Sermon Post Mortem: Isaiah 14:24-19:25 -- the one about racism, God's sovereignty, and our calling

OK...I've already missed a week, and here we are on Thursday when I'm getting this one up. It takes more time than I anticipated to get these post mortems up and running. However, given the discussion on the sermon from two weeks ago, I think this might be a valuable exercise. Go check out the comment stream -- some great feedback given by members of the church.

This week's passage was Isaiah 14:24-19:25....I'll post the link when the sermon audio is available. We only read selections from it and touched on a couple of the major themes:

First we look at the theme of God's sovereignty over the nations. Particularly, we tie the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost back to the oracles God gives here. (see Acts 2:1-41). We focused particularly on that astounding passage in 19:23-25:

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and the Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheiritance.'

And we linger on how amazing it is that Egypt and Assyria ... the enemies of ancient Israel ... would come to be considered brothers before the throne of God. Here are some photos I have from the Oriental Institute Museum of Colossal figures from both Assyria and Egypt ... showing the impression of power over the people...the might of the temporal rulers ... indeed their claim to divine kingship. Throughout Isaiah, God pronounces judgment against these nations and rulers for their arrogance, but here God shows that judgment is not the last word. The last word is inclusion into the worshipping family of God. This is really big news.

I wish I had tied this back to the Abrahamic covenant .. Genesis 12:2-3 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you : I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." -- in that Covenant we see God's intent to bless the nations and to use the offspring of Abraham to be a blessing to the nations. In Isaiah, we see the nations being blessed by being included in the worshipping community of the God of Abraham. Very very cool.

And so the tie back to Pentecost...that all nations are gathered to worship...see Galatians 3:26ff "You are all sons of God thorugh faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

This truth confronts us with racism ... we don't have any room for racial discrimination. I had some people affirm the need to hear this...one person privately offered repentence for this sin. Others said that I might get in hot water. I was surprised however by one verbal feedback which indicated I was being tribal or sectarian. I think this person was trying to convey that they thought I was playing up bondedness in Christ too much at the expense of our common human bondedness.

To clarify on that point....we all share a unique dignity as being made in the Image of God. This dignity is to be honored and respected in all human beings. The commands to extend love and care and concern apply to our relationships with all human beings. However, at the same time, scripture makes clear that there is a special bondedness among the people of God. There is a special connection there based off our shared faith. Just as in Islam, there is an understanding of the ummah as the worldwide community of believers, so in Christianity we have this understanding of the church....that the Invisible Church is the worldwide community of true believers, bonded by the Holy Spirit ... a community that transcends national and political bounds. It is my belief that we can at the same time assert the universal dignity of humanity as made in the image of God alongside the particular community of the Invisible Church of God's covenant people.

Second, we see that this passage is a goad for missions. If I had my wits about me, I would have made very explicit the truth that the Sovereignty of God over the nations is indeed what gives hope to our mission efforts. And here we take a global view of the need to take the gospel to the unreached people groups.

I mention the Joshua Project -- encouraging prayer for the unreached people groups ... info is on their website, and I hope that some of you will check out their material.

Third, we see that God's sovereignty over the nations should give impetus to our own personal mission effort. God's purposes will be fulfilled. Here I applied God's sovereignty to the current troubles in our own time..... I quote John Adams' worries about his times.... the citation comes from McCullogh's biography, an excellent read. However, I'm embarrassed that I misquote scripture ... I talk about John Adams being formed in his mothers womb for his time and refer people to Psalm 138 -- when It should have been Psalm 139. That's what happens when I veer from the printed words in front of me.

The point being that God's sovereignty is not an excuse for us to be lazy and rest upon laurels or to cower in fear because the times are too great for us. Rather God's sovereignty is the grounding and foundation for us to act and involve ourselves in the world; We were made for these times and we were given a calling for these times.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments (if you even remember anything from the sermon by this point at all)....Next week, I'll try to get the post-mortem up sooner.

Soli Deo Gloria

Russell

3 times a day -- good for our spirit

I'm doing a study of early Christian literature ... some fascinating stuff. One of the more important documents is the Didache, which purports to be the "teachings of the 12 apostles"...basically an early Christian handbook. Many scholars place the text to sometime in the first century.

The early chapters contrast the ways of life and death, and then the book moves into a description of early worship...and that's my interest for this post. The early christian audience of the Didache was encouraged to fast two days out of the week (Wednesday and Friday) and to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day. Here it is in a full quotation of Chapter 8 (from the Roberts-Donaldson translation):

But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week. Rather, fast on the fourth day and the Preparation (Friday). Do not pray like the hypocrites, but rather as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, like this:

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily (needful) bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (or, evil); for Thine is the power and the glory for ever."

Pray this three times each day.

Now the fasting part is pretty tough though certainly doable. Wesley used to fast from the evening meal of Thursday to mid-afternoon Friday. According to the Coptic church website, Egyptian Coptic Christians fast for 210 days a year.

Even so, I'd like us to look at that second piece...praying the Lord's Prayer three times a day. That's it. A simple little prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Three times a day. Is it possible that Christians could do even that? Many American Christians hardly ever lend prayer a thought save at mealtimes and when led to pray in church. What would it do to our spiritual lives if we made it a baseline committment between ourselves and God to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day .... not mechanistically as though it were some incantation to attain spiritual power. But praying it thoughtfully, slowly, applying the general statements of the prayer to the particular situations of our lives.

Perhaps some of us will give it a try ....

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Picking up the conversation about funding...and catapaulting to the ever growing pie

Here's an illustration of the extended conversations we can have online. John Schroeder blessed me today by picking up on one of my earlier posts and running with it. However, mine was a development from a post by Bradley Wright. It was basically a thought around the idea of non-profits and the scarcity of resources (attention, volunteering, fundraising) Follow the thread here, if you dare:

Bradley's original post
Russell's follow- up
John's follow- up

So Bradley has some very deep initial thoughts, I add my usual silliness, and then John adds some real value by givings us the distinction between obligitory giving and passionatie giving. Obligitory giving results in a scarcity of resources ... while passionate giving results in a multiplication of resources. There's any number of obligitory givers out there we can touch, but the real bang comes when we touch the people who are passionate about the ministry.

And this takes me to the recent work by Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody (see my review here). Now people with passion are able to remotely connect quickly, easily and all around the world. The use of social media on the web will dramatically increase the pie for everyone because passionate people can more easily bond. In addition, the tools allow them to collaborate much easier, as well as making it easier for obligitory givers/volunteers to provide simple/low cost contributions on their own terms (see Kiva.org as a fine example -- or my posts on how it works). Another fine example of this trend is in the Modest Needs foundation (which I heard about on NPR) .... you make your donation, and then you can choose which particular needy people you can donate to ... online ... at midnight while you're in your jammies and sipping a glass of Grape Nehi.

Social media does this by lowering the connection cost .... you can connect many to many very easily. The churches/nonprofits that learn how to use social media will reap great benefits in terms of breadth of connection, depth of committment, etc. There are challenges on how to navigate the social media realm .... it's new .... all the old rules don't apply ... there will be brand new norms of behavior and expectations (do i, as a pastor, by default "friend" people on Facebook, or do I wait for them to come to me? What are the bounds of information I can share about myself? What kind of messages will people treat as spam? etc).

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

A day in the life of a pastor: conversations with a student of Dharma

One of the pleasures of having Panera Bread as a branch office are the providential encounters that happen there from time to time. Last week, I ran into an old acquaintence whom I hadn't seen in many months or more: Richard Blumberg. When I first met Richard, he was a self-described atheist, though interested in the teachings of Buddhism. Despite this difference (or perhaps because of it), we have great conversations. He's a warm hearted guy with a great sense of humor and and generous spirit.

Richard put up a blog post last week about the comparison of Buddhism and Christianity (in response to a question he'd been asked in one of the classes he teaches), and he asked me for feedback. I'm afraid that my understanding of Buddhism is but rudimentary, though I do know a thing or two about Christianity. So I offer these points just as a matter of clarification about the Christian faith. Richard...I'm looking forward to ongoing discussion on the deep things of faith and life.

Richard summarizes his opening thus: "There are three things, I think, that most clearly distinguish the Buddha’s teachings from the Christian scriptures: the authenticity and coherence of the scriptural documents, the differing natures of Jesus and the Buddha, and the vast differences in the core doctrines. I’ll take these one at a time."

Authenticity and coherence of scriptural documents:

"Almost from the beginning of Christianity, there has been significant dispute about the authenticity of the Gospels; they do, after all, differ considerably in the stories they tell of some of the more significant events in the story of Jesus the Christ; they frequently seem to be promoting a particular doctrinal agenda; and the emphasis each one lays on the events in the life of Jesus and the importance of those events and of his various teachings differs considerably from one Gospel to the next. There is also the nagging question of alternative Gospels, with an equal or greater claim to authenticity than the canonical four, that would have changed the message of the canon considerably had they been included with the others. "

I suppose the matter of believability depends upon the place from which one stands. Needless to say, I find the Gospels to be quite believable. The issue of "alternative gospels" is an interesting one. The debates in the first three centuries of the church seem to demonstrate a strong unity of belief among the majority of Christians ... though there were splinter groups that sought to carve their own way. The most significant debates in the early church were not whether to include "alternative gospels", but rather which of the canonical books of the new testament to include.

I prefer to look at the great unity across the canon of the New Testament. Yes, there are passages that exist in tension with one another (which is why some sects wanted to leave out certain books), but this is not necessarily contradiction. I must guard against my own chronological snobbery in which I assume that I as a rational enlightened 21st century figure can see contradictions that the first and second and third century Christians were blind to. The tensions were quite obvious to them...and they lived with them. This seems to accurately reflect life ... differing perceptions and yet behind them is truth.

So, I'm afraid I just have to disagree on the issue of reliability of the scriptures of Christianity. I, and many others, find them reliable and trustworthy and real. The scriptures of Christianity were recorded within the lifetime of Jesus' disciples and had the opportunity to be corroborated and challenged and cross checked, whereas the Pali Canon was written down 500 years after the Buddha's teaching. I can grant the reliability of the Pali Canon based upon the capacity of oral-based cultures to remember and transmit vast amounts of knowledge....however I must also grant that same reliabilty to the Jewish culture of antiquity which shared a similar reverence for oral tradition.

The differing natures of the teachers.

"While it’s possible to take from the Gospels a picture of Jesus that is distinctly human—a smart and charismatic person, standing in radical opposition to the orthodoxy of his day, leader of a small group of revolutionaries focussed on the overthrow of the priestly establishment and of the occupying Romans who supported it—that is not the Jesus on which the religion of Christianity or the Christian Church is based. The Christian Jesus is, above and beyond any other characteristics, a divine Being, Son of God Himself, Who took birth as a man to fulfill His Father’s heavenly purpose, and Who, after His crucifixion, was bodily taken back up to Heaven to sit at His Father’s right hand."

This is very close but not quite on. The Jesus of Christianity is both fully human and fully divine. Indeed, many of the early debates within Christianity were all about working out how does Jesus' human nature relate to Jesus' divine nature. The church very wisely followed the indications in scripture....Jesus is fully human, he suffers, he bleeds, he stands against the powers and principalities, he weeps, he laughs. But scripture also clearly indicates that Jesus is divine. This divinity however doesn't make Jesus some distant iceburg...rather it pushes us into the mystery of God with us. It pushes us to confront the idea that God chooses not to lord power over all of us, but rather becomes one of us to show His identificiation with us. Thus Christianity doesn't just embrace Jesus full humanity, it requires that it always be held side by side with Jesus' full divinity.

Contrasting Doctrines: The Meaning of Life

And that brings us to the most significant difference between Christianity and Buddhism: the vastly different doctrines at their cores. In what follows, I’m going to focus on two aspects of doctrine: what each religion teaches about the purpose of life and what each presents as the rules for living a good life—essentially, ontology and ethics. And I want to protest in advance that I am not and have never been a Christian; in all of what follows, I am on shaky ground.

The primary ontological focus of Christianity, as I understand it, is soteriological: Christianity is all about sin and salvation. Orthodox Christianity views the original condition of humankind as a state of sin; the role of Jesus as Messiah, Savior, was to redeem that sin and save mankind from the fate that sinners are doomed to suffer. To carry out His mission of redemption, Jesus had to die on the cross and rise from the tomb. To benefit from Jesus’s sacrifice, to participate in Salvation, it is only necessary to believe in Him.

Sadly, this is the impression that we as Christians give, isn't it. That Christianity is nothing more than a "get out of hell free card". That's never been the historic understanding of the Christian purpose of life, but somewhere we've allowed ourselves to get sucked into slick marketing of Jesus as though he were a "7 habits of highly effective gurus" programme.

In my tradition, we have a teaching tool called the Westminster Shorter Catechism...it was authored in the 1600's as a method of transmitting the essentials of faith from one generation to the next. It begins with the basic question "What is the chief end of man?" .... ie, what is our ontology? The answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Nothing in that about salvation. The end goal of all of creation is ultimately about reflecting back the innate glory of the Creator. The vastness of space, the intricacy of subatomic structures, the mysterious workings of the forces of physics, the greatest supernova and the smallest protozoa....all of it bears something of the thumbprint of the Creator. In so far as those things draw our breath in awe and wonder, they accomplish something of the purpose of bringing glory to the Creator. And this takes us to the second half "enjoy him forever" -- the Creator created us as personal relational beings that we might eternally be in relationship with him.

It is only upon that understanding that the whole story of sin and redemption operates. Salvation is not the purpose of life...it is the rescue operation from a tragic abberation from our purpose in life.

So here I might nuance your understanding of the difference between Buddhism and Christianity. For as I understand Christianity, our personhood ... our individuality is a key component. We are each as individuals in relationship with the living God. Relationship of course entails the mystery of combining individuality with self-loss for the other in a mutual relationship of love.

Buddhism, as I understand it, teaches that personality itself is illusion...that part of dukkha is the craving to be individuals. My understanding is that Buddhism teaches that personhood is illussion from which we must be freed. To my mind that personhood/non-personhood distinction is the more precise definition of the difference in ontology.

Contrasting Doctrines: Ethics

"Nor do I mean to imply that there is no place for faith in Buddhism. In fact, faith is a core virtue in Buddhism, but it seems to me that it means something different there than it does in Christianity. In Christianity, faith is where it ends; if you have faith, you’re in, you’re saved. In Buddhism, faith is where it begins; we have to have faith that the Buddha was, in fact, awakened, liberated from attachment to transient things and the dukkha that attends such attachment; and we have to have faith that he was being honest about the Path that led to his awakening. Without that measure of faith, we’d have no incentive to undertake the practice of the Path ourselves. But we also need to have faith that the Buddha did all that as a human being and that his accomplishment, awesome as it is, is within our reach as human beings. We must have faith in our own ability to reduce dukkha and, eventually, to bring it to an end."

Again, sadly this reflects how poorly the church communicates who we are called to be. The scriptures do speak of Christianity being rooted in grace, but that the grace is unto something: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) is a classic statement about grace and salvation, but the statement doesn't end there...the next verse is key "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." They key point here being that it is not sufficient to say "if you have faith, that's it you're saved" b/c that kind of thinking misses the whole point. Being saved isn't just a rescue from perdition, it is also a rescue to living a life of service and love. It means being transformed into a servant who loves his neighbor as himself.

Again, I believe the main difference on this issue of ethics is not so much the content of the ethical precepts...it's in the power and capacity. Who is empowering the good acts. You make the point that the Buddha was fully human and therefore he shows us that we humans can follow the path too. The idea in Buddhism seems to be that each of us must find that Path for ourselves and we must take responsibility for following that path.

By contrast Christianity emphasizes our inability to follow the path on our own. Our radical dependence upon Christ is what is in mind. Not only are we unable to reconcile ourselves to God, but we are also unable to walk the Path that Christ teaches...thus Christ offers help: "....work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13). This truth is tied into the relational nature of Christianity.... we can neither accomplish what we need nor live the way we ought. However we place our faith in Christ's working to accomplish the reconciliation with God that we need....and we trust in the inward guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us to live the way we ought.

Hope these thoughts help....thanks for providing some stimulating food for thought. I'm looking forward to future conversation (online or off).

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

National Day of Prayer - 2008 at Hamilton County Courthouse Steps

I went to the 2008 observance of the National Day of Prayer on the Hamilton County Courthouse Steps today. Days of prayer have a long and rich heritage in the US. The puritans regularly held days of fasting and prayer prior to large undertakings (such as the Plymouth expedition). In 1775, the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a nation. In 1952, a joint resolution by Congress authorizes an annual national day of prayer and it was signed into law by President Truman. In 1988, the law was amended to set the day of prayer is the first Thursday in May.

The local organizing committee has comprised of a group of volunteers, including Rocky Pegg, Phil Bishop, and Dr. Ted Kalsbeek. This year's programme featured Major Randy Fannon of the US Army Reserve praying for those who protect and serve. Major Fannon serves as a hospital chaplain at Bethesda North Hospital, and he rememberd not just our military, but also our local service personnel, such as fire, police, and other emergency responders.

Prayers for those who govern were offered by Judge Patrick Dinkelacker. Following his prayer, the assembled crowed enjoyed music from the orchestra and choir of God's Bible School and College. Most Cincinnatians are not aware of God's Bible School...it's a historic Wesleyan Holiness institution nestled right on the heights overlooking downtown. They operate dozens of ministries throughout the city, giving their ministerial students opportunities to work with prisoners, the elderly, children, and inner city folk. And yet very few people outside of Wesleyan Holiness circles are aware of them. Their choir and orchestra are pretty wonderful (in fact, they'll be performing at our church next week), and the open air concert was a real complement to the day's events.

Following the choral music, Sonja Vernon of God's Bible School led us in prayer for those who educate while Rev. Jim Bramlage of the historic Peter in Chains Cathedral led prayer for those who Minister. The ceremonies were rounded out with the inimitable Peter Bronson of the Cincinnati Enquirer praying for our City and Communities. All told it was a fine afternoon spent in worship, fellowship and enjoyment of God's good creation through nature, art, and the dignity of our fellow man.


Soli Deo Gloria

Russell

See also my reflections on the 2006 Day of Prayer

Essential non-obvious albums of the 1980s

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost asks "What are the essential non-obvious albums of the 1980s" You have to read his post to get his criteria and his picks. I agree with many of his picks and those of his commentators, but, If we're really going for nonobvious I'm going to have to add a few (in no particular order):

1. The soundtrack to the Musical Les Miserables (the musical that re-established the rock opera as a viable genre...This 1980 composition is now the longest running production in London's west end and has been an inspiration to countless theatre geeks)

2. Jimmy Buffett Songs You Know By Heart. This 1985 Best of Album marked a transition from a Bacchanalian Buffett of the 70s to the more contemplative Buffett of Floridays, Hot Water, and Off to See the Lizard (these three arguably his best later career work). For most Parrothead geeks, this was a landmark release.

3. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. John Williams cements his position as THE composer for film orchestration for the decade...particularly with the all powerful empire march (Dum Dum Dum, Dum De Dum, Dum De Dum). Pride of place probably should go to his work in the 1970s (on the Star Wars Soundtrack)... but on this album, his music evokes the darker themes of the second film. Nothing less than brilliant.

4. Harry Connick Jr, Harry Connick Jr This self titled 1987 release brought the classic jazz of the 40s and 50s to a new generation. Fans said that the young Gen X Harry was positvely channeling Frank Sinatra at his best. Through Harry, Jazz became cool again for a young audience.

5. Amy Grant Lead Me On. Released in 1988, Amy Grant's album was a huge hit, particularly in the Bible belt. However its importance lies in the first hints of Amy moving toward a "crossover artist" from CCM to the mainstream. Several of her songs were not explicitly about faith, and she mastered pop vocal style. This transition was fully realized in her 1991 release Heart in Motion, a completely secular album. This album also was one of the portents of CCM moving out of being a weird subculture into being a massive media machine, as realized in the 1990s.

So that's my first pass... let me know what you think.

Excelsior
Russell

How to encourage your pastor

This gem merits special attention because it is right on. John Piper answers the question how to encourage your pastor. Don't give your pastor a Rolls Royce when they're 60 but rather "I want to see your life changed. I want to see you pour yourself out for others." "Prove by your life that I haven't wasted mine." This is right on. A must read for every church member who cares about their pastors.

Hat Tip to Tim Challies

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Isaiah 12:1-6 Sermon post mortem -- the one where he mentions South Park (and then makes us sing loud)

Starting this new tradition for our Sunday worship -- the sermon post-mortem. You can listen to the sunday sermon online (this week is Isaiah Ch 12:1-6). And here I'll dissect, give more backgrounders, links, and invite your discussion. I'll be going linearly through the sermon... jump to what interests you.

John Piper and the preview of end times worship:
In styling this as a preview of end times worship, I make reference to John Piper's statement that the end goal of all church activity is worship. This was one of those unplanned references....I hadn't thought of it during my prep time.... it came to mind in the midst of the sermon. I have an understanding that the Holy Spirit at times operates by dredging things up from the recesses of memory at the opportune time, and thus I have to make a quick discernment on whether this might or might not be the Holy Spirit leading (ie, judge against scriptural teaching, is this timely, is it needful for this congregation at this time). Obviously, in this case, I decided to go with it and use the illustration.

BTW, I came into the office this morning and looked up an exact quote ... right there in the opening sentences of Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever." (pg 11)

If you've never experienced Piper's preaching ... you must hear him firsthand. Here's a brief clip. He challenges me and stretches me as a preacher and a Christian.

While we're on the topic of worship, I wanted to share a few commentary quotes. My analysis of a passage is aided and informed by several commentaries (I'm using about 6 right now for Isaiah)...one of the most helpful is Ray Ortlund's. (see bio here). He has some wonderfully refreshing ways of capturing Isaiah's message in this passage:

“It is out of our delight in God that we find our prophetic voices. True Christianity isn’t primarily a matter of control; primarily it’s overflowing fullness. That is the triumph of grace.” (120)

“Have you transitioned from being frustrated with a reluctant God who isn’t cooperating with your agenda to being comforted by a God who is lavishing you with grace upon grace? How does anyone turn that corner? By going back to the gospel that made us Christians in the first place.” (120)

“The heart sings when we accept how little it matters that we are in control and how much it matters that God is in control for us, when we discover how little it matters that we are able and how much it suffices that God is able on our behalf.” (122)

That last quote was worth the cover price of the book....

Aspects of Worship: Praise for our Salvation (v1-2)
I linger a bit talking about how our praise shouldn't simply be about the glories of creation, but we're also called to praise for the glories of salvation. I don't mean to denigrate praise for the glories of creation....i'm really into God being praised through creation (Psalm 19). However, we cannot lose the praise of Christ for his distinctive work of salvation ... and thus I lingered on this point.

Aspects of Worship: Joy, the heart of our worship (v3)
Here was the controversial part of the sermon. I talk positively about joy .... and then I use a negative illustration for contrast. I chose for this negative illustration the creators of South Park: Matt Stone and Trey Parker (from a March Rolling Stone interview). I used this extended quote to show the poverty of their cynical worldview"

Parker says: “I spend shockingly little time thinking about real-world stuff…As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got a computer, the internet, an Xbox, and PlayStation 3, so f*** off.” and again “The only way to be more hardcore than everyone else is to tell the people who think they’re the most hardcore that they’re p******, to go up to a tattooed, pierced vegan and say ‘Whatever, you tattooed f******, you’re a pierced f****** and whatever.’ ......That’s hardcore”

Then the article author makes this observation "Like a lot of punks, he’s searching for that one pure thing in life but hasn’t found it yet.”

I quickly discovered that at least one person was highly offended by this illustration. Others were very bemused as to why I was talking about South Park. After the service, I approached the person who was offended to make sure we were OK. That person conveyed to me that South Park was totally offensive and it had no place in worship. We didn't end the conversation on bad terms. This person said their peace and they were OK (as near as I can tell). But plenty of others expressed their not understanding of the illustration.

I was a little confused because I made it clear that it's a negative example ... "It's a foul and profane show". Here's the thing .... I'd rather not talk about such things, but this is indeed the world in which we live. After worship, I spoke with at least 4 men who were under 40, all of whom watched South Park and thought it was hilarious. I really feel like my peers need to hear the worldview of the creators of South Park so they can understand the poverty...indeed the tragedy of that worldview.

And the church needs to hear it .... because if we simply get offended then we play into their game. They're trying to offend. They're trying to show that they don't care that they offend. However, by my perspective, it's easy to offend. Offensiveness doesn't require a lot of imagination....I do it plenty enough myself by accident (and I'm one who hates offending others). So, the only way to counter it is to rise above offendedness. After all, it's not like these guys are some outsider rebels anymore .... they've got a hit show, they're millionaires, for better or worse, they impact the culture a lot more than I do. They don't need me to be offended by them ... they need my pity. Because now that they've got everything they ever wanted, their lives are empty and void. Can you imagine looking at your dying day, thinking back over your legacy and saying "Yeah, I'm proud I created South Park....." It's pathetic....really. Our hearts ought to break for these guys .... for they have it all, and they know not what they're missing.

So I don't mean to dismiss the discomfort that some of our members may have felt. After reflection, I think I understand the discomfort. It's a little like someone showing up to your formal party with dungarees and muddy cowboy boots, only a lot more distasteful. It's like having something lovely (worship) marred by something ugly.

Aspects of worship: Worship carries the message to the nations (v4-6)
I meant to make the connection with the John ch 4 passage with the woman at the well. I mentioned it earlier when talking about the wells of living water. But the end of the story, the woman goes and tells her whole village and many come to faith. The wells of living water imagery goes hand in glove with telling the nations.

Aspects of worship: Worship leads us to break forth in song (v 5-6)
I mention Scott Dudley's presentation at the 2006 PGF conference. Here's a link to the videos available from that conference. The idea that group singing is one of the things that Christians do that baffles folks outside the church "why do you sing?".... and thus we all ought to sing with gusto.

Combox is open for questions, comments, thoughts.

Soli Deo Gloria.
Russell

Wednesday Sermon post-mortem

Ok, so in the spirit of going transmedia, I'm going to try to play with a new theme -- a sermon post-mortem. I'm thinking this is like a look at the cutting room floor combined with director's commentary and opportunities for follow up. The combox will be open for you to chime in with your comments and links and debates.

So for a trial run, I thought I'd quickly review this Wednesday's sermon
So our emphasis this past week was Acts 8:26-40.

Immediately after the sermon, I received a few smiling comments from our Baptist friends ... about Philip taking the eunuch down into the water for immersion. Honestly I didn't focus on Baptism because I don't think the mode is what's important in the text. Also, I'm a Presbyterian, and as we know, Presbyterians are Baptists who are afraid of water.

Early on in the sermon, I talk about the Ethiopian church that claims to house the ark of the covenant. I learned about this from Smithsonian Magazine's story.... In it we learn that the Ethiopian church (like the Egyptian church) also has mythology about Jesus and Mary sojurning there during the Herodian Persecution. The ark is supposedly housed in a secret treasury in Axum ... a lone priest is given the charge of guarding the ark...he's the only one allowed in, and he is never allowed out. Very much like the keepers of the holy grail in some grail lore (particularly in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade version of the story).

Then we get into the issue of the miraculous and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the sermon I shy away from the "Word of Knowledge" concept to prefer the idea of "Sanctified Intuition"....the idea that we personally receive a "Word of Knowledge" implies that we've received infallible revelation directly. "Sanctified Intuition" on the other hand implies that God works out his providence, and the more sanctified we are, the more attuned we are to seeing His hand at work. This article does a nice job of explaining what I'm getting at. However the point led up to this statement:

"Not every impulse is a move of the Holy Spirit" -- here's an illustration of that point that wound up on the cutting room floor. About 6 years ago, I had a great idea .... to host a Maximum Impact leadership simulcast here at the church ... but we were a small church and we needed to get some partnership to afford it and publicize it. I prayed it over .... it felt right. I sought counsel and received good advice. I approached the local business newspaper and they were on board. They hired a local event planner to make it happen. They publicized it. Two days before the event, I got a call from the publisher, a friend of mine. He told me there were 2 names on the registration list and he felt like he had to cancel. Blessedly it didn't damage our relationship, but I felt humiliated. Now I'm a little more cautious about how I read that inward compass. I understand that at times my own sin gets in the way of my intuition ... thus the need for it to be sanctified.

Then I speak to the Presbyterian/Reformed tendency toward Rationalism ... disparaging intuition at all. In illustrating our need to rely on the teaching work of the Holy Spirit, I reference the solo that was sung earlier in the service ... but the solo isnt on the audio sermon .... it was "Spirit of God Descend upon my heart" (text and tune here, though Phil sang a very different setting ... more melancholy and yearning). The key verse for the purposes of this sermon was: "Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer."

Here another illustration went to the cutting room floor -- I'm a big Jimmy Buffett fan (or was)... the song "Cowboy in the Jungle" has a great refrain "Roll with the punches/ learn to play all of your hunches/ make the best of whatever comes your way/ Forget that blind ambition/ and learn to trust your intuition/ plowin straight ahead, come what may" (Of course Buffett has a kind of hedonistic easy-breezy approach to this ... I'm not sure that he's thinking about the Holy Spirit .... even so, I like the song.... a lot.... just thought it would take too much intro to work this into the sermon).

Another illustration here that went unused -- Blink by Malcolm Gladwell -- mainly because I hadn't read the full book, just book reviews of it. In it he focuses on the idea of snap judgments and the way our brain works faster than our thinking.

Moving on to the next big point .... faith is not a lone ranger journey. We're not called to go through this alone. Scripture is sufficient in conveying the Main things .... I mention Alastair Begg's use of this phrase "The main things are the plain things". Even though scripture is sufficient, we need teachers to lead us and guide us. Alastair is one of the teachers I rely on .... here's a taste of his schtick and if you really like it, check out his church's website. For other good teachers, I suggest Mongergism.com...tons of resources from an abundance of great teachers.

I also mention the key qualifier for evaluating your teachers: "The teaching all points back to Christ" .... lots of illustrations wound up on the cutting room floor here... Mainly because they were personal stories that would malign the character of prominent Christian leaders. I thought it better to look at John the Baptist as the model "He must increase, I must decrease"

I discuss how we complicate evangelism with complicated methodologies rather than simply pointing people to Jesus. In that discussion, I talk about the history of the Second Great Awakening and some of the extraordinary technique used there that was spiritually unhelpful. For further reading, I commend Iain Murray's Revival and Revivalism, BB Warfield's work on Perfectionism, and the recent book A City Upon a Hill (see my review). The amazing quote from City Upon A Hill comes from Finney, reflecting upon his highly engineered and scripted revivalistic methodology, even he came to feel it was were “so much policy and machinery, so much dependence upon means and measures, so much of man and so little of God.” (115).

The closing hymn was Come Holy Spirit, Dove Divine (lyrics and music here).

So that's the post mortem... the combox is open (and John Jensen, I know you had some good comments, so jump in)

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Hollywood's new Geek Elite

Can I call them or what? A mere week and a half after I lay out the need for the church to take a serious look at Geek culture, the latest Fast Company arrives, and within is an article on "The Rebel Alliance" .... Hollywood's new geek elite.

These are the creators of all the sci-fi hits that are taking the airwaves by storm: Heroes, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc. The article gives a fascinating insight into this creative aspect of geek culture ... it began back in the days of Star Trek and Star Wars .... it began with fandom.

All these uber-creatives were huge fans. Take Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly: “I don’t understand creators who aren’t fans….My experience as a fan was, things that I loved, I loved very hard – Marvel Comics, science fiction, Dickens, Shakespeare, Sondhiem. The things I was a geek about, I was a serious geek about.” This kind of fanatical devotion is what Kevin Roberts analyzes in his book Lovemarks “Today the stakes have reached a new high. The social fabric is spread more thinly than ever. People are looking for new emotional connections. They are looking for what they can love. They are insisting on more choice, they have higher expectations, and they need emotional pull to help them make decisions. And finally, they want more ways to connect with everything in their lives -- including brands.” These creative elites intuitively understand that fans feel passionate about the imaginitive worlds, and they will want to play in them .... creators need to give those fans room in which to play ... and create and expand the universe. In the 70s and 80s this was done through fan conventions and fan fiction. Now it's done through transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia means telling the story across multiple platforms .... allowing multiple points of access into the imaginitive world. This is different from cross-promotion, the old marketing idea that when you made a movie, franchise the rights to McDonalds so you can have the happy meal. This is actually expanding the story in different places.

The article uses the TV show Heroes as an example. Beyond the weekly show, there are graphic novels that explore the lives of some of the minor characters, there are online games that allow you to experience some of the imaginitive world yourself, there are websites for the fictional companies that exist in the show, there are web extras that allow users to get into the commentary from the creators, there are official fan sites that allow fans to submit their own artwork. One could immerse themselves in the story as much as they want.

This really is no great surprise. Pine and Gilmore foretold this kind of transition in their work Experience Economy .... Way back in 2000 they posited that we were moving away from an economy based off goods and services to an economy that provided experiences. Their book detailed a taxonomy of the types of experiences people could enjoy and talked about how businesses of all sorts could transition to the experience economy.

And thus, the question becomes, what can we in the church learn?
1) from Fandom and Lovemarks, we learn something about the nature of committment. Many of the wars that happen within churches do not arise from apathy....they arise from Love. Take the worship wars for instance. The argument over traditional vs contemporary music is not simply an intellectual debate .... music has the power to stir deeply, and when they take "our" music away, they are messing with "our" world. Forget all the rationales one way or another and try to understand this from a fan perspective .... it's not much different than the which is cooler, Star Wars or Star Trek, debate ... The difference in the church is that we're expected to all get along and move forward together. We don't really have the option of saying "those crazy trekkies." and surrounding ourselves in a cocoon of our own preference. Perhaps understanding something of fan mentality will help us have a little more empathy for one another in the church.

2) Using transmedia. We in the church need to figure out ways to do church across multiple platforms. This doesn't mean we set up an "I-church" on Second Life and use that as our sole spiritual experience. that's not transmedia, that's replacing one media with another. Rather, we need to find ways that our multiple media complement each other. I believe that a physical presence in Sunday Worship is absolutely vital to our Christian growth and committment to a community of believers. But are there ways we can tell our story and bond together beyond that. Are there ways we can invite an "extended family" to continue to be a loose part of a congregation? Are there ways we can leverage technology to allow people to easily go deeper should they so desire? Transmedia is much more than setting up a static web-page ... it's creating online experiences that complement what is coming up.

so for instance .... we have a mission trip coming up this summer....to Waxhaw, NC. How could we use gaming technology, online experiences, etc, to help extend that mission trip to people who aren't able to physically be there?

Looking forward to your thoughts.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Bodies: the Exhibition -- revisit

Back in February, I posted about my queasiness regarding the Bodies Exhibition at Cincinnati Museum Center.

Today, on the Cinplify Cincinnati News site, came this report about the resignation of the CEO of the company who put together the exhibit. Apparently, ABC News uncovered that the bodies were indeed illegally procured.

Score one for the professional investigative journalists! Score another for Web 2.0 (because I missed 20/20, and only found this story because a local blogger submitted it to the Cinplify).
Excelsior
Russell

Odds are against a Casino helping Cincinnati

The casino sturm und drang looms on the horizon for Ohio voters this fall. The MyOhioNow.com website uses slick advertising and scare tactics to seduce Ohio voters into approving the initiative: "Our tax dollars are leaving this state!" "Ohio is the only state in the great lakes region not to have a casino....can Ohio afford to stand alone?" "It's time to join the 21st century!"

Somewhere in this mix, city council is sure to jump on the bandwagon, saying that now more than ever we need to OK slot machines for someplace in downtown Cincinnati. When Kentucky legislators were debating allowing a casino in Northern Kentucky, Jeff Berding of the City Council was at the front of the Chicken Little parade, shouting "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." From a March 10, 2008 City Beat article:

The approval of casinos in Northern Kentucky is a direct economic threat to the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County," Berding says. "The city of Cincinnati stands to lose millions of dollars in future economic development as a result of a casino across the river."

It's already a common site to see dozens of Hamilton County license plates in the parking lots of casinos in southeast Indiana on any given day, and places like Aurora, Lawrenceburg and Vevay have yielded a tremendous financial windfall as a result. Each year, Ohioans also take about $2 billion in revenue outside the state to gamble in locales across the United States, studies indicate. Berding believes the local drain would worsen if Kentucky joins the casino club.

"(We don't) propose to add casino gaming to all parts of the state, only those areas threatened economically by new neighboring casinos," he says. "Ohio currently loses $160 million in convention business that goes elsewhere in the region primarily due to nearby out-of-state casinos."

Berding's proposal has the support of a city council majority. His fellow Democrats Laketa Cole and John Cranley have endorsed the concept, as have Charterites Chris Bortz and Roxanne Qualls and Republican Leslie Ghiz. Council's Economic Dvelopment Committee will discuss the motion Tuesday, and it probably will be forwarded to state lawmakers by month's end.

Given this level of rhetoric, the Ohio Casino initiative is but another goad to the hysteria.

Freely, I admit that Ohio citizens fritter their dollars away in out of state casinos all the time. That still doesn't make it a good idea to have a casino. Indeed, the more places that have casinos, the less valuable it will be to have one. The market is allready well saturated, and it's unlikely that our city or our state will stand to benefit greatly.

These addle-headed proposals miss basic concepts driving a capitalistic economy ... division of labor, specialization, competition. Right now there is immense competition in the casino/gambling industry .... and our state/city would be entering into it like a rube in a 1950's musical wanting to make it big on Broadway. Quite simply, it would take a miracle for Ohio in general and Cincinnati in particular to effectively compete in a saturated market. It's not impossible, but .... well, let's say that the odds are against it.

Instead, we ought to focus on what already brings people here! Rather than wasting its time wringing collective hands about casinos, city council should look at how to promote our city's distinctiveness: rich arts, strong local culture, great cuisine, abundant green space, world class sports (well, major leage sports, anyway). City Council should look at how UC is driving technological innovation and health care in our region. City Council should explore how to leverage the existing business base in Cincinnati.

Who really cares Ohio license tags are at Casinos in Indiana? How many Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, etc license tags are at our sports events, kings Island, arts events, street festivals and the like? How can we use the abundant strengths we already have to draw more people here?

Casinos would function as a cancer, sucking precious resources away from these other economic generators. Please, City Council, don't jump on the bandwagon. Use your collective brains to build on our strengths, rather than spreading this city's resources thin.

See also: A Casino for Broadway Commons: Bad Idea

Excelsior
Russell

Geek Epic poetry -- speculative fiction

Geeks love a good story. But their stories tend to come in fantastical packages complete with amazing powers, colossal fights, and cunning strategy. Yes, Geeks love science fiction and fantasy.

Indeed, the slew of blockbuster superhero/fantasy/science fiction films the past few years is testament to the ascendency of Geek culture: Batman, Superman, Spiderman (the original Geek icon ... Peter Parker the science nerd becomes the wisecracking friendly neighborhood spiderman), Iron Man, the X Men, Fantastic Four, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Lord of the Rings, 300 (though loosely based in history, it is more of a sword and fire fantasy epic), Pirates of the Carribean, and on and on. All these hugely successful shows and franchises have several elements in common:

1) they are fantastical .... imagination is key ... amazing heroes, powerful villans, lots of action.
2) they are archetypal .... the stories echo the great epic tales of old, retold with new heroes for a new era. Deeper themes lay behind the action.
3) they are escapist ... because they are a break from the "ordinary world" ... they catch the audience up into the story. We leave this world behind for a time, and thus the themes hit home in a deeper place of our pscyhe.

In short, like any of us, the stories that we love are the stories that speak to us. These fantastical worlds are their epic poetry. I discovered this when we did our Gospel According to Star Wars study. The Geek Culture mavens at BoingBoing picked up the story, and we had thousands of hits from all over the world looking at our website. But many of the geek culture comments were pretty cynical ... I found one blogger (whose site I can't seem to find anymore) who quipped something to the effect of "why can't these Christians leave our stuff alone." Theres a feeling of proprietary ownership in that comment ... "these are our stories, they're special to us .... and you Christians have been hostile to them." is the sense I get.

But you see, I'm a Geek...have been since a kid. I was reading superhero comics and playing with computers since an early age. I was reading Harry Potter before Harry Potter was cool. I was a trekkie (minus the costumes) long before there was Jean Luc Picard. I even had the Starfleet Technical Manual. I played Dungeons and Dragons. I learned to program in BASIC on a TRS 80. On Friday nights, when my friends were out at parties, I was at home watching Dr. Who. These are my stories too, you, know?

But this is where many Christians go woefully awry. I remember the fundamentalist protests against D&D and Harry Potter. I learned all about the backlash against comic books that led to the Comics Code Authority. Is it any wonder that Geek culture feels hostility toward Christianity.

Now don't get me wrong, I dont endorse uncritical engagement with these literary forms ... we ought to be thoughtful about them however. Stories are powerful and rich and touch our hearts in special ways. And a really good story cant help but point us to gospel themes .... loyalty, sacrifice, good vs. evil, atonement, redemption. Good stories are powerful instruments of fostering and growing faith.

As for me ... after being immersed in these archetypal stories for so long, they helped me understand the true story of the living God who vanquished evil. Tolkien talked about mythology as simply pointing to the true story ... and that's what he accomplished in Lord of the Rings. As Christians, we need to learn to exegete these fantastical stories, see the redemptive elements in them. We need to learn how to tell good stories ourselves (and that doesn't mean facile stories where all the people convert at the end). And we need to let our imagination play a little bit in some of the realms of the fantastic .... for that is where the Geek mind often dwells.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Off the Shelf: Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Pardon my enthusiasm. This is a must-read for those who would lead, influence, or work for any kind of group goal. Shirky looks at the proliferation of Web 2.0 technology ... tools that enable users to connect and generate content themselves. If Web 1.0 was the idea of a bunch of online articles that were hyperlinked so people could go and get information, Web 2.0 is the idea that we extend our social relationships online so that we can share, collaborate, and accomplish more together.


Shirky believes that these tools will bring about a fundamental change in society (and he's been writing about that belief for a while....see his extensive list of articles here). Even so, he's no doe-eyed utopian who uncritically embraces technology as a panacea. He gives some frightening examples of negative uses of online tools as well as thrilling examples of positive uses.


There are many who consider social media to be a colossal waste of time. It's easy to come to such conclusions...for so many waste their time amassing vast stores of trivia online (though, part of the genius of Web 2.0 is that anyone is able to connect with people who share their same interests...or as Shirky puts it "people who are odd in the same ways you are odd").


Shirky makes this an interesting tale by loading up with real world stories of how social media has been used to accomplish ends. He begins with the story of a stolen cell phone, and how one man was able to use blogging, news aggrigator sites, and online message boards to mobilize a veritable army of helpers who assisted in the recovery of the phone. Shirky uses this as a parable to point us to the truth that the rules are changing “When we change the way we communicate, we change society. The tools that society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life.” (17)


He then backs up and does a little sociology...spending time talking about why heirarchical organizations fit a particular need. He explains how as a group grows, the complexity increases numerically. I wish I could find a visual representation of this online, but instinctively we know this. We understand that when a small group grows over 12-15 members, the dynamics radically change. When a congregation grows over 150 the dynamics radically change. This is because we're not only considering our relationship with each person in the group, but also each person's relationships with others in the group. If a group of 150 adds just one person, you don't just add one more point of complexity, you add 150 points of complexity (how does x person relate to y...do they know each other...are they mad at each other...etc). Centralized heirarchy allowed for levels of bureacracy to manage that complexity.


But with that bureacracy comes a cost. To accomplish the ends of the group, a significant amount of energy needed to be poured into managing the group. Therefore, certain tasks -- that might be interesting to a few -- were left undone because it just didn't make economic sense to do them...it would cost to much in terms of oversight and management for the organization to do them.


Shirky's thesis is that social media tools lower to the "management costs" of organizing people. “So long as the absolute cost of organizing a group is high, unmanaged groups will be limited to undertaking small efforts – a night out at the movies, a camping trip. Even something as simple as a potluck dinner typically requires some hosting institution. Now that it is possible to achieve large-scale coordination at low cost, a third category has emerged: serious complex work, taken on without institutional direction.” (47) From this vantage point, he talks about the different means of collaboration: sharing of information (like sharing photos on flickr); cooperation (synchronizing with people who share a similar interest); collaboration (a group committing to a particular undertaking together).

Sharing

He then spends a chapter explaining the development of media....particularly interesting was his approach to the Gutenburg printing press revolution....it destroyed a scribal tradition that dated back for a millenia. Scribes solved a great problem, but the printing press eliminated that problem, and it created opportunities for new literature. In much the same way, social media is transforming our understanding of "news" and it is creating new opportunities for new ways of packaging events. But the most interesting change comes in the next chapter, titled "Publish, then filter." The concept here is that because of printing and distribution costs, old media institutions added value by deciding what was important ("all the news that's fit to print") and delivering it to us. Get that...the old media did the job of filtering.


Now that the costs of printing and distribution have virtually been erased there is still a need for a filter argues Shirky. He gives the illustration of taking a library, shaking all its contents out into a football field, and then randomly picking up a book and hoping it's Aristotle. Access to information still doesn't solve the problem of filtration. Shirky posits that new "communities of practice" arise that allow people to filter in groups. He believes that we as humans are wired to be social...we like creating and sharing things that we've found that are helpful. When we gather together around a common interest or common cause, we naturally share what we've found helpful. And thus, our community becomes a filtration system. (It's like all the hunter gatherers around the fire telling stories about the great hunts and great battles....they filter out information for each other so the group learns....only now that sharing can happen across great geographical distances).

Collaborating
Shirky then moves on to the more complex task of getting people to self collaborate. And he uses the idea of Wikipedia as an example. The core idea of Wikipedia was to facilitate editing. The original intent of the tool was to let experts quickly publish drafts of encyclopedia articles and then let the editing process happen quickly. The experts didn't want to give up control, so they loosed Wikipedia on the web and it became a quick smash...there are a few reasons why.

1) Simplicity of the idea. Everybody knew what an encyclopedia was already. They had a mental model. This lowers the amount of creativity required to take a first stab at something. Also “In a system where anyone is free to get something started, however badly, a short, uninformative article can be the anchor for the good article that will eventually appear. Its very inadequacy motivates people to improve it: many more people are willing to make a bad article better than are willing to start a good article from scratch.” (122)

2) A dedicated core. Shirky talks about the "power distribution" --- basically a graphical curve illustrating the old 80/20 principle. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. That small group becomes the core who defends Wikipedia against the vandals and raiders. That small core makes it possible for the other 80% to submit their articles and have them be meaningful....having a small dedicated core actually empowers all the others to be able to come and make a contribution.

3) Quick reward. We all get a good feeling from sharing our knowledge (no matter how esoteric) and feeling like we've left a positive mark. When our contribution is out there, we're more bonded with the community and more likely to come back. Soon the project becomes a labor of love, not just for a dedicated few, but for a broader set: “We don’t often talk about love when trying to describe the public world, because love seems to squishy and too private. What has happened, though, and what is still happening in our historical moment, is that love has become a lot less squishy and a lot less private. Love has a half-life too, as well as a radius, and we’re used to both of those being small. We can affect the people we love, but the longevity and social distance of love are both constrained. Or were constrained – now we can do things for strangers who do things for us, at a low enough cost to make that kind of behavior attractive, and those effects can last well beyond our original contribution. Our social tools are turning love into a renewable building material. When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and longevity that were previously impossible; they can do big things for love.” (141-2)

Collective Action
Shirky then ventures into the most interesting arena: Collective Action. Joining forces to achieve some specific common goal. Here the stories come fast and furious. Voices of the Faithful using blogs and social media to keep the story of the priest sex abuse scandal alive. Airline customers across the country banding together to push for an airline passenger bill of rights. Activists in Egypt using twitter to give instant updates on police movements, and track their own movements through the judicial system. Dissidents in Belarus using cell phones and text messaging to organize "Flash Mobs" to protest governmental oppression. People using Meetup to develop all new social groupings and to facilitate face to face get togethers with folks of like interest.

Shirky draws a few lessons
1) the cost of failure with these groups is so low, that it pays to keep trying different things until they fit (again, back to the publish then filter model)....if something doesn't work, we have lots of leeway to tinker with it and try yet again.
2) there is a process that marks the successful efforts. Promise - Tool - Bargain. Your social group has to offer a promise that is enticing, yet attainable (We'll offer you a chance to contribute articles to a reliable encyclopedia; we'll offer you a chance to .....) - then you have to match your tool to your promise (see earlier point...not all tools fit all purposes....) and then you have to keep to the bargian ... you provide certain parameters within which people will operate, and they'll provide content/interaction.
3) Defend what you love. Shirky gives a great illustration .... utopian anarchists (who believe that people are basically good and can self organize) in Holland launched a White Bicycle program in the mid 60s. They distributed bicycles in Amsterdam for all to use for free. Pick up a white bike, ride it, and leave it for the next guy. It was an instant failure. Within a month, all the bicycles had been stolen or thrown into the canals. Other utopians have tried the same scheme "The cumulative results of these experiments are unambiguous: programs that offer unrestricted access to communal bicycles have struggled with theft, and most have ended up collapsing completely." (282)....the programs that succeed have registrations and ID cards and places to check them out and return them to. The point being....we need to consider human depravity when working through our social networks....and defend them, just like we would defend our property.

Lots of stuff there....lots of implications for how the church (or Christians) can take advantage of social media. More thoughts are going on at the Geek Culture Mission Project on Facebook. Feel free to chime in here or there.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

The Singularity --- the Geek Judgment Day

Since Geekdom is on the brain, let me spend a few posts exegeting the culture.

Starting with the Singularity. The term Singularity has many applications in many fields of endeavor, but when Geeks talk about it, they mean a technological singularity that will radically transform human existence. Geekdom looks at the rapid advance of technological change ... for now we can trace a reasonable trajectory as to where that change is going. But the change accellerates, and there comes a point on the horizon when the change accelerates to a point that we can no longer predict or control it. In other words, technology takes on a direction of its own...not guided by us. (see the wikipedia post on the Technological Singularity)

It's a technological Judgment Day. It's a vision that fascinates much of Geek Culture. Understand, this isn't a concept that is equated with Science Fiction. Star Trek, Star Wars...both are science fiction, but neither has anything to do with the singularity (unless you consider the Borg as a manifestation of the Singularity). I did some reading on the Singularity a few years ago .... Ray Kurzweil wrote the definitive text a few years ago The Singularity is Near. You can see some of the interesting topics in this Digg search on "Singularity".

The Singularity appears in many dystopian contexts such as Skynet in the Terminator Saga and
The Matrix in the trilogy by the same name. An early reference to the concept is in Harlan Ellison's horror classic "