tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11928317.post4489464625881246701..comments2024-01-29T14:24:46.852-05:00Comments on Wes Ellis: Welcome to Our Churchwellis68http://www.blogger.com/profile/06087588494600746854noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11928317.post-35055755784731280342011-08-28T01:15:09.797-04:002011-08-28T01:15:09.797-04:00Excellent post. I was checking continuously this b...Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I’m impressed! Very useful info particularly the last part :) I care for such information a lot. I was looking for this particular information for a very long time. Thank you and best of luck.razor bladeshttp://www.mens-razors.com/4-Mens_Razor_Blades_Cartridges.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11928317.post-19712465667056289892011-08-11T13:48:14.974-04:002011-08-11T13:48:14.974-04:00Wes—
An interesting predicament.
For some of you...Wes—<br /><br />An interesting predicament.<br /><br />For some of your parishioners, principles regarding property rights and cleanliness are paramount: ‘always keep your area of responsibility clean; if you mess it up, clean it up; leave it better than you found it; if it’s not yours don’t touch it’ and the like. You may never be able to disabuse the value they hold for these principles, but I think it is possible to move from this position to a more Jesus-teaching oriented response without having to make their principles seem wrong to them.<br /><br />For instance, once articulating these principles to the parishioners and confirming with them that these are indeed the principles that are motivating their response, there are possible places to go: <br /><br />1)when someone isn’t aware of these principles, teach them. (to do this, your parishioners will have to form relationships with the skateboard crowd)<br /><br />2)when someone <i>is</i> aware of these principles, and chooses not to align their behavior to these principles, you can:<br /><br />a) make corrections (again, this requires a relationship of some kind),<br /><br />b) evoke a change (for instance, through empathetic stories, but this requires a relationship as well), or<br /><br />c) coerce and restrict (no relationship required).<br /><br />Your parishioners have chosen 2)c); perhaps it is the only option they can see. Then someone such as yourself gets to show them other options, within the framework of their clean/property principles, and without challenging the principles themselves (even if you don’t feel the principles are part of the Jesus teachings).<br /><br />Or you can begin from a position that clean/property principles are not more important than connection/relationship principles (I myself would argue that connection/relationship principles are central to the Jesus teachings, and much more important than cleanliness/property principles).<br /><br />Make the relationship connection to the skateboard crowd, then:<br /><br />1)ask, ‘what are you good at?’<br />2)ask, ‘what do you know how to do?’<br />3)ask, ‘how can you connect with our community here?’<br />4)ask, ‘what stories do you know, or like?’<br /><br />Iin their responses, you will be able to determine principles the skateboard crowd thinks are important. It might be possible to align their firmly held principles with firmly held principles from your parishioners, and then there’s common ground for relationship.<br /><br />Jesus often said to people he met, ‘come and live like I do, and see if there isn’t something of value in it for you.’ A Jesus-teaching approach to these kids might begin in the same place. You can see from what I’ve written, I think response from relationship is much better than response from no relationship.<br /><br />LamontLamonthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13405658304816026460noreply@blogger.com