in the light of the craziness that has followed the killing of BinLaden and reflecting on a decade of war I am listening over and over to this proclamation by Matisyahu
Creativity
Does the UMC really want us to disengage? #umclead
In pondering the whole “Call to Action” and my thoughts yesterday on “Poking the Church” it had me wondering. Why don’t more people get involved and take on their communities and their faith.. What is the one thing? Are we all just to lazy? or maybe we claim to be to ‘busy?’
Maybe, as Dave Meslin puts in this short talk, its more a web of things that compound. He’s talking up a civic cultural apathy. But this in many ways translates into our church cultures. Especially found his framework of intentional exclusion very insightful.
why a Fear of Artists?
Last night I watched a Frontline episode that was really fascinating. It was chronicle of Ai Weiwei a Chinese artist who has the government fearing his persona.
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
He’s an artist, who has some anti-government views and a social media following because of his art and now branded self. And is the subject of scrutiny of his own government..
It had me wondering.
If the Chinese government is fearful of an artist.. Why do we diminish the value of art in our own culture? If it can strike the fear into one of the largest governments in the world then the artist has some power and influence.. But yet, we in America push our arts to the side of our education system as having little value alongside of math or other more tangible (less abstract) type disciplines.
Why does a power institution fear the artist? Yet we don’t even value them at all? or is our devaluing our subversive method of diminishing the artist because our institutions fear them as well?
Maybe there is reason for fears.. in Egypt, some of the figureheads of the revolt were writers.. So the pen is mightier than the sword?..
the church sermon for a new era?
My friend Steve Wilke sent me this TED Talk asking for my opinion. So here goes..
The talk is given by Salman Khan who has started his own online academy of learning by putting videos of lessons online for people to see. He tells the story of how that got started and some of his thoughts on how this can, and should, affect future education.
I happen to think it is a fabulous idea & as with anything, it has me thinking of the church.
I began to think of some of the historic congregational traditions of the early american church was that after the sermons were given there was a time of question & answer. You can imagine for yourself the reasons for that practice. It was inevitably shuned and stopped. The Quakers have their “un-programmed” worship which people sit in silence and only when someone is inspired by ‘the light’ do they break the silence to speak. Others may stand and speak building off that theme, but they do not have to. That, and how Solomon’s Porch does their gathering, is about the closest practice to what I am suggest as an idea for a new way of spiritual formation through the practice of sermon.
What if, we put our sermons out into the digital sphere for our congregation to digest throughout the week, at their own pace. If you wanted you can send out a message and then some reading supplement later in the week. And then, during Sunday worship service instead of the preacher preaching, the preacher took questions to teach for clarification & challenge. The gathered community can participate bringing together the myriad of ideas they have been inspired by after reading the scriptures, listening to the pastor’s exegesis and/& sermon online. Who knows the power, or chaos, that would happen when 50, 200, 2000 come together prepared to share..
I don’t have a pulpit to practice from, but it would be a really awesome experiment. Maybe do it for a summer series or some challenging theological concept (like the trinity).
What thoughts might you have about this idea?
graphic via cartoon church
Why give up Facebook for Lent?
I was visiting my friend Mark’s facebook profile to wish him a “happy b’day” where I stumbled across his profile picture saying that he has given up facebook for lent.
My first thought was, ‘Well that stinks.’ Then I adapted my birthday message to say, ‘in 40 days’ or something along those lines. Then I began to wonder, why would you give up facebook for lent?
Maybe I have a different understanding of the social media sphere than many. I use these mediums for work and creative outlets. I’m not sure God cares for me to stop working and stop creating..
But what is lent & the practice of sacrificing that comes along with the season of lent? Is the lenten fasting just a stopping of practices that we hope to take back up again? Or are our lent fasting practices putting aside something that we know is harmful to us and we use this season to rid ourselves of the habit in order to not bring them back into our life? If smoking is bad for you, stopping for lent (except for the sundays) with the knowledge that you will start smoking again Easter Sunday seems totally counter to the spirit of preparing yourself for a resurrection & ministry in Christ.
Again, I see facebook as a relationship enabler. For example, I saw Mark just a week or two ago. I had no idea that his birthday was looming (I am super bad at birthdays, even my own). So one of my practices is to check out who’s birthdays are happening that day in facebook, and then wish them well. I don’t see anything harmful about that practice. It takes me a few minutes. I see everyone in my list of ‘friends’ and enjoy checking in on who has changed (checked out one persons new child this morning, that was news to me).
Maybe, facebook / twitter / linkedin, email etc become some distraction to people. Okay, I get that. However, is it a distraction more because of how you use the medium? Or is it a distraction because of how you let the medium use you?
Facebook, and the other social media mediums, connect people to people. That is not a bad thing. However, a sacrificial practice that is life giving in my opinion would be to not give up outlets to a mas of people, but to take the medium to focus one or two people.
You see, we now have some hyper-relationships, many relationships saying & doing many things. How about slowing that down to say, I’m going to take one day during Lent to scan my ‘friends’ and then pray for them, read up on their profile, check out their photos, ala. updating my understanding of them. From there you have a deeper understanding of the circle of influence that God has placed before you and are more able to live into that ministry of being neighbor.
Speaking of, I believe my neighbor is having their 3rd child (a girl) today, but she has yet to post it on her facebook profile to make it official. I’m waiting!!