Does Jesus Call Us To Conform?
I recently listened to a podcast called Revisionist History by Malcolm Gladwell. (All of them are well worth listening to for anyone interested in learning about significant historical events from a different perspective.) This particular episode described Wilt Chamberlain and was entitled “The Big Man Can’t Shoot.” It was all about his incredible career but also his unwillingness to permanently change his free throw technique to the much more successful underhanded shot or “granny shot.” In the greatest game ever played where he scored 100 points, he shot 28 out of 30 free throws using the granny shot. He used that technique for about half a season under the tutelage of the master of the underhanded free throw, Rick Barry. Chamberlain eventually gave up on it because he thought it looked silly. He later admits in his own autobiography that had he been willing to change he probably would have had a lifetime scoring average around 50 points per game. The social pressure to conform was greater than his knowledge that change would make him more successful.
The sociological term for this is the “Threshold Model of Collective Behavior.” The idea being that most people will be unwilling to change unless a certain threshold is reached where they feel as though they will not stand out or be taking a greater risk than those around them. Therefore, the lower your threshold, the less you are concerned about what others are doing or thinking (i.e. Rick Barry) but the higher your threshold, the more those things matter to you despite substantial evidence showing that change will bring great benefit (i.e. Wilt Chamberlain).
What does this have to do with missions? Believe it or not the anxiety caused by “standing out” impacts many aspects of our lives. It influences the ways we spend our financial resources, the vehicles we choose to drive, the areas we select to live, the use of our free time…the impacts are endless. Because we are so concerned about what others will think of us our focus is largely on ourselves, ensuring that we conform to the unspoken norms of our surrounding culture.
Yet, Jesus calls us to live into a different perspective, one that encourages non-conformity to the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2), one that is not consumed with worry for our day-to-day existence (Matthew 6:25), freed up to discern God’s will for our existence devoid of the social constraints. Imagine the influence our lives could have being fully devoted to the life God calls us to lead. Our energy, time, and resources given fully to the purposes of God would be transformational both in the change it creates in us as well as its impact on all those to whom we minister. Missions then would no longer be something we do or contribute to when the mood strikes but would be something that defines who we are.
As we prepare for the mission auction coming up in April, may we consider how our willingness to commit to a lifetime of granny shots could open doors for our own spiritual renewal and transform the lives of those being served by our mission partners around the world.
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Dan Kreiss, RPC’s new Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach, brings with him a heart for service and a diverse array of experiences in the mission field. Be sure to subscribe to the Mission Outreach Blog to read and follow along as he documents his personal journey and shares his vision for RPC’s mission outreach commitment. Along with providing meaningful resources, this blog will help jumpstart the important conversations our church community must be having about missional living.
Dan Kreiss
Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss is the Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach at RPC. Dan is particularly passionate about encouraging the church to reflect the diversity found in its surrounding community in regard to age, gender, ethnicity, education and economic status.