You want chicken wings with that?
Our language is changing. Although many people bemoan the loss of beautiful, multisyllabic words in exchange for phrase acronyms, there is one linguistic phenomenon that I’d like to investigate, and how it could apply to Christianity as we practise it.
Verbing.
Yes, verbing.
Trending now. People are twittering, googling, and texting it.
It’s how we take nouns, and simply use them as verbs instead. And given our immediate gratification culture, we usually add an “ing” because now is where it’s at—anything before is so 30 seconds ago... (how soon before that applies to selfies? Please?).
So, here is a noun that I’d like to nominate for verbing: church.
Our ways of communicating are changing. Our culture is changing. Even the way we understand how we learn is changing.
During a course on education, I learned this from brain experiments how we best process information:
If we listen to a speech, we will retain about 5-10% of the information.
If we are in conversation, we will retain about 50% of the information.
If we teach, we will retain about 90% of the information.
So, if this is how we learn, how our God-created brains work best, then why the hell is sitting in a fucking uncomfortable pew listening to a sermon (ie, a speech) on a regular basis considered a “gold standard” as to whether or not someone is a “practising Christian”?
And besides which, isn’t this “walk” supposed to be more than biblical informational processing?
Ah yes, there’s that lovely children’s story where you take a twig, get a child to snap it. Then take a bundle of twigs, and now, because it’s many, it’s strong, and it’s hard to break.
So, we have a Gestalt faith—being in a group of us keeps us faithful and strong?
Wait a second. Have you ever been on a committee? Watched office politics?
A psychological IQ test was done individually, and then administered while the subjects worked as a group. Result? They found some individual IQ scores went.....down! [http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/01/24/iq-drops-when-youre-in-a-group/34036.html] Likely, this is from all the group dynamics that we see every day, in every area where people conglomerate—church included.
Remember the old children’s hymn, “I Am the Church”? There is one line that says “The church is a people.”
I’d like us to imagine that line differently, even though it wouldn’t scan musically.
I’d like us to imagine what it would look like if “The people are churching”.
Being a Christian is more about relating to others than being in groups. Being a Christian is more about living out our beliefs rather than processing the words. And if the best way we learn that is by talking to each other, and teaching others, then how can churching look like rather that being a member of a church?
Verbing.
Yes, verbing.
Trending now. People are twittering, googling, and texting it.
It’s how we take nouns, and simply use them as verbs instead. And given our immediate gratification culture, we usually add an “ing” because now is where it’s at—anything before is so 30 seconds ago... (how soon before that applies to selfies? Please?).
So, here is a noun that I’d like to nominate for verbing: church.
Our ways of communicating are changing. Our culture is changing. Even the way we understand how we learn is changing.
During a course on education, I learned this from brain experiments how we best process information:
If we listen to a speech, we will retain about 5-10% of the information.
If we are in conversation, we will retain about 50% of the information.
If we teach, we will retain about 90% of the information.
So, if this is how we learn, how our God-created brains work best, then why the hell is sitting in a fucking uncomfortable pew listening to a sermon (ie, a speech) on a regular basis considered a “gold standard” as to whether or not someone is a “practising Christian”?
And besides which, isn’t this “walk” supposed to be more than biblical informational processing?
Ah yes, there’s that lovely children’s story where you take a twig, get a child to snap it. Then take a bundle of twigs, and now, because it’s many, it’s strong, and it’s hard to break.
So, we have a Gestalt faith—being in a group of us keeps us faithful and strong?
Wait a second. Have you ever been on a committee? Watched office politics?
A psychological IQ test was done individually, and then administered while the subjects worked as a group. Result? They found some individual IQ scores went.....down! [http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/01/24/iq-drops-when-youre-in-a-group/34036.html] Likely, this is from all the group dynamics that we see every day, in every area where people conglomerate—church included.
Remember the old children’s hymn, “I Am the Church”? There is one line that says “The church is a people.”
I’d like us to imagine that line differently, even though it wouldn’t scan musically.
I’d like us to imagine what it would look like if “The people are churching”.
Being a Christian is more about relating to others than being in groups. Being a Christian is more about living out our beliefs rather than processing the words. And if the best way we learn that is by talking to each other, and teaching others, then how can churching look like rather that being a member of a church?