GreatRidge Station

I’ve been pondering this, and frankly, I’m troubled. Hear me out.

Last week, I had a conversation with a friend, who told me about a study that shows that as Christians mature in their faith, they tend to drift away from the church. It’s as though they outgrow it. It seems that, given the current state of evangelical Christianity, we are left with a bunch of churches filled with immature people. That, in itself, is a scary thought.

The other issue–and this might be the big one–is that leaders do not have the ability to lead people to greater things. No room for growth; people move along.

In an age of smallness, we need giants.

Don’t think that this is only a problem for churches. Take a quick straw poll amongst your friends: “Why did you leave your last job?” Often, unless a layoff was involved, the answer will be that “There was no-where for me to go.”

So we have an epidemic of people who have something to offer, and no-place for them to offer it. Churches (sadly) provide little eternal vision, and careers stall out in businesses where there is no clear sense of “where do we go next.”

Here’s my word of wisdom for you.

Church Leaders: If you have mature Christians leaving out of boredom, maybe you are not able to disciple them to full maturity and conformity with Christ. Let this haunt you.

Business Leaders: If you have good workers leaving because there is no opportunity for advancement, you are certainly missing out on opportunities to grow, improve, and innovate.

There are exceptions to these axioms, of course, but they are exceptions. People need the opportunity to grow and to contribute at ever-increasing levels. In short, they need to be able to serve better and more deeply out of the rich depths of a) God’s grace, b) their abilities, c) their interests, d) their experience, and e) within their community, whether that is their work team, a bunch of volunteers, or a ministry setting at church.

Never give yourself so much slack that you say “that’s just the way things are.” If they are that way, do something about it. After all, you are ultimately accountable for the things that are entrusted to you.

If you ever follow this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been mostly idle the past few months.

If you just can’t get enough of my thoughts, here are some other places you can look:

• I’m writing a column every other month for the Minnesota Christian Chronicle. So far, this is only available in hardcopy.
• I’ve just started a new blog, Weekend Psalms, which looks at one of the Psalms every Friday, with ideas for meditation and prayer.
  This will be about a 4-year long project, but God has been moving me toward it for some time.
• There are a couple of other writing or development projects, as well, but I’m keeping those under wraps for the time being.

For the six people who read this blog regularly, thanks.

One more thing: A video that is so bad it’s surreal. Believe it or not, Microsoft is pushing W1nd0ws 7 Launch Parties. I’m a nerd, and this seems like something that no one would, or should, do. So, the quesiton is: How much do they have to pay actors (and how desperate for acting work) to get them to do a video like this. Here’s the link.

I like good humor. The problem is that so much humor decends into areas and ideas where I’d rather not go. I don’t need foul language, I don’t need racism, sexism, or the bitter, mean-spiritedness that is at the core of much contemporary humor.

This got me thinking, and I’ve been posing this question in conversations lately: Is all humor, by its very nature, offensive to someone? I usually qualify this by saying offensive doesn’t require that people take offense (yes, Norwegians tell Norwegian jokes), but that someone or something could take offense.

I’ve had fun with this, because everyone has an opinion. And generally, as soon as they’ve stated it, they change their minds. I usually press folks for an example, and it is obvious that this makes them uncomfortable.

Over the weekend, I asked this question at a graduation party, with a bunch of adults. Later, as the conversation moved on, we started laughing at some “had-to-be-there” humor. Dennis was sitting at the table, and said “See? Not Offensive!” The next thing that someone said was perfectly on track with the discussion–and a sharp jab to me. I laughed, put my hands up in the air, and said, “Well, it looks like I won that round.”  Dennis had to admit that I might be right–humor is mostly offensive.

This makes me wonder, of course: What does Christian humor look like? What is the nature of redemptive humor (I suspect that it still has a sharp edge, but an edge based on truth, and not on power)? What is the nature of redeemed humor?

These are not easy questions. But I find myself enjoying the exploration of the nature of humor in our society.

So, I conclude with this: How can you tell if an academic has a sense of humor? He does a review of scholarly literature for research that demonstrates that he really is funny.

Looks like I win this round, too!