Give me complexity not complicated

Wikipedia says over 350 million Rubiks cubes have been sold. There are only about 315 million people in the United States. If you are like me and cannot solve the damn thing, or if you are like my bother and can solve the bube in seconds, you cannot deny that the cube is a bit of a hit. 

Regardless of how complex the cube is, it would be harder to solve if there were complicating factors. For instance, what if every time you turned the cube, someone punched you in the gut? Or what if the cube was covered in butter and you had to wear mittens? Even the most skilled rubiks solver would find it impossible to solve the complex puzzle with such complicating factors.

This is all obvious and yet, we church folk are great at making things complicated. 

One time I asked a church member at a previous church to get plates for the kitchen. The person was under the impression that they needed to get permission from some people. And so for weeks the church was without plates because the person responsible for getting the plates was out asking people who he needed to talk with to approve the plate selection. 

What the heck? They are plates. They need to hold food. That is the requirement for plates. Yet this person, with the greatest of intentions was complicating a rather simple task. ​

I could go on and on, but you get the point. ​

The church does not need to dumb down theology or spirituality or membership vows or church committees or anything else. We would best be served by embracing our complexity. ​

The mysteries of creation are already complex enough, we don't need to complicate them.​

Drop the hot sermon and be cool?

I have not read much of Marshal McLuhan but continue to be fascinated when I encounter his thoughts on media. Recently I encountered his idea of 'hot' and 'cool' media. You can read about this in his book or do as we all do and just wikipedia it. 

The gist of this is that hot media is media that is high definition (that is it provides a lot of data). A cool media is low definition (provides less data). So a movie is 'hotter' than a comic strip. The movie provides a lot of data and thus requires less participation from the viewer than the viewer of the comic strip, which generally leaves a lot of room for interpretation because you only see a few frames of the story. 

Here is the kicker, the cooler the media the more participation is required the hotter the media the less participation is required.  

I think this is in part why people generally say the book is better than the movie because there is more participation that is required to interact with the book rather than the movie. 

It is clear that sermons are traditionally a hot media. The delivery of a sermon requires little participation from the hearer. Preachers are even constantly on the look out for the best stories or illustrations to "tie it all together" for the congregation to hedge the bets that the congregation will "get what is being said". Leaving less room for interpretation. 

These days the hot sermon is under attack by the cool sermon. The dialogue sermon the conversational sermon. The sermon that requires a much greater level of participation from the congregation than a typical lecture. Where participation with the media is more the norm than it had been in the past -  for instance we used to just watch television and now we interact with it by voting for our favorite dancer/singer - might it be time for the media of the sermon be innovated? 

Is it worth pursing a cooler sermon style as cooler media becomes more ubiquitous in our time? Could part of the church's problem be that we are still using - through tracts, sermons, teachings, billboards and even the way we design our websites - hot media in a world that is seeking out more cool media? 

Most preacher types think the best sermons are those that people respond to by making a change in their lives. Might I suggest that the best sermons are those in which people participate with in a way that it changes their lives?

If so then perhaps the best sermons just are not that hot and are much cooler.

Church Tanks?

A friend of mine shared with me an artist who makes these "Church Tanks". Below is an image of one of of these interesting sculptures.

​In the spirit of the Mike Meyers character from a Saturday Night Live sketch called Coffee Talk, Linda Richmond: "Discuss".