The speaker insinuated that we could attain righteousness through our own efforts. That through training and discipline, we could become righteous and live lives full of joy and peace.

Whatever this ideal life is, it’s certainly clear that people like the Apostle Paul never attained it. Paul clearly wrestled with his fallen nature and never suggested anyone could live a righteous life through their own power.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

- Romans 7:18-20

Today’s speaker didn’t mention anything about the limitations of our fallen natures and our total reliance on Christ to sanctify and redeem our lives to prepare us for good works. Want to be righteous? There are no tips and tricks. Ask God to make you righteous. All of your unrighteous living is due to an unrighteous heart and your fallen nature. There’s nothing you can do to change those. You need God to do it for you.

So, instead of telling people that they can affect their righteousness through behavior-modification, you should be driving people to their knees, asking God to make them more Christ-like by changing their hearts, and thus enabling them to do good works and live “righteous” lives. Instead of depending on ourselves, we should be depending on God.

And you shouldn’t set the expectation that people can attain totally righteous lives in a fallen body and a fallen world. That’s not possible. We won’t be capable of that until Christ returns and we have new, righteous bodies.

Like Paul, we should expect to fight a constant battle between our desires to serve God and the desires of our flesh. We will never overcome this until Heaven.

Thank God our righteousness is not based on our own behavior, but is solely based on Christ’s behavior. His perfect righteousness is ours by faith alone. When you find yourself sinning and in the midst of guilt, just have faith in Christ’s righteousness and be grateful that you will always be considered righteous in God’s eyes, because of what Christ did for you.

The problem with singles groups is that whatever the group hopes to accomplish, the ultimate reason most people are there is to meet someone to date/marry. Whatever spiritual, outward-focused goals the group may have, the members have an overriding selfish goal for being there.

If the attendees were truly there for worship, then they would go to the normal church service. But they’re there to meet potential mates.

I noticed that the dynamics are different for the men and women who attend. The women, while still inwardly competing with one another, find strength in numbers. They huddle and form strong friendships with the other single women. This makes them a large pack and actually less approachable — which is ironic, because I assume they want to be approached.

The men, on the other hand, view all the other men as competition and want nothing to do with building close friendships with any of them. Depending on how desperate they are, they may give a token pleasantry to the other guys if cornered into a conversation, but some will be downright rude to you, if they see you as worthy competition.

Social times at these meetings closely resemble a situation in wildlife, where the lions (men) cirlce a pack of gazelles (women), in search of their prey. Since the women have formed these tight packs, it’s harder for the men to find a target. But when a gazelle breaks away from the pack, then several lions immediately descend on her.

I met several guys this weekend, who attend this group, and with one notable exception (a very friendly guy named Leo), most of the men seemed very reluctant to make my acquaintance. Instead of being greeted with a warm handshake, I was metaphorically peed upon by the “dominant” males.

Now I’m the last person to compete over a woman, and when I find myself in those situations, I’m totally content to walk away and wait to cross paths with another person not wrapped up in such dynamics. But I’m still fascinated to see such primitive behavior on display within modern day interactions.

I’ve concluded this weekend that it’s good that I’m not involved in this group and will stop going to their social functions.

It’s not that I’m not looking to meet my own potential mate. I would just like to do so while serving God in ministry. I don’t want to go to a meeting/event solely designed for the purpose of meeting someone. I want to meet someone through service — someone who shares my calling for evangelism and communication through new media. The only way I’m going to meet someone like that is by doing those things and seeing who I meet in the process.

I don’t know if it was the weather, the time of day, or the Silver Spring location, but everyone we came across was very friendly and receptive of the fliers we were handing out. …Well, very receptive of the fliers Megan was handing out. I was having about the same amount of success as my two previous attempts. Where I stumbled on my words, Megan seemed to flourish in her fearlessness at approaching every person she came across. After a while, I simply relied on her to do the approaching, while I assisted her with following up with further questions.

We eventually got into a rhythm… She would approach, hand them the flier with vague description. Then I would follow up with specifics, like how the event was at the Round House Theater just around the corner next to the AFI Silver Theater. We used this system over and over and over again, until it became second nature.

Next to Megan, I became less confident in my ability to approach the strangers that we passed. Whereas, Megan’s confidence issue involved answering the questions these strangers had about The After Party. When people had questions, Megan looked to me to answer them. I was very confident in that role, so we ended up making the perfect team — each with a part to play.

We had a few notable encounters…

Megan was so bold in her approaches, that she often went up to cars stopped at stop lights to hand out fliers. She often went to typical “cool” guys in their “cool” cars, who would feel proud of the fact that an attractive girl took interest in them. When these guys reciprocated interest and looked to extend the encounter or invite Megan to stay with them, I would always step in and give them a wave and a smile and make it clear that the two of us were together.

That was also the case when she approached groups of guys on the street. One group wanted her to join them for lunch, so I had to turn around and make my presence known.

As we cruised up and down the streets of downtown Silver Spring, we also ran into a Christian woman, who was looking for a local church. We told her about the Frontline campus in Silver Spring, and she said she looked forward to checking it out.

One of the worst/best interactions came near one of the parking garages. We handed a flier to an older guy (in his 40s), who asked us if he should bring his wife. We said yes, slightly puzzled why he would think otherwise. He then inquired more, finally admitting he thought this was some sort of “swingers” event. I don’t think Megan understood what he meant, until we talked about it much later.

Finally, my favorite moment of the day came when Megan approached an older woman (seriously, Megan was approaching people way outside the typical Frontline audience). The older woman asked us specifically what the event was about. We told her it was a church event, discussing what happens after you die. She pressed us further, asking us what we thought happened when we die. Megan looked to me to give an answer, so I went straight into the 1-minute gospel message. This wasn’t hard, because I had just produced a video, which explained the Gospel in a nutshell.

I told the woman that I believe there is a God and a place called Heaven. But this Heaven requires absolute perfection to enter. Since we — the three of us — aren’t perfect, there’s no way we could get into Heaven, unless something outside of us interceded. Thankfully, God loved us so much that He sent his Son, Jesus, to come to Earth, live a perfect life, then die on a cross to pay for all of our mistakes (since the penalty for sin/mistakes is death). Once Jesus did that — died, paid for our sins, then rose again — anyone who has faith in that sacrifice for salvation will be seen as perfect in the eyes of God. And thus, will be admitted into Heaven.

I didn’t say all of that, but rather boiled it down to… I believe there’s a Heaven, but you have to be perfect to get in. Since none of us are perfect, we wouldn’t be able to get in. But thankfully, God sent his son Jesus to die and pay for our sins, so that we can get into Heaven. (You see, the woman never stopped walking, so I had to tell her this in the span of one block.)

When I was through summarizing the Gospel, the woman stopped, turned to us, and said, “That is the best summary of the Gospel I’ve ever heard. Short and to the point.” I thanked her, and she was on her way.

Megan thought that it was a wonderful compliment, and I was certainly glad to have received it.

After handing out fliers for about 3 hours, we finally gave out the very last flier in my stack. It was 6:30 PM, and we were beat. We sat on a sidewalk bench for a while, reflecting on the successes of the day. We then talked about other ways we could work together on other ministry projects. I was very happy to have finally found someone who I could partner with in ministry.

A fourth guy showed up, so I gave him half of my card stack. I didn’t really see any of the guys after that. Since they seemed to be staying close to the Metro, I decided to hit the streets.

I found that walking down the streets and handing cards to the individuals I passed had a better reception rate than handing cards out to the clusters gathered at the Metro. I believe this is because when people think you’re genuinely interested in them as individuals, they are much more likely to be open with you. (This actually helps prove a hypothesis I have about the drawbacks of “mass” communication, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)

I wasn’t familiar with walking the Ballston streets, but I just kept going — and when I felt lost, I just asked people how to get to the Metro.

Because I had plenty of time between “sets,” I was able to completely reset after each attempted interaction. I had time to analyze the successful attempts and overcome the unsuccessful ones.

Other than people taking the cards and thanking me, I had several notable interactions. I talked with one girl, who inquired about the organization behind The After Party. I used my typical opener, “I’d like to invite you to an event my church is having this weekend.” Her response was, “That depends on what kind of church it is.” I told her it was a nondenominational Protestant church in McLean. She was unfamiliar with McLean Bible Church, but did say she was skeptical of nondenominational churches in general. “Some of them can be pretty crazy,” she said, then admitted that she had recently moved to the area and was looking for a Baptist church in Arlington. I assured her MBC taught sound doctrine and invited her to check out Frontline Arlington. In retrospect, I probably should have suggested she check out Cherrydale Baptist as well.

I found one young Asian man sitting on a bench under a tree and handed him a card. He took it, even though he said he already received one at the West Falls Church metro (yep, we had a team over there, too).

Another Asian student I came across was very friendly and receptive of the card. Not to be stereotypical, but I don’t recall any Asians refusing the card.

After a while, I started focusing on people who looked unfriendly. I never approached anyone who was talking on their phone or had earphones in. But there were some very serious-looking, no-nonsense people who I made an effort to approach. Unfortunately, true to their appearance, they almost always refused the card.

Eventually, I only approached young women — using some of the old pickup skills within my social arsenal.

One particular situation involved me standing back, waiting at an intersection. I waited for an attractive girl to pass by and make solid eye contact. When one finally did, I gave her a smile. She smiled shyly, dropped eye contact, then reestablished eye contact before passing by completely. I waited. After about a minute, I hurried to catch up with her. She was two blocks down the street before I finally caught up with her. I ran the last few steps toward her — to feign being out of breath. I called to her, then said I really wanted to invite her to this event my church was having. She was visibly pleased that I had stopped her, but then quite confused that all I wanted was to hand her a flier. I back-stepped away with a smile, said I hoped to see her there, and left her with an experience to ponder for the rest of the day.

That was probably my favorite experience of the day. In a past life, I probably would have asked the girl out right then and there. But these days, I’m more interested in introducing women to Christ. I guess you could say I’m Jesus’ wingman.

I wasn’t sure who of the four of us had prior experience doing cold approaches to people on the street, so I figured I should make the first approach. A tip I learned from my pickup days is to purposefully get some “rejections” under your belt as soon as possible. So, expecting to be rejected, I stopped two young girls walking past us, handed them a couple of fliers, and simply said, “We’re having a party this weekend. You’re invited.” And that was it. They very willingly accepted the fliers, said “cool,” and continued walking.

One of the members of my small group flat-out said he didn’t feel good about walking up to some hot chicks and inviting them to a party — without explaining what it was all about. I disagree. Not only did I consider the approach “practice,” but even such vague invitation attempts can be a valid way of witnessing, should the girls go home, check out the website, and consider what The After Party is all about.

Our group of four split into two groups. Two guys went over to Barnes & Noble, where they had several interesting encounters (including one Hindu yelling at them and accusing them of “false advertising”). My small group leader and myself walked in the opposite direction towards La Madeline. I had seen two girls sitting outside there during our walk over from RTC, so I wanted to go speak with them.

On the way over, my partner approached some folks standing outside of a hair salon (who accepted the cards graciously and thanked us), as well as an older gentleman standing outside La Madeline (who accepted out of politeness only). We bought a couple of drinks inside, then sat at a table outside, near the two girls. We weren’t close enough to talk with the girls from our table, so we chatted a bit ourselves, then got up, and on the way out, did a double-take (another pickup trick) to say, “Oh, you girls might be interested in this…”

I pulled out two cards and told them they were invited to an event our church was putting on. The first girl surprisingly admitted that she already had two of those fliers. Apparently, she had been invited to the event by her small group leader (she was in a non-Frontline small group). The other girl said she didn’t have a flier, so I handed her one. We made some additional small talk, then departed.

We handed cards out to more folks on the way back to Barnes & Noble… A surfer-type dude, a punk rock girl sitting at an outdoor table, and possibly another. I can’t remember.

After reuniting with the others, we headed back to RTC. On the way, we handed out more fliers. I started to understand that it’s much easier to hand these things out while on the move, rather than standing in one place, targeting passersby.

We spent some time at one of our small group member’s condo (he lives in RTC), then on the way back to our cars a few hours later, I ran into an improv buddy of mine, Matt, and his gal pal. He was actually the one who spotted, then called out to me. I have a feeling he totally knew what I was doing there (thanks to my Facebook status), so after making small talk, he specifically asked what it was we were handing out (what a kind fellow!). We told him about The After Party, and handed him and his friend a card. Matt exclaimed that he would be there, but he’s always generous with his words. His friend, on the other hand, seemed very reluctant about the whole thing.

Leaving Reston Town Center, I felt like the whole task of handing out fliers was a piece of cake. Once you get over the fear of rejection and become immune to actual rejection, it’s a walk in the park.

A short video I created for the Frontline video contest. The story is a metaphor for salvation through Jesus Christ. I filmed this with two of my friends, Megan Beckwith and Heidi West, in one of the offices at McLean Bible Church. For more information on the upcoming After Party series at Frontline, please visit www.afterpartydc.com.

Behind the scenes photos…

That being said, I’ve always felt there’s been too much emphasis on the “production value” of its services. Sure, the church has been blessed with lots of money from its charitable members — and it certainly shows in the state-of-the-art equipment throughout the church building.

The Sunday night worship service has slowly gotten more and more elaborate, incorporating complex lighting, stage graphics, and even a smoke machine.

These things, in and of themselves, are not bad. But if anything in my church gives me some uneasiness, it’s this. I come to church to worship, and instead I sometimes feel like I’m being entertained by a show.

Even the worship band can get carried away during the songs — breaking off into improvised vocals and guitar solos. In these cases, they cease to be leading corporate worship and instead become performers. Instead of the focus being on God, they pull the focus down onto themselves.

I’m not judging their motives — this is just how it appears to me.

I’m grateful for being at a church that wants to do all things with excellence. But we should always remember that everything involved in the production of the services is there to help facilitate worship of God. Not to be the focus themselves.

There’s a difference between putting on a performance and helping facilitate worship. I just hope someone over there knows the difference and isn’t just concerned with finding new ways to distract the congregation.

Personally speaking, I’ve participated in many styles of church worship, and regardless of the environment or musical style, it was always the state of my own heart that made the difference in its “effectiveness.” One church in particular had no musical accompaniment at all — just hymnals and voices — and it was one of the best worship experiences.

Besides, isn’t the point of a worship service to worship God? Not be focused on our own personal mood and feelings? The success of a worship service is not in how well it makes us feel, but in how well it helps us understand our place before a holy God.

Churches just need to get out of the mindset that we have to make worship (or the preaching of the Gospel) more attractive in order to appeal to people. Our efforts are worthless compared to the power of God and the Gospel itself. We should just be concerned with helping introduce others to Him. And He’ll take care of the rest.

Because I wasn’t able to make it to church this evening for the Frontline service, I decided to log into the Frontline Internet Campus to check out & sample the online version of the weekly Frontline service.

Unfortunately, I missed the worship band at the beginning. But I did catch the majority of Todd Phillips’ message.

I loved how smooth and clear the video stream was. I also appreciated having the presentation slides appearing in real-time next to the video stream. There was even a box to type your notes during the sermon (which you could later copy & paste, or print directly from the application browser).

When the service was over, an online chatroom (dubbed “The Lobby”) became activated, and there were about 20 people chatting on it. My only gripe about the chatroom is that it didn’t seem to foster a variety of discussions. Instead, we were all lumped into the same chat, so it seemed like we had to stick to the topic at hand, rather than raise up new topics or discussions.

All in all, the Frontline Internet Campus is a good option, if you aren’t able to attend the service in person on a given week. However, it’s not a total substitute, since 1) you can’t participate in the worship, or 2) meet actual people you can get to know and hang out with. Fellowship is a big part of the Christian life, and the Internet Campus barely fills that need. But, if all you’re interested in is the sermon, this online application is absolutely incredible. I only wish you could access these full-featured presentations for archived messages (not just the live ones).

If you’d like to check it out for yourself, visit the Frontline Internet Campus on Sunday nights at 5:30 PM EST. Let me know what you think!