Church and the person who tries too hard at the improv show

Recently I attended an improv comedy show here in Fort Worth, 4 Day Weekend with some of the church members of Saginaw UMC. It was a great time. The thing I have learned about going to an improv show or a stand-up comedy club is that if you are picked - don't try to be funny. Let the comedians do the funny stuff, just be yourself and let them play off your responses. 

It is really painful to watch a person try to be funnier than the people who make a living making people laugh. You can see they are trying too hard to be cool or be quick or witty. They are uncomfortable in their own skin that they feel they have to over compensate and be someone they are not. It sometimes seems like people are convinced they are not interesting just as they are and they feel they have to make stuff up to look interesting. And the irony is the more you try to look interesting the less interesting you are - see the Kardashian family.

In all honesty, it is not just in the clubs and improv shows that people try too hard to be interesting in order to draw attention. It happens all the time in our churches. And not just in the church sign fails that float around that force many of us to slap our heads in disbelief. 

The Church is really doing a disservice to the entire cloud of witness when we try too hard to be cool or funny. 

People want authenticity. People want real. People want honesty. People can see when we are trying too hard and it makes everyone uncomfortable and want to slap our heads in disbelief.

The story of God is interesting enough. We don't have to try to be something we are not just to get attention or try to keep up with all the other messages out there. Just be yourself.

You are interesting enough.  

Is what we laugh at part of our problem?

While out with some people one person in my party said the difference in American humor and British humor is that American's like to laugh at others, Brits like to laugh at themselves. 

We shared in a laugh a bit and we both knew that generalized statements like this are rarely accurate, and this is probably not an acceptation. But it did make me think: 

Am I more apt to laugh at you or laugh at myself? 

Digging wells in a bottled water world?

Like buildings, even the artifacts around us shape us. We hear and read about how are brains are being changed by the internet and the technological devices all around us. The internet and smart phones are easy targets to express how we are affected by these cultural artifacts, but there is one little cultural artifact that has changed us perhaps more than we aware. 

The water bottle. 

The water bottle gives us the impression that water is easy to come by. Walk into any gas station and there are cases of bottled water. I can buy a gross of bottles at a membership store and I can even buy water bottles in vending machines. With all this water everywhere, it is amazing that upwards of 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated (cue the irony music).

The impact of the water bottle mentality has leaked into other aspects of our culture. We live in a time where there is little patience for the things that take time. Heck, we even have shorter attention spans than a goldfish. 

Over time we become accustom to get things quickly and those things that take time are dismissed for quicker solutions. There are water bottles all around us and we are always on the look out for the next water bottle device to come along. 

The Church is in the well digging business. The Church is charged to teach the ways of contemplation and meditation and prayer and patience and discipline and reflection and silence and solitude. These disciplines take time to develop and even take time to practice, which may be whey many of us are not interested in them. My concern is not so much that we may not be interested in them, but that we do not see the value of taking time to dig wells when there are so many water bottles around. 

For all the Church is, it is a well digging movement and institution. We dig for the Living Water of Life. The Water that quenches thirst and we never grow thirsty again. We know this is difficult labor and hard work, and we are not sure if the well we dig will reach the Water. We only trust that we are getting closer by digging deeper. 

Too often I feel like I am six feet under digging for water while my people stand on the surface drinking from bottled water wondering what the heck I am doing digging a well. I want to be a Church that picks up a shovel and digs.