"We Believe in Our Widget"
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From a new profile on Joel Osteen:
He believes, resolutely, in the value of the product he is crafting in his office on those quiet mornings. “Very rarely will you find a company that produces a widget where everyone is mentally and spiritually into producing a better widget,” Osteen says. “There’s a purpose behind what we’re doing. We believe in our widget. We’re doing more than giving people a good time or a better toothbrush, because it’s hard to put in your heart and soul and sacrifice so much to make a better toothbrush.”HT: Tullian
posted by JT at Wednesday, July 23, 2008
19 Comments:
"his reminders that God wants you to have a good job, a beautiful home, and decent cash flow"
not that i flat out disagree or agree but rather im indifferent on this statement.
I guess the bigger question for myself is, if God killed his own son, what are his plans for me?
Now, wasn't that special.
Gag.
The first comment was so out of bounds. But suffice to say, plans are more like a Mapsco - follow the directions, do not take a detour and you'll get there safely. Don't... and you won't.
So let's pray you ask for directions.
As for Osteen's comment, that's where church is going these days. This liquidated, seeker-sensitive, unruffling of the feathers, cheese pablum does one thing - puts buts in seats.
Conviction equals folk leaving before the offering. Rubbing a cat's fur in the right direction all the time just means a lot of purring.
Then again, I would hate to get a hairball when I get to heaven, so I'll stick with some of that red letter writ.
Peace.
"The first comment was so out of bounds. But suffice to say, plans are more like a Mapsco - follow the directions, do not take a detour and you'll get there safely. Don't... and you won't. "
Please explain.
“We’re always looking for ways to get our message out there more efficiently; in that way, we’re no different from any other big brand, a Coke or a Starbucks,” Iloff says.
The Gospel is no different?
This is so far removed from the Apostle Paul, Peter, or Ignatius who said: " I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beast, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ."
“We sit and try to imagine what our program would look like with a Coca-Cola logo on the front. We’re just looking into it,” Comes says.
Jesus died so we can sell Coke? Is this what the American church has reduced the gospel to? Am I wrong, or is that blasphemy?
That sounds very demeaning to toothbrush makers.
Poor Joel. I'm chatting with a blogging liberal pastor at the moment who seems to have a similar idea when it comes to war and conflict: those are biblical passages that he "prefers not to meditate on".
So maybe if you come across sections of the bible you think might be negative or discouraging, just DELETE, DELETE!
I remember reading the following quote on Piper's blog. I forget to whom he attributed it.
"Your best life later."
Deron,
It's the title to a chapter in Francis Chan's book "Crazy Love"...which is really really worth checking out.
kmillard, your comment about God, his son and THOSE plans are of which I was referring.
If that was serious, you have more obstacles than agreeing with a story about Joel Osteen. And if that was humor, well... ok, I guess.
As for 'marketing the Gospel', it's not sacrilege so long as the focus is on the spreading of God's word for the lost, as opposed to the spreading of a pocketbook for the 'found.'
hiscrivener, i guess what I was thinking is that I know God has plans for me, for us, as beleivers. And that may be to prosper us, but perhaps in a way that is much deeper, much more satisfying than in a material sense. And as we die daily and are crucified with Christ, longing after material possessions or decent cash flow, may take a back seat.
Perhaps we would no longer be bound by those things, letting money have mastery over us.
The idea in the modern church is that money is a means to do Gods' will.
I'm not sure that is the answer.
He will have his will done with or without our dwindling in it. With or without the financial goals being met, furthermore if the money is not there to do what He has so called you to do, perhaps it wasn't his calling in the first place.
I digress.
Preaching the cross is not a popular subject.
We all want to take the road around it and find a successful (according to our definition) life on the other side.
To wrap it up, I'm not sure we know what is on the other side, as long as we are being lead by Him and not trying to pull him along as a means for us to fulfill our own carnal desires.
It may require our life in the end.
Our message is extreme, it is life or death.
It is not a can of Coke.
I pray that God would give us even just a hint of understanding of the awe and reverence in which we should think of Him and speak of Him.
That a perfectly holy, righteous, and wrathful God, and His incomprehensibly loving and merciful plan of redemption for His people, can be spoken of as a "widget" or product simply brings me to tears.
"Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul." Ps 66:16.
Matt Jacobs
Matthew,
Don't you see?
As long as I can keep God within my realm of understanding, or my reality, or in my hands, then He is no threat to me.
As long as I can hold Him at arms length, I wont have to worry about Him changing me on the inside and I can have my life as I want.
I can then make by plans b/c he is not getting in the way to stop me.
I carry him in my pocket and sell him to others.
Write about him and blog about him.
Anything to keep the cross from coming close.
Anything to remain in bondage.
Manna again?
Reminded of something I heard on Issues, etc. a year ago or so. Wilking was talking about how Osteen's book "your best life now" was selling like gangbusters around easter time. He said, "it's interesting that during Holy Week while He was having His 'worst life then' the no. 1 selling book in America is "YBLN". Hilarious.
The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross; before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully staged histrionics–but upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear.
I well know how many smooth arguments can be marshalled in support of the new cross. Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers and so carry the advantage of numerical success? Should we not adjust ourselves to the changing times? Have we not heard the slogan, “New days, new ways”? And who but someone very old and very conservative would insist upon death as the appointed way to life? And who today is interested in a gloomy mysticism that would sentence its flesh to a cross and recommend self-effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced by modern Christians? These are the arguments, along with many more flippant still, which are brought forward to give an appearance of wisdom to the hollow and meaningless cross of popular Christianity. The Pursuit of Man, 53,54. a.w. tozer
great Tozer quote kmillard. It's great to see this new cross mentality refuted in such lucid and convincing language. I love the way this blog attracts intelligent comments. But Between Two Worlds is sadly not where most of the people who need to hear this are gathering... You smart guys should take this unfashionable message abroad.
Just thought I would throw that in there in case anyone needs a nudging word further to any promptings from the Lord they might have been having in the direction of the lost and those happily wandering along wayside paths...
Beat Attitude, I like that but I like your site more!
I will be in Europe next month, however I'm not sure where Scotland is without looking at a map (I am a true American), perhaps we can meet up though???
Hi K. Sure drop in and visit the home of your ancestors :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4jtNmlCB1o
We're a country of 5 million people who are almost as fat and as likely to die of heart disease as Americans, so we have a lot in common. We don't have guns, but we make up for that by stabbing lots of people.
It's also a very pretty place and worth a visit to Glasgow (where the cool people hang out) Edinburgh (the capital, with the castle on the hill), and if you're staying a week, you can see the awesome hills, lochs and shortbread shops that make up the highlands. Bag a few delicious haggis on the slopes (they have one leg longer than the other for standing on the mountains, so to catch them, you chase them onto flat land where they end up running in circles)
Yes, we're in Europe. Stuck on to the north of England, we're part of the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland).
The border is patrolled by claymore-weilding red-haired, kilt-adorned picts with a hungry gleam in their eye. But if you felt like dropping in I'm 10 minutes in a taxi from Glasgow airport, and I can 99% guarantee no-one will stab you on your way over. Would happily take you out for a McDonalds (do you have those over there?)
An interesting fact about Glasgow airport was that there was a terrorist attack there about a year back. Two guys tried to drive a jeep full of gas canisters into the terminal building, but got caught on a bollard or something. The attack was hampered by the fact that they had already doused themselves in petrol and lit up. They received a royal kicking from the locals who subdued them before they were finally extinguished. In the words of assailant John "Smeato" Smeaton... "if you try any of that in Scotland, we'll set aboot ye".
Scotland welcomes you.
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