Crave Something More

Sometimes, 140 characters need more explanation…

Tweet:  It seems the more willing we are to admit what we don’t know, the more people will actually listen to what we do know.

We want our preachers and writers and teachers to be real these days.  If you are vulnerable, you are respected.  If you are transparent, you are admired.  In fact, the surest way to encounter closed ears and closed hearts today is to always talk rather than listen; specifically to always talk about someone else.

Donald Miller has experienced a lot of success in writing in the past few years, and it’s well deserved because he is a gifted story-teller and writes with urban elegance.  And I hope for every continued success for him.  But I think he’s striking a chord with so many today because he opens himself up on every page.  People respond to this kind of writing, because they feel welcomed to the conversation instead of stuck in front of a lectern.

I don’t know exactly why things are the way they are, but I suppose it is in part the ever-cyclical reaction of one generation against its predecessors.  We’ve probably seen too many hypocrites or too many self-assured preachers sharing three-point, alliterative, topical sermons that seem to touch on others more than themselves.  And I don’t want to go too far here:  preaching shouldn’t be about the preacher anyway; it should be about Jesus.  But it’s nice to hear a guy who wrestles like we do in living out our faith.

But before we trumpet transparency as the new king of characteristics, it’s useful to probe into why there is so much power in identifying with someone.  I’m sure there are many reasons, but one of them must be because it makes us feel normal.  If you’re like me at all, you spend much of your day thinking about yourself.  And you’re probably self-critical, understanding to some degree how selfish and judgmental your thoughts can be.  So it’s nice to know someone we respect and admire has similar thoughts and feelings.

Ultimately, I think we’re responding to humility in a person.  When people are humble, they imply that the distance between them and us is quite small in relation to the distance between man and God.  And there’s good reason to be humble:  we get more grace (James 4:6).  And grace rightly received deepens true humility.

So it’s good to be humble, because it gives us an audience for people who want to hear what we do know.  But this audience is best served when our normalcy points to Christ’s superiority.

Original Tweet:  http://twitter.com/christomlinson_/status/5132513071

Sometimes, 140 characters needs more explanation…

Tweet:  3 types of people: 1) scenery (pass us by), 2) machine (serve us like ATMs), 3) people.  I want to see, really see, more people people.

It’s always fun to categorize the world into types of people, like “there are two kinds of people in the world:  men and women;” or “there are two kinds of people in the world:  Christians and non-Christians;” or “there are two kinds of people in the world:  Elvis fans or Beatles fans.”  I’m not sure why this is fun, but it is, so I’m going with it for now.

I have borrowed this current type of people paradigm from Jamie Winship, an evangelist and missionary to the Middle East for more than 20 years.  He said there are three kinds of people in the world:  scenery, machines, and people.  The paradigm goes like this:

Scenery people are the hundreds of people that pass us peripherally throughout our day.  These may be our neighbors we don’t notice as we get into our cars, or most of the people in line at Starbucks, or the co-workers along our walk to our office or cube.  Scenery people are like trees; we are aware of their presence, and if they all suddenly disappeared, we might suspect an invasion of locusts had occurred, or a firestorm had ravaged through the area (I guess more so for the trees than the people).  But we don’t normally notice them.

Machine people are the tens of people that we interact with on a daily basis without really interacting.  These are the cashiers at our morning coffee shop, or the rental car return guy, or the toll booth employee.  Machine people are like ATMs; we simply make transactions with them.  We might even engage in pleasantries with them, asking how they are and saying we are fine.  But we don’t really interact with them.

People people are the rare people we truly engage throughout our days.  These are the friends we are interested in, or the co-worker we’ve been praying for who shares part of their story with us, or the person who asks how our day is going and gets an honest answer.  We interact meaningfully with people people, but we do so infrequently.

Jamie told us a story about a machine person he knew for a year.  She was the clerk at 7-11 where, when he was a DC-area cop, he stopped each morning.  One night he responded to a call, where he found this girl with a stab wound in her stomach.  Her blood was all over her shirt and the ground, and Jamie started treating her while he waited for the paramedics to come.  When they finally showed up to take her away in the ambulance, Jamie asked them if she would make it.  “Probably not,” was their reply.  He began thinking of all the chances to share the gospel with her that had slipped by.  As the paramedics put her on the stretcher, one of them looked back at Jamie and said, “Hey, be careful—her blood is on your hands.”

That was a sobering statement for Jamie to hear.  Even though it wasn’t meant in the way it was received, it puts people into perspective.  All people are people people, if only we had God’s eyes to see them in this way.  So my prayer has been to see more people people, to see them through God’s eyes, because more is at stake here than getting through the line faster or getting the correct change.

Original Tweet:  http://twitter.com/christomlinson_/status/4145304099