Kyle Lake - The Church Without Formulas
I looked back over my notes this morning from the Catalyst Lab Session with Kyle Lake. I took more notes in this session than any of the other Labs. He said some really good stuff. I hope you enjoy.
The Future Church Without Formulas or Blueprints
Our culture has a love affair with formulas and science. It has come into the church and crippled us.
Formula = a method of treating or doing something that relies on an established/uncontroversial approach.
Webster’s = any fixed or conventional way or doing something; a set form of words for use on some ceremonial occasion.
Examples of Formulas:
Math = Equations
Kitchen = Recipes
Architecture = Blueprint
Chemistry = General make up of a compound
Geometry = Proof
Church = Sermon (insert 3 points and a poem)
God’s Will = “x” on a treasure map; blueprints for a house
The problem with those analogies is that they are riddled with holes. For the 2 points they illustrate well, there are 6 others that communicate things that are not true.
In an interview with Daniel Day Lewis regarding his latest movie “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” he says:
“The people who have turned acting into a formula are spilling all over themselves.”
“The process is unscientific, but it nourishes you.”
We see this in churches all the time. Somebody does some cool stuff with incense, candles and coffee, so we go back and implement it… thinking the whole time that we’ll see the same results. But it’s so detached from who we are that people see it coming a mile away. Like a bad actor in a film. They see us spilling all over ourselves.
There’s a part of us that wants to bypass Jesus and go straight to the methods, processes and formulas for great worship, relevant messages, engaging media (insert whatever you like). We want a franchise church. So we travel to Texas or California to see the latest church and how we can be more like them. We lose sight of the organic nature of the role we’ve been created to play. Churches are not meant to be the same. There is no formula.
Jesus addresses this in Matthew 23.15 speaking to the Pharisees, “You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.”
Our stage as church leaders is sermons, prayer, humility….
What is our identity apart from the stage?
The number one script that we have to sacrifice daily is the script of religion/spirituality. It comes with formulas, methods and processes. We must give up our good Christian lives and follow Christ.
November 5th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
Appropriate, particularly in light of Kyle’s tragic death last weekend. Grace to the Lakes and UBC.
November 7th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Thanks Josh for posting that. I’ve been sifting through a lot of thoughts in regards to this, in particular one analogy that I heard last night about Pioneer Christianity versus Settler Christianity. Pioneer Christianity follows after Christ into the unknown, much like the early pioneers of America travelled into the West with full acknowledgement that it may cost them their very lives. Settler Christianity sets up camp which will hopefully become a town, which may develop into a city and all the while seek to protect themselves from outside invaders who might disrupt the community that they are creating. There are no formulas for trail blazing. Biggest thing to remember is that we are not the ones trailblazing rather it is the Trinity going before us. — we as the church are the wagon train. I think if we were trailblazing we as humans would turn that into formulaic approach in how we blaze the trail.
Anyways, this is timely for certain.
July 20th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Megan
I wish more people had the guts to say that