I’m off to Men’s Roundup this weekend and I’m so excited. Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz) is the main speaker. It’s going to be awesome. Man food. Frisbee golf. Donald Miller. It doesn’t get any better than this.
So in honor of Mr. Miller, I give you some of his world of wisdom:
Thirteen Paradigm Shifts we encountered doing Christian ministry in a pagan environment…
1. Other People Exist: Simply coming to the understanding that the world does not revolve around “me” but that everybody is having an experience, created by God, loved by God, and that we needed to repent of showing partiality…
2. Nobody will listen to you unless they know you like them: We began to understand that people, subconsciously, merit a religious or philosophical idea not on logical conclusions, but on whether or not the idea creates a “good person”…the definition of a good person being whether or not a person is kind to them, tolerant and understanding, able to listen without arguing and so on.
3. Nobody will listen to God unless they know God loves them: We came to believe there was usually a hidden pain behind hostility, that many people have been hurt by the church, or people or perspectives they believed to represent God. Many times it’s as simple as an interview they saw on CNN, but an apology and kindness went a long way in helping people understand God was loving.
4. Other people have morality and values: We came to understand that Christians do not own morality, that everybody lives by a moral code, not always informed by an ancient text, and yet it is there. Calling people or even thinking of them as immoral was, then, inappropriate. In fact, we often found that people who did not know Christ lived a morality close to his heart in many areas we had ignored, ie; community, tolerance, social justice, fairness and equality, freedom, beauty and so on and so on.
5. Find common ground: Often the morality of others overlapped Christian morality, and we came to understand that in these cases, we would focus on the overlapping issues. We came to see this as kindness, just as though we were on a date or making friends, we did not focus on what we didn’t have in common, but rather on mutual feelings about life. We would not say or do anything to combat people unless they knew we loved them, and this takes a great deal of time.
6. Define terms in their language: We were careful about Christian sayings and phrases that might be offensive: Crusade, sin, immorality….we came to understand that concepts were more sacred than terms…
7. Telling somebody about the gospel is about them, not us: We were careful not to try to “build our organization” and respected peoples freedom and space. Sharing the gospel became an exercise in friendship, rather than an attempt to grow a machine. Often, people feel used if they feel they are being recruited. The gospel, we learned, is really about them, their feelings about God and truth, about sin, about life.
8. Don’t let spreading the gospel feel any different than telling somebody about a love in your life, about your children or a great memory: We realized that in telling somebody about Jesus, we were telling them about somebody we have come to love and need, and about something that had happened to us, an encounter. This keeps us from sounding preachy, and allows us to share part of ourselves in a friendship.
9. Include lost People in Your Community: Our organization was not exclusive. We invited non-believers into the community if they wanted to be invited. We were careful not to not be ourselves with them, but they were certainly invited and enjoyed being a part of the group. We explained terms that we used, what we believed, but other than that, continued as normal.
10. Apologize for what you represent: We discovered that many people have been offended or hurt by what they perceive Christianity to be. We allowed ourselves to stand in the place of “Christianity” and apologize whenever necessary.
11. Be authentic: We discovered the need to be as honest about our lives as possible. We did not feel the need to sale Jesus, as much as share what He has done in our broken lives. We had no problem sharing our doubts and fears about faith, along with our commitment and appreciation for what God had done.
12. Pray for the Salvation of others: We discovered the need to pray for others. This would insure God was working in peoples lives, as we asked Him to. We discovered the work of evangelism is something God lets us watch, but very little of it is what we manipulate. We repented of not believing evangelism was a spiritual exchange between a lost person and God, rather than believing it was a series of ideas we were supposed to convince others of.
13. Ask people if they would like to know Christ: We decided to initiate, whenever the relationship called for it. We were not afraid to ask people if they would like to know God.
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I saw this over on Brian Alexander’s great blog.
It’s another one of those rah rah statements you always hear floating around youth groups. For those of you who don’t know, Leland is a girl pant wearing emo Christian whine rockers. Here’s a statement by the band meant to rally youth to live an “opposite way.” Not to be the jerk here, but this sounds good but doesn’t mean anything.
If Lealand wanted to live the opposite way, they’d give their CD’s away for free, tour for free and just hang out with people and share Jesus. It’s easy for bands to preach to kids about living differently when they themselves are living a capitalistic dream.
Are we called to live different? Yes. Is this the way? Nope.
A missions trip to Africa is the answer? If we’re wanting to be different, the answer then is moving to Africa and investing well in the people there. When the Lord says he wants our life he means all of it. Giving your life over doesn’t mean bringing your Bible to work. It’s doing something that you’re completely devoted to for the Lord.
Do you see what I’m saying? Or am I just rambling?
This whole thing is well intentioned, but never lasts. It’s like the experience you have at camp. Kids come home ready to be different, and then when the “camp high” is over, lives moves on as it was.
For them to ask us to live differently, the need to be willing to journey there as well - and I don’t see that happening. They’ll keep playing more shows, pumping out more CD’s and making loads of cash, riding the Chri$tian Marketing Culture lifestyle. Christian Culture isn’t counter culture. It’s religious culture. Christ WAS counter culture, not religious- he left that for the Pharisees in pink sweaters.