Determined & Adaptive
There is a meme that has been going around — a few of you posted it on my Facebook wall — that has a picture of Tom Hanks, playing Forrest Gump sitting on a bench telling a remarkable story that says, “And just like that, my pastor turned into a televangelist.” And it is true — preachers all around the world have been scrambling, figuring out how to get their in-person worship experiences online. And I’m proud to say that with the help of our church staff (Eric, Nicky, Kelly, and Lynn) and awesome volunteers like David Hamilton, Sam Wilson and Matthew Priest we’ve been able to up our game in the online worship department.
Yet, all of this has had some unforeseen consequences. One phenomenon that I’ve read about is that our binge watching culture brought on by streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video have now merged into something I never would have thought of before the COVID-19 quarantine. There is now such a thing as binge watching church worship services. People are not only watching their own church’s worship services, but tuning in to many other church services as well. Perhaps a worship service of a church in a place where they used to live. The church service of a famous preacher. The service of the church across the street. The service from some exotic denomination. The service of the big, new, hip cool church. Or whatever service happens to pop up in you social media feed. In many ways, I think this is a wonderful thing. There are far, far worse things to binge on than worship services.
Yet, there’s an unforeseen consequence to this unforeseen consequence. We preachers are getting insecure. It has never been easier to shop around for a worship service. And when you’re sampling all the world has to offer by way of worship services online, you may just notice that this one has a better looking preacher than your church. The music is a little more to your liking over here. That one over there never asks for money. This one seems to be doing more in their community. Another one has a much clearer picture with multiple camera shots and professional production quality. Still another one has better sermons.
And we preachers are worried that you fine folks are going to start asking yourself — why am I watching the church equivalent of C-SPAN 3, when I could be watching a highly produced, energetic blockbuster? To add to the worry of us insecure preachers, we know that online church is scaleable in a way that in-person church is not. There is only so many people you can cram into a physical church — far less so now with social distancing guidelines. But with the appropriate equipment and bandwidth, there is virtually no limit to the number of people who can watch a worship service online.
This may all seem like an unprecedented situation in our world right now, and indeed it is in many ways. Yet, I believe our Scripture this morning shows that the Christian movement has wrestled with similar things before. The book of Acts and many of Paul’s letters tell the story of a Christianity emerging from its exclusively Jewish roots and being sent out into all the world — places with other gods, other preferences, other ways of thinking. It finds itself alongside many other options. And perhaps no where in the Bible do we see this new situation Christianity finds itself in more clearly than Paul’s speech at the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, as it is also known. A place literally named after a different God.
The Areopagus was an ancient place atop a hill in Athens that was a symbol of power in Greece. Perhaps not unlike Capitol Hill in our own country. Or perhaps right now — the online space is our modern equivalent of the Areopagus. Through various stages of Greek history, the actual governance sometimes was literally done in the Areopagus, but other times not — yet throughout, especially the time that Paul was there in our Scripture this morning, the place was a powerful symbol of the Greek way of life. It was a place where powerful people came, where ideas were spread.
So Paul’s audience here in Greece — not unlike you folks watching at home — they had lots of different options. It was a competitive environment. I suspect there was some binge watching of different speeches, ideas, religiosities, and world views. And it would have been pretty easy for someone in the audience to make comparative judgements — I liked that other message better. That guy was a better orator. This one reminded me of something in my childhood. This one evoked a feeling of patriotism.
So what was Paul to do?
Well, he doesn’t say — I want to share with you this hot new thing called Christianity. It is better than all your pantheon of Gods. Everything you’ve been taught is wrong and I’m here to set you straight.
Nor does he say, you do you. If parts of what I say fit to your liking, then sprinkle a little bit of Christianity in with your other Gods and philosophies.
Rather, Paul gives what one commentator says is a “determined, adaptive witness.” That’s what I want to lift up this morning. God needs determined adaptive witnesses. And it is very important that both of those adjectives are held together — determined and adaptive. I think different wings of the church, different personalities have tended to lean to one way of the other, either towards being determined or towards being adaptive, rather than holding them together. All determination and no flexibility is rigidity. It is not very different than the legalism that Paul and the early Christian church left. Likewise, all flexibility and no determination to share one’s own core conviction turns witness into something purely passive. One does not have a witness to give, but can only witness what others do and say.
Paul’s determined adaptive witness is apropos to our unique situation as an online church at this moment because it demonstrates just the right balance of determination and adaptability. We have a unique witness to share as a faith community online. And we also have much to learn about how people are engaging their faith online and how new folks who may be turning in online have their own worldviews and experiences to share. And Paul, like a great jazz musician, picks up on themes and influences in his Greek environment and integrates them into his speech. Yet not all things can be integrated; so he draws a contrast with them to the Christian faith. Adaptive and determined.
There is a thought leader in the area of marketing and social media that I sometimes follow named Gary Vaynerchuck. A few years back, he wrote a book called, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” That title is a metaphor that comes from the world of boxing. I’m certainly no boxing expert, but as I understand it, the goal of boxing is to knock someone out. And it is rarely a jab that does the knocking out. A jab being a sort of shorter punch coming from one’s center. More often, the knock outs come from something like a “right hook” or “uppercut.” That’s a punch that takes a little longer to develop, more of a wind up, but it packs much more power. These sorts of punches are like taking shots on the goal in hockey or soccer. They are the immediate cause of victories and major momentum changes. Well, if “right hooks” are the game changers — why ever bother with jabs? Why not step out into the ring and go swinging uppercuts from left to right. When you know they’re coming, they are easy to defend. You can block them. But if you jab, jab, jab, it wears the opponent out and they don’t anticipate the right hook coming in to knock them out. Vaynerchuck applies this as an analogy to marketing and social media, but I think Paul is actually illustrating something like this in our passage today. Vayernchuck advises business owners to use social media most of the time to jab, jab, jab — by which he means give, give, give. Provide free content of value to those who follow you. Do it over and over again, most all of the time, genuinely and authentically. Then only after you’ve built a following and developed trust in your domain area, can you once-in-a-while, though not in a way that betrays your authenticity, give a “right hook,” by which he means a sales pitch of some kind. No body is going to pay attention to you if you are all sales pitch.
I have a credit card that gets travel points when I use it and this credit card came with a free travel magazine, purportedly as a feature of the card. It is called “Departures” magazine. I kid you not, without exaggeration that this catalogue thick magazine slickly produced in glossy color pages is 90% advertisements. There are no interesting articles. Just ads disguised somehow as content packaged in a magazine format. I throw them away as soon as I get them. It is all right hook — and so I put up my defenses and just throw it in the recycling bin.
This is why 99% of people walk right on by street preachers with a megaphone or discard religious tracts. Its all sales. There isn’t first a sense that someone is cared for. But the genuine gospel is incarnational, always contextual, always cares about you and your experience. It isn’t just a cold set of doctrines that we get you to agree to. It is an invitation to a relationship with a living God.
Do these cold-calling, determination-only hard sales approaches ever work? Yes, of course they can have some impact on an individual who they hit at just the right moment and the right time. It’s simply the law of large numbers at work. It operates the same way spam email and pitches from a Nigerian prince who needs your bank account number so you can wire him money work. If you make 100,000 such requests, even a positive response rate far below 1% can give you impressive results. Yet, only looking at this calculus ignores the damage this approach does to the brand. Far too many people assume Christianity is inherently judgmental and inflexible — only about numbers and converts, because if you’re not contextual, if you’re not incarnational — if you don’t meet people where they are, then you’re nothing more than a sales pitch.
At the Areopagus, Paul demonstrates the “jab, jab, jab, right hook” type of approach. Or as that commentator said, a “determined adaptive witness.” Paul does this while contextually honoring and engaging the cultural and philosophical outlook of the Athenians. Even on what was probably only a brief stop through in his travels, Paul notices a religious statue and recalls some notable philosophical wisdom, gently critiquing the statue to an “unknown God,” while finding value and congruence in some of the philosophical wisdom of Greek stoicism with the Christian faith. He gets specific, because that’s what you can do when you’re with people and you show up, and lifts up two common Stoic sayings to do so in his speech. Paul is contextual
But after he develops a connection, after his contextual and adaptable approach, Paul is not afraid to be determined. He shares clearly the core Good News — Jesus has been raised from the dead. So how does it go for Paul? The lectionary cuts off the story before we hear and so I wanted to read just a few verses more so we can see.
32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33At that point Paul left them. 34But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The results can been divided into three groups.
There are (1) scoffers, (2) those who want to hear more, and (3) those who become believers.
As we continue in this new era of online church — these are going to be the same reactions — both from binge watching worshippers to non-Christian and nominally Christian people hesitant to step foot in a church. Scoffers, those open to learning more, and those who become believers.
Friends, let’s follow Paul’s lead and show up with a determined, adaptive witness in the marketplace of ideas and beliefs. Engage with others adaptively, but also be determined and don’t hesitate to share the Good News in the context of a genuine relationship. For we do not serve an unknown God, but one that is never far from us in whom we live and move and have our being.
Church, this is going to call us out of our comfort zones. To be up on a pedastal for others to scoff at. There is a lot of truth in that meme that all of the sudden preachers turned into televangelists over night. Part of me has enjoyed the era of online church because I’m at least somewhat tech savvy. Yet, I don’t like turning the camera on myself and putting myself out there. I’ve challenged myself to do more of that since we’ve been in quarantine. Along the way, I’ve challenged you all to do that too — whether that is engage in the comments online in worship, share a worship service online, read on camera during our Read the Passion or participate in Everyday Sermons. And I’m proud that many of you have stepped up and engaged. But I sense that like me — you’re not quite comfortable with it either. It is easier to just let the preacher do it. But friends, we all need to step up and be heard. To give a witness. And at least for the foreseeable future, in the era of social distancing, the prime Areopagus of our day is online. And so I want to leave you with a challenge.
Do one thing in the next two weeks to put yourself out there, where you give a witness. Be determined, but adaptive. The truth is, you may get scoffed at. But some may want to hear more. And some may want to follow. Each of these three responses can be scary for us in their own way. But, I encourage you to at least take some small step to do something in the public arena that gives a determined and adaptive witness. Anything less turns us from Christian witnesses, to passive consumers who just happen to watch or in some cases binge on Christian content. Let’s take a more active role. Let’s stand up and be heard in the Areopagus in the way that Paul shows us today.
In the end, this is what will distinguish us from others in the marketplace of ideas online. There will always be better this and higher quality that. But we can show up more, be more incarnational, more present, the ones who are there adaptively determined to share the Good News of the resurrection.
Amen. Would you pray with me?
