Cogs in the Machine

Abstract

Situated in downtown Nashville, First Baptist Church (FBC) frequently finds itself in the middle of city events. So in the summer of 2009, the church decided to take evangelistic advantage of the annual Fourth of July parades. We printed what is typically referred to as “the plan of salvation” on hundreds of Frisbees, which volunteers then handed out with bottled water to the sweaty masses who passed by our doorstep. While many in our community lauded this salvation strategy, others (myself included) were, for varying reasons, either dubious or even outright disdainful of it. As Miriam put it, “Anything that fits on the back of a Frisbee, it’s just not complicated enough to build a life around.” A graspable set of rules to order one’s existence (something that can fit on the back of a Frisbee) can be attractive to many. We find that desire, or at least one like it, in all churches, organizations, institutions, and even the academy. But the group of thirty-plus church members at FBC who took the Sunday night theology classes that I taught consistently articulated a desire for more than the Frisbee’s list (which is, of course, itself a particular theology). Or, better put, they wanted to keep wrestling with what the Frisbee says. As Miriam put it, “We all know the rules, but no one picks apart the rules.” The people who came to our Sunday night classes, it seemed, didn’t necessarily want to break those rules; they just wanted to pick them apart.