A book was recommended to me a couple months back, that I just got to reading… well… listening to. The book is Predictably Irrational. In this book, which I am barely into at this point, the author talks about the idea of anchoring. I am not talking about boats, but economics. The general principle is that when you first associate a price with a product, it forever becomes your base comparison for it and similar products. For instance, I remember gas primarily around $1 when I was younger. My perception of the price of gas is always relative to that amount. He found not only does this anchor exist from when we first encounter the product, but the anchor doesn’t change over time.

What I find interesting about this is how it seems to apply to our notion of “church.” For those of us that have grown up in the church, we have a certain norm that we have associated with church based upon how we grew up: our anchor. As for me, I have recognized that I have that anchor, and am questioning whether that anchor makes sense. It will always be, at some level, what I will compare church against, but at least that knowledge is helpful. Perhaps this is where open-mindedness comes from. If we are willing to accept that we have these anchors, which generally are arbitrary (I could have been born into a Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, Jewish or atheist family), perhaps we would be more willing to question those anchors and be open-minded. I am not saying that we are only open-minded if we shift from our anchors. Rather, I am suggesting that we should be open-minded, and be open to shifting, if it makes sense.

I am regularly reminded of the scene in the movie “Patch Adams” where Patch is having a conversation with a psychiatric patient who claims that he is dead. Patch is certain that he can convince him that he is indeed not dead and asks him if dead people bleed. The patient replies with certainty that dead people do not bleed. Patch pricks the man, who obviously begins to bleed. The man cries out in shock, “Dead people DO bleed.”

Are you willing to be open-minded in regards to what church looks like? Is it possible that your view of what constitutes church is poorly anchored? Or are you the type of person who is convinced that they are dead and that all evidence that suggests otherwise is invalid?