Posted on 07/10/2007 4:28:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Preacher Dan Smith turned a rap song about babes with booty into a spoof Internet hit, and used it to help create a new church for people who hate church.
Dan Smith thinks Christians take themselves too seriously.
Pastor Dan Smith's 'Baby Got Book' video, a big hit online, helped him start his Momentum Church. "We can be dorks," he says after Sunday service in suburban Cleveland. "We can be Ned Flanders and basically speak jargon that nobody understands."
The 33-year-old pastor has made it his mission to turn the notion of earnest, boring, humorless Christianity on its head — and tickle its feet until it laughs.
He did just that when, as a creative arts minister for a church outside Washington, D.C., he made a video parody of rapper Sir-Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back," an ode to women with generous behinds.
Smith's version was called "Baby Got Book," and its praise was reserved for "Christian sisters" who carry big bibles.
"It's worn and it's torn," go the lyrics, "and I know that girl's reborn."
At the suggestion of parishioners, he posted the video on the Web, and viewers streamed it millions of times.
Smith isn't the only preacher to find success on the Web. One of the hottest names in religion online today is none other than former "Growing Pains" star Kirk Cameron, who spreads the gospel online via wayofthemaster.com.
Smith used the publicity from "Baby Got Book" to help sell his comedy DVDs. Then he used that money and his newfound fame to start a church "for people who don't like church."
He should know. He says he's one of them.
"Some people don't like church because it's boring, full of hypocrites and often led by greedy dudes who only care about cash flow," Smith writes in a promotional flyer for his church, Momentum Christian Church. "And church is really boring, too. Did I mention that a lot of people hate church because it's boring? I usually do."
"People just feel welcome here and they can just be themselves." — church attendee Cindy Lu
Worshippers say you won't be bored at Momentum. You may not even feel like you're in a church — because technically you're not. Momentum holds its services in a multiplex movie theatre in a suburban shopping center. Salvation and Popcorn Buckets On a cool spring Sunday morning, people are filling the lobby of the Cinemark in Valley View, Ohio, warming up with coffee and hot chocolate and munching on donuts and bagels. It is boisterous and full of laughter and excited chat. It feels more like a family holiday gathering than church.
A crowd gathers around television monitors where Smith's "Baby Got Book" video plays on a loop along with other comedy videos he's made, and videotapes of past services.
"I said ladies, yeah, ladies," Smith's voice is heard on the video, "Do you wanna save people from Hades? Yeah!"
The smell of popcorn fills the air and large, framed posters of classic movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne hang on the walls.
Smith is running around with a Starbucks coffee in his hand.
"My salvation," he tells me, motioning to the coffee, after explaining that his wife Shannon just gave birth to their third child yesterday and he was up most of the rest of the night writing today's sermon.
A steady stream of people line up to give him congratulatory hugs and handshakes.
The service is as complex as a Broadway show, with comedy skits, stories and a multi-piece band. Like a professional stage show, the service has its own rundown sheet with lighting, audio and video cues.
And then there is Smith's sermon, "Superhero Parables," in which he encourages attendees to use their own special gifts to serve others and God.
"If one day you wake up and realize you've been bitten by a radioactive spider and you've got something new in your repertoire," he tells them, "there's this unspoken code among superheroes that says, you know what, your life is not your own anymore."
Smith electrifies his services with a blend of music and comedy. At the end of the service, the collection is taken up in popcorn buckets.
"I grew up going to Catholic church, so this is very different for me," says 25-year-old Cindy Lu after the service. "But it's just more relaxed. People just feel welcome here and they can just be themselves." Finding a Way Smith himself didn't grow up in a religious household, but came to the faith, he says, through the help of a neighbor. That outsider attitude, he believes, helps him to round up the "unchurched," just like Jesus did.
He says about 200 people attend each week, but admits his unorthodox approach has also drawn critics.
A posting about his Internet video warns viewers "to beware of false prophets."
Smith shrugs it off.
"We're not trying to reach other Christians," Smith says, "If you love your church, stay at your church. That's awesome. But for people who haven't gone in ten years — or all of their lives — I think there's a lot of people who might need to hear the message of 'maybe this might be the church that I can go to.'"
The same church, Smith says, that welcomes people who cuss, watch R-rated movies and smell like cigarettes; the church where "Baby Got Book" is always in rotation and whose services are available by Podcast if you just happen to sleep in some Sunday.
ping tard
There are way too man churches that are nothing more than spiritual massage parlors. I guess this guy decided to open a spiritual massage parlor without the hypocritical pretense.
If it gets’em in the door and thinking then its probably a good thing, whether they stay at the Church long or not.
Reminds me of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, and Hazel Motes’s comical Church of Christ Without Christ.
I hadn’t noticed that Christians have no sense of humor. I suspect that it’s Dan Smith who lacks the sense of humor.
Ping
They tried this before. It didn’t work. People hated it.
How about church being about what church should be about. Worshiping God.
How can a "seeker" worship someone he isn't committed to?
Maybe us Christians need to do OUR jobs, and lead others to Christ, instead of waiting for "seekers" to walk into churches of their own accord. Or expecting "the church" to do what we should be doing.
And instead of us looking to make the Bible relevant to our lives, maybe WE should be making our lives relevant to the Bible.
Is he preaching salvation? Is the staying in scripture? That’s what is important.
Salvation from what? Too many messages today are about whats wrong in our lives and that we need a saviour to heal us from ourselves.
Instead of worrying about a Purpose Drivle Life, we need to read a Purpose Driven Bible that teaches us that we haven't made mistakes that God will lovingly make better, but that we all have sinned, and God abhors sin, that sin has seperated us from a God who desperately wants a relationship with us, and unless pardoned, that sin will eternally seperate us from God.
MAYBE YOU WOULDN’T LIKE…
OUR DRESS CODE
Many think our dress code is too strict. Skirts above the knees are not allowed. Men must wear neckties to class and must have short haircuts. Young ladies may not wear shorts or slacks.
OUR OLD-FASHIONED DISCIPLINE
Young ladies are not allowed to go off campus unchaperoned. Young men and young ladies may not date alone in cars. Absolutely no hand holding or other intimacies are allowed between the sexes. There are date nights with bus transportation and adequate chaperones provided by the college. Student insubordination is absolutely forbidden.
OUR INTENSE EVANGELISTIC ATMOSPHERE
All faculty, staff, and students are required to go soul winning weekly. Students participate in the evangelistic ministry of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, which builds its ministry around personal soul winning. An average of over 10,000 new converts were baptized each year for the past several years.
OUR FUNDAMENTALIST EMPHASIS
We are fundamentalists and use the term proudly. We believe in a literal Hell which has fire and brimstone and a literal Heaven with streets of gold. We stand for the King James Bible as the only Bible and the local New Testament church as the only true church. We believe in redemption through the blood of Christ, salvation by grace through faith alone, and the premillennial second coming of Jesus Christ.
OUR SEPARATIST POSITION
Absolutely no drinking, smoking, or dancing is allowed. No student is allowed to attend Hollywood movies, play cards, or participate in other questionable amusements. We do not fellowship with liberals, but instead take a strict separatist stand from the world and apostasy.
OUR EMPHASIS ON CULTURE
We believe in students’ learning and practicing propriety. We oppose the paganistic, barbaric humanism that prevails on many campuses. We believe in refinement, dignity, courtesy, proper manners, and Christian grace.
OUR EMPHASIS ON THE PRACTICAL
We blend the finest of scholarship with the best practical teaching possible. We teach not only what to do but how to do it. Preacher boys are taught how to start churches; how to build buildings; how to borrow money from lending institutions; how to raise money and adopt a budget; and how to organize, operate, and perpetuate a New Testament church.
These guys know how to whoop it up.
It was a two part question. IOW I agree with you. If he can do that on the street or in a mall....
Mountn man.... you stick with your strict approach if that is working for you. This guy is just trying something different and my only point is that since a large number of people don’t respond well to your way, maybe they’ll give this guy a try. There may only be one door, but there are a lot of paths to that door. Maybe if we Christians stopped judging each other so harshly, we wouldn’t repulse so many.
Well, it is obvious "Pastor Dan" is the head of "his" church. It bears no resemblance to Christ's church.
Where did you get that from?
Oh - and by the way - that reads like the handbook for MANY conservative Christian colleges just a few decades back.
And I actually found a very little that I would disagree with on that list...if it were my daughters going to college!
The problem with your view is that we assume that someone going to this church is better off than no church at all. But we don’t really know that unless we know what this “preacher” is teaching. If it is a feel-good, pseudo church that does nothing but entertain for a while on a Sunday morning and call it “church”, then I am afraid that the attendees may not be any better off - and indeed may be WORSE off because they may very well be fed something that is blatantly wrong and actually prevent them from finding the truth.
Satan has a way of making a mockery of God’s institutions for the express purpose of leading people away from knowing the TRUTH in Jesus Christ.
And before I am accused of being closed minded, I would disagree. I believe that we can, in fact, use many way of reaching out to the lost. Sometimes thinking outside the box is effective (I believe that Christ’s method would constitute outside the established box in His time). But to turn worship and teaching into simply entertainment to “get them in the door” is not a good idea.
The “unchurched” are looking for entertainment, not for God. Those people are the ones we have to go to, not “lure them in”.
Getting people into a place where they are comfortable enough to drop their guard so the message of The Gospel can reach their hearts is a higher priority with God than beating them over the head with scripture over their addictions.
It's more important to get the Great Commandment hooked up with the Great Commission and get that all of workin' BEFORE we try to help people deal with some of their non-eternal-life-threateneing issues.
It's a LITTLE more like Jesus to get the fish INTO the boat BEFORE we try to clean them.
Jesus took the same kind of heat from the Pharisees and scribes that you're laying on this guy, and my reply to you is his reply to them, "It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (cf. Lk. 5:31 & 32). And I remind you of Jesus parable concerning the lost sheep from Luke 15 wherein he concluded, "I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."
The unsaved already have enough obstacles to salvation; need we impose more??
There are thousands of unsaved people for whom Jesus is an attractive and intriguing figure about whom they'd really LOVE to get the straight skinny. But these same people just cannot reconcile what they already know about Jesus with this bunch called "Christians". TOO often -- way too often -- we who have the faith are the greatest obstacle to others who're interested in knowing more about Jesus.
I refuse to risk getting to Heaven only to find out that somebody's burnin' in Hell because I objected to their dirty feet on my clean church carpet.
I refuse to risk getting to Heaven only to find somebody's burnin' in Hell because I was all hung up about them bringin' their personal addictions into church.
Billy Graham invited multiplied millions to come to faith accompanied by the hymn "Just As I Am", but millions more have been turned back from the church house doors because of pious people who couldn't deal with folks wanting to come just as they were.
Mahatma Ghandi came to church, as a boy, to find out who this Jesus was that he'd heard about. He was turned out of the church by an usher because of his attire. Just let THAT sink in for a minute or ten. What if...? And all because of an usher who did NOT have foremost in mind the things of God.
St. Paul said he wanted so passionately for his fellow Jews to be saved that he almost wished himself cut off from Christ -- eternally damned.
Who do YOU want to see saved so much that you feel like it'd almost be worth giving up your spot in Heaven?
This same Paul rejoiced because hucksters had latched onto the Gospel message and were going around preaching and passing the plate just to make money. He rejoiced that, whether out of good motive or bad, Christ was being preached.
Obviously his top priority was the Great Commission (go tell), and his zeal for it arose out of his exercise of the Great Commandment (love God), which goes hand-in-glove with the Second-greatest Commandment (love people). Unless we operate with those selfsame priorities, we will find ourselves hurting the very ones to whom we have been sent.
My Jesus laid aside his Heavenly Throne to take on flesh, endure 33 years of life on Earth culminating in the most tortuous, bloody, and horrific death ever. All because he's madly in love with me.
He's madly in love with Dan Smith, too. And he's madly in love with the lost folks that show up to the services there; he doesn't want to lose a single person to the fires of Hell.
And our greatest concern is...their style???
Because of THAT we're supposed to assume that Jesus isn't getting any airtime; that they're just a mob of apostates mocking the faith?
Get real.
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