Apparently elephants are awesome because they are big. And God likes big. Exclusively. This is a lesson that I have been learning lately. I learned it from the Christian Rock star event “Elephant Room 2″ (though can we all admit that like every sequel this one sorta sucked because they had to go with B level stars…) This is not the only place I learned it of course as “The Room” is actually only a microcosm of a bigger phenomenon in the wonderful world of Christendom. But none the less the markers are there. And this is what we can say without question about God if we observe closely:
1. As if we have moved into a new dispensation, the Heavenly father has chosen in our time to speak to us primarily (exclusively?) through mega church pastors.
2. If you are not a mega church pastor God wants you to employ the 3 “P”‘s:
- Praise: That God has blessed us with James McDonald for instance,
- Pose: God has not chosen you for use in his kingdom (by making you a mega-church pastor) at all cost when people don’t know you just act like you are indeed a mega-church pastor.
- Parrot: If something works for the Mega-church pastor it is because God loves them more of course, but also because they are better than you and smarter. So whatever they do will always work for you….unless you suck.
3. God cares most about things that matter most to Mega-Church pastors: white people, rich people, money, wells for poor people in other countries (God is American too), Fame (not for himself but for the mega church pastors), coffee, hipsters and artists. This is what you should care about as well. What’s that you say? You live in a farming community in Mid-Michigan? So what! If God was intersted in that he would have made Joe-Bob the farmer a Mega-Church pastor. You need to immediately stop trying to relate to him and how the Gospel can penetrate his culture and do the right thing: Open a coffee bar/art gallery. In central Detroit? God does not care at all: too black. Too poor. Leave now.
4. Rather than studying the word, and loving our congregation God wants us to watch people our congregation have never heard of argue about issues that don’t really impact them. This is how we steward our time.
5. Ministries that are big are clearly more effective at everything. This can be contextualized to your area, so if for instance you live, like I do in Grand Rapids, Michigan and want to support an Urban Ministry, find a giant mega church that has no track record with such things and sink an exorbitant amount of money into their bureaucracy ummm I mean ministry.
These are my top five…I am sure there are more…but I am lazy and need to get to work on recruiting 10,000 people so that something I say can be worthwhile.
