StretchyChurch

A friend of mine–Kevin Womack at Fletcher Hills Presbyterian Church–just sent me this link about National Community Church in Washington, D.C. Mark Batterson is the pastor there and does some pretty creative stuff.

Since he was going to be gone one weekend, Mark did his sermon on video for that weekend. But instead of just standing in front of the camera talking, Mark did his sermon from all over the city. What a dynamic way of communicating a message, especially considering our culture and today’s younger generations!

Click here to see the video. On this page, click on “Watch Now” under the sermon “How To Manage Finances.”

It seems these past few days that everything I do and see passes through the filter of everything we talked about in my D.Min. class last week (by the way, I never got a chance to report on Day 5, but there wasn’t much to say–mostly just talked about completing our final paper for the class).

So we went to Sea World with this afternoon and had a great time. The Clyde and Seymore (seal and sea lion) show was funny. The Pets Rule show was impressive. And the Shamu show… well, it made me want to trust Shamu as my personal savior! (Or something like that…)

Let me back up just a little. If I had to summarize what our professors want from us this first year of the D.Min. program, it’s that we learn to see the world “from the balcony.” In other words, we’re to get outside of ourselves–get a top down view on our culture, our church, our denomination, our assumptions, our beliefs.

And what I’m finding when I do this is that we all live within certain stories. As Americans, for instance, a huge part of our national story involves heroes (George Washington, Abraham Lincoln) and battles for freedom (Revolutionary War, Civil War). So it seems natural to us when, just before the Shamu show, the trainer honors our military heroes who are fighting for our freedom. Don’t misunderstand me–there’s nothing wrong with that. But the reason we as Americans value that is because it’s part of the story we live in. (Canadians, as I understand it, for example, don’t have the same values because they live in a different story. They don’t have heroes or fights for freedom in their story because Canada emerged as an independent nation in a way very different from the United States.)

Anyway, finally the Shamu show starts and the theme for the show is–”Believe!” Sounds very Disney to me…

The show was almost like a worship service. Beautiful music. Inspiring. Engaging images on the screens. And the message that when we believe we can accomplish anything. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I got a little misty-eyed a few times. And if Shamu had offered an altar call, I would have been the first one up there! (Okay, maybe not the first–but one of the first 50…)

So then I thought to myself, “Wow! The Christian story is still running through Americans’ blood!” Except that now we channel that desire to believe into things like Shamu or Mickey Mouse (I remember hearing the story of a mother who told her child at Disneyland, “Don’t worry, dear. If you get lost, Mickey will protect you.”).

So, now I have to ask the “balcony” questions. What does this mean? Is this the new American experience of spirituality? Does this reflect a longing inside people to connect with something bigger than themselves? Or is it just a therapeutic way of making us feel good about ourselves?

And what can the church learn from this? If we mimic what Sea World does with the Shamu show, are we being effective evangelists because we’re connecting with our culture, or are we becoming captive to something outside God’s plan.

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m not even sure these are the right questions to be asking. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

More great stuff today! To be honest, though, there’s no way I can really communicate everything I’m learning. So in these updates I’m just giving a small taste of what we’re covering.

Today we talked a lot about the Missional Change Model (primarily the model found on page 83 of The Missional Leader) which says, first of all, that change never happens in a straight line. First we move this way a little bit, then that way, then this way, then another way altogether until we finally reach a destination (although, to be perfectly honest, we never really reach a final destination–we’re always moving through change).

In a nutshell, these are the five stages of change:

1. Awareness - Begin where people are at this moment and help them become aware of where they are, what the reality of the situation is. This involves a lot of listening–listening to people’s stories and helping them to know the story in which they are living.
2. Understanding - This is an ongoing process of listening and reflecting. People begin to better understand where they are and begin to think about the implications of that.
3. Evaluation - The congregation examines current actions, attitudes, and values in light of new understanding. What does what we now know say about who we are as God’s people, as a community at this time?
4. Experiment - Risk some change. People are afraid of failure. As a result, churches generally create environments in which failure doesn’t happen. We need to create an environment in which it’s ok to fail. We also need to relieve people’s anxiety by letting them know we’re not changing things, we’re just experimenting.
5. Commit - Sign on to new ways of being church. Notice it’s not a commitment to doing new things, it’s a commitment to a new way of being.

We also spent a lot of time on the Pastor/Leader Survey that we were to have filled out by people in our churches, colleagues, etc. last fall. I, however, didn’t do this survey. The professors told me to wait a year until I’ve been at my church for longer than just a few months. That way people will better be able to gauge my leadership in this church.

In the evening the whole class went to see Atonement. Pretty cool movie. I thought it was going to be a chick flick. Not so. It was a love story, but it definitely wasn’t Runaway Bride.

All in all, another really good day….

Another great day of learning today! We talked mostly about frameworks, defined as a socially constructed way of reading and understanding the world (emphasis on the word “constructed”). In other words, we generally take for granted how we see the world. But how we see it and understand it is based on a perspective that has been constructed by our history, traditons, etc., etc…

The most interesting discussion had to do with strategic planning. The point that Roxburgh made was not that strategic planning is bad (he said, “Every time I get on a plane I thank God for strategic planning”), but that it’s bad when the church does it. The problem is that strategic planning basically objectifies the people God calls us to reach (”a narrative of objectification”) and assumes a certain “preferred future” (more members, more programming, better music, more diversity, etc.) without actually doing the necessary theological reflection needed to discern the initiatives of God.

Tomorrow we begin talking about what churches can do–the Missional Change Model.

Man, this blog thing is just going down the tubes, ain’t it?! But, y’know, I’m ok with it. I’ve noticed this happens every now and then. I post like crazy for a few months–and then I get burnt out. I take a break and then after a while I start posting every other day again!

Anyway, my buddy, D.G., just started a podcast called The Guys Podcast. Pretty funny–basically just three guys talking about stupid stuff. Check it out here.

Kevin Womack, the pastor of Fletcher Hills Presbyterian Church–and a guy who’s really made me feel welcome this first month in San Diego–just sent me a link to some pictures from the Harris Fire in San Diego. The photographer is one of the firefighters, and is also one of the members at Kevin’s church.

Click here to see the pictures. Slide #112 is my favorite…

Thanks to Scott over at Living Dusty, I discovered this article on Christianity Today’s blog, Out of Ur.

The article cites a study that Willow Creek Church did over the past several years to see which of their programs were best helping people become more committed disciples of Jesus. To their astonishment, not much in their of ministry was helping people to grow deeper in their faith.

Willow Creek’s assumption had always been that the more programs you offer, and the more people attend those programs, the more those people will grow spiritually. What they discovered is that this is simply not true. Here’s what Bill Hybels said at this year’s Leadership Summit:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

I’m not particularly surprised by this. While I love the energy of big churches when they gather together, I also realize that the greatest spiritual growth happens when small groups of believers gather together and when individual believers spend time practicing the spiritual disciplines.

I have to admit, however, I’m kind of proud of Willow Creek for owning up to this. I’m sure it’s not easy to make a discovery like this. But facing honestly the aspects of your ministry that aren’t making an impact, and then making a change, is the sign of a true stretchychurch.

You can also read Greg Hawkins’ (executive pastor of Willow Creek) response to the many comments on the Out of Ur blog here.

I mentioned last week that I was beginning my Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller this month. Lucky for all of you that means I’ll have lots of stuff to post! Woohoo!! Here’s my book review of Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, by Stephen Toulmin.

—

In Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Stephen Toulmin makes two major arguments. The first argument is foundational to the second.

Toulmin’s first point is that Modernity did not arise from the fact that philosophers and scientists were free from political unrest or pressure from the church. Rather, the rise of Modernity was a response to the turbulence of the times. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was a major factor in the growing “Quest for Certainty” (70). People wanted to have stability in their lives. Toulmin states that “from 1615 to 1650, people had a fair chance of having their throats cut and their houses burned down by strangers who merely disliked their religion” (17). Out of this instability, came the search for universal principles (in philosophy, in ethics, in science, etc.) that would hopefully yield a more peaceful society.

Second, Toulmin argues that the development of the Modern Cosmopolis led to a dehumanizing of societies and governments. The desire was, of course, for something good (the social stability mentioned above). To achieve this, Modernity sought two kinds of order: order in the universe (the cosmos) and order in the social/political realm (the polis). From this pursuit came the principle of the cosmopolis—a society in which the order of the social/political realm was at its best when it reflected the divine order in nature.

The dehumanization stemmed from the fact that philosophers and scientists sought to decontextualize everything. Toulmin states that “the 17^th century philosophers were theory-centered, not practical-minded” (34). By refusing to focus on specific circumstances (context), people ended up being oppressed, exploited, or generally ignored if they were not in the upper classes of the dominant society.

As Modernity (or at least, this phase of Modernity) has begun to come to an end, the goal, according to Toulmin, is to reintroduce the significance of context. By so doing, Modernity can be humanized. Toulmin states, “As things stand, we can neither cling to Modernity in its historic form, nor reject it totally—least of all despise it. The task is, rather, to reform, and even reclaim, our inherited modernity, by humanizing it” (180).

What strikes me most about Toulmin’s arguments is that most of what he challenges, our culture has generally taken for granted. Universal principles? Of course. Why wouldn’t we seek principles that are true everywhere, at all times. The assertion that the quest for universal principles has led to exploitation and oppression is not a connection I would have guessed. It almost sounds like we should put an end to our search for universals.

My inclination is to respond, “But some things must be universal, mustn’t they? Isn’t right always right and wrong always wrong? Is it a given that a desire for universal rights and wrongs will eventually lead toward some sort of oppression?”

As I reflect on this, I begin to realize that there is a tendency toward some sort of oppression. Or if not oppression, then at least judgmentalism. Toulmin says that the “idolization of ‘traditional values’…and its dogmas stand in the way of more discriminating and discerning approaches to moral issues” (195). He’s right. When we unthinkingly rely on “traditional values,” it is easy to ignore the context in which someone might have failed to live out those values. Toulmin pointedly adds that “dogmatic appeals to ‘tradition’ are, in biblical terms, the teachings of the Pharisees more than those of Jesus” (195).

But this is difficult. It is much easier to point to a universal principle and then point at an action and say, “That was right” or “That was wrong.” It’s much harder to weigh a situation and wrestle with the “rightness” or “wrongness” based on the context.

But, certainly, this is what Jesus did. Whereas the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were ready to condemn the woman caught in adultery, Jesus’ response was based on the context of the situation (John 8:1-11).

As a leader, my longing is for my congregation to leave behind blind judgment based on universal principles. It’s not that I think universal principles are all bad; it’s blind judgment that is bad.

In teaching my congregation to humanize our world, I’m not sure that I would spend a lot of time on the intricacies of Modernity in the way that Toulmin does. I suppose an in-depth discussion like that might be appropriate in a Bible study or small group setting, but a little too academic for a Sunday morning.

However, I think there is something to be gained in helping people understand the importance of context—that when someone “sins” there is a context to that sin. And it’s not that I would want to minimize the significance of sin. Instead, I would want to teach our people to maximize their understanding of a person’s context.

And I think that love is a big part of this. Love focuses on the person. Love understands the context. Love listens to the story. Love says, “Neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11).

Wess Daniels (who I used to work with at Fuller) posted some thoughts on what he would look for in a church on his blog, Gathering in Light.

I thought his thoughts here were pretty representative of Christians who are looking for something more/different than what we’ve found in church over the course of our lives. It’s a fairly high standard, but something for stretchychurches to consider.

Ok, so here are my thoughts on my first day of class.

First of all, I feel like I’m more in touch with postmodernism and the emerging church than anyone else in the class (besides, maybe, the professor, Gary Zustiak)! I was really hoping for some good, in depth discussion on how to do ministry in the emerging culture, but so far it’s been more or less helping those in the class to understand postmodernism.

Second, I get the feeling that everyone in the class is much more conservative than I am. This is weird to me because in the Presbytery of Cincinnati I feel like I’m way more conservative/evangelical than almost everyone else. But here, I feel like they’d think I was a flaming liberal!

Third, I’m realizing that I really do have a postmodern/emerging culture mindset. Half the time, other students would be trying to figure out what the professor was talking about when he’d talk about something of the postmodern worldview, while I’d be thinking (regarding the postmodern idea that had just been mentioned), “Well, yeah. That’s exactly how I feel.” For instance, Zustiak said that postmoderns believe that in order to know absolute truth (or to at least get closer to it) you have to involve as many worldviews as possible. So, to best understand a passage of scripture, you’d want a Caucasian, an African American, someone from India, someone from Kenya, and someone from Japan. Then they all discuss it and then you might be closer to understanding the truth of the passage. I think that’s true. I think that everyone sees something of the truth in Scripture, but no one person sees all the truth of Scripture. So when we bring our thoughts together, God uses that to reveal himself more to us.

My favorite part of the class today, however, involved a discussion of Star Trek vs. Star Trek: The Next Generation as an illustration between the difference between modernism and postmodernism. Here are the differences:

1) The Mission
Star Trek: “To boldly go where no man has gone before,” representing the rugged man going out to conquer.
TNG: “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” signifying a much more inclusive worldview.

2) The Purpose
Star Trek: When a new race or civilization was discovered, the expectation was that they would join the Federation, just as the modern mindset was one of imperialism.
TNG: When a new civilization was discovered, the Enterprise’s goal was simply to learn from them.

3) The Crew
Star Trek: The original crew was primarily human, except for Spock.
TNG: The crew was made up of races from many worlds, including an android.

4) The Hero
Star Trek: Always Captain Kirk, the tough-guy leader.
TNG: Anyone could be the hero–whoever that particular episode focused on.

5) The Ideal Man
Star Trek: Mr. Spock, the half-human who had divested himself of all emotion, which was ultimately the highest form of humanity.
TNG: Data, the android who had no emotions, but longed for emotion because it is emotions that make us truly human.

6) The New Crew Member
TNG: The new crew member was the ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi, who used her intuition and ability to sense emotions to bring peace to the Enterprise and the quadrant.

7) God
Star Trek: There was no God.
TNG: Q was the God-figure–a god who is all-powerful, only shows up when he feels like it, does what he wants without concern for others, is capricious, unpredictable, fickle, and just sort of annoying.

I’m no Trekkie (sorry… Trekker), but it was me and another guy who were primarily involved in this discussion. Pretty fun!

So, tomorrow I’m back at 8:00 a.m. I’ll let you know how it goes.