Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Limitations
Alissa Wilkinson on Mark Roberts blog quotes Stuart Scadron-Wattles:
I cannot help but reflect on what that says about spirituality and Christian growth. To grow you must experience new things. You have to go outside your comfort zone and you have to try different things. And yet, as churches we so often act as the internet - we homogenous. The Mainlines look like the Evangelicals who look like "TV church."
At some point aren't we reinforcing our own limitations?
I astonish myself at times becasue I find myself thinking more and more frequently about becoming Catholic. There is so much I disagree with in Catholicism, but at least it will stretch me. At least there I can learn new things. At least their tradition is broad enough that I can continue my explorations and not hit the end of the road that seems so common in Protestantism.
change church limitations
There is no algorithm for “show me something I didn’t know that I wanted to see.”So true - you cant note this in the increasingly limited inventories at brick-and-mortar stores and if you travel much in how homogenous the experience can be, even if what you are looking at changes. (Honestly - is shopping in a mall in New Jersey really any different than shopping in a mall in California?)
[...]
In other words, I get to read what I already have read. Amazon gets to sell me something, and—assuming I repeatedly click the right button, my reading life begins to resemble life in these American suburbs: safe, familiar, smooth roads, with pre-approved credit limits, brand names, and architecture to match.
I cannot help but reflect on what that says about spirituality and Christian growth. To grow you must experience new things. You have to go outside your comfort zone and you have to try different things. And yet, as churches we so often act as the internet - we homogenous. The Mainlines look like the Evangelicals who look like "TV church."
At some point aren't we reinforcing our own limitations?
I astonish myself at times becasue I find myself thinking more and more frequently about becoming Catholic. There is so much I disagree with in Catholicism, but at least it will stretch me. At least there I can learn new things. At least their tradition is broad enough that I can continue my explorations and not hit the end of the road that seems so common in Protestantism.
change church limitations
