Has anyone read this book by Joseph Myers?If you have I'd like to know what, if any thoughts, ideas, etc jumped out at you from the book? If you haven't read the book it's a quick read. Put it on your reading pile this summer then post what your thoughts are. I think right off the bat he has some good points. Although the tone of the book seems to be an anti-small group tone I think there's some nuggets to apply. Dick and I have both read the book and it proved to challege us. I'm hoping it'll challenge you too. And most of all I'm hoping we can talk about it on here!
-Marc
9 comments:
That is one of the most compelling blogs I have ever read!
There... I'm even with Marc in the flattery category.
"Vengeance is mine, says the Lord."
And what did you think about this book, Dick?
I think Joseph Myers is a guy who is not only speaking it, but living it, as well. I recently heard that he is a part of a church plant that has decided that if what they are doing has not positively impacted the crime rate and domestic violence in their community, they will disband. Bolder than a lot of churches I've seen.
I think he has a lot of good stuff to say.
One of the things that was eye-opening to me is that he points out the fact that we (the church) do not control belonging. The example of the lady that passed away who gave a bunch of money to a church she had never attended, but to her she felt a connection was helpful.
I think the challenge for us as leaders is to try to facilitate not mandate and be respectful of all four spaces.
Myers also has a follow up book that came out a couple months ago called "Organic Community." What I like about it is that it gives some helpful language to some of the changes I see happening in our body of believers. Shifts from control to collaborative; prescriptive to descriptive..
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
One thing that stuck in my memory from Joe Myers' book was his statement that people will connect on their terms, not necessarily on our terms. I don't think a church can actually provide connection points in all 4 areas (public, social, intimate & I can't remember the 4th), but the key point is that people will find connections somewhere. The best we can do is love them & offer... As I write this, I'm still trying to get my brain around what I just read from Don Miller's (the other Don Miller) Blue Like Jazz. It relates to what Myers says about people connecting on their own terms. In the church, I/we have done so much rule-giving & not as much love-giving, accepting, tolerance, whatever we want to call it. I don't want to be known as "Dick, the guy who loves me IF I join one of 'his' groups." That's what I think, Marc.
Dick, I think you have hit on a HUGE issue - the conditional love thing. My opinion has shifted so much in the last couple years. Two years ago I tried to develop friendships with the moms on my daughter's softball team in the hopes that they would soon follow me to New Hope and find what they are looking for. I even had it organized into a book club that I thought would be so cool. I now call that time "friendship with fingers crossed behind my back".
This year my approach was very different. My hope is still that they will find what they are looking for and that they will discover the God who gives life for love, but it's no longer 'my agenda.' My job is simply to love and be available. The rest is up to God.
I think there are similar parallels in our church communities. We all know that relationships can feed the journey, so we become the 'relationship people' or the 'small group guru' whatever. If we're not careful and even if we're well meaning.. it is easy to let our agenda slip in front of what God is doing in their life.
In 'Organic Community' Myers says, "People do not want to live out 'our agendas' for their lives." (loosely quoted-it's not in front of me). I think he's right. That's why I am trying to figure out how to help people discover God's Dream for them. 'Don't know how to do it, really, but it is my desire. That's why the pots. Help people discover rather than just say "hey, we have this ministry you may want to get involved in.."
Enough rambling...
Oops, Drama Girl is me. I didn't realize I was posting with my daughter's account :)
All good stuff posted so far!! Thanks Dick and Vic. Also thanks Vic for pointing out Joseph Myers' other book. For me one big nugget I took from this book was his definitions of the 4 areas to belong. I've always described small groups as "intimate," but after reading this book I decided to erase that word from my small group vocabulary. The word intimate was a great word to describe the small group experience, or so I thought. I was probably inadvertently scaring people away. I appreciate the definition given by Myers. From now on instead of using "intimate" to describe a small group experience I'm going to use....hmm....well I'm still working on a good word to replace intimate. Another challenge in this book is figuring out for yourself which groups/situations you're involved in fit into the 4 areas of belonging. Then take a look at how many of those involve people who are "unconvinced" about Christ. I know for me too many of my areas of belonging are filled with Christians rather then the unconvinced. Dick calls this concept your "Sphere of Influence." You'll have to ask him about that sometime.
Great thoughts Vic. It's easy to say, "My unconvinced friends are people, not projects," but if I even think that way... just a little... it will spill over into my actions & they will recognize my double motive.
"My unconvinced friends are people, not projects"
I feel the tension of this too and recently made a similar comment in a forum I'm active in.
As far as TSTB:
I liked the 4 spaces a lot although I felt the book as a whole was overly conceptual with not enough pragmatics to back up the ideas. It was also overly critical. Yeah small groups can be artificial at times, but that doesn't make them ineffective. Not all small groups are as fake or cheesy as the ones he describes.
Despite these qualms, it's one of my favorite book and I recommend it often.
-Billy Chia
http://billychia.com
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