I’ll post the next segment this week.  Promise.

I’m stupid like that.

When it turns up we’ll resume.  Sorry.

But, don’t we want to know that the messenger did his research?  That he is “trained” in his area of expertise?  That he doesn’t pick and chose facts or scripture to only affirm his beliefs?

Part of the problem is that we, as a public, have taken so many things for face value.  And, that includes the lessons we have been taught at church.  Are we so lazy or gullible that we don’t think for ourselves?  And, part of forming our own beliefs and thoughts is listening to others beliefs and thoughts.

See, the tentative position may not be the most comfortable place to be.  But, as you work through the thoughts and questions, you will create, hopefully, a bigger story and will have not just created a God that affirms your beliefs and keeps you in your comfort zone.

There is some sort of judgmentalism in us that makes it hard for us to trust someone who drinks excessively or cheated on their spouses or who kept their homosexuality a secret. 

I guess the truth is more than anything, we have to evaluate a message (not so much the messenger).  Back to using my work as an example, the methodology we use is a little bit radical.  So far, it’s not been accepted by many intellectual sorts of people.  But it works.  Like amazingly well.  And when I first learned about it and how to do it, the people who trained me drove me a little nutty.  I wasn’t even sure I liked all of their business practices.  We struggled in that area.  But that didn’t change the fact that they had a really awesome and amazing program that changes lives and works.  In this case, “the message” speaks for itself.  The package it comes in is a little bit rough and at times hard to take and I’m certain it has turned people away from embracing the truth of their theory of learning. 

So I’m not sure I have the answers.  If I am speaking as the messenger, I know not everyone is going to agree with me. At what point do I just trust the truth of the message I am trying to convey and stop worrying about the image I am presenting?

If I am the receiver of the message, I’d like to think I am of a tentative enough disposition that I do really listen to everyone.  But I know it’s not true.

I’ve stopped improvising at shows for this reason.  I want kids to be sponsored so badly that I don’t want to make a joke I think is funny, that no one else thinks is funny, and some think is wrong, and lose a potential sponsor.  I get that trust thing.

But isn’t that forgetting the massive number of very flawed people, crass people, thieving and mean people who’ve told the truth on this or that subject?

I think of Rich Mullins.

Rich is revered now for writing Awesome God and saying a lot of great things in concert and in articles he wrote.  But Rich got drunk.  He was foul-mouthed.  He was sometimes hard to work.  He was flaky.  He was human.  But he said great things about simplicity and poverty and benevolence and politics.  And about how awesome God truly is.

And we can’t forget the number of “good” people we all like who’ve led folks astray.  Jim Jones?  Likable guy.  Conservative in many ways on the outside.  Quoted scripture.  (But interpreted it wrongly.) Helped folks.  No one knew he had some special kool-aid in the pantry until it was too late.

Do we ignore the source altogether?  What are aspects of the messenger to evaluate when considering his/her message?  Are there any?