We’re All Mixed Bags

When I was a kid I always liked getting those mixed bags of candy at Halloween or birthday parties.  It was my own personal buffet of treats.  A buffet that allowed me to trade candy I didn’t like for candy I did like, in my eternal quest to end up with all Mr. Goodbars and Special Darks.

I think people are mixed bags too, just like those party favors and treats we received as kids (and Lord willing as adults as well!).  I came to this conclusion after a brief episode of anger.  A screed if you will.  Let me explain…

I came into my house last night and saw a printout of material Andy Stanley had written about kid’s ministry that my wife was looking over.  This did not enthuse me one bit.  I do not want to take the advise of someone who champions McChurch franchising and building five million dollar bridges over fragile wetlands so that his congregation can attract peple to the church because of the increased ability to speed away in their SUVs faster.  I certainly don’t want the bridge perspective effecting kid’s ministry.  I just imagine all the solutions as ways to streamline goldfish cracker disbursement and more efficient passing of infants from the hands of nursery workers back to their parents.

Yet I have read an Andy Stanley book on leadership and there was good advice in it.  He talked about how his church had a specific vision and focus and that even if someone has a great idea for ministry if it doesn’t fit the vision of the church he will not bend the vision to accept a good idea.  That would break the focus of his church’s ministry.  I really think that is sound advice.  I have no idea how Mr. Stanley takes this approach to his church’s vision and gets church franchising and environmentally damaging suburban sprawl bridges out of it, but it is a good approach to controlling vision nonetheless.

So maybe the kid’s ministry advice my wife is reading is good advice from someone I deeply and immensely disagree with.  We are not all bad advice.  We are not not all good advice either.  We are mixed bags.

I am a mixed bag.  I think I have very good advice and perspectives.  I think I am moderate and right about many things.  I compromise a good deal.  I see the other perspective and love facilitating ways to mediate and expand the horizons of faith and practice.

Yet sometimes I couch these ideas in big words.  Sometimes I am too academic.  Sometimes I let ideologies supersede and disallow my mind to change.  I have a vast archive of Xanga posts that detail my love for conservative politics.  I was a warmongerer in the past.  If I met my past self I would be in vehement disagreement with him.  But that person is still a part of me that can appear in different ways.

We are mixed bags.  We must be treated as such. We must always approach people we deeply disagree with knowing full well that we agree in part and disagree in part.  And that’s hard.  Let’s just try, shall we?

But really, a five million dollar bridge? That’s a piece of candy that shouldn’t even be traded to your younger brother…it should be thrown in the nearest wastebasket…give it to your dog…use it in a slingshot…just don’t, don’t eat it, please!  It’s bad for the church’s health!

I’ll keep trying.