Abduct 'em

The helpful section on the "abductive" method is on
page 31-33 here

Chiasm and Inclusio

A principle of spiritual warfare is there's not a demon behind every bush.

But sometimes some bushes hide demoms.
And there's not a bush behind every demon, either.

So it is with structural techniques like chiasm and inclusio. Once you are attuned to seeing them in Scripture (and most ancient literatiure) it seems they are everywhere.

Sometimes they are. Who can argue that "the first shall be last/the last shall be first" is one.
A-B-B-A, X pattern. But often the chiasm is wide enough to spotlight and intended embedded theme in between the endpoints.

And to really help us get what the Spirit is saying...structurally.

People remember how to performa piece of music by using musical notations on scale. A similar solution to the problem of remembering how to perform a piece of dance has been solved with the use of Labonotation. In antiquity, it seems most written documents were intended to be read aloud, hence to be performed. The purpose of writing was to facilitate remembering how the document went when one read it aloud. But how did one make paragraphs or mark off units in a document read aloud? It seems that the main way to mark off a unit was to use repetition of words and/or phrases at the beginning and end of a unit, either alone (as in Matt 5:3, 10,"...for theirs is teh kingdom of heaven) or in parallel bracketing fashion (as John 1:18). The Greeks called such parallel brackets a chiasmus, after one half of the letter "chi" (our 'X"), thus ">."
-Social Science Comementary on the Gospel of John, p. 295, emphasis mine.. a free read online here.

Here is just one of many charts one can find online. This Noah one is classic; most Bible teachers know it's really there, but we fear showing you stuff like this, as soon you'll find it even where it is not! (:






















The chart above is found here, and the accompanying article offers several more helpful examples.

Check out the entire gospel of John structured chiastically on p. 295ff of
this click
through
to the book quoted earlier (p 295ff).




Amazing!

And the point being...well, between the points, the midpoint.
God rememembering Noah is meant to be seen as the point of the passage,

And inclusio:
Len Sweet is on to something, suggesting a Bible-wide inclusio. How wide and big can these things get? Wouldn' this cue us and clue us in to the heart message of the whole Book?
Check it out.

Ever notice Matthew starts with "His name will be called Emmanuel, which means 'God with us.'
And ends...very last sentence...with "I will be with you."?

No accident.
And neither is the midpoint and message of the gospel: "I will be with you" (18:20).
In Jesus, God is with us.
Jesus is the With-Us God.

Inclusio with chiasm, baby.

You knew God was with us in Christ.. But now you see it as you look at Matthew structurally..

Now, go and do likewise...

but remember, once in awhile a cigar is just a cigar, a demon is not behind every bush.

But more often than not, we miss inclusio and chiasm that have been waiting for us all along.

Even though I once went shopping with Paul Newman..

submitted to Leadership Journal
----------------

Even though I once went shopping with Paul Newman, I never set out to be a pastor to household names.

I have had to ask forgiveness for being a pastor who sometimes parades and secludes himself like a rock star.

Even though I once prayed for and with Ray Bradbury, I never planned to become a spiritual advisor to famous writers.

I have had to admit the vice of acting as if my ordination papers entitled me to be treated like one.

Even though I once received actor Dack Rambo--as he was dying of AIDS--into my pastor's study; shedding tears as my heart broke with the news, I never imagined becoming spiritual advisor to movie stars.

I have had to repent for pigeonholing AIDs victims as lepers, including tossing out the glass Dack drank from that day.

I am no star. Just a pastor wishing he'd become a better one to whomever God brings across his path, and into his life and church.

Which is why a recent return to a classic Leadership Journal article-- by someone who is a household name for many of us in ministry: Gordon McDonald--somehow summoned those three encounters with the well-known from my memory banks.

More on those three intriguing stories later.

That startling wake-up and shake-up call of an article from the May 2004, "Pastorable Moments"-themed issue (Thank God for online archives at christianitytoday.com; or in my case, a stalwart refusal to toss out, or give out, any archived issues of LJ) was penned by a seasoned pastor to pastors.

If I dare to even claim to be a pastor to everyday people, let alone to pastors...or ever again to the rich and famous, I find myself needing to re-read, and re- heed, these startling pages afresh every year or so.

McDonald's piece is a fictional (but far too true) depiction of two life-changing days from a busy large-church pastor's journal and life. One convicting vignette:

In the grip of that day's schedule, Richard bumped into a woman standing at the receptionist's desk. Not recalling her name, he offered his generic, "Hey, how're you doing? Being taken care of?"


She was supposed to say, "I'm fine. Good to see you, Pastor. So appreciated the sermon last Sunday," and then allow him to move on. But she didn't.

"Pastor," she said, "I was so hoping I'd find you here. Do you have a few minutes?"

Honestly? No. The finance people were waiting to talk budget with him, and the PDA showed only 45 minutes to the next chirp. Richard ratcheted up the charm.

"You know, I'm afraid I don't. Why don't you see if my assistant can get you on the calendar for later," he said, half-knowing it wouldn't happen. The next open slot for appointments with church members was two or three weeks away. She could meet with one of the pastoral care people, he was sure.

When will people get used to the fact that senior pastors in large churches can't get into unscheduled conversations? Soon he was into budgeting, the encounter forgotten.

Three days later Richard's assistant informed him that a church member had taken his life. When he heard the name, he recalled the woman in the reception area. She was the dead man's wife.

When he saw her at the funeral parlor (his guilt induced the visit; he normally didn't attend wakes), Richard learned that she had come that Monday seeking counsel about her husband who'd been out of work for six months, was drinking, and seemed unusually withdrawn. She'd thought that, maybe, if the pastor called him, it would lift his spirit.

"He always admired you and hoped that he could one day have a talk with you. But everyone knows how busy you are," she said as they stood by the open casket.

"Everyone," I hope no one can say tome, "knows how busy you are." That indictment would be devastating to the demands that I...and only I...sometimes place on myself.

"Pastor Dave! Pastor Dave!," the excited employee of the thrift store (where I had stopped on my way home from a busy day to shamelessly feed my addiction to used books)
enthusiastically called out to me. "It is so good to see you; your sermons have changed my life!"
I had no idea who this gal was, only that she was obviously from my former church, which was far too large for me to know most attenders (I had since moved on to pioneer a new church). I was not even getting a hazy, 'Oh yeah, she sat in the 22nd pew in the second service,' but I was thrilled and humbled that the Lord had used me in her life. She still vividly remembered sermons I had almost forgotten, or written off as failures.

Every preacher needs those moments.

But here's the point and pain:

She and I both knew we had never personally met (At least I don't think so; which is central to my dilemma). But I intuitively knew that if I ventured something like an apologetic, polite, and half-true (read:"lying through my pastoral teeth"), "I'm sorry, I'm not remembering your name," she would respond with confusion; maybe even offense. Of course, her reasonable (!) argument would go, the senior pastor knows all the sheep by name; he or she is endowed with omniscience by mere virtue of their high and holy calling! I copped out with the same lame line, and switched-on charm, that Pastor Richard offered up in McDonald's article: I avoided naming her name.

I have a hard time imagining Pastor Jesus doing that.
In fact, he once claimed that a shepherd knew his sheep by name.

Big gulp.

I am certainly aware that the senior pastor of a church over a certain size simply can't do that, and there are surely ways to manage that lack of omniscience. But for me, it was a defining moment; even a decision that I did not want to pastor a church that large again. At the very least, I cut a deal to seek real relationships, so that I would never stand by a coffin in regret , as the fictitious Richard had.

In McDonald's article, a retired pastor drops by Richard's office unannounced with unsolicited words of wisdom for Richard...and us (How sneaky of Gordon McDonald):

"Richard, this isn't about large or small churches...it's about resisting the temptation to lose touch with real people with real issues. If ministry has become all about programs, you'll dry out."

Ouch and amen.

"Well, I've got to get back to work," the thrift store employee smiled, "but I just had to say thank you."

I should have; could have thanked her by name at that point. But I am sure she escaped without the revelation that though my sermons were practical, I was clueless.

I hope you're reading, whoever you are, for I have now gone back to work, and it was your sermon that changed my life. In the sovereign timing of God; by a Spiritaneous set-up, you 'randomly' ran into your former pastor, and informally and effecively pastored him. Pastorable moments, indeed.

"Jesus had to go through Samaria," John 4 notes.

Uh, no he didn't.

Not geographically he didn't, but theologically he indeed had to, if he were to keep his divinely decreed appointment with the Samaritan, and surprisingly pastorable, woman at the well.

And so it is with you and I, if we are to be shepherds truly led by the Spirit into the Samarias, thrift stores, and serendiptous pastorable places we are God-beckoned to.

Last week, I found my car almost driving itself.

No, don't call a psychiatrist or a mechanic.
That was too string a phrase, I don't want this experience to sound spooky or overly mystical, as if I was carjacked by The Almighty.

Even though I essentially was.

It just felt--in naturally supernatural way-- that I was being prompted to turn in a certain direction.

I guess I had prayed that morning to be in the right place at the right time.

Which is likely why I had (thankfully) no appointments the next hour.

Or so I thought.


It was simultaneously freaky and freeing to wonder where I was headed. I pulled into a mall I hadn't been to for months, if not years (It was in a Samaritanish neighborhood). I got out, and creatively mallwalked.... wandered and wondered prayerfully and carefully around, rather. Of course, my imagination and hopes ran wild: maybe a depressed and lost person would eagerly run up to me with "What must I do to be saved?" or a zillionaire would appear: "I've been praying about which church to give my fortune to, can you help?"

My walk was not that eventful.

As I was about to give up and head back to the car, scratching my head, I heard....... my name being called out from the food court.

It was a parishoner from my current congregation...a dear friend whose name I knew, this time. So with reckless joy and exuberant curiosity, I called hers out in return.

I knew (and you can predict) exactly what she would say next; and precisely how I would reply.

To her quizzical, "What are you doing here!?," I slyly smirked and managed something like "Well, would you believe God sent me here to see you.?"

She was not suicidal or sick, but she was eating lunch all alone, and studying for an exam, and in need of some encouragement and prayer in that clearly pastorable moment.

As promised, I'll weave back into my opening stories. For in each one, I was being taught and prepped for mall moments like that.

You'll recall the rumor that Paul Newman and I went shopping together. I confess; that statement, "Paul Newman and I went shopping together," though literally true, was a teaser. I was all by myself, walking in an open field, in between sections of an outdoor food market in my (and Paul Newman's) old stomping ground of Connecticut. Suddenly, right in my path, headed toward me, with no fanfare, Joanne Woodward, bodyguard or papparazi, was Paul Newman. As we passed, he flashed his trademark smile, and yes, I couldn't help but notice his equally-reported ice-blue eyes. We had a delightful and friendly conversation.

"Hello." I calmly offered.

"Hi there," he smiled warmly.

Paul Newman continued on his way, and I on mine.

He was very real, and inevitably smaller than life.

It was one of my first reminders that all people, no matter how larger than life onscreen or in church, are still mortals who walk on terra firma like the rest and best of us.
Upon Newman's death a few years ago, I read of how painful his cancer was, and how, despite the ever-enthusiastic personality that I encountered that day years ago, certain experiences in his past had plagued him; doubts and fears that he may have had no pastor (but me?) to cross his path, and process with.

A decade later, in my second pastorate, a leader in our body phoned me, and asked if I had time to offer the prayer at the Friends of the Library meeting that she was on the planning team for. I am sure she was half-expecting me to say no to such a trivial and token-sounding request. I might have even been about to do so, but suffice to say her casual qualifier secured my yes: "Oh, by the way, the speaker on the program that day will be the Ray Bradbury; he's a fantasy writer, I don't know if you've ever heard of him."

"Heard of him!? I grew up on his books; I've probably read them all, " I gushed.

Uh, that's not what I said...aloud, anyway.

When the day came, I was blown away with Bradbury's grace and humility, as well as his wonderful talk (a challenge to recapture the gift of imagination). But what I really remember is that during my invocation... praying of course with one eye open, to see if my hero had eyes closed (he did)... is the heartfelt amen and hearty agreement of one of the twentieth centurie's most respected writers with the prayer of blessing I prayed over him.

But when we watched him get in the back seat of his car, to be driven home, it hit me.
I had read about the great irony of Ray Bradury: This dreamer who writes of rocket flights to Mars and the fathest reaches of space and time; and had just preached to us of the limitless and fearlessness of imagination, due to having once witnessed a terrible car wreck, was emotionally unable to fly in a plane, even drive a car.

That did not make him less legitimate in my mind, but more.


And Dack Rambo? Though not the mega name Newman was, nor as well-known as Bradbury, Rambo had a recurring role on television's "Dallas, " and starred in several B-movies, such as "The Guns of Will Sonnet."

He is one of those actors where most Americans would recognize his face, if not his name.

Kind of the underside of pastors knowing faces (or pew numbers) but not names.

Dack also happened to live in our town; and to have recently come to faith in Christ, but not before receiving the death sentence of AIDS.

His house was soon shuttered by stigma in our small town.

Townsfolk, in these early days of AIDS, were fearful, and didn't question the self-imposed quarantine.

I mention that this was several years ago, not to justify what I, to my shame, did (dispose of the very glass of water I had given him in my office) in an era when confusion and misinformation reigned, but to pray in front of my readers that I have since learned my lesson:

Everybody and their mother, no matter how famous or infamous; how healthy or wealthy is hugely and only human.

Everyone on the earth, if all truth were told, harbors inarticulable pain, parallel at some point to that of Paul Newman's.

Everyone alive, whether in or out of church, is hallmarked some where in their history, by the equivalent of Ray Bradbury's car crash memory (For some, it was watching heplessly as their parents fought, recalling the nightmare of marriage, career, finances, dreams...or literal cars or planes... crash and burn.

Every soul, whether you know them by face, name (or neither) has been diagnosed with an unspeakable version of Dack's diagnosis, or been labeled with the likes of "leper," "unclean," "divorced," "you'll never amount to anything."

A nameless woman in a thrift store was a literal Godsend to me; even if I didn't even know her as member 589, pew 22. A saint in a foodcourt was sent by the Spirit to make my day as well as hers.

Pastors aren't pastors unless they encounter, and are encountered by, pastorable moments
that significantly reset the trajectory of our motives and realign the metanarrative of our ministry.

I aim now to know as many names and stories as possible, and pray to be willing to let circumstances send me circuitously into thrift stores, food markets and food courts; into sanctuaries, sanitariums and Samarias; as one widely and wildly open to the precious people I will "need to" meet.

I am renewing my covenant to read that annoying and anointed Gordon McDonald article
again and again.

And I had better also ask God and you that I do not do what I did as recently as (blush) today:

I had not yet turned the key in the ignition yet; partly as I was still gathering my books (remember my addiction) after a pilgrimage to Starbucks's (St. Arbuck's). An older, weathered man was pacing on the walkway in front of me, as he talked on his cell phone. I could not help but overhear, and piece together his spellbinding story:

He had just just finished filling out police reports, as his car had been stolen and recovered; the dangerous and wanted criminal who had stolen it had first thrashed, then crashed this man's car.

The rugged caller had just spent his last two dollars (loaned from his daughter) on gas to make the trip (in a loaner car) to the tobacco store next door to the coffee ship; his only solace at this point a cigarette. He swore (literally) to whoever was on the other end of the line that the (expletive deleted) tobacco store was not open yet, so he would have to resort to hanging out and bumming a smoke from a passerby.

At this point, as you can imagine, I was inescapably drawn into this stuff-of-the-movies story.
Yet, I said, I had neither silver nor gold to help out; not even a cigarette.

One can't make stories like this up.

Well, actually you can, and maybe he was.

But what he said next, whether he meant it sarcastically, literally, or as a futile grasp at divine (or snooping pastor passerby) intervention.

"Heck!" he shouted (Okay, he used a more colorful exclamation), in response to his conversation partner. "Tonight!?," he asked, incredulously.... I don't even know if I will be alive tonight!"

And there I was, the eavesdropping shepherd in the car, whose vocation has quite a but to do with...well, wanting all people and all nations to find glorious Hope for being alive tonight, and for eternity, did what I can often default to:

Nothing.

Sure, I prayed.

And I comforted myself by taking note that the crabby old guy didn't look like he really wanted to talk to anyone, let lone a man of the cloth.

But that cantankerous crank and his call to prayer jarred me into reality and realization of two facts:

-Everybody--whether celebrity or charlatan, sheep or goat; whether we know their name/fame or not-- has a story and is thus pastorable at some point in their pain.

-Pastors, of all people, desperately need God to send us real live people, whether superstar or Samaritan, action-film star or porn-film addict..,to pastor us, pray for us, prophesy to us in our (hopfully) pastorable moments. To remind us that if we are to reach people in said moments, we must let God reach, rescue, and recue us in ours.

Maybe I'll see you at the mall.

"Some Confessions from a Christian Pastor"

Published in The Fresno Bee, Valley Voices column 7/11/09 (online here):

"Some Confessions from a Christian Pastor"
by Dave Wainscott

Dave Wainscott is pastor of Third Day Fresno, adjunct Bible instructor in Fresno Pacific University’s Degree Completion Program and professor of ministry for Latin American Bible Institute’s Sanger Campus.

I have a confession you may be surprised to hear from a Christian pastor:

I’m sorry.

And two words you may have assumed we clergy-types never utter:

I repent.

No, no need to “google” my name to find the scoop on a scandal of the kind all too frequent among preachers and televangelists. If that were the case, you would have already found my name on another page of today’s Fresno Bee.

But I am sorry, and I do hereby repent, of an equally scandalous situation:

I am aware that sometimes I…sometimes we clergy… can inadvertently (and I fear, even intentionally) communicate that we are holier than thou; that we only care about you if you attend our church, believe in Jesus right down to our denomination’s footnotes in doctrine, or voted a certain party line on a particular proposition.

That’s ridiculous.

And it’s ridiculous that I haven’t publicly repented sooner.

Please forgive me.

You are my neighbor.
I have been a bad example of a Good Samaritan.

I need you more than you need me.
Even if--especially if --you are not of my tribe, tongue…..or faith.

"Pastor, can you come over right away?," came the voice over the phone. "I have a terrible confession to make!" I took the trip across town, puzzling to myself, "What in the world is she going to confess? She’s a sweet older saint! What did she do, accidentally swat a mosquito, and now she needs to confess being a murderer?" When I arrived, she sat me down and spilled it out; right to the point: "I am an occasional atheist!”

I did not laugh, for I was privileged to be priest-pastor in a holy moment, but took and shook her hand….signifying that I, too, belonged to that club (humanity). All have sinned. As if occasional doubt was a sin! I see it more as a signpost of honesty and humility.

I confess church has not always honored those twin virtues.

Forgive me…us… for any sermon title, Fresno Bee column, political yard sign, brochure on your doorstep, that led you to believe that we pastors believe we are perfect, and you must be, too.

If you have attended the church I am privileged to pastor, and I made you feel like a number instead of a neighbor; I take the blame and shame.

We too are only human. But we are also required to treat and greet you as if you were more than.

I want to let one more secret out.

I just returned from a citywide pastors meeting. As usual, men and women of different denominations and various races were there. Mega-churches and micro-churches were represented. The movers and shakers were there, seated next to faithful bivocational pastors you have never heard of, but should have.

No, we weren’t plotting creative ways to be annoying to our city; of arrogantly projecting our morality onto the unbelieving masses of our citizens, of bullhorning and shoehorning you into conversion.

We weren’t even planning new means of getting you to darken the doors of the church.

We were repenting.


For ways we have let you, our city, and our God, down.

For times we have not proactively loved our neighbor, no matter which side of the tracks you live on; no matter which side of Blackstone and Shaw you stand with signs.

I reveal all this, not to brag on us; but to let you know that, though we have not arrived, we are on the way.

I must add two words for not letting you know sooner:

I’m sorry.

Of course it opens a door to heresy...do it anyway!

If penguins are "open source," when will we sheep catch up?


Every so often, one hears the concern that churches with more open-source, participatory sermons
open themselves up to heresy.

Of course they do.

But they also open themselves up to what God is saying through the ministers.

I love University Chrsitian Fellowship; especially their classic tongue(s)-in cheek "order of worship (see "Virgin Sacrifices...That's "postmodern" worship!"):

We like to share the wealth. Seeing as most of our ministers with bible school training got it via mail order, we don't feel that hearing from God is something only one of them can do. Everyone in our church could potentially be sitting on a great sermon, so we like to let everyone get a chance to speak. So we have a five minute slot. Occasionally we get some weird discourse on helicopters and UFO's, but 99.9% of the time or more it is a good message.
link

Doug Pagitt, in "Preaching Reimagined," comments on this at least three times:

• There are those who assume that if more people are allowed to share...then there's a greater risk of the church losing truth. But the history of heresy shows it's most often the abuse of power--not an openness of power--that creates envirins ripe with heresy. The church is at greater risk of losing its message when we limit those who can tell thes story versus when we invite the community to know and refine it. (43)

• When I've talked with other pastors about progressional preaching, their concerns are almost always about heresy..They're concerned all hell--literally--will beak loose. I understand this concern. As pastors we spend years in theological training...(so) we won't toss out crazy ideas about God to the masses...But I've found this concern to be unfounded. Far from pulling us in the direction of heresy, including collective conversation in our sermon time has in many, many instances led to greater understanding....and actually prevents the heretical thinking so easily found in individuated expressions of faith. When people set their ideas on the table, thoss who might lean towards heresy or idiocy are quickly called out by the group (53-54)

• We may not agree with the conclusions people draw, but we're better when we're moved to additional ways of seeing the world (137)
  

And Tony Jones, who attends the church pastored by Paggit, comments that 99 percent of churches don't let just anyone talk...

“..but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this emergent church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.” -Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":
"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

More on Trucker Frank here; he can interrupt my sermons anytime..

Brian McLaren on the real "bridge to nowhere"

I am so glad Brian McLaren finally posted a video about the Choluteca Bridge.

I had added it below, and to my previous post about this:

"Water...uh, over the bridge"(click)

Drunk on Gilligan's Island, Clay's sermon, Church 2.0

All real church meetings that matter happen in parking lots...

.... after the closing prayer of the official meeting.

Sometimes such meetings are satanically subversive
(see "A Crash of Rhinos...a Committee of Buzzards"):
as in plots to fire a staff member, hijack an agenda etc);

sometimes they are sovereignly subversive;
as folks are free to let their hair and guard down,
and dream out loud...
not worrying what any squeakers or buzzards in the bigger meetings would say.

I am thrilled that in the church world (at least a growing subset and underground alliance of orthopractical freelance wikitribesters) are beginning to wake up from our big bender and at least asking the right questions.

More on the bender in a minute.
Hint: it's largely Gilligan's Island's fault.

It was so refreshing to hear a local ministry leader at the citywide pastors/prayer meeting say something like:

"The day of the one expert standing up front giving a lecture to people sitting down and not participating is long over."

Of course you have guessed by now that this real comment was offered to a small subset group in the parking lot conversation after the real meeting.

So delightfully subversive was this small group that one of them told about how he was inviting people in his congregation to text-message him during the sermon about the sermon (Looks like you can hear the podcast of a sermon where that happened here; also read Creps on "If they are not texting, they are not listening.")

What would have happened if the official indoor conversation had been peppered with versions of these same comments. Would it have been seen as a temple tantrum?

Maybe; maybe not.

Maybe I will send everyone in the larger group a text message of the comments during the next meeting. (:

Maybe we are all unlearning everything we have learned in seminary.

Or unpacking the far deeper theological/epistemological education of watching Gilligan's Island.

Which brings us to this short speech recently given by Clay Shirky (author of
"Here Comes Everybody:The Power of Organizing Without Organizations”),
at the Web 2.o conference.


A transcript is available here;
an outline by Tim Bauer here,
but since media is message/messenger massage
and that is part of the point,
I would recommend watching it first.

Especially for those who think they "don't have the time," 13:00-15:32.

I am thrilled this

clip is being picked up on the web by pioneering Kingdom bloggers like

• Len, (who wiki-participated in the pioneering wikichurch "book" here)
• Bill (whose book, "A Networked Conspiracy is downloadable here)
• Mike, (who has written what should be a book here)

These are heroic and humble dudes who would make a great parking lot group.

Suffice to say any video made by a speaker to a non-church audience which notes that

• the shift we are in is analagous to the Industrial Revolution..
• we have been masking out cognitive surplus andfor fifty years.

and even mentions

the "architecture of participation"

let alone

the "physics of participation"

is amenable and amen-able in my book.

Besides, if Tipler is right, and Christianity is becoming a branch of physics,
that is a good thing!
(Should I drop that thesis at the pastor's prayer meeting?)

The video (sermon) is worth watching for the story at the end which ends with the quote
(great sermon style, Clay....and it's fifteeen minutes!):

"Media that's targeted at you, but does not include you may not be worth sitting still for."

My only potential beefs:

• for all the talk about participatory messages, this is still mostly a talking head...
• like many preachers, be sure to get the history right (see Ben B's comments here)
  

Anyway, as a bonus, after watching this I finally have an intelligent answer to folks who say:

"postmodern, emerging church...yada yada ..it's just a fad."

"But isn't this all a fad? Kind of the flagpole sitting of the early 21st century?

and

"But where do you find the time to do all that stuff online?"

The answer, my friend, as you will find in the clip,
has to do with

Gilligan's Island.



But "it's all asset, not crisis."