I guess I was somehow deprived as a child. I really liked to read when I was young, but somehow I don’t recall having ever read Where The Wild Things Are. Word on the street is that this is a staple for a healthy childhood, but I missed the boat on that one. In order to make up for this lacking in my youth, I watched the movie version of Where The Wild Things Are with my sister the other night, and I thought it would be a good idea to share a few thoughts about it. So if you’re especially interested in the plot of the movie (of which there really wasn’t much), you may not want to read on because I might spoil it for you.
From what my sister told me, the basic plot of the book is that this kid Max runs away and ends up in this land where the Wild Things live, which are a bunch of gargantuan monsters that are kind of scary but still nice enough. The Wild Things promptly make Max their king, and the whole gang runs around like crazy through the night until Max gets hungry and goes home. Now, it’s difficult to make a movie with that storyline that lasts longer than about twelve minutes, so there is some expansion in the movie.
In the movie, Max is basically an obnoxious brat that whines all the time and runs around in footie-pajamas, and worst of all, he’s a biter. Seriously, he bites his mom in the shoulder. When he gets to where all the Wild Things are, they do in fact make him king, and his first item of business is to declare a wild rumpus, and as in the book, they all spend the night running around and destroying trees (the Wild Things are not very eco-friendly). The rest of the movie shows how Max attempts to rule the Wild Things and make everyone get along.
First off, this movie was freakin’ weird. The primary lesson learned is that hallucinogenic drugs are not a good way to go. I spent a good deal of the movie laughing because the things they showed just looked so crazy; I’m not even sure how to explain it. For a long time I sat there thinking, “What the heck is this?! Am I watching a movie or at a rave?” But somehow, by the end of the movie, it had gripped me a little, and I was a little sad to see Max’s boat sail off while the Wild Things waved from the sandy shore. And that’s coming from someone without a heart.
And in fact, there are lessons to learn from Where The Wild Things Are. After the wild rumpus, Max and the Wild Things all begin dog-piling each other, and once they’re all in a giant heap, the all fall asleep. And that’s how they sleep, all tangled up in one another. It looked pretty comfy for Max, actually. The next day, the group begins planning an ideal fortress that they will build, and Max says that when the fortress is completed, “We’ll take care of each other and we’ll all sleep together in a real pile.”
Sleeping in a real pile. That’s the Wild Things’ goal. That’s how they define fellowship and relational security. When all is well between them, they sleep in a pile. But things do not remain good for long. They begin to become jealous of one another, they become suspicious of each other, and they stuff their own feelings. And before long, they’re not sleeping in a pile. They’re sleeping spaced out from one another on the ground. They don’t talk with one another, and they don’t all say “Good night” to each other as they fall asleep.
There are a lot of problems in the world, but I think that the most prevalent are relational issues. For many people, the deepest hurts and the greatest frustrations emerge out of problems with family or friends or spouses. We want so much for our piles to be secure. We want to experience love and understanding and peace and intimacy. But so often, that state is out of reach. This is what Where The Wild Things Are touches on. It’s a movie about how relationships can get so out of whack when we allow ourselves to get in the way of harmony.
That’s the problem for Max. As king, it’s his duty to reconcile the Wild Things into a pile, to repair the relational damage. He tries a few things, his most drastic measure being to get everyone to throw clods of dirt at each other to release their frustrations. But in the end, all of his strategies basically fail. Since it’s a kids’ movie, one would expect everything to pan out in the end, but in this one, that isn’t how it works. When Max leaves the Wild Things, circumstances are pretty much the same as when he got there. He proves to be unable to fix all of their problems. All his plans and methods fall short.
We would all like to be able to fix everything, but I’m not sure that we are able to solve all of the relational problems in the world by ourselves. We can do a lot as far as our own attitudes and behaviors are concerned, but we can’t make people get along. If we think we’re smart enough to create a social utopia, we’ll realize that, like Max, we just can’t do it. The truth is that there will always be problems on this side of heaven, and our piles will often be dismantled. I don’t know how to make everyone love each other and get along, but I do know that it won’t be like that forever. One day everything will in fact be perfect; our piles will be reconciled and the hurt and frustration that we experience now will be healed. And that’s something to look forward to, I think.
In the meantime, it’s important for us to enjoy and take advantage of the times when our piles are right, those times that we are with those we care about and can delight in one another. The other day my roommate Charlie and I went to Manhattan to visit our friend Rachel. Charlie and Rachel are two of my oldest friends—I’ve known them each for about 13 years as we grew up in the same church. And last night we ate Chili’s and watched a movie and played cards, and it was fantastic. It’s important that we make the most of times like those, because you’re never sure how many of them might be left. I wrote a post last year that compared our social circles to 15-passenger vans in which people move around in proximity to us. In a couple months, my van is going to be completely shaken up like a game of Boggle. Most of the people I entered Ozark with as a freshman will be graduating and going all over the country. With that harrowing fact in mind, I (and perhaps you) need to recognize that moments in piles are limited, so we’d better enjoy them while we can.
And what better way to enjoy time with friends than by cheering on your Michigan State Spartans when they play in the Final Four next weekend? At least that’s what I’ll be doing, so if anyone wants to pick up a pizza and join me while I eat said pizza, you are more than welcome.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Why Wells Run Dry
It was a warm, sunny day, and students rejoiced when their last classes of the day dismissed. Spring break had finally come, and not a moment too soon. The constant weight of tests and papers had been stifling the happiness of many, but at last there was a moment of reprieve, a chance to stop and breathe. After working at the campus library for a few hours and enjoying a dinner at Chick-fil-A, I topped off the fuel tank of my Buick and headed for home. Three hours later, I was nervously peered through the small window of visibility on my windshield as frozen rain pounded my car, which made its way along the interstate at a pace of 30 mph.
And that's how my spring break began--with a terrifying drive through a winter storm. Now, however, the snow is melted, the Hot-n-Ready pizza I picked up for dinner is satisfying, and my eager fingers are ready to type away. As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been able to write much lately because of the craziness of school, but now that I'm on break, I hope to write more. Here's once already, and maybe I'll do another one or two before week's end. Or maybe I'll write a couple dozen; you never know.
Well, actually, I do know. I'm not going to write scores of posts this week. In fact, it took me a long time today to even think of what to write for this one, and I'm only going to write about how it's hard to think of post ideas, which is a little circular, I suppose. But the truth is that coming up with new topics all the time is no easy task. I've been doing this for over a year and a half, and I wonder sometimes if maybe all my ideas are used up and I should finally just quit. No sense in being repetitive, after all.
Some people don't have these same problems. There are some people who always have something interesting to talk about. Their workable knowledge of different topics is broad, and they can carry on intelligent conversations about all sorts of things. You probably know people like this. They're engaging, smart, interesting, and likable. Time passes quickly when you're in conversation with these people. One minute you grab a seat across from them at dinner, and seemingly in the next second the room is empty and the dining hall workers are wiping off the tables telling you to get out. And then there are people like me. A typical conversation with me may go something like this:
"Hey David, how have you been?"
"Oh, you know. Busy as always. How about you?"
"Yeah, pretty much the same."
[Uncomfortable pause] "Alright, well, I'll catch you later"
[Feeling way more awkward than 20 seconds ago] "Yeah, ok. Bye."
Sometimes I like to watch people who are engrossed in conversation, even if I can't hear what they're saying. I remember one time last year I was in the student center at Ozark playing cards, and a guy and girl came in who had just started dating. They walked over to a couch, sat down, and started talking. There was a TV there, but they didn't turn it on. They just sat and talked, and for a long time, too. They both looked interested in whatever was going on, and there did not seem to be periods of awkward pauses. And I thought, "Jiminy, what on earth could they possibly be talking about all this time?" Those are the sorts of people who don't have trouble coming up with something to write a blog post about.
I think the reason that some of us have so much trouble having anything worthwhile to say is that we make so little effort to put anything worthwhile in our minds. Our brains are like machines in which it is difficult to have productive output without meaningful input. People who have things to say are people who read a lot and listen to people a lot (and I mean really listen to people; not just looking at someone while they speak and you mentally wander). My problem is that I too often sit around blankly hoping that a thought will grow out of my head like a virginal conception. But that isn't how ideas work. We take in what others have already said and we synthesize it, reorganize it, add to it, and spit it out as something similar yet different. Very few people are originators of entirely new concepts; the rest of us more or less recycle what has gone before us. So in order to develop more and better ideas, we need to increase our intake of others' ideas. We need to become aware of issues and more knowledgeable of what is out there.
Too a point, this is a difficult thing for a college student to do, which is maybe the opposite of how it should be. The college years are supposed to be a time of academic and intellectual growth, right? Of course they are, but at the same time, one can become so busy with numerous responsibilities (homework, work, ministry, etc.) that little time is left for pursuing an area that you want to, and that can be frustrating. I often think, "Man, if I didn't have to do this and this and this for school, I could read that or study that and be a better person for it." I guess I could use my blog posts to tell you all about my translations I've done in Greek class, but I can't imagine that would be too interesting.
But all of that is only a very small part of the problem, and probably isn't really the problem at all. A much bigger issue is that we do a terrible time of managing the time we have been given. Instead of seeking to grow in our ability to think, we allow ourselves to be merely entertained. We sit in front of a computer screen or TV screen and zone out. Now entertainment isn't all bad. At times is probably beneficial to just sit and give your brain a rest. Also, movies and TV shows and such can even help us grow in thought when we think about them critically. But most of us spend way too much time putting our brains on "sleep mode" instead of keeping them engaged.
Take Facebook for instance. There may not be a more mind-numbing force in our world today that Facebook. It becomes easy to sit for hours doing nothing but stare blankly at the screen waiting for someone to poke you. Now Facebook certainly isn't all negative. It's a good means of communication, especially with those who live a ways away. But it does very little at giving us material for significant thought, and it tends to waste large chunks of the day that could be better spent otherwise. I definitely can't criticize anyone for being on Facebook too much because I'm on it a lot. I'm on it as I write this post, actually. But the point I'm making is that the reason we may not have as substantial thought as we might like is that we give our brains little to work with, and as a result our mental tires spin and spin with no traction.
So my encouragement is simply to think more, read more, listen more, and analyze more. Which means that we zone out less, waste time less, and Facebook-stalk less. And the result? Hopefully better conversations, deeper relationships, and less pointless blogs. Because we all know there are way too many of those out there. Or right here, maybe.
If you've read many of my other posts, you know that I'm a pretty big fan of Donald Miller. His blog has a new format, and from it, I have learned several features that I need to increase my readership. 1) To have authored successful books. 2) To have candid pictures of myself hanging out in places like bus stations, coffee shops, or park benches. 3) To have content worth reading. So if any of you can help me out with any of those, just let me know.
This ended up being a pretty lengthy post about not having anything to writing about. Congatulations on your endurance. I would give you a ribbon if you weren't an anonymous internet presence.
And that's how my spring break began--with a terrifying drive through a winter storm. Now, however, the snow is melted, the Hot-n-Ready pizza I picked up for dinner is satisfying, and my eager fingers are ready to type away. As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been able to write much lately because of the craziness of school, but now that I'm on break, I hope to write more. Here's once already, and maybe I'll do another one or two before week's end. Or maybe I'll write a couple dozen; you never know.
Well, actually, I do know. I'm not going to write scores of posts this week. In fact, it took me a long time today to even think of what to write for this one, and I'm only going to write about how it's hard to think of post ideas, which is a little circular, I suppose. But the truth is that coming up with new topics all the time is no easy task. I've been doing this for over a year and a half, and I wonder sometimes if maybe all my ideas are used up and I should finally just quit. No sense in being repetitive, after all.
Some people don't have these same problems. There are some people who always have something interesting to talk about. Their workable knowledge of different topics is broad, and they can carry on intelligent conversations about all sorts of things. You probably know people like this. They're engaging, smart, interesting, and likable. Time passes quickly when you're in conversation with these people. One minute you grab a seat across from them at dinner, and seemingly in the next second the room is empty and the dining hall workers are wiping off the tables telling you to get out. And then there are people like me. A typical conversation with me may go something like this:
"Hey David, how have you been?"
"Oh, you know. Busy as always. How about you?"
"Yeah, pretty much the same."
[Uncomfortable pause] "Alright, well, I'll catch you later"
[Feeling way more awkward than 20 seconds ago] "Yeah, ok. Bye."
Sometimes I like to watch people who are engrossed in conversation, even if I can't hear what they're saying. I remember one time last year I was in the student center at Ozark playing cards, and a guy and girl came in who had just started dating. They walked over to a couch, sat down, and started talking. There was a TV there, but they didn't turn it on. They just sat and talked, and for a long time, too. They both looked interested in whatever was going on, and there did not seem to be periods of awkward pauses. And I thought, "Jiminy, what on earth could they possibly be talking about all this time?" Those are the sorts of people who don't have trouble coming up with something to write a blog post about.
I think the reason that some of us have so much trouble having anything worthwhile to say is that we make so little effort to put anything worthwhile in our minds. Our brains are like machines in which it is difficult to have productive output without meaningful input. People who have things to say are people who read a lot and listen to people a lot (and I mean really listen to people; not just looking at someone while they speak and you mentally wander). My problem is that I too often sit around blankly hoping that a thought will grow out of my head like a virginal conception. But that isn't how ideas work. We take in what others have already said and we synthesize it, reorganize it, add to it, and spit it out as something similar yet different. Very few people are originators of entirely new concepts; the rest of us more or less recycle what has gone before us. So in order to develop more and better ideas, we need to increase our intake of others' ideas. We need to become aware of issues and more knowledgeable of what is out there.
Too a point, this is a difficult thing for a college student to do, which is maybe the opposite of how it should be. The college years are supposed to be a time of academic and intellectual growth, right? Of course they are, but at the same time, one can become so busy with numerous responsibilities (homework, work, ministry, etc.) that little time is left for pursuing an area that you want to, and that can be frustrating. I often think, "Man, if I didn't have to do this and this and this for school, I could read that or study that and be a better person for it." I guess I could use my blog posts to tell you all about my translations I've done in Greek class, but I can't imagine that would be too interesting.
But all of that is only a very small part of the problem, and probably isn't really the problem at all. A much bigger issue is that we do a terrible time of managing the time we have been given. Instead of seeking to grow in our ability to think, we allow ourselves to be merely entertained. We sit in front of a computer screen or TV screen and zone out. Now entertainment isn't all bad. At times is probably beneficial to just sit and give your brain a rest. Also, movies and TV shows and such can even help us grow in thought when we think about them critically. But most of us spend way too much time putting our brains on "sleep mode" instead of keeping them engaged.
Take Facebook for instance. There may not be a more mind-numbing force in our world today that Facebook. It becomes easy to sit for hours doing nothing but stare blankly at the screen waiting for someone to poke you. Now Facebook certainly isn't all negative. It's a good means of communication, especially with those who live a ways away. But it does very little at giving us material for significant thought, and it tends to waste large chunks of the day that could be better spent otherwise. I definitely can't criticize anyone for being on Facebook too much because I'm on it a lot. I'm on it as I write this post, actually. But the point I'm making is that the reason we may not have as substantial thought as we might like is that we give our brains little to work with, and as a result our mental tires spin and spin with no traction.
So my encouragement is simply to think more, read more, listen more, and analyze more. Which means that we zone out less, waste time less, and Facebook-stalk less. And the result? Hopefully better conversations, deeper relationships, and less pointless blogs. Because we all know there are way too many of those out there. Or right here, maybe.
If you've read many of my other posts, you know that I'm a pretty big fan of Donald Miller. His blog has a new format, and from it, I have learned several features that I need to increase my readership. 1) To have authored successful books. 2) To have candid pictures of myself hanging out in places like bus stations, coffee shops, or park benches. 3) To have content worth reading. So if any of you can help me out with any of those, just let me know.
This ended up being a pretty lengthy post about not having anything to writing about. Congatulations on your endurance. I would give you a ribbon if you weren't an anonymous internet presence.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Don't Look Like Wal-Mart
I don't know what the longest time has been between me writing posts before, but I feel that this one could be a new record, so once again, I apologize. If there is one overriding theme of my blog, it is that life is crazy and out-of-control and you never have as much time to do the things you would like to do as you wish you had. So for the past several several weeks, the aspect of my life I have needed to cut out has been all of you. But don't feel too bad for yourselves. I'm sure you all have plenty of other things going for you. Now, a few items in the way of announcements:
Yesterday I signed away my summer when I mailed in a contract to do a youth ministry internship at Suburban Christian Church in Corvallis, Oregon. I'm really stoked about this opportunity. I had been talking to the youth minister there for a few months trying to get it all figured out, so I'm definitely glad it worked out. I was in the Northwest when I was on camp teams two years ago and loved it, and since then I have thought a lot about the possibility of doing ministry in that region after I graduate, so this summer will give me a chance to see if I can hack it up there or if I should just stay in Topeka and get my job at Blockbuster back. So please be praying for that whole situation as I start making more plans for this summer. Also, be praying for all of the other Ozark students who are going to be doing all sorts of different things in ministry this summer and beyond. This is my fourth year at Ozark, which means that a lot of the people I came in with my freshman year and graduating and are looking for jobs and all that. Makes me glad that I decided to extend my youth and stay in school an extra year.
This morning I watched an episode of House in which the patient was an avid blogger. She was a pretty sad case, actually, broadcasting all the intimate details of her life to the world every thirty minutes. But her zeal paid off because one of her readers in Asia volunteered to give her one of their kidneys when hers were failing. So the moral of this story is that I fully expect all of you to give me your organs if I should need them.
Criticizing the church in any way is normally a pretty dangerous undertaking, but a lot of people do it. It's sort of a filthy habit for Bible college students. We spend all week huddled in our classrooms and libraries and dorm rooms talking about how to be good ministers and then we size up churches according to our expertise. Because heaven knows that guys who have been doing ministry in churches for years don't know as much as a student that has read a few Andy Stanley books. So we have this poisonous tendency to walk around and compare churches with one another and gripe about how none of them are really "being the kingdom."
With all of that in mind, I in no way want to come across as a church-thrasher. But there has been an issue that has been on my mind lately. At times, I am confused about why we in the church do things the way that we do, particularly with regard to church structure and staff management. Here's how a lot of American churches seem to be organized: First, there is a senior minister. This person preaches on Sundays and maybe at other times throughout the week. They also often steer the ship, so to speak. Major decisions go through them, and their vision sets the course for the church. Second, there are elders. They are hopefully active in caring for and teaching the people in the congregation, but they also make the yearly budget and hire new staff members and take care of many of the "nuts and bolts" of what makes a church run (which is good, considering many of those on church staffs haven't taken a math class since high school). Third, there are other various ministers over specific ministries--the youth minister and the worship minister and the children's minister, etc. These people oversee their sphere of the church's mission, giving attention to a specific focus group.
My fear is that, in many cases, we've taken the traditional leadership model seen in corporate businesses and transposed it onto the church, cramming the church into a mold it maybe isn't designed to fit into. And I'm not sure why we do this. Consider the parallels: Corporations have boards of trustees; we have boards of elders. Corporations have CEO's; we have senior ministers. Corporations have departmental vice-presidents; we have youth ministers and worship ministers. There's a definite flow of power and decision-making. That in itself isn't a bad thing; we sure need someone to make decisions, but the manner in which we decide who does so doesn't always make sense.
Like I said, normally the senior/preaching minister more or less directs the day-to-day decisions of the church. What sort of new carpet should we get? Should we do this outreach program? How should a situation with this staff member be handled? These ultimately fall into the preacher's realm of leadership. But from what I can see from Scripture, the gifts of preaching/teaching and administration/leadership are not directly linked, but that's how we've designed it in the contemporary church. If you preach, you administrate. So what does a person do if he's a great preacher and teacher with an extensive knowledge of Scripture and heart for bringing the truth of God's Word to others, but who is not a good administrator and has no desire for such responsibilities? Unless he can get a job at a larger church that has a position like "Adult Education Minister" or "Assistant Preaching Minister," that person is left to either accept duties he's not gifted for or changes to being a youth minister or something. On the other side of the coin, what do you do with a guy who's awesome with teenagers and loves youth ministry, and he's also a great leader and administrator? In how many churches is the youth minister the one who primarily makes decisions for the whole church or manages the staff?
Don't misunderstand me. I am not intending to criticize the persons who are are elders or ministers. Just about all of those in church leadership that I know are fantastic people who are earnest and passionate about serving Christ. I'm only questioning the system that we've built because I feel it pigeonholes ministers into roles that may not best utilize the way in which God has gifted them. We don't need CEO's or trustees. We need servant-leaders who are bringing their gifts to God for him to use to their fullest.
Connor and I were recently talking about how, not really all that long ago, it was really cool to sit in chairs backwards. You remember those days, when if you approached a table of friends talking, you would grab the chair, flip it around, and straddle its back. And somehow, you just looked so much cooler that you had thirty seconds previously. But how often do you see people doing this now? What happened to this global custom? If I were to start it back up, would people finally think I'm cool? And is this in anyway related to church leadership structure? Not at all. But is it important food for thought? Definitely.
Yesterday I signed away my summer when I mailed in a contract to do a youth ministry internship at Suburban Christian Church in Corvallis, Oregon. I'm really stoked about this opportunity. I had been talking to the youth minister there for a few months trying to get it all figured out, so I'm definitely glad it worked out. I was in the Northwest when I was on camp teams two years ago and loved it, and since then I have thought a lot about the possibility of doing ministry in that region after I graduate, so this summer will give me a chance to see if I can hack it up there or if I should just stay in Topeka and get my job at Blockbuster back. So please be praying for that whole situation as I start making more plans for this summer. Also, be praying for all of the other Ozark students who are going to be doing all sorts of different things in ministry this summer and beyond. This is my fourth year at Ozark, which means that a lot of the people I came in with my freshman year and graduating and are looking for jobs and all that. Makes me glad that I decided to extend my youth and stay in school an extra year.
This morning I watched an episode of House in which the patient was an avid blogger. She was a pretty sad case, actually, broadcasting all the intimate details of her life to the world every thirty minutes. But her zeal paid off because one of her readers in Asia volunteered to give her one of their kidneys when hers were failing. So the moral of this story is that I fully expect all of you to give me your organs if I should need them.
Criticizing the church in any way is normally a pretty dangerous undertaking, but a lot of people do it. It's sort of a filthy habit for Bible college students. We spend all week huddled in our classrooms and libraries and dorm rooms talking about how to be good ministers and then we size up churches according to our expertise. Because heaven knows that guys who have been doing ministry in churches for years don't know as much as a student that has read a few Andy Stanley books. So we have this poisonous tendency to walk around and compare churches with one another and gripe about how none of them are really "being the kingdom."
With all of that in mind, I in no way want to come across as a church-thrasher. But there has been an issue that has been on my mind lately. At times, I am confused about why we in the church do things the way that we do, particularly with regard to church structure and staff management. Here's how a lot of American churches seem to be organized: First, there is a senior minister. This person preaches on Sundays and maybe at other times throughout the week. They also often steer the ship, so to speak. Major decisions go through them, and their vision sets the course for the church. Second, there are elders. They are hopefully active in caring for and teaching the people in the congregation, but they also make the yearly budget and hire new staff members and take care of many of the "nuts and bolts" of what makes a church run (which is good, considering many of those on church staffs haven't taken a math class since high school). Third, there are other various ministers over specific ministries--the youth minister and the worship minister and the children's minister, etc. These people oversee their sphere of the church's mission, giving attention to a specific focus group.
My fear is that, in many cases, we've taken the traditional leadership model seen in corporate businesses and transposed it onto the church, cramming the church into a mold it maybe isn't designed to fit into. And I'm not sure why we do this. Consider the parallels: Corporations have boards of trustees; we have boards of elders. Corporations have CEO's; we have senior ministers. Corporations have departmental vice-presidents; we have youth ministers and worship ministers. There's a definite flow of power and decision-making. That in itself isn't a bad thing; we sure need someone to make decisions, but the manner in which we decide who does so doesn't always make sense.
Like I said, normally the senior/preaching minister more or less directs the day-to-day decisions of the church. What sort of new carpet should we get? Should we do this outreach program? How should a situation with this staff member be handled? These ultimately fall into the preacher's realm of leadership. But from what I can see from Scripture, the gifts of preaching/teaching and administration/leadership are not directly linked, but that's how we've designed it in the contemporary church. If you preach, you administrate. So what does a person do if he's a great preacher and teacher with an extensive knowledge of Scripture and heart for bringing the truth of God's Word to others, but who is not a good administrator and has no desire for such responsibilities? Unless he can get a job at a larger church that has a position like "Adult Education Minister" or "Assistant Preaching Minister," that person is left to either accept duties he's not gifted for or changes to being a youth minister or something. On the other side of the coin, what do you do with a guy who's awesome with teenagers and loves youth ministry, and he's also a great leader and administrator? In how many churches is the youth minister the one who primarily makes decisions for the whole church or manages the staff?
Don't misunderstand me. I am not intending to criticize the persons who are are elders or ministers. Just about all of those in church leadership that I know are fantastic people who are earnest and passionate about serving Christ. I'm only questioning the system that we've built because I feel it pigeonholes ministers into roles that may not best utilize the way in which God has gifted them. We don't need CEO's or trustees. We need servant-leaders who are bringing their gifts to God for him to use to their fullest.
Connor and I were recently talking about how, not really all that long ago, it was really cool to sit in chairs backwards. You remember those days, when if you approached a table of friends talking, you would grab the chair, flip it around, and straddle its back. And somehow, you just looked so much cooler that you had thirty seconds previously. But how often do you see people doing this now? What happened to this global custom? If I were to start it back up, would people finally think I'm cool? And is this in anyway related to church leadership structure? Not at all. But is it important food for thought? Definitely.
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