C. Michael Patton of the Parchment and Pen blog has some good words about Eight Issues That Do Not Make or Break Christianity. Patton comes from a theological perspective that has been associated with hyper-fundamentalism, but Patton shows himself to be both theologically conservative while also resisting being reactionary.
Preserving and reforming a church movement
Christianity Today has an interesting interview with Brian Boderson, the successor of Chuck Smith, about how he is trying to preserve the core values of the Calvary Chapel movement while reforming it in ways necessary to keep it viable, relevant, and effective.
Preachers in dialog with culture
Karl Barth supposedly once said that every sermon should be written with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. His point was, if in fact he said it, that preaching should help the hearer to be in dialog with scripture, one's self, and the culture in which one lives. Barth would, I suspect, be scandalized by how many Christian leaders who think they need to nip and tuck at scripture to make it more relevant to contemporary society. Scripture IS relevant to culture. However ancient the text may be, its commentary and critique of humanity in all its glory and all its foibles is evergreen. Fashions may change with the times but people don't. We moderns (or Postmoderns, if you like) struggle with the same problems, confront the same challenges, have the same needs and hopes and dreams as did those in the Bible's original audience. Worthy preachers would do well to demonstrate that truth to their congregations, regularly.
Owen Strachan has some thoughts on the subject, and has written an interesting blog post on the three reasons he thinks preachers should preach about the "public square." They are:
- The church body needs wisdom to live in a fallen world.
- The secular culture needs to hear from the true culture.
- Believers have historically been change agents because of strong pulpits.
Strachan's prose is clear and cogent. The whole article is worth taking the time to read and consider.
Your personalized bible
So some talented and creative people have designed an online bible that will insert one's name more than 7000 times into scripture. Using the Personalized Bible online tool, Psalm 23:1, "the Lord is my shepherd...", would instead read,
The Lord is Phil’s shepherd; Phil shall lack nothing. He makes Phil lie down in green pastures. He leads Phil beside the still waters. He restores Phil’s soul.
Anthony Starke as "Jimmy"
Set aside for the moment that this makes the Bible read like it was written by the Seinfeld writers for "The Jimmy", the episode where one character strangely and amusingly always refers to himself in the third person. The contemporary church in America is infected by consumerism and individualism. On this few Christian thinkers would disagree. In light, therefore, of the spiritual ills that afflict us, the "Personalized Bible" is at best of questionable benefit and more likely but one more poorly-conceived idea that will serve mostly to distract an already distracted community of believers from focusing on God, his redemptive plan for his creation, and his people's role as participants in the divine mission. The Personalized Bible makes the Bible all, or mostly, about "me." That's the last thing the contemporary church needs.
“God works supernaturally in very natural ways.”
A positive view of networking
I confess: I loathe networking, at least in the sense it is commonly understood. I don't like investing in relationships solely for their potential to provide me with value, boost my financial prospects, or advance my career ambitions.
On the other hand, it's naive and ultimately prideful to think one achieves personal or professional success without the contribution of others. Gwen Moran, in her article Master Networkers Reveal The Only Five People You Really Need In Your Network, observes that "We all achieve success through our own skill and hard work, but also through a network of people who teach, hire, refer, and otherwise help us along the way."
I may not like "networking" for its connotations of building relationships with others simply for what they can potentially do for me in the future, but I am a big believer in being intentional and choosy about relationships.
People are important. When choosing with whom I want to regularly spend my discretionary time, I try to be intentional about those relationships. I want to spend my time with people who add value to my own life, who challenge me to be at my best as a person, who are interesting, creative, or inspiring, and to whose lives I want to give my best in helping them achieve their personal aspirations as well. I've learned that toxic people are draining, so I try to limit my time with such people and keep firm, healthy boundaries on those relationships. I want to spend the majority of my energies in building relationships that are mutually rewarding.
To that end, Moran's article offers wise advice about the qualities one should look for when choosing intentional relationships:
- Values: Do we share the same values, ethics, character?
- Diversity: Do we travel in different circles, have different experiences, can offer different perspectives to one another?
- Achievement: Do the people with whom I am investing time call me to be my best self, to raise the bar of my personal expectations?
- Helpfulness: Are these people who I am willing to help, and who are willing to invest time helping me?
- Respect: Do we mutually respect one another?
(An interesting book length resource on the vital importance of intentional relationships can be found in Leonard Sweet's 11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without.)
On intuition... and acting on it
Stephanie Vozza has a fascinating post at FastCompany about intuition. Drawing on the word of William Duggan, author of Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement, she identifies three levels of intuition and their sources:
- Basic
- Expert
- Strategic
Basic tuition is that feeling one gets, a gut instinct to do or not do something. Expert intuition arises from experience. In certain situations one just knows what needs to be done because one has been in similar situations before and knows what works, and what doesn't.
I was most intrigued by Vozza's explanation of strategic intuition. She writes:
Strategic intuition is different than the first two because it happens when thoughts in your brain come together to provide a solution to a problem you’ve been considering for some time.
What I found interesting about strategic intuition is that it is ephemeral. "It’s important to capture these thoughts because the brain is so efficient at wiping them away." Quoting Duggan's work, Vozza writes, "If you don’t catch it right away, you may lose it.”“If you don’t catch it right away, you may lose it.” This is certainly true in my experience. I've had many a good insight or intuitive flash of a solution to a problem, only to forget it quickly when I didn't record it somewhere easily retrievable for later reflection.
Vozza's article also offers a list of helpful questions one can ask one's self when determining whether or not to trust one's intuition:
- "Do I feel good around this person or choice?"
- "Does this person or situation give me or take my energy?"
- "Do I feel empowered or disempowered?"
- "Am I going toward an adventure or running from fear?"
- "Am I listening to my lessons learned from the past?"
- "Would I make the same choice if I had a million dollars in my pocket now?"
- "Do I feel respected and valued?"
- "Am I trying to control the situation or am I leaving room for expansion?"
I think I'd add one more to the list: "Does the proposed action align or conflict with my core values, with my best self?"
Church & bad metaphors
Dr. A.J. Swoboda has a well-written article at Christianity Today in which he argues the Church is not a hospital. "Our metaphors for church," writes Swoboda, "serve not only as descriptions of the church but blueprints for the way we understand and live in the church. That is, that our metaphors have actually shaped the way we imagine the church."
This is an important insight. Metaphors are far more important than many realize. Metaphors don't just help understanding, they shape it. Once a metaphor is embraced we begin to see everything through the lens of the metaphor. When a community of faith adopts a dominant metaphor for "church", that metaphor begins to shape, direct, and limit, the actions and priorities of that body of believers. Those things which support the metaphor will be embraced, and those which do not support the metaphor will be eliminated from consideration.
Swoboda quickly drills in on a metaphor with which he has substantial disagreement. He has concerns about the metaphor of church as hospital, noting it is a metaphor found nowhere in the Bible. He writes,
mira66 via Flickr's Creative Commons
Seeing the church as hospital subtly implies that the church has value until you are better. Then, once you're better, matured, healthy, evolved, no longer in need of its services, whatever it may be, you no longer need to go. When we honestly examine the church in the 21st century, isn't this precisely the way in which our general body of Christians think about and imagine our relationship to God's church?
Here's the question that nagged at me while reading Swoboda's piece. I've never actually heard a church leader use "hospital" as a metaphor for the church. Is this a common occurrence in churches that I've somehow missed all these years?
Len Sweet on life
““If you know your mission in life, then what other people have and do and say about you does not matter. But if you have no mission, or don’t know your mission, then what other people have and do and say about you matters a great deal.””
