THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO HMMM????

So our pastoral staff had a meeting last week that pretty much was all about jackin' with reality.

It was about muddying the water of certainty.  It was about saying, "Hey, see that box your world's in, let's see if we can break it."  Not that we wanted to declare everything broken, just that we wanted to try and crawl outside our skin and look at this thing called church from a different angle.  So we brought in a friend who has been thinking and reading in a different vein and invited him to mess with us.

He started by asking us to write down the answer to this question:  "What are the non-negotiables for me in ministry?  Like practically or theologically or whatever, what would cause me to quit if my church told me I could no longer do it?"

We were given like 2 minutes. Here's the non-negotiables I wrote down in this brief time:

• Work in line with my giftings and talents.
• Don't settle for mediocrity
• Embrace process more than product
• Theology is active, informed by history, but not controlled by it. 

Then, for the rest of the meeting I just wrote down questions as they came up in my head or in the room.  It's the stuff that made me go hmmm??  Maybe it'll do the same for you.

• Is proclamation a dead learning style today? 
• Do people want what our ministry is offering? 
• Is the church office space actually a hinderance to my mission?
• Have we created a celebrity priesthood mindset in our church? 
• Am I acting and behaving like a missionary to my culture?
• How is the internet influencing the world in new ways like the printing press did in the 15th century?  Every historian will tell you the printing press changed the world and the church.  So how is this "universal and personal printing press" called the internet changing these two environments today?  When anyone can have a global audience, what are the implications for truth and.... hmmm? 
• Can we disciple people into the Kingdom of God? 
• Is there still a need for a central church gathering and why? 
• Are we advancing the Kingdom of God or only advancing what we're selling? 
• Do we intentionally rock the boat?
• What can I do to get the gospel off our church campus and into our local community?
• Does our budget reflect our values? 
• Do we read the views of those we don't agree with? 
• Is my view of economics more American than Biblically sound? 
• How can we live and embrace the value of simplicity? 

hmmmm???