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Show and Tell: Part Two

This TED Video does a better job of explaining what I was attempting to say in the previous post. Please take the 18 minutes to watch it - it's more than worth that amount of time. (In my never humble but accurate opinion, of course.)

The presentation software he uses for his 18 minutes is from Prezi. Much more effective than PowerPoint.

Show and Tell

As hard as it may be to believe, your humble servant majored in writing (and radio) "back in the day." I've taken numerous writing courses since. Perhaps one day their impact will magically appear in my prose - I wouldn't hold my breath, however.

One of the key writing truths drummed into me, whether by Dr. Bob Gardner @ Ryerson, Roy Williams, Chris Maddock or Jeff Sexton @ Wizard Academy, or in books like Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is "Show, don't tell."

I occasionally think of this as I read the Scriptures - there's a lot more showing than telling (especially in the New Testament.) I think of how John's Gospel ends, (in Peterson's paraphrase),

There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can't imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books.

Why don't we have more of what Jesus did written down? We would then be able to more easily practise an "if, then" Christianity; if X happens, then do Y. Systematic Theology would have been sooooo much easier.

Instead, the New Testament spends a lot of time showing us the Gospel in action - telling us stories of the Kingdom of God being at hand. Yes, we are "told" lots of thing - there is instruction - but not enough to answer all the questions Christians ask - which (I believe) is why Jesus said this,

"I still have many things to tell you, but you can't handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won't draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said."

What point am I attempting to make (feebly or otherwise)?

We spend far too much time promoting an IF/THEN version of Christianity. The latest gurus, whether mega, missional, missional-mega, mega-missional, young, old, restless or otherwise offer us keys to unlock the secrets of "growing the church/solving the world's problems."

"Listen to me. IF you'd just do this, THEN it would work out the way Jesus wants it to, eh!"

It's all TELL with very little SHOW.

When my kids were little (rather than the adults they are today) they used to ask me to "tell them a story." I didn't begin with; "the protagonist in this story is the Little Lion. The antagonist is the Littler Lion. The Littlest Lion is the 3rd gravitating body - providing intrigue and delight. The purpose of this story is..."

I told them stories about the Little Lion, his brother, the Littler Lion and their sister, the Littlest Lion. (I was never going to be an award-winning children's author.) These stories were more or less about them - about adventures they'd had - trying to make sense of their world for them - or adventures they might have - exciting them about what might be.

I've said it here too many times, but we are wired for stories. (I love this line from Jeff Jarvis: "Gore hits the same points with different words again and again, not knowing which will stick so he keeps throwing. Bono, instead, tells a story.")

Please. Tell me a story about how God is moving in your midst. Allow the Holy Spirit to show me His Truth and what He wants me to see in the midst of your story.

And.

If you don't have a real story to tell - simply prognostications based on your theories - please sit down and make room for the story tellers. We all might learn something.

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Aside: Some of this is a result of the struggles I'm having in the editing of Imbi's Documentary on Church Leadership for the 21st Century - the need to balance theory and practice. (Imbi conducted and I shot over 40 hours of interviews - while shooting many more hours of B-roll.) I need to be careful not to reject the prophetic because it sounds like theory - but also, not to accept that which claims to be prophetic when the "prophet" stands above and apart.

A Narcissist's Fantasy

I thought of using a more provocative phrase in the title, but, as this is a family-oriented blog (yah, right, my family doesn't even read it) I thought it best to go with the above.

Twitter has it that the fool masquerading as a pastor in Florida (and yes, I'm well aware of Matthew 5:22) has decided not to burn Qur'ans. He no longer needs to. He's been given a world wide audience. The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, POTUS and thousands more have responded to him. This little man from the little "church" on the outskirts of a small Florida city has gained an audience of millions. It's every narcissist's fantasy come to fruition.

As I smack the keys on my computer, composing this rant, there are 8,931 news articles about this clown at Google News (.ca) at 5:30PM EDT on Sep-09-10. It's all I can do not to use words that would make the WTF Church blush.

Eight thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one news articles.

Yahoo News (where the media audience shot is from) refers to it as an "anti-Islam stunt that has whipped the national media in a frenzy." (Pedantic Note: a proper editor would have made that "...into a frenzy.")

Let's be honest, shall we. The "national media" whipped themselves into a frenzy. And thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the process. The stunt-pastor fit the narrative for many of them - evangelical Christians as simple-minded bigots. (And I'd debate whether this individual is an "evangelical" or understands what it means to be a Christian.)

The Yahoo News article acknowledges that this story should never have become national news - but then blames the coverage on "major officials and leaders."

Most journalists would probably agree that the rantings of a fanatical preacher in Florida shouldn't be front-page news across the United States and a lead story on national newscasts. However, the story appears to carry more weight as major officials and world leaders continue to weigh in. So after a few big names comment, and garner headlines, it then seems rational to ask the president of the United States -- or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Gen. David Petraeus -- for their thoughts on the overheated controversy. Although any mainstream political figure is going to condemn Jones, journalists will ask because the responses themselves make news. [emphasis added]

Notice that the writer attempts intellectual slight of hand - blaming the story's growth on anyone but the press - while telling us that journalists go after responses that "make news." And Hillary Clinton wants to blame it on "a media environment where "anybody with an iPhone, anybody with a blog, can put something out there which is outrageous"". Now, is that any way to talk about CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, the New York Times et al.

Trevin Wax nailed it in his post from earlier today,

The frustrating part of this story is the fact that it is a story. It tells us very little about how evangelicals view their Muslim neighbors and very much about the media’s willingness to seize any opportunity to create and maintain chaos.

Think about it. Is this church’s actions going to cause conflict between Muslims and Christians? Yes. But only because newspapers and TV talking heads blew up the story for the world to see.

Is the imagery of Koran-burning going to hurt the perception of American Christians in other parts of the world? Absolutely. But only because the news media has asked that question and seared that picture into our imagination. Even if the church decided to call off the bonfire, the damage is already done.

In a day of 24/7 news, journalists feel constant pressure to stay on top of stories like this, even if they are manufactured and promoted by other news outlets. How could they keep from reporting this story, especially when they had the chance to increase sympathy for Muslims, heap scorn on evangelicals, and cause conflict before September 11? It was the perfect story to accomplish all three tasks.

When I think about the obligatory condemnations coming from military commanders, politicians and leaders, I shake my head at how much time and energy has been wasted here. If Saddleback Church were burning books, you’d have a story. But traveling to the fringe and honoring such actions with this much media attention only exacerbates the problem and causes other fringe groups to try the same tactics.

(By the way, does anyone notice that whenever radical Muslims act out journalists are quick to remind us that most Muslims are not this way? And yet when fringe Christian groups do silly things, journalists use the occasion to take a swipe at evangelicals?)

Theologian William Black says this,

...the media are behaving like depraved addicts who are simply piling on as many hot-button words as possible (fundamentalists, koran-burning, outrage, Muslim extremist, 9/11, etcetera ad nauseum) without any seeming awareness that their so-called 'reporting' is in this case not part of the solution but part of the problem.

I wrote this in the comments section of Phoenix Preacher, earlier today

Real “agenda-less” editors would have said, “the man’s an attention-seeking lunatic. We should ignore him.”

Any violence triggered by this lunatic will be on the heads of the perpetrators and the media – not as if the perpetrators of said projected violence really need an excuse, however.

The media will probably respond with Billy Joel's words, "We didn't start the fire, it's been always burning, since the world's been turning." But the reality is that they fanned the ember rantings of a narcissist into a full-on forest fire of an international media story - with no thought to the consequences.

A Return to Blogging

If you were to ask me what I love to do the most, it would probably be writing. Opinions, thoughts, ideas and characters dance inside my head, triggering impulses in my fingertips with words appearing on the page in front of me.

My words.

Always in need of editing.

Sometimes worth reading.

I wrote my last blog post two months ago. I did not mean to wait two months to write the next one. In fact, I've sat down in front of this 24" screen numerous times and begun to write. But 140 characters seem to be about my limit. Today I will attempt to write a few more.

The easy explanation would be that I've had writer's block. 'But why?' one might ask. There are a number of reasons.

The first is the death of my friend, Michael Spencer. I have spent hours trying to write about Michael's impact on me and how much I miss him. One of those hours was today. I am still not able to adequately express how much Michael's friendship and encouragement has meant to me - not to mention the influence of his writing on my life.

I've also been dealing with depression. (That's not easy for me to write - as the line from 10CCs I'm Not in Love, "Big boys don't cry" plays in the recesses of my right brain.) After avoiding it for much too long, I finally sat down with my GP (who has known me for a quarter century) and talked to her about this. The conclusion was that I'm simply exhausted - largely based on my work schedule from this past late winter/early spring. She prescribed novel reading, walking and eating properly. (With the need to come back and see her in mid-October if my depression doesn't lift.)

Imbi and I also realized that we had no choice but to update our company website - and we spent a chunk of time working on that.

I've also being editing away at the 50+ hours of HD footage we shot for Imbi's documentary on Church Leadership for the 21st Century. (Interviews with folk like Tom Wright, Dave Fitch, Andrew Jones, George Lord Carey, Pete & Kath Atkins, Graham Cray, Bishop Linda Nichols, Joe Manafo, Dick Staub, Eddie Gibbs and many, many others.)

And then, three Sundays ago, taking the shortcut to the lake front at our summer place, I slipped on wet wood - both feet coming out from under me - the resulting point of forced contact being my coccyx... landing on a rock.

As there's not much one can do with a fractured tailbone (other than lie down and take it like a man), I have managed to read four novels (the Steig Larson Salander/Blomkvist Millenium series and the latest Elizabeth George Inspector Lynley book), an interesting book on Beer and books by James Davison-Hunter, and my friend, Dick Staub. All of them on my new cheap (WiFi-only) Kindle 3 that arrived two weeks ago - I love it. Particularly the ability to grab quotes as a text file - no more transcribing!

All of this to say that this is my first post of a number I have planned for September. I will be reviewing Dick's book, About You and including some video I've shot with him in that review. (Dick is one of Imbi's and my favourite people on the planet.)

I will also do my best to finish the post honouring my friend, the (one and only) Internet Monk.

I'll be responding with humour to the Christian Conference addiction - partially triggered by this important post from J.R. Briggs.

Based on this FT article, I'll once again engage the topic of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and church leaders. (My last was a year and a half ago, It's All About Me, NPD and Church Leaders.)

I'm also somewhat in shock at the life of The People Formerly Known as the Congregation - written in March of 2007. This past Spring it appeared in a couple of Western Canadian newspapers (along with comments from Jamie Arpin-Ricci) and then last week excerpts from it showed up on a blog connected to a St. Louis newspaper as pointed out by TSK. I'll share my thoughts on the post, 3.5 years later.

I also may finish a post called Hip:Gnosis that I began in February - though I am trying to listen to a good friend who asked me to return to blogging but "not just when your p-o'd."

Though there are lots of things that p___ me off - grist for the mill at this small corner of the interwebs.

Back soon.