Is copycat a dirty word?

If I ever was cool, which seems unlikely, that period in my life ended a while back. I read someone recently who was bashing Chris Tomlin for his lack of originality, claiming that Chris Tomlin just covered lots of songs from other artists. What I found interesting about the accusation was that the person implied that to be cool, to be genuine, to be interesting, you had to be unique and original.

Now I have no desire to get into a debate over Chris Tomlin, his music, or his lyrics, but the thought that “real” Christianity and “authentic” worship music was found in originality struck me. I was left with the impression that to be noteworthy, you had to be original and unique. I wonder how biblical that claim is. In our culture, we have become obsessed with “being our own person” and “doing what is true to us.” We think that to be real, we have to be different than everyone else. To copy what someone else has done is a great sin because copying demonstrates a lack of uniqueness and individuality. We seem not to have progressed past children on the playground who yell “copycat!” at those who imitate what someone else has done.

But biblically I find that we are all copycats. I used to be annoyed by Paul’s incessant claims that people should imitate him. Who is Paul to say that anyone should live like him? I am my own person, and I have to set out my own journey in life. But all Paul was saying is that he was setting the example by following Christ. We are all Christ followers, and we only follow others to the extent that they follow Christ.

Uniqueness and originality have their place I suppose. God gifts us all in unique ways, and he gives us all different ministries in the context of his body. But we are all copycats. We have been called to follow the example set forth by Christ Jesus, and we are called to imitate others who have gone before us in following Christ’s lead.

Getting Started

I’ve thought about starting a blog for a while. I’m nothing if not behind the times. My theory is if you are not on the cutting edge (think of my wardrobe), nobody will make fun of you for what you did 10 years ago that is now hopelessly out of date (think of the 80s). But it seems that this internet thing is gonna catch on, and I thought a blog might be a good place to get some personal interaction, even if in an impersonal way. Living the Christian life requires Christian community, and if we want to establish community today, we may need to use all of the resources at our disposal.

I know many pastors are using blogs to disciple and encourage others, so I decided to look at a few to get some ideas. What I found most interesting in my quick survey was that while many of my pastor friends have blogs, nobody reads them. At least judging by the comments, nobody was invested enough in what was said to offer their thoughts. Perhaps Facebook is already putting an end to the blog, but as anyone at GMBC on a Sunday morning can tell you, being brief is not always my gift.

So perhaps all of this will only be for me, my own little place to express myself or vent. Whatever the case, here we go…