DC and Ohio - Culture pt. 2: The Extraordinary

I remember going downtown for dinner with John one day and seeing dozens and dozens of cop cars and probably a hundred officers of various kinds including the Secret Service. That was when my brother-in-law told me that DC is a place where the completely extraordinary is completely ordinary.

This has only been confirmed over time. Yesterday began an international summit at the DC convention center to discuss securing nuclear materials around the world. It's the largest gathering of world leaders led by a US President since the founding of the United Nations! What do we talk about? Traffic. This amazing event, that anyone around the country should feel in aww of and privileged to witness is met, to some degree, with indulgence by those in DC. I don't mean to criticize, it is just that we are so used to major events of national and international significance that we barely even blink. We have to readjust our schedule to get places, sure. We may be busier if we work for the government. But overall, it is a normal part of life in DC.

Whenever we are over-exposed to something, it changes us. We talk about violence on DC desensitizing us. Perhaps we talk about urban isolation or indifference. In coming to DC I discovered how much of Ohio's geography I'd taken for granted. Whatever the specific case, the question becomes: What can we do to keep from numbing out? I don't have any complete answers, what I try is simply to continue to expose myself to radically different things. I go to Africa, I move to DC, I travel, I form friendships with those who are different from me. I hope that in doing those things, I am a better person, I am more open to God's witness in front of me, and I am more aware of places for God to use me.

Post-modern Preaching

Found an Awesome Quote about Preaching in a Post-Modern world...but really it applies to preaching in general.

"English-speaking tourists abroad are inclined to believe that if only they speak English loudly and distinctly and slowly enough, the natives will know what's being said even though they don't understand a single word of the language. Preachers often make the same mistake. They believe that if only the will speak the ancient verities loudly and distinctly and slowly enough, their congregations will understand them. Unfortunately, the only language people really understand is their own language, and unless preachers are prepared to translate the ancient verities into it, they might as well save their breath." - Frederick Buechner

Soo great! If we have in a post-modern congregation, or want to reach out to post-moderns, then we need to understand that their entire system of language and thinking is not only different from the ancient text, it is also different from the modern text. Post-moderns ask different questions, are swayed by different type of language (look at chapter 7 in Theology for Preaching: Authority truth and knowledge of God in a Postmodern Ethos for explanation), and have different points of reference than Moderns do. I should know, I'm a mostly modern in a mostly post-modern church.