The Reconstructed

This is the final portion of a reflection on pro-wrestling and church. One aspect of pro wrestling that is a natural outflow of the scope of the performance art itself is personal critique. There is so much to learn in pro wrestling, from ring psychology, to safely executing moves, to gauging fan reaction, to self-promotion, merchandising, booking, not to mention public speaking, physical fitness, and the balance of character work and personal interaction.

As a result of many of these things, watching your own work is helpful, watching other people’s work is helpful, and like anything practice is helpful. Even within the confines of booking and time limits, there is great freedom in the story you tell and how you tell it and how you present yourself. There is also the limitation of the response you get which is why in wrestling, listening is crucial. Listening to the feedback of the more experienced, the fans, to basically everybody and making adjustments. Like anything the key is to not take offense and reflect on the critique.

Ministers typically do not subject themselves to this kind of critique and far too often hold too much power or have too much tied up in their security and vocation to allow this type of critique. Also popular opinion can simply be wrong and attitudes of the heart are hard to judge and the value of a sermon can be hard to quantify. Certain character traits and dispositions are overlooked if we like how someone speaks. We, whether at a pro wrestling event or a church service are still prone to think in terms of how someone makes us feel.

Reflection/Meditation

For the minister, reflection and meditation should be practices developed before it becomes a vocation. I think when it has become a vocation, it can be hard to accept critique because this is God’s work. I think about this in term of sermon critique. I think it’s most hard to swallow when it comes to the actual exegesis of a passage. This can be particularly humbling when it comes from someone who does not preach. But I think, reflecting on critique is actually very helpful. There are certain aspects of public speaking critique which I find less helpful. Some people pace when they preach some people preach from their knees; you might get the critique that movement is distracting which is true it could be, but very accomplished speakers do it.

With a critique about the interpretation of a passage, however, this welcome critique is potentially helpful if it engages in actual dialogue. Instead of approaching someone with “your wrong and just I disagree” it would be helpful to engage with why or what is at stake to believe differently. It can be hard immediately following a sermon because typically there is a level of decompression that preaching seems to necessitate. The same can be true of a wrestling match.

I think it would be a crime to not rewatch your matches, probably your first 100 matches if not more if they are recorded. There are so many little things you can notice and tweak.

In the Church there is also a distinctive difference (hopefully) between performance critique and sermon engagement. Primarily because the professional preacher does not necessitate they are the most well read, well studied or theologically sound person in the room and if one was to assume they are that is a dangerous territory to walk. A sermon more than a performance or an opportunity for education should have a living aspect to it. Sermons are meant to form a community and part of community formation is theological dialogue, nuance and discourse over a passage. A better metric for a successful sermon more than laughter or complements about ones public speaking ability can better be determined by engagement and application that has been led by the Spirit to particularly target the heart of the listener. This even more so than the pro wrestler requires a pastor/teacher to know his audience. It is certainly more difficult.

A pro-wrestling audience in some ways is both harder and easier to impress. I do think it’s pretty easy to satiate a wrestling crowd with 7 minutes of well executed and timed maneuvers in the middle of a card. I do think a main event featuring a well celebrated face or a deeply hated heel can function well for 12-15 minutes at the end of an indy show that points to something to come at the next show.

A sermon however’s greatest function is to deepen ones affection for Christ and to have a life transformed and confirmed into HIs image. I think many sermons and pastors settle for something signifcantly less for the sake of cuteness or thinking a series will keep people coming back. I’ve likely talked too much about sermon crafting.

Primarily because the life of the church should also be subject to reflection and meditation. This can easily be integrated into the life of the Church service if demonstrated with great benefits. Our service time seems to valuable to allow for 10 minutes of silence or to trust our congregation to write down one sentence to take away and meditate on while referencing back to Scripture. We want to spoon feed them bullet points rather than demonstrate intimately listening to the Spirit of God.

Forgiveness

Despite the shortcoming of professional church, there perhaps the single greatest necessity put into action by the Christian is the concept of forgiveness. One could argue instead that the greatest necessity is love and the gigantic umbrella that is under the word. I point to forgiveness because both Jesus and Stephen forgives the ones murdering them. There is some element of forgiveness that falls under the umbrella of love that makes any of this possible. Jesus himself emphasizes forgiveness every time he comes in contact with someone known by their sins or seeking something from Him. The decision to forgive is always an act of self-sacrifice, it always require a humbling. It also requires an acknowledgment of what cost I am bearing by doing it. If it costs you nothing, it probably is not forgiveness.

I think it a compelling thought that the ability to forgive and tangentially connected confess and seeking forgiveness are distinctive marks of the Christian. Many other religions focus on justice or karma that comes as a result of our bad works whereas Christ consistently points sinners to forgiveness and compels people by seemingly his presence only towards restitution. In my experience liberating forgiveness and reconciliation is a rare commodity in Church. Most people who leave churches are usually the victim of or the failure to enact the call of the believer to forgive. And the cycle continues because it is so infrequently demonstrated. When it is demonstrated in a significant way it is usually so surprising that gratitude can’t help but overflow. I think Christ’s expectation for His church was that it would be normal and it would be a compelling enough activity that it would draw others who don’t know Christ.

But how is this at all an element of professional wrestling? I will elaborate on this much further at a later date. But in recent years the WWE has rehired several former talents that people hardly thought they’d ever see back in a WWE ring. Most recently CM Punk who had enormous history and heat against WWE was welcomed back in a seemingly positive light. Cody Rhodes returned 2 years ago to overwhelming applause. In years past, The Ultimate Warrior, Stone Cold Steve Austin, even The Rock left on not the best terms at one point and now is on the Board of Directors. Some sins are hard to recover from. It is unlikely Vince McMahon will ever be featured on WWE programming ever again.

Most of the individuals I mentioned left and were still in the minds of the fans and ultimately were brought back because the WWE and the performer understood that money would be made and when there is mutual benefit among parties to be had, it is pretty difficult to turn down the proposition of revenue.

The same is true of the Church. The currency of Heaven is love and what greater demonstration than forgiveness and restoration.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:6-8 “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.” Now we do not know exactly who Paul is referring to but it is assumed that he is referring to a man who had slept with his stepmother mentioned in a previous letter.

But Paul who some could say was very harsh in his previous letter has offered a way forward for the sinner which should not come as a surprise for Paul who at one time ordered the murder of Christians was away form Jerusalem the seat of Christianity for at least 3 years after he was converted staying in Damascus. It was hard for the Christians in Jerusalem to believe that Paul had been converted and had to forgive Paul in order to welcome him as a brother in the faith.

Going away and coming back. In the church, more than a rebranding hopefully any time away allows for forgiveness healing and reconciliation and if it does not then it might not be the church at all.

Thanks for joining me on this reflection. It took longer than I would like. In my next post I will be giving a life update. Things have been pretty wild in 2024. I’m just trying to stay in step.