There was an interesting article in Best Life Magazine written by Ricky Gervais the creator of the wildly successful comedy, The Office, about how he became an atheist. Here is an excerpt:
(8 year old Ricky is drawing a picture of Jesus when his older brother walks into the room...)
...there I was, happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. “Bob,” she said, in a tone that I knew meant “shut up.” Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong, it didn’t matter what people said.
Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.
This story has come to mind quite a bit since I read it several months ago and I have used it several times to make a point in conversations. My point that I make is this - Making people feel bad for asking questions about their faith is destructive. There is this underlying fear in some people that Christianity really isn't true, that if they look at it too closely, it will fall apart. If it is true, then it is durable as well and will stand up to our questioning. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best when he said,"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
If it really is true then we shouldn't be afraid of questions. That fear is far more destructive than any question.
Confidence without competence is arrogance. And you won’t fool anyone with an ounce of discernment. Competence is the ability (skills) and capacity (resources) to produce a positive measurable result based upon many instances (vs. being a one trick pony) of having done it.
I am a sucker for books like Blink, The Tipping Point, and Freakonomics. If you are too, you should check out this hilarious article from Wired magazine on how to write your own "Big Idea book."
First, pick a random object to serve as a cryptic representation of your Big Idea (like this peanut for example), then follow the three steps in the article.
Look for my book A Community of Multitudes - The New Radical Force of Humanity coming soon thanks to Wired's "Big Idea Book Generator!"
I am reading a book right now called A Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs. He is a writer for Esquire magazine and this is a great book. He starts out his "year of living biblically" by reading the Bible for about 5 hours a day (which is no problem for him) and as he reads it, he writes down anything resembling a rule or commandment and then tries to keep all of them (over 700 according to his count) for a year. He hires a shatnez inspector that analysis his clothing fibers under a microscope to make sure that he doesn't inadvertently wear wool and linen mixed together. He goes on several field trips as a part of his experiment. I am only about 80 pages (of about 380) into this book, but I've already read about his trip to Amish country and his trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. He examines and puzzles at the Jewish and Christian subcultures without mocking or disrespecting them. I do know from watching this video, that he wasn't able to spend a whole year without breaking any of the commandments, but after his experiment he decided to keep many of the practices that he adopted during that time. Read or listen to an excerpt from the book here.
Some thoughts that have been whirling around my head recently regarding relevance and the church. I am inspired to write about them today because of a post called "The Future of the Church" by Craig Groeschel over on the Swerve Blog.
Relevance is not a goal for a church. It is a tool to help you get to the goal. The goal is transformation - people who are far from Christ beginning a relationship with Him, then growing, and ultimately bringing others to Him who go through that same process. The goal is discipleship, not relevance. When relevance becomes the goal of the church, we have big problems.
Ed Stetzer speaks to this topic better than I can. Check out this article from SermonCentral.com. I think the first time I heard Ed's take on relevance was on a podcast from the Exponential Conference 2007. Check out Jon Ferguson's notes from this talk - 10 ways to know that relevance has become your goal and not just a tool.
Not only is relevance not a big enough goal, but relevance is relative as well. It's a moving target. Adapting our approach in sharing the Gospel will look different depending on where you are. If we are truly looking at our culture with the perspective of a missionary, then what is relevant in one place may be irrelevant somewhere else. In the podcast referenced above, Ed Stetzer talks about pastors who get "community lust and demographic envy" and try to plant a church that is adapted to work in urban Seattle even if they are in rural Mississippi. Relevance is a function of our specific culture.
Relevance is essential in reaching the goal, but it isn't the goal.
This post is late in coming.I attended this lecture that was given as a part of the Faith Film and Philosophy lecture series at Whitworth University on September 26th.Ralph Winter, the producer of the Fantastic 4 movies, Star Treks 4-6, and The X-Men movies, gave a compelling talk about the power of story and becoming better storytellers through film.
Winter made an early point to talk about the necessity of darkness in some stories.Christians try to sanitize things too much.Many of our biblical stories are just packed with darkness and carnage.The Bible doesn’t try to clean that up.It is important from an accuracy perspective, but also from a storytelling perspective.Darkness is intriguing.Jesus was a master storyteller and many of the stories that Jesus told were very dark.The parable of the prodigal son is a great example.It is a dark story.No one gets what they deserve.The loose ends don’t all get tied up.Whatever happened to the older brother?Did he ever forgive the younger brother?Even the name is dark.It isn’t the “parable of the loving father.”It is the “parable of the prodigal son.”
Christians tend to not like the fact that there is darkness in stories so they try to clean them up.Winter believed that the movie “the Nativity” didn’t do as well as everyone hoped because they took all of the darkness away from the story.They glossed over things like the murder of all of the infants in Bethlehem.He said that they told the story right down the middle.Because they were trying to appeal to the Christian audience they sanded away any roughness so as not to offend anyone, but they didn’t grab anyone either.When we rob stories of their darkness we end up with little more than “pious trash.”
Christianity is not just about being nice.
How do we become master storytellers then as churches and as Christians?The rest of Winter’s talk attempted to answer this question. Winter talked about the people who bring him scripts.His big question is always are they moved by their story?We have to tell stories that move us.If we aren’t moved, then why would we expect anyone else to be moved?
Film is a powerful medium.Winter called filmmakers the teaching pastors of the next generation and called movies the new church services.My side-note here, I don’t think he was saying that this is a good thing; it is simply a reflection on the state of the culture.Filmmakers have access to people today the way churches used to.
Because of the effectiveness of film in connecting with our culture, Winter talked about resourcing people to tell stories through film.He talked about missions and how many missionaries are putting work into making a difference with the type of things that are all over the front page of the paper, such as work with AIDS orphans or working in war torn parts of the world.He suggested putting cameras in the hands of our missionaries or sending film teams down to the countries where our missionaries are serving.Instead of reading a prayer letter from a missionary we could show a 5 minute short film showing what our missionaries are up to.This would be much more effective at connecting with people and helping them have a heart for missions.
Winter lamented the lack of Christians in the documentary film world.There have been several culture impacting documentaries made recently by Michael Moore and, of course, the movie that changed the fast food industry, Supersize Me by Morgan Spurlock.Why isn’t there a compelling Christian voice in the world of documentaries?
Winter recently started a company Thomas Winter Cooke that makes really creative and well produced commercials.They are working with a really talented group of directors and doing some great work.He showed us two examples of what they have done so far.
Winter believes that filmmakers are called to raise questions more than provide answers.The church needs to be there with the answers to the questions raised by film.
Followers of Christ should be the most compelling storytellers since our story is the most important one that ever will be told.
