Imitation is Suicide
I just read the latest issue of Outreach magazine and the feature was an interview with Erwin McManus, pastor of Mosaic in LA. He said something that was so profound. Really made me think. "I think a lot of pastors have a dream that matches the life of the pastor who is the living the dream they want." Man, that stopped me in my tracks.
I think there is a such a temptation to copy when it comes to ministry. I wrestle with it as much as anyone else. I think we need models. I've got my fair share, including Erwin McManus. But I remember reading something Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance: "There is a time in every man's education that he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide. He must take himself for better or for worse."
I think there are two simple principles that ought to guide us:
1) Keep Learning.
2) Be Yourself.
At some point, most of us stop learning and start copying. It's so much easier. We stop living out of right-brain imagination and start living out of left-brain memory. And that is when we stop creating the future and start repeating the past.
Just a simple reminder. There never has been and never will be anyone like you. And that isn't a testament to you. It's a testament to the God who created you.
I think there is a such a temptation to copy when it comes to ministry. I wrestle with it as much as anyone else. I think we need models. I've got my fair share, including Erwin McManus. But I remember reading something Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance: "There is a time in every man's education that he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide. He must take himself for better or for worse."
I think there are two simple principles that ought to guide us:
1) Keep Learning.
2) Be Yourself.
At some point, most of us stop learning and start copying. It's so much easier. We stop living out of right-brain imagination and start living out of left-brain memory. And that is when we stop creating the future and start repeating the past.
Just a simple reminder. There never has been and never will be anyone like you. And that isn't a testament to you. It's a testament to the God who created you.
18 Comments:
It's funny I just got off of the phone this morning with the guys from lifechurch.tv and they have a great thing going, but I just know it won't work for me because I'm always trying out new Idea's and can't be tied down to one way of doing things.
I also have several people who's models I follow, You Included, but to just out right copy something seems to not be authentic to who I am and to who my City is.
Being from Washington, Dc and having lived all over the US what works in DC or in Cali would not work here in MI. It's just to different a group of people.
And now that my response is almost as long as the original post I'll jump down off of my soapbox.
Peace and Pecans
Thom McGuire
This is an awesome reminder to us all. I need this truth spoken into my life as a challenge, as well as an encouragement to be who God created me to be, and he will work out the details.
Thanks for continually speaking truths like this one into our lives.
Amen!
Hey Mark,
I just wanted to say thanks for the copy of Wild Goose Chase I got in the mail today...I'll see you at Catalyst.
Keep up the good work.
While it's been said that, "creativity is merely selective copying," the heart of the article and your comments are so very, very true.
The anti-missional, irresponsible, lazy behavior of leaders attempting to copy or franchise a ministry rather than do the hard work of contextualization and intercession is one of the compounding symptomatologies of a church in continued decline and further evidence of a consumer driven appeal to a narrowing christianized audience's discretional spending.
To refuse the people to which one ministers hard work of missiology is to refuse them access to the gospel.
Gratefully we are given a "model" in scripture of the gospel proclaimed "in context" to the Jews in Jerusalem as the Messiah, to the Greeks as Lord and to the Romans as the Father who adopts. Thank God they didn't just order a DVD from the church in Jerusalem...
Thank you for blogging about this important topic.
Tom Clegg
Great post.
BTW, this is totally "off topic" - but, just saw the full page ad for "Wild Goose Chase" in Christianity Today! :)
Good reminder! That is the great temptation...instead of truly being who God made me to be and letting God use who he created, I'm tempted to try and be you (or Hybels, Warren, McManus). Thanks Mark.
mark
Kelly,
Nice. I didn't even know there was an ad in Christianity Today :) Thanks for the heads up. Fun to see it show up in a variety of places!
Mark
Right on Mark. I've talk about this a ensuring that a ministry is part of the genetics of a church instead of the generics. It is one thing to feel the call of the God to launch a ministry that someone other church has and do it to the DNA of that church vs. trying to carbon copy what a church sees someone else doing.
God Bless,
dl
Great blog today! You've hit the nail on the head.
Have been enjoying your blog for over a year now. Thanks so much for letting us interlope on your life.
Blessings,
Mike Johnson
I have only recently discovered Chase the Lion and am leading it at my church for the 20 somethings! I look forward to reading Wild Goose Chase as well. My comment about the imitation blog is that I am a bit perplexed. Just yesterday (or earlier today) you talked about posting transcripts. I realize you want other pastors to have tools but isn't it in a way enabling them to be imitators? In no way do I believe that you shouldn't post them and it is up to the individual to not imitate. But the question came to mind so I felt compelled to share the thought.
Livin212,
I'm assuming people won't preach them word for word :) I listen to podcasts and read books like crazy. Intellectual fuel. But I'm hoping it makes people's synapses fire in new ways. Not simply imitate what I'm doing or thinking.
Hope that helps,
Mark
Thank you for this blog! It is really such a simple thought, but profound and life changing when lived out! Thank you so much for reminding us all of this simple little lesson!
So true. Thanks for this Mark!
Thanks Mark,
I am just starting down my own road toward my ministry and I look a lot to My local pastors as well as you, Erwin, Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, and Francis Chan on a more national level. I see a lot of things I want to incorporate, and I think what we all have to realize is that God puts us where we can be of maximum benefit to Him and that what works here (small town Indiana) might not work in D.C. What all of those listed above have taught me is to take risks and as Noble says a lot, do everything short of sinning to bring the lost to Christ.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Ken
WOW!!
Great post...a worthwhile discussion especially among younger pastors.
Although imitation has probably always been around in ministry, I believe it's much more common with the intro of the web.
Something I have been pondering...What would our churches/ministries look like if those leading them didn't have access to the internet?
Food for thought...
Jamie Prip
New Prague, MN.
Mark,
I friended you on Facebook. I think you know Scott Weatherford here in Tallahassee with Fellowship of the Hills, previously of TX. He recommended your books to me. I have not read them yet...I will get there.
But I saw this quote, took it from you and have been chewing on if for some time. Just today I wrote what it meant to me, please take a look and let me know what you think. You inspired me, thank you!
Here it is. "I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals." I look forward to reading your blogs and growing with you Spiritually. I love the Emerson quote, imitation is suicide, I haven't heard it before. I agree :-)
You can see my blog:
http://danamj79.blogspot.com/
If you're on Myspace you can add me, http://www.myspace.com/danamj79
I lived in DC for eight years, I'm sorry I never made it to your church. I think following the An Geadh-Glas is an amazing ride! I've been doing it for a few years now, well, probably my whole life. Thank you for writing about. Here's to our continued adventures!
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