The Postmodern Edge
Great new origins newsletter from Mosaic (Erwin McManus’ church in Los Angles). Probably some of the best thoughts on postmodernism that I’ve read.
Here’s some pieces:
“This goes back to the question of relevance. Our goal is not to be liked by culture, to imitate culture, and not even primarily to be relevant to culture. Our goal is to challenge culture, create culture, and renovate the world. But in order to do this we have to find our voice.”
-Well said. I think the church loses focus and begins wandering down another different path in the forest when we try to be relevant to culture.
“That’s why whenever I see a church web site heralding, ‘we’re postmodern’ or ‘postmodern worship’ I always think, too bad. They’ve chosen against being ‘from tomorrow’ in favor of being ‘from the past.’”
-What a statement! I want to be ‘from tomorrow’ not ‘from the past.’
“Let’s begin with this: To me, there’s nothing really edgy about trying to be edgy because ‘edginess’ doesn’t come from imitation. That goes for artist, poets and pastors. The leaders that intrigue me are the ones I suspect get up in the morning [or the middle of the night] wondering how to change the world.”
-I want to meet this guy. Being edgy today does not position you to be edgy tomorrow. Having a passion to change the world is the only position that will navigate all the trends and cultural influences of our time.
Does this resonate with you? What’s your response?
April 11th, 2005 at 1:40 am
So the question is, “what’s edgy, and how do I stay away from it?” Being creative in a totally unique, true-to-yourself way is much much harder than I like to think. So many times, people can push the envelope, only to realize that the same thing has been done before. Originality and edgy are so relative to your life experiences and frame of mind.
A dilema that I see a lot of people facing is:
A) Work alone, be true to yourself, but then never really be sure if what you’re conveying is coming across the way you think it is
or
B) Work in a team, bounce ideas off each other, but then never quite agree and instead, compromise and become “corporate.”
Where’s the fine line? How do you create, influence, change and impact the world? It is possible and has been done, but only by a few. That’s why originality is always so fresh: because it is so rare.
Maybe we look too hard at our image and HOW to come across, and not hard enough at our passion and WHY we want to make an impact in the first place. If our passion and desire come through all our work, then maybe it takes on the edge all by itself…
April 11th, 2005 at 7:54 am
Good thoughts Parker.
I think that is a big fear of mine. If you give up the independance for a team, does it “muddy the water?” Does it dilute the passion? Does it become corporate?
But I do believe that the church has to first be a voice of passion and truth. We have to speak from that “inner voice”, that “invisible power source.”
If we focus on that, maybe the rest will fall into place.