Do dogs really die if they eat chocolate? Does every Alaska resident really get a check from the government? Can poppy seeds really cause you to fail a drug urine test? Do giant alligators live in our sewers?

Some of you will be familiar the Discovery Channel show entitled Myth Busters. In the show, the myth-busting team takes on some of the myths that circulate in our culture and does their best to prove them true or false.

What exactly is a myth? According to Princeton’s wordnet a myth is a traditional story accepted as history which serves to explain the world view of a people. In other words, a myth is a story that we live by. Sometimes the myths that we live by are true, some times they are fabricated, most of the time they have elements of truth in them, but have evolved over the years.

Like the broader culture’s fascination with alligators in the sewer, institutions, like our church, have stories that define us as well. Some of the stories are helpful, while others of the stories capture only part of a truth and in the end are not all that helpful.

So what are our stories? Examining this can be really helpful. The first way I want to invite you to do this is by attending the annual congregational meeting this Sunday at 4 pm. We will have a time of reflection, a budget presentation, a look ahead to 2010, a chance for questions, along with the election of officers. As you know this will be followed by a children’s music program.

In addition over the next few weeks, Mark, Dan and I are going to serve as the Myth-Busting team for some of our Crossroads stories on the pastors blog. I recognize that we are not completely unbiased actors, like the show, but often times we do have a unique perspective that allows us to see many of the various perspectives on an issue.

Some of the stories that we have identified include: Crossroads is an organic church without much structure. We are a seminarian driven church. We have unusually high turnover. Is pastor Dan really a Cubs fan? The merger has stretched us too thin. We are an outwardly facing church. Etc…

As we grow and change our stories change too. Sometimes old stories no longer fit, or need to be adjusted. As we examine our stories, our goal will be to provide objective analysis so that together, as we go into 2010, we can live by the truest stories possible.

Some of you may have your own questions about some of the “stories” we live by. If so we would invite you to leave a comment on this blog post outlining your question, and we will do our best to answer it.

See you Sunday.