HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.
So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
I would focus on “growing a church big rather than growing a big church.” When I first began as a pastor, I was taught to focus on buildings, budgets, and butts in seats. Those three words were, and in many cases still are, the measure for success. Today we (I don’t lead in a vacuum) focus on the other words: conversations, connections, and collaborations.
When one moves down the alphabet from buildings, budgets, and butts to conversations, connections, and collaborations, one counts success differently. Here are a couple of examples: We count how many people we have served rather than how many people attend our Sunday morning gathering (yes, we have one). We count how many people we are developing, encouraging, and partnering with to be practitioners, who are leading personal, local, and global expressions of God’s goodness and justice.
I was interested to run across a couple of online dialogues between people with different beliefs last week.
NT Wright (Christian) and Bart Ehrman (agnostic) just completed a ‘blogalogue’ on Beliefnet called Is Our Pain God’s Problem?
I was encouraged to see each of them being friendly and respectful. I resonate more with Bart Ehrman’s comments which [...]
The website An Evangelical Manifesto just went live a few minutes ago. It’s been mentioned in the news over the last few days. Now the complete text and list of charter signatories are online. Both of which I was curious to see.
I’m interested by who’s absent from the charter signatories as well as who’s [...]
Beth Patterson of Virtual Teahouse just posted her second blog carnival on Resistance and Engaged Spirituality - go check it out! I submitted this post to it.
(Edited to add: originally I wrote Virtual Treehouse but Beth just reminded me with a smile that it’s Virtual Teahouse :))
Christine Wicker’s provocative new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church, was released last week.
I asked Christine a few questions about her book and her own beliefs.
Christine, in what way is the Evangelical Church in crisis?
I’ve posted a sampling of [...]
I wrote this for Beth’s blog carnival on resistance.
A few years ago I started resistance training. I was persuaded into it by hearing how wonderfully good for me it is. The resistance of lifting moderately heavy weights strengthens my muscles and bones - it’s excellent physical exercise. Resistance training is quite popular - [...]
