Summer school, of a sort
Just after my son’s eleventh birthday I wrote about my plans to prepare him for and launch him into his teen years. I’m actually going to do it. I am starting this summer by enrolling him in the Jeff Gill School of Theology and Design. He will be the only student.
He likes design. He designs with Lego and pen and paper and animation software and Photoshop and bits of stuff out in the garden. He has one of those non-stop creative brains. But reading is not a big thing with him. I’ve never heard him remark casually, I’m going to go read my bible for an hour.
So what I’m going to do is combine his love for creating with my design skills and the book of Romans. Each weekday morning this summer I will give him a design assignment that is based on a concept in Romans. In the evenings we will evaluate the work together from both a scriptural and design perspective. There will be a blog.
I’ve chosen Romans because in his group he is already going through Genesis on Friday nights and the life of Jesus on Sunday mornings.
If all goes well, he will finish the summer with a solid understanding of the work of Christ in him and he will have a head start on a creative career. I am so excited about this!
22 June 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: parenting,
youth
Waiting for the Kingdom of God
In this sketch I present two opposing but equally inaccurate visions of the kingdom of God and show off their ugly sides with with some comedy violence. Nothing gets the crowd happy like the guy getting a knee to the groin.
Two people in a queue. They stand uncomfortably for a bit (draw it out) then start to talk.
Woman: So you signing up for the kingdom of God?
Man: Yeah. You?
Woman: Mmm hmm.
(pause)
Keep reading
18 May 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: drama,
silly
Like 'yeah?' or whatever.
Today at our church’s Sunday meeting a California stoner/surfer guy (okay, me) came and did a poetry reading. His poem was about judgemental people. Between stanzas all the people in the building belted out the chorus of The Beatles You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.
Here is the poem:
I’m checking out the people as I walk down the street.
I’m passing out my judgements on everyone I meet.
You’re snide.
You’ve died.
You’re far too wide.
You’ve cried.
You lied.
You want a date? Denied!
I’m feeling good about myself. I’m whistling a tune.
I’ve grown superior to you like a great big balloon.
You’re weak.
You geek.
You greasy freak,
Don’t speak.
You leak.
I’d call that nose a beak.
I’ve had a lot of practice from watching the TV.
That old Simon Cowell ain’t got nothing over me.
You sing?
Don’t sing!
My ears will sting.
Don’t cling.
You’re wrin-
kling my clothes, you ming.
My reputation is the world’s greatest cynic.
I justify my arrogance by being ironic.
Green pus.
Size plus.
Your bum’s a bus –
Discuss.
Don’t fuss,
You hippopotamus.
Hey! Where are you going. Don’t just walk away.
I’ll joke about someone else and not you for today.
Stay here.
Have beer.
I like you near,
It’s clear.
Oh dear.
Fine! I’ll sit right here and sneer.
I’m feeling rather lonely up here in my room.
My friends have all departed. I’m in a fog of gloom.
They’re bad
I’m sad
I’m really mad
Not glad
They had
To hate my cynical fad.
The only other thing you need to know about this is that is that it worked and it probably made Jesus happy.
Amen.
10 May 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: drama,
poems,
silly
Getchyer sketches here
I’ve posted a number of sketch scripts. Here are a few thoughts about how to use them:
- Read them out loud. It is hard to tell if a script is any good if you are reading it silently. Act it out a bit. Bring it to life.
- These sketches are free. Take them. Use them. Share them. If one of them works for you, could you tell me?
- Chop and change. These sketches were written for specific meetings. You may need a different ending or a different type of character. So do that. Re-write to suit your needs.
- Be silly.
- Be physical. My experience is that people laugh harder when I get hit on the head with a frying pan than they do at the really clever joke with a nod to the Two Ronnies that I’ve slaved over for a week.
Hope this helps.
4 May 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: communication,
drama
Sketch: The Tooth Fairy
Drunken Tooth Fairy enters, takes a swig from his bottle, wipes his mouth with his sleeve: All right, where’s the kid? There she is.
Tooth Fairy feels under the pillow for a tooth, but doesn’t find one. He curses, sets the bottle down and pulls out a pair of pliers: Kid, you’re getting yourself some money whether you want it or not. I’ve got quotas to meet.
Keep reading
4 May 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: depression,
drama,
silly
The rules of my fight club
I watched Fight Club last night. I know this film has been out for a while, but as I was watching I was struck with a powerful, prophetic sense that it captured the zeitgeist of this generation of men. Now is the time for a paradigm-shifting change in the way we talk to the lost men of this generation. Now is the time to change the world. Now is the time for BREAKTHROUGH! That’s why I am starting a Men’s Missional Fight Club For Jesus. Here are the rules:
The first rule of my fight club is tell all your friends we’re starting a fight club.
The second rule of my fight club is here are some fight club leaflets you could put up in your office or village shop or whatever.
The third rule of my fight club is no hard punches. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.
The fourth rule of my fight club is you have to read and sign the health and safety statement and waiver of liability.
The fifth rule of my fight club is you have to sign up for the tea-making and mug-washing rotas which are taped up on the back wall.
The sixth rule of my fight club is the fights will last no longer than three minutes. You’ll be surprised at how tiring fighting actually is.
The seventh rule of my fight club is this isn’t about winning and losing. It’s just a bit of fun.
The eighth and final rule of my fight club is that there is no pressure to fight. You are welcome to just watch.
∗
And we wonder why our big ideas go nowhere.
2 May 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: change,
church,
failure,
silly
Look at my pretty paradigm!
John Michael Greer is at his best this week, writing about paradigm change. He writes about the difficulty of change, the way that our paradigms prevent us from eve being able to ask certain questions, much less answer them, and in describing the thinking of some dude called Thomas Kuhn he shares this bit of brilliance:
It’s standard practice for the new paradigm to include the value judgment that the questions the new paradigm answers are the ones that matter, and the ones the old paradigm does better don’t count. Nor is this judgment pure propaganda; since the questions the new paradigm answers are generally the ones that researchers have been wrestling with for decades or centuries, they look more important than details that have been comfortably settled since time out of mind. They may also be more important, in every meaningful sense, if they allow practical problems to be solved that the old paradigm left insoluble.
Yet the result of that value judgment, Kuhn argued, is the false impression that science progresses, replacing relatively false beliefs with relatively more true ones, and thus gradually advances on the truth. He argued that different paradigms are not attempts to answer the same questions, differing in their level of accuracy, but attempts to answer entirely different questions – or, to put it another way, they are models that highlight different features of a complex reality, and cannot be reduced to one another. Thus, for example, Ptolemaic astronomy isn’t wrong, just useful for different purposes than Copernican astronomy. (From the standpoint of relativity theory, please note, this is quite correct: since there are no fixed points in the cosmos, only frames of reference, it’s as meaningful to take an earth-centered frame of reference and calculate the movements of the planets from there as it is to take a sun-centered frame of reference and do the same thing.)
So basically, the paradigm you just threw away because it is old and useless still explains certain parts of life, the universe and everything better than your shiny new one does.
Go read the whole article, and while you are there dig into Mr Greer’s archives and subscribe to his feed. I know he writes about peak oil and ecology, but if you want to understand why the white western evangelical church is failing, why most of the church is stuck talking about the possibility of rearranging the deck chairs on our Titanic, and WHY the things that Alan Hirsch, Floyd McClung, Frank Viola and even Brant Hansen are saying are so important, then I can think of no better teacher than John Michael Greer.
24 April 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: change,
church,
humans,
john michael greer
We did a good thing
I say we. It was mostly Steve and Gill’s idea. I help hold them to it now and again. The idea was, when we start a church, let’s not use a bunch of terminology that only we understand. Let’s speak everyday English.
In my wandering on the web I visit quite a few church websites. Pretty much none of them get it. The big attractional churches don’t get it. The new missional churches don’t get it. (I’m using jargon here because I’m writing for Christians.) The churches in between don’t get it either.
Don’t believe me? Imagine you’ve never been to church before. Pick a church. Visit the website. Do you, the imaginary non-church you, have a clue what they are talking about?
It’s a simple idea. Missionaries to other cultures get it. Talk the same language as the people you want to reach.
Take a good, hard look at your church’s lexicon. If you are saying things in a way that only people who are already in the club can easily understand, find a new way to say it.
Probably what you will really do is go to my church’s website and look for how we are failing to be understandable. (Please do. Then comment here. We appreciate any help we can get.) After you get us sorted out, maybe have a look at you.
18 April 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: church,
communication
In which I quote Seth Godin at length and ask all preachers to consider what they do on a Sunday morning
From this post: The purpose of a presentation is to change minds. That’s the only reason I can think of to spend the time and resources. If your goal isn’t to change minds, perhaps you should consider a different approach.
- The best presentation is no presentation at all. If you can get by with a memo, send a memo. I can read it faster than you can present it and we’ll both enjoy it more.
- The second best presentation is one on one. No slides, no microphone. You look me in the eye and change my mind.
- Third best? Live and fully interactive.
- Powerpoint or Keynote, but with no bullets, just emotional pictures and stories.
- And last best… well, if you really think you can change my mind by using tons of bullets and a droning presentation, I’m skeptical.
So, according to Seth, we preachers are putting the best hours of our week into something that is usually between the fourth and last best way of changing people’s minds.
Oh dear.
I think the thing to do is blow him off, because any alternative is a bit unthinkable.
15 April 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: church,
communication,
quotes
One o' them there modern translations
But we have this treasure in saved, healed, delivered and supernaturally changed vessels, to show that God has given to us, right now, His surpassing power over every situation. We are no longer afflicted, perplexed, in conflict or defeated. No, we are alive with the power of Jesus, and the resurrection power of Jesus has changed us now…TODAY! In every way!. God wants you to see just what a Jesus-controlled person is all about, so the power of Jesus is on display in the life I am living, and those who don’t have this life, are miserable and dying. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11, MSV)
This is Michael Spencer Version of one of those bible passages that we don’t celebrate much because to do so would require us to be honest about ourselves, and who’s actually honest about themselves in church? Here’s the real version:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11, TNIV)
The whole article is a bit long and in baldly exposing some of the lies we regularly live swings a bit too far to the dark side of life, but it is a Very Important Article for anyone who cares about realness.
11 April 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: church,
failure,
faith,
humans