Things that Make You Go WHAT?!

I have been reading Dan Kimball's book They Like Jesus But Not the Church which looks at how emerging generations view the church and our beliefs. Dan does some man-on-the-street types of interviews and offers a lot of food for thought on how we should be thinking about ministry today. Kimball states and I believe that we are living in a post Christian society where people are just not in touch with what is happening in the church or in Christianity. Sometimes we, who are inundated in the Christian sub-culture, forget that people around us might not understand when we talk of biblical characters or Christian events. It's almost as if we are like the early Christians seeking to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout a world who doesn't know much about Jesus or the Bible.

Not too long ago Kimball's premise was verified by the Jay Leno Show when Jay did one of his Jaywalking segments and asked people questions about the Bible. There were questions like Who were Cain and Abel? Who was Noah? What were the names of Jesus' parents? What did Jesus do? Some of the answers were almost laughable until you realized that these people actually didn't really know the answers. But, at the same time, this did not surprise me at all.

Today was another eye opener for me. The power company is replacing all of the poles downtown and it seems that our area is one of the next to be overhauled. Two men from the power company came into the office to arrange time for the power of the whole building to be shut off. The conversation went something like this:

power guy: We are replacing all of the poles downtown and we wanted to let you know when we were thinking about working around here. We need to cut the power to the entire area in order to do this. So, we were thinking of doing this this Sunday turning the power off early in the morning and for a lot of the day.

Those of us who heard this looked at each other in disbelief. This Sunday, for those who may not know, is Palm Sunday one of the major days in the Christian calendar. We celebrate the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem...and this Sunday begins Holy Week.

I'm thinking OK even if you didn't know what day it was in the Christian year, you should probably know that Sunday's a big day in the life of the church. (I mean there are a lot of people who think that Sunday is the only day we work.) We promptly told him that Sunday wouldn't work for various reasons: the organ, the elevator and handicapped lifts, lights, etc. etc.

So then he suggests Wednesday evening. This didn't surprise me after the Sunday comment. We talked them out of that too. So we arranged a Tuesday for them to come.

But, once again, this reminded me of Kimball's book. We do live in a culture where church is something you might do maybe twice a year...where you go when you want to get married or if you want to have a special time to remember someone special. But to assume that everyone is knowledgeable of the church, the Bible or our traditions is pushing it these days. People are searching for something to make their lives complete...maybe it's time we step out of our walls and out of our comfort zones and do something different to relate the Gospel to their lives.

Cheese, Glorious Cheese

While watching the news tonight and they talked about a new website for cheese lovers. It's Cheddar Vision. Apparently, you can 24 hours a day seven days a week watch as cheddar cheese ages. And the most exciting time is when they turn the cheese...which I can't remember what time that is.

So, if you're really bored and don't feel like watching the paint dry, you might try watching the cheese age.

Hands Off!

I just got a phone call today from one of my friends...it seems as though when she was on vacation someone got into her house and took some stuff. This comes on the heels of someone (well, actually a group of people or small army) breaking into our church and stealing loads of stuff. In that break in they took 3 guitars (one of which was mine), a 27" TV, a VCR, DVD player, our maintenance man's tools, his computer, they tried to break into our pop machine but when it didn't open as they thought it should they broke the glass in the top then just left it. 'Course it was in their anger that they left their only fingerprint. They also took a boom box, some Veggie Tale videos and a cheeseburger with a pickle that they chiseled from a block in the freezer oh and who could forget the pea salad made for our Thursday night dinner. Then in the next few days proceeded to break into several other churches in the area.

So I'm just wondering, why can't people just keep their hands off of stuff that's not theirs? Why do they feel compelled to take what other people have...it's not that things can't be replaced, but when you take computers and other things that have files that can not easily be replaced. Anyway, just wondering.