Jesus told stories. So do we.

Some version of this hits news stands this weekend. Enjoy.

If there is a universal currency that seems to have transcended country and culture across the ages of time, it certainly would not be the Canadian dollar, the English language, or a gift card to Starbucks. The currency of the ages is story.

I remember passing by an Aldo store full of people, shoes, and people buying shoes, which, at the outset, is totally normal. The giant advertisement in the window was, however, odd. Everything was in its right place; model in a short skirt, long legs, trendy shoes, and cool photography. The only odd part was the question on the advertisement: “What is your story?”

Is Aldo selling shoes or stories? I think the Aldo execs in Montreal know something that the church has sometimes forgotten: our stories are important.

Humans love to tell stories; they are somehow attached to our very nature. Every inspiring story develops out of mundane details of simple day to day living. It’s not extravagance or heroism that tell the miracle of life so much as it is the ordinary moments that all add up to something. The sound a humming bird makes when it hovers in front of a flower, the feel of rain hitting your forehead after a hard day of work, your child’s first words, an old friend emailing to say hi. These are the scenes life is made of; these are the ordinary moments translated into the extra-ordinary. 

We are storied creatures. Right from a very young age we learn to think, believe, and even process the world around us through the context of story and narrative. Not only that, we like to turn life experience into story. For example, a significant experience, a trauma, a close call, a surprise – whatever the experience – we tend to remember as narrative. We don’t necessarily recall the details or get them all right, but that’s not the point. What matters is that we have this story and it somehow shapes how we view the world around us. 

It’s no wonder then that Jesus spent much of his time telling stories. He spent his time wandering around with a vagabond crowd of blue collar workers, terrorists, drunks, sex trade workers, the religious elite who he continually made fun of, and even a few normal folks, telling them stories.  

Story and narrative was the centerpiece of Jesus’ preaching and teaching style. His stories weren’t cute little side dishes of garnish to augment or transition weightier matters. No. They were the epicenter of Jesus’ communication. Jesus hardly said a word to the crowds unless it was framed in story. 

Jesus told stories. Aldo gets it. Why shouldn’t we, the Church? I’m not sure when or how proposition, water-tight logic, and long winded homily took center stage, but it certainly hasn’t proven to be all that inspiring or compelling. I wonder what would happen if preachers spoke in the language of story? I wonder what would happen if preachers narrated, spoke in metaphor, and created images for people? Is it possible for Scripture to become self-evident to people through the stories that are told rather than it being explained point-by-point, proposition-by-proposition? Jesus thought it was possible; imagine if we did.

Confession Booth in the Media

Two weeks ago the UCM crew at UFV hosted a confession booth at the school wide party: Dis-O. The confession booth made it into three separate articles in The Cascade; the university newspaper. Here is my favourite quote re: the Confession Booth from The Cascade.  

Of the various booths set up around the green I believe two specifically deserve attention….The second booth was more mysterious: it was a plywood hut reminiscent of a rural outhouse bearing the title ‘Confession Booth.’ When I saw it, I was immediately intrigued, and I marched up to a helpful volunteer outside to demand an explanation.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“A confession booth,” he explained helpfully, “a reverse confession booth. You see, we are going to confess to you.”

It turned out that “we” was the University Christian Ministries student group, and the “confession” was an apology for most of the boneheaded things Christians have done throughout the ages. Whatever one’s views on religion, a heartfelt apology is a powerful thing, and I look forward to more creativity from UCM in the future.

You can also check out my article on the Confession Booth for the Abbotsford Times.

Grace and Peace,

-Jer 

Thrice:: Come All You Weary

I love this song! Performed live by Dustin Kensrue, the lead singer and guitarist for Thrice. Take a moment to listen and enjoy...

What are the Rules of Brainstorming?

I’ve had the privilege of working and brainstorming with a lot of incredibly talented people over the years; daring people, risk taking people, entrepreneurial types with creative appetites that never fill. These are artists, film makers, business people, preachers, musicians, graphic designers, internerds, super-shreds, and even a few random strangers who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I love dreaming and scheming with creatives and have enjoyed seeing the product of some of these sessions when they hit the street.

My experience with these people has helped form a set of guidelines that I use in leading and shaping creative spaces to brainstorm. I don’t hold to these with a tight-fisted rigidity, however, brainstorm sessions are markedly different when I ignore any of the guidelines. Sometimes these guidelines are explicitly expressed so that everybody knows and understands the “rules,” other times – with seasoned creatives – the guidelines are implicit and embedded into the conversation; everybody just knows.

1. Be Careful Who You Brainstorm With

There are certain people who have a tendency to stir creativity, give life to a thought or concept, and who are ok with wide-open reckless imagining. There are other people, often calling themselves realists, who are especially gifted at putting out the fires of the creative process. At some point, these realists do come in handy offering valuable insights; however, they are rarely helpful in the beginning stages of brainstorming. Make sure that the people you invite into your dialogue are generous with their imagination.  

2. The Environment is Important

Simply, get out of the boardroom*. A bunch of suits sitting around a big board table trying to drum up the next slick marketing campaign, initiative, or whatever, does produce results; but maybe not the best. The environment does influence how we think and live – the study of human geography clearly shows this. I’ve found that getting out of places that encourage systematic, top-down, and structured cultures and into places that are more fluid, relational, experimental, and playful generates a culture of creativity that far surpasses the boardroom. Some of my favourite places to brainstorm and imagine are brewpubs, après-shred patios, the forest, crowded public spaces, and in my living room with people that I like.

*One other note re: leaving the boardroom: turn your mobile device off and stop worrying about your twitter account, noisy emails, and text messages. Give your attention to being present with your thoughts and where they might lead.

  

3. Practice Imagination

Once you’ve got the people and the place nailed down, begin with some exercises in imagination. Don’t link these warm-ups to the project. Make them fun and eccentric, and go out of your way to show how an idea can blossom into something never imagined just moments before. This helps people to loosen up and begin thinking wildly without the controls and limitations that so often ambush a brainstorm session.

   

4. Mix and Match Opposites

Mixing and matching opposites, experimenting with apparent contradictions, messing around with the taboo and the prude, turning propositions into metaphors, and using unconventional mediums go a long way in helping ideas develop and form. Plus, it’s a Canadian metric ton of fun to peer around corners and feel out nuances and subtle connections. If we look hard enough, we begin seeing that everything seems to be connected to everything else. This requires creatives to have good eyes, listen with attentive ears, and delve into seemingly unrelated disciplines of thought and practice. When the curious brainstormer pokes and prods around with ambiguities, new ideas are likely to be unleashed.        

5. Where There is Smoke, There is Fire

If a thought or an idea sparks an interest, follow the idea and flesh it out until the thought becomes ridiculous…and then follow it a little further. Over and over, I have found that out of some of the very weirdest, wackiest, and worst ideas come the very best. The endurance to follow these ideas from horrible-to-great requires some creative hop-scotching and a singular dedication to this: Do not prematurely evaluate ideas. Leave that to the realists (aka CFO’s and accountants) and wait for a good level-headed strategy session later on. Critical evaluation of ideas is important, but it is for a later time.

   

6. Have a Safe Word

Finally, build into the brainstorm a place of refuge for anyone who feels like their idea is being unfairly attacked. Make it fun, light, add an action to it, but whatever you do, make sure that your creative team feels safe to explore. The safe word or action should be decided on beforehand and respected when it is used. Safe words provide a moment of pause that helps everyone to recalibrate and begin moving forward again.

Brainstorming with daring creatives is a tremendous amount of fun, tends to look more like fun than work, and is likely to produce more results at a consistently higher quality more often. Happy brainstorming!

If the the entire world lived in a village of 100 people...

A number of years ago, a credible organization endeavored to build a profile of the planets' population by shrinking the population from 5.7 billion people down to a village of 100 people. In the years since, the world population has grown to about 6.8 billion, however, my guess is that the village profile would look very similar. This village of 100 people would look like this:

• Fifty-seven Asians, twenty-one Europeans, fourteen North and South Americans, and eight Africans.
• Seventy would be non-white.
• Seventy would be non-Christian.
• Fifty percent of the entire world’s wealth would be in the hands of six people.
• Those six people would be citizens of the United States.
• Seventy would be unable to read.
• Fifty would suffer from malnutrition.
• Eighty would live in substandard housing.
• Only one would be college educated.

Wow.  

Leading from Collaborative Spaces

Most who have visited the office space of Christian Life Community Church have uttered comments of surprise as to how chaotic and unordered it seems to be. In fact, most visiting and out-of-town pastors who come through our office usually make a comment very similar to… “Interesting, you guys actually get work done here?”

What makes our office space unique to many offices spaces – whether they are church, business, or other social sector office spaces – is that we don’t actually have offices. Rather, we have what some might call a “team room” or a “commons area” where all of us – lead pastor right through to our yearly apprentices – share a common working space with no walls, doors, sound proofing, or cubicles. Our desks are open, side by side, and within elbow space of everyone else in the office.

Admittedly, this does cause some tension from time to time when one person needs some quiet and another feels like whistling or, for example, when some mysterious team member keeps ‘borrowing’ all the best pens. However, the benefits of our shared work space are amazing. Let me share just three of those benefits with you.

1. Shared Space is Collaborative Space
A major benefit of the shared space at CLCC has been the weekly, daily, hourly times of collaboration with other team members. As pastors we are constantly trying to solve problems, find solutions, and innovate new forms of community and communication. So often, the solutions we are looking for are needed in “real-time” meaning that we need real conversations with real people, right now. The simple proximity of having other people around allows for many impromptu meetings through-out the day without having to leave your desk. Not only that, it is not uncommon for a team member to overhear a conversation in another part of the room and quickly pipe in with a thought or an idea that shapes the rest of the conversation and informs the decision. We believe that decisions and innovations are better in community than they are alone. Our space allows for it to happen.


2. Collaborative Space is Casual Space
Not only does our office function as a work space, it doubles as a place where real friendships, conversations, and familiarities develop. This means that it’s not uncommon for our children to be running around the office exploring its nooks and crannies, that I can proudly wear my stinky bike commuter clothes all day long, and that hundreds of non-work related jokes, stories, and conversations happen all the time. The effect has been that our team has a sense of safety and freedom to express real concerns and have real opinions without the guardedness found in organizations where people don’t really know each other. Collaborative space – especially for lead leaders – takes the concept of the “Walk Around Manager” and evolves it to an “Every Moment Manager” where casual interactions with the rest of the team happen all the time.

3. Collaborative Space is Creative Space
One of the best parts of collaborative space is that it is a breeding ground for creative ideas and innovative solutions. For any organization, the ability to create, dream, and innovate together should be very close to the core of its organizational values. Collaborative spaces jump-start the creative space and inspire people to imagine. This happens for a number of reasons: (1) A diversity of people with their widely different worldview and opinion force us into seeing, thinking, and even believing differently, (2) Mixing and matching seemingly opposite ideas have regularly produced breakthroughs in science, music, education, film, etc., teaching us how to live with duality, and (3) These spaces tend to breakdown the “hierarchy of imagination” opening the doors to ideas not found in the board room. These creative spaces are especially important for Christians whose belief is in a God who, not only is creative, but who has imaged us to be co-creators with Him. Creativity is a natural result of a maturing spirituality. The church, of all people and places, should be among the most creative entities on the planet.

Finally, collaborative spaces are not just open spaces with a bunch of people crammed into them. Collaborative spaces are intentional spaces that motivate a culture of shared learning, shared discovery, communal accountability, and a deep driving commitment to a common mission or cause. I believe that collaborative spaces are part of what is going to be commonly known as “best practices” in team leadership. Here, we applaud differences, honour the curious nonconformist, respect the odd and quirky, allow opposites to live side-by-side, and embrace a collective imagination as a means to lead us forward. Who are the people in your collaborative space?

VOTE: Embers Logos

With the changing of the seasons, summer to fall, comes the inception of a new weekly gathering of twenty-somethings for worship, teaching, and discussion. You are warmly invited to Embers.

Embers, its name derived from an ancient church tradition, was a time that Christians came together at the changing of each season to reflect and be thankful of the season they just came through and to look forward in prayer, feasting, and fasting in preparation for the season to come. It was a time to slow down and pause, marking the transitions of their year with thankfulness, reflection, and joy.

Wednesday nights at Embers, you are invited to abandon the rush and business of life and to find some rest in a community of worship. Every approaching season, each new journey or project, whether it is a move, schooling, or a relationship, they all come with unforeseen promise and peril. Embers is meant to be a time of rest and reflection for these transitions of your life, my life, and our churches life. Join us as we move from season to season.

That said, we are eager to know what your favourite Embers logo is. Please take a couple of minutes to browse them, decide what your top two logos are, and then post your vote on my Facebook page. Thanks for your participation!

Logo #1: The City

Logo #2: Press Play

Logo #3: The Tree

Logo #4: Ink Blot

  

Beginning Wednesday, September 29^th, Christian Life Community Church will be hosting a weekly gathering of worship, teaching, and discussion geared primarily to the twenty-something crowd but open to all ages.

The Lonely Everybody?

I quickly pounded this article out for tomorrow mornings' deadline. It hits news stands sometime this week...Enjoy.

In the course of the next few hundred words I’d like to make a small confession that I suspect isn’t all that unique to me. In fact, my guess - and credible research bares it out - is that many of the readers of this little column will feel right at home with me. I’d guess that if you are honest with yourself, even for a very brief moment, that you’d nod your head, see what I see, and feel what I feel.

And here it is; I’m lonely.

To be true, my loneliness is not the deep searing loneliness of Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway or the desperate howling loneliness of the neighbors’ left-at-home flee bag. No, I have an amazing community of people around me who I roadtrip, camp, rockclimb, bike, snowboard, eat, work, and worship with. These are amazing individuals who add a mosaic of value, spice, and color to my life that, when brought all together, cause me to be incredibly thankful for these important relationships.

Yet, from time to time, I still feel this nagging little space in my life that causes me to agree with the Bible’s first indication that everything is not all that it should be. God, in observing all that He had created, sees mankind in isolation and declares, “It is not good for man to be alone.” And He is right; anyone who has felt aloneness, isolation, or has had nobody to call to help them move houses in the city they’ve lived their whole life, knows this. Deeply.

Somewhere along the way, either by our actions, the actions of others, or a combination of the two, the bits and pieces of life have conspired together to devastate our relationships. Dads stop being good dads to their sons and daughters, employers begin treating their employees like this seasons’ BC Lions are playing football, and spouses’ consign themselves to living on different floors of the house just to stay out of each others’ hair.

This is not good.

I’ve found that it is in these seasons of aloneness that I also feel a sense of disorientation and a stumbling stupor to some of the big questions in life. Questions like, “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s the point of all this?” Not that big questions are bad questions, they’re just difficult questions, especially when I’m alone. Commenting on these questions, author Steven Pressfield says, “These are not easy questions. They’re not easy because the human being isn’t wired to function as an individual. We’re wired tribally, to act as part of a group.”

This is what I long for; a tribe of my own, people to tell stories with, an ordeal to conquer with someone, and a memory that is shared with them. I guess you could call this community. But it seems deeper than what is often programmed and marketed by organizations, including the church.

However, my experience has shown time-and-time again that when I slow my pace of life, make myself vulnerable to friendship and connection, and intentionally engage in the life of a community - meaningful connection with other people follows. I find these places in my church, my rockclimbing community, and the surprise of all places - my actual neighbors, dog and all. This, people connected with other people desipte their differences and distinctions, is what I think God might call, “Very good.”

Jeremy Postal pastors in Abbotsford and is an introvert who must be forced or bribed out of his garage and into the real world where there are real people.

Congo Microfinancing Project: Mike & Amy Boomer

Former CLCC Apprentice, Mike Boomer, and his wife Amy are departing for the Democratic Republic of Congo Sept. 19 to continue their new work coordinating a microfinancing project. The aim of this project is to to abolishing poverty in developing nations by giving small business loans to impoverished individuals. Please watch the video below and spend a few minutes looking through their website.

Congo Microfinance Project from Mike Boomer on Vimeo.

Artist God

The following mess of words will appear this Friday in my monthly Abbotsford Times column. Happy innovating!

One of my favorite expressions and descriptions of the Christian God is that He is Creator God. This particular name of God has led to all kinds of opposition, argument, in-fighting, good science, bad science, and crazy speculations by Christians and evolutionists alike. And, while the creation-evolution debate rages on, a couple of key concepts about this Creator God get missed.

First, if this God is real and He did in fact create the world around us, then Christians should take seriously God’s command to care for and tend to the earth. Unfortunately, we Christians have been up in arms for years over the creation/evolution debate, dumping time, energy, and resources into defending our claim for a Creator God while largely ignoring to care for His creation like He asked. Many bridges could be built and many walls broken down when we recognize that, though there is disagreement on the origins of our blue planet, there is wide scale agreement that we must care for it.

Second, if we can believe the Bible, which says that humankind was made in the image and likeness of Creator God, then we will also come to understand that part of what it means to be human is to create. We are creative creatures wired in such a way that we love to make music, paint and write, dance and sing, sculpt, dream, and enjoy the beauty of artistic expression found all around us.

Artists are funny people; easily stereotyped as being slightly off-centre, nocturnal, (w)mildly moody, on the bizarre edge of fashion and taste with quirky intelligence, poor grammar, even worse math skills, and ideals that would make the 60’s blush.

The reality, however, is that our very humanness means that every one of us is a creative artist and innovator in some way. An artist isn’t a special type of person with quirky habits so much as every person is a special type of artist. This means that desk jockies in their cubicles wearing beige khaki pants and sweater vests are creative genius’ at something and that the people you least expect to create and innovate will astound you with something.

Sadly, part of the brokenness and incompleteness of the human nature has been the wide-scale loss or suppression of the artist within. For the Christian, this affects our faith in a profound way. One artist said it this way, “An unimagined faith is as undesirable as an unreasoned faith. Without imagination, all hearts are closed, all desires unknown.” When we are able to imagine and envision a God that is beautiful, we begin to feel and experience a faith that is vibrant; our hearts are opened, and we begin to come alive in all that we do. Color, rhythm, experimentation, invention, and curiosity spurs on our faith, often causing us to creatively respond to injustice, innovate new forms of worship and community, and imagine a way for the church to move forward in a culture that thinks we’re backwards.

The church, of all places, should be the most creative place on earth as we strive to be like Artist God who made us in his image and likeness, co-creators in the world he made. Can you imagine that?