{"id":10968,"date":"2017-01-12T12:50:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T20:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10968"},"modified":"2017-01-12T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T20:50:43","slug":"the-social-animal-and-preaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-social-animal-and-preaching\/","title":{"rendered":"The Social Animal and Preaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the last two centuries, the world has become more and more rational.\u00a0 Emotions have given way to the scientific method.\u00a0 Reason is the king on the mountain of social development at least that has been the thinking since the enlightenment.\u00a0 David Brooks in his highly fascinating book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love Character and Achievement, <\/em>explains that the way in which humans are formed and relate to one another goes beyond reason.\u00a0 Human beings, the way they love, develop and grow are formed not by mere rational thinking, but the subconscious often plays a larger role than previously thought.\u00a0 Brooks in many ways echoes the great commandment to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.<\/p>\n

Brooks unfolds his work through the lives of a fictitious couple, Harold and Erica.\u00a0 Their lives serves as a backdrop for Brooks\u2019 research.\u00a0 The unconscious mind is the key to human understanding.\u00a0\u00a0 He states: “If the study of the conscious mind highlights the importance of reason and analysis, study of the \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 unconscious mind highlights the importance of passions and perception.\u00a0 If our outer mind \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 highlights the power of the individual, the inner mind highlights the power of relationships and \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the invisible bonds between people.\u00a0 If the outer mind hungers for status, money, and applause, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the inner mind hungers for harmony and connection \u2013 those moments when self-consciousness \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 fades away and a person is lost in a challenge, a cause, love of another or the love of God \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (Brooks, Introduction xi).”<\/p>\n

If Brooks is right, then we should pause as leaders and ministers to rethink much of what we do.\u00a0 Recently, I have been diving into the world of Leonard Sweet.\u00a0 I have been researching his work to understand how I can be a better communicator through what he calls semiotics.\u00a0 Sweet\u2019s approach is rather simple, we preachers must connect the message on many different levels so that people can experience God.\u00a0 In other words, we must preach in incarnational message. \u00a0Sweet alludes the fact that the mind and soul are great mystery, and so there must be greater effort at connectivity.<\/p>\n

Between Sweet and Brooks, I have begun to explore how I can connect to people on a greater level.\u00a0 Most of our modern preaching comes from the enlightened world.\u00a0 The methods that we have used are often times formulaic much like methods used in science.\u00a0 Our preaching is a carbon copy of a world based off of reason.\u00a0 We lay out point by point arguments with lofty words in attempt to reason with our fellow man. We often times appeal to the intellect. \u00a0However with Brooks\u2019 research, should there be more than just mere words and rational communication?\u00a0 If most of the mind is unconscious, then how do we penetrate that thinking?<\/p>\n

Human beings are quite complex.\u00a0 As Brooks tells us, \u201cThe inner realm is illuminated by science, but it is not a dry, mechanistic place.\u00a0 It is an emotional and enchanted place (Brooks, Introduction, xi).\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0There is a vast ocean in the human mind that we often never touch with our words from the pulpit.\u00a0 Perhaps we must fall to our knees and ask God for his wisdom to appeal to both the head and the heart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the last two centuries, the world has become more and more rational.\u00a0 Emotions have given way to the scientific method.\u00a0 Reason is the king on the mountain of social development at least that has been the thinking since the enlightenment.\u00a0 David Brooks in his highly fascinating book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-10968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brooks","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}