A Considerable Speck

I’ve just finished reading The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church by Dave Gibbons. It has been such a refreshing and challenging book to read on so many different levels.

The title refers to an eastern parable about of a  well-meaning monkey who sees a fish struggling in the water after a typhoon. Having a kind heart, the monkey with considerable risk to itself reaches down precariously from a limb of a tree to save the fish snatching him up from the water. The monkey lies the fish on dry land. For a few minutes the fish showed excitement and activity but soon it settles into a deep and peaceful sleep. According to Gibbons this is an apt metaphor for the church in the 21st century- doing the wrong things but with good intentions.

Gibbons, who is part Caucasian and part Korean, is the founding pastor of Newsong, a multi-site megachurch with campuses in the US, Mexico City, Bangkok, London and India. In the book, Dave Gibbons shares the story of how he was building his megachurch and was struck with the thought of building a big box that would not be used most of the week to entertain people who for the most part would not change the world. He was a well-meaning monkey thinking he was saving a fish. This realization challenged him to go on a journey that eventually led him to embrace the realization that the world is changing to a third-culture were we need to be willing to cross lines to reach people where they are.

Gibbons argues that the Christian message is timeless and unchanging – Christians are called to love our neighbor (which is defined as someone not like us – of a different race, with different beliefs and values). We are called to love, to act, to serve – to be and live like Christ rather than just talk about Christ.

What we really need to change are our forms. Gibbons challenges the church to be more liquid, i.e. when you pour water into a container it takes the shape of that container. Water can flow. Water is liquid. The church needs to be more liquid. Open to changing its shape and its form to share the message of God’s love. We need to be adaptive. We need to be open to change. We need to be open to the cultures around us to better share the love and the hope of the Gospel.

So, in closing, here are some quotes and points that spoke to me and challenged me:

“More than ever, our churches and ministries need to stand for something bigger than the prospects of our organizations and focus on summoning our people to live for something beyond themselves.” p.98

“I’m discovering that most people can’t relate to our achievements or success. However, most people can relate to our pain and our losses, our disappointments and our suffering.” p.116

“In ministry, I’ve seen how easy it is for us to focus on what we lack: money, the right staff, encouraging supporters, mentors, education, buildings, healthy family history, the right experience, communication skills, knowledge. The list could go on ad infinitum. I’ve learned that our focus too often drifts toward what we don’t have, and we overlook what is already in our hand.” p.121 – 122

Gibbons also identifies and talks about “key third culture principles” (p.197 – 198):

1. Listen more than we speak. Americans, in particular, are known for our loudness and inability to listen respectfully and well.

2. Believe that the locals know more than we do and be eager to learn from them. They live there. We’re visitors.

3. Understand that Jesus is already there. We’re not bringing Jesus to them.

4. Be open to redeeming or giving new meaning to cultural practices or customs that we may not understand or even be comfortable with.

5. Respect the forms and practices of a given culture. Just as we are sensitive to learn the language of a foreign culture, so we must learn the non-verbal language of the culture.

6. Recognize that what is offensive to much of the world is Christianity, especially cultural Christianity, and not Jesus himself. Jesus is pretty irresistible to most people around the world and, I almost every case, is intriguing in the most positive way.

And in case you were wondering, Dave Gibbons defines “Third Culture” as….

“… the fusion of multiple cultures, the art of adaptation, dialogue rather than dictation, diplomacy over strong arm tactics, and the embrace of discomfort as part of the journey to real community. Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn and serve in any culture even in the midst of pain and discomfort. In short, 3rdCulture is PAINFUL ADAPTATION.” (from davegibbons.tv)

Third Culture Video – Short from Newsong Church on Vimeo.

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WWW: Wake is the first book in a new trilogy by Canadian SF author, Robert Sawyer. He wrote such books as Calculating God, Flashforward and Hominids. WWW:Wake, like most of Sawyer’s books, is a thought-provoking and entertaining read.

Before going on here is a brief summary of the book:

Fifteen year old Caitlin has been blind from birth thanks to  a very rare medical condition that affects the link between her eyes and the part of her brain that interprets visual signals. Her condition has been untreatable until now.  A Japanese doctor contacts her with a proposal for an experimental treatment which involves an implant that will restore the connection between her brain and eyes electronically and hopefully give her the gift of sight . It seems like the procedure is a failure but before too long  Caitlin notices some very  interesting side effects. She is able to visualize the World Wide Web – each and every link and connection within the web.

In the mean time some seemingly unrelated events take place around the world. In China an outbreak of the bird flu is handled by the Chinese government by shutting the country off from the outside word completely and taking some very rigorous containment measures. In a research facility in southern California a Bonobo/Chimpanzee hybrid, Hobo, which is taught to communicate with it’s caretakers  using American Sign Language, produces representational art.

All of these events are witnessed at some level, by a newborn, growing intelligence/consciousness on the world wide web and Caitlin becomes its eyes and ears and its teacher.

The central theme of the novel is the development of self-awareness and consciousness and more specifically the World Wide Web developing and gaining self-awareness and consciousness. Since it is the first in a series, it does seem a little disjointed in places. The narrative contains a series of subplots which aren’t necessarily woven together at this early stage of the story. At times, Sawyer does get a little bogged down in detail  he goes into some of the theory behind internet protocols and mathematics and the like.  But that is classic Sawyer and it does help with understanding the plot a little better. As usual, Sawyer begins to raise some interesting questions about whether consciousness is a cultural construct (a la the theories of Julian Jaynes).

Overall, WWW:Wake is well worth the read and I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

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Darren Wright (Youth Ministry Blog) recently blogged about The Teens’ Speech and linked to the video. So what is Teens’ Speech?

The Teens’ Speech was a project designed to give a voice to young people in Britain. It was predicated on a simple truth, espoused by philosophers as diverse as Bertrand Russell, Friedrich Nietzche and yes, Whitney Houston. Children are our future. They will define this country in years to come. Therefore, its everyone’s best interest to listen to what they have to say. It’s also in everyone’s best interest to give them the best possible start in life and create a society where young people can make mistakes and learn from them, a society that removes them from the moral and legal equivalent of Newton’s third law of motion – that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. We need to develop the moral imagination and courage to allow children to develop into well rounded individuals – or we face a future based on the worst qualities of humanity, rather than the finest.

So, yes, The Teens’ Speech tried to give a voice to young people. We did it by interviewing hundreds of teenagers from all over the U.K. – mostly over the telephone, but also face-to-face and on camera, we conducted research and ran polls and we also instituted an unprecedented campaign of engagement on YouTube, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.

- from The Teens’ Speech website

The video provides a voice to those in our society who usually don’t have much of a voice – teenagers. The video provides a wonderfully moving glimpse of young people who portray a sense of hope in the future and a dream for something better even while dealing with stress, misunderstanding and loneliness.

Check out the video…. and also check out some of the other videos on The Teens’ Speech YouTube Channel.

Related books:

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