Snippet: Infinite Games

snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Mike Cosper in an interview, talking about the “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast:

“What does an approach to ministry that’s generational look like?”

He’s talking about healthier metrics for measuring “success” in the church. Too often it’s greater numbers and continuous momentum (yes, numbers are people and that can’t be lost on us). But with numbers and momentum, many comprises are often made and leadership character is de-valued for the sake of results, like what happened at Mars Hill in Seattle.

I’m reading The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. He makes a very strong case for businesses to think generationally, although that’s not the language he uses.

Without the context of the book it might sound weird, but he argues that businesses need to stop trying to beat the market or forecasts or even their primary competitors. They need to think and function in a way that keeps them in business for generations to come. He also argues that this will usually result in really good numbers, but the mindset will be completely different.

How much more true is this for churches!

Short-term, finite thinking and practices actually undermine generational approaches.

You can hear this interview with Cosper on episode #903 of the Theology in the Raw podcast. The interviewer, Preston Sprinkle, asks Cosper about some of the critiques of the series which hit #3 overall on Apple Podcasts recently.

Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash

Snippet: "It's absolutely insane"

This snippet is from John Stonestreet in the weekly “Culture Friday” segment on The World and Everything In It podcast (September 17):

“It's absolutely insane. To give teenagers, especially young teenagers, unaccountable access to the internet, per se, and that's just because of the things that are predatory, really looking for them. But when you actually then add [how social media] actually reshapes our hearts, souls and minds, and then we give that to young girls in particular, or young men for that matter. It literally makes no sense. Future generations will look back at us with all of this that we know and basically call us child abusers.”

His “young girls in particular” comment relates to what he was taking about right before this.

And he doesn’t offer any easy answers for parents. The key terms are “young teenagers” and “unaccountable access” and “predatory.”

And the context of this discussion is the interviewer’s question regarding a new Wall Street Journal investigation of Facebook and Instagram and their “internal documents revealing the social media platforms were keenly aware of the mental health challenges their products made worse. One internal communication admitted that an Instagram study found that the app made ‘...body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.’'“ But they have surpressed this information and stated the opposite publicly.

Photo by Vinicius "amnx" Amano on Unsplash