Crowd Control Starts with You

Last updated on: January 15, 2011 at 5:21 pm by David Hayward

Crowd Control Starts with You 2011-01-15T17:21:31-04:00 David Hayward

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I read this today on a Linkedin feed and I nearly spewed my coffee:

Church goals must be continually repeated and reinforced. Once isn’t enough. People forget. To outperform you must overinform.

I have questions:

Who ever said the church needs “goals“? Seriously!? The church has adopted business language and has swallowed it hook line and sinker. The fisherman’s intentions are not good.
Is “must” high on your list of personal motivators?
When your church uses words like “repeat“, does the word “brainwash” ever come to mind, if you have one?
Are your own inclinations so wayward and wrong that you continually have to hear an opposing message repeated over and over again to get you back on the church’s track? Maybe you are like a beagle who can’t help but perpetually run after new scents and must be leashed, caged or kennelled.
If your church says that they are going to “reinforce” an idea over and over again, repetitiously, does this not conjure up images of the Nazi youth, another very visionary religious movement?
If your church has to tell you something over and over again because “once isn’t enough” because “you will forget“, do you hear it implicitly saying, “Because you’re stupid“?
Why will you “forget“? Have you ever in your life forgotten something that is centrally important to you?
If you are a part of a church who’s agenda is to “outperform“, who are you competing against? Other churches? Shame on you! Yourself? If it is yourself that you are outperforming, what’s wrong with yourself right now that it needs to be outperformed? Who are you giving permission to continually tell you that you need to outperform yourself? Do you hate yourself that much?
Doesn’t the bible have something to say about our obsession with competition and performance?
If any organization tells you upon joining that you will be overinformed, will you still sign up? Are you going to willingly subject yourself to overinformation, endless repetition, perpetual reinforcement and the constant call to outperform? Are you willingly going to subject yourself to the constant reminder that you’re forgetful?

Yes, I have intentionally neglected the purpose of the church goals. Why? Because no matter how noble the goals, the means to achieving them are inhumane. Or maybe you believe the end does justify the means?

This is the kind of visionary thinking I abhor.

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