Jims ThirdSpace

Are we becoming more stoopid?

It seems every week we’re each confronted with someone as we do life, that makes us wonder, are we becoming more stoopid?

It can be as simple as a check out person at a store that doesn’t understand why you’re giving them three pennies, along with $3.50 when you owe them $3.48 until after they key the money into their cash register and it tells them how much change to give you. You better hope they don’t mis-key the money you give them, because if they do, you’re in trouble. Or having to ask directions over the phone to a business, and all the directions are given by turning at fast food locations.

A professor of education at University of Illinois at Chicago, Gerald Graff says, “The more accessible knowledge becomes, the more things there are to be ignorant about. Knowledge has increased, but the human capacity for knowledge hasn’t increased that much.” OK, I get it. There is so much info-stuff out there, we can’t hold it all in our cache, so we have to page over to our hard drive to retrieve the info.

Another famous educator, Professor Gump says, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

I’m not alone thinking we’re getting more stoopid. A recent article in The Atlantic, talks about the dumbing down of Americans. Stopping people on the street and asking simple questions are clips we love to watch from late night talk shows, and there are all those wonderful contests, Miss America, Miss USA (they are not beauty contests, but select the best female representative of America based on many parameters). I think we’re in trouble.

Take a couple of minutes and look at this test in Newsweek. How would you do?

If you really want to test yourself, try these series of questions in this Newsweek article.

I think it’s time we watched more Jeopardy, and less Whipeout.

Even better than Jeopardy, enter into a conversation with someone at your favorite coffee shop.

Talk about what’s happening in your community, in your life.

Make a new friend.

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Tags: building community, coffee house, stoopid, stupid people

Marla hits the deep ball

Check out this great coffee shop, Third Space, Marla has discovered:

http://coffeeshopjournal.com/2008/05/29/blue-joe-coffee-lake-oswego-oregon-a-great-third-place/

A Florida franchise would be nice, but it would loose that hometown feel.

Sigh.

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Tags: coffee house, Great place, third space

Thats what I’m talking about

Fellow Blogger Marla has some great postings and a link over to some guys that really get it. Take a look at her Blog and what these guys are about. Thanks Marla.

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Tags: coffee house, community, Great place, Simple Church, third space

Got to have these to make it work

What are the three things you can’t live without for your Third Space to really work for you. Coffee, people, solitude, free wi-fi, hidden corners, traffic (so you can watch people), bakery smells, convenient to home or work. Let me hear from you, then I’ll give you mine.

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Tags: coffee house, community, Great place, simple life, third space

When Third Place is The Right Space

I’ve found another great article about third space, church, coffee shops, marketplace ministries, where we are, what we should be doing, where we should be doing it, what are people looking for, what’s our biblical roadmap.

“The question we need to ask ourselves is: How can we introduce the church, not the coffeehouse, as a third place where community and connection take place. Why isn’t the church serving as a third place for many of our neighbors today? Why aren’t we creating a community marked by the qualities lifted up by Paul in his letter to the Colossians?”.

Read the whole article here: http://www.homileticsonline.com/nonsubscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=3216

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Tags: coffee house, Great place, marketplace ministry, third space

Building a Coffeehouse instead of a church

Mark Batterson, pastor National Community Church, has a great word for those believers that love to “go to church”. Mark was a church planter who started a church in a movie theater in Union Station, because they had no money as a startup. As the church grew, pastor-friends would ask him, when was he going to get a “church”? As the new start started to reach unchurched and dechurched twenty-somethings he realized there was no way he could vacate “such a strategic spiritual beachhead”. Their vision is to meet in movie theaters at metro stops throughout DC. They now own the largest coffeehouse in Capitol Hill, and in 2007, it was voted the #2 coffeehouse in metro DC.

Here’s Mark’s word for us:

“So why did we build a coffeehouse instead of a church building? Because Jesus didn’t hang out in synagogues. He hung out at wells. Wells weren’t just places to draw water. Wells were natural gathering places in ancient culture. Coffehouses are postmodern wells.To borrow the sociological term, our coffeehouse is a third place where the church and community can cross paths……Too many churches expect unchurched people to come to them, but the church is called to go to the unchurched people. The church is called to compete for the kingdom in the marketplace.”

What do you think?

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Tags: coffee house, Great place, Mark Batterson, National Communit Church, Simple Church, third space, unChristian