a whole new way of thinking

From my sermon on 8/21/11 from Romans 12:1-8

So on the first day of school, the kindergarten teacher was trying to help the children feel at ease through playing a game with animal sounds. “Amy, what sound does a cow make?” Moooo. “Johnny, what sound does a pig make?” Oink…. Tracy what sound does a cat make. Meow. Phil, what sound does a dog make? Bark, bark. Julie, what sound does a mouse make? She said, “Click.”

We have a whole new way of thinking today, don’t we? I never knew in High School that the most important class that I would take would be typewriting. Now they call it keyboarding. How many hours, how many tasks do I do on the computer every day!

Paul talks in the passage about renewing your mind so that you may discern the will of God, the good and perfect and acceptable will. I have some practical, biblical ways of thinking to offer you today. The first is humor. Did you feel the lightness of being at the opening story with its laughter. Humor frees us up.

The passage warns against thinking more highly of yourself than you ought. Paul is doing a word play on the word think. It literally in the Greek, don’t hyper-think. Now, none of you suffers from over-thinking, do you? Paul says to think with sober judgment. The word is to think with a sound mind, sensibly. Humor is a great way to keep us from taking our selves too seriously.

So, here’s the way most of us learned the alphabet…..the alphabet song….a b c d e f g h i j k l m m o p q r s t u v w x y and z, now I know my abc’s , next time won’t you sing with me. Let me sing modern version, a b c d e f g h i j k l m m o p q r s t u v www.alphabet.com. It is whole new way of thinking.

Paul also says to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. We think not just with our brains but with our whole beings. The Jewish faith and the Christian faith did not see humans as a conglomeration of parts, but as wholeness. Body, mind, spirit….are all interrelated, inseparable. We are to think with our bodies. I understand from the world of medicine that this is true. We have not just the brain, but the central nervous system, and in fact chemical and electrical signals at the cellular level. We think with the whole body.

We live out an example right now. How many right handed folks? Interesting, you raise your right hands. Take a pen or pencil in your right hand. Lefties take a pen or pencil in your left hand. Now I want you to think about a problem or an issue or concern. Got it? Now shift the pen or pencil to the other hand. Reflect, do you get some new insight? We I get stumped with a crossword puzzle or even bigger issues in life, sometimes I simply switch to my non-dominant hand, and an answer comes. Where does that come from? We are using our wholeness.

This whole new way of thinking could look like this: if you are a quiet, contemplative person, you might need to take a walk or swim to get a fresh perspective. If you are active, you might need to pause and pray and be still. If you are a wordy person like I am, you might need to focus on an icon.

A week and a half ago, I had our staff go on a retreat. We went to an art gallery run by Hilary’s sister, called Eye of the Dog. We did our linear planning, but we also had an hour and a half for an art project. We were to create a collage using found objects, ephemera. We were to let ourselves be drawn to objects. Was I excited about this? No! I was scared. But I created something on this 4” x 4” square. I was attracted to music, butterflies, a key, the word faith, the phrase “it is ok to be assertive.” Where did all of this come from? I had a whole new way of thinking.

Paul also says to think as the body of Christ. We are not just individuals; we are members of one another. We are community. We think better together. It is not “group think” ala George Orwell’s 1984. We realize we need different points of view. I tend to be a visionary, big picture, future tense sort of guy. I love to throw out ideas. But I need people around me in the body of Christ with their gifts who ask: how much will it cost? How does that fit with this other thing on the calendar? Have you prayed about it? How will it affect the least among us? We think better as the whole body.

As a Christian community, we think not just of ourselves, but of others. As the church, we are one of the few groups that exists for those not here. We are thinking of 5th graders in this church with a new program called FISH that helps these tweens navigate the middle school years. We have incoming high school freshmen buddying up with upper classmen to lessen the fear of that transition.

As United Methodists, we have a new motto: Rethink Church. We have lived into this motto the last 2 years by calling off morning worship and going out into the community to be the church, doing service projects and meeting people where they are. Now we are going a step further.

Have you missed Pastor Jim? Some of you have wondered if I shut him up in a dungeon. Jim has been doing field research for us on Sunday mornings. He has been visiting other churches to see best practices and also what needs are being missed. He has been going to Starbuck’s to visit those of the church of the brunch. He has been talking to the cyclists who pass by our church on Sunday morning by the thousands. All of this in preparation for a new worship service called the Point. It is for those who aren’t here yet. It will be on Sunday evenings, starting just 5 weeks from now, on Sept 25. There will be small groups that feed into the Point. One is Celebrate Recovery for those working the 12 step programs. One is for business people called Taking the Talk of Sunday into the Walk of Monday. Bible Studies and youth groups and others will be on Sunday evenings to lead into the point. Jim says the mission of the Point is to “wake up, connect, change the world.” It is a whole new way of thinking about church.

This renewing of our minds transforms us. I believe our selves become re-wired, new neural pathways are created. This life of worship, prayer, Bible Study, service…this following Christ changes the way we think. I heard on NPR that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something, you become an expert at it. You can check off another hour here.

I believe that following Christ gives us a whole new way of thinking. I witnessed it this past Thursday. Kim was going in for her 2nd surgery in 9 days’ time. It was tricky, spinal cord surgery. Thursday morning, we stood around her bed---her family and I. We adults prayed some out loud. Evan, 7 yr old son of Kim and Phil prayed too. He said, “God, we love you. Jesus, we love you. Heal my mom. Bring her home quickly.” For a moment there, I believed all of this stuff that I have been telling you.

This following Christ gives us a whole new way of thinking.