Not surprisingly, I’m even less interested than the average American in the world’s most popular tournament.

The other day at work, I witnessed two friends watching a game.  One was clueless, and asked a series of questions about how the tournament worked and the rules of the game.  Now, he has something new that he enjoys, and the bond between them has grown.

My attitude is a far cry from that of Jesus, who was born poor and spent thirty years as an average Jew and manual laborer.  This earned him the credibility for three years of meaningful ministry.

I might not get the World Cup, but I do claim to care about my co-workers and neighbors.  Doing so means learning to express interest in what they love and care about join them in that, and celebrate with them.

The podcast started when two friends decided to give up their monumentally lazy lives and run a half marathon together.  Living on opposite sides of the country, they decided to podcast the whole thing.

The journey has been a difficult one, causing everything from blisters to shingles, and even one gomer getting hit by a car while running.  It has also been a ton of fun.  The gomers are true nerds, and children of nineties.  In many episodes, the running related content seems to be tacked on top of references to Full House, descriptions of their love for fast food and stories from growing up.

The Gomer phenomenon is a case study in modern media.  Both seasons have consistently highly rated on iTunes.  They have nearly 1,000 Facebook fans, and raised over $3,000 from charity.  They are a perfect example of Seth Godin’s Tribes or the 1,000 true fans theory.    Three things make the Gomers stand out, and teach us about how to connect and inspire:

1.  Looking Stupid Can Be Inspiring.  Even by choosing the name “Gomer,” they started the project with a sense of self deprecation.  They have never stopped flaunting their ignorance, or their desire to overcome it.

2.  Interact Relentlessly.  Originally, it started with the Gomers asking for running tips.  However, conversation has included everything from how to revive leftovers to thoughts on the iPad.  These conversations have engaged fans on Facebook and Twitter, and find their way back into the podcast.

3.  Authentically Display Your Faith.  TGRAM is not a Christian podcast, however, it is a podcast made by Christians.  Mentions of prayer and spirituality pepper the conversation.  This gives the discussions an added level of depth and inspiration.

Last Sunday, the two Gomers ran a marathon.  The podcast is coming to an end, and I feel like I’m saying goodbye to friends.

You can catch up on the whole saga at TwoGomers.com or search for Two Gomers on iTunes.  Here’s another inspiration of the Gomers.

The book compares spider (centralized) organizations  to starfish (decentralized) organizations.  Despite being published in 2008, drawing heavily from  events that took place between 2000-2005, the book seems to already be outdated.  Yet the overall lesson stands the test of time.

The big idea is that the future belongs to decentralized organizations. Examples include Quaker Abolitionists, AA, Al Qaeda and Skype.  They reproduce faster than Fibonacci’s rabbits, and have the resilience of the Hydra.  If you want to stay in the game, decentralize everything you can.

The lesson for the church is also clear: if you want to survive in the future, give the reins over to those in the pew. Get them to sit in circles instead of rows.  Give them something simple enough to reproduce, and exciting enough that you want to.

Does anyone else want to be a part of that?

Since it’s release in 2006, Alan Hirsch’s The Forgotten Ways has catalyzed conversation across Churches striving to become missional.  I’ll be reviewing the book as I read it over the next few weeks.

The Forgotten Ways is an attempt to answer the question How did the early church go from being a ragtag collection of outcasts to the dominant social force in the Roman Empire? The impetus behind the question is to discover what it is that the early church had, along with seeming unstoppable movements like early Methodism, Pentecostalism and the underground church in China.  The common thread between them is what Hirsch calls “The Apostolic Genius.”

Chapter 1 focuses on Hirsch’s own story of being enveloped into a band of Christ-followers, whose lifestyles had focused on drugs, fornication and prison.  This eventually became the South Melbourne Church of Christ, and the South Melbourne Restoration Center.  For personal reasons, I find it tremendously encouraging to know that one of the most influential thinkers of my time came out the Restoration Movement.

The chapter shares about successful and failed attempts to help lead his church to 1) engage with non-Christians in their community, and 2) transform passive churchgoers into active missionaries.  This led them to determine what their most basic values were, and attempt to restructure their organized church down to a loose network with shared values.

Chapter 2 encapsulates much of Hirsch’s reasoning.  Without getting lost in philosophical meanderings, he addresses the big changes in our culture we’re all dealing with, from Christendom to post-Christendom, and from modernity to postmodernity.  Unlike many thinkers who seem to stop at deconstruction, Hirsch uses these concepts to help define what it means to live as a missionary in the 21st century western world.

His most helpful concept is a scale showing the openness of outsiders to the gospel.  The scale goes from m1 (cultural similar, but non-christian) to m5 (ethnically and culturally dissimilar non-Christian.)

The big idea? We’re having a hard enough time reaching the people most like us.  If we even want to consider reaching those different from us, something drastic must change.