If We Moneyball’d Church, Would We Still Sing Songs?

For those who saw the film adaptation of Michael Lewis’ brilliant book “Moneyball” this past year, you probably shared my reaction when you saw the old baseball scouts sitting around the table talking about how to find the next great ball player.

Superstitions and traditions based on the best technology available 40 years ago – their gut instinct.

And we smile and shake our heads realizing that our own industries we work for suffer from the same myopia, because they too were created before the dawn of the technological revolution. We write press releases the way we did 40 years ago. We teach children the same way we did 40 years ago.

And if Moneyball has taught us anything, it’s that, rather than tweaking, the only sensible thing to do is say,

“If were starting over from scratch today, what would we build?”

So, what about the church?

If it’s possible to forget about our recently created Americanized traditions, start over and say,

“If the role of the church is to create disciples, what should our weekly gatherings look like?”

And if you start from scratch, with no preconceived notions, do you really put music there?

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