- Chris asks a good question via Twitter: Is there a way to do church without burning leaders out? I think the answer comes back to something Joel Main and I talked about the other week. There are different ways to do church. We assume that church always revolves around a couple guys, but is that really how it has to work? What if the church is more of a collaborative environment where more people get involved? And what if instead of creating programs and activities with the implicit goal of getting people involved in peripheral matters, why not embed them at the heart of the whole thing? Of course the quality will go down as people with varying talent levels get involved, but church isn’t a stage show or some kind of theatre. Maybe sacrificing some polish would be a good thing. If it spared people’s marriages and drew people in and made authentic community.
- I’m beginning to hate the word “authentic”. It’s so over-used — and by me, too, yes — that the word itself seems inauthentic. Which makes me wonder if what we mean when we say “authentic” is actually just “cool”. That thing that as soon as it become mainstream becomes uncool. Or unauthentic.
- There are people I usually like a great deal who turn into raging idiots around politics. They become incensed that “their party” is being “attacked” and so they go on the offensive and “defend” them. This is true of both Republicans and Democrats, both Liberals and Conservatives, but it seems to be worse with those who mix religion and politics. More to the point, people who genuinely believe that the Republican party is another arm for the body of Christ seem to get more upset when their precious idol is under attack. I don’t know why this is. I know and respect many Republicans and Democrats who don’t do this. I know many who are measured and rational. But there’s always a few who seem to think they’re helping. But they’re not. They’re making arses of themselves.
- Today I’m going to have some sort of burger for lunch. But because I took public transit — which really isn’t public, as I still had to pay for it: Why do I have to pay for public transit but not public healthcare? — I’ll have to walk there. I need an hour lunch break for exactly that reason.
- I went to Nick’s profession of faith yesterday. It strikes me that before any of us go after the Catholic church for whatever doctrinal failings that branch of Christendom may espouse, we should clean up our own houses first. Especially when we’re still perpetuating a bunch of baroque rituals whose purposes are exemplary but whose roots are not in scripture. Even when you know the rituals aren’t grounded in scripture, and you can say as much. You can know what you like and say what you like but what you do is what matters. If you tacitly or implicitly put something on the level of scripture, you have absolutely no right to speak up against those who do so vocally and in the open.
- I am hungry!
- Laura and I went into Toronto for a while on Saturday and just walked around for a long time. It was fun: We don’t go to Toronto enough, it seems, even though we live on the border of Mississauga and Toronto. All this to say that one day I would very much like to live in downtown Toronto. Maybe not something as posh as Queen’s Quay, but something close to everything. It’s a grand city. Or, as Torontonians seem to blather on about, it’s a world-class city.
- And that’s it folks! Also, I hope Obama wins. He’s the lesser of two evils, and I’m a great fan of rhetoric. Ever since I watched the West Wing, it seems, and developed a peripatetic crush on Aaron Sorkin.
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Posted September 8th, 2008 in
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I think you may be on to something there in your first bullet. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I do believe I’m gonna be doing a lot of thinking about it in the next few months.
Also: an Amen to your comments about “authentic”. :-)
September 8th, 2008 at 2:18 pmI obviously don’t use “authentic” enough.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:14 pmDan: Please tell me if I go into raging idiot territory around politics.
I am with Obama, too. Authentically so. ;)
September 8th, 2008 at 7:02 pmChris, one of things I’m indebted to the Emergent camp for is their conversation on how to do church. It’s such an important topic! And not just because it effects what church looks like, but how it’s run, too.
Roger, you’re from Maine. Maine is so authentic it doesn’t need a public/private key pair.
Geof, I have no idea how you are around politics! I’ve been involved quite a bit in AYOR, and there are some people in there who are normal, God-loving folks who go absolutely ballistic when you say the slightest thing about their chosen party. These are people I would, on a normal day, like to knock back a beer with. And suddenly they’ve thrown their critical functions to the wind and become this parody of themselves that I don’t much like at all. And it’s both Democrats and Republicans. It’s weird.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:20 pmGreat PGP joke. ;)
As for me and politics … read my blog, I reckon. But I hate that stuff for the same reasons you do, which is why AYOR is on ignore for me.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:21 pmI have your blog in my feeds and you seem reasonable I guess :)
I put those people on ignore because I think as a whole AYOR is quite helpful for me, at least when it comes to making up my mind about things.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:28 pm[...] Elsewhere in Dreams » Blog Archive » Bullet Points for Monday Morning (tags: cjh_comment) [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 6:04 am