by Ben Howard
I'm currently lying in my bed staring up at the ceiling. The ceiling fan is whirring on high and jostling slightly from side to side. This was worrying to me originally, but it's been doing that for more than a year so I feel safe assuming that it's not about to break off and collapse into the middle of my floor.
On the other hand, that would give me something to write about.
I'm staring at the ceiling trying to think of ideas. What's funny? What's interesting? Will anyone read it? Does it need to be said? How could I make the story of my ceiling fan collapsing on top of me into a theological metaphor?
This process, this whole staring at the ceiling and hoping for inspiration process, this is not working.
I need to stop thinking so hard.
During my first semester in grad school, one of my professors gave us an article to read in class. I think it was by Dallas Willard, but I can't be sure. The article addressed why it was so difficult to re-create successful ministries in the church, essentially asking why lightning doesn't strike twice.
The author pointed out that the most important difference between the original successful ministry and every subsequent attempt to recreate it was the mindset of those involved. During the first attempt everything is organic, no one knows what will or won't work, they don't have any expectations, they're just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. They're trying to do their best.
However, when they try to recreate this success, they try and stick to the original template which not only brings burdensome expectations, but also stifles creativity and flexibility. They are trying to be successful.
Success leads to failure when they become focused on recreating the success.
They need to stop trying so hard.
There's this condition in sports called "the yips". It's not a medical condition necessarily, it's more of a mental roadblock that prevents an athlete from performing simple actions that are ingrained within their muscle memory.
In one of the most famous examples, St. Louis Cardinals pitching phenom Rick Ankiel not only lost the ability to throw strikes, but lost the ability to throw the ball to the catcher at all. He spent years in the minors trying to overcome this hurdle, but it ultimately ended his pitching career (though he did make a rather remarkable comeback as an outfielder for a few years).
The yips usually come about when an athlete starts to think about all the things they need to do to be successful. Instead of just throwing the ball, they think about where their arm needs to be and how they need to turn it and when they need to snap their wrist and when they need to release the ball and how they should follow through.
They start to question and try to control what were formerly instinctual actions. It's the equivalent of trying to remember to breathe. This lack of control creates fear which demands more control and the cycle spirals into chaos.
The only cure is for the athlete to relax and let their mind wander, if they can.
They need to stop trying so hard.
Christians like to talk about the terrible state of Christianity. The church is pretty confident that the church is in dire straits and needs to do something quick.
There are thousands of books and articles all about this broken system in need of renovation. Books about how to grow your church, how to increase your giving, how to improve your theology, how to improve your mission, how to start a church, how to lead a church. Books on how to have church with a fox or in a box, in a house or with a mouse. Books on churches here and there, books on churches everywhere.
And I'm starting to wonder....
Maybe, just maybe, the church is trying too hard.
Maybe it's thinking too hard. Maybe it's a slave to it's success. Maybe, just maybe, the church has the yips.
I appreciate the intention of all the books and articles. Of course the people who write them and read them are well-meaning people. Hell, I'm one of those people.
But in this ravenous quest for intentional living, perhaps there is too much intention and not enough actual living...and breathing...and being.
Maybe the Church, maybe we, need to just be for awhile.
Maybe we need to stop trying so hard.
Peace,
Ben
Ben
Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual
living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop
Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can
follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.
You might also like:
by Mitchell Richards
I really don’t care for baseball much. I love sports in general and
I stay informed of the headlines with most sports, but when it comes to sitting
down and watching an entire baseball game, I can’t say I've done that
in years.
Baseball is boring to watch. Not a lot of action spread out over a great deal of time.
Today I realized that life is a lot like baseball, which is probably why I’m not a big fan of either one.
Baseball seems like the only job in America where if you succeed about
30% of the time (see batting averages) you’re the best at your job.
In my job at the paper, I’d be fired if I only did 30% of an article.
Elite baseball players are paid millions of dollars to succeed 30% of
the time and often less.
But then again, baseball is a lot like life.
I remember playing baseball as a kid and the only thing I enjoyed about it was
running the bases and catching pop flies. Unfortunately, to run the bases you
had to get on base and that meant batting, which I hated.
I
didn’t really understand as a kid how the odds of getting a hit were not
in my favor. I remember crying almost every time I struck out. I just
wasn’t used to not being able to succeed at something every time.
Baseball, like life, is about how you deal with the failures and
struggles. Odds to succeed are stacked against you in both things, and I
suppose it’s about getting back up to bat and seeing if you’ll strike
out again. Baseball is about bouncing back.
Baseball is a lot
like life because the possibility of failure is always there and
imminent, and the odds of succeeding are less than the odds of failing.
I believe that life isn’t as much about succeeding as it is about
failing. I don’t think you can truly appreciate success without the
inevitability of failure. In fact, I don’t think you can truly have
success without failure. Failure is the necessity, the cause and the
effect, of desire. I’ve heard the opposite of love isn’t hate, but
rather indifference, and accepting failure is the evidence of not being
indifferent.
Baseball is also a lot like life because
there is just so much time spent standing around and waiting for things to happen. You
never really know when a ball is going to be hit your way and you don’t
get to bat every inning, but success is determined by how you respond
when these moments come your way.
In life, we will not always
meet these moments and incidents with metaphorical great plays and proverbial spectacular
catches, in fact we may fall on our faces, but the beauty of baseball
and life is that you’re still in the game. If you drop a pop fly, your
job is not done. You still have to make the most of the opportunity that
life has dealt you. You still have to throw the ball in. You can still
make a play.
I used to cry when I struck out in baseball
because I thought I was terrible and striking out was proof of that. From all the years I played baseball I remember two things
specifically. First, there was the time when I caught a ball in the outfield that made me
flip over, and the other was when I slid into home plate and collided
with the catcher, resulting in an injury to my knee that still clicks and
cracks on cold days.
Like life, we win some and we lose some,
but we have stories to tell regardless and an obligation to tell them.
Stories of victories come and go and you won’t hit a home run every time
you are up to bat. Often times you have tales of pain and hard times,
but they are still a part of our story.
I assume the better we
are at going through life, the more opportunities we get to succeed and
fail at it. Some days I’m out in right field, looking at the empty seats
in the stadium, and other days I’m pitching and my arm is about to fall off, but I have to keep going.
Life isn’t about
hitting a home run every time, it’s about how we deal with it when we
don’t. It’s about how we deal with striking out, dropping the ball, and
slamming into the catcher. Life is about striking out and batting again
when it’s your turn. It’s about dropping the ball and picking it
up and still trying to salvage the play. It’s about slamming into the
catcher and stomping on the plate because you made it home.
Mitchell writes at mitchellrichards.com. He tweets a lot and has a weird fascination with John Tesh. You can follow him @MitchellWords. He also wrote a book called Definitive Blurs which you can find it here.
Also, you can subscribe to On Pop Theology via RSS feed or email on the top right corner of the main page.
