Brian Slezak

See this post by Tony Steward, and the accompanying TED video. That has essentially been my argument for building services that fit a younger demographic better. Churches are horrible at this though because:

• They are staffed and driven by people that can only reach their own demographic really well
• New services means more time commitments, more staff causing more expenses, or stretching thin of existing staff
• Sometimes new ‘hip’ services are seen as threats which must be contained or jettisoned
• Leaders are overly concerned with breaking from traditions that seem to ‘weaken’ or ‘water down’ the spirituality of the service in their eyes

In Howard’s terms, they are building plutonic services. “This is the best way this church can do worship services.” That could be completely true. Then again, the church as a whole in the US dies massive deaths every day. If your church is declining, hey – thanks for doing your part.

Thankfully, the body of Christ is compromised of lots of church flavors and the new flavors are more and more readily available. I wish more young Christians had a calling to ministry. I am begining to settle into the belief that energy is better spent lifting up new young pastors, or new effective pastors of any age, than trying to turn around a declining church.

Yeah, well, apparently so. Or at the very least they support ad revenue that promotes atheism. Nice eh?

I have regular occurences of lucid (concious) dreams every month or two, but lately they have been happening more often, very possibly due to my lack of sleep having a newborn in the house. Referring to the wikipedia link above, I most often have dream initiated lucid dreams (DILD), but am able to force mnemonic initiated lucid dreams (MILD) as well. My lucid dreams are typically pretty brief, and I am sometimes able to manipulate the environment. Last night I had the longest lucid dream that I’ve ever experienced. Typically when I shift into the lucid moment I know I don’t have much time until I wake up so I try to manipulate the dreamscape for fun. This usually results in the lucid moment degrading rapidly. Last night’s was actually of the MILD variety, because I realized my lucid dreams are occurring more frequently, and I decided that the next time it happens I’m not going to fight it but roll with it.

Dude! That was the first time I was able to successfully stay with the lucid dream and make it last. (Here is where you can start psychoanalyzing me.) I was the current age I am now, at what I remember being my middle school helping out. I was helping set up lunch tables and stuff. There were also other random things going on like a retail store where me and a friend from my past were buying gifts for his daughter. I had multiple timelines in my life happening at the same time, because I was at my current age but my friend and his daughter were both younger than they are now. I remember being looking around and being able to focus within the dream just like you can focus your eyes when you’re awake. I remember this person needed to run downstairs to get something and was going to be right back. I stood in the bustling hallway leaning my shoulder against the wall with a tilt of my body and just watched everything, marveling at how very real everything felt, but at the same time my sense of touch and physicality was dulled.

I remember a great deal of the dream, and I remember letting the lucidity of the moment go. It was all pretty cool, and I think I may try to gain more control over things next time since I seem to be having these more often.