OK, it’s not directed specifically to Tribe, but it might as well be. This is from Kimaball’s latest post:
Could blogging, twittering, Facebook etc. be addictive - and if so, can it actually get in the way of mission? The answer may be obvious, but when we spend time doing something, it takes away from time we could be spending doing something else. So do the hours we can spend on blogs, twitter, Facebook and even reading about missional things on blogs take away too much from the time that we could actually be on mission and spending with people in real life?
I am not planning on stopping reading blogs, as they help me in mission. I love being encouraged and learn so much from other blogs. I love connecting with people on Facebook as well. But can it become such a part of our lives and even addictive to where the time spent reading about mission grow proportionally out of balance with the time we actually spend on mission? 30 minutes here. And hour there. it adds up. Am I spending proportional time on mission with people and not just reading about it? I think I have been guilty of this at times. Maybe it is just me, so that is why I am asking here as I am writing the article and processing some thoughts on this and am looking for some other input.
My top StrengthsFinderstrength is “Learner” - which means I get energized by taking in information. In StrengthsFinder the top five all build on each other. So what I like as a “Learner” is not just random information as it needs to serve a purpose and tie into my other strengths. But what this means as a “Learner” is that I easily can get absorbed into reading blogs, twitter etc. primarily about mission, leadership and what other church leaders are learning and doing. I have found that I can easily sit and spend 30 minutes browsing and reading blogs.
Last week I was about to head home after a meeting and I was looking forward to reading the comments of the thread going on Scot McKnight’s blog. However, I got a text message from a friend who told me that a friend’s band was playing in town that night. I initially was thinking I wouldn’t go, as I was looking forward to being home and catching up on blogs and this comment thread. But then I thought “What the heck? I need to be out on mission, not just reading about mission about blogging about it.” So I went to the show and spend a couple of hours in great conversations.
Then I started thinking about over the course of a week when I add up an hour… or two…. or four that adds up being on-line reading blogs or Facebook. I could have used part of that time - even an hour of it, to be having lunch or hang out with someone outside the church world.
Good questions, I think.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
Good question Raffi and thanks for bringing it up.
For me, the answer is yes. So can eating, bible study, reading, hobbies, going to conferences, or a whole host of other things. Good things can and often do get in the way of better things. We have to understand this and learn a little self-control — or maybe ask the Holy Spirit to work on this aspect of the fruit he promised us.
For me, I just don’t blog as often as I did once. If one attempts to feed the blog beast everyday with something creative, you soon find yourself spending way too much time on the task. Same with Facebook. I dump it. Just too much work/time. Twitter I like because it is quick, easy, and take little time. Missional Tribe, well, as an instigator, I’m naturally going to give it more time now in order to get it off the ground. But hopefully others will become more involved so it doesn’t become a time issue.
Now here is the super point Dan makes: We need to be out on mission, not just reading or blogging about mission. One of the things we want MT to be known for is story telling – members sharing the stories of being “out on mission.” We want all the other conversions to happen also, but have them balanced with on the street stories.
One of the MT instigators big concerns is that there may not be many stories. If there is not, does this tell us something about where we are spending our time?
Comment by Rick Meigs — January 27, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Raffi,
I’m with Rick. Great post and question. Sometimes it just seems easier to talk, and talk, and talk - or write, and write more, and write more again than it does to actually live a missional life. Pixel-based relationships should simply augment our flesh and blood lives - rather than becoming our primary method of relating.
I wrote a post a while back that talked about Missional Gurus. These were the folk who wanted to be seen as experts on all things missional. My only question for them was “howzit working for you?”
MT is a place to talk about missional - but, as Rick states, the seven of us who instigated this space were really interested in aggregating the stories of what is going on in our neighborhoods as Aslan is on the move. Let’s tell the stories of how the Spirit is moving in the very places where God has strategically placed us. Stories like yours, Raffi - which are well worth reading!
Comment by Bill Kinnon — January 27, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
I hear you, guys. And IDEALLY its a wonderful concept. I wouldn’t be involved if I didn’t think so.
And I love the new “Tell Your Stories” theme. That’s really what this place should be about.
Let’s just always keep Dan’s question on our minds and hearts. One of the lessons of Evangelicalism shouldn’t be lost on us: Spend a bunch of time huddled amongst yourselves, talking about in-house issues, and before long, that will BECOME your mission.
Grace and Peace, guys.
Keep up the great work.
Raffi
Comment by Raffi Shahinian — January 27, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
Digital Detox is a very difficult. This reminds me of Steven Covey’s Quadrants:
I Urgent - Important
Crises
Pressing problems
Deadline-driven projects, meetings, preparations
II Not Urgent - Important
Preparation
Prevention
Values clarification
Planning
Relationship building
True re-creation
Empowerment
III Urgent - Not Important
Interruptions, some phone calls
Some mail, some reports
Some meetings
Many proximate, pressing matters
Many popular activities
IV Not Urgent - Not Important
Trivia, busywork
Junk mail
Some phone calls
Time wasters
“Escape” activities
Maybe a Missional Quadrant Box would be in order. Might have to give that a shot.
Comment by Miguel Labrador — January 27, 2009 @ 7:10 pm
Hello!
This is an important question being asked by Bill:
“I wrote a post a while back that talked about Missional Gurus. These were the folk who wanted to be seen as experts on all things missional. My only question for them was “howzit working for you?””
I am fascinated with this question Bill asks. I began paying attention to bloggers, writers and speakers who talk about missional. Are they telling stories of what they did the week before? Is it theory about missional? What illustration of how they practice it with examples is being shared? How long ago are the stories from?
So important…..
Thank you for this blog!
Comment by Dan — January 27, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
Dan,
In fairness, many folk are detoxing from the IC and attempting to move into being missional. Part of that process is the conversation. Most of the bloggers talking about missional aren’t attempting to be “gurus”. Rather, we are attempting to understand and unpack the liminal space we find ourselves in. Perhaps it is a function of semper reformanda - always reforming.
If one takes a short term view of the situation and judges missional via it’s results then one can easily become discouraged. The “missional conversation” in light of church history is a mere moment in time. The conversation, as we know it today is but a few years old. Stories are beginning to bubble up. People are being provoked. They are seeking to follow Aslan as he is on the move - and often stumbling in the process - but they are attempting to follow.
I have had the pleasure of working with my wife, Imbi, on her documentary (as yet untitled) that tries to understand what missional/mission-shaped means. We spent two weeks in the UK last year, interviewing people engaged in planting mission-shaped expressions of the church. Our now dear friends, Pete and Kath Atkins have been faithfully working in Lincolnshire for years. They are seeing fresh expressions of church pop up in the towns and villages “from the Humber to the Wash.” They recognize that there has been a faithful expression of Christianity in Lincolnshire since the 2nd Century. That helps them put into perspective what they are doing. They fully expect good fruit from the work the Father has given them - but it will be good fruit with deep roots.
If you haven’t already, watch “The Man Who Planted Trees” which Pete and Kath turned us on to. I think it’s a perfect missional parable. But. Then again, I would, wouldn’t I.
Comment by Bill Kinnon — January 27, 2009 @ 9:23 pm
Bill’s question is fascinating and it would be good to pursue it.
We are all at different points in our journey and therefore will be engaged at different levels. The person who is just discovering or exploring the missional paradigm will need to spend a lot more time in conversation as the HS works in their life. Others need to move beyond “milk” and start eating some “meat” in the form of doing. But I strongly believe that there is a gap between learning and doing that is rooted in many of our evangelical models of discipleship .
All my training in how to disciple starts with the premise that learning the proper knowledge coupled with certain spiritual disciplines and internal motivation will cause a person to naturally become deeply involved in “works of service.” Couple with this the pattern many of our pastors and leaders provide, i.e., imparters of knowledge and motivators, and you have a dysfunctional process.
The gap or missing component is apprenticeship. Working along side a person in “works of service” teaching and showing and experiencing what God is doing in specific situations.
Here’s my point. Not only should the “Missional Gurus” be living an incarnational life themselves, they (and all our Eph 4 leaders) should have one or more people they are apprenticing. This is one of the big gaps we need to plug. If we do, I’m convinced we will hear more stories and those who are teaching us will teach theory out of the abundance of walking with Him.
I’m praying this for my own life. As a “journeyman,” I need to be “apprenticing“ others. Lord grant us the privilege of apprenticing and bring people into our lives that are ready and willing.
Dan, hope to see you when you are up at George Fox next week. I’ll be sure to introduce myself this time.
Rick aka The Blind Beggar
Comment by Rick Meigs — January 27, 2009 @ 11:06 pm
I agree, to a certain extent, with Rick on his last comment. There is something to spending time learning. But learning to be missional takes actually practising being missional doesn’t it?
One of the paradigms that I took from my Seminary training was do-reflect-do better. It was never put in those terms, and had a fancy name “theological reflection”. The basic idea is that we go out and do something, then come back in and think hard about it in the light of scripture and our tradition, then reorient ourselves to go out and do it better next time. The learning comes through continual practising.
This is probably why I love the idea of sharing stories here. That way we can enter into someone else’s process of theological reflection and learn along with them.
Unfortunately, I have not been “doing” as much as I could or should, but that is changing.
Comment by Pastor Chad — January 28, 2009 @ 7:14 am
[...] discussion was then picked up at Missional Tribe with Raffi’s post “Dan Kimball’s Question to Missional Tribe.” You will find some thoughtful and helpful comments including one from Dan. Go over and join in. [...]
Pingback by To Be or Not to Be (Online) » The Blind Beggar — January 28, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Actually, I’m going to disagree …
One should never “… be out on mission.”
What’s wrong with going to that concert to enjoy a friend’s band and great conversation? Just kick back and enjoy life. “Mission” will take care of itself. You’d be surprised.
Comment by Sonja Andrews — January 28, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
Oh bother … and I meant to add this.
Of course, you should always go to the concert before going home to read blogs and tweets, etc. That will be there forever. But the concert only happens at a single fixed point in time. So you go.
Don’t get me wrong … I’m just as addicted and connected as everyone here. But it comes down to this … the real live people in front of me will always, always, always come before the virtual people on my computer screen. So I close my laptop lid and walk away without a qualm (but with my iPhone) just in case
But live … live your life. Enjoy the great and wonderful blessings God has given you. They are sweet. Don’t make them into a chore or a duty. Just enjoy them. Taste and smell and feel and see that the Lord is Good!! Just by being and enjoying you will become a compelling and winsome message on your own merit without compartmentalizing your life into bits and pieces.
Comment by Sonja Andrews — January 28, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
Sonja, I think that calls for an “Amen.”
Comment by Raffi Shahinian — January 28, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
While not using it as an excuse, temperament plays a part here too. Being as I am, the internet communities that I participate in actually have genuine relational and communal value to me. Of course they do not replace the face to face, but some are wired (no pun intended) for this kind of exchange.
The reality is that my life and work among the people of my community (www.littleflowers.ca) is incredibly demanding, both of time and energy. I am also spending increasing amounts of time just enjoy life with others (preach it, Sonja!). These conversations and dialogues, while having the potential to be a distraction, addiction or escape, have given me broad and deep support network that I often lack in force at the grassroots level. I could not do what I am doing without being hooked into these kinds of exchanges.
This does not negate Dan’s important caution.
Peace,
Jamie
Comment by Jamie Arpin-Ricci — January 28, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
OK, now several of you have commented multiple times to this post thereby undermining your own points.
Face it, you like to chat about this stuff. Why do you need to feel guilty about it? You are talking about, sharing and learning about God, God’s purpose, etc. This is a bad thing? You got a floor that needs scrubbed more than this?
Sure, you need to do other things, but don’t think this isn’t missional. I can’t tell you the number of times that someone’s blog post was just the thing I needed to here. I’m sure that many others could chime in on this point.
So go do your day job, kiss your wife (or hubby), tuck in the kids and sit down and enjoy the conversation without all the guilty hand-wringing
Comment by Bob Lee — January 29, 2009 @ 4:07 am
Feel guilty? Did read that into any of the comments. Just the contrary. Love your point on reading something that was just what I needed. Happens to me also.
Comment by rickmeigs — January 29, 2009 @ 8:34 am
My name is Peggy, and I’m addicted to the web….
Like Jamie (and so many others), there is a virtual community that lifts and supports me that stand in the gap of what does not exist in my face-to-face reality. I have learned that I need to be more restrained.
But I find that I am able to be more restrained as the sense of “starvation” abates … for I have been many years in a very desert kind of place, a dry land where there is little to refresh and nourish. For me, to have turned away from the oasis that the Holy Spirit has provided in my virtual community would only have hurt me more — like the traumatized one in shock who pushes away the hands of those come to help and heal.
These hands have lifted me up and brushed the sand from my face. I admit, in those early days, I was a bit like those who gulp the water in such a way as to splash more than is swallowed … and the starving who forget to take small bites and chew thoroughly.
But I’m recovering from that and the strength is seeping back into my weak limbs … and I can now do things in the physical realm because of the strength received from the virtual.
And so I remain AbiSomeone–a very small little Virtual Abbess, looking to continue the process of reverse mentoring and, like Rick, get on with the business of being an apprentice so that I may also be one who apprentices.
But there is only one Master….
Blessings to each of you….
Comment by Peggy Brown — January 29, 2009 @ 9:30 am
In some of the comments in response to this question, particularly at Dan’s blog, it felt like “missional” and things like writing, thinking, blogging were being opposed. So that potentially, if someone was a writer and 90% of their life was given to wrting, they could be seen as non-missional. To me that hints at a dualism where we spiritualize one activity over another, instead of seeiing the potential for all of life to be a vehicle for the Spirit. If we end in that dualism, we are still thoroughly in modernity. So from the standpoint of a whole life spirituality, participating with God in the missio Dei is this: God calls you to the place where your deep passion and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Comment by Leonard hjalmarson — January 29, 2009 @ 8:19 pm
Leonard,
I completely agree with you regarding our tendency toward dualistic thinking. In all fairness, though, while we can all appreciate and understand the rare individual who is called to mission via the written word, I don’t think that’s the specific issue we’re talking about here. I think we’re talking about the danger of the majority of us who are called to mission in different forms who skirt that responsibility by spending a few hours a day surfing MT and blogging about the evils of Modern Western Evangelicalism, and then label those hours “missional work” in their (sorry, “our”) mental file cabinets.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
Comment by Raffi Shahinian — January 29, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
Is that really your assessment of the 353 members of MT? People who are skirting mission, spending hours a day huddled in front of their computers with no desire to impact or influence the people in their world?
There is a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences among us. For many, the idea of missional living is a major paradigm shift in how we live as a christian. Personally, I have found the online exposure and encouragement a necessary part of making that paradigm shift.
People need time and space to process this change in thinking and the encouragement and examples of others about how to begin implementing those changes into action. I hope that we do not shut down the conversation with a guilt-trip about time spent online.
I believe that most people whose hearts truly desire missional expression will be sensitive to the conviction and direction of the spirit concerning their use of time. I believe about the people who take the time to blog about their experiences here at MT can be a valuable resource and encouragement to others on this journey. And I especially appreciate the time that they take to share when I know their lives are busy with other important activities also.
Comment by Grace — January 30, 2009 @ 7:23 am
Really good work about this website was done. Keep trying more - thanks!
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