Mad Men in the Church
Image by Finnur Malmquist
My wife and I have just discovered the AMC original television series Mad Men. We’ve heard of the series over the last year or two, but have just finished watching the first season via DirecTV On Demand. It’s really an intriguing show to watch.
The series is about a 1960s ad agency and it’s employees, and provides an interesting glimpse into a world of the not-so-distant past. Not withstanding the fact that it is a television show, it’s incredible to me to watch what life was like, at least in part, just 50 years ago.
In a landscape that would be littered with “HR Flags” today, the perceptions of alcohol and tobacco use, chauvinistic behavior, marriage, work-life, and more, paint an extremely contrasting picture to what the world is like today. Part of me is left amazed (and thankful) at how life has changed. Another part of me is cognoscente of the fact that there are many who, while living in the present day and age, still follow the same perceptions and behaviors that they did fifty years ago.
It got me thinking… what it might look like to produce a show, like Mad Men, that explored the social fabric of what the church looked like fifty years ago? How many things would I shake my head at, thankful that the landscape has changed? How many other things would I stand aware that little, if anything, has changed?
This isn’t a debate on church practices - it’s more of a recognition on how the church thinks and behaves based on those thought patterns and how resistant we can be to change.
What do you think? What 1960s thought patterns do you see still hanging on in the present expression of church?
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Chris shared their voice on 07.22.2009:
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Jonathan shared their voice on 07.21.2009:
Gonna borrow one from Andy Stanley - the idea that the point speaker has to be the point leader. I’ve seen too many churches where the senior pastor is the head of everything, or has his hand in everything. From music to youth to kids to seniors to even the womens’ ministry! A friend of mine who is pastoring a church plant has a saying he loves to use when people ask why they started with just an adult service and Kidstuf: “We’d rather be excellent in a couple of things than mediocre in many.”
I believe that quote should be applied to pastors as well; instead of having your hand in everything by being the point leader and point speaker, thereby becoming mediocre in everything, focus on what God has called you to and become the very best at it. Craig Groeschel once said that if someone can do something 80% as well as he can do it, he lets them take it over so he can continue to focus on teaching and preaching and not stretch himself thin by worrying over everything else.