Context | christopherhildreth

Archive for the ‘Context’ category

The Wizard of Oz

September 12, 2008

Tonight we watched The Wizard of Oz as part of Family Night. I love the movie, even though there are some who think any mention of witches, wizards and teleportation will send one directly to the Bad Place. Some things jumped out at me while we were watching.

One thing is how funny the scene is when the apple trees start pelting the travelers with apples – who knew trees had a gruff voice? Seriously, it is hard for me to just watch a movie. I’m more intrigued than ever before as to how the contextualization of the time period the movie was made translates with the time period in which it is being watched. (Only really great movies are able to bridge this chasm)

1 – After the Scarecrow is talking about not having a brain, Dorothy asks him what he would do with a brain if he had one – and the Scarecrow is quick to have an answer. Sometimes we allow not having something to become a reason we can’t get anything done, when the truth is that we probably wouldn’t get anything done even if we did have what we are whining about.

2 – Dorothy immediatly invites the Scarecrow to join her on her journey. She is not the least bit proprietary about her journey. She welcomes anyone who wants to go with her. Many times we get too defensive when we resist help in situations where an openness to others would quickly solve a problem.

3 – The Tinman longs for a heart, but his song delivery is the most emotional of all of the travelers.

4 – They think the Wizard will fix everything, but find out that the answers to their questions and desires are within them.

5 – Glenda tells Dorothy that she has had the way home all the time, but that she couldn’t tell Dorothy because she wouldn’t have believed it. How true is this? If we would allow ourselves to live a life filled with trust instead of suspicion, we could take leaps in our development as people and humans.

Next time you watch a film, open yourself up to the possibility of seeing more than just a plot line and actors. Within the power of storytelling is the answers to life itself.

Categories: Awareness, Context, Creativity, Cultural Ideas, Influence, Life

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compact fluorescent light bulbs

September 10, 2008

Sunday I requested that everyone bring a package of dimmable compact fluorescent light bulbs with them to this Sunday’s service. If you haven’t purchased your light bulbs yet, they can be found at Lowe’s, Home Depot, Walmart and Target among other places. Our goal is to replace all the light bulbs in the church with energy efficient compact fluorescent ones.

You may be a reader and not live in the Middle Georgia area and would also like to help. If so, mail your light bulbs to Lifepoint Church, 120 Walker Road, Byron, Georgia 31008. Also, take a look above you and around you and see if you could replace your own bulbs. Try just one package a week and you’ll be surprised at how quickly they can all be changed.

Each of us doing a little can ultimately do a lot!

Categories: Context, Influence, Life, Lifepoint

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Pillars Part 5

August 31, 2008

This week the focus of our teaching was the discipline of the study of Scripture. One of the key verses mentioned was Prov. 4:20-22. This talked about the words being given to us equating to life for our bodies. This is an analogy echoed by Christ in the New Testament when He proclaimed that “Man cannot live by bread alone”, that man needed to also partake of “the Word of God”.

To me a perspective shift is in order for us to truly understand all that is taking place when we enter into the discipline of study. First, we have mental focus, much the same as during meditation. Our focus for a period of time is on a portion of scripture. Layer after layer we look at what the words mean to our current context in terms of description and action. Secondly, there is a sort of fast going on. Instead of indulging in something else we have chosen to spend time looking into scripture.

Thirdly, and most importantly, we are not on a search for answers to our questions. There is no promise in scripture that we will know every answer for every question. Yes, there are certainties, but these certainties are far fewer than the traditional fundamentalist would like to admit. Let’s face it, if the real answers to all of man’s problems were found in scripture don’t you think things might be just a bit better in the world? We generalize and say that Jesus is the answer, and to many questions He is, but not all.

Often I have been engaged in conversation with someone who has a file for every question and an answer for each question tucked neatly inside. Sometimes I want to be like Dr. Phil and ask, “So how’s that going for you?”. Christianity is a journey, a process full of unknowns and questions. Somehow this is unsettling to people in church today.

Jesus never said He was the destination, He only said He was the Way. One of the key problems we have in scripture is that it is written in words. Words are concrete and definitive. Following Christ is anything but concrete and definitive. Following Christ is organic and fluid, spur of the moment and transcendent of words. The Buddhists in their search for truth are open and honest about not knowing. We demand a truth stated perfectly in words, but Jesus only said that He was the truth – His being, His presence.

We could go much further, but for now, embrace the path. Become enamored with the insignificant and fleeting. Read scripture and let it become living within you and show you what it is speaking to you. Let go and let the words fall to the ground like seeds and then wait – who knows what wonderful things may arise in your life!

Categories: Belief, Context, Life, Message Series, religion

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Archaic Furniture

August 28, 2008

In Dee Hock’s, Birth of the Chaordic Age, an intriguing book, he mentions that:

“The most difficult part [of forming a chaordic organization] is to understand and get beyond the origin and nature of our current concepts of organizations; to set them aside in order to make space for new and different thoughts. Every mind is a room filled with archaic furniture. It must be moved about or cleared away before anything new can enter. This means ruthless confrontation of the many things we know that are no longer so.”

This is such a profound and illuminating idea. Even scripture, with the parables of Jesus, compares our bodies as temples and houses. Being aware that something needs to be done is the first step, but then the moving or removal of mental furniture begins the real process of transformation. As Dee says later, a purpose must be agreed upon to direct the renovation. This purpose, both personal and professionally, has incredible importance in the “next steps” we take. It’s not something we spend five minutes on and then move – instead it can take much longer. Like other things in life it also is not static. There will be times when it will need reevaluating as well. This process is ongoing without ever arriving at a destination, but the result is a life fully lived and, as Jesus said, “more abundant”.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Context, Creativity, Cultural Ideas, Goals, Influence, Leadership, Life

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Emotional Intelligence

August 25, 2008

No, this is not a review of Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence. The book is a great one that brought to the forefront the importance of emotional intelligence in the work place. His later book Social Intelligence is a few books down in my “Need to Read” stack, so you will be hearing about it in a future post. You can read his blog here.

This look at emotion comes from a meeting the staff had with Transformational Architect, Ron Martoia. During several hours the concept distilled the most was that emotional health in relationships is far more important than technical skills, knowledge, talent and ability to success in a working environment. The level to which emotion plays a part in interactions and the decision-making process is astounding. The way we continually do the same things emotionally expecting different results is equally as astounding.

Thankfully, we are not stuck in an emotional mud-bank. We each have what we need to cause personal and professional momentum to increase and, in turn, to increase the positive momentum of any organization we are a part of. Far more can be said than I would want to post, but the key is that whatever emotional position you are in now, you are not destined to stay there. You do have a future to be written that contains emotions full of health that help to propel you toward a great preferred future that you write.

If you have some specific questions about this topic, ask and we’ll see where it goes!

Categories: Awareness, Context, Creativity, Lifepoint, People

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Pillars Part 4

August 23, 2008

This week we talked about prayer as a discipline. For me, during the past few years I have run the gamut between prayer needing to be a fixed point in my schedule to wondering that if God is in control – what is the real point of prayer at all. I’m certain that you’ve thought about the idea of prayer and wondered if “you had it right” or whether you could “do it” at all. Prayer is such an enigmatic topic that many times we chose not to dive into it. We wait for priests, rabbis, imams, pastors or teachers to tell us “what it is”. Here is the interesting point, those guys you are waiting to tell you what prayer is often have the same struggle defining it and practicing it.

Loved the discussion about prayer we had Sunday. If you missed it you can hear it here. One of the aspects I want to just touch on is Centering Prayer. The idea was brought into prominence by Father Thomas Keating several decades ago. In a simple nutshell, centering prayer is about sitting and allowing the thoughts in your mind to pass by unattached to you. Think of sitting by a stream. Carried by the current of the stream are the thoughts that are passing through your mind. Consciously let them pass by. It takes effort. but eventually the number of thoughts will decrease and the static/noise level in your mind will subside.

Doing this for just twenty minutes can have a dramatic difference in your day. I know you may be saying that if I’m praying I should be saying something. This is one of the misconceptions we have with prayer. Think of a situation where you asked an opinion about something and your inner thought was your true feeling, but you said the opposite. Our true self resides within and can be heard when we sift through the myriad of brain chatter that vies for our attention each day.

Try each day to visualize yourself for a few moments at the streams edge and watch the thoughts go by and dissipate. This is the “centering” part of centering prayer. Just like everything else in our lives, practices that have the greatest amount of impact take time and effort to learn and become part of our daily rhythm.

Categories: Awareness, Centering Prayer, Context, Message Series, religion, Rhythm

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Hauerwas quote

August 22, 2008

Stanley Hauerwas is the Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Throughout his career, he has focused emphasis on the importance of virtue and character within the Church. I found this quote and it embodies what I feel the church is to be.

“The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principles for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self-sacrificing love in its rituals and discipline. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.”

This is such an important ideal to grasp – especially as we near the hard and heavy election season. Christians are best, not when they seek to infiltrate society and bend it to their will, but when they seek to embody the character of Christ.

Categories: Awareness, Belief, Context, Kingdom of God, religion

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Unconditional Love

August 19, 2008

I’ve had a question bouncing about in my mind for several months. My point here is not to answer the question or even come close to a few conclusions. What I want to do is offer this question as a beginning place in rethinking what it may mean to be a follower of Christ.

In regard to our proclaiming of a God who loves us with an unconditional love, we seem satisfied to only be able to receive this unconditional love after we have met the condition of (depending on faith) asking, believing, confessing, baptizing, etc. In it’s basic Sunday School representation there appears to be contradiction. Just as one is either pregnant or not (there is no “kind of pregnant”), you either love someone conditionally or unconditionally. In light of this, how does that effect the Biblical narrative we have been offered by previous generations and are offering to the next generation?

After all, this is the basis of our emotional connection with God. If we buy into the concept of a conditional loving God, fear of not measuring up becomes a primary posture in relating to God. If we buy into the concept of an unconditional loving God, performance barriers are gone.

So, what has been the full context of your view of God’s love and how has that colored your perception of God and your own potential? How crucial is a consistent “seeing” of God’s actions and motives?

Categories: Belief, Context, religion

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Wild Goose Chase

August 13, 2008

What has to count as one of the best recent examples of things coinciding has to be my wife handing me my copy of Wild Goose Chase at around 8pm last night. I had come home and had thought about the book, but had let the thought go.

I had promised myself that I would read the book when it came in, so when I was handed the package I knew that my current reading would stop and Wild Goose would begin. Little did I know that by 1:30am I would have devoured the book and had some major epiphanies of my own.

Now to the actual review:

I had previously held up In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day as one of my favorite books – especially books to give to people. In a Pit has been eclipsed by Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson’s second book. The greatest theme of the book is the paradox between a caged and wild animal. The caged animal is safe, fed, well taken care of; the wild animal is in danger, has to find food and is out in the elements. The question is – “Which one is really living?”

Then Mark states one simple wonder, “I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals.” From then on we are catapulted into a no-holds-barred quest for the life that Christ has really offered us. His thoughts on the story of Peter’s denial and restoration in Chapter Five are worth the price of the book alone. His emphasis on playing offense instead of defense with your life has made my own mind reel and re-examine some of my routine “plays”.

The book as a whole wields a blow to the modern constructed “inverted christianity” we are familiar with and breaks through to a “responsible irresponsibility” that needs to define more people who present themselves as Christ followers. If a fraction of the people who read the book actually do what is presented, we will see a major shift in both the practice and possibility of the Church.

The book is out in stores on August 19th. Check out www.chasethegoose.com and get Mark’s 10 Steps to Setting Life Goals. You can purchase the book by going to www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.borders.com, and www.cbd.com. This is one book you’ll want to buy 2 copies.

SIDENOTE: A major theme in the book is having big, huge, audacious goals and changing the world. I have a copy of Wild Goose Chase to give away and would like you to tell me what your big, huge, audacious goals for changing the world are. We’ll have a drawing and send the book to the winner, but we’ll also come together and do some open source global aid work and make some of our goals a reality – how ’bout that!

Categories: Books I'm Reading, Context, Creativity, Influence, Life, religion

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Ron Martoia

August 4, 2008

Well, today we had our first meeting with Ron Martoia as a staff and board. He is a great guy who brings so much to the table as far as corporate and personal development and growth. Joe and I had visited him at a meeting in Birmingham, Alabama last week and have been plugged in on Sunday evenings with a container called Spiritual Explorations Live.

The information and questions that Ron poses and brings to the surface are questions that have to be grappled with and looked at intently. These questions – personally – concern a need for us as individuals to take responsibility for ourselves and develop positive rhythms in our lives; – theologically – deal with a conversation going on across the globe as to the fidelity of current church practices and beliefs.

No, there is not a desire to throw everything away, but there is a need to examine. You’ve heard me say before that if something is true, it is true regardless of source. Truth “is”. Practices, methods and the message itself should be examined and re-examined. If something is “off limits” to examination, I question its ability to stand up to the examination. We can’t live a life where the foundation of our belief is “off limits”.

More is to come, but it is always good to have another viewpoint added to an ongoing conversation.

Categories: Belief, Context, Influence, Lifepoint

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