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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As I have mentioned earlier, I’ve been reading Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us  by Seth Godin. And while exploring the TED.com website, I came upon this presentation by Godin. In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to just ignore the ordinary stuff. In this presentation, Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. It got me thinking about how we go about promoting and trying to grow churches. We aim for the center. We are often so scared to try things that are different, out of the box, whacky or weird because we don’t want to fail that we end up doing things more or less the same way we’ve always done them. We retreat into predictability and safety with the occasional minor tweak to quiet the voices wanting something more and something different. What would our churches look like if we did focused on the fringes, on those who are the “early adopters” and those who are passionate about exploring their faith and stepping out of their comfort zones? I wonder….

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Over on NetSquared, Alex Steed has been doing an interesting case study about the UCC and its use of social media (such as Facebook, MySpace etc.) to try to connect with younger audiences. 

…the church is faced with the difficult project of reaching out to young people, engaging them spiritually, offering them opportunities for meaningful social action, and to do all of this via media where they will encounter the outreach effort. Further, they need to have an identity strong enough so that when they are reaching out to young people, they have something attractive and authentic to say.

Steed provides a fascinating critique of the UCC’s attempts at marketing itself as well as providing some strategies for reaching millenials. He also raises some interesting points about millenials and the reasons why some of the UCC’s efforts may/may not be working in attracting them . It would be interesting for local churches to consider some of his strategies and figure out how they would apply at the local level:

1. “[Millennials] place more emphasis on personal recommendations than on brands when deciding which products and services to buy.” [The Economist] This is to say that the UCC headquarters has little direct power in earning trust, interest, or investment from new members. Pouring all of the money in the world into advertising the church, designing newsletters, creating well-polished commercials, or publishing great copy, so long as this all is perceived as top-town marketing strategy, won’t buy an increase in youth participation. Because it is now in competition with the more-organic approach of word of mouth reputation cultivation and management, which is made possible by greater access to diverse methods for communication, top-down advertising and messaging is becoming steadily obsolete.

2. “Millennials value peer relationships over institutional loyalty. This has profound implications for activist organizations accustomed to support from their donors over long periods of time. Young people are unlikely to be lifelong donors to their local United Way or Sierra Club. They will engage enthusiastically in specific campaigns about which they feel passionate, but their institutional support is likely to vanish once that campaign ends.” [Allison Fine] This fact actually works in favor of the UCC, which reportedly faced decline in identification thanks in part to this trend: As participants became increasingly interested in social justice issues, they moved further away from the church towards social justice organizations / instutitons. However, as the organizations that worked in favor of these issues were limited in their ability to cultivate diverse and dynamic communities around singular issues, the UCC is now well poised to create a home for communities that honors the peer-to-peer networks held in high regard by Millennials, engage their humanist values, and create for them a sphere where they can work on, organize around, and advocate for various initiatives (by fundraising, organizing, and alliance-building) as they see fit.

Alex Steed’s blog posts have given me a whole lot to think about, as have many of the comments others have made on his blog. Check it out, I’d be interested to know your thoughts both on the specific issues he raises and the more general issues of connecting with millenials.

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