We don't like normal killers

Have you ever noticed how the bad guys in movies are often portrayed to have particularly abnormal attributes? They are scarred or have been through some horrible, traumatic event or were abused. They look different, they talk differently, and their thinking is radically different than "normal." They've got to be psychopaths. Being albino is a repeated excuse - apparently that affects your moral compass somehow. In movies, we make the bad guys really abnormal. The truth is: we don't like normal killers.

We like killers who are scary because they are different than we are - we don't like killers who are scary because they are the same as we are. We want them removed from us. We want to think that we are very different from people who would do such things. We don't want to entertain the possibility that someone like me could do such a thing given the same moral make up that I have ... or that I could do such a thing given the moral make up that I have. We're better than that, aren't we? So, we make killers in movies categorically worse than we are so that we can be better than they are.

In my opinion, the scariest killers in movies are the ones who are more like us.

Consider the tragic events of last weekend with Jovan Belcher killing Kasandra Perkins, the mother of his daughter, and then taking his own life. I'm not commenting on Belcher - I'm commenting on society and its reaction to Belcher. There has been a lot of talk about what kind of person he was - heated debate, in some cases. In some of those discussions, people want him to be monstrous so that we can demonize him, distance ourselves from him, and not face the scarier kind of killer - someone who is like us.

No one is all good or all bad. We all have redeeming qualities, and we all have horrid ugliness in our hearts (that may or may not be on display for others to see). Without passing judgment on what kind of person Belcher was overall, we are more like him than we want to admit. We get angry. We have arguments. We sometimes feel like hurting someone, or hurting ourselves. We share the heart sin that was manifested in his life as action sin.

I don't have a $1.9 million contract, I'm not a public figure, and I didn't claw my way into pro sports through the unlikely path of going undrafted. And yet, I am more like Belcher than makes me comfortable. I don't need to demonize Belcher in order to feel better about myself. What I need is Jesus, pure and simple ... and only. I need Jesus, but not to make me different than Belcher - I need Jesus to make me different than me.

The Greatest Commandment and Worship

It's a little big change - or a big little change. I'm not sure which.

The worship service will be a bit different on Sunday, although not radically so. And yet, the concept behind it is something I've not seen anyone do before. We will structure the service based on Mark 12:30, where Jesus tells a scribe that the greatest commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." We will structure our worship around this statement as a way to live it out together in worship.

With all of our heart: We will worship together in music as the worship team leads us through songs and prayer all related to the theme of the week. The worship leaders work hard to consider the passage and theme in order to select music that draws our attention to the same truths, so that we are teaching the same things, whether by music or by the message.

With all our soul: Dan will lead us in corporate prayer for one another. This is also a time for us to worship through the offering. We often think of the offering as the practical necessity of running a church, but it can truly be another act of worship. The word offering itself suggests the spiritual act of giving of ourselves for the ministry of the church.

With all our mind: We will have our normal short message for the kids, and then send them off to Children's Church and Junior Church. Then we will open up the Word together to worship God with our minds (and hearts, souls, and strength, but moreso the mind).

With all our strength: The last part will include sharing events plus ministry opportunities and needs with the family business of a few announcements. The worship team will send us off with a final song, and then rather than a normal benediction, we will have more of a commissioning to send us all into the week with our mission to the world firmly in mind.

So, the worship service won't be radically different than we're used to, but a few things have been moved around from our norm, plus we want to better reinforce the various aspects of worship as Jesus describes in the Great Commandment, with our final thought being on the Great Commission.

We'll give this a spin for a few weeks and see what we think. Again, it's not a huge change, but I do want you to be aware of the thoughts that have gone into how the worship service will be put together.