mcmanus thoughts

erwin mcmanus spoke tonight at pts. i admire this servant of Christ because he is free and he lives and leads out of his love for Jesus Christ and his authentic sense of freedom. a couple ideas stayed with me from what he shared tonight. these are probably not the main ideas that he intended to "stick with the audience" but they are the ones that leaped out at me...

1. parable of the talents. Jesus called the one who hid the talent wicked and lazy. why was hiding the talent wicked? using the talent to hire an assassin or a prostitute sounds wicked but hiding it doesn't. the hiding was wicked because he did nothing. most Christians are content with doing nothing. how does God view that? doing anything (or nothing) that keeps you from being who God wants you to be is equivalent burying the talent.

2. participatory does not always mean that everyone is doing everything. something can be participatory for a group if they feel like they are doing the action. for example, including a painter in a worship experience is participatory even though everyone is not painting. each person can feel like they are painting by simply watching and experiencing the creation of the artist.

3. tell a story as if you are experiencing it for the first time. that way, your audience will not think that you know how everything in this world works out and/or fits together. let them experience the story and the suspense with you. don't tell the story from the end's perspective, tell the story from the beginning's perspective.

4. self-denial is not denying who you are as a person. Christians tend to be more Buddhist than Christian. self-denial is denying everything that gets in the way of you being who God wants you to be. do not fall into the thought process that you should avoid your strengths simply because "in our weakness we are strong." aren't we still weak even when we are living out our strong areas?

5. mosaic is not a place where people get fed. when they come, they go away more hungry. most Christians are bulimics, they eat a ton and then go home on sunday night and throw it up and then wait for the next week. Christians do not need to get fed, they need to exercise!

6. Christian discipleship is too standardized (moving toward a standard). uniqueness is key, there is not a standard way to experience God (either in community or individually). the problem with many ethnic churches is they automatically standardize the people to the ethnic background and their ways of doing things. the same applies to any church.

great stuff...