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One of my favorite books is “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell has an idea. His idea is that “the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do."
So he goes on to share about the critical transition between random events and movements of epidemic proportion. The most important principle of the book is that this transition can be boiled down to one dramatic moment, the Tipping Point. The majority of the book explores various waves of thought and behavior, then traces each development to the defining minute it “tipped.”
Another important feature is contagiousness – that is, something that catches on. He jokes with a trite metaphor: “Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the word ‘yawning’ in the previous sentence – and the two additional ‘yawns’ in this sentence – a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I’m writing this, I’ve yawned twice. (Me, too) If you’re reading this in a public place, and you’ve just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever-widening, yawning circle. (Intro, 10)”
As a Christian – and one who believes in the power of the Holy Spirit to be at work in my life and in the life of each person I meet – I believe there are critical moments for expressing Christ’s Kingdom. I believe this Kingdom is dramatic and contagious for a hungry world. Do I, by my intention and behavior, offer sway toward this Kingdom? Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Notice how we are not led to pray, Thy kingdom come and whisk me away from this God-forsaken place.
Our mission – or, co-mission, one might say – is to spread the Good News. This is the Jesus story. To echo St. Francis of Assissi, we are to preach the Gospel at all times…if necessary, using words. You see, we are all adding support to something or any number of things, just as a sympathetic droplet of water contributes to a powerful, crushing wave (Dallas Willard).
I want my activity to agree with the activity of the Holy Spirit. Christ longs for our activity to agree with His Holy Spirit, hence agreeing with one another. Let’s tip things the Jesus way. Let’s add energy to the things of God. Let’s tip the world toward Christ.
Pastor Chet
