The Appearance of Spontaneity
You go to the mall and duck into your favorite uber-high fashion store where you can buy sick new threads that look like old clothes and it happens. That kid walks up to you and starts spouting all kinds of data about what’s on sale and generally getting all up in your face. Immediately you have the thought; ‘If I wanted to shop with someone, I would have brought a friend‘.
Generation X and younger, I feel, are hyper sensitive to the feeling of being ‘played’ or ‘sold’. We would rather resist and maintain our autonomy and not ‘sell out’, than bend to anyone we perceive to have an agenda or a motive.
We had some really cool discussion last week at church tech camp and it got my mind moving back to some thoughts that I have had in the past.
There is something that I value in ministry and that is something I call ‘the appearance of spontaneity’. I have yet to get much traction into the idea. It may be an IT that Craig Groeschel talks about.
I know that grass roots, spontaneous movements seem to be the best at gathering momentum especially with my generation and even more so as the younger generations begin to rise. I think this stems from a general distrust for many different forms of authority. After all, half of our parents failed us, we have been forced to make it on our own.
I don’t want to ‘leverage’ and use the concept of the appearance of spontaneity for my own benefit or that of any organization I am a part of, but it is a reality that needs to be considered especially in the context of communities and movements like churches.
In student ministry, this means that you “sell” events by not promoting them too early to students. Students seem to bail out if they find something more interesting to do, but if you can BE that new something then students come to your stuff. There is much less signing up early for camps and whatnot, but it is easy to talk students into it the week before….
odd….
[Reply]