Powerful perspective about competition and the creative process from Jimmy Iovine at the Code conference. [1:20 excerpt]
transcript follows…
The Business of Church Part 2
This is the second part in my series of posts on the Business of Church. In this post, I continue to till the soil of our understanding—to dig up the roots underneath our thinking and our philosophies of ministry. We will plant some seeds, but for now we are still plowing.
In part one, I question our thinking process itself. Why do we think the way we do? The scientific method lurking behind our western processing of facts pushes us to drive towards efficiency with the unintended consequence of dehumanization. That represents one row in this field.
Part two continues this questioning, but in a different row of the field.
The Business of Church Part 1
Call it a personality deficiency if you must, but I have always distrusted hierarchies.
It is not in my nature to accept authority. (Isn’t that true for all of us?) Particularly, titled authority that lacks the requisite gifting and intelligence (but more importantly, or less harshly perhaps, the needed capacity to love).
I freely admit this distrust is part of the filter I bring to the topic of church and the way we do our work as the church (and, incidentally, the hermeneutic I weave into the book of Acts and the Epistles).
It is this innate skepticism towards those in charge that is part of the reason I find myself rejecting the leadership movement of the last decade.
(Did it start with John Maxwell* in the 90s? I don’t know for sure. I just know I don’t like it, and it does not appeal to the deeper longings of my soul.)
Additionally, my distrust comes from my personal experience. I have experienced the relentless crush of the ministry machine masquerading as the church. And yes, usually there is a “leader” at the helm cracking the whip for more, bigger, better.
(The fact that the more, bigger, better is tightly connected to their personal goals and finances should not be ignored.)
There has to be a better way to carry out our mission.
Wherefore art thou, World Vision?
On March 24, World Vision President, Richard Stearns announced in a Christianity Today article that World Vision would be hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages.
On March 26, Christianity Today posted, World Visions Reverses decisions to Hire Christians in Same-Sex Marriages.
Wow. Two days. To say the interwebs blew up would put it mildly. Here comes some generalizations:
Many conservatives saw the first decision as further proof that the world is headed to hell in a hand basket.
Many progressives, while supporting the initial decision, were frustrated with conservatives reaction and continued hate speech.
Addicted to Novelty
We’ve all seen them – lives destroyed by addiction. Promising young people burnt out like matchsticks. Ensnared loved ones exchanging their families for another fix.
It’s a harsh reality and not something I mention flippantly. It’s grievous, in the full weight of the word.
Yet that’s the image in my mind as I ponder a growing dependency in our ministries: addiction to novelty. Addiction is a monster. Just to be clear, addiction is defined as becoming physically and mentally dependent on something so that you cannot stop without incurring adverse effects. And that is our present condition in many churches: if we don’t keep juicing up, cranking up the experiences, we could lose everything we’ve worked so hard to build. What a shame where true (on many levels).
Technically Thinking 