Thanks for all the great comments. I'm looking forward to this as an extension of our Wednesday class.
This past week we talked about the American dream and compared it to God's dream. It was a discussion that gets at our core values - what does it mean to be a success? So here are some follow-up questions...
How do you define success? What does it mean to be a success for most Americans?
How do you know if a church is successful? Kevin Owen (our preacher at College Hills) had interesting thoughts that growth is one indicator, but not the only indicator of a successful church.
How well do our measures of success match up with God's measures (Proverbs 3:1-10 and Revelation 3)?
As an outsider, I sense that a church is successful if the people are sincere. Jesus exemplifies community, and I think that's what the message is about. If the people that make up the church are not sincere, the community cannot be whole. Sincerity seems to observed from how the church member interact with each other, not visitors.
ReplyDeleteTo me, success in life is happiness. I'm not talking about self-fulfillment happiness, because we all know that well is shallow. However, the happiness that Jesus talks about in the beatitudes for example, will lead us to a happy, successful point in our paths. We've come to believe that "blessed" means divinity has graced our lives...when simply, it means "happy". The beatitudes, as I'm referring to them here, are an example of Jesus setting forward the example of the best life to live, including happiness and success.
I think happiness plays a role in the American Dream...just typically not the way Jesus displayed. In the American Dream, happiness seems to be an end result of success, but in reality happiness a precursor to success.
Becca, I'm going to try this again after accidentally deleting my response the other day!
ReplyDeleteI think you are on to something when you refer to the Sermon on the Mount. John's questions above and our class discussion point to the fact that the American Dream and God's dreams may not be one and the same.
All through Mt. 5-7 we hear Jesus saying things that cause us to respond with a deeply theological "What?!" He constantly turns things upside-down.
Jesus says crazy things like "blessed are the poor" and "blessed are you when you are persecuted b/c of righteousness". He also consistently teaches humbling ourselves and giving up our rights and our stuff.
I love America. The freedoms and opportunities here are true blessings. There is an inherent danger, though, in blindly chasing the "American Dream". The materialism and striving to be #1 are strong temptations that we must resist if we want to be truly blessed as Jesus promises.
It is much easier to write all this than to live it, that is for sure! I am a beginner on a long journey.
Becca, you're right on in seeing the shallowness of "happiness as self-fulfillment." And I like the thought of pursuing happiness through the beatitudes.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I agree with Amy that many of Jesus' ideas are counter-intuitive. You're not going to reason your way to the conclusion that persecution and meekness are the path to greatness. It takes a good bit of faith to believe Jesus and base your life on his teachings.
Good comments!
Though sometimes I think that we adopt American culture to be human nature, when it is not. So accept our environment as fact and choose to embrace the difficult challenge of rethinking the way we frame the story. Where as there are cultures (typically those without organized religion) are naturally more selfless and naturally do celebrate the mourning process.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that what Jesus says still doesn't buck the system...if it didn't it wouldn't have been radical (or followed). However, I think that we are viewing the American/Jesus success plans through biased glasses. Do American Christians play victim? Do we as a religious group say "Its hard to do this because it's agaisnt human nature?" when really it's just agaisnt American Culture?
Good thought, Becca - we can't assume that American values are "human nature" even though they are 2nd nature to us Yanks.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right in noting that Platt's book (or any book) would be heard differently in other settings (Haiti? China?). I hear Platt addressing an American audience (that's where he lives and preaches), so he highlights aspects of the gospel that we'd rather not consider.
Not sure I get your line about cultures who "are naturally more selfless..." Are you saying there are cultures where Jesus' call to self-denial sounds more normal, natural, or logical than it sounds to us? If that's what you're saying, I would agree there are aspects of every worldview that resist or align with the gospel.
Could it be that one goal of the church is to support one another as we follow the parts of the gospel that sound crazy in our setting? Sounds like that is happening at Brook Hills.