Last summer, I wrote a series of posts on the highly pretentious sounding ‘dehumanising metrics of modernist ministry’. Don’t be put off (although in fairness, I have to say I was quietly pleased by the alliteration there) because the more I’ve thought about it, and the more I’ve chatted with folks, the more I think there are some crucial things to discuss. This is certainly not the perfect analysis nor last word. But I hope it will at least present something of what troubles me these days.
Enjoy – and please feel free to comment/contribute/correct/make suggestions.
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Reblogged this on Partakers WOW Disciple… and commented:
Food for thought, me thinks…
I find this paper/introduction really thought provoking, and have mixed it in with a few other things I have been thinking about. I have been thinking however that we might have some more specific suggestions of how to respond to the temptations that we face in ministry….?
Any suggestions…?
For a start…
The economics of effectiveness and the impatience with slowness:
We are addicted to speed. Everything is about getting results fast, the more instantaneous the better. Things have to be efficient. Things are measured, primarily to assess whether they give a return on the investment. If they are not, funding is removed.
To counter this we can SLOW DOWN. There are various ways of doing this. One important way (already mentioned) is to notice the past. But also noticing the wonders of creation (Peter Adam speaks well on this). Poetry forces us to slow down. As does prayer. And silence. When we slow down we remember that it is actually un-measurable things that are of greater worth.
I had a few other thoughts too, but put in different categories:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151834470191163&set=a.91956346162.118552.524611162&type=1&theater
Thanks for this – I like that list a lot… and as one who lives in the madness of London’s West End, I totally relate to the SLOW DOWN plea…
I like it too, maybe one day I’ll actually get around to doing it…
Interestingly, have just come across this nice [if hyperbolic] little one-liner from Pascal:
“The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”
Pascal’s saying reminds me of the sort of thing that the desert monks used to say e.g. “stay in your cell: your cell will teach you everything”
of course such things can be taken to extremes, and the antidote to our culture’s one extreme isn’t to go right to the opposite end but try to build slowness into our lives in ways that make room for God. Funny also that *quiet times* aren’t always quiet in the sense Pascal was thinking of.