Functional Fixedness and the Church

Quick! 

In 30 seconds, how many ways can a brick be used?

GO!

If you are like me when I first took this little test, you came up with a good number of things, but they are all basically two or three categories 1) some sort of weight 2) some sort of structural use 3) some sort of weapon.

When you examine this question however you can begin to see that we self limit our responses. For instance this question says nothing about the size of the brick or what it is made of? What if the brick was ground up or 1,000 feet tall? What if it was a brick of gold, Legos, or soap?

Functional Fixedness is the reason people are not good at coming up with new uses for an old thing and it is the reason that you and I come up with the same - predictable? - list of uses for a brick. 

So you may be able to see where this post is going.

Quick! 

In 30 seconds, how many ways can the Church be used?

Fort Worth Dish Out

A little project I have had the honor of working on is the Fort Worth Dish Out.  Which is not a huge thing in the world of micro-finance and micro-granting, but it is a huge thing in my little world.  

If you were not there, we had 162 people in attendance on a Sunday evening who each gave at least $20 to break bread, meet new people, share ideas, and participated by voting to support different mission/service projects/ministries in the Fort Worth community.  

People were there for 2 hours.  Which by most accounts, is 100% longer than most worship services.  

And not a single person said to me, "hey, this thing ran long".  

Not one.  In fact, the opposite was true.  People asked when could we do it again and even offered up their time and resources to help the FwDo in the future.  It really was remarkable.  

But more than that.  It was Church.  

Too often we think of Church as what we do in worship.  And while worship is important to Church, worship is just one expression of Church.

And the worship expression has become the dominate, and seemingly only acceptable expression, of Church.  

Recently I was asked by a respected clergy friend if there was any fall out from church members or from my bishop about putting on an expression of Church that had wine.  (The UMC has a stance that does not jibe with alcohol consumption.)


Frankly, while I respect my bishop and will do as I am asked to do I would have to respectfully disagree with him if he decided to take issue with the FwDo.  However, based upon a recent blog post he wrote, I do not think that will be a problem.  


Here is the last paragraph of the linked post which I think expresses an incarnational theology beautifully (emphasis added):


"Wesley took the commanding mission (and commission!) to spread the gospel through making disciples way beyond radical hospitality.  He went where the people were out of love of Christ and love of those who have no relationship with the living God as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.  What is the equivalent of the New Room and field preaching for us this day?  I believe the same living Lord who called Wesley and early Methodists calls us today."


It seems to me that the UMC has at least one bishop who understands mission and service to a world in need and might be willing to support some ministries that move the Church into other expressions of Church that are not just worship.  


I am thankful that there were many people at the FwDo who also caught a glimpse of what Church can look like in addition to Sunday morning worship.  


Let us hope that vision does not fade in time.

Free and Cheap

A couple of weeks ago my senior minister made a comment in her sermon about grace being free but not cheap. For those theology students out there, you may recall this is not a new idea and was popularized by Bonhoeffer.

It got me thinking some about the difference in free and cheap, which I open to the larger wiser community.

This is where I have been musing...

Cheap things are cheap on both sides of the relationship.  Things are cheap to make and thus become cheap to sell.  Something that is "cheaply made" is "cheaply sold" and has little value to both the producer and the consumer.  Cheap costs little for both parties.

Free things, however, cost a great deal to the provider and cost nothing to the recipient.  For instance, hospitality is free.  It costs a great deal for those who are providing the meal, the place, the entertainment, the conversation, the drink and on and on.  But it is free for those who receive this hospitality.  Make no mistake, hospitality is not cheap - but it is free.

Likewise, in the church we are called to share all things free.

But make no mistake free is not cheap.

Perhaps this is why the Church is in decline?  We have made what is free cheap and thus it costs little to everyone involved.

How can we as a Church reclaim the idea of a free that costs and discard the idea of cheap?

Building vs. Nomatic

I have been struggling with the idea of a church having a building because buildings often result in the Church looking inward to maintain the building at least as much as they look outward to help usher in the KoG.

This is part of the "Church as a verb" sort of thinking, where Church is something you do (verb)and not some place you go (noun). If Church were a verb then there would not be a building but if Church is a noun than a building is essential.

Jesus was on the move a lot and so was the early church. They did not build buildings to my knowledge but met in each others homes and businesses for worship and fellowship. This is part of my own hesitation with a Church building, we may be missing some of the message of Jesus in building a structure. And then I heard something on the radio...

Buildings make a statement - "We are going to make a commitment to this community." The building is symbolic of the nature of the mission of the building. So perhaps a building is not too bad at all? But then I got to thinking, "couldn't actions make the same statement?"

Couldn't being a verb church say the same things as a building would suggest (commitment to the community, care for community, provide and serve community, etc.)?

So for a second I was back on board with a church building, then I wondered...

I still am on the fence.