So when is a write up in the local weekly not a good thing?
Okay, it's almost always a good thing, but what makes it less of a good thing?

Well, first, when you are busting at the seams space-wise and the last time said weekly wrote you up, your attendance jumped by about 25%... We are "getting there" in our process on finding a new Sunday home for Evergreen. We prayed tonight as a community, and again, it was a beautiful time of asking, listening and talking to God and each other. I love my community... I wish we had a readily available space to take them that didn't somehow seem like a compromise of our identity, our values or our dream to be church for the unchurched. (More on that later).

It's also less of a good thing when the psuedo quote they use from you sounds like something you might have said at one time but seems to be a whole lot harsher in print...

Aye carumba.

So here's the deal.

The Willamette Week, Portland's weekly "alternative" newspaper (Portland actually has a few, but this is the big one) did their annual reader's poll... and we got "voted" (though I think this was a category their writers created and settled) "Best Church That Meets in a Bar"!

Here's what it says:

After last November's election, every secular liberal in America (including much of Portland, where John Kerry scored a vote percentage usually reserved for sub-Saharan dictators) freaked out. Evangelicals! They're comin' to get ya! The Christian Right no doubt cracked celebratory near-beers. Meanwhile, beneath the placid surface of the evangelical movement, much is stirring. Portland-naturally-is a hotbed of the so-called "emergent" church, a super-loose movement of (mostly) younger evangelicals who (mostly) emphasize community and social activism over right-wingery. One local example: Evergreen (evergreenlife.org), a church so non-trad that it holds Sunday services at the Multnomah Village's Lucky Lab Pub. Pastor Bob Heinz is a refugee from the mega-church world, where he found too many congregations more interested in buying rad sound systems than the Word. "The church I was at before, their goal is 10,000 people," Heinz says. "What's the point? It shouldn't be about how many people you can pack into a building." Amen.

Wow! Who's this Bob Heinz guy?!?! Sounds like a jerk!

Did I say that? Yeah... I can remember saying something like that when talking to Zach the Reporter... but it was more like... "That's cool for them, but our goal isn't to see how many people we can pack into one room. We want to be constantly growing, but stay small through church planting."
And if that's not what I said, it's what I should have said.

And my name isn't Bob Heinz... but no matter.

So, cool for us for being named best chuch in a bar one year running (can we fight off the contenders and keep the title next year too? Stay tuned!!!), boo for me and my big mouth...

And speaking of my large mouth...

I wrote an article at the tail end of my mega-church-bad-angry-young-man stage. I submitted it various places and got some good feedback from it, but that was back in December-January. Since then, I've tried to (oh how I've tried)...uh... moderate my tone a bit when it comes to the mega church in general and the one I worked at specifically. I think I've come to more of a peace with the whole big church thing, and their place in the ecosphere. I still don't think they are healthy for the Church as a whole, but I see that they work for many people, and I see that the motives and intentions of those in leadership in the megachurch are good, we just disagree on some methodological issues.

Anyway, I wrote this article, submitted it to the Ooze maybe 9 months ago and never heard from them. I get home, we're looking at the Willy Week blurb thinking "Aye! Another poke at the megachurch" and I open my email to... a message from the Ooze. Telling me they're publishing my article "The Problem with Programs: Why Bigger is No Longer Better." I still believe in the core of what I was saying in this article, though 9 months later would probably say it a little differently... Rereading it now, it just seems kind of harsh.

So, tonight, dear blog... I feel like a little like an overly critical jackass...

And this is probably more where I'm at now...