Yesterday I was at the Hillsdale County Fair with some friends. At 2pm, there was a "religious service" at the band shelter. I left after a few minutes but I still has the privilege of hearing some of the most stereotypically reverent hymn-singing I've ever witnessed.
Christians need to rethink their strategy. If we think singing our hymns and praise choruses in front of the "worldly people" is going to give them any kind of good impression about our God, we're mislead.
Paul talked about what we do being "foolishness" to the those outside our community. Why are we assuming that seeing a church service will be like seeing God?
If the 150 people at the religious service spent that hour talking to people, numerous relationships could have been formed and we would be one step closer to understanding each other.
I have a new passion for blogging. I need to be writing and combining that passion with my photography. I need to be sharing ideas and expressing myself. But these aren't really the reasons I'm all fired up about blogging again.
The real inspiration came during a long conversation with my good friend, Pardeep Toor. I was feeling incredibly down about photography, writing and journalism in general. Pardeep wanted me to continue on with my creative endeavors but I had just shot another wedding in an evangelical box with barely any aesthetic quality and had to fight through numerous camera-wielding relatives to get my shots. I wasn't feeling it.
We talked for awhile and I felt something building. I realized what it was when we watched a TED talk by James Nachtwey. The line that caught me was, "There is a vital story that needs to be told..."
Here is a man who has spent his life showing the western world the horrors and atrocities of war and he's still passionate about telling the story. That's what I'm passionate about. Telling stories. Visually, verbally and effectively. I want to stand between those who know and those who need to know. I want to portray the stories that don't get told.
I want to spend a night at a frat house and photograph the insane drunkenness. I want to spend a day with a family from a completely different culture and show their struggles and joys. I want to write about the 17 year old boy down the road who is the eighth generation to farm his family's land. I want to show what it's like to be dying in a hospital.
Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm Theory explains life a whole lot better than rationally ever did, and I've changed the name of the blog to pay him homage. What I want to explore in the coming months is the different stories all around us and what we can learn from them.
I hope you enjoy the journey.
