Current Pastor, if you have not read anything by Daniel Pink, I suggest you put him on the top of your list. He has something to say that I believe is prophetic. If the Men of Issachar were alive today, I would bet they would have had coffee with Pink by now.
What does it mean to be prophetic? Is it some kind of psychic, fortune telling, future predicting ability that the odd men possessed in the Old Testament? I guess we could get lost in a discussion six ways to Sunday on that, but the point I want to address is how do we pay attention to the clues in front of us in order to make adjustments for tomorrow?
According to the Gallup Strength Finder, I have Futurist in my core set of five strengths. The consultant explained to me that there might be one in a group of fifty that possess this, and that’s because you don’t really need very many of them if they are exercising it fully.
As a Futurist, I realize I don’t need a whole lot of other futurists around me. A few, maybe, but like the ancient night watchman patrolling out on the city wall, watching through the night for anything of danger that might approach and attack his city, everyone inside the wall didn’t need to be awake at three in the morning while the watchman was out on patrol. If the watchman was doing his job, everyone else could sleep soundly, knowing that if in the event that watchman saw anything of concern, he’d sound the alarm at the appropriate time and the city would stand at attention, ready to respond to the oncoming movement.
Pink has noticed something on his watch, and it is causing me to take a further look.
I have been consuming two of his books in the past month, A Whole New Mind and Drive, and believe he has something to say to the Church as We Know It and to the pastors of the Church of the Future. My next few posts will outline in brief the importance of what he is saying, and what we as pastors might need to consider.
There have been plenty of books written about why people, especially men, are leaving the Church As We Know It. George Barna’s statistic-heavy Revolution and David Murrow’s Why Men Hate Going to Church are interesting reads, but neither gets as close to the core of what I believe is happening before our eyes, and Pink is articulating it about as clear as anyone right now about our culture and how it is shifting toward a new understanding of motivation.
Insight is always helpful, and wisdom is to be desired above gold, but without the ability to translate it into action, it becomes a dead study. The watchman can tend to his guard, but if no one hears and responds to the signal, the watchman’s effort is in vain.
2 comments:
You are teasing us with this post! What? Can't wait to hear more!
I found a TED talk by Daniel Pink that was 18 minutes of awesome. Thanks Kevin. Going to have to get one of his books.
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