Learning that listening to a expert in a common place about how listening to an expert in a common place is not good

It is a rather common and popular thing these days in the world of church leaders to critique the way we are doing church.  I do it on this very blog with some predictable constancy.

A common point of critique of the Church is essentially summed up by a number of quips - "The way we are working is not working."  "They like Jesus but not the Church." "We need to rethink Church and be a missional outpost" "We need to be less church focused and more Kingdom focused."  

I could go on, but I think you get the point. 

While on many levels I agree with these sound bytes, the way in which they are shared is often the greatest point of frustration.  

All of the seminars I have been at which talk about "rethinking Church" there is a tendency to talk about how we can no longer expect people to come to church in the ways people came to church in the past.  We cannot just build a building, slap a cross on it, call it a church and expect people will fill the pews each week.  We have to think beyond the walls of the church and be "incarnational" and "missional".  They tell us that we cannot keep doing what we are doing and expect different results.  

The thing is, the way these seminars are set up they look a lot like the expression of church they are critiquing.  

A group of like minded people gathering together to listen to a middle-aged person (generally male) standing on a stage talking about changing behavior in order to generate different results.  

I find it annoying and unimaginative at best, and condescending at the worse. 

If you want people to see Church expressed differently, then you have to show people.  The medium really is the message on this matter.  

What would it look like to have a church seminar that was open source/space?

Shameless plug and self promotion

It is an honor to be asked to speak any where.  Clergy are asked to speak at sacred moments in peoples' lives and for that it is rather humbling.

Clergy are supposed to be communicators at heart and so to be asked to speak is not uncommon in the life of a clergy person.

It is something else to be asked to come and speak to other clergy (or your peers of any profession I would imagine).

Still humbling, but a bit more scary.  Why I am included in this line up I have no idea, but you can be sure I will be the most uncool person speaker.  (Plus I might not be the most 'inked' person either,)

*UPDATE* It has been brought to my attention that I am not the only one who is responsible for this opportunity.  There are a number of excellent, hard working, creative, and articulate people who worked hard on the Fort Worth Dish Out who could just as easily speak but are unable to take off from work to do so. While this update is a bit too late in the "blogosphere", it is never too late to remedy a situation.

Nadia Bolz-Weber. Way cooler than me

Did Gandhi say that?

My friend Adam, passed along to me an article from the NY Times entitled "Falser Words Were Never Spoken."  While I can be mistaken, this article comments on how some quotes of famous people are sometimes not historically stated by the people they are credited to.  


Here is an excerpt towards the end of the article to give you a synopsis:


Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela — it’s easy to see why their words and ideas have been massaged into gauzy slogans. They were inspirational figures, dreamers of beautiful dreams. But what goes missing in the slogans is that they were also sober, steely men. Each of them knew that thoroughgoing change, whether personal or social, involves humility and sacrifice, and that the effort to change oneself or the world always exacts a price.


Gandhi is credited with a variation of the quote "you must be the change you wish to see in the world."  For those of you who do not know, there is no historical evidence that he stated this line.  


Some might be jaded (perhaps like the author of the Times article sounds to be) that since the line was not actually of the source that it is credited to, it looses a great deal of credibility.  


This is also what many have "against" the words of Jesus in the Bible.  We do not know for certain if Jesus actually stated each and every word that is in red in the Bible.  


Likewise with the apostle Paul who is credited for writing letters he did not pen.  


This line is a wonderful example of the difference in reading for truth (historicity) and reading for Truth (Myth).  


If we were reading for truth, then yes, the quote is not true.  It is not from Gandhi.  It is not true.  


If we are reading for Truth, then yes, the quote if True.  It does not matter if Gandhi stated it or not.  We really much be the change if we want the world to change.  


Gandhi might not have said it.  There might not have been an arc built by Noah. There might not have been an Odysseus tied to mast of a ship.  There might not have been a virgin birth of Jesus.  There might not even be a bodily resurrection of Christ.  That does not make the stories/Myths any less True.  


Truth is more than facts.


Facts do not move people to action (no one supports a child in Africa after hearing the life expectancy of children, which is why they do not use them on the commercials late at night).  


Facts do not transform people (if so then global warming would be a non-issue now).


Facts only support our position and the other person's facts are wrong (which is why MSNBC and FOX each have access to their own set of 'facts' on the government).


Facts do not change the world.


You do. 


Just like Gandhi said.