#andy crouch

[learnislife]

[the-end-of-art]

Vicarious significance

Choose to go to places - the ocean, the mountains, or a broad, wide field - where you will feel small rather than grand. ... The next time you travel, decide not to be a tourist, who uses material wealth to purchase experiences of vicarious significance - being in places that make us feel grand and worth noticing. Instead, travel like a pilgrim, who travels to encounter people who have been sanctified by suffering.

Andy Crouch, Strong and Weak

[the-end-of-art]

"The posture of condemnation leaves us with nothing to offer even when we manage to persuade our neighbors that a particular cultural good should be discarded... If we are known mostly for our ability to poke holes in every human project, we will probably not be known as people who bear the hope and mercy of God." --from Culture Making by Andy Crouch

[beacomer]

Work vs Toil

There’s a point in the linked “Good Faith” podcast where Andy Crouch contrasts the godly balance of “work and rest” with our common human experience of “toil and leisure”. This came up as an explanation for why we strive to achieve our work without toil and escape from our toil with leisure which is not the same as rest. This is so prevalent, particularly in our American culture, that entertainment itself is big business.

I love this comparison, it reminds me of a discussion post series I did where I proposed that the virtues and vices of a topic are unclear simply because we are framing it with the wrong “coordinate system“. Just imagine how confusing timezones, weather, etc would be if latitude and longitude were rotated by 30 degrees in both directions. To get to the North Pole we’d no longer be able to simply go north. While we probably can’t imagine a coordinate system like this becoming popular, we live in a reality where more abstract concepts, such as the meaning of life, are being redefined by many things including technology and, specifically, AI. It would be helpful if we all used the same framework to determine what is the ultimate goal of our lives.

Andy went on to contrast rest and leisure; however, what about work and toil?

God explains to Adam that the work he was given to do would become toil after he and Eve disobeyed. This is the first mention of “toil” in the Bible. Clearly, God was describing a negative consequence to Adam’s actions. Wouldn’t this mean that most if not all of us have a warped understanding of what “work” was designed to be? Even for those in the world that seem to enjoy their vocation (perhaps athletes or creatives), even that is tainted by sin both internally and in the world we live in. Can we really imagine a world where a 12-16 hour work day followed by nightly rest 6 days a week and a day of rest didn’t sound like a drudgery, … like toil? Oddly enough, do we assume that anyone who comes close to this must be an unbalanced workaholic?

I’m not making a pitch for longer work days and weeks, but rather suggesting that the common desire to work less is actually a God given desire to toil less in disguise. I think we have some people find less “toil” in their work, even in jobs that don’t seem “fun”. These are those that wake up early, “work” all day, and really don’t need to spend hours every evening entertaining themselves before going to sleep and doing it again the next day. These people are pretty fulfilled in their work and who weekly “rest” from their work by engaging in their relationships.

Is it possible to approach our work in a way that is closer to the way God did? Daily, He was able to find pleasure in the work done that day. He did not toil because He had to to gain the means to have leisure. With no bills or responsibilities, God actually chose to work for 6 days creating the world. 🤯

[michaelbreznau]

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling - BOOK REVIEW

Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling – BOOK REVIEW

InREVIEW: Book Look By Michael J. Breznau | December 2021 Crouch, Andy. Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2008.   The evils of the culture are often decried from the pulpit and among conservative commentators. “Our culture is going down the drain,” more than one concerned parent has quipped. As a pastor, I admit the moniker “culture” has been the proverbial…

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[veritaslifecenter]

Andy Crouch on Spiritual Practices for Public Leadership amidst Social and Cultural 'Icebergs'

Writer Andy Crouch meditates on healthy leadership (of whatever type) in public life. Andy is partner for theology and culture at Praxis Labs.

He writes in a recent article for Comment magazine:

Being a public person—someone who is recognized by people who do not actually know us personally—can be a lot like being a cruise ship. We are rewarded for cultivating the parts of our lives that are visible: our talents, our opinions, our appearance. And while the most spectacular cruise ships on the public ocean may be the people we call celebrities, the unique reality of life in the age of social media is that we are almost all public now, publishing a version of our life to gain others’ attention and, we almost always hope, approval.

This kind of life carries with it grave threats to our health, and the safety of those around us. Without spiritual practices to guard against the unique temptations of public life, we will likely drift into narcissism and exploitation. Sooner or later we will hit an iceberg—and the testimony of maritime history is that when a cruise ship meets an iceberg, the iceberg wins.

Andy goes on to outline an examen of practices related to specific areas of life and thriving that are 'Private', 'Personal', and 'Public'.

What do your practices look like? How does Andy's outline help you envision practices that are befitting for your roles and responsibilities with others? Let us know what you have found to be faithful and true.

Image credit: Comment magazine.

[hpshelton]

How to recognize and use the gift that most eludes the church.

[W]hen we do talk about power, we often talk about it strictly as something negative—something dangerous to be avoided—rather than as a gift to be stewarded. [...]

If power is irredeemably negative, none of us would want to admit we have it—which means none of us will be accountable for the power we have. [...]

But if power is a gift, then we can be accountable for its proper use—to its Giver, and to one another.

[allenwhite]

The Dreaded Question – Where Did They Go?

The Dreaded Question – Where Did They Go?

Your members are not watching your online services. Well, at least not all of them are. According to a recent survey by the Barna Group, in the past four weeks, churchgoers have:

Streamed My Regular Church Online: 40%

Streamed a Different Church Online: 23%

Neither: 48%*

Where did they go?

A pastor friend of mine told me last week that he just discovered that two core, committed…

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