Many of us whose intellectually formative years fell during the 1960s will be scarred for life. Remember those days? We accepted very little at face value. We bucked tradition. We questioned authority. We tweaked the Establishment.

Now, closing in on age forty, I find myself a member of the established clergy. I am conservative in many ways. Yet that old habit of questioning the obvious has never left me. If Hegel was right that history is a matter of normalcy (thesis) being met with its opposite (antithesis) and blending into the answer (synthesis), then when we turn the normal upside down, maybe something better will shake out. Even if nothing better comes, the very shaking will have been fun.

Try it with me on a few "obvious truths." Then you can do it on your own with any other issues.

"Growth Requires Specific Goals"

You have heard it said: Churches that aim at nothing usually hit it.

True enough. Yet holding forth an overall direction for your church's progress is not the same as setting ...