What does this have to do with God?
After some thought over the weekend, I think I've come to a decision about what my goal (at work) for 2009 will be: to answer the question, "What does this have to do with God?"
My reasoning is this: there is not one thing we do in the church that is required in order to have a relationship with God. I've never thought about this before, but that's my take-away from the book So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore. So what I would like to do in the coming year - if not for others, then simply to give myself a reason to show up here - is to make a "God Note" for everything we do that explains what this activity has to do with God. None of the things I promote and advertise to our congregation are requirements. They are all optional, and for the past three years we have rarely (if ever) explicitly connected them to anything spiritual. Maybe people do that in their own minds. But I would like to endeavor to make our communications more God-centered instead of activity centered.
I would hope that I can find the spiritual meaning behind each thing within one or two degrees of separation. By that, I mean that a lot of things don't seem overtly spiritual (i.e. playing golf), so you might have a degree or two of separation between God and the activity. Using that example, what does playing golf have to do with God? Playing golf brings you together with other people who share that interest (1st degree). Coming together with other people gives you the opportunity to share your faith walk together (2nd degree). In this case, playing golf also has to do with raising money for missions (1st degree). The money raised goes to help draw people to God by meeting the physical needs of those less fortunate (2nd degree). So in this example I've been able to find two ways in which the golf tournament has something to do with God, and both things are only a couple of degrees separated from God.
Of course I don't plan to be this lengthy when doing this in reality. I don't want to make E-News any more of a chore to read than it already is. What I'm thinking is that there will be a "God Note" link beside the title of each article, which would then go to an explanation of what that item has to do with God. I've also thought about including some sort of devotional thought each week, but again that adds to the length of E-News. An alternative would be to start a "God Notes" blog, RSS feed it to the home page of the website, and use that to explore the spiritual (God-related) aspects of the things we're doing in this organization.
My reasoning is this: there is not one thing we do in the church that is required in order to have a relationship with God. I've never thought about this before, but that's my take-away from the book So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore. So what I would like to do in the coming year - if not for others, then simply to give myself a reason to show up here - is to make a "God Note" for everything we do that explains what this activity has to do with God. None of the things I promote and advertise to our congregation are requirements. They are all optional, and for the past three years we have rarely (if ever) explicitly connected them to anything spiritual. Maybe people do that in their own minds. But I would like to endeavor to make our communications more God-centered instead of activity centered.
I would hope that I can find the spiritual meaning behind each thing within one or two degrees of separation. By that, I mean that a lot of things don't seem overtly spiritual (i.e. playing golf), so you might have a degree or two of separation between God and the activity. Using that example, what does playing golf have to do with God? Playing golf brings you together with other people who share that interest (1st degree). Coming together with other people gives you the opportunity to share your faith walk together (2nd degree). In this case, playing golf also has to do with raising money for missions (1st degree). The money raised goes to help draw people to God by meeting the physical needs of those less fortunate (2nd degree). So in this example I've been able to find two ways in which the golf tournament has something to do with God, and both things are only a couple of degrees separated from God.
Of course I don't plan to be this lengthy when doing this in reality. I don't want to make E-News any more of a chore to read than it already is. What I'm thinking is that there will be a "God Note" link beside the title of each article, which would then go to an explanation of what that item has to do with God. I've also thought about including some sort of devotional thought each week, but again that adds to the length of E-News. An alternative would be to start a "God Notes" blog, RSS feed it to the home page of the website, and use that to explore the spiritual (God-related) aspects of the things we're doing in this organization.