I love Cirque du Soleil.
For reals.
My good friends, Shawn & Nicole, would sometimes act out 'their version' of Cirque du Soleil routines in their living room for us as entertainment. Ahhh the years before we all had kids and the things that passed for entertainment ;)
My pastor Tommy and his wife love Cirque du Soleil as well.
I find this pretty awesome. Some people in the church don't quite see it the same way. Some people find Cirque du Soleil offensive, vulgar, enticing, too sexual, etc etc.
I see their point. I disagree on the conclusion, but I see their point.
Cirque du Soleil is amazing. They are constantly pushing the boundaries they have set up for themselves...and everyone has boundaries, even if you confess that you don't.
Cirque du Soleil has essentially redesigned and redefined what a circus is.
To do so, they have eliminated all the hokey elements that attracted children to circuses and instead they attract adults. They are an incredible example of what it means to redefine an entire entertainment genre to fit a different clientele.
How have they done this? I believe they have done it through 4 main aspects:
- They examined what it truly means to be a circus
- They focused on a few specific elements
- They eliminated all the extra things that didn't belong, all the sideways energy
- They refined it down to an incredible art
I think we need to do the same thing in the church.
We need to redefine what church means for people. Church, and Christians, have taken on a meaning that we were never intended to have. Church has become an institution. An institution exists for the sake of itself, where the church should be an organization that exists for those who are not a part of it.
Contradictory, I know.
Which is one of the many reasons why I believe the church needs to be redefined. But to redefine the church, I believe that we need to go through those same stages. And so I'm going to examine them, over the next week or so.
If you don't like the posts I write about ministry...well...you should check back in about a week. Go ahead and subscribe with that "RSS link" on the right hand side...you won't miss anything and you'll know when it's over.
I'll miss you...but I'll live.
Though I think you'll find it important and relevant; because (good news!) if you believe in Jesus, you are in ministry. You have influence, you have a responsibility to redefine what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a church. So there's that...
But here's where it gets sticky; the one thing that Cirque du Soleil has not done is the same thing that I think far too often the church attempts to do.
While they have redefined what it means to be a circus, they haven't done it by replacing what it means to be a circus. An incredibly important distinction...that I'll be expanding on later.
Hopefully you'll get something out of this series. At the very least, a desire to go see Cirque du Soleil...or a desire to stop having jugglers in church, whichever.
