Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Are We Part Of The Problem?
Out of Ur was wondering last Friday if the home church movement was an outcome of or counter-movement to mega-barns. It's an interesting question, but it set me to wondering.
Is blogging, with its insatiable need for something to write about, discuss, challenge, and debate, always the best thing for us personally, or for God's people. I don't want to get all anti-intellectual here, but isn't the question of the true motivation of home churching a bit of navel gazing when we should be focusing on God. I don't want to condemn this specific post, I just want to make the point that it is really easy to get lost in the debate and forget what motivates it.
How do we bridge the gap between thinking and talking about God and living like God's person? Total Truth talked all about bridging the gap between the natural and the spiritual in discussions like evolution, but how do we bridge it in our churches and our blogging?
For example, when we are at a planning meeting for church and we start looking at local demographics and discussing advertising plans, don't you find the room changing radically from the opening prayer? There is a clear divide - there shouldn't be.
As I blog, I can often find my entire mindset shifting when I write about politics as compared to writing about prayer - that shouldn't happen. God should be as ever-present for me when I write about politics as when I write about Him directly. And it seems to me that if He is there are some discussions that will just sort of self-censor because they won't focus on the important stuff.
The question is not one of being anti-intellectual, but a "tamed" intellectual. That's not a matter of boundaries either, but of transformation - not that I can't ask certain questions or explore the answers, but simply that they will fade into insignificance.
As Godbloggers we bear a special burden - our positions are not all that matter, what we even bother to take a position on and how we choose to defend it matters most of all.
Related Tags: blogging, Godblogging, transformation, intellect
Is blogging, with its insatiable need for something to write about, discuss, challenge, and debate, always the best thing for us personally, or for God's people. I don't want to get all anti-intellectual here, but isn't the question of the true motivation of home churching a bit of navel gazing when we should be focusing on God. I don't want to condemn this specific post, I just want to make the point that it is really easy to get lost in the debate and forget what motivates it.
How do we bridge the gap between thinking and talking about God and living like God's person? Total Truth talked all about bridging the gap between the natural and the spiritual in discussions like evolution, but how do we bridge it in our churches and our blogging?
For example, when we are at a planning meeting for church and we start looking at local demographics and discussing advertising plans, don't you find the room changing radically from the opening prayer? There is a clear divide - there shouldn't be.
As I blog, I can often find my entire mindset shifting when I write about politics as compared to writing about prayer - that shouldn't happen. God should be as ever-present for me when I write about politics as when I write about Him directly. And it seems to me that if He is there are some discussions that will just sort of self-censor because they won't focus on the important stuff.
The question is not one of being anti-intellectual, but a "tamed" intellectual. That's not a matter of boundaries either, but of transformation - not that I can't ask certain questions or explore the answers, but simply that they will fade into insignificance.
As Godbloggers we bear a special burden - our positions are not all that matter, what we even bother to take a position on and how we choose to defend it matters most of all.
Related Tags: blogging, Godblogging, transformation, intellect
