Living Bridges - Me to We
Hmmm, thought I had talked about this whole me to we stuff before... I know I've preached about it...twice, even... but my blog-search-fu fails me...
So, our society has caught on to this idea of living bridges. The idea that it's not institutions that connect us, but it's in real, live, face to face ways that we are truly connected. Those are living bridges. I'm told (meh, you can do the research I suppose, you've probably read the books too) that the, say, under 35 generations are more and more committed to what we in the church would call mission - what society at large would call "social justice" - and what I think is more aptly called Living Bridges - than nearly any generation previous. People want to live FOR something - to have purpose and meaning - people want to connect - not just virtually (though that is HUGE important - as this commercial* mocks...but has a point nonetheless). Connecting matters.
Creating Living Bridges - making real, honest connections with people through some kind of service really matters - people take that very seriously. There was a book a few years ago called Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World ** that's all about the idea of getting a mindset of moving from me to we - but are you ready for this? To become a more fully realized me... Um... I think that misses the point a little bit...
But I digress. Whatever the motivation (and culturally, it seems, the motivation seems to be: to feel better about myself, to make my mark on the world, to change the world for the better, to be a better me - none of that is inherently bad...) over the past dozen or so years there has been a tremendous shift toward building these Living Bridges.
And I see it as a good thing (I'll talk more about seeing it as a God thing later this week). I look at something like the One Campaign, or the Red Campaign or something like Nothing But Nets or Hunger Strike or a thousand other ways people can make easy connections as one way to start to build Living Bridges. I know my girls pray for the girl we sponsor through Hunger Strike and write letters and want to know more about what Indonesia is like...
But there's also the Living Bridges we build all around us. I caught this on Facebook a week or so ago - someone I graduated with posted this and I happened to see it as it whizzed by that day... (Click on it to read the whole thing)
That's a Living Bridge. I don't know this girl's faith *** but I know she and her husband are building a Living Bridge in her neighborhood.
How about you? Building any Living Bridges?
* If it's still there - it keeps getting pulled by YouTube for copyright violation or somesuch nonsense - honestly, it's a COMMERCIAL - people are posting it FOR FREE - it's called FREE ADVERTISING. Sheesh... C'mon people...
** It's a popular title... Here's another Me to We for pastors, here's a Me to We that is an anti-Self-Help book. Here's a Me to We that is about moving on. And there's more similar titles, you can find them at Amazon: Choosing ME before WE; The We That Is Me; Me, We and Glee...and on and on...it's a virtual (no pun intended...well, maybe a little pun) circus...
*** Yeah, she's probably 43 too. But I graduated with her, so anybody I graduated with will always be a girl. Unless they're a guy...um... yeah... (Relativity)
So, our society has caught on to this idea of living bridges. The idea that it's not institutions that connect us, but it's in real, live, face to face ways that we are truly connected. Those are living bridges. I'm told (meh, you can do the research I suppose, you've probably read the books too) that the, say, under 35 generations are more and more committed to what we in the church would call mission - what society at large would call "social justice" - and what I think is more aptly called Living Bridges - than nearly any generation previous. People want to live FOR something - to have purpose and meaning - people want to connect - not just virtually (though that is HUGE important - as this commercial* mocks...but has a point nonetheless). Connecting matters.
Creating Living Bridges - making real, honest connections with people through some kind of service really matters - people take that very seriously. There was a book a few years ago called Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World ** that's all about the idea of getting a mindset of moving from me to we - but are you ready for this? To become a more fully realized me... Um... I think that misses the point a little bit...
But I digress. Whatever the motivation (and culturally, it seems, the motivation seems to be: to feel better about myself, to make my mark on the world, to change the world for the better, to be a better me - none of that is inherently bad...) over the past dozen or so years there has been a tremendous shift toward building these Living Bridges.
And I see it as a good thing (I'll talk more about seeing it as a God thing later this week). I look at something like the One Campaign, or the Red Campaign or something like Nothing But Nets or Hunger Strike or a thousand other ways people can make easy connections as one way to start to build Living Bridges. I know my girls pray for the girl we sponsor through Hunger Strike and write letters and want to know more about what Indonesia is like...
But there's also the Living Bridges we build all around us. I caught this on Facebook a week or so ago - someone I graduated with posted this and I happened to see it as it whizzed by that day... (Click on it to read the whole thing)
That's a Living Bridge. I don't know this girl's faith *** but I know she and her husband are building a Living Bridge in her neighborhood.
How about you? Building any Living Bridges?
* If it's still there - it keeps getting pulled by YouTube for copyright violation or somesuch nonsense - honestly, it's a COMMERCIAL - people are posting it FOR FREE - it's called FREE ADVERTISING. Sheesh... C'mon people...
** It's a popular title... Here's another Me to We for pastors, here's a Me to We that is an anti-Self-Help book. Here's a Me to We that is about moving on. And there's more similar titles, you can find them at Amazon: Choosing ME before WE; The We That Is Me; Me, We and Glee...and on and on...it's a virtual (no pun intended...well, maybe a little pun) circus...
*** Yeah, she's probably 43 too. But I graduated with her, so anybody I graduated with will always be a girl. Unless they're a guy...um... yeah... (Relativity)
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