Archive - March, 2011
Dictators and Pastors or Revolutions and Revivals
This is less of a blog post and more of a mind dump…feel free to try and read it.
I saw a talk by Clay Shirky at SXSW Interactive this year that was mind blowing for me in terms of pulling together lots of ideas I have into a detailed breakdown of the revolution in Egypt. In case you were living under a rock the last few months you know that the Egyptian dictator was overthrown by the people of that country and the catalytic tools of web, social media and SMS were the factor that finally made it possible.
I believe there is some correlation between the revolution in Egypt (and now happening in several other states led by dictators) and the potential for revival in the ‘C’hurch. There is also some correlation between dictators and pastors in terms of their roles. I freely admit that as a pastor many of my decisions are clouded by my desire to keep my job and I think I can speak for every pastor I have ever met when I say that.
**UPDATE** SXSW Released the Audio
Clay Shirky at SXSWi
The first thing Clay did was draw up a history of what media has done throughout history starting with Tyndale and his printing of the Bible. The bishop of London bought up the entire first run of Tyndale’s printed Bible so that they could be destroyed. He was afraid if this content being available to everyone. The side effect was that this gave a guarantee to Tyndale that the entire print run would sell and that allowed him to continue on.
Shirky then said:
“Abundant media can escape the hold of organizations that have significant control of scarcity….It wasn’t the existence of the Bibles that frightened the Catholic church it was the potential abundance of them that frightened them.”
And he continued:
“Even a powerful organization armed with the tools of both censorship and propaganda actually can’t do as well, in cases where it is faced with abundant media, as when it controls scarcity”
The average church, and in turn the ‘C’hurch, has control of content scarcity in that the content creators (pastors) are few in number and dwell in an expert class that presides over a pfeifdom who merely consumes that content. I believe that the average church member would love to be part of shaping the community of their church much more than they do and outside of there being more channels for communication most, like the people of Egypt, will continue to feel like they are all alone in their thoughts and ideas and never take action because they don’t believe they have the platform to distribute content that reflects their ideas and personality.
We are on the brink of seeing all this change in the church and it will be because of the open access to media that we will see a revival of some kind in our generation in the Church.
“The printing press did not cause the Protestant reformation…but it would not have been possible without the printing press. Social media did not cause the revolution in Egypt but it would not have been possible without it.”
I’m excited for what is coming and I hope that as a leader I am ready to lead in this knew reality. This could however be a painful time for leaders who are unwilling to adapt and open up the channels of content based on scarcity and allow for a peaceful transfer of power.
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Blowing Up Cultivate! | Justin Wise
If you communicate, you need to be at Cultivate
Links:
That Outreach Article Justin Mentioned
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March Madness and Leadership
I’m a college hoops fan. I eagerly await selection Sunday even more than Christmast. I can’t wait to fill out my bracket. Over the last few years we have seen an unusual amount of upsets. Not just early round upsets low ranked teams going deep in the tourney. This week end an 11 seed will play an 8 seed in the national semi final which means that one of them will be in the national championship game. This seems so far fetched that on ESPN.com there is literally only one person who has the final four right on their bracket.
What has changed? Why are perennial favorites dropping to mid majors and school we hardly know of?
Blue chips and veterans
You know the schools; the ones with the hall of fame coach and the blue chip recruits. The schools that every kids grows up wanting to play for.
They have gotten comfortable with their game. They run the same offense year in and year out. It’s old and it’s stale.
Young, fresh and creative
You might know his name already, Skaka Smart. 33 years old. He’s creative and he sees the court in a different way than the crafty veterans that we have always known. And guess what…it’s working!
I’m 33. Most days I feel like I’m looked at as just a kid. It’s a bummer. I feel like I’m in my prime of creativity and I have to fight for a chance to use my gifts.
I was at SXSW a couple weeks ago and the thing that occurred to me is that the people with the vision, leadership and chops that are changing culture right now are not in their 40s or even 30s, they are in their twenties.
I hope that when it is my turn to pass the keys to the next great mind…that I do it…before it’s too late.
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Art and Hope
The Rebecca Black situation got me thinking about quality art (art that isn’t primarily propaganda or product) and bad art. And, as my mind often does, I started dreaming about how art is often a window into both the creator’s spirituality and the spirituality of the consumer of that art.
The quality and heart of a given piece of art can give a glimpse of the hope that the artist has, whatever system of belief they hold.
This whole thought process was happening this morning while I was going through my morning routine of showering and all that. I had set my iTunes to ‘shuffle all’ so it was randomly playing through all the music that I own (200 GB) and at the peak if this epiphany a track came on from an album that came out in 1989. It’s not a Christian album, far from it in fact, but it literally is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is far from propaganda and the hope that comes fourth from the artist is thick and piercing, even though I disagree with that hope.
I thought to myself as I have many times; “Why is Christian music so weak in terms of where it hits me?” and, “Why is it so watered down, smoothed out and otherwise disinfected?”
The song ended (it was a short punk rock song) and I kid you not a track from a 1990 Christian album came on and I laughed out loud. I’m pretty sure the lyric ‘cold as ice’ was used several times.
What kind of hope do we display when we create or consume bad art that is simply propaganda and/or product?
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Monday Pile
Taking a play from Justin Wise’s book I figured I’d see if the warms up my brain on Monday morning.
- SXSW Interactive starts on Friday. If the web is the centerpiece of what you do…this is the most important gathering of the year for people in that space. If you’re in ministry and are in town for SXSWi, hit us up at the 8Bit MeetUp.
- I’m not very excited about the tablet movement right now, but the iPad 2 looks pretty tasty. I’ll probably give it another year.
- Started coaching my sons soccer team, this is my third season coaching kids younger than 6…it’s a blast.
- Gateway Church Austin had an epic service yesterday complete with Portlandia, Ray LaMontagne and a great message by Ted Beasley.
- The grass is starting to come back to life from a hard winter here in Austin. I got the mountain bike tuned up and ready to fly!
- Seth Godin one liners can really mess you up…in a good way
- I broke down and bought Florence and the Machine; Lungs. Yes it’s pop music, but I think it’s the kind of album that the typical pop stars think they are making when they crank out their garbage.
- It’s bulk trash week in my neighborhood so everyone has pile of stuff on the street. It looks like Beirut or something.
[img // Urlesque]
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