Thinking Differently About Thinking Differently
How are you thinking differently today?
There are so many things in our lives that we approach by-wrote (and sometimes with good reason lest we go insane) that I believe we miss out on crazy creative opportunities. For instance, when was it decided that one hour was the default meeting length? I made a change this past week to set all of my meetings to 30 minutes. I feel more focused; like my meetings are more effective; less time is wasted.
This is your gentle reminder that you are called to think differently.
So I ask you, what need’s to be re-thought?
The sermon … the idea that you cannot hold people's attention for more than 30 minutes. I've found that when teaching verse by verse through the Bible, people maintain extremely long attention spans.
When people think, they all think differently. The problem is that people do not think. And, unbelievably, Christians are too often among those who do not think. The spirit of God in each of us, as expressed in our natures in Christ, is nothing if not original, nothing if not unique, certainly the very definition of different. Otherwise, what is the point? Yet original thought is especially dangerous in the Christian community. I often call myself an "unconventional" Christian, just to warm folks that I might not conform to their expectations.
What needs to be rethought? Everything. We need to approach every moment as the fresh creation it is…every relationship as the new creation it is…every responsibility as the new opportunity for creation it is. We are children of the living God, creating the body of Christ each moment, completing, as Paul says, what remains to be completed of the work of God in Christ. We are, by faith, the living word, Christ, through whom all that is is made, making the universe as we live out the breath that animates us. If we don't think, who will?
I love Rob Bell as much as the next guy, but who says the sermon has to be one way. Verse by verse may not always work, or make sense. You know, like when Easter rolls around, you may want to deviate from your series in Numbers. And I believe most of our traditions need rethought, but if we don’t, other people will. It is dangerous to assume that if we (the church) don’t think, no one else will. That’s when we hurt our cause, assuming we have it all goin on. Everyone around us is thinking, questioning, engaging and creating. If we don’t think, everyone else will. We have good news, and if we quit thinking, our audience quits listening. Happy Easter!
we need to rethink our whole life in terms of what is glorifying God and what are things that we put before him