#leonardsweet

“Play is oxygen for the imagination, which sparks creativity, which ignites innovation, which combusts in paradigm shifts.” p. 6

In a recent and brilliant TED talk (Hey! What do you say we start a list of TED talks that weren’t brilliant. Pass that puppy around) Adam Grant proceeds to rock the planet with his topic, “The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers.”

Adam is providing his own support for the ball Sweet takes a swing at on page six. 

In the film, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a character that is trapped in a time loop where he lives the same day, over and over and over. This drives him into profound and suicidal depression before <SPOILER><IN 1993>he makes a turn and re-invents his existence. OR, his existence is re-invented. 

I know alot of people who feel like they are stuck in a life that is too much like that movie, living every day as though it were the same: the same work, the same patterns, the same stress, the same hopelessness…the same. 

What Sweet says prophetically, Grant affirms with research. The secret to deep, abiding change in your life is not “Do More, Work Harder.” It’s not “Keep Pushing At All Costs.” And it’s not, “Bacon Cannot Kill You.” The secret is found buried in the age old, “Cease striving and and know that I am God.” 

The way to gain momentum is to stop. 

The way to breakthrough is to rest.

The increase your level at work is to…Improve Your Level Of Play. 

Sweet’s book leads the reader on the journey of learning the Play of God, God Play. There will be plenty of time for more on that. I want to look at a couple of things that Grant says in his talk. 

Grant’s main point, his thesis, is that procrastination increases ingenuity which leads to new paradigms. 

“Procrastinating is a vice when it comes to productivity, but it can be a virtue for creativity.“

Grant cites the great “I Have A Dream Speech.” 

King had waited (procrastinated) until the last moment to get the biggest speech of his life into shape. The night before was a flurry of focus and edits. When the big day came, as Grant puts it, “He’s sitting in the audience waiting for his turn to go onstage, and he is still scribbling notes and crossing out lines. When he gets onstage, 11 minutes in, he leaves his prepared remarks to utter four words that changed the course of history: “I have a dream.” That was not in the script. By delaying the task of finalizing the speech until the very last minute, he left himself open to the widest range of possible ideas. And because the text wasn’t set in stone, he had freedom to improvise.”

In specific terms, and to reduce it down to mathematics, what he is saying is that Procrastination + Improvisation = History Making. 

The Church of the 21st Century is in desperate need of new paradigms. Paradigms that make discipleship possible. Paradigms that foster new expressions of play and the fun of faith. Paradigms of leader health and hope. Paradigms of congregational missional success. 

But what Sweet is saying (and Grant as well) is that this shift cannot be achieved in a board room. It’s not going to happen in a Powerpoint presentation. It’s not going to happen while rewriting By-Laws and Employee Handbooks. 

No. It’s going to be in frisbee golf and Madden 16 matches. It’s going to happen on a walk or in the shower (one person per one of those, especially in the workplace). It’s going to happen dancing in the rain or singing in the car. And it’s going to happen making God happy by ceasing to make yourself miserable. 

Research tells us that it’s walking around the block, getting oxygen moving in our bodies and into our brains that helps us solve problem, not thinking about solutions. Sweet is saying that play is what we were created for and by simply engaging play as a purpose for life, we move closer to who we were meant to be, doing what we were created to the way that God created us to do it - in the slip stream, the heaven rhythm...with Him. 

Stop doing what you think you’re supposed to be doing. Start doing what you were created to do…like eating at Chik Fil’ A for breakfast. Or skateboarding. Or base jumping. Or flamingo meditation. Or composing ocean sounds. Or playing Dungeons and Dragons. C’mon. You know you want to. Vin Deisel does it! 

Leonard Sweet posted an amazing video of students at a gym watching a whale breech. (You can find the link here.) He prefaced his post with an invitation, “Preachers note what will soon be possible.” This prompts a couple of thoughts.

The first is, Wow! This sure makes a bigger splash than the hologram in the first Star Wars movie! We truly are in the midst of a mind-blowing technological and communications revolution.  

My second thought is, Wait a minute!  What Jesus is about is decidedly low tech. (Though not necessarily “no tech” - bread and wine do involve technology of a sort.) The gospel is incarnational. It is lived by people in community and shared through relationships.” Jesus didn’t write the Bible; he gave us his life. The Word became flesh. And having become flesh, Jesus called a group of people who, to the extent they reflect his life, are “the body of Christ.” 

I thought of saints like Gladys Alyward who went to China and opened the Inn of the Eighth Happiness and read Bible stories to mule skinners while they ate dinner. (Her ministry was portrayed in the movie, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.) Faithfulness to Jesus’ mission does not require holograms, or screens, or electricity, or - oh, it pains me to say it, books...

My third thought is a mixture of anticipation, anxiety and hope. As movies and theaters provide a more immersive experience, people will demand and expect this at church. Early adopters will likely jump into the technology without much thought as to its implications, simply because spectacle will draw a crowd. And as people observe that the kids are flocking to the church with the holograms (or to other virtual reality events), they will push for it.  

It may appeal to some of the lesser instincts of the church. I fear that sermons and worship may follow a pattern I think I see in movies (or at least in the movie trailers I’ve recently seen), where it appears that all the emphasis has been placed on the visually stunning spectacle, instead of the story, plot, character, dialogue and drama. Will people be drawn to and satisfied with the holographic marvel? Will sermons become visually compelling, but void of meat? Will people be willing to do the imaginative thought-work a fine sermon invites? Will the mere fact that people interact differently with this technology prevent people like me from appreciating what it does well?

Given the “worship wars” of the past 20 years (which were in response to advances in amplification and audio technology and the transformation in music they enabled), it is easy to imagine that traditionalists, liturgical purists and early technology adopters are going to have lots to talk about. 

Lost in any love or leave it dualism is an appreciation for the possibilities and limits of such a useful tool. The promise of holographic technology, is that it could strengthen the church by offering a more immersive experience. Instead of quoting Old Testament theologian, Walt Bruggemann during the sermon, we can bring him into the service to comment on the scripture passage. Instead of talking about poverty and injustice in abstract terms, we can help people come face to face with its reality. Instead of sending a handful of people on a mission trip to report on the impact the church is making, we can help the whole congregation experience it. Can we gather diverse congregations together from around the world to share in worship?

Will crusades return, not as a Bill Graham style, one man show with a few local choirs, but as content rich, three dimensional experience that invites and inspires people to seek God’s reign? 

Will multi-site congregations become more common? Will we re-think the traditional pastoral structure of the church? Will denominational offices appreciate that economies of scale require them to help the church faithfully adopt and utilize this new technology? 

Will we help poor communities keep pace with these developments?