Monday, April 02, 2007
Youth, Narcissim, and Leadership
MSNBC published an article a while back on the increasing narcissim in young people. It was a bit frightening. Not long afterword, Martha Anderson writing at The Point had some interesting comments.
That post was somewhat startingly juxtaposed with this post at MMI complaining about the church not using it's "young leaders." From my middle-aged perspective, "young leader" seems a bit oxymoronic. "Developing leader" seems far more appropriate. Real, genuine Christian leadership can only be developed with the perspective of The Point post, I have yet to find anything that teaches that perspective other than good, old-fashioned time and experience.
When we build churches on what I call for lack of a better term, the "media model" - a model where attention matters more than content, we not only lead the church astray, we intensify this narcissism.
Anyone who has spent any time around children has heard this, "Look at me, look at me!" That is natural in a child. Now it seems we build churches that spend a whole lot of time screaming "look at me." It is not surprizing that the young would then decry a lack of partcipation in leadership under such circumstances.
But we are supposed to grow out of that.
Related Tags: narcissism, church, value, media, fame, signifigance
An article on the narcissism of today's college students and its causes and consequences, combined with the "Look at me! Look at me!" obsession we are bombarded with every time you open the paper, turn on the TV, or just hang out at the mall, got me to thinking about the extraordinariness of ordinariness.She tells the moving story of an old friend that is dying and concludes
You won't "Google" him and find thousands of entries, he won't grace the cover of next week's People, and the news channels aren't reporting 24/7 on his final hours, and yet this ordinary guy profoundly influenced the lives of all those who knew and loved him throughout his short time with us. That's the kind of extraordinary we all should aspire to be.I am reminded that Dennis Prager often says we confuse "famous" with "significant."
That post was somewhat startingly juxtaposed with this post at MMI complaining about the church not using it's "young leaders." From my middle-aged perspective, "young leader" seems a bit oxymoronic. "Developing leader" seems far more appropriate. Real, genuine Christian leadership can only be developed with the perspective of The Point post, I have yet to find anything that teaches that perspective other than good, old-fashioned time and experience.
When we build churches on what I call for lack of a better term, the "media model" - a model where attention matters more than content, we not only lead the church astray, we intensify this narcissism.
Anyone who has spent any time around children has heard this, "Look at me, look at me!" That is natural in a child. Now it seems we build churches that spend a whole lot of time screaming "look at me." It is not surprizing that the young would then decry a lack of partcipation in leadership under such circumstances.
But we are supposed to grow out of that.
Heb 6:1 - Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, [emphasis added]We need to return to signifcance and away from fame. We need to inculcate significance as a value over fame. If we don't we are going to end up in a place the MSNBC describes that is pretty ugly:
“Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others,” he said.I don't know about you, but I don't want to go there.
The study asserts that narcissists “are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors.”
Related Tags: narcissism, church, value, media, fame, signifigance
