I Walked on the Moon

This is a guy named Brian Regan and he just kills me. Here's his gig- free on youtube. I've embedded my favorite part.

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The Tipping Point

The premise of the tipping point is, at first appearance, a simple one: tiny, seemingly-insignificant changes can produce massive effects. What makes this book so enjoyable are the varied examples Gladwell uses. These different instances are what paint the picture in our minds and make it a wildly interesting read.

What took the little-known shoes, “Hush Puppies”, and brought them from being discontinued to being a hundred million dollar staple of American fashion? It was friend-group of fifteen kids living in Soho who wanted to be different. They just went to the thrift store on the corner (one of the only places they were available), bought them, and started wearing them. As the trend snowballed to kids in neighboring districts and past the “tipping point”, Hush Puppies shortly went city-wide, state-wide, nation-wide, and then global nearly overnight.

So, what was the secret kindling to the explosion? Here’s where it gets more complex (and more interesting). After Gladwell lays out what the “tipping point” is, he seeks to look at situations from every angle to figure out the subtleties that make epidemics happen. If you could introduce these tiny elements into the equation, you would effectively have the power to make any idea, trend, or product “tip”.

What I found most interesting was a closer examination of the people involved in the epidemic spread of ideas. Most people roll with the crowd, says Gladwell, but some are different. These people are the key:

• Connectors: Think about the person you know involved with many different people and more importantly, many different groups of people. You’ve likely met a good portion of your friends through them.


• Mavens: What connectors are for people, mavens are for information. These are the people who are constantly learning and are always informed and many times ahead of great trends, products, and ideas. Mavens love to help people because they simply enjoy it. They might even have a blog reviewing books and writing on the big ideas of life…


• Salesmen: As the name implies, these people are good at tipping people who are on the edge about a particular idea into actually going with the idea. Think of the friend who always gets you to come out to whatever it is going on that night.

Along with the people involved in epidemics, Gladwell also looks at the message’s “stickiness”, and “channel limits” but these shan’t be expanded here. In elaborating on these concepts he probes Paul Revere’s midnight ride, crime in New York, syphilis in Philadelphia, Airwalk shoes, the absolute brilliance of Sesame Street, college vaccinations, the Ya-ya sisterhood, and even John Wesley’s preaching in England. Each of these examples lends different information vital to understanding what goes into the epidemic spread of ideas, giving us the huge output wrought by tiny input.

“So, then,” you might ask, “Where’s the application?” Honestly, you would be well served by simply reading this book for entertainment as I did. But, the potential applications are endless. “The Tipping Point” could have huge implications on starting a photography business, getting people to live healthier or eat organic food, gospel ministry, or simply alerting people about an upcoming concert. That’s what’s so doubly good about “The Tipping Point” Don’t get me wrong: the reader is learning a new concept, but through great writing and unique examples, learning rarely proves to be this fun.

Crazy Love

What kind of faith saves? Is it o.k. to just “believe” and not really do much else? What does God feel about my faith if I’m “sort of” all-in? If I’m not one of those “crazy Christians”? What about if I’m wealthy (and if you’re in America- you are wealthy)?

In my favorite opening sentence to a book, the beloved mystic, A.W. Tozer writes "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us". This is right where Francis Chan picks up. As Crazy Love moves from who God is to our response, Chan separates out American-church notions of God and Christianity from biblical ones. In this challenging but soul-stirring book, Francis Chan addresses, deeply and directly, the biggest confusion of our time. Namely, what is Christian faith?

As I read Chan’s biblical view of just how huge, just how powerful, and just how holy our God is, I really had no other option than to close my eyes and just sit in awe. I didn’t pray, I didn’t cry, I just sat and marveled- and I repented of the tiny view of God I had constructed in my mind. What else is there for man to do other than be wowed?

Through the book and the companion videos (the book has a website!) Chan succeeded in bringing me again and again to worship. Chapter 4, “The Profile of the Lukewarm” was the chapter that resonated with me the most. The idea of people calling themselves Christian while meanwhile having little idea what “Christian” really means. That was me for 19 years of life. So much to say here, but Francis basically talks about the new birth and signs of the new birth with slightly different terminology than Piper or I would use (check out my previous posts on the new birth!).

Nevertheless, Chan’s profile of the lukewarm cuts to crux of the problem: faith is not shown by creeds, church attendance, a clean mouth and not smoking or drinking. As Tozer or Chan might say, what a man believes about God shows through in what they do and how they act.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18)

In a modern way, Francis simply shows biblical truth in a fresh way. The secret is not hours of painstaking research into the Greek meaning and the culture at the time. His secret: just read it. Just read it for what it says. It will blow your mind and call you to rearrange your entire life.

The quote that got me was “Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers”. Chan writes about when he was in bible college and his professor asked him a very simple question. “What are you doing right now in your life that requires faith?” This question hit me in the same way it hit Francis, like a brick. What situations was I in where if God didn’t come through for me, I was screwed? For all the bible studies, church services, and cru meetings I’ve been to and for all the theology and apologetics that I’ve studied, I realized that I was not really trusting God for anything. Nothing in my life required God to act. In two words… no faith.

As the book takes a look at some ways that a life of real faith might be lived, it should become clear that the American church, for the most part, is marching to a far different tune than that of Jesus- in fact it might actually be opposed to it. We see that we must repent of the ideas of God and faith that have shaped us our whole lives, from the first time we stepped into church. We must start to take our cues from the Bible instead of our surroundings. It is eternally important that we start to understand and to live out crazy love.