I just finished a 4 week study on evangelism for my local church. It was a dress rehearsal in many ways for the next performance this Thursday evening. We'll be launching YLC STL's 5 week volunteer training at our apartment this week and I'll be spending much of this week before then tweaking that training program. The awesome thing about dress rehearsals is that you see the flaws in the show before everyone takes their seats. So it is with this training program.... little tweaks; unexpected side-effects, awesome repercussions to using one illustration over another... all add up to a better constructed training unit in the future.
I was asked yesterday if I had a "take-away" handout that would cover the material of the 4 weeks so people could reflect privately on what we'd covered. The Cliff notes version as it were.
I'm sitting here wondering how to condense it into cliff notes and then realizing that I didn't really say anything new during the whole time I talked. I'm just rehashing a very well known set of ideas and propositional truths into something palatable for a 21st century palate. So that makes the cliff notes easier than I thought.... 5 steps to awesome self realization.
- Be a decent human being - Respectful and Authentic
- Know where the source of your empowerment is located.
- Know where you stand and who/what is central in your life. What's the Divine in your life?
- Know where and to whom/what your passion is directed towards.
- Know what makes you uniquely you, what potential you have in that uniqueness and why that matters.
"Hoc est corpus" the Latin phrase used by priests in Church became Hocus-pocus the favorite magic incantation of the 17th century english peasant.
That is my main concern with Christian Cliff Notes and informational distribution of ideas. They too easily become incantations. The recipients aren't fully aware of their meaning but understand that the words have power. So they take the words without the full meaning and incant them at others or themselves to magically change circumstances or people.
The word "Jesus Saves" is just such an incantation.... If said forcefully and loudly and with enough repetition it will magically change my reality to one that may seem more comfortable. It is considered so powerful even the written form of the incantation is seemingly all-powerful. I've lost count of "Jesus" bumper stickers in St. Louis. The suburban 21st century magician who is doing 85 in a 55 while crossing four lanes all in under 3 seconds while magically dispelling, or, converting "evil" in all its forms. Magical! Or, perhaps just a mystery?
So I'm sitting here this morning trying to figure out how to create a useful "take-away" that is at least somewhat proof against becoming the next magical incantation to destroy evil in St. Louis.
The irony is that the word Hocus-pocus is often used today to refer to something that is fake or unreal. When we take mysteries like the Transubstantiation and make them magic we too often merely create anoher word for fake.
So am I creating the next magical incantation for people to banter around or is it possible to enter a conversation where you leave with questions to chew on, rather than power words to spit out at the world?
Have an awesome week......
Which is why I never have a Christian sticker on the back of my car :D
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