Boxed In?

Have you ever stopped to really think about the term "out-of-the-box"? Someone who's creative may refer to himself as an "out-of-the-box thinker" or a woman may say she does ministry that's "out-of-the-box."

What does that really mean? It seems to me that it's all relative, isn't it? I mean it depends on the box you're talking about. I just clicked on a link to someone making such a promise, and I thought "Is that really out-of-the-box?" Maybe for some; depends on their box.

Years ago I went to a conference and the leaders kept promising that they had an out-of-the-box worship leader for our worship time--very innovative, very edgy. When I went to the worship time, it was a young guy with a keyboard leading us in choruses. Okay, not out-of-the-box for me, but my box is pretty big with worship experiences that I consider edgy. But to them, it rocked their world! Then again, I've been to conferences where the worship was so edgy and rocky and loud that I didn't find it worshipful. Guess my box wasn't as big as others'!

Anyway, I don't have a huge axe to grind with the term; we even used "out-of-the-box" as a theme for training one year. But I'm just musing today. I think I'll be a lot more cautious when I hear people using that term to discover how big their box is that they're trying to get out of--before I run to check it out.

Comments

[Wayne Stocks]

I wonder sometimes if the box people are talking about getting out of is indicative of the box they keep God in? Just a thought!

[kennyconley]

Really good thought. There are even so many different boxes in Children's Ministries too it's hard to use vague terminology like this. Too bad, I always liked saying "out of the box." The book "Beyond the Box" was ministry transformational for me. From now on I'm going to start saying "outside the square." I don't know what it means, but I guess that really doesn't matter if everything is subjective anyway. Right?