December 28, 2011
Balancing Act
In subfreezing weather I took Charlie the dog for a walk and I used
considerable caution because the sidewalks were snow packed and ice crusted.
When I heard someone approaching quickly from behind I stopped and pulled
Charlie off to the side so they could go around us. Breezing past me was a man
on a unicycle with a dog leash in each hand tethered to two medium sized dogs. The
acrobat had to wait for a few seconds at the crosswalk for cars to pass, all
the while peddling backwards and forwards to keep his balance. There was
absolutely nothing about this picture that made any sense to me…until I applied
it to our work in the church. At one time or another we’ve all tried to juggle
multiple ministries - sometimes we’re successful, sometimes we’re not.
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Gail;
-----I have been chasing words to catch a term for a concept that’s become important in my recent ponderings. I kind of liked the term “data point”. But it lacked a certain finality I think the useful term will need. Let me give you an example of the concept; maybe you know the term I’m looking for. In discovering an object, we learn the following information: It has two axles and four wheels. These two bits of information can certainly be called “data points”, because they differentiate this object from most other ones. It is not a horse. It isn’t any kind of fish. I can’t think of any living thing, plant or animal, which has two axles and four wheels. It doesn’t sound like a brick, or a bucket, or a stove, either. Two axles and four wheels are good information, data points for sure, but the main strut on many large airplanes has two axles and four wheels. So does the truck on either end of a train car. Cars, too, have two axles and four wheels, well, the old ones did anyway. And so do little kid’s wagons and Conestoga wagons. The point of data which would place this object into a category very nearly by itself is the point of data for which I’m chasing this special term. Let’s say that point of data might be the fact that the two axles cross each other perpendicularly at their centers. Now scratch everything we guessed it to be, because none of those have axles crossing at their centers. I can think of three objects fitting the data points including this final, very restrictive piece of information: spider gears in a car or truck differential, the centerpiece of a drive-shaft's u-joint, and an ancient flour mill. But that bit of information only almost identifies our object. It is still just another data point. In relation to these three pieces of information one of many facts might be introduced which would determine exactly what our object is. That is the bit of information for which I want a term. That is the bit of information I might call the identity point. For our illustration it definitely would be the wheel's being made of stone. No spider gears or u-joint centerpieces have stone wheels. But ancient flour mills do! The stoniness of the wheels is the identity point of our set of data points.
-----We might think the dog walker by which you were overtaken was a kook. Riding a unicycle on slick sidewalks! Of all things! But the combined facts that he was moving along, and his moving along was at a dog’s pace, and he was holding onto leashes could have described a child dragging a couple yoyo’s by their strings. But you gave a couple specific data points and one identity point - peddling, one wheel, and leashed dogs - which identified this person as a dog walker in general by the identity point, and one on a unicycle in particular by the data points.
-----The Bible also uses many identity points. What is important for the church is the one concerning who leads a particular person. If that is Jesus Christ, then the person is positively identified as part of the church. I find many identity points we try to use to be missing from His Word. Baptist. Pentecostal. Lutheran. Presbyterian. Etc. X about a thousand. What some denominations do may look dog gone strange to other ones. But so did the dog walker look to you even though he shared the same identity point of leashed dogs with you. What is important for us to use as identity points in discerning our brothers and sisters are those given only in the Word: naming the Name, growing good fruit, love for the brethren, etc.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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