This comes from Honda’s global website:

Honda engineers are committed to the development of advanced technology, but recognize that the purpose of technology is to serve the needs of people. At Honda, this philosophy has long been expressed as “man maximum, machine minimum.” In short, Honda’s goal with each product is to minimize the space required for machinery, while focusing on the comfort and functionality of the product for the people who will use it.

The “man-max, machine-min” philosophy has been guiding Honda for decades. It can be seen in their cars and even in their new corporate jets which have odd looking engines mounted above the wing rather than below or on the tail like most small jets thus allowing greater interior space. This ad from 1978 captures the spirit of…

In the first part of this post, I discussed my suspicion that we have confused the church (the community of God’s people) with the church institution (the 501c3 tax-exempt organization). This leads to a myopic understanding of Christian mission and service. We can slip into the idea that the only legitimate use of one’s gifts, time, and energy is within the institutional structures of the church organization. In part two I want to explore why we may have fallen into this mindset, and how we can begin to think differently.

Without doubt there are numerous factors behind our exaltation of the church institution above the community of saints that created it, but one critical component may be cultural. In our consumer culture we’ve come to believe that institutions are…