The Lucifer Effect - chilling and thought provoking
At this point I want to just share that it is a rather chilling book and experiment that took place. It really makes me consider how powerful different situations are that they can influence normally rational and "good" people to act in very evil ways. The systems are very powerful and often unseen or not understood. Rather these systems are seen as the norm and what is expected.
While I do not feel I need to give a book report on this, there are already tomes on that, I do what to share a connection I see with situational pressure and Girard's take on the power of the mob to find a scapegoat.
We live in a world that, I believe, is duped into believing the only way to get "real results" is to do so by way of force. So we bomb enemies. We kill the murders. We cast out the social deviants. We dehumanize those we project as "illegal" immigrants. We blame one person (the president) or one company (BP) when something goes wrong as having sole responsibility for the problem. Indeed we live in a world that has been duped into believing this is how you get "results" and "progress". These systems of victimizing, killing, blaming and casting out are what Girard might call "Satan" and Zimbaro might call it "Lucifer". I believe this to be the case as well.
This powerful Satan/Lucifer system is what allows people (who are created by God and called "Very Good"), to act in ways that are not of God and not "very good". It is this system that allows the Holocaust or the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or the killing of 'witches'. It is what will make people electrocute strangers to the point of death and beyond.
Do not underestimate the power of the situational forces, this Satan/Lucifer effect. Do be quick to think that you are able to overcome it on your own. Do not be quick to that you would not be like the guards at Abu Ghraib or the one who stood up for those accused of being witches. It is vital for all of us to remember that it is easy for us to "know" what we would do - hypothetically. But when it is only when we are "in the middle of" a situation that we actually know our response. And at that point, it may be difficult to see that you might be doing something very wrong.
This is one of the reasons why those of us who identify as Christian practice prayer. It is so that we can connect with those for which the power of Satan/Lucifer have not been able to overcome. It is in the act of prayer that we can begin to see how we might be caught up in a very violent act or participating in an act that is counter to our "Very Good" natures and destroying that which God loves.
A footnote in order to perhaps cut off a potential rabbit trail...
I know there are people out there who disagree that humanity is "very good" at the core. I know that you can cite scripture - as I can - for support. We can debate that topic another day. The point of this post is to invite all of us to consider how we may be duped into believing acts of violence are the "way to get things done". It is also an invitation to consider how we may be too quick to judge those who do "evil" as we truly do not know what we would do in the same situation until we are in that situation.
Grow to the 5th
Recently I have been thinking about a focused mission for the local church I serve at. At the Church I serve there are a number of wonderful ministries which go on but there is also a great lack of communication and focus. It is very good to be so diversified, however that diversity comes at a cost of everyone has their "pet ministry" which is allowed to exist with only a loose connection to the overall mission of the local church. This is not very "connectional" as we say in the UMC and it creates a number of minor to major frustrations. For instance:
We wonder about the low numbers at some ministries which are really great ministries
We wonder how to help people "plug in" and serve
We wonder how to "pitch" the church's mission to our neighbors
We wonder why we are not growing in ways we want to grow
We wonder why there is a lack of communication between groups and people
We end up wondering about a great number of things which I believe could be alleviated if there was a directly focused mission for the local church to use to plug their "pet ministry" into as well as empower people to create new ministries while knowing they are not standing alone.
So in light of some of this as well as conversations with others and an awareness of some of the amazing work done by staff and two committees of AHUMC, I want to share the idea of "grow to the 5th".
This is not an original idea, rather it builds on a number of other things, those stated above as well as the 5 Practices of a fruitful congregation.
The idea is this:
Each person is given a matrix which has the five practices along the top (Radical hospitality, Passionate worship, Risk-taking mission/service, Intentional faith development and Extravagant generosity). The are the column headers. Each column is organized so that all the ministries of the local church are organized to "fit" into one of the columns. From this matrix people are invited to self assess themselves on a scale from 1 (not engaged) to 5 (fruitful) in each area.
So for instance, you might look at the "Passionate Worship" column and see there are things such as:
Sunday worship
Mid-week worship
Special worship (Ash Wednesday, etc.)
Communion server
Worship committee
Choir
Worship band
Bells
Choir ensembles
Liturgical dancer
Liturgical reader
Certified Lay speaker
Share a personal testimony
When you look at this column you might consider how involved you are in worship in light of all the opportunities and give yourself a number from 1-5. You repeat this process for each column until you have all five of your numbers.
After you have your five numbers, your score might look like this
Hospitality - 3
Worship - 1
Faith development - 3
Mission/Service - 2
Generosity - 2
You are then invited to chart yourself so it might look something like this:
At this point you have a visual tool by which you can then work on "growing to the 5th" ring. You can choose which areas you want to focus on for a season in order to grow closer to the 5th in that area. Perhaps you might begin to see that while you might be highly active in the local church your involvement may only be in only one area - leading to an imbalanced spiritual development.
The idea of "growing to the 5th" can also be used to assess the entire local church's ministries. This can even be a tool for churches in the Central Texas Conference to visually see how close they are to becoming a "5 Star Church" (if you do not know what that is, then you ought to ask your Central Texas Conference minister).
"Growing to the 5th" can also be a tool to talk about and assess how we are doing with the 5 membership vows of "prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness". Perhaps you want to "grow to the 5th" in your understanding of the 4 Gospels and the book of Acts. Perhaps you are seeking to better engage 5 spiritual disciples (or any number for that matter) and this would help you be intentional about growing.
Bottom line, "growing to the 5th" is not a silver bullet to cure all the ailments of well intentioned but diluted ministry in a local church. It is however an attempt to focus the efforts of the local church to in order to better increase communication, cross pollination, ability to talk about the "why" of church, and give people goals to work toward (for those of you in the gaming world this functions much like "achievements").
I believe there is a rich mine of ideas in this simple (perhaps plagiarized?) concept. I invite thoughts on this as well as questions so that we might better begin to shape this into a model which may be helpful for others to plagiarize.
We wonder about the low numbers at some ministries which are really great ministries
We wonder how to help people "plug in" and serve
We wonder how to "pitch" the church's mission to our neighbors
We wonder why we are not growing in ways we want to grow
We wonder why there is a lack of communication between groups and people
We end up wondering about a great number of things which I believe could be alleviated if there was a directly focused mission for the local church to use to plug their "pet ministry" into as well as empower people to create new ministries while knowing they are not standing alone.
So in light of some of this as well as conversations with others and an awareness of some of the amazing work done by staff and two committees of AHUMC, I want to share the idea of "grow to the 5th".
This is not an original idea, rather it builds on a number of other things, those stated above as well as the 5 Practices of a fruitful congregation.
The idea is this:
Each person is given a matrix which has the five practices along the top (Radical hospitality, Passionate worship, Risk-taking mission/service, Intentional faith development and Extravagant generosity). The are the column headers. Each column is organized so that all the ministries of the local church are organized to "fit" into one of the columns. From this matrix people are invited to self assess themselves on a scale from 1 (not engaged) to 5 (fruitful) in each area.
So for instance, you might look at the "Passionate Worship" column and see there are things such as:
Sunday worship
Mid-week worship
Special worship (Ash Wednesday, etc.)
Communion server
Worship committee
Choir
Worship band
Bells
Choir ensembles
Liturgical dancer
Liturgical reader
Certified Lay speaker
Share a personal testimony
When you look at this column you might consider how involved you are in worship in light of all the opportunities and give yourself a number from 1-5. You repeat this process for each column until you have all five of your numbers.
After you have your five numbers, your score might look like this
Hospitality - 3
Worship - 1
Faith development - 3
Mission/Service - 2
Generosity - 2
You are then invited to chart yourself so it might look something like this:
At this point you have a visual tool by which you can then work on "growing to the 5th" ring. You can choose which areas you want to focus on for a season in order to grow closer to the 5th in that area. Perhaps you might begin to see that while you might be highly active in the local church your involvement may only be in only one area - leading to an imbalanced spiritual development.
The idea of "growing to the 5th" can also be used to assess the entire local church's ministries. This can even be a tool for churches in the Central Texas Conference to visually see how close they are to becoming a "5 Star Church" (if you do not know what that is, then you ought to ask your Central Texas Conference minister).
"Growing to the 5th" can also be a tool to talk about and assess how we are doing with the 5 membership vows of "prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness". Perhaps you want to "grow to the 5th" in your understanding of the 4 Gospels and the book of Acts. Perhaps you are seeking to better engage 5 spiritual disciples (or any number for that matter) and this would help you be intentional about growing.
Bottom line, "growing to the 5th" is not a silver bullet to cure all the ailments of well intentioned but diluted ministry in a local church. It is however an attempt to focus the efforts of the local church to in order to better increase communication, cross pollination, ability to talk about the "why" of church, and give people goals to work toward (for those of you in the gaming world this functions much like "achievements").
I believe there is a rich mine of ideas in this simple (perhaps plagiarized?) concept. I invite thoughts on this as well as questions so that we might better begin to shape this into a model which may be helpful for others to plagiarize.
My contribution to Movember
In case you are not aware, there is a movement each November in which men across the nation join together to bring back the mustache for at least one month. It is called "Movember". While women may work for a "3-day" walk or a "5k run", men are lazier/smarter and raise money in a much different way - we grow facial hair.
So I grew a 'Mo this year which is longer than my first 'Mo last year (I did not trim it at all this year).
There is an old saying of Buddha which goes something similar to "my teachings are a finger pointing to the moon." It is important to remember to not get hung up on the finger but focus on the moon. And so while you do not care about my lame accomplishment, as you shouldn't, think of this really weak 'Mo as a finger pointing to the moon of men's health.
If you think this 'Mo is weak and kinda creepy, check out Explosion 5000's pics from last Movember.
So I grew a 'Mo this year which is longer than my first 'Mo last year (I did not trim it at all this year).
There is an old saying of Buddha which goes something similar to "my teachings are a finger pointing to the moon." It is important to remember to not get hung up on the finger but focus on the moon. And so while you do not care about my lame accomplishment, as you shouldn't, think of this really weak 'Mo as a finger pointing to the moon of men's health.
If you think this 'Mo is weak and kinda creepy, check out Explosion 5000's pics from last Movember.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.