Jobs within the job

A few of the full-time jobs within the call of a senior minister in the UMC (alphabetically): 

• Administrator
• Chaplin 
• Councilor
• Consultant
• Custodian
• Emergency responder 
• Event planner
• Funeral director
• Fundraiser
• Hospitality coordinator
• Middle manager
• Marketer
• Preacher
• Publicist 
• Social worker
• Sociologist
• Spiritual guru
• Teacher
• Wedding coordinator

Medium is the message - Real life

She and I disagree on a number of theological ideas.  She might identify more Calvinist and Modern while I might identify with Arminius and Post-modern.  We differ on our atonement theories and our understandings of most things ranging from, I would suspect, sexual orientation to political engagement.

It is often the case that to encountered someone from the "other tribe" is to find in them an enemy, but the fact of the matter is I have nothing but respect for her.

She is devoted to her local church.  She volunteers when able.  She leads a weekly Bible study in which she is the lead teacher for hundreds of women.  She has devoted her life and time living into her understanding of the Christian life.  I wish that my local Church had more people like her.

Some of my fellow UMC clergy around the conference would find this next statement shocking, but while she and I disagree on a number of political, theological and social issues, I would allow her to teach in a Church I serve.

Why?

The medium, that is to say her life, is a message that is deeply loving and caring and hope-filled.  Her life is a message that is powerful and ought to be shared.

This is where the idea of the medium is the message matters in the Church.

You could have your "theological message" in line with me or even the UMC, but if your life, if you as a the medium for that message, is not Gospel, know that I would take someone who I disagree with in message content but agree with in medium any day.

"Medium is the Message"

There is a great deal of conversation among people about this idea expressed in the phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, "The medium is the message."  

The metaphor that is given is that the content of a message has as much meaning as the stenciling on the case of an atomic bomb.  

This cuts to the core of many preachers who feel that it is really the content of what is being expressed that matters a great deal than the actual medium that is used.  So churches debate the use of the internet to spread the gospel or maybe facebook is an important tool to use.  The conversation is more about the merits of a particular medium (be it print books or ebooks or radio or podcasts etc.)  rather than the actual medium itself.  Put another way, the mediums are often seen as neutral and do not have an agenda.  

McLuhan would argue against this idea.  He would argue that in fact every medium has it's own message regardless of the content it is expressing.  

Here is an example given by Shane Hipps who says that if a fifteen year old boy were to tell you, "God loves you."  That would mean something.  However, it would take on a different meaning if an eighty year old widow who lost a child said, "God loves you."

Another example not from Hipps: I can say forgiveness is what the world needs.  But it is something different when the parents of the victims of the Amish school shooting say, what the world needs is forgiveness.  

If it was the content, if it were the words of the message that was most important than it would not matter who said the words, it should carry the same weight coming from a teenager or a widow.

The medium is the message.  

What sort of medium are you becoming?