jewish, as well as Americans who are not Jewish by religion or heritage yet have a self-proclaimed Jewish affinity.

The majority of both groups are currently Christians: 70 percent of Americans of Jewish background, and 64 percent of Americans of Jewish affinity. Messianics remain quite small: 2 percent of those of Jewish background, and 3 percent of those of Jewish affinity.

Yet, to go back to the "Jesus question," Pew Research found:

The majority of people of Jewish background (67%) and people with a Jewish affinity (72%) say that someone can be Jewish even if they believe Jesus was the messiah. By comparison, three-in-ten Jews by religion (30%) and about half of Jews of no religion (47%) believe this.

Nearly 1 out of 3 Americans of Jewish affinity (31%) "say they are Jewish because Jesus was Jewish." By contrast, nearly 1 out of 10 Americans of Jewish background (8%) say the same.

More than half of Americans of Jewish background (58%) say they were raised as Christians. Nearly nine-in-ten of Americans of Jewish affinity (86%) say the same.

Americans of Jewish background and Jewish affinity also have higher levels of religiosity. Notes Pew:

Roughly six-in-ten respondents with a Jewish affinity (62%) and of Jewish background (58%) say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 31% of Jews by religion and just 8% of Jews of no religion. Those of Jewish background and Jewish affinity also are far more likely to say they are absolutely sure God exists (72% and 81%, respectively) as compared with both Jews by religion (39%) and Jews of no religion (18%).

Additional coverage worth reading of the study's Jewish angles include The New York Times, Religion News Service, CNN's Belief Blog, and the Associated Press.

"Shut up and pray" summed up the first day of this year's Catalyst conference. It was "eloquently" spoken by Eugene Cho, lead pastor at Quest Church in Seattle, who was leading a lab on "Start from Scratch: Creating Something from Nothing," one of many sessions that shook with the expectancy and excitement that has come to characterize Catalyst. Cho's comment also pointed to something deeper for us all to ponder.

His lab addressed a passion that drives a great many of the attenders, that entrepreneurial energy to start something new that will transform others. If it's not starting something new, certainly it is the passion to make a difference that nearly every one of the 13,000 attenders of Catalyst Atlanta 2013 share. This is a far cry from an academic conference. Weary from ministry demands, they sit on the edge of their seats, taking volumunious notes, scribbling down insights, turning an ear for any drop of inspiritation, soaking it all in.

The first day consisted of lab sessions and featured a plethora of people known for making a difference: Henry Cloud, Donald Miller, Rebekah Lyons, Leroy Barber, and CT's Andy Crouch. I attended labs by Jen Hatmaker, Ann Voskamp, Eugene Cho, and Mark Batterson.

I was impressed with each speaker's classic evangelical passion, a combination of deep love of Christ and a compelling passion to serve him in the church and world.

I was impressed with each speaker's classic evangelical passion, a combination of deep love of Christ and a compelling passion to serve him in the church and world. I heard repeated calls to pursue justice, generous criticism of the institutional church, and an overall sense that there's a lot of work to do.

Two themes jumped out at me in the labs. First, nearly every talk was grounded in an Old Testament passage. Cho used Nehemiah's rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, for example, and Ann Voskamp dove into an obscure passage in 2 Chronicles 20. The passages became illustrations of wisdom—effective action driven by understanding. For example, Batterson exhorted us to step into the river (like Israel stepped into the River Jordan) if we want to see God part the waters. That is, leaders are not to wait around for God to act, but prompted by his Spirit, they should step out in faith and watch God show up.

We take this approach to Scripture for granted in our evangelical sub-culture. Put these passages in the hands of a Eastern Orthodox teacher, and Jesus Christ's redemptive work would be showing up everywhere. The Orthodox would take that passage about stepping into the River Jordan and wax eloquent about our need to step into the cleansing waters of baptism. Evangelicals are unique in mining the practical/wisdom aspects of such texts.

The other theme was lived spirituality, or intimacy with God. Hatmaker drove home the importance of personal discipleship; Voskamp talked about learning to be present in Christ's presence; Batterson spoke of the need to be consecrated. And then there was Cho's "Shut up and pray."

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, another lab leader and author of The World Is Not Ours to Save (InterVarsity Press), suggested to me afterwards that maybe this theme—along with the theme of the conference ("Known")—suggests that perhaps many activist evangelicals are on the verge of exhaustion. They are striving to do so much in their churches and worlds, but they are running out of fuel. Perhaps the conference organizers and lab leaders see this weariness and offer some rest: prayer and intimacy with the Father.

I've seen a fair amount of burn out and cynicism in my years. If you ground yourself in a desire to make a difference in the world, you dry up pretty quickly.

One cannot help but applaud such a move. As a seasoned veteran of 1960s idealism, I've seen what evangelical passion—for evangelism, social justice, the environment, rebuilding the church (yes, these were concerns even back then)—can do to people. I've seen a fair amount of burn out and resulting cynicism in my years. If you ground yourself in a desire to make a difference in the world, you dry up pretty quickly. There's a reason one of the most effective and persevering activists of our era—Mother Teresa—spent hours each day in silence and prayer.

Of course, given the context, prayer was extolled largely for its usefulness. If we are people of prayer and intimate with God, if we receive a fresh sense of consecration from him, if we pause and listen to him reaffirm his love for us, we'll be more effective than ever. This conference attracts the very people who are anxious to make a difference, so this is an effective strategy to encourage prayer, and it's true as far as it goes.

I wonder, however, if many won't leave the conference motivated to pray primarily because it will make them more effective in their ministries. As a former minister who more times than not prayed because I thought it would lead to effectiveness, I know the temptation first hand. Sometimes the call to prayer feels like calls to run on the same old treadmill, so that prayer becomes one more thing on the to-do-list for successful ministry.

Those of us addicted to effectiveness need someone to tell us that maybe our ideas of successful ministry and our passion to make a difference need to be examined afresh.

Those of us addicted to effectiveness need someone to tell us that maybe our ideas of successful ministry and our passion to make a difference need to be examined afresh. What is really driving that? Are we trying to justify our existence through effectiveness? Or do we minister because we are already justified—no ifs, ands, or buts?

Eugene Cho addressed this briefly in his lab, as does Stevenson in his own way in his eloquent book. I suspect that most of us spend much of our lives trying to grasp that the radical idea that prayer is valuable whether it makes a difference in ministry or not. It is, in the end, a gift of the Spirit, a means by which we cry "Abba!" to a loving heavenly Father, who accepts the ineffective and loves those who make no difference in the world, even those who have made the world a worst place.

This approach to prayer is certainly what Jesus models in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sometimes prayer does not lead to more ministry effectiveness but only a cross. And yet prayer helped him to move forward that night in courage ("Not my will, but yours be done"), when all he could look forward to was the desertion of his followers and an ignoble death. I suspect that this story, more than others in Scripture, gets at the heart of true spiritual "effectiveness" and "successful" Christian leadership.

In the meantime, we have ministries we are responsible for. We need to figure out how to lead an organization and disciple youth and share the gospel and pursue justice, and a plethora of other tasks that require wisdom. And one of the best places on the planet to get practical advice and inspiration is these Catalyst labs.

Mark Galli is editor of Christianity Today.

Last month, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission named Christian writer Trillia Newbell to a brand-new position as a consultant for women’s initiatives. It’s the first time the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy agency has included such an explicit focus on women’s involvement with the organization.

Newbell joins several other appointees under new ERLC president Russell Moore, who wants to do more to “address the core concerns of women in the church” as well as issues of racial reconciliation, she said.

In her new role, she works with ERLC communications to involve women and offer women’s commentary on relevant issues. Christian blog readers may also recognize her byline from Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, or even here on Her.meneutics.

Why did you decide to take this position, and what excites you the most about it?

Initially, I took the position because of the great respect I have for Dr. Moore. I have always appreciated his “convictional kindness” in the way he shares. He is also simply a brilliant man. I also believe that Christians will continually need to address our core issues as the world’s trajectory is increasingly secular. What an honor to have the opportunity to equip the church and think through issues that are pertinent in today’s society from a Christian worldview.

Now that I am in the position and have received feedback from women reading, I am more convinced than ever that the organization is a needed resource for the church. I have been especially thankful for the women who are eager to read from other women on these topics. I believe God has a great purpose in this appointment and I am praying that I would serve ERLC and him well.

In the case of the ERLC, why is it important for Southern Baptist leaders to bring women into their work and discussions of policy, ethics, and liberty?

Women, I believe, have a unique perspective on issues specifically as it relates to policy and ethics. Topics on abortion, reproductive health, sex, and children, for example, might be addressed differently from a woman than a male because those topics often uniquely affect women. Also, many ethical issues apply to women in unique ways. Bringing women into the discussion allows these issues to be addressed with this particular focus.

Do you find the designation of “women’s issues” helpful?

I think men and women are created equally yet distinct; therefore, I find it fine and even helpful to think through issues as they would relate to women. I will not (and neither will the other women) only write on topics like motherhood and child-rearing. There are some issues that are clearly not solely related to women that we should still be addressing, such as immigration laws, homosexuality, and second amendment issues. I have already addressed other topics such as the March on Washington and abortion. Women have a unique perspective that is God-given, and I’m excited to share from that perspective. I am a woman and not a man, and therefore I experience life slightly differently.

You’re the author of an upcoming book on diversity. How well do you think American evangelicalism involves and represents the voices of women and ethnic minorities?

My book is called United: Captured by God’s Vision for Diversity (Moody, 2014). I hope to cast a vision for the beauty of diversity in the church and in all of life. I think we need to continue to grow and learn from the African American community. I do believe that there have been more writers, speakers, pastors, and educators who have been visible and influential over the past few years. I have seen a greater pursuit (and support!) of black voices in the community. I am speaking from a limited view, one of which often resides over the Internet. So when I share this I am thinking of new websites and organizations specifically designed to address the core concerns of the African American community such as the Reformed African American Network or The Front Porch. There are many others, those are two that I am particularly familiar with.

There is still a greater need, in my opinion, for representation of African Americans in leadership. There are many reasons I’m thankful for Fred Luter’s presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention, but if I’m honest, one of those reasons is that he is the first African American in such a role for the organization. It’s an incredibly historical moment and one that I think we will continue to see in the future.

I’ve had the real privilege to work with sites and organizations who love, honor, and respect women. There really is no doubt in my mind that there has been a growth over the past few years in the number of women who are sharing through writing, speaking, and leading in their various spheres. I’m excited and thankful to be a part of this time in history in the church. I think there’s much more diversity in many areas to come.

I imagine you have found yourself in situations in churches and Christian groups when you were the only woman, the only African American person, or the only African American woman in the room. Is that something you pay attention to?

Throughout my Christian life, I have attended predominantly white churches and work with several organizations that are also predominantly white. So, yes, I do find myself in situations often where I am the only one. Even within my own family I can often be the only black person (my husband is white). Do I pay attention to it? It depends. There are times when I forget but what I find interesting is often someone else will bring it up. As a black female anywhere I go I am a black female. I don’t believe people can be (or should be) color-blind. So I will often be asked various questions related to race or ethnicity or my thoughts about related topics. I don’t mind at all! I would much prefer someone ask than be curious.

What advice would you give Christian organizations that have become convicted to taking diversity more seriously?

I think we get in danger when we try to be diverse for diversity’s sake. I would probably ask questions like, Why do you desire more diversity? Who do you hope to reach? What areas do you see others serving in? Is there something within the organization–say a mission statement or the environment—that has prevented minorities from pursuing positions? From there I think the organization should begin to take inventory on how they’ve approached ministry. Finally, they’d simply need to recruit people who are qualified for the positions they have open.

Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86.

Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he'd been pastor since 1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded congregations in the United States and abroad.

Smith was known for expository preaching as he worked his way through the entire Bible, unpacking texts from Genesis through Revelation and offering commentary along the way.

Yet it was his openness to new cultural styles, including laid-back music and funky fashions of California's early surfer scene, that helped him reach young idealists and inspire a trend toward seeker-sensitive congregations.

"He led a movement that translated traditional conservative Bible-based Christianity to a large segment of the baby boom generation's counterculture," says Brad Christerson, a Biola University sociologist who studies charismatic churches in California. "His impact can be seen in every church service that has electric guitar-driven worship, hip casually-dressed pastors, and 40-minute sermons consisting of verse-by-verse Bible expositions peppered with pop-culture references and counterculture slang."

Born to a Bible-quoting mother and a salesman father who became a zealous convert in midlife, Smith grew up in Southern California, where he witnessed to the Gospel from a young age.

After Bible college training and a stint as a traveling evangelist, he sought a niche in Pentecostalism by pastoring several Church of the Foursquare Gospel congregations. But he confesses in Chuck Smith: A Memoir of Grace: "I just never succeeded" in that denominational environment.

He found his groove in the 1960s, when many evangelicals were frowning on the wild outfits, long hair and psychedelic music that were all the rage among young adults. One seminal moment came during his early days at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, where old guard trustees posted a sign in their renovated sanctuary: "no bare feet allowed." Smith tore it down with a promise to reach young souls for Christ, even it meant throwing out new pews and carpeting and bringing in steel folding chairs.

"Lifestyle issues and morality issues were things that he would expect Christ would clean up in these folks lives," said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. "But the informality of these folks and the music they were fond of – he was willing to let that slide quite a bit."

Smith never became a hippie, Eskridge said. But he nonetheless won a following as a non-judgmental father figure by welcoming a blend of pop music, poetry and aspiration to live like Jesus. Together with hippie Lonnie Frisbee, Smith helped propel the Jesus People Movement, with its embrace of Christ's teachings and disavowal of institutional church trappings.

Smith also pioneered translations of Gospel teachings into 20th-century pop art forms. In 1971, he launched Maranatha! Music, a pioneering record label designed to promote the "Jesus music" that his young followers were producing on the California coast.

Ministries born in the 1960s and 70s grew into a distribution empire. By 2013, Smith's radio and television programs were airing in more than 350 cities around the world. The Word for Today, a publishing program begun in 1978, now packages Smith's messages through books for adults and children, DVDs, CDs and other channels.

"From age 50 on up would be his larger fan base," said Word for Today General Manager Mark Rich. But Smith's easy-to-understand messages keep attracting followers from other demographics, Rich says, because "Pastor Chuck has always been able to relate to the younger crowd and to children."

Never a denominational man, Smith forged a different type of fellowship among congregations as word of his success spread. Calvary Chapels, concentrated largely in coastal population centers, reflect Smith's preferences for authoritative male pastors, expository preaching and openness to contemporary music. What Eskridge describes as "restrained exuberance" in worship has spread from Costa Mesa to Calvary Chapels on the East Coast and beyond.

Some in other Protestant groups now look to Smith as a role model, whose methods have become the stuff of seminary workshops.

"Chuck Smith is one of my heroes," said Kurt Frederickson, a church vitality expert who invokes Smith's work when he trains pastors in Fuller Theological Seminary's doctor of ministry program. "He's able to read the culture and to see a group of people who've been marginalized by the institutional church and say, 'these people too should be cared for'…. So he opens up his arms."

In Smith's absence, the Leadership Council of the Calvary Chapel Association will continue to govern the fellowship's affairs.

Early today, Evangelist Greg Laurie posted on his blog, "I am so sorry to tell all of you that our friend, pastor Chuck Smith, has died." At age 19, Laurie began ministry under Chuck Smith's leadership. Laurie is the founding pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California.

The first two sentences of an article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) shared a scandalously honest perspective on leadership and strategy—topics that migrate en masse from the business world to the church market.

Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed wrote: “Much of the strategy and management advice that business leaders turn to is unreliable or impractical. That’s because those who would guide us underestimate the power of chance.”

To ensure their point cuts deep, they continue with even sharper words: “Gurus draw pointed lessons from companies whose outstanding results may be nothing more than random fluctuations. Executives speak proudly of corporate achievements that may be only lucky coincidences.”

That view certainly won’t pack the seats at leadership conferences. Imagine a keynote talk titled: “Honestly, We Were Lucky.”

Raynor and Ahmed then offer research that points readers toward three rules for what to focus on—and what to not focus on—to achieve business success.

Imagine a column for leaders titled: “Just Focus.”

I experienced similar learning, though much simpler, a year ago. My daughter, now a high school senior, expressed desire to one day play college tennis. To me, such a dream seemed to require plenty of luck to actually happen. At least that’s how I worded my sentiments when talking with the seasoned tennis professional where my daughter plays.

After he stopped laughing at me, he shared a few strategies for my daughter (and me) to focus on to capture collegiate-level attention. He also articulated a few items that don’t matter to college coaches but often distract young players’ and families’ effort. “Forget luck; be deliberate,” is my paraphrase of his wisdom.

His approach worked, reinforcing the HBR article’s premise that focus wins over luck. This logic seems insultingly obvious. Or is it?

Let’s look at this idea in practice at church.

I recently visited with the outreach pastor of a church that decided to focus their efforts. Instead of continually adding programs, spreading their work thin, and hoping that some of it would make a difference (a nice way to say luck), this church narrowed their work to have greater impact.

A church narrowed their work, cut sacred programs, and stopped activities that had gone on for years? Scandalous! But effective—read on.

This pastor described how the church now pours precious time and talent (yes, some treasure too) into a single desire: “We want to eliminate as much ‘risk’ as we can in the lives of at-risk kids in our community.”

He continued, “We learned what to focus on and what we should stop doing so we could do more of what we knew would work. It required brutal honesty to admit some of our stuff was random and needed to go away. But what’s happening now is worth it.”

A quick summary of what they do: Three years ago, their church launched a KIDS HOPE USA mentoring program in partnership with a local elementary school. They saw firsthand the difference that a one-to-one relationship between an adult and student makes in an at-risk child’s life. Then next year they added another program with another school. Same thing the year after.

The church decided to fully adopt the focused desire mentioned earlier. This led to a discovery that many men in the church have hearts for fatherless kids. It also prompted leaders to ask questions in the community, which helped them learn that the help single moms in their area wanted most was a man to build into their kids.

So the church stopped a few other initiatives to create space and energy for a new Wednesday night event exclusively for single moms and kids. While ladies in the church offer programs to serve the moms, men from the church form one-to-one relationships with the kids. “We had to stop many things to pull this off and do what we really wanted to do, what we knew would work,” the pastor said.

Today this church sends 100 people into schools during the week to mentor at-risk kids. Every Wednesday night, another 100 men mentor kids, too. In their community, they truly are diminishing the “risk” that many at-risk kids face.

But first, they had to focus on what they knew would work. Then cut the distractions to their efforts. No luck required.

Where do you need more focus?

David Staal, senior editor for Building Church Leaders and a mentor to a Kindergarten boy, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. David is the author of Lessons Kids Need to Learn (Zondervan, 2012) and Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan, 2008). He lives in Grand Haven, MI, with his wife Becky, son Scott, and daughter Erin.

Phil's Great Uncle Iner, Origins of Evangelicalism, and Louis CK's Musings on Emptiness! Watch your metaphors, Christians! We can be misunderstood! Phil tells the story of his great uncle Iner. If that isn't fun enough, Skye then explains the origins of evangelicalism and fundamentalism in America, and the gang discusses comedian Louis CK's recent musings about the "emptiness" inside all of us.

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The maker of Left Behind-themed video games may have committed fraud by allegedly using a massive stock sale to give investors a false sense of financial stability.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged last week that Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games Inc. (LBG), issued close to 2 billion shares to his friend, Ronald Zaucha. Lyndon claimed the shares were payment for Zaucha's consulting services, but Zaucha's use of the money suggests otherwise.

Zaucha used the stock to boost the video game company's struggling finances by selling millions of unregistered shares in the marketplace, but gave the proceeds back to LBG, Reuters reports.

Both men have been charged with fraud in the SEC complaint, with nearly $5 million purportedly involved in the case.

The SEC lawsuit, which was filed in Hawaii where both Lyndon and Zaucha live, states:

"LBO's quarterly and annual reports were also misleading because they did not disclose that its transactions with Zaucha were related party transactions. Nor did they disclose the sham, round-trip nature of the transactions, where LBG essentially paid for its own revenue by paying Zaucha in stock and then having most of his stock sale proceeds used to purchase LBO product through Zaucha's company, Lighthouse."

Lyndon responded to the allegations on his website:

"Fact is, I'm just a video game guy. If any violation occurred, it would never have been intentional – and certainly, never fraudulent – my attorney told me that proceeds from earned shares could be used by any shareholder for their desired purpose. For more than two years, I've asked the SEC to explain how and if I violated any rule, so that I could self-report it."

The SEC believes Lyndon's sale of stock to Zaucha created an appearance of sound financial stability to investors, when the company was actually struggling to stay afloat. An SEC spokesman, Michele Wein Layne, told the The Press-Enterprise that the scheme "duped investors" and made them think LBG was a "successful enterprise."

The SEC also claims Zaucha, a prison ministries pastor, performed few, if any, consulting services. In 2010, he gave away $1.38 million worth of left-over video games inventory to churches, but counted it as revenue for the company, Reuters reports.

With multiple SEC case filings against Lyndon's company going back to 2010, Lyndon thinks the attacks are more personal than anything.

"Perhaps not intentional, the government's actions have worked to dismantle Left Behind Games, run by conservatives," said Lyndon. "The facts are both true and hard to believe—worthy of a Ron Howard film or John Grisham novel."

CT previously reported on LGB's name change and its legal issues.

Just two weeks after Pope Francis surprised the world with an extensive and candid interview with Jesuit publications worldwide, a second surprise interview has started making the rounds and stirred up much debate. For example, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore calls it a theological wreck.

As in the first interview, Francis talked about issues such as church reform and personal matters. But the new interview, this time with atheist editor Eugenio Scalfari of La Repubblica, also includes new topics such as the Vatican bureaucracy, careerist priests, the moment of his election, and his favorite saints.

Among the pope's most interesting comments:

On the greatest challenges for the church: "The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old. The old need care and companionship; the young need work and hope but have neither one nor the other, and the problem is they don't even look for them anymore."

On converting others: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us…. [O]ur goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope."

Francis's interviews (helpfully analyzed by RNS's David Gibson) have described the Catholic Church as a field hospital, to bring fallen-away Catholics back into the fold. But not everyone agrees this is what the Church needs. For example, Rod Dreher explained why he's not going back to the Catholic Church. In short: He thinks it preaches cheap grace, which he thinks undermines the Cross.

Francis and Scalfari agreed to meet again, and the pope added: "We will also discuss the role of women in the Church. Remember that the Church is feminine."

CT previously noted what you should know about the pope's first interview.

Last month, a short film won praise from animation fans and film critics. The big surprise? It was a commercial for Chipotle restaurants.

In it, a scarecrow discovers cruel and unusual practices happening behind closed doors at a fast-food factory. Machines pump livestock full of chemicals. Sinister, robotic crows spray crops with pesticides. And consumers line up to swallow the toxic results, oblivious—perhaps willfully oblivious—to their part in an ugly enterprise.

The scarecrow goes home and starts cooking the old-fashioned way: growing fresh, pesticide-free produce and raising healthy livestock. Soon, he's serving fresh, nutritious meals—personally—to diners who can enjoy real flavor and real nourishment without any corruption of conscience.

Chipotle's commercial went viral, earning better buzz than many of this year's feature films.

But why?

Chipotle's brilliant pitch (whether or not it accurately represents their product) appeals to an increasingly popular appetite. Even though consumer culture gives us more options all the time, at greater and greater convenience, we're hungrier than ever for something real.

This also applies to moviegoing.

Talking with other film fans, I find that by September, many of us are feeling a little regretful, a little sick. We've spent the summer consuming big-budget, committee-designed, factory-made features. They're like microwaveable burritos stuffed full of shouting, chases, gunfire, showdowns, explosions, and end-of-the-world scenarios.

So we start looking forward to the opposite—a parade of pompous, overly serious, "important" features known as Oscar Bait. And here they come: films that shove hard truths in our faces, shocking us with heartbreakingly tragic, wildly imaginative, furiously acted experiences.

But even that September-to-January programming can seem like an assembly-line of oversized portions and artificial ingredients. The delusional hype of "competition" corrupts the way art is made, promoted, and received. Ten years down the road, how many of these overbearing films will still haunt us? How many will we call "old favorites" and revisit with friends?

I'm finding a growing audience of moviegoers for films that are artful but modest, films designed to inspire conversation rather than award-season hype. Films that provoke without pandering. That invite without insisting. That offer subtle beauty instead of shocking pizzazz. That grow from an artist's exploration and experience instead of a studio's formulas and box office analysis.

Maybe we're tired of being bludgeoned into amazement. Maybe a good story about real people, distinguished by a sense of mystery, would be just the thing.

Recently, I followed the whispers of film enthusiasts whose discernment I have come to trust. I found myself off the beaten path, tracking down two little-known movies.

The first I found on Netflix. I'd planned to spend an hour folding laundry and dusting furniture, with one eye on the television screen. But 90 minutes later, the laundry remained in the basket, and dust still blanketed the bookshelves. I'd fallen into—and in love with—an engrossing little movie by director Chad Hartigan called This Is Martin Bonner.

The second—Jem Cohen's Museum Hours—played for one week in a Seattle arthouse theater, and I caught its penultimate screening. Afterward, I gave in to the urge to find the theater's manager and thank him personally for bringing this movie to town.

Neither film threatens earth with asteroids, aliens, zombies, or epidemics. Neither sensationalizes great moments in history. You won't see any actors indulging in moments that beg for Oscar glory. Instead, you'll have to slow down and be patient. Both films show more interest in pregnant pauses than snappy dialogue. Both ask us to enjoy the nuances of casual conversation, the details of unglamorous faces. (The greatest special effects in these films are their human beings.) And both are intently interested in encouraging us to look closer and see art, culture, our neighbors, and ourselves more clearly.

In the afterglow of both movies, I felt "the eyes of my eyes opened," to steal a phrase from e. e. cummings. Or, to borrow from Scripture, I felt a little bit "born again."

This Is Martin Bonner: Finding Grace in a Crisis of Faith

The prison doors have opened wide, and Travis has returned to Reno, Nevada. He needs to begin again. To find a job. To find his daughter. To find a friend.

But as he walks a long Nevada road, shivering in his denim jacket, it's clear: the world is a cold, hard place for the recently paroled. And if he doesn't find good help, he just might slide into a state of depression and alienation similar to that of the big screen's most famous Travis . . . the one who worked as a taxi driver.

But Travis is blessed to meet the figure in this movie's title: This Is Martin Bonner.

Martin looks like the smiling, white-haired, suit-and-tie guy who greets you with a handshake and a church bulletin when you visit a community Baptist church on a Sunday morning. But he's not a typical churchgoer—not anymore. Recently divorced, disillusioned by years of work as a church business manager, Martin's experiencing a crisis of faith. He, too, is starting over in Reno. He's working as an agent for a Christian ministry that helps prepare prison inmates for societal re-entry.

It's a tough job. Prisoners can be reluctant to cooperate. Who can trust "helpers" if they seem eager to refashion you according to the Jell-O mold of The Faithful?

Through seemingly incidental tangents, director Chad Hartigan brilliantly reveals the complexity, contrasts, and commonalities of his characters. Martin, lonely, takes a reluctant turn in Reno's speed-dating scene; Travis isn't immune to the sales pitch of a local prostitute. The telephone is Martin's lifeline to his children; the young daughter that Travis remembers has grown up into a stranger with a grudge. At auctions, Martin bids on items that he can, with a good camera and lighting, present as beautiful and re-sell for a better price; Travis might be mistaken for a hopeless case—but when seen through the eyes of compassion, he appears to have potential.

In one of the film's most revealing sequences, Travis has dinner at the home of a generous Christian couple. In their happiness and confidence, they only amplify Travis's feelings of disconnection and loneliness. Martin, by contrast—another broken man, wrestling with doubts, disappointments, and disconnection—seems like a kindred spirit.

Actor Richmond Arquette makes Travis a sympathetically sullen character. (Yes, actors Rosanna, Patricia, David, and Alexis Arquette have yet another talented sibling.) It's a revelatory turn by a guy whose most notable credit, until now, has been Guy Who Delivers the Cardboard Box in the final scene of David Fincher's Se7en.

As Martin, Australian actor Paul Eenhorn demonstrates a tremendous gift for subtlety and surprise. He's fascinating in every close-up, his face capable of effortlessly conveying uncertainty, sadness, quick intelligence, and good humor. Martin becomes such a unique, endearing character that I felt a pang of disappointment when the credits rolled. I want him to be real. I want to buy him a cup of coffee.

Among Hartigan's most remarkable achievements is his persuasive depiction of Christian characters. Big-screen Christians are almost always caricatures. They're pawns in a game of propaganda and proselytizing; or they're straw men set up to be knocked down by an artist's sneering prejudice; or they're villainously hypocritical, designed to discredit the faithful. But through Hartigan's eyes, people in any season of faith can be good company, worthy of attention and respect.

I asked him about this, and found that he has personal reasons for giving believers their big-screen dignity. After all, he grew up a son of missionaries. "I'm constantly unimpressed with the treatment of religious characters in film," he said. "Even as a non-believer, it's extremely offensive to me." (Read more in my interview with Hartigan at Response.)

I watched This Is Martin Bonner hoping it would be one of those modestly admirable independent features that win festival buzz each year. (It did, after all, win major awards at the Boston Independent Film Festival, the Florida Film Festival, the Nashville Film Festival, the Sarasota Film Festival, and Sundance.)

What I discovered instead is one of those rare films that I purchase for my own collection and then eagerly loan to one friend after another. Like Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent, Phil Morrison's Junebug, and Mike White's Lars and the Real Girl—This Is Martin Bonner is a film I would gladly feature in a filmmaking course, highlighting its exquisite character development, observant filmmaking, and storytelling that just might change the way people live.

Museum Hours: Finding Grace in a Hall of Mirrors

When we first meet Johann, he's sitting happily in a red-cushioned chair, framed before a closed museum door. For a moment, it appears that he, too, is a work of art on display.

Perhaps he is. Johann, like Martin Bonner, is a quiet and observant man. But unlike Martin, he's confident and happy in his vocation. Each day, working as a museum guard in Vienna, he's content to stroll through the museum and observe both the paintings and the visitors. After confessing that he was once a rock band manager, he explains, "I had my share of noise. Now I have my share of quiet."

Now, meet Anne, a Canadian come to sit at the bedside of a hospitalized family member. She's weary from finding her way around a foreign city where she does not speak the language. Her long hours reading and singing to a woman in a coma are taking their toll. So she spends her spare time wandering through the museum.

Much of the movie's magic comes from its unconventional actors. Johann is played with warmth and humor by Bobby Sommer. He's an unlikely star. He was Cohen's driver to a Vienna film festival when the filmmaker realized that this guy had a unique charisma. Mary Margaret O'Hara—a celebrated singer and songwriter, and sister to funny girl Catherine O'Hara of Beetlejuice and A Mighty Wind—plays Anne as a beautifully disheveled and impulsive traveler.

These two strangers are destined to become friends. Johann's kindness and easygoing nature are a perfect solution for Anne's loneliness and anxieties. Together, they draw us back and forth between the hospital's clinical quiet and the reverent hush of Vienna's famous Kunsthistorisches Art Museum.

In the museum, the artist who receives the most attention, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, is not merely a convenient choice. Bruegel's vision of the world is as central to Cohen's film as it was to 2011's arthouse favorite The Mill and the Cross.

In one scene, we're treated to a museum-tour lecture on Bruegel's art. This may seem like a tangent, but it isn't. As we learn how to look at the Kunsthistorisches' masterpieces, we're also learning how to watch this movie. (Cohen's idea is to give us a Bruegel-style illustration of Vienna itself.) And better: we're learning how to look at our lives. The paintings become like mirrors that show us the truth about ourselves.

Cohen, known for his documentaries on (of all things) Fugazi and the Occupy Wall Street movement, looks here like a world-class artist. And he seems untroubled by the fact that he's made something most moviegoers are too impatient to appreciate. He told TimeOut New York, "Contemplative is one of those words that sends three quarters of the general populace fleeing toward Iron Man 7 . . . We're all bombarded, we're all being spun around in a blender, and my response to that is not to provide more of it in the films that I make."

Like so many of my favorites—Babette's Feast, Three Colors: Blue, and The Gleaners and I—Museum Hours is all about art's capacity to interrupt our lives and tune up our senses so that we can apprehend what's really happening. In doing so, it reawakens me to a world that is better and brighter than I remembered, and positively pregnant with meaning.

Nothing Better Than the Real Thing

Films like This Is Martin Bonner and Museum Hours can convince us that memorable, powerful moviemaking is possible without big budgets, digital animation, intense action, and razzle-dazzle. In fact, by keeping things "organic," artists are likely to end up with something more human . . . and more humane . . . than what the blockbuster factories produce.

Arriving for moviegoers in the same year as Richard Linklater's Before Midnight, these two movies make 2013 a landmark year for films about intimate conversations. All three focus on vast, dangerous, and exciting territories that can be discovered when individuals open up to one another. Where the "fast food" that dominates America's cineplexes tends to portray the world as a clash between "good guys" and "bad guys," these unconventional features explore the much richer hope and healing that can come from the risk of generosity and grace, the reconciliation of differences, the rewards of fidelity and friendship.

But hardly anyone I know has even heard of these movies. Perhaps they're doomed to be diamonds lost in the Netflix rough.

They shouldn't be. Seek them out. Show them to your friends. Discuss them afterward. Teach them to aspiring filmmakers. I suspect almost every audience will be pleasantly surprised. Further, I suspect that moviegoers will recommend these "organic" offerings in a more passionate and personal way than they do Iron Man 3 or Man of Steel or the emotional histrionics of the upcoming Oscar bait.

I know that I will. I already do.

Jeffrey Overstreet is the author of Through a Screen Darkly, four novels including Auralia's Colors, and a blog called Looking Closer (jeffreyoverstreet.com). He is also an editor, speaker, and creative writing teacher.