The Presence-Driven Church Doesn't "Brainstorm"

Garage scene from "A Beautiful Mind"

I've been at and even led church leadership meetings and retreats where we got together and "brainstormed." We stormed the gates of hell with our brains. We assaulted the darkness using our collective cognitive abilities. We layered the walls with ideas on paper, looking like John Nash's garage in "A Beautiful Mind."

I don't do this any more.

Not in our church.

The Presence-Driven Church is not a "brainstorming church." It is a Discerning Community.

Imagine the Apostle Paul at a brainstorming meeting. The ideas are pouring forth. But Paul doesn't participate. Someone asks, "Why not?" Paul responds, "Why, since we have the mind of Christ?" (See here.)

The human brain is the craziest, most beautiful, impressive thing in the entire universe as we know it. The human mind is, no doubt, awesome. But the mind of Christ is more impressive. God doesn't even need a brain to have a mind. (Note: there are actually people walking the earth who believe that consciousness somehow "emerged" from non-conscious physical matter, thus affirming the idea that from nothing you can get something.)

God has ideas, correct? Our task is not to come up with ideas, but to discern the mind of Christ, and his already-existing ideas.

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I am currently writing Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

My recent book is Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.