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Articles
Stuck In A Closet With Leonard Sweet
Rain pelted the campus of the small Baptist university where futurist, historian and author Leonard Sweet, a man who has been called "one of the most provocative thinkers of our time," was speaking at a regional pastor's conference. Near as I could tell, this was to completely unnerve the majority of the pastors in attendance.
Sweet, author of books like Aqua Church, SoulTsunami, SoulSalsa and Carpe Manana, has spent more time thinking and writing about issues surrounding the church in the 21st century in the last two years than most pastors have in the last 10. Needless to say, he's stirred quite a bit of controversy as well.
With no space available for an interview on the three floors of the university's fine arts building, Sweet and I settled for a coat room, fortunately equipped with an electrical outlet. There, with only a few interruptions, we discussed pop culture, Frosted Flakes, worship and passing out Palm Pilots on street corners.
[RELEVANT magazine:] You've said a bit in the past about the church needing to use the medium of pop culture as a vehicle for the Gospel. Why is that?
[Leonard Sweet:] Because it's the Roman road; it's the road people are traveling on; it's the dominant global culture. For the church not to speak to pop culture, not to use images that come from it and sounds that come from it, smells that come from it, well ... that's not being very incarnational ... In order to incarnate Christ into the culture that is there, then we have to look to redeem pop culture.
(Two women walk in with jackets in hand)
[Woman 1:] Are you guys praying? We're not interrupting are we?
[LS:] Not at all!
[Woman 2:] Thank you.
[RM:] This is an interesting place for an interview ...
(Women exit, laughter, and a very wet man walks in)
[Man 1:] Guess this umbrella didn't cover me very well ...
(Man exits)
[RM:] This interview is beginning to look a lot like pop culture: a bunch of conversations intermingling, fighting for attention ...
[LS:] Yeah, and the key to redeeming pop culture is not to become wedded to things for very long. When I was growing up, I expected stability. However, my kids expect change. So, my expectations of stability have had to come to terms with their expectations of change. And that has implications for the spiritual life.
Take how I view praise music, for example. I don't think every praise song has to be a song that I have to sing for the rest of my life. I think it's like produce. My soul needs different kinds of foods. Sometimes it needs some classics, like Frosted Flakes. But, I've gotta have fresh vegetables. I mean some of these songs I'm singing, I'm like: "This is fresh fruit!" "These new praise songs are nourishing my soul." But then, they've got a short shelf life.
[RM:] And that's okay?
[LS:] That's okay. They come and they go and that's okay. I don't have to say that I'm going to be singing this song for the rest of my life. It may have been what my soul was hungry for and now it's feeding it, but I'm always going to need fresh fruit.
[RM:] I think it's hard for the church to hear that;I think it's hard for the church to embrace impermanence.
[LS:] But that's the mark of every living thing. When we stop changing, we die. The medical definition of death is a body that doesn't change. So, the very definition of impermanence is the definition of life.
[RM:] But the church in the last hundred years hasn't changed much.
[LS:] And that's the reason it's been dying. It's been feeding off fruit that's decaying and rotten; nobody wants to touch it except for a few die-hards that have grown used to the rancid odor.
We do need classics. We need the depth and the mystery. So you come around to some classics, but you don't stay there. I think the church has got to embrace impermanence, fluidity.
[RM:] How do we do this? How do we hold on to the unchangeable God while embracing change?
[LS:] Well, it's a part of what I call the "double ring." Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but for Him to be the same yesterday, today and forever, it's got to become fresh every morning. The only way for things to stay the same is for them to change. That's the paradox here: if you want things to stay the same, you've got to constantly change. So, if you want the Gospel to be as alive to your children and grandchildren as it is for you, then you've got to constantly make change.
(Man 2 knocks on door, walks in and hangs up his coat)
[LS:] For example, when I was growing up, we did worship that was consecutive, sequential, linear. I find the worship I'm doing now is much more concurrent. Different things are going on at the same time. Worship for me now is much more simultaneous. But it's still worship.
(Man 2 exits)
[RM:] Today, you were talking about the disciples and how different they all were: Simon was a zealot and Matthew was a tax collector. They're supposed to be natural enemies ...
[LS:] Most people like to surround themselves with people who are like them, people who share common interests. But Jesus surrounded himself with people who were dissimilar to one another.
(Woman 3 walks in; Sweet takes a hanger off the rack)
[LS:] Let me hang that up for you ...
[Woman 3:] Thank you!
[LS:] The thing that tied the disciples all together was Christ himself. That's why I like to use the phrase "harmonious difference." That's why I don't like the concept of "balance."
(Woman 3 exits)
[LS:] The modern concept of balance is that life should be on these scales equally measured out. I will never be able to balance life; I don't want to. I want to live a harmonious life where things fit together. A harmonious life may be 10 percent here, 20 percent there and 70 percent there ...
That's what I really like about the kind of team Jesus had; there was difference, but there was also harmony. It wasn't a balance of different viewpoints; then you're getting into political correctness. But, it was a harmony of spirits, energies, voices and out of that difference comes beautiful music.
[RM:] Does it freak people out when you start talking like that?
[LS:] (laughter) I don't know. (pause) I don't know. I'm very conservative about some things. For example: For me, the Gospel is literally oxygen. There's a world out there that needs the breath of life, the Gospel. My job is to get out there to a world that's choking on pollution. But oxygen has to come in a tank! It has to be brought in a container.
So, the most important thing for me is to get oxygen out to these people who are panting, dying for the oxygen. I don't care how you get it to them. I don't care what container you use! We've got a lot of churches fighting over whether or not the oxygen's got to come in an iron lung! That's the mystery for me: Why is the church spending its time fighting over what kind of canisters you put the oxygen in? This is the only breath of life there is!
[RM:] I want to know about the "wussification" of the church, as you call it ...
[LS:] I'll give you one example of it: Street evangelism. You think about a typical street evangelist on a soapbox, with some kind of megaphone and he's handing out tracts. I mean, Wesley and some early Methodists in the late 18th, early 19th century invented street evangelism and they would attract these huge crowds; people were getting converted and there were these huge revivals! We do it today and it drives people away! It's not turning people to Christ, it's driving them away from Christ. Why? It's the wussification of the church, and the wussification of the church's mind and mission.
In the 1790's, a book was equivalent to one month's salary, so people didn't have books. And they didn't have literature in their homes. So pamphlets and tracts were the cutting edge hardware of the 18th century. Literally, a book is one month's salary, and you're on a street evangelism team giving out books and tracts and pamphlets. Well, hello! In the 1990's the computer was equivalent to one month's salary! And here we are still giving out tracts, which our ancestor's did, but if we were doing what they did, we'd be standing on street corners passing out Palm Pilots, PCs. You want to talk about crowds that would wait in line and listen to what we have to say?
Now, of course, that hardware would have to come with spiritual software. The early street evangelists just didn't have pamphlets, they had chapters from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, or Fox's Book of Martyrs, or Thomas A Kempis' Imitation of Christ. So you just don't pass out Palm Pilots, you put Bible software on them, if you're passing out PCs, you put the whole Scriptures in there! We're such wusses! We're still passing out tracts. I mean, in the men's room they put tracts on the urinals. And this is evangelism?! Who's gonna pick it up? It's the wussification of the church's mind and mission, and it's embarrassing. Let's do for our day what our ancestors did for their day — is that too much to ask?
[RM:] Yeah, there's also the idea in there that Jesus raised people from the dead and we're just barely hanging on.
[LS:] Oh, absolutely. We're fighting over the five points of Calvinism or something. But the big Achilles heel of the church is the practice of attractional Christianity, which is how you get people to come to church. It's all "come and see," it's not "go and be." The whole Great Commission is not about "come and see," it's "go and be." We're all trying to figure out how to bring more people into the church and it shouldn't be about coming to church. It should be about coming to Christ. And then when those people come to Christ, the church's job is to send them out.
Sweet, author of books like Aqua Church, SoulTsunami, SoulSalsa and Carpe Manana, has spent more time thinking and writing about issues surrounding the church in the 21st century in the last two years than most pastors have in the last 10. Needless to say, he's stirred quite a bit of controversy as well.
With no space available for an interview on the three floors of the university's fine arts building, Sweet and I settled for a coat room, fortunately equipped with an electrical outlet. There, with only a few interruptions, we discussed pop culture, Frosted Flakes, worship and passing out Palm Pilots on street corners.
[RELEVANT magazine:] You've said a bit in the past about the church needing to use the medium of pop culture as a vehicle for the Gospel. Why is that?
[Leonard Sweet:] Because it's the Roman road; it's the road people are traveling on; it's the dominant global culture. For the church not to speak to pop culture, not to use images that come from it and sounds that come from it, smells that come from it, well ... that's not being very incarnational ... In order to incarnate Christ into the culture that is there, then we have to look to redeem pop culture.
(Two women walk in with jackets in hand)
[Woman 1:] Are you guys praying? We're not interrupting are we?
[LS:] Not at all!
[Woman 2:] Thank you.
[RM:] This is an interesting place for an interview ...
(Women exit, laughter, and a very wet man walks in)
[Man 1:] Guess this umbrella didn't cover me very well ...
(Man exits)
[RM:] This interview is beginning to look a lot like pop culture: a bunch of conversations intermingling, fighting for attention ...
[LS:] Yeah, and the key to redeeming pop culture is not to become wedded to things for very long. When I was growing up, I expected stability. However, my kids expect change. So, my expectations of stability have had to come to terms with their expectations of change. And that has implications for the spiritual life.
Take how I view praise music, for example. I don't think every praise song has to be a song that I have to sing for the rest of my life. I think it's like produce. My soul needs different kinds of foods. Sometimes it needs some classics, like Frosted Flakes. But, I've gotta have fresh vegetables. I mean some of these songs I'm singing, I'm like: "This is fresh fruit!" "These new praise songs are nourishing my soul." But then, they've got a short shelf life.
[RM:] And that's okay?
[LS:] That's okay. They come and they go and that's okay. I don't have to say that I'm going to be singing this song for the rest of my life. It may have been what my soul was hungry for and now it's feeding it, but I'm always going to need fresh fruit.
[RM:] I think it's hard for the church to hear that;I think it's hard for the church to embrace impermanence.
[LS:] But that's the mark of every living thing. When we stop changing, we die. The medical definition of death is a body that doesn't change. So, the very definition of impermanence is the definition of life.
[RM:] But the church in the last hundred years hasn't changed much.
[LS:] And that's the reason it's been dying. It's been feeding off fruit that's decaying and rotten; nobody wants to touch it except for a few die-hards that have grown used to the rancid odor.
We do need classics. We need the depth and the mystery. So you come around to some classics, but you don't stay there. I think the church has got to embrace impermanence, fluidity.
[RM:] How do we do this? How do we hold on to the unchangeable God while embracing change?
[LS:] Well, it's a part of what I call the "double ring." Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, but for Him to be the same yesterday, today and forever, it's got to become fresh every morning. The only way for things to stay the same is for them to change. That's the paradox here: if you want things to stay the same, you've got to constantly change. So, if you want the Gospel to be as alive to your children and grandchildren as it is for you, then you've got to constantly make change.
(Man 2 knocks on door, walks in and hangs up his coat)
[LS:] For example, when I was growing up, we did worship that was consecutive, sequential, linear. I find the worship I'm doing now is much more concurrent. Different things are going on at the same time. Worship for me now is much more simultaneous. But it's still worship.
(Man 2 exits)
[RM:] Today, you were talking about the disciples and how different they all were: Simon was a zealot and Matthew was a tax collector. They're supposed to be natural enemies ...
[LS:] Most people like to surround themselves with people who are like them, people who share common interests. But Jesus surrounded himself with people who were dissimilar to one another.
(Woman 3 walks in; Sweet takes a hanger off the rack)
[LS:] Let me hang that up for you ...
[Woman 3:] Thank you!
[LS:] The thing that tied the disciples all together was Christ himself. That's why I like to use the phrase "harmonious difference." That's why I don't like the concept of "balance."
(Woman 3 exits)
[LS:] The modern concept of balance is that life should be on these scales equally measured out. I will never be able to balance life; I don't want to. I want to live a harmonious life where things fit together. A harmonious life may be 10 percent here, 20 percent there and 70 percent there ...
That's what I really like about the kind of team Jesus had; there was difference, but there was also harmony. It wasn't a balance of different viewpoints; then you're getting into political correctness. But, it was a harmony of spirits, energies, voices and out of that difference comes beautiful music.
[RM:] Does it freak people out when you start talking like that?
[LS:] (laughter) I don't know. (pause) I don't know. I'm very conservative about some things. For example: For me, the Gospel is literally oxygen. There's a world out there that needs the breath of life, the Gospel. My job is to get out there to a world that's choking on pollution. But oxygen has to come in a tank! It has to be brought in a container.
So, the most important thing for me is to get oxygen out to these people who are panting, dying for the oxygen. I don't care how you get it to them. I don't care what container you use! We've got a lot of churches fighting over whether or not the oxygen's got to come in an iron lung! That's the mystery for me: Why is the church spending its time fighting over what kind of canisters you put the oxygen in? This is the only breath of life there is!
[RM:] I want to know about the "wussification" of the church, as you call it ...
[LS:] I'll give you one example of it: Street evangelism. You think about a typical street evangelist on a soapbox, with some kind of megaphone and he's handing out tracts. I mean, Wesley and some early Methodists in the late 18th, early 19th century invented street evangelism and they would attract these huge crowds; people were getting converted and there were these huge revivals! We do it today and it drives people away! It's not turning people to Christ, it's driving them away from Christ. Why? It's the wussification of the church, and the wussification of the church's mind and mission.
In the 1790's, a book was equivalent to one month's salary, so people didn't have books. And they didn't have literature in their homes. So pamphlets and tracts were the cutting edge hardware of the 18th century. Literally, a book is one month's salary, and you're on a street evangelism team giving out books and tracts and pamphlets. Well, hello! In the 1990's the computer was equivalent to one month's salary! And here we are still giving out tracts, which our ancestor's did, but if we were doing what they did, we'd be standing on street corners passing out Palm Pilots, PCs. You want to talk about crowds that would wait in line and listen to what we have to say?
Now, of course, that hardware would have to come with spiritual software. The early street evangelists just didn't have pamphlets, they had chapters from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, or Fox's Book of Martyrs, or Thomas A Kempis' Imitation of Christ. So you just don't pass out Palm Pilots, you put Bible software on them, if you're passing out PCs, you put the whole Scriptures in there! We're such wusses! We're still passing out tracts. I mean, in the men's room they put tracts on the urinals. And this is evangelism?! Who's gonna pick it up? It's the wussification of the church's mind and mission, and it's embarrassing. Let's do for our day what our ancestors did for their day — is that too much to ask?
[RM:] Yeah, there's also the idea in there that Jesus raised people from the dead and we're just barely hanging on.
[LS:] Oh, absolutely. We're fighting over the five points of Calvinism or something. But the big Achilles heel of the church is the practice of attractional Christianity, which is how you get people to come to church. It's all "come and see," it's not "go and be." The whole Great Commission is not about "come and see," it's "go and be." We're all trying to figure out how to bring more people into the church and it shouldn't be about coming to church. It should be about coming to Christ. And then when those people come to Christ, the church's job is to send them out.