great segment on the daily show last night…

Another year, another playlist…

Seth Godin offers these thoughts on social media:

The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations

It’s a process, not an event.

Dating is a process. So is losing weight, being a public company and building a brand.

On the other hand, putting up a trade show booth is an event. So are going public and having surgery.

Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul. (From Seth’s Blog)

I think he is right in terms of social media – using it as a tool to connect means that it takes time to develop and build those meaningful relationships. But I immediately started asking about how we do “church” in regard to this process vs. event framework. How often do we approach the work of the church as an event instead of an ever-evolving process? Within United Methodism we have this concept of “sanctifying grace” and “moving on to perfection” by which we understand discipleship as a process, but too often I think we are still locked into an event mentality – where people are perfectly content to keep coming week after week (to the “event” of public worship), with no meaningful transformation or growth in their lives. Are we offering a process or just a series of events? It’s a good question to wrestle with.

P.S. After I had posted this I came across Julie Clawson’s most recent blog post which is a somewhat tangential take on the same question. In it she offers this thought:

“…it amuses me that the faith tradition that taught me to pity and ridicule those that say “I’m a good person, why do I need to follow Jesus?” are now the one’s saying “I’ve said a prayer to Jesus, why should I follow him?” Fully embracing the Incarnation means that we actually let it transform us – not just in some brief moment of salvation but in the entirety of our lives. A flesh and blood incarnate Jesus calls us to follow him in tangible flesh and blood ways. Plastic figures and cheezy slogans are insubstantial next to this incarnate God. This transformation makes us the hands and feet of Jesus in such a way that we can no longer ask why we should bother caring but instead accept that this is the only possible way we can live as true Christ followers. Incarnation isn’t a cheap decoration that adorns the veneer of our lives, it’s earthy and messy and complex and demanding. The incarnate Jesus grabs hold of our lives and wakes us up from our complacency.”

Donald Miller – from the Relevant Magazine website

“We are a conflict avoiding culture. One of the things I love about our source text as Christians, the Bible is that it teaches us not to avoid conflict. And it teaches us that before the fall of man, in Paradise, there was conflict. God wants conflict to be a part of your life. Most churches don’t teach that. “

“As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring.” – Seth Godin
Is our focus on being innovative and remarkable, or just avoiding the pitfalls? Read the full article here. What does this say about the institutional weight and structure of the UMC?

“Think of your sixty-eight year old, pot-bellied uncle Joe dressing up in tight disco clothes (thinking these are “cool” and “hip”) with his shirt unbuttoned to his naval, crashing a college party — this is what much that we Baby Boomers call “contemporary” or “praise” worship looks like to young adults.” – Dan Dick

The quote comes from a larger, but great article about facing the “statistical apocalypse” with a new perspective. Check it out here.

it’s well past afternoon, but i thought i’d try for another music post for this week.

first up – derek webb. after i wrote the post on fred phelps, my friend carl gladstone directed a tweet to derek to check out my blog, which i was honored (and a little freaked out by – i tend to be a little like a schoolgirl when it comes to interacting with those i admire). back in the late ’80s i tried listening to contemporary christian music (a few tapes by the likes of stryper, one bad pig, michael w. smith, etc.), but it was a quickly passing phase. the music seemed pretty bland (or too much like a cheap copy of the popular stuff on the radio), and theologically shallow; not to mention i began discovering music like primal scream, they might be giants, and depeche mode. so i pretty much abandoned the contemporary christian scene, even though i’d heard rumors that it had gotten better in recent years. it really wasn’t until i stumbled upon derek webb’s mockingbird that i had a new appreciation for artists working within the specifically identified “christian” genre. this song has generated controversy for webb, and probably shouldn’t be heard by the easily offended. (derek – if you do stumble upon this blog – thank you for your amazing music).

derek webb – what matters more

god help the girl is a project from stuart murdoch (from belle and sebastian). both belle and sebastian and god help the girl are worth checking out.

“To understand the Christian Right, you need to understand not what they think or even what they believe. You need to begin by discovering what they are afraid of.”

-Tom Sine, from Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars, quoting himself in the Nov. 2009 issue of Sojourners.