And now a risky suggestion... (In response to the article below)

What if we dropped strategy and agenda to embrace authentic living while in authentic connection? Honest relationship for the sake of relationship, first.  We’ve sought to eradicate “maybe” when “maybe” has been embraced as all there is. Why not give up on the agenda and simply let it quietly “pass on” of more natural causes, as we simply live out a genuine connection while we happen to be redeemed?
 
In the context of honest relationship, any actual advantage in our ideas will emerge, given enough time.  We can “live them in” not only “talk them in”.  Maybe we need to find the courage to live out the boldest form of confidence: we walk back into society as equal members and let our life-difference speak for itself.  Any light we actually have must be trusted to outshine the “darkness” in a way that does not need to be explained or supported with rhetoric.  It’s self-effective or it’s non-existent.  
 
Perhaps we’ve believed too much in the power of explanation:  that’s what we’ve wanted everyone to listen to, that’s what we’ve honed and refined and trumpeted as our great tool for engaging the world around us.  But the value of explanation in general has been somewhat abandoned of late.  Why not let the light within us be it’s own explanation? Why not BE FILLED with Christ instead of seeking out Christ filled EXPLANATIONS.  
 
Simplistic-maybe, controversial-likely (as I’m sure someone will find controversy in it); but also honest.

Barking up assorted Wrong Trees and the Myth of Certainty

Let me start right in on an issue.  What if we (in the church) have assumed that our target for evangelism is a cohesive, non-God-based worldview?  We have thought that by dismantling it one piece at a time, or by creating enough tension within it, or by creating a contradiction to it, we can leave a vacuum that only the Christian worldview could fill?  
 
Dismantle what they believe, and in comes Christ, or so the thinking goes.
 
But what if, all the while, as we are seeking to dismantle this “cohesive, non-God-based worldview”, what if people have already given up on the whole idea of them to begin with? What if they’ve given up on cohesive world views, period?  What if cohesiveness, itself is suspect?
 
We are trying to tell people that their snapshot of the universe is incomplete without Christ. Except that many people have embraced the incompleteness of any snapshot as being all that’s possible. Perhaps they don’t see the incompleteness as evidence for Christ, perhaps they see it as a necessary characteristic of any human perspective – or at least an honest one.  Maybe they’ve changed they way they view incompleteness.  
 
Worse still, what if our certainty seems trite and offensive to them?  Like a pat answer outgrown?  Note to the reader:  I’m not saying it IS a pat answer outgrown, but what if the way we talk about it makes it look and feel that way?  It would mean they are quietly waiting for US to wake up, not them.  It means they’re not wishing they were as certain as we seem – it means they’ve given up on certainty.  
 
Now to risk taking this to extremes, perhaps “they” (being everyone we want to reach) see certainty as evidence that a system is simplistic.  Maybe “they” see apparent closure as evidence of a fraud. And the persuasiveness of our argument is not taken as evidence of it’s truth, but merely as a trick of communication.  Maybe postmodernism has immunized common thought against standard evangelism.
 
And, lastly, (you’re not supposed to start sentences - and certainly not paragraphs - with “and”, “and” I don’t care) all this would mean we would have to change the world around our message (or at least the way we like to tell it) in order for it to work again.  Which is likely not going to happen.  
 
Or, as is obvious, we could simply change the way we tell it.  

The Philosophy of "Lost"

What is “lost”? It’s a state, obviously, but a state of what? Is it the state of being unable to position yourself beyond the immediate landscape around you? Is it losing your sense of position as it relates to other very important locations – like the way back out of a building or the way back home?

It’s a fairly philosophical thing, being “lost”. After all, one can be feeling mostly fine in one moment when only vaguely concerned that they might not know exactly where they are, and then rather dramatically cross some kind of "line in thought" when it is decided they are in fact lost. A sudden shift occurs in their mental state.

And think of this: you can be lost and not know it because you have found a way to think you are on track in your mind. That’s a scary thought. What could ever lead you to doubt the flow of observations and conclusions you are making?

The Philosophy of "Lost" getting "Found"

“Triangulation” is one process that allows a sense of position to be restored. The intersection of vectors drawn from two known points becomes a point, itself, which can be calculated based on the other two. I trust you find this absolutely fascinating.

Imagine if we can "triangulate" our position spiritually. Imagine if we could calculate for the flaws in our own perception. Most people believe what they tell themselves is true. And you can believe almost anything you want (as with a lost person imposing the interpretation they WANT on the features of geography around them becuase they don't WANT to be lost - by they way, it's the reason so many people take so long to stop and ask for directions - they never quite fully give up on the interpretation they hope to make fit by finding what the want "just around the next corner").

The Philosophy of "Spiritually Lost"?

What I find gripping is what these principles might mean if they illustrate not only the dynamics of being physically “lost” but also spiritually “lost” as well (whatever that might mean). Each of us is born stuck on the back side of a lens in our own thinking. We can never truly get out from behind it, either. It is the meta-eye through which we view the world.

Many don’t think of it as a lens (an interpretive device). Many make the mistake of thinking their mind touches reality directly with no intermediate stages at all (and no possible distortion, either). Think of it this way, instead of rose coloured glasses, what if you have rose colored corneas? Or even worse - crap colored corneas (I know a few people who seem to have this).

So maybe something like "faith" is a distortion of the lens through which many see.

Or, maybe it's the correction.

The Philosophy of "Lost" getting "Less Losable"

Or... "Note to self: Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear"

It’s an even scarier thought, to have a lens and not know it, because your lens may be doing something to you.

Note the rear view mirror on the passenger side of your car. It likely says, “objects in mirror may be closer than they appear”. What label might you need to attach to the only lens your mind has ever been attached to – the one through which you view the world? “Objects in this view may be more ‘x’ than they appear”. Defining your ‘x’ may be one of the most critical things you’ll ever do.

There is no such thing as "lensless-ness" - there is no way to get out from behind a lens. Another scary thought. What may be our only hope to calculate for the distortion of something we can’t see outside of (since we have no way of comparing it with anything else) may be as simple as what's hidden in the word, "LISTEN".

Now we’re back to “lost” and “triangulation”. If we listen enough to the observations of other people, and take the intersection of their thoughts and our own, and we pay attention to patterns of discrepancies, then a sense of our own tendencies can emerge. Some of those tendencies will be the “flaws” in our own lens. Listen for the differences that consistently emerge. Is the whole world wrong, or are you? Is it something in your lens?

The Philosophy of "Lost" getting still more "Less Losable"

This has all been fine, so far, when it comes to differences between our lenses. But what about those flaws we may all have, together, as a human race? What about the distorion of the human lens, period?

Well, in that case, it would be a truly great thing, indeed to have a vector that comes from completely outside human thinking to use for our “triangulation” on the grandest scale – to calculate for the errors of the human lens.

It would be a truly great thing, indeed, to have something like a Bible.

Faith might be the flaw in someone's lense...

Or...

Again...

It might be the correction.

ATTN Mike Lummack

You rock. And Europe loves you.

Church Lab

Can you help? We want to avoid the trap of our own perspectives on the church. "There is wisdom in the counsel of many". What do you think about the following things: "Logo's", "Contribute" and "Opinion" below.

Contribute

I'm working on a message theme right now. I've started incorporating more collaboration in the process and I'm overwhelmed at what it can do. So I'd love to know how you could respond to the following:

I was reading an article by Stanley Bing who threw this in as a side-sentance: "90% of all genuine thoughts go unspoken."

Can you comment? Do you believe it? Is it true? What are the ramifications? What might it mean? I know it's broad right now, but that's how it starts. Be brave, put your reaction down.

Hit "comment" below and post.

Know this: what you say will actually, likely be incorporated in a live message three weeks from now.

Logo's

Click on each for a larger version. Which do you like? Give us your first impulse, you don't have to do a lot of thinking. If you can, tell us why. Hit "comment", below and post your vote.

Keep in mind the first one, "I am Thomas" would be reformatted with our church name and tag line, "The Thomas Question, A church for people who still have something to ask."

Opinion

Governing the flow of ideas is a pretty big task. Sometimes our opinions are formed only because of the options we happened to think of. Help us stretch our thought groove by answering the following question:

What's the hottest scripture for our time?

By "hottest", I mean a scripture that speaks with particular relevance to us in our slice of history right now. Disclaimer: they're all powerful (please, no posts by zealous/angry Christians looking to call us/me/everyone the devil). Maybe just pick one of particular impact to you.

Hit "comment", below and post a comment.

Countdown to Another Great Way of Doing Church

For those of you following The Thomas Question, our small groups begin November 27, monthly services in January, and weekly services start on Easter Sunday (2006). If you want more information, or if you want to keep pace with updates, click on my profile to the right and send me an email. I'll add you to our newsletter.

The power of a personal invitation is what drives movements like this. It can be easy to underestimate what a simple email can do. When you tell someone else about it, credibility is transferred. It's huge. I was part of the leadership team of a ministry in Edmonton that grew from under 20 to over 1200 in 3 years. All because of a single sentance spoken over and over again each week, "What are you doing this Sunday and can I pick you up at 6?"

There are thousands of Canadians who would be surprised to find out what church can be. An invitation from you may be all they need.

Let us know.

A Hit and Run about Headspace

Here's a quick and dangerous thought depending on how you view our headspace. What if we have a limited "amount" of it (as it certainly seems)? Then formal education becomes a frightening thing, doesn't it? NOT something to avoid, only one to use with caution. It means that whatever limited headspace you have will be quickly taken up with someone else’s thoughts, thought processes and conclusions. Our sense of history has a way of keeping credibilty in the past so that we miss the extraordinary right around us.

By the time you’re done memorizing everyone else’s mental pathways, you’ll have precious little resources left for anything that’s actually creative, risky or interesting. It's a full time job carrying someone else's headspace in addition to your own. Of course none of this means that we don't pay due attention to the tremendous back log of human thought. I just think it would be a good idea not to be entirely absorbed in it.

Neither do I drive down the road steering entirely through the rear view mirror, by the way...

So I'm tired of being told my thoughts don't have rank just because the only footnote on them is my own. True, I risk being wrong, foolish and naive. But I also risk being creative, and that's worth it (I think). So if we do, in fact, have limited headspace, I plan to save a corner of it for my very own.

If Only

I don’t know what your current “if only” is. When I get lazy, mine is about income right now. “If only things were so, my life would be such. If only”. We’re almost never without them. From the ridiculous, “If only I won the lottery” to the sublime, “If only I could lose ten pounds (or heck, I’d even take 2).”

Like I said, I can’t know what your “if only” is right now, but I have a smacking suspicion that it wouldn’t do nearly as much as you think, even if it did come to pass. Whether or not it does, I have an even more smacking suspicion that one day you’ll look back on your life, struggles and “if only”’s and all, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t enjoy it more. That's right, ENJOY it more.

It’s the gift of the struggle. Of course it can be tough. Of course you sometimes do without, and you are sometimes rife with disappointment. Those are the costs that make the journey worth remembering. The gift of the struggle is the satisfaction of knowing you had to fight to win.

Our situation right now (my wife and I) is tenuous. We are in between successes. We always seem to have enough but never know where it’s going to come from next. Making this next success has turned out to be a good twist more than I thought. No matter. It’s the gift of the struggle. I’m stretched in pursuit of a difficult but worthwhile thing. The outcome is uncertain, the risks are sobering, the complications are not diminishing. I feel stretched, tested, sometimes wanting, and also... fully alive.

And one day, I will wonder why I didn’t enjoy it more. Or maybe I'll start to see it that way now.

Five conversations about the church

We are working with a team of leaders who are in the midst of a discussion about the 360 degrees of church. We'd love for you to join the conversation. We're looking for 5 images of the church essential that can help us all think about it (and communicate it) in more compelling ways.

Someone in marketing would say it's helping us find our "brand".

So... What are the contours that shape the original idea of the church?

The church in every generation

Obviously the institutions we deal with need to keep pace with change around them. As we change, so do our modes of relating with each other, and so do our modes of relating to institutions. I think we all know something clouds that process. Institutions tend take a good thing and do it too long. “Institutional memory” is long and unyielding. What began as a dynamic movement often becomes a stagnant memory of things that used to matter.

I have a theory/suggestion. The church needs to change some in every generation because the people it deals with have changed some in every generation. There is nothing new in that sentence. But a question I think is important comes next: who are the prime movers of that change? Those from within that generation, or those from the generations that come before it?

I have a suspicion that the best answer isn’t either-or, but some mixture of both-and. My concern, however, is that we won’t actually “both-and-it” very well. It might be far easier for one generation to think they hold the keys to every other just because their ideas were so significant to them in their time. On the other side it makes sense that another generation can be left wondering why someone else doesn’t pave the way for what only they can do.

It might be to good for every generation to ask: “Can someone else do it for us?” and “Am I getting in the way?”

It’s human nature that we don’t see our own ideas as one among many. We see them as crystal-clear, self evident fact. We see them as the culmination of other ideas. The final stage in the process. The problem is, almost everything about us has a shelf life from our DNA all the way down to our sense of what’s “current” and “necessary” and “next”. I don’t like the term “obsolescence”. I don’t think people can be obsolete. But I think our roles will change as time passes for us.

Each generation is at ground zero of it’s own need to adapt the modes of the church. Each generation must crack it’s own code of cultural symbols to find the current hot spot for a new connection with unchanging grace. So it may be that those closest to the center of the issue can see parts of it that no one else can.

As a result, and contrary to popular practice, I think as leaders progress in their own journey they should LISTEN more and leverage their own ideas less. Members of other generations have to become our guides to things only they can see about their “tribe” and we become theirs for what only we can see from our vantage point. It’s the only way we can truly live and think outside ourselves and the things that touch us directly.

I hope, if my leadership and influence grow, I will remember that it’s much harder to listen than it is to lead. In the church, we often see ourselves as teachers. But in this way, it might be much better to think of ourselves as students – of Christ, of lostness, of other people, of other generations, of a world we can’t possibly fully understand. Instead being one more voice in the market place shouting, “LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN TO ME!” We could be one of the only voices saying, “Show me, teach me, tell me your story.”

It might be that the generations were meant to be fertilizer for each other – resources to make them grow, not resources to choose it for them.
We can never get past the need to listen to each other.

Partnership has always been of great value to God. It’s not just getting things done, it’s getting things done in relationship so that it changes those that do it. That’s the higher goal than just the job, itself. After all, He can create with sentences. Why bother with mind-of-their own human beings? So why would God bypass us in the formation of the church for our own time? The process of conceiving it and constructing it was meant to be a redemptive experience in of itself for those who will attempt to administer grace to their culture around them.

Is it the devil inside you or around you?

Or is it really just human nature? The delicate distinction between faith and religion has been a much contested issue. Some part of orienting your life around spiritual ideals can be great, some part of it not so great. There are times when you encounter a person with a belief structure that leaves you feeling refreshed. There are other times when that faith structure leaves you feeling somewhat flogged.

Perhaps (at least in part) it has something to do with our concept of what is wrong and how we fix it. That wrong can be externalized and de-personalized so that it’s all about the devil around you. Other people need to change. Other people need to see the light. Other people need to listen to you. Welcome to the wonderful realm of religion, thought control and the faith “mafia”. This is church people who take you on as their personal righteousness hobby. Your life becomes the thing they paint with. They remake you in God’s image (or at least their version of it).

On the other hand, if it’s all about the devil inside you, welcome to the exciting realm of self flagellation. For some strange reason it can be soothing to “beat yourself up”. You need to change. You need to see the light. You’re a bad, bad monkey and you need to grow up. Or even one shade worse, the devil inside you can be all about finding your magic exemption from the need to change. What an exciting excuse this becomes. “I can’t change, I’m not perfect, this is just me…”

I’m not fully convinced it needs to be exclusively one or the other. In fact, I’m not even really convinced that “what’s wrong” needs to be demonized or externalize at all. Might our biggest obstacle be human nature, itself? Can’t we recognize we all take turns at greater or lesser dysfunction? Can’t we also acknowledge that through consistent and reasonable effort we can shift the range and scale of our dysfunction cycles?

It is religious (in an unflattering way) to create a special category for yourself and see the worst parts of human nature in everyone else. Haven’t we all felt a little “flogged” by someone else’s faith when their personal change agenda becomes the template by which we must navigate as well?

On the other hand, it may take the most courageous faith to funnel your energy about the need to change right into the closest mirror you can find. It may take an even more courageous faith to de-personalize it as just another fundamental part of the human journey (in spite of how fun it would be to think of this as something particular to your own tragic failure as a useless individual).

Perhaps we are most responsible for (1) the stuff we change within ourselves and paint on the canvass of our own lives (so be your own righteousness project since your own inner workings are the only one’s not fully obscured), and (2) show it to others in ways that are compatible with true love, not just a gentle kind of loving control.

So maybe the church is also something like a mirror. There is no shortage of angst about all the church could be and should be, and how this seems to be something that’s ultimately up to anyone else but you. But maybe everything you wish everyone else would change about themselves is the very thing you need to change inside yourself.

Harry Potter and Changing The Ocean Around a Rain Drop

Here's an honest question - what difference would it actually make to create a world-wide “Harry Potter-Free” zone? You'd think by some rhetoric on behalf of the church that this series of novels has a whole generation perched precariously over the edge of devil worship. You'd think it was one of the last, few, big parts of a logjam keeping thousands from faith.

Or… It might just be a story. Do we really think we can change the world around our message? Could we change the ocean around a rain drop? Do we really have that much to fear from a children's story about witches and wizards?

I guess it's true that sometimes destructive outcomes are packed in small, innocent packages. But let's remember Paul was made famous for his discourse on Mars Hill in Acts 17. In a city filled with idols, he preached FROM idolatry not AGAINST it. Idolatry! Now as bad as a novel can be, it can't be worse than overt other-God idol worshipping. His standards about idolatry hadn't changed. Just his starting point for a dialogue that could lead to a new conclusion about Christ.

I think if Paul were around today, he might preach from Harry, too.

So maybe the church could be something like a best seller. Or at least learn something from them. Maybe we could use the story in culture to tell the story of Christ. Many of the parables Jesus used to make His points weren't actually His to begin with. They were spoken-word way back then equivalents of our current day bestsellers. He used the power in those stories to bring His listeners to a new set of conclusions.

Gracie's first functional Halloween

Gracie's first functional Halloween. She handed out candy with great enthusiasm. So great was her enthusiasm that she stood in the open door and shouted, "kids!... KIDS!..." in between visits. I only thought after the fact that one of her close friends, Japser, seen here moping by her side would have made a very realistic Eor.

Feel the Weight of My sentences

It has begun. My wife and I have moved two thousand miles, and I have left a remarkable job - one that started from scratch and went much further than I ever expected - so that we can start all over, again. This time a brand new church. Oh, and the job I traded for doesn't really fully exist yet.

And for this task I am armed with the mighty power of sentences. Well, that and the generous gifts of a number of our friends. But I guess that began with sentences, too. To face all this with a mind full of sentences is a bit like facing down an angry hippo armed with a sturdy marshmallow or two.

We've spent the last several years wondering about whether or not sentences are all you ever get at the start. Wondering - actually more like groping - for something more. But in the end, we decided to be a test case. Maybe carefully unpacked ideas are all any of us need to begin our next act.

So is this a good idea? Pooh that. Let act 2 begin. And as I said when this change began, two years from now we'll either wonder why we were afraid, or we'll know exactly why we should have been.

Truth be told, I don't feel I'm in company that's all that bad - being armed with nothing but sentences - as it is purported that words have been used before to start from scratch. And I'll leave that to your imagination.