Today I went to the Canopy blog and saw that there were a large number of comments on the video posts that I asked Eric to post on the blog. I was stunned to read that many of them were quite serious comments and that a good number of people were offended by the videos.
(If you have not seen them, visit the Canopy blog at http://canopyca.blogspot.com/)
It got me thinking about a lot of things; (such as why people took the videos as seriously as they did!) Among them, why we have such a need for controversy in our world.
The vast majority of the blog entries on the Canopy site don't receive any comments at all, and frankly, I think a lot of them warrant some serious discussion and comment. Yet the reality is that it's the controversial posts or blogs that get attention. A good number of people also told me that they thought the posting should not be taken down, because it generated a lot of healthy discussion. If that's the case, then perhaps the goal should be to have as many controversial postings as possible.
I'm known as a pretty serious guy who's perhaps overly intense at times, so I found it quite ironic that I am the one who's thinking that people need to 'chill out' and that I'm saying 'hey, it's just a video!'.
I'm all for people having great debates and discussions.... (hey, maybe one day I'll have such a thing on this blog!) but I don't want to offend people or hurt them or make them mad.
Do we need to sometimes 'risk' offending some people in order to get them talking and thinking?
What makes people respond and take the time to write their thoughts down? Does it require controversy?
Maybe it's not enough to post deep thoughts and eloquent ideas.... maybe you have to stir it up a bit.
(I've certainly been known to stir the pot on occasion... right Eric?)
who knows, perhaps I'll get a couple of comments out of this post!
:)
June 4 - Psalm 16
10 years ago
1 comment:
Controversy... maybe the one thing that slows a church the most. There's an interesting occurance that I'm noticing a lot across the city, and maybe even across our country. Many churches that were born out of and to create controversy have "tamed down" recently. There's a seeming need to be relevant, or cozy or something. We've got to be careful not to hurt anyone's feelings, right?
But, what seems to be happening, doesn't really seem to be what people want - at least not from the response you're talking about, right? I dunno... I think a lot of times we (the church-going folk) are like a boat tossed in the wind - one minute we're tired of the mundane and want things shaken up; but, as soon as the boat rocks a little too much to be comfortable, we're all up in arms... Where's this Guy who can command the wind, anyway?
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