Presently I am sitting at Emy J’s trying to work on this Sunday’s message for Tapestry, Monday’s message for InterVarsity’s first Large Group meeting (possibly my favorite name for a meeting ever – just descriptive only way I might like it even more if it was “Monday Meeting at 7 p.m.”), reading the 1st three chapters of the letter of James for the group that Pam and I are a part of that read and discuss each week, and also reading a little of “The Girl With All The Gifts” that Adam recommended I read.1. In between all the people I have seen and had conversations with (and the one person I saw but I was talking with someone else and I have now lost – that’s right I’m talking to you Tegan) I have been thinking about two things I want to blog about but just can’t bring myself to extended time upon right now. They are:
- Thing #1 Celebrity – I become a little more convinced every year or so that celebrity may be the most dangerous thing to Western Evangelical church and her leaders. I can’t put it all together but a lot of it for me comes from the belief I have that the bride of Christ is at her best when she is weak2 The desire for power and influence is great and it influences the church way too much. First you have a small stage (a church or a blog) and then someone comes and says you should write a book and reach more people. Then you start talking to wider audiences and the possibility for influence seems to be so much greater. I don’t exactly know what it is I want to write but I am pretty sure that when we are face to face with Christ we will learn that the people who brought the most glory to Christ are going to be people who we never would have wanted autographs from. Maybe that’s what I want to say – if someone ever wants my autograph then I have probably done something wrong. I don’t know. I’m just working on this.
- Thing #2 Signalling – I have written about this before here but I am still fascinated with signalling theory. Talk to Pam or the boys and they will say that I talk about this all the time. Why? Well because it is all around us. What we wear, drive, eat. Where we live, visit, avoid. So much of this is about signalling. We are signalling that we are part of or not part of groups. Pam and I just had an interesting conversation concerning some of the health food/supplement thingies and also the minimalist movements probably coming out of an unexpressed desire to signal that you are a part of one group and not another. Face it, some of the minimalist and supplement crap I see can only be done but someone who is pretty well off. Maybe it is just another way of saying “I’m not poor” without thinking you sound like a jerk. Signalling is really all around us and I am convinced that many things that we think are important have more to do with signalling than they do our actual values.