ben's blog

There's nothing wrong with that

I was watching TV last night, and normally I don't pay much attention to the commercials, but this one floored me...

"We are a nation of consumers.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
The trouble is, there's so much cool stuff, it's easy to get a little carried away.
But what if more credit card companies were like Discover Card?
What if they actually helped us spend smarter..." (video here)

I stopped listening at this point. I could not believe the audacity of the first two sentences. We are a nation of consumers. And there's nothing wrong with that. The real problem, you see, is being a stupid consumer. If you are a smart consumer, then everything is okay. Go ahead and consume, derive all your identity and significance from it, just don't binge, okay?

Which is basically like saying, "We daily consume poisons that threaten to destroy us, and there's nothing wrong with that. The trouble is, the poison tastes so good, sometimes it's easy to ingest too much... but what if more poison brokers were like Discover? Helping us consume poison more intelligently..."

The real problem is that poison shouldn't be consumed. But that option just isn't on the table, so we just tell ourselves there's nothing wrong with it.

I have been amazed at how many ways consumerism has edged its way into my life without me noticing. It's the sea we swim in; it feels natural and normal. It's akin to a spiritual experience; we feel fulfilled and significant when purchasing a new something-or-other. We're "in the club" if we own a thing-a-ma-jig. We even find ways to baptize it, dress it up in religious verbiage, and think we're practicing Christian faith by buying stuff.

It warrants a lot more theological discussion and thought, but I have a hunch that consumerism is the major religion of the Western world (and increasingly, the entire planet), the primary idolatry that we all struggle against, and the most dangerous enemy of the gospel the church is facing today. We need to start taking it seriously, thinking through the implications, discerning how we are to live together in this mileau.

What's wrong with Christian radio

There's a post up at a blog called Out of Ur that almost completely encapsulates what I think is wrong with Christian radio, and why I never listen to it. Most Christian radio presents Christianity as sappy sentimentality, and in a world where things very often are difficult, the relentless barrage of "uplifting" music and trite, sugary, "encouraging" commentary rings hollow. I recommend you read it, and tell me what you think.

My favorite paragraph:

"After all, salvation and spiritual growth are not commodities that can be produced, marketed, promoted, and perfected for mass satisfaction. Jesus is not a hamburger, a snappy set of sandals, or an iPhone. Discipleship is a committed relationship with Jesus that gradually forms us into the likeness of our Creator. We must take care in how we present the gospel, lest Christ come off as a product we consume instead of the Lord we obey. While more people may buy into a Jesus who makes us happy, we are called to preach a Jesus who makes us holy."

It's only a video game, right?

There's a really interesting article I read today that brings up the question of Christians playing violent video games, which is especially poignant now as Grand Theft Auto IV has been released to critical acclaim. This game is being played by millions of people, and undoubtedly many of them are Christians. Some might say, "It's no big deal. It's not real, it's only a video game." But,

We evangelicals are pretty sure we can commit adultery in our hearts, and we seem to agree that viewing pornography makes us guilty of that heart kind of adultery. If viewing pornography (which isn’t a real affair, after all) makes us adulterers, then doesn’t killing someone in a video game (which isn’t a real crime, after all) make us murderers?

It's a good point, and there's an interesting discussion brewing. What do you think? Is Jesus' teaching on murder in the heart applicable here, or is this no big deal?

How NOT to have a paradigm shift

Here's a list of "paradigm stabilizier" - what to do to make sure you never have those pesky "paradigm shifts" where everything you thought you knew about the world gets turned upside down... (from the summer 2007 issue of geez magazine)

1. Keep busy.

2. Keep moving: travel as much as possible, and when you do, find familiar restaurants.

3. Find the most efficient route to work, to school. Then don’t stray from your patterns.

4. Mingle with like-minded people; avoid cross-cultural, inter-racial, trans-class encounters.

5. Make smart financial decisions; consider market forces natural.

6. Don’t do anything foolish; avoid awkward situations; avoid danger. Get various alarm systems.

7. Avoid people who talk to themselves.

8. Think nasty thoughts about SUV drivers.

9. Watch TV, movies; migrate to four-cornered screens of any kind.

10. Like the average North American, spend 90 percent of your time indoors.

Paradigm shifts can be painful, don't let them happen to you!

(ht)

Yes, consumerism is a big problem

Via Alan Hirsch's blog, I just watched a video about the story of stuff. Seeing the big picture can be a harrowing experience.

Ever wonder how we got to be such a consumeristic society? Looks like it was planned. This quote is from an economist who helped shape the philosophy for North American business after WWII:

Not only is consumerism a problem, it's a false religion! Lord, have mercy, and teach us how to live faithfully.

Sleep deprivation in tweens and teenagers

Check out this article on the effects of sleep deprivation on kids. Apparently kids are getting one less hour of sleep than they used to, and it's having an adverse effect on their cognitive abilities and emotional stability.

"It’s even possible that many of the hallmark characteristics of being a tweener and teen—moodiness, depression, and even binge eating—are actually symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation."

(ht: Marko)

10 signs Christendom may be over

This is pretty funny, and enlightening. Church-planting assumptions are being turned on their heads. My favorites (signs that Christendom may be over in your neck of the woods):

#4 - You invite your neighbors to the new video simulcast church plant down the street .. and they ask you why they just can't stay at home and watch it on cable.

#7 - People mistake your Jesus tattoo for Che Guevara and ask why you prefer Marxism to postmodernity. You end up inviting people over for a coffee and talking about Jesus as an alternative politics.

#9 - No one says any more before the offering: "if you're visiting please do not feel obligated to contribute." Now it's "if you're visiting, this is what it means to be a Christian: we're in this together and your money is not your own."

Spongebob = Zach Braff on Scrubs?

I'd never seen an episode of Spongebob Squarepants until today, when my son was watching it. When I heard Spongbob's voice, I immediately thought of Zack Braff's character on Scrubs, J.D. Dorian.

The similarities are very uncanny. Has anyone else ever noticed this? I found it unsettling, almost like Zach based his Scrubs character on Spongebob (or the other way around?).

Down with Comic Sans!

Kester at Complex Christ|Signs of Emergence has an interesting post about fonts and churches and typography and branding.

He talks about whether churches should think about the fonts they use, the design of their publications, etc:

So should churches worry about branding / style / design / typography? I think they should. But not to allow themselves to compete in visual style terms with the big corporatations, not to 'market' themselves well. But because they have a hugely important message. One that deserves better than cheeky Comic Sans publications that try to tell everyone how nice and friendly we are, but send me into palpitations.

This is where I come down with the question of "church marketing". No we shouldn't be out there elbowing our way into people's consciousness, competing with other churches for "clients."

But if the medium is the message, and we have the most important message out there, we should definitely be presenting it in a pleasing way. Which is why all churches ought to ban Comic Sans from their font libraries. Actually, do me a favor: go to your font library right now and delete it. The world will be better off.

In all seriousness, though, how often does the message get lost because of the sloppiness or gaudiness of the presentation?

The cult of choice

People today have more choices than ever. The reason, I suppose, is that we assume that more choices = more freedom, and more freedom = more happiness.

So we have 175 salad dressings available in the grocery store, and innumerable spaghetti sauce options, and cell phones that do all kinds of un-phonelike things. Options are everywhere (if you're affluent, anyway, and if you're reading this, you probably are; it's good for us to remember that 1 billion people in this world live on less than $1 a day - they don't have the same problem of choice that we do).

We see this proliferation of choice not only because we think it will make us happier, but because we are attempting to construct our identities nowadays by what we buy. I am what a choose - therefore I am what I buy. No longer are our identities furnished by our nationalities or familial connections - we construct our identities every day out of the raw materials of what's available on the market. We pimp our Myspace pages and try to project an image of originality by our choices. Inventing yourself every day is a stressful project.

The trouble is that none of it is working. We aren't happier. We're actually getting more depressed - Barry Schwartz says that part of the reason is that whenever we choose something, we are rejecting all kinds of possibilities, and that tends to make us crazy. If I choose a salad dressing, I am thereby rejecting 174 salad dressings, and what if this isn't the best-tasting one? The horror! And the identities we create through our purchasing choices aren't authentic - in the end they always come off as plastic and fleeting.

This gets reflected in our churches as well. We choose a church based on how much it "offers" us. We leave churches if we're not "getting a lot out of it." So we trot off to the next flavor, hoping to quench the gnawing boredom we feel. Marva Dawn says that oftentimes when we aren't "getting" anything out of church, it's because we haven't really thought about putting anything into it. We treat it like a product to be consumed instead of a community to live and love and serve within. And church leaders have often inadvertently conspired with this trend, trying to "one-up" the church down the block with better graphics, better children's ministry, better restrooms, a better "product" to attract consumers. But the of course we're stuck in a cycle of always needing to out-do ourselves, to keep the masses entertained. It's a downward spiral, because church was never meant to be entertainment, a product. It's a community, a family, and it requires real investment on the part of its members.

The increasingly world-wide homogeneous consumer culture says you can find happiness and identity through choice. But it's a lie. All we have to show for our efforts are fleeting, fake identities and temporary distractions from our boredom and hunger.

Ultimately we humans are desiring something more substantial: real Joy instead of infinite choice, authentic identity instead of "Who Do I Want To Be Today?" Both are found in the gospel. Read Matthew 6:25-34 and Philippians 4:4-8 to find out how to find real happiness. And Romans 8 will give us a good clue as to what our true identity is.

Choice vs. Happiness

I listened to two fascinating talks over the past two days, both from the TED conference's podcast, TEDTalks, both on the psychology of happiness.

Dan Gilbert's talk (listen to it if you have 21 minutes to fill) was about the brain's role in human happiness. He argued very convincingly that happiness is more a construct of the brain than a natural result of circumstances, and that our "experience simulators" are very often wrong as to what things we think will bring us happiness. For example, one would think that winning the lottery would make one happier than becoming a paraplegic, but research shows that one year after these events, paraplegics and lottery winners are equally as happy (really!). We think happiness has to do with getting what we want, but according to the research, it has very little to do with it. In fact, those that get what they want are often less happy than those who don't, or those who don't have a choice about what they get.

Listen to the talk for more great examples from the research, but it made me think about Jesus saying to people: " For whoever wants to save his life  will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it". If we're honest, we probably think that's crazy-talk, but here comes prodigal son science, telling us the same thing: getting what we want actually isn't all that important, and doesn't make us all that happy. In fact, we might find if we gave up our quest to get what we want, we might be much happier. If we lose our lives, maybe we'd find them.

The other talk, by Barry Schwartz (listen to it if you have 13 minutes to fill), deals with the fact he's discovered that the explosion of choice we've seen in affluent Western society (175 salad dressing options in most grocery stores, for example) is actually leading to less happiness. He actually attributes much of the modern rise in depression to the smorgasbord of options available to everyone now (well, available to affluent people in Western societies).

He actually argues that a redistribution of wealth would benefit everyone because of this "too many options makes me less satisfied" phenomenon. Those without the means to choose things (the billion people who live on less than $1 a day, for example) would greatly benefit from having more resource with which to choose. They could choose clean water instead of cholera-infested water, for example. And actually, because we have way too many options, giving a few of our options to those who don't have any would benefit us as well! I really like his reasoning.

We think that if having some choice is good, then having more choice is even better. But apparently it doesn't work that way. If we realized this, I think redistribution of wealth wouldn't feel like such a hard pill to swallow. Of course, there are groups that have been advocating simplicity for a long time (the Quakers, for example). But again, here we have science confirming it (the prodigal son comes home?).

Good TV = oxymoron?

I don't think "Good TV" is an oxymoron, even though there certainly are some moronic things on TV. There is also some quality on TV, even if you have to look awhile to find it.

Paste Magazine ran an article in their latest issue on 24 of the best shows on TV right now. My friend Andy put up a post last week talking about the start of MI:5, a British show he enjoys.

Deb and I don't catch much TV live, but we tend to buy DVDs of the shows we like. Our old faves were Alias, 24, and Arrested Development (which was cancelled after a short third season, which is unfortunate because it was the funniest show on TV). Our new favorite is Battlestar Galactica. Those of you who've never seen it may be tempted to laugh, because the original show from 1960s was pretty cheesy. But the new incarnation is surprisingly well-written and engaging. It's fantastic TV. On the website they're airing "webisodes" that cover some time between the end of season 2 and the start of season3 (which airs October 6). If you don't want to go out and rent seasons 1 and 2, you can get caught up on the story so far by watching this video.

Moral marketing

Seth Godin has a post up called Marketing Morality that deals very well with the ethical questions surrounding marketing.

It hits the nail on the head in terms of what marketing is, why it isn't inherently evil, as some assume (especially when it comes to "church marketing"), and when marketing actually does become morally ambiguous. It's a killer article, and one that church leaders should read.

Bonus link: Church Marketing Sucks. Here's another guy who's extremely thoughtful about "church marketing" and how it can be done in an un-evil way. Hint: it's not marketing that's bad, it's bad marketing that's bad.

Sleep is the new productivity drug

I say it to my kids, but it appears I should perhaps say it to myself more often: "What you need is a good nap, mister."

When I spent two months in Venezuela a few years ago, entire cities would shut down just after lunch for siesta. Shops weren't open, nobody out on the streets. Everyone was in their houses napping or watching TV, it seemed. I am used to Taco Bell being open all the time, until 4am, and I couldn't buy an empanada during siesta. Highly frustrating for an American who's used to everything being available all the time.

But maybe they're on to something with this siesta stuff. I'm sure many of you have had the same kind of experience as me: mornings are generally great times of creativity and productivity, but right after lunch there's this wave that comes in, making me instantly stupid. Caffeine boosts me for a bit, but the afternoon is always more disappointing than the morning. But maybe a 10-20 minute power nap would have the effect of giving me two mornings! Oddly enough, more and more scientists are touting the wonderfully restorative and rejuvenating effects of a short nap in the early afternoon.

Looking through history, too, a lot of luminaries that were incredibly prolific and creative were nappers. Winston Churchill took a nap pretty much every day, Thomas Edison was a napper. Brahams napped at the piano, and da Vinci took frequent naps. Albert Einstein claimed naps helped make him more creative and praised the positive effect sleep had on his mind. Maybe these guys were on to something.

My friend Andy has just started a series of posts on time management and rest. He says a person at rest is a person who's comfortable in their own skin, and ultimately a person who is more fruitful that one who who is hurried and random. It's a well-known fact around here that he gets plenty of sleep and most of his best ideas come while he's relaxing in the bath! And you thought he worked hard to get his stuff...

I think I may try this, which will be cool because now I can add Napping to my list of spiritual disciplines, which includes Coffee-drinking, Playing In The Dirt, Laughing At Ethan's Fart Jokes, and Going To Bed At A Decent Hour.

So if you're stuck on a problem at work, or your creativity has been sapped, put away the computer, turn off the cell phone, and definitely shut down that iPod, and take a nap. You might be surprised by what happens. In case you need further convincing, and for those who like bullet-points and numbered lists, I have prepared Four Reasons To Go Take A Nap:

1. Because you don't get enough sleep anyway. Statistics show (I'm pretty sure) more and more people are sleeping less in an effort to get more done. Stop it. Go to bed.
2. Creativity thrives on rest and play. There really is something to "sleeping on it". I've had numerous "aha!" moments while taking a shower (the trick is trying to write the idea down while dripping water all over the paper). If you need a creative solution to a problem, oftentimes you just need to take a nap, or play a video game, or smell the flowers for awhile. You'll get better results in the long run.
3. Taking a siesta right after lunch kind of gives you two mornings. And mornings are way cooler for thinking up new things, brain-storming and the like, at least in my experience. Instead of dreading that mid-afternoon zombie takeover, try a power nap (no more than 20 minutes or you'll feel groggy) right after lunch. Two mornings in one day! Awesome!
4. Taking a midday nap is a mini-Sabbath. When you think about it, there's no more vulnerable activity we engage in. When you're sleeping, you are completely defenseless. You are also "getting nothing done", which drives some of us crazy, which is why we need to practice Sabbath. Taking a nap is like a mini-Sabbath, then. It's a time when we remind ourselves that we are loved because we exist, not because we produce or create things. It's a reminder that the world does just fine without your constant management, that your worth is not determined by your productivity, that you can trust God to handle things while you're asleep, and sometimes you actually get more done by "doing" less.

Hooray for naps!

How not to do a church sign

I pass by several church signs on my daily drive to and from work. Generally 90% of them are either boring or absolutely awful. So after perusing crummychurchsigns.com (hilarious website that records the exploits of horrible church signs all over the world), I put together a few things to think about before putting that pithy phrase up on your church sign. (Most of the pictures below were created using churchsigngenerator.com, but reflect actual church signs spotted across the US, mostly in Tennessee and Texas, for some reason). Here are some guidelines for creating good church signs, by way of examples of bad church signs:

1. Spelling and grammar are way more important than you think. Mistakes of the spelling and grammar nature make you look completely inept, even if you're a genius. So for example:
   

   
   This sign would have been greatly helped by some punctuation.

2. If you use insider language, the only people who will understand your sign will be insiders.
   

   
   (actual church sign)
   Average person's internal monologue: "Is this a zoo? What are they doing with a lion? I have a friend named Judah, but he doesn't have a lion. And 'a predator of poverty and illness' could either mean he preys on those things or he just is characterized by them. I think I'll stop by Sunday and find out... not."
   

3. Being cute or coy on a church sign doesn't generally do any good whatsoever. Think about it: if your church sign says (and I've seen this one way too much):
   

   
   ... what are the chances here that some passer-by is going to read this and think: "U R!! I get it! YOU ARE! I am! These folks are so clever, I owe them my attendance. In fact, I'm going to become a Christian because those guys were so clever." Not gonna happen.

4. Taking an adversarial tone with the people who see your sign is not a good way to get them to come to church or become Christians.
   

   
   "Why yes, yes I am reprobate! I'll come on Sunday and announce it to the whole congregation."

   

   Hey let's visit that church on Sunday! Forced conversion sounds fun!
   
   

   
   (reads: "Without Christ life is all fun and games until you die and go to hell.")
   Why not just throw rotten tomatoes at cars that pass by? That'll have the same affect.
   

5. Check your theology. Please. Don't spout Dr. Philisms on your church sign, just because they sound wise.
   

   

   You don't actually need Jesus. Just a good laugh. David Brent would agree.


6. Finally, make some sense. Nothing is worse than a church sign that must be viewed several times before any sense can be made of it. One great example from crummychurchsigns.com was a church sign that read, "Heart Vision Sacrifice: Ten Versus Two". What does that even mean? Or this one:
   

   
   Are there people around who really think it does? Will this sign surprise anyone? Are the people who are staying in bed and shouting Oh God going to be surprised that they aren't in fact attending a church service?

A church sign is not a stick to beat people with, nor is it a stage on which you should demonstrate your clever wit and hilarious plays on words (tongue planted firmly in cheek there). Perhaps church signs would be better utilized to bring some kind of real benefit and blessing to those reading it. That would be refreshing.

Why there are no normal Christians on TV

Why are there no normal Christians on TV, generally speaking? Why is it that thoughtful people are quoted so much less frequently than opinionated people in the media? This passage from Freakonomics has some clues:

"...an expert doesn't so much argue the various sides of an issue as plant his flag firmly on one side. That's because an expert whose argument reeks of restraint or nuance often doesn't get much attention. An expert must be bold if he hopes to alchemize his homespun theory into conventional wisdom."

So, unfortunately, we hear more from loud, opinionated people than we do from thoughtful people. As a result we often get really bad information about things. This is why there are no normal Christians on TV. Normal people, thoughtful people just aren't as interesting as people who will eat bugs or swear at each other on national television. No one wants to watch a normal Christian talk about issues of biblical interpretation, but if Pat Robertson says he can leg-press 2,000 pounds or calls for the assassination of a head of state... well, people will tune in for that! That's entertainment!

It's unfortunately true that in our sound-byte world, the shrill voices of partisanism out-sell the voices of reason. Remember when Jon Stewart tried to talk some sense into the Crossfire guys? The problem is that the Crossfire guys know that they're not encouraging real debate and discussion, they're just making money by calling each other names. The high school hallway fight always gathers a crowd, no matter how senseless it is.

Church 2.0: Emergence / chaos theory

I'm continuing my Church 2.0 posts (Web 2.0 thinking applied to church leadership) today by talking about the concepts of emergence, chaos, and nonlinearity.

The title of this post is likely confusing for some. I intend to talk about emergence and chaos as phenomena, and relate those phenomena to the Church 2.0 series. As such, it doesn't have any direct link to the Emerging Church Movement (if I capitalize it, am I making it into a denomination?). Incidentally I think Emerging Church is a great name, because of what emergence means. But this post is about emergence and chaos, not the Emerging Church Movement proper. Capiche?

Emergence refers to the process of a complex pattern forming from simpler rules. The termite "cathedral" on the left is an example of emergence in nature. None of the individual termites planned the structure, it just "emerged" from their collective termiting (or whatever it is termites do).

The Internet itself is an emergent phenomenon - there is no central database of links, no planning committees that decide what cool new web pages there should be. It's simply a massively decentralized network, yet a structure emerges as pages get linked to from other pages. This is why even though anyone with Internet access can get to my blog they're far more likely to end up on this one.

Emergence means that the end result cannot be reliably predicted from the initial conditions. It implies unpredictability and nonlinearity (1 plus 1 may or may not equal 2). Chaos theory is all about studying apparently random systems and finding their inherent, though hidden, order. All these concepts relate closely with one another:

Emergence = functionality/order without specific design
Chaos theory = "hidden" order in what looks random
Nonlinearity = 1 plus 1 doesn't equal 2

In Web 2.0 thinking, emergence means you can't predict the end result when you start the project, many times because you're creating systems that are "hackable", or scalable - systems that are fueled by user participation, and because you can't control how users participate (entirely), you can't predict what the thing will look like in the end.

Church 2.0: Rich user experience

This is the fourth in a series of posts on Church 2.0, applying the ethos of Web 2.0 to the church in the context of a missional ecclesiology (that's a mouthful). The series is especially based on this Web 2.0 Meme map.

Web 2.0 is all about rich user experience. This means there is, more than ever before, a focus on how your website/product/book/podcast/whatever will affect the user. No more arrogance in assuming you just have to put something up there and people will mindlessly feed on it, no matter the quality.

In Church 2.0, we're not necessarily talking about simply "putting on a great show" from the platform. There are plenty of places to go and see a great show, and if we think the church is simply supposed to mimic a great entertainment experience, we shouldn't wonder why the spiritual life of our congregations is thin and tepid.

Experience is different from entertainment, especially when you're talking about experiencing God. Entertainment means I watch the show, I consume the offering. Experience means I participate in the show, I am the offering.

So rich user experience for Church 2.0 relates to making a concerted effort to help people actually experience God. It's not enough to preach really well, sing really well, or have a tightly-rehearsed band. If people do not have opportunity and space to encounter the living, relational, creating and redeeming God of the universe, we're just putting on another dog-and-pony show. Experiencing God has to be the basic goal.

This involves getting hindrances out of the way instead of thinking we can somehow "bring God down" by our own efforts. The truth is, God has already come "down" (Jesus Christ), and continues to be "down" (Holy Spirit), enlightening, invigorating and empowering his people. The presence of God fills the atmosphere around us, but there are things that hinder us from walking in the knowledge of this reality. The task of the church leader is to recognize these hindrances and work to provide space and time where those things are removed for a time, point the way for people while they engage with God, and train them to remove those hindrances themselves so we can walk in a more constant understanding of God's ever-present presence.

Rich user experience in Church 2.0 means we realize worship isn't some religious game we play. It is heaven actually mingling with earth; the true and living God revealed in Jesus Christ, really speaking to and working in his people, comforting and confronting, cherishing and commissioning. In this way, you could say the church actually has the richest user experience of them all: the killer app is Jesus.

Next up in the Church 2.0 series: emergent behavior/chaos theory

Architecture is theology

CoolTown Studios is an organization/blog that helps people build sustainable, livable urban communities. It links "investment capital with proven real estate developers in cities with progressive government leadership."

It's fascinating to read about their community development/urban renewal projects. Plenty could be said about applying the insights of urban community development to the church, because in many ways, church leadership (especially emerging church leadership, church leadership 2.0, if you will) is a lot like community development, i.e. providing a fertile environment for relationships, growth, and well-being to flourish.

For example, in this post, they talk about how the "American Dream Home" has gotten a lot smaller, and it's a lot closer to the vibrancy of the inner city than the homogeneity of the suburbs. Given the choice between a large home in the suburbs and a small apartment close to the city, more and more young people are choosing the smaller place that's closer to community. I've talked about this in my Church 2.0 musings, but it can be said again: bigger is not always better.

Instead of only thinking about increasing square footage, church leaders need to be thinking about how best to use space in order to maximize community. How to organize space to cultivate strangers meeting and talking with one another, old friends deepening a relationship, new friends having long conversations, people experiencing communal prayer and glad, spontaneous, communal worship.

The spaces we meet in to talk and pray and worship aren't "neutral". They send a powerful message that speaks about our true values and presuppositions. For example, in the living rooms of most people, what are all the couches and chairs are all pointed toward? The television of course! That living room arrangement sends a message about what kind of activity is central in the living room.  In the same way, your interior design tells people what's important to you.

Architecture is theology. What does your "church space" say about your theology and values? How can you re-organize the space you have in order to better cultivate the disciple-making, kingdom-facilitating activities you want to be about? Think about it like a garden: how can you provide a fertile environment for community to thrive? Part of the answer is interior design.

Barney as the babysitter

I wonder what the long-term effects of this will be on our society.

Jesus is always relevant

I am reading Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz (I know, I'm like three years behind everyone else here). His chapter titled "Belief" is generally excellent, and had this thought:

I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture ... unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing.

I wholeheartedly agree with that. While it's not a sin to have a great web page or use high-end technology in worship services, the tendency to idolize such things should give us pause before we embrace their use in our churches. Being cool is not a gospel, and it's very easy for church leaders to assume that some new technology coming down the pike holds the key to fruitfulness in the kingdom (podcasts, for example). Those things make fine tools, but it's important to remember they aren't Jesus. Relationship with Jesus is what changes people, not hi-def video projectors or flashy websites. Let's use whatever we can, certainly, but let's not fall prey to the idolatry of believing that some new technology is going to save the world, or make our church relevant.

A Tale Of Two Mice

I came across a great article (PDF) contrasting Reepicheep (from the Narnia books) and Mickey Mouse. (ht to Brother Maynard)

Arrested Development Cancelled

It's official: Arrested Development has been cancelled. Oddly enough, I am a little saddened by it. Not necessarily because I won't get to watch the show anymore (although they will eventually air the rest of the filmed episodes), but because it was the best comedy on TV, and it gets cancelled, and a show like "Freddie" keeps going, and gets twice the viewers as Arrested Development. On the one hand, people criticize TV for its typically vapid programming, and when a show like AD comes along (smart, quirky, complex, deeply ironic and deadpan-dry), and nobody wants to watch it. We'd rather watch "The Simple Life" or "Fear Factor".

It's just one more reason why I'm hoping we can all make the switch to content-on-demand. If 4.2 million people (AD's average audience) would pay $2 an episode, it seems like you could fund a whole season. Add in DVD sales, and perhaps you could bypass network TV altogether. Sell the series online via iTunes and a video podcast, and later sell the DVDs with some extra features... seems like a good model to me.

Kill Your Television

Here's a rather amazing post from Kathy Sierra on television. Honestly, it's one of the more brilliant pieces of blog-writing I've seen in a long time. Some of the salient ideas:

• Television acts on your brain in a way very similar to central nervous system depressants
• There is a big difference between "watching Television" and watching a show on television (especially if it's stripped of commercials and other "extra" content)
• TV news is absolutely worthless, and in fact is just plain bad for you ("It could be killing you right this moment! News at 11."). There is nothing redemptive about it, and those who produce it should be ashamed of themselves.
• There is a huge difference between watching TV and playing video games/using the Internet in terms of the "good for you" factor (hint: watching TV = bad for you / video games & Internet = good for you.

She's also a very practical writer and offers several suggestions for how to continue to watch some of the good content on TV (24, Arrested Development, in my opinion) without succumbing to the addiction and brain drain of TV.

The Shining, Remixed

Via Si Johnston, a slightly different take on The Shining (10 MB .mov). Hilarious. And actually quite thought provoking. Could be used as an illustration in a scholarly paper:

The Omnipotent Editor, or How Easy It Is To Have The Bible Say Whatever You Want It To.

Wedding traditions

As I've been studying for my wedding homily Saturday, I've discovered several interesting facts about where certain traditions have come from in our weddings.

For example, the wedding ring was a Roman custom, and was worn on the third finger of the left hand because it was thought that the vien of that finger ran directly to the heart. (Isn't that sweet?)

The tradition of having a "best man" comes from the ancient practice of a man capturing a woman to be his bride (not capturing her heart, mind you, actual physical capture). So the man would take along his strongest, most trusted friend (the best man) to help him fight resistance from the woman's family.

The bride stands to the left of the groom, because grooms in Anglo-Saxon England often had to defend their brides, so they wanted their sword-arm free.

Flowers were incorporated into weddings as a symbol of fertility.

Bridesmaids have been part of weddings for a long time. For a long time the purpose of a bridal party was to fool evil spirits. The bride's friends would dress similarly in order to confuse any virulent presences that might be lurking about.

So the next time someone tells me I shouldn't put up Christmas tree or hunt for Easter eggs because I'm borrowing from pagan traditions, I'll tell them they probably shouldn't have a wedding ring, a bridal party, flowers, or a best man at their weddings.

Energy and Amazement

According to Brueggemann, the second task of the prophetic imagination (after bringing people to embrace their experiences of suffering and death) is to bring hope to exiles. He uses the second half of Isaiah to illustrate this task, speaking to those in exile of the promise of a future so amazing, so incongruous with the current reality, that it is actually quite difficult to believe.

I found this aspect of prophetic ministry to be much more "savory," so to speak, that the previous one. Speaking hope to the downcast, new songs on the lips of the despairing, fruitfulness to the barren, wine and milk to the famished, amazement to the apathetic.

"The hope-filled languaged of prophecy, in cutting through the royal despair and hopelessness, is the language of amazement. It is a language that engages the community in new discernments and celebrations just when it had nearly given up and had nothing to celebrate. The language of amazement is against the despair just as the language of grief is against the numbness. I believe that, rightly embraced, no more subversive or prophetic idiom can be uttered than the practice of doxology, which sets us before the reality of God, of God right at the center of a scene from which we presumed he had fled" (p. 67-68, emphasis mine).

I've often wondered how to practice doxology without coming off as trite, and in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the question came up once again. How to lead worship, how to preach, how to speak of the wonders of God in such a situation?

I think Brueggemann has part of the answer, in that he first speaks of the prophet bringing people to engage their actual experiences. Not to spin them in such a way so as to make them out to be less horrible than they are. If people are not first brought out of numbness and apathy by engaging grief, they'll never know the joy of real hope. We need hope, but it only comes to those who know how to grieve.

So if we try to bring prophetic hope and amazement to people who have not engaged in the pathos of their experience, people who are still numb, our invitations will come off as trite, sentimental hallmark card slogans. So Jesus wept, even though he knew Lazarus would be raised from the dead. He knew that "hope expressed without knowledge of and participation in grief is likely to be falst hope that does not reach despair. Thus ... it is precisely those who know death most painfully who can speak hope most vigorously" (p. 67).

Of New Orleans and Africa

The images from New Orleans are somewhat shocking, and many people around here are wanting to do something about it. Others call the church, demanding that the church do something (ironic on two counts, since the callers seem unaware that they are the church, and since we are holding a meeting Sunday to talk about how we can be involved in the relief effort).

And certainly we should do something about it - just like we wanted to do something about the tsunami. In a basic sense these urges to relieve suffering and save lives are noble and rooted in the best parts of our humanity.

But what of tragedies that are far quieter? I have thought much this week about New Orleans and Baghdad, but also about Africa. Poverty kills 30,000 African children every day. One every three seconds, as those "clicking" ads have so well burned into our consciousness. So while I don't doubt the intentions of those wanting to send help to disaster zones, I wonder what it is that makes it so easy for us to pour out money and energy to help with a flood or tsunami disaster, and so difficult to to do the same for a starvation disaster.

Tsunamis and floods are sudden - drastic changes in circumstance, thousands of people in upheaval. Poverty is a quiet killer: no waves crashing into buildings, no casinos floating down the street crushing things, no fierce winds destroying homes. Natural disasters are sudden and loud, and poverty is slow and quiet, but both are violent killers. The difference is what gets noticed. We're holding special meetings, trying to figure out what our response should be to the hurricane disaster, and rightly so. But a few weeks ago, if I tried to organize a special meeting to figure out what our response to global poverty would be, I would have had a very difficult time getting anyone to come.

I don't want to minimize or trivialize people's desire to help: it is a good thing, borne out of (mostly) noble desires. (Sometimes we want to help in order to say we've "done our part" and so quench our deep sense of guilt). But I've worn a white band for awhile now, and had a chance to explain why I do to many people. Most of the time people respond with a casual "Oh" and that's it. No anger or incredulity, no special meetings to organize relief or to find solutions. I understand that, though. It's not sensational (although the statistics are staggering), it's not loud or sudden. It's quiet and constant and slow and the socio-economic realities have been in place for years and it's easy to throw up your hands and assume there's nothing you can do, but it's 30,000 people every day! Every three seconds! That's a disaster on a much larger scale. Sometimes in the middle of all the emotions and images of a disaster we lose our sense of scale.

That said, I will of course be at the meeting on Sunday, and I'll be happy to see all the people from our church and neighborhood who want to find a meaningful way to help in the relief effort. I'll be happy to see people passionate, to see them thinking outside their own circle of family and friends, to see them dream up ways of loving others by meeting their needs.

Analyzing My TV Shows

TV shows will be starting up their new seasons soon, so I thought I'd do a post on the shows I tend to watch every week, and think about why I watch them (scary!). Here goes...

24
The concept of the show got me watching (24 episodes, one consecutive hour after another), and the quality of the stories and acting kept me watching. Despite some graffic violence (we're dealing with terrorists after all), and a few hoaky moments (Jack's daughter Kim being threatened by a wild bobcat), the show is a smart thriller with a conscience. The next season will be interesting, too, because the season finale left Jack as a fugitive in Mexico after finding out the President had ordered someone to kill him to avoid an embarrassing international incident. Plus the show is just really cool.

Arrested Development
This show is a satire about an extremely dysfunctional family. There is no laugh track, it's filmed with hand-held cameras, and the actors wear no makeup. It's a character-driven comedy, the jokes are very dry, move quickly, and are intelligent. The show regularly cracks me up. I am really unsure why I like this one so much, besides the fact that I am a sucker for great satire.

Alias
This show used to be cooler than it is now, in my opinion. I continue to watch because it makes me laugh, actually. It's just so campy and uses so many spy-movie conventions, unapologetically, without any hint of self-awareness. But they have to know, don't they? Perhaps I'm just intrigued because I can't figure out if they are taking themselves seriously.