It is all in what you are listening for

This story came by way of Rev. Nancy Allen who shared it at an Academy for Spiritual Formation in February 2017. If this story does not originate with her I am unsure of the source. 

There was a grandfather and grandson walking down the busy street in the city. Cars moving, trucks unloading cargo, people chatting in the cafe patios that ran along the sidewalk but the two walked hand in hand through the city streets with ease. Suddenly the grandfather stopped and said, "Do you hear that?!" 

Quickly the grandfather escorted his grandson to a flower box at the end of one of the cafe patios. Pulling back the flowers and the ivy, the grandfather exposed a nest where six baby birds where chirping. 

Amazed that his grandfather could hear such small birds over the noise of the city asked, "How did you hear those tiny birds?!" 

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a half dozen coins and threw them onto the ground where they pinged and rolled into the street. 

As the coins rolled into the street the young man noticed that everyone in the street cafe enjoying their coffee and conversation stopped, turned their heads and looked at the coins. 

The grandfather said, "It is all in what you are listening for."

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The more we hear what we want to hear, the more deaf we become.

The more we see what we want to see, the more blind we will be.

The more we love what we want to love, the more we love ourselves. 

The WCA's LMP Problem

The Wesleyan Covenant Association is a group of United Methodist clergy and laity. For anyone who has heard of the WCA but is not aware of what it is, the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA) stated purpose open with the following statement:

"The Wesleyan Covenant Association (“WCA”) is an association of congregations, clergy persons, and laity who desire to cooperate in the mission of the WCA to promote the ministry of the gospel from a Wesleyan theological perspective within The United Methodist Church and kindred bodies."

Like all organizations, the WCA uses particular words to define what it is. Some of the words that are most commonly used in the material that I come across are "Wesleyan", "orthodox", "evangelical", and "covenant keeping". Like any organization who defines itself, there are critics who say the WCA is claiming sole ownership of what it means to be, say, "Wesleyan" or "orthodox." I am thankful for the WCA giving members of the UMC to consider again what it means to be "evangelical" and/or "covenant keeping." Just as the no one Church has the exclusive rights to claim "Christian" so to the WCA does not have exclusive rights to a number of other defining qualities of the UMC.

In all the discerning work on what it means to be Methodist, there is one descriptor the WCA uses that gives me the most concern and frankly is, from my standpoint, the cause of a great amount of tension in our world.

The WCA has a "like-minded people" (LMP) problem.

Is surrounding ourselves with LMP a form of egocentrism? 

In the WCA "statements" page the LMP problem shows up a half dozen times. In a recent video put out by the WCA, Rev. Madeline Henners lets the listener know:

“Of course everyone is welcome to attend the Wesleyan Covenant Association Conference, however I do want to make two specific invitations. The first is to pastors and congregations of small to medium-sized churches. Depending on which conference you’re located in, sometimes you may feel like your voice is not heard or even dismissed. We want you to know that your voice matters to the Wesleyan Covenant Association. I’d also like to personally invite any young clergy who are in the process of being ordained or recently ordained. We want you to feel connected and supported to like-minded brothers and sisters, who not only are seeking to restore integrity to our covenant, but are seeking to belong to a vital Wesleyan movement.”

It seems that LMP is a feature and not a bug in the WCA system. I believe this to be a problem.

If the current state of U.S. politics teaches us, it is that we all are falling short and missing the mark (AKA: Sin) when we surround ourselves with only agreement. Confirmation bias is part of the human condition. However, the Church is the place that understands that the Grace of God works in and through us to open us up. The Grace of God reminds us that God loves all people -- even if they are not like-minded. 

I am working to repent of the LMP in my own life. I have subscribed to a web browser extension (Escape Your Bubble) which puts news stories from "the other side" directly into my Facebook feed. I have begun to access most of my news from allsides.com - "Unlike regular news services, AllSides exposes bias and provides multiple angles on the same story so you can quickly get the full picture, not just one slant." Finally, I have been intentional on listening with curiosity to people in my congregation that have a completely different values than I do. 

Lent is the season to repent. It is the season to embrace, once again, a humble posture to the reality that we see through a mirror only dimly. It is the season to die to self and be reborn (not just a change of heart but a completely new heart).

Can lent 2017 be the time we cure our LMP problem?

If You Can Ride a Bike You Are Just as Bias as "The Media"

I know this will take a few minutes, but if you are like me it will make you smile and illustrate something that we all know but think we are a immune to it - You are just as bias as "The Media"

We all like to think that there is an objective position that we can take that will lead us to "The Objective And Universal Truth". Many of us expect "The Media" should take the objective position. Many a people claim that The Media is bias and thus only watch/listen to news that they agree with - because that news outlet is not bias. If there is an Objective and Universal Truth, then we human beings are not able to ever take the Objective position to get see it.

We all are bias. We all have brain patterns that force us to see the world in a particular way that makes "total sense" to us (and maybe others like us), but does not make sense to others. You want to know why common sense is not so common? Because Common Sense is at best local and most often at a personal level. 

So the next time we Christians make statements of Truth, may we do so with an awareness that if we cannot ride a backwards bike without months of practice, then we may not know what the hell Truth is.

So let us err on the side of Love.