Jason Valendy 1/5/11 Jason Valendy 1/5/11

Books Ngram Viewer

In case you have not yet seen the Google project called "Ngram" then you are missing out on interesting data that is more fruitful than "Facebook trolling" all day long.

The essence of Ngram is being able to see the frequency of words that have been published in a massive number of books over time. So assume you wanted to see how often the words, "faith, hope, love" appear in in books since the year 1800, you will see this graph:

As you can see all three have been in decline for decades and are hovering at all time lows.

However, if you search Faith, Hope, Love you get this graph:

The only difference is the first letter of each word is capitalized. Love is making a strong comeback (notice the big dip in the early 1940's we have not finally recovering from) and Faith and Hope are on the up swing as well. Does this mean there are more sentences beginning with Faith, Hope or Love then they are being used in the middle of the sentence? Does this mean there are more books with these words in the titles?

I believe Dan Pink posted this originally but it is worth Christians taking a serious look at as well.

Can you image that? "hope" has been dominating "fear" for the vast majority of time and now they are in a dead heat.

In the spirit of taking into account "case sensitivity" take a look at "Hope" and "Fear".

"Hope" is still in the lead (the 1940's dip is not nearly as intense in this situation), but "Fear" is at all time highs!

How is it that if we are a "Christian Nation" as some people would contend, then how is it that the Christian message of Hope is in rapid decline and Fear is taking more ground? How is it that this so called "Christian nation" has forgotten that with God there is nothing to fear/Fear? Is the current incarnation of the message of Christianity so watered down or irrelevant that Fear/fear is given permission to even have a foothold in a world full of Hope/hope?

At the very lease it is good there is a lot of Love/love as it is said that it is the greatest of things.

Jason Valendy 1/4/11 Jason Valendy 1/4/11

"Ya but"

"I am wondering if one of the reasons the Church is in decline in the traditional sense is that churches are very attractive to the "ya but" people of the world.

When an idea is pitched in the church, from my experience, we are really good at quickly going through all the reasons how or why that idea will not work:
"It will cost too much."
"It will anger people."
"It will be too polarizing."
"It is not thought out."
"It is too unclear."

I want to stand with other Christians in the community and the world to create an alternate culture in which the "Ya buts" of the world are not the dominate voice or culture. I want to create and help foster a community culture of "Yes, and..."

"Yes, and..." culture creates an environment in which collaboration is fostered. "Yes, and..." culture encourages people to share ideas without fear of being beat up for not having the idea totally set. "Yes, and..." culture creates an environment that ideas quickly gain support.

I fear that the Church is dominated by "Yes but" which results in a dying culture and no one wants to join a dying culture.