Kruse Kronicle

Emergent

Emergent (Part 1)
Emergent (Part 2)
Emergent (Part 3)
Emergent (Part 4)
Emergent (Part 5)
Sanctification Through Community (Emergent, Part 6)
Setting the Captive Free for Ministry (Emergent, Part 7)
Four Leadership Responses to Emergent Concerns (Emergent, Part 8)
Dying for the Church Emergent (Emergent, Part 9)
Understanding the Postmodern Shift (Emergent, Part 10)

Understanding the Postmodern Shift (Emergent, Part 10)

What will the Church look like in twenty-five years? It is impossible to know. I expect the lines between traditions and institutions will continue to blur. All we can do is look at the trajectories of change. Here are four transitions I see as we move into a Postmodern era.

1. From autonomous objective intellect to socially constructed people in community. – "I think. Therefore I am." These have been the watchwords of the Enlightenment and Modernist eras. It is a belief that an Individual can somehow stand outside and beyond their culture and ascertain universal truth. The postmodern perspective is that human beings individually participate in constructing social reality, which in turn shapes individuals. It is a dynamic, seamless ceaseless process. Our language and culture lead us to select certain information from our experiences and ignore other information. Thus, any human knowledge is constrained by the culture. Even revealed absolute or universal truth must still be communicated into limited cultural community contexts.

2. From Foundationalism to narrative. – The Church has largely been divided over two foundational projects over the Modernist era. The liberal project has scientifically dissected Christianity using "autonomous objective intellect" through higher critical methods to distill a common (foundational) nature to human religious experience. The conservative project has taken Scripture as the revealed Word of God and approached it as "autonomous objective intellects" using rationalist tools to construct systematic error-proof theologies based on foundational principles.

Postmoderns are both post-liberal and post-conservative in the sense I have just described. They focus on the narrative of the Word of God. They believe God transforms people and cultures by revealing a narrative and inviting people into it. This is not to say that we should not seek out commonalities in religious experience and study the Bible from every angle. However, it must be done with respect for the authority of the Bible as God's revealed narrative. (From "higher criticism" to "lower criticism;" from under the Bible, not above it.) It is also not to say that a systematic study of Biblical propositions is unimportant so long as it recognizes that such a construction is always culturally bound and incomplete. It is the narrative and how the narrative interfaces with our cultural narrative that is important.

If you are unfamiliar with the postmodern scene, I know what you are asking. "What do I mean by narrative?" I like to think of it this way. If you and I were getting acquainted and I asked you to tell me who you are, would you give me a second-by-second recounting of your existence? No. We only remember a small portion of the events in our lives. (And for some of us, the portion is getting smaller all the time.) We tend to remember milestones, moments of great joy, moments of great sorrow, and moments of symbolic significance. When discussing those events, we weave a narrative about who we are.

Let's say after hearing your narrative, I wrote it all down. What would you think if I then went to your family, friends, and acquaintances to see if I could ascertain a common shared experience of your character and the nature of our relationships with you? What if we decided to determine who you are based on our collective experiences, using your narrative only as a loose guide? (Liberal Christianity)

Or what if I analyzed your narrative with great scrutiny to ascertain a precise set of principles and propositions to describe your character and then adamantly insisted that anyone who had encountered you in a way contrary to my systematic construction of your nature was wrong. In fact, I would not accept that they have actually met you unless they would subscribe to my construction? (Conservative Christianity) I doubt you would be too pleased with me.

Your purpose in telling me your narrative was to initiate a relationship, not to become the subject of an analytic science project conducted by an objective observer. The Bible is God's narrative about God's "life" and God's invitation to join in that narrative. We come to know God primarily by entering into a relationship with God's triune reality and with the community of people he has called together, not through distant objective analytic observation.

3. From mechanical to organic. – One of the great triumphs of European culture over the past several hundred years has been its ability to dissect, categorize and quantify reality. It paved the way for constructing complex tools (machines) and human systems (corporations). The metaphor for describing human function became the machine. Our language is full of mechanical metaphors. "I think he has a screw loose." "We're hitting on all cylinders." "We had a communications breakdown."

It was once believed that science would someday unlock all mysteries. Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow once wrote that at the end of the twentieth century, it is as if scientists have been climbing a mountain. After years and years of climbing, they place their fingers on the top edge of the mountain and pull themselves over the top, only to be greeted by the philosophers and theologians. The more we know, the more complex and mysterious reality gets.

Postmodern folks embrace mystery and complexity. They don't see a human machine in motion but rather a dynamic and organic human community. Just as the body is a complex system of polarities endlessly readjusting to keep balance (ex., breathing, blood circulation, blood sugar levels, etc.), so is any human community or organization. Centralized management of discreet functions was a productive improvement over uncoordinated human activity before the Industrial Revolution, but exponentially improved production soon produced a world so complex that such structures could no longer work effectively. More organic models that function like a body are needed, and that is the transition we are in today. Unfortunately, the Church seems especially stuck in Modernist mechanical models. It is for that reason that many people have ventured outside the institutional structures of the Church to discover more organic ways of being the Church.

4. From hubris to humility. – The Modernist era was dominated by almost blind faith in human progress through reason. A magazine was begun in 1900 called "Christian Century" because this was the Century in which the Church, through reason and technology, would usher in the Kingdom of God. In hindsight, that was pure hubris. Over the century, much of the Church became disillusioned with that notion. Postmodern folks believe every innovation may bring advantages but always has unintended consequences. This links back to the idea of life as a complex organic entity that makes accurate assessments of outcomes challenging. More caution is often warranted, particularly when human systems are involved.

The blind faith in scientific rationalism has often marginalized minority voices in its headlong pursuit of progress. Postmodern folks are less trusting of scientific rationalism as the final authority. Other voices, including minority voices, may have things to teach us that will empower us to progress as a diverse community together rather than being dominated by imperialistic "progress."

Final Thoughts

If you want to know more about what drives much of the Emergent church at an intellectual and theological level, it might surprise you that at least one scholar postulates a strong Presbyterian connection in all this. While at a conference in April, Dr. John Franke made the case that Karl Barth is the theological link between Modern and Postmodern theology.

The Theologians who seem to have had the broadest impact are people like Lesslie Newbigin and N. T. Wright. Dallas Willard is another thinker who appears to have a wide following. Mars Hill Graduate School and Regent College have been pursuing the Emergent conversation from an academic standpoint. Many of their faculty have written books and articles on postmodern issues, not the least of which was Stanley Grenz, one of my favorite theologians. I have read both of John Franke's books. I found them very helpful and excellent primers on postmodern theology. The first, co-authored with Grenz, was Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context. The other is The Character of Theology: An Introduction to its Nature Task and Purpose. A website that has an ongoing discussion by Emergent academics is ThinkTank.

Finally, as a Presbyterian, I believe every postmodern Christian should become acquainted with Kenneth E. Bailey. I recently finished Jacob & the Prodigal: How Jesus Retold the Story of Israel. Amazing! Bailey's understanding of Middle-Eastern culture and history, and how he brings this knowledge to bear on Scripture, is truly powerful. He has changed how I understand the Bible. I intend to do an extended presentation of some of his work on my blog a little later.

Sorry for the length of this post, but thanks for sharing your precious time with me.

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Dying for the Church Emergent (Emergent, Part 9)

When most people think of "Emergent Church," they often think of young adults worshiping together at candle-lit services and having deep conversations about postmodern epistemological issues. No doubt, this is a slice of the Emergent Church. However, when I think of Emergent Church, I think of something much broader.

George Barna has just published a new book called Revolution. I haven't yet read the book, but here is a quote from Barna in a press release on his website:

“Having been personally frustrated by the local church, I initiated several research projects to better understand what other frustrated followers of Christ were doing to maintain their spiritual edge. What emerged was a realization that there is a large and rapidly-growing population of Christ-followers who truly want to be like the church we read about in the book of Acts. We began tracking their spiritual activity and found that it is much more robust and significant than we ever imagined – and, frankly, more defensible than what emerges from the average Christian church. But, because the Revolution is neither organized nor designed to create an institutional presence, it typically goes undetected.”

A couple of other books I have read recently, A Churchless Faith and The Transformation of American Religion, echo these same conclusions.

Many Emergent people are consciously aware of postmodern influences at work in the culture and their lives. However, I guess that the majority are unaware of such changes. There is a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the present milieu and a search for something more authentic. They are deeply affected by the collapse of Modernist structures but are oblivious to modern versus postmodern thinking.

When the term "postmodern Christian" is used, too often Christians attuned to formal philosophy and theology recoil because they interpret this to mean Christians who have embraced a Postmodern school of philosophy. I have understood "postmodern Christians" to mean "Christians living in an age after the collapse of the Modernist ethos." Some are consciously aware of ways the Church has adapted itself to Modernist thinking and seek to be free from these adaptations. This is not a wholesale endorsement of a formal Postmodern school of philosophy. Most critics of postmodern Christians and the Emergent Church are attacking "straw men" and not addressing what Emergent people are actually about.

At the Emergent gathering in Glorieta, New Mexico, two weeks ago, Brian McLaren suggested that maybe we should talk about the "Church Emerging" rather than the "Emergent Church." Emergent Church sounds too much like Liturgical Church, Charismatic Church, Contemporary Church, Seeker-Friendly Church, etc. It becomes just another narrow sectarian niche. "Church Emerging" expresses a passion for conversing across many boundaries of the Church to discern what God calls the Church to do and be in this postmodern age. In this sense, it sounds suspiciously like the "Church reformed, always reforming, according to the Word of God.

McLaren also read a draft from an as-yet-unpublished paper about becoming post-colonial instead of postmodern. (As one friend wrote me, "From pomo to poco.”) I took as his basic theme that the Church is still captive to the empire mentality of Rome 1,700 years after Constantine. God works in a variety of cultures and in diverse ways to do God's work of transformation in the world. Because of our empire mentality, we are predisposed to impose our Imperialistic Christendom on others instead of being attuned to the diverse ways God works in the world. I don't share some of McLaren's specific concerns, but I think he is right as a thesis.

The fact is, the back of the Imperial Church is being broken, and in my estimation, that is a good thing. However, the idea of Christians going on their own or operating as isolated bands of disciples do not strike me as a healthy development. I believe in the basic concept of connectionalism. On the other hand, an institutional behemoth trapped in its bureaucracy, mesmerized by its 500-year-old traditions (as opposed to its 2,000-year-old calling), laden with Modernist assumptions, and insulated from the spiritual hunger of everyday folks does not sound like an attractive option either.

Traditional denominations and congregations as we know them are going to die. But they have a choice of how to die. They can die from rigidity and refusal to change. If that is the case, God will emerge something new that will take their place. I think that has already begun. Alternatively, denominations and congregations can choose to die in order that something new might be born in them. Something compelling that creates authentic community and empowers people for ministry. This set of choices should come as no surprise. There have been repeated cycles of this dynamic for 2,000 years. There is no escaping it. For those of us in leadership within the old structures, survival is not a question. It is a question of how to die.

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Four Leadership Responses to Emergent Concerns (Emergent, Part 8)

One of my favorite commercials is a FedEx commercial from several years ago. A guy is sitting in a corporate mail room with a bank of telephones in front of him, each ringing away. He picks up one. In his most upbeat, can-do voice, he says, "Have that in Poughkeepsie by 9:00? I can do that!" He grabs another phone, "Have that in Peoria by 10:00? I can do that!" He grabs yet another phone, "Have that in Pasadena at 8:00? I can do that!" Then he hangs up the phone, looks into the camera for a moment, pauses, and then says in the same tone, "How am I going to do that?"

I have been writing about several problems within the Church. It is one thing to identify problems and commit to solving them. It is quite another to know how to solve them. My brain is wired toward strategy and often short on tactics. So I look to others for clues about "How am I going to do that?" From what I have experienced, observed, and read, I think leaders must do at least four things for a gathered community to become an emerging priesthood of believers in Christ. These concerns are especially true for pastors, but I think they apply to anyone in leadership.

1. You are the curriculum – We can say whatever we want, but if our lives do not rigorously exemplify the truth we are saying, then we are wasting our breath. If we say we believe in the priesthood of believers but rarely highlight the use of a variety of gifts as ministry, talk about "the ministry" as something that happens inside the four walls of the church, and (if a pastor or elder) insist on operating in a controlling way, there isn't going to be transformation.

As leaders, we have to be certain we know in our own minds what it means to function as the diversely gifted body of Christ. We have to be committed to being one in Christ while exhibiting a variety of gifts. It means refusing to take responsibility for the ministry ideas others impose upon us while encouraging and empowering the saints to live out the passion for the ideas God has given them. It means publicly and relentlessly holding up examples of people who "get it."

I think the last issue may be one of the most underrated tactics among Meyers-Briggs intuitive types (more than half of all pastors but only about 25% of the population.) We intuitive types see ideas and models in full three-dimensional, Technicolor, surround-sound imagery. We love metaphors. Not so for the sensing types. Most sensing types catch an idea from seeing a concrete example. They love clear instructions. Sensing types begin to journey toward a new paradigm when there are real-life examples to connect with. (I want to be very clear here. This is not a statement of being "intelligent" versus not being "intelligent." It is an issue of different kinds of intelligence. The ability to efficiently and effectively implement a pattern of behavior is an intelligence few intuitive types have. We need each other!)

2. Cast the vision - Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

Demographers have what they call the "Push-Pull" theory of migration. This theory's core assumption is that a combination of two things must be in play for a person to move from place A to place B. Either place A has to become so unattractive that residents develop a desire to leave (the Push from) place A or place B becomes so attractive relative to place A that residents of A are drawn (Pulled) to place B. I think the same can be said of "spiritual" migration from one paradigm to another.

While critiquing the existing "home" is a must, it is insufficient alone. Critique may persuade folks to move, but it may not be to the place B we intended. I think the primary motivator has to be the "Pull." Everything that we teach, the metaphors we use, and the very way we organize ourselves for action have to reflect the vision we have in mind. A (word) picture is worth a thousand words for the intuitive types. For the sensing types, the best criticism of the bad is the practical practice of the better. We have to have both.

3. Momentum - I don't know if it is just a Presbyterian thing, but almost every pastor, congregation, or governing body I have seen that seeks transformation starts by trying to devise a program that will bring the whole body of people from place A to place B in one giant step (usually in about 3 to 6 months!) I know of no example anywhere of this kind of change happening. In fact, it usually has a negative effect. Any future efforts are hampered because everyone points back to the last time they tried "transformation" as a concrete example of what doesn't work.

Transformation usually comes as a snowballing effect. We have many examples of Jesus casting his vision to the crowds. This is important. Yet Jesus spent most of his time pouring himself into twelve people, three more than the others (Peter, James, and John), and one was especially close to him (John).

Erwin McManus notes in his An Unstoppable Force that the scientific formula for momentum is mass multiplied by velocity. Mass without velocity has no impact because it is stationary. Velocity without mass is motion without the ability to have an impact. If we view the Church as a "movement" that is to have an "impact," there must be "momentum." Had Jesus simply gathered many people (mass) without deeply instilling vision (velocity), the Church would have died quickly without impact. Had Jesus only instilled vision in a couple of folks without a broader proclamation, the Church would have died from lack of mass.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that true change takes place with one person deeply impacting a few people while casting wide the larger vision. As people catch the vision and replicate the process of impacting a few while casting the vision wide, change achieves such momentum that old paradigms are swept away.

4. Integration and Deployment – The key to effective vision casting and sustaining others in the vision is integrating them into the ultimate source of the vision, the living God. God has given each person gifts and passions. Apart from God, we often live out warped expressions of our gifts and passions because they are not integrated into a larger picture of God and God's purposes in the world. We are not integrated into the body of Christ.

Too often, salvation is presented only as salvation FROM sin. This is a half-truth. Salvation is also salvation TO service. Baptism is ordination into ministry. Spiritual formation must be present that opens us to who we are in God and the unique call that God has for each of us. It must also help us see our gifts in coordinated relationship to the gifts God has given others so that we may truly be one in Christ, giving witness to God's love for the world (John 17). (I have wondered if maybe we need to rethink our baptism and confirmation ceremonies in ways that accentuate better the call to service through God-given gifts and passions.)

Leadership in the Church must have as its ultimate aim the full integration of people's lives into the very heart of God. It must integrate them into the body of Christ, empowered and deployed throughout the various spheres of human existence.

As I have been in Emergent circles, I have seen some themes in people's reasons for joining the conversation. They tie directly to these four concerns I have listed:

1. You are the curriculum – Emergent types see little authenticity in traditional churches. Too much of it sounds and feels like slick marketing instead of transparent relationships of people struggling through a journey. Sometimes it sounds and feels like people wallowing in a sea of co-dependence with no true vision of God.

2. Cast the vision – Instead of casting a vision, the picture is too often one of "circle the wagons." When vision is cast, it often seems to be about moving to a place that has little resemblance to where Jesus called us to be. Emergent types have become dissatisfied with place A but are often not on their way to place B leaders are offering as a new home.

3. Momentum – I think many Emergent types either see their congregations as inert mass with whatever vision there is spread a mile wide and an inch deep. They hunger for deep vision that moves and transforms people, relationships, and cultures.

4. Integration and Deployment – Most Emergent types experience the Church as a place of control and constraint. Their gifts are trivialized in the face of "ministry" that goes on within the four walls of a building, and "integration" usually means being plugged in as a piece of institutional machinery rather than being brought into authentic relationship with God and others, empowered to serve.

These are not the only issues in play, but I do believe that leaders who take these concerns to heart will find themselves in a much better place to nurture the growth of the body of Christ as the Church emerges in the Twenty-First Century.

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Setting the Captive Free for Ministry (Emergent, Part 7)

John M. Perkins has been a dynamic leader in civil rights, race reconciliation, and economic Justice over the past few decades. He was instrumental in forming the Christian Community Development Association and is the head of the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development. I have always been impressed with his practical and profound wisdom.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of playing chauffeur for John Perkins when he was visiting Kansas City. We talked about how difficult it is to involve congregations in community development. Amid the conversation, he said, “Mike, pastors can’t do much, but they can stop an awful lot.” I have reflected on that observation many times since.

The first part of Perkins’ observation acknowledges that pastors are exceedingly busy. It is a lot of work to oversee a congregation faithfully. When it comes to race reconciliation, community development, and social change, there just isn’t a lot a pastor can do beyond the already heavy load he or she carries. If these activities emerge, they must come from people within the congregation.

The second part of his observation was that people often look to pastors for approval and encouragement of the ministry they want to invest in. A pastor’s indifference or opposition often kills the person’s enthusiasm or at least isolates the passion to a few interested people in the congregation. In that sense, pastors can stop an awful lot. Intentional or not, pastors often function as gatekeepers for ministry.

One thing I observe today is that many people, especially younger adults, no longer look to pastors for endorsement of ministry they are passionate about. If the pastor and the congregation are not supportive, the pastor and the congregation get the boot, not the ministry dream. These folks connect with webs of similarly interested people and create community around the ministry dream.

One of the attendees of the Emergent Village gathering last week noted that most of the attendees fell into one of two categories. First, some were exiting their current situations and asking what God might have them do next. Second, some are engaged in ministry and asking how to do what I am doing better. I think that is a valid assessment. I didn’t hear a lot of whining and critiquing (but there was some.) I mostly heard passion for bold ministry.

I see congregation after congregation trying to create the proper programming so their congregants will be involved in ministry. I see the dogged determination to prop up and fund the existing ministry lest the church is bereft of ministry. Elders and leaders spend endless hours creating and sustaining all the programming. The almost inevitable result is exhaustion and disillusionment. A word of advice: Stop the programming!

Ministry is not a program under the auspices of an ecclesiastical structure. Ministry is anything God asks us to do. The primary ministry for most of us is caring for our families and employment. God has blessed everyone with aptitudes, temperaments, gifts, and passions. Do we see our daily work as ministry? I believe the answer is overwhelmingly no. So how about we start by changing the paradigm of ministry within our congregations and help people identify the ministries they are already doing?

Once the true nature of ministry comes into focus, many people will desire to use their gifts and passions in ways beyond their family and employment. As they see themselves as ministers, they will likely begin to dream new dreams. When this happens, they often come to congregational leaders and say, “I think the church is out to do this or that.” The pastor and leaders then take the idea and try to organize a program to address the idea. Time to revisit my advice above: Stop the programming!

I know more than one pastor who has implemented a standard policy for responding to a congregant’s idea for ministry. When the congregant articulates an idea for ministry, it is always to be greeted with the same response, “That’s great! How can we help you make that happen?” At the Emergent Village Gathering, someone stood up during our large group gathering on more than one occasion and expressed something they wished we would do. Without exception, the interchange went something like this:

Leader: “Any suggestions on how we might improve what we are doing here?”
Fred: “I think we need to compile a list of all the attendees, including blog addresses.”
Leader: “That is a great idea. What is your name?”
Fred: “Fred.”
Leader: “Fred, you are willing to make that happen?”
Attendee: “Sure, but I need some help.”
Leader: “Are there at least of a couple of people who will help Fred?”
(A few people raise hands. One woman rises to speak.)
Sally: “I have a database of the registrants, but much of the information is incomplete. It will at least get us started.”
Leader: “Great! For those willing to help Fred and Sally, meet back there by the book table as soon as we break out. Any other suggestions?”

This semi-fictional interchange is how nearly all the business was handled.

In economics, when they talk about the concept of “demand,” two components have to be present. First, there has to be the economic ability to make a purchase. Second, there must be the desire to make the purchase. Resources alone or desire alone do not equate to an economic demand. Similarly, having ministry resources and programming does not constitute a ministry. Having a passion for meeting a need does not constitute a ministry either. Passion for meeting a need, joined with resources, constitutes a ministry!

Way too many congregations spend the most significant part of their human and financial resources perpetuating “ministry” that someone at some time decided the congregation “ought” to be doing. No one has a passion for the “ministry,” but the leadership plods along, trying to fill volunteer slots to keep the “ministry” alive. People are made to feel guilty. The “ministry” will die if they don’t surrender their time and resources to the cause. Their investment means that the time and resources used to keep “ministry” alive are unavailable for ministry they may be passionate about. This is not ministry. This is bondage!

It is time to blow the horn, sound the Jubilee, and set the captive free!!!

More on Monday.

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Sanctification Through Community (Emergent, Part 6)

Years ago, I heard a speaker tell of an epiphany about her husband. She said one of the things she found attractive about her husband when they were dating was how attentive he was too little details. Not that this should have been surprising. He was a very successful accountant. One night, years after they were married, they were preparing to go to bed. He asked her if she had remembered to lock the back door. She assured him she had. As she got into bed, she thought he would go turn out the light, but instead, he went out of the room to see if the back door was locked!

She said she was infuriated. Either he thought she was such an idiot that she didn't know whether she had locked the door, or he thought she was lying! Then it dawned on her. This was exactly the same trait she had found so attractive in him when they were dating. Double and triple-checking everything to make sure it was right. It was just being played out in a way that she found irritating. It was him being who he was.

I have learned over the years that whenever I find someone else's behavior annoying, I stop and try to imagine how this trait might be valued in other circumstances. It doesn't always alleviate the problem, but it at least helps me back away from developing deprecating attitudes toward the person. It helps me remember that when I need assistance suited to that person's proclivities, I should maybe ask them for help. It also helps me reflect on times when I jump into a situation unsuited to my temperament and skill set and make a jackass of myself. It reminds me that I need other people who don't function like me, even those (and maybe especially those) that irritate me.

I have a long-time friend who is a marriage counselor. He told me once that the problem with marriage in America is not that people undervalue marriage. The problem is they over value marriage. They believe marriage will make them complete. When hardship or disappointment comes, they conclude they must have made a mistake. So they get a divorce and start looking for the one who will make them complete.

My friend suggested that marriage is one of God's most powerful tools of sanctification. Two people are brought into a close intimate relationship. Sometimes our partner draws out our best, but our partner also will draw out our worst. Intimacy means that all the ugliness, anger, fear, and resentment in us is eventually brought to the surface. The couple who is in Christ are to bubble up all the scum to the surface so that it can be scraped away like dross from precious metals in the refiner's fire. As time passes, more scum surfaces and must be scraped away. It continues on through our life and is part of our spiritual formation.

My friend says clients come to him and tell him they are considering divorce. He asks them why. He said he often gets the answer that the client is unhappy in their marriage. His question is, "Who told you would always be happy in your marriage?" In essence, intimate relationships are frequently going to make us unhappy. We can't grow deeper together unless we are willing to confront the reality of who we are.

I think his wisdom applies to being the Church. I wrote last week that I think the "business" of the Church is identity. We are to find our identity in God, not in our job, not in our spouse, not in our church. Identity in anything else is idolatry. We find our strength in God and bring that to our job, spouses, and church. Jesus' prayer in John Chapter 17 is that we would be one and that in being one, the world would see God's love for humanity. That oneness, and all that flows from it, can only happen when each of us has our identity rooted in God.

Paul tells us in various places that God has given us various gifts to fulfill our role as the body of Christ. Bodies require coordination. But we want to absolutize our proclivities as the defining feature of being the body. We diminish and even demonize other body parts because they do not share our high esteem for our function. We look for others who share our proclivities to reinforce our value of ourselves. Then we proudly proclaim we have achieved oneness in Christ and authentic community by being out of fellowship with the rest of the body of Christ!

I often hear the prayer that "God would make us one." It is a pointless prayer. We already are one! It is an established reality in Christ. The only question is, are we going to live like it? The problem is that the more we become one with God, the closer we get to each other. Tony Campolo used to say that "Jesus is the light of the world!...and we all know that light attracts bugs!" You don't know just how buggy sometimes until God brings you into intimate community.

You say you aren't happy in your church? I ask you the question my counselor friend asks, "Who told you that you were always going to be happy in your church?" Confronting each other's ugliness in intimate community is God's sanctifying plan. Community is hard, ugly, painful, frustrating, and exasperating work. Jesus died creating it.

I am all for Emergent congregations. We intuitive (Meyers-Briggs) types are often out in front of change. Sometimes doing goofy stuff, and sometimes we give inspired leadership. The sensing types often come along later, only when they can see concrete examples of what might be. What I fear is that many of us intuitive types may be seduced to create congregations that are more about the unhindered expression of our intuitive natures rather than seeking a vision for how we become one before the world.

Tomorrow, I have some thoughts that may help us avoid that trap.

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Emergent (Part 5)

I have written about my Meyers-Briggs NT Rationalist experience in the church in the last two posts. I have also speculated that the number of N.F. Idealists alienated from Evangelical institutions are probably greater than the number of N.T.s. Where did these alienated intuitive types go?

Some of these types departed Evangelical institutions and started their own Emergent congregations. They seek to create communities that are responsive to the postmodern cultural shift. Many others have stayed in existing structures and championed embracing the Emergent conversation within their faith communities. They seek connections with other Emergent minded people but have not left their affiliations. Some have just dropped out of institutional involvement altogether. Within the Emergent congregations are a growing number of people who have come to faith knowing no other model of church other than their Emergent worshiping communities.

We know Evangelicals have always had an emphasis on practical faith. They have been a people of action. Over the years, they have shown remarkable ingenuity in rearticulating their faith as times have changed. They have proven themselves exceptional tacticians and are unsurpassed in mobilizing and deploying resources. Of course, these are the actions that the S.P. Artisan and S.J. Guardian temperaments excel at. The Evangelical movement has historically been much less adept at engaging intellectual nuances and embracing the mystery of God as we sojourn in this world. These are the things that the N.T. Rationalists and N.F. Idealists excel at. I suspect this division has been an ongoing challenge throughout the history of the Evangelical movement. So what has changed to spark recent events? I think at least three major things have happened.

First, the Modernist worldview is breaking up, especially in the last thirty years or so. Young adults have grown up in a postmodern environment. For many, the milieu of the church, be it Evangelical or otherwise, seems entirely foreign. This is quite true even for those young adults who have been raised in the church.

Second, Evangelical institutions have responded to cultural change with what they do best: tactics and organization. The mega-church model of Willow Creek became the gold standard for being an Evangelical congregation. Saddleback has seemingly eclipsed that role. Borrowing from marketing expertise, these institutions created spiritual Wal-Marts tailored to their communities. This was a natural extension of the Evangelical strength of addressing individual needs in practical ways.

However, from the perspective of many intuitive types, the mega-churches have created a consumer spirituality monster. What little existed of God-centered worship amidst an authentic community attuned to the mystery of God was erased from church life. What used to be preaching from the Bible (though from a Modernist mindset) became platitudes with scripture proof-texts. This may sound overly critical, but I think it is a fair description of intuitive types' perspective of the world they left. They believe the culture has radically changed in ways that require the Church to rethink its purpose for being, not just tactics.

Third, is the linkage of Evangelicalism with a narrow spectrum of political agendas. There have always been Evangelicals across a wide range of political viewpoints. Yet, with the increasing focus of visible Evangelicals on conservative politics, especially with the rise of organizations like the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and Focus on the Family, many younger adults in Evangelical circles have become increasingly uncomfortable about being identified with these movements. Either they disagree with some key issues or feel the agendas lack a coherent political and theological basis. There have been organizations around, like Evangelicals for Social Action, that offered alternative perspectives, but they have been dwarfed by the conservative political organizations, many of which have been single-issue focused. Also troubling, especially I suspect for the N.F.s, has been the often strident and angry tone of the politics.

As Evangelicals left to form new congregations and networks, they became more visible. A parallel event began to intersect with the Emergent types. Like their Evangelical counterparts, many mainline church N.T. and N.F. young adults came to see their traditions as hopelessly captive to Modernist theology (liberal and conservative.) They have seen the innovative nature of Emergent types, their unabashed attempt to engage a postmodern environment, their hunger for authentic community, and their desire to embrace the mystery of God.

The presence of Mainliners in the Emergent circles seems to me to be a development of the past five years or less. The Mainliner Emergent types most frequently complain that within their circles, there is a lack of missional focus, calcified institutional structures, institutional blindness to the challenges of a postmodern world, and endless wrangling over internal political issues. The Mainliners seem more inclined to stay within their traditions, but it is uncertain if this will persist.

Because of their particular temperaments, it is unsurprising that N.T.s and N.F.s would be among the first to tune in to the present cultural shift. Social change usually starts with the intellectuals and the artists, who are overrepresented among the N.T.s and the N.F.s. The question is, where do we go from here?

Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one and that the world would see God's love for the world through our oneness. Paul was fond of using the body of Christ metaphor and insisting that one part of the body cannot sever itself from the others. So can the N.T. or N.F. foot say to the S.P. and S.J. hand, I am not a part of your body? Similarly, what if the N.T. or N.F. stays within a system where their every input is immediately dismissed as impractical, too risky, or unreasonable? Is not the refusal to use the God-given gifts of the N.T.s and N.F.s an exclusion from the body?

Many corporations have human resources departments that train and coach work teams to understand the special abilities diverse people bring based on various traits, including temperament. So why does the Church find itself fragmenting according to temperament gifts?

I suspect the difference is that corporations are out to accomplish a mission. They are out to earn profits. They are motivated to maximize the use of all the available resources, including their personnel's giftedness. The Church is not on a mission. Most in the church are there to be the recipients of someone else's mission. Mission is something done by a specialized professional with some assistance from amateur volunteers. Effectively, the congregation's people aren't part of a mission, so there is no need to know or appreciate others' gifts. There is no need to bear with one another as the body of Christ as we answer a common calling. We just seek out a faith community that is comfortable with our temperament. The body of Christ metaphor is too frequently an empty cliché.

But what if we understood our mission was not of clergy to laity, but of the congregational community, as the body of Christ, to the world?

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Emergent (Part 4)

Yesterday I wrote that the Emergent Church seems heavily populated by Meyers Briggs intuitive types. I differentiated them this way:

“Sensing types are highly observant of the factual details around them. Intuitive types are introspective as they scan the environment for patterns of organization.”

Sensing types tend to value words like sensible, practical, realistic, and down-to-earth. Perspiration is what leads to success. Intuitive types tend to value imagination, ingenuity, the possible, and the speculative. Inspiration is what leads to success.

All of this is good until you combine these two types. The sensing types are inclined to view the intuitive types negatively. They will likely see the intuitive types as flighty, impractical, head-in-the-clouds, unrealistic, and irresponsible. Similarly, the intuitive types are inclined to view the sensing types as plodding, exasperatingly slow to see possibilities, and blind to complexity.

It isn’t just that these types tend to view their counterparts negatively. They often view their counterparts as possessing some mental or character flaw. In many organizations, a particular conflict is less about specific decisions and more about exhibited temperamental traits. I suspect the intuitive types are more sensitive to this struggle as they often find themselves outnumbered. Sensing types comprise 75% of the population, and intuitive types comprise about 25%.

Yesterday I noted that I am an INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging). INTJs make up about 1% of the population. This means that in most of my classes of 25-30 students, K-12, there was not another INTJ in the room. As teachers are disproportionately sensing types, we intuitive types often grow up feeling that we are somehow odd. If we make it into higher education, we often are surprised to find a much higher percentage of people who are similar to us. Many intuitive people are drawn toward advanced education.

For me, there were also family and religious issues. My parents are sensing types. I was raised in a Wesleyan-Arminian Evangelical tradition that tended toward a formulaic legalistic way of relating to God and the world. I wasn’t even an adult before I knew I was a fish on dry land.

As a young adult in graduate school in the early 1980s, I wandered into an on-campus study of the Presbyterian Book of Confessions, led by a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister. Through this experience, I found a community where difficult questions were welcomed. I also was involved with an ad hoc group that worked with international students and created opportunities to discuss difficult theological and cultural issues. That group eventually became known as Wellspring, near Manhattan, Kansas, and continues to exist today. It mostly involved people who were intellectually and artistically starved. (It was also in 1984, that I spent part of a summer at the Southboro, MA, L’Abri.)

In the late 1980s, I earned an M.B.A. at Eastern University in Economic Development. Most of the students were not from the U.S.A., and most were planning to work for economic development in nations around the world. I sensed that most of these students were intuitive types. It was one of the more rewarding experiences of my life. Since then, I have been involved in various organizations that directly reflect the concerns and values prevalent in the Emergent Church.

I tell my story because it was one of intellectual dryness searching for living water. The Evangelical milieu lacked the intellectual rigor to feed my rationalist-intuitive-thinker N.T. passion and gifting. I know many others have had this experience, and our congregations were not where we would want to bring fellow N.T.s. All that said, we N.T.s were not the only “dry stream.”

The other major stream I have been consciously aware of along my journey is the idealist-intuitive-feeler N.F.s. I suspect they may be the greater portion of the Emergent developments. The idealist N.F.s are disproportionately artists and ministers. As other N.T.s and I have sought an intellectual coherence to life, I think the N.F.s have sought a coherence of relationships and community. Psychologists will tell you that N.F.s are very distinct from other temperaments. The SPs, S.J.s, and N.T.s all have some sense of what it means to achieve self-actualization. But the N.F. is ever becoming and never arriving. The quest itself is the purpose of the quest. This seems to make perfect sense to N.F.s and is unintelligible to the rest of us. Whatever the case, when you find a highly empathetic person who seems able to get in touch with deep archetypical human traits, you are likely relating to an N.F. The formulaic, overly scripted, platitude-laced world that too often dominates Evangelical circles was just as confining for the N.F.s as my brother and sister N.T.s. 

I believe that the Emergent Church had its birth in N.F.s and N.T.s who intuitively sensed radical culture changes and could no longer abide by the stifling confines of Evangelical institutions. My solution in the early 1980s was to move to a mainline Presbyterian milieu where my “NTness” was welcomed, even though I have found much that makes me sometimes question my decision. Others took similar paths of exodus from Evangelical structures. I see the Emergent Church as a continuation of that exodus.

From what I can tell, what we call the Emergent Church came from an organization called Young Leaders in 1996. It went on to become the Terra Nova Theological Project. Several young leaders passionate about being the Church in a postmodern age became convinced that conventional structures and organizations were not getting it done. They got together and envisioned a new way of being the Church that neither Evangelical nor mainline congregations could or would embrace. They saw both groups as hopelessly trapped in Modernist paradigms that would not do in the present age. So in one sense, the Emergent Church is post-Evangelical, but it is also consciously post-Mainline Christianity. While the movement began among Evangelicals, it has moved steadily beyond those borders in recent years.

My first exposure to the Emergent Church came when Steve Hall, a friend of mine and fellow graduate of Eastern University, told me he was part of a core group that wanted to begin a church in my neighborhood to reach postmodern young adults. I told him that the third floor of our building wasn’t being used and suggested they consider renting it. They did, and the core group of Jacob’s Well began meeting on our third floor.

Jacob’s Well grew steadily and soon began to rent the sanctuary for their expanding services. Our 100-year-old Presbyterian congregation was energized by seeing Jacob’s Well’s work and began exploring new possibilities for the future ministry in 2000-2001. Unfortunately, due to several factors, including a protracted illness by the pastor, the congregation of Roanoke Presbyterian Church decided to dissolve and sell the facilities to Jacob’s Well. Jacob’s Well now has a vibrant ministry to hundreds of (mostly) young adults. While not directly involved with Jacob’s Well, I have had a front-row seat to its formation. The presence of Jacob’s Well has kept the Emergent Church on my radar.

I greatly respect the efforts of those involved with the Emergent Church. But can the Church truly be the Church if it only consists of Idealists and Rationalists, excluding Guardians and Artisans? I find Emergent congregations deeply attractive, but I fear it may be for the same reasons I find White middle-class congregations comfortable. They are a lot like me.

More Tomorrow.

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Emergent (Part 3)

Several people have asked me about my interest in the Emergent Church phenomenon. My Presbyterian history makes my interest seem incongruent to some. I also have been more vocal about the priesthood of believers in recent years. Some have wondered where my passion for this topic comes from. Rodger Sellers suggested a few days ago that I articulate what drives my passion for these issues. As I have reflected on it, I think writing about my journey might be helpful for several reasons. First, I think my story symbolizes one stream that flows into the Emergent Church river. Second, I think it will also shed some light on why I think the priesthood of believers is a word that needs to be spoken today. So here goes.

I am the youngest of four children. Like many parents, my folks recorded my "firsts." My mother told me that while most children's first words were "Mama" or "Dada," my first words were "What dat?" From a very early age, I have been on a quest to master my surroundings. I don't mean master in the sense of control but instead wanting to see coherence in how my environment works.

I had a variety of interests as a child. One passion that extended well into adulthood was collecting baseball cards. I have cards from the 1960s into the 1990s, some of which are more valuable now than the computer I am typing on. However, I wasn't collecting them for investment purposes. Baseball cards were information about a complex human system.

Each year a new series of cards was released. Each player's card was stamped with a number so you could mark off a checklist as you collected all the cards. I would take my cards and organize them by number. Then I would organize them by team and alphabetically within the team. Then by team and position. Then the whole stack by position and by batting average or ERA within the position. Ad nauseam.

When I became a teenager, I bought baseball encyclopedias. I could tell you all about the franchises past and present, their name and city changes, and who had won the most World Series. I used to be a virtual storehouse of worthless baseball knowledge. I have lost some of that now.

A similar story repeats for me, from astronauts to biological species, history, and geography. I am an information hound, always intuitively looking for how the information integrates into a larger picture. But information for information's sake has never been the objective. The information must be pulled together so that strategies can be devised and the information applied to actual world events. If a particular strategy doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Learn from it and reorganize the information to find the strategy that does work.

In short, my existence is about the empirical analysis and application of ideas. I do it without trying. It is part of the warp and woof of who I am. My higher education has been in sociology/demography and business. Professionally, I have been a social trends analyst, market researcher, competitive intelligence researcher, and a consultant. Amidst all of this has been an ongoing study of theology.

For anyone familiar with the Meyers-Briggs temperament typology, you probably already have me pegged: Introvert (though only slightly), Intuitive, Thinking, Judging. (INTJ)

Meyers-Briggs identified four polarities within human personalities:

Extravert vs. Introvert. Extraverts draw energy from being with others. Introverts draw energy from being alone.

Sensing vs. Intuitive. This speaks to how information is taken in. Sensing types are highly observant of the factual details around them. Intuitive types are introspective as they scan the environment for patterns of coherence.

Thinking vs. Feeling. This speaks to how information is processed. Thinkers process information through their thinking and feelers process it through their feelings. Thinkers are often perceived as tough-minded and the feelers are often thought of as friendly.

Judging vs. Perceiving. (This is probably the most poorly named pair.) This speaks to a preference for structure in life. Judging types prefer to establish priorities and schedules. Perceiving types are more drawn to probing and seeing what emerges.

There is a possibility of sixteen combinations using these four polarities, although some are more prevalent. However, psychologists believe there are four archetypes; two types of sensing folks and two types of intuitive folks.

SP (Sensing Perceiving) – Artisans  (About 37.5% of the population)

SPs probe their immediate surroundings in order to detect and exploit any favorable options that come within reach. They value having the freedom to act on the spur of the moment, whenever and wherever an opportunity arises. No chance is to be blown, no opening missed, no angle overlooked – whatever or whoever might turn out to be exciting, pleasurable, or useful is checked out for advantage. They are the tacticians in organizations.

SJ (Sensing Judging) – Guardians  (About 37.5% of the population)

SJs observe their close surroundings with a keen eye to scheduling their own and other’s activities so that needs are met and conduct is kept within bounds. Everything should be in its proper place, everybody should be doing what they’re supposed to, everybody should be getting their just deserts, every action should be closely supervised, all products thoroughly inspected, all legitimate needs promptly met, all approved ventures carefully insured. The are the logistics people in organizations.

Sensing types tend to take their reality as self-evident, so the big question is the level of structure to their lives (J vs. P). However, intuitive people do not share this self-evident assumption, so their most critical variable is how they process information (T vs. F).

NF (Intuitive Feeling) – Idealists  (About 12.5% of the population)

NFs are friendly to the core and are ever dreaming up how to give meaning and wholeness to people’s lives. Conflict in those around them is painful for NFs, something they must deal within a very personal way, and so they care deeply about keeping morale high in their membership groups, and about nurturing the positive self-image of their loved ones. They are the diplomats within organizations. (Although only 12.5% of the population nearly half of all pastors are NFs. No NF has ever been president of the US.)

NT (Intuitive Thinking) – Rationalists (About 12.5% of the population)

NTs are tough-minded in figuring out what sort of technology (human or material) might be useful to solve a given problem. To this end, NTs require themselves to be persistently and constantly rational in their actions. The NTs are the strategists in organizations.

(These descriptions have been adapted from David Keirsey's Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence, p. 18-19)

So what, you may ask, does all this have to do with Emergent Church? Let me give you three short anecdotes.

First, I was combing through some threads on the discussion boards at the Ooze (an Emergent online hangout) last year when I found a thread that asked people to report their Meyers-Briggs type. I counted twenty-two responses where someone posted their type. Of the twenty-two, twenty-one were intuitive types. Only 25% of the larger population are intuitive types.

Second, I attended the Emergent Convention sponsored by Youth Specialties last April in Nashville. Tim Keel of Jacob's Well gave a fascinating presentation about the increasingly intuitive nature of culture and the need for intuitive approaches to church life.

Third, I mentioned that I am an INTJ. INTJs are about 1% of the population. The Emergent Village gathering had 170 people, meaning no more than two of us should have been INTJs if we were representative of the population. I took two guys to dinner with me in my rented car on Wednesday evening. As we ate dinner together, the temperament topic came up and guess what? All three of us were INTJs. How many others do you suppose were present? The only three present, which is one more than you would expect, all just happened to get in the same car together?

My experience has been that the Emergent Church community is overwhelmingly populated with intuitive idealists and rationalists. This is revealing because psychologists will tell you that the sensing vs. intuitive polarity is a greater source of misunderstanding and strife in organizations than the other three combined. What does this mean for the Church?

More tomorrow.

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Emergent (Part 2)

The Emergent Village sponsored the gathering I was at last week, held at the Glorietta Retreat Center, sixteen miles east of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Below is a picture of the registration building and a look at the mountains surrounding the camp. Our nearly 170 participants were lodged in hotel-style arrangements, apartments, and cabins, according to particular needs. The facilities were great!

We all arrived by Monday evening, and after milling around for a while….

….. Doug Pagitt got folks together to hear what the week would be like.

There were folks from a few months old to seventy years old.

For the next three days, breakfast and lunch were hosted at several locations with volunteer cooking and cleanup crews. Everyone was invited to participate in meal activities. The evening meals were excursions into Santa Fe.

Tuesday and Wednesday began with breakfast and then yoga until about 10:00 for all those who wanted to participate. Some organized morning (and evening) prayers, and some just used the time for conversation or private time.

The day centered around 1.5-hour discussion times at 10:30, 1:30, and 3:30. Everyone and anyone were invited to sign up to host a discussion. The list of topics was divided over the three time slots and assigned meeting locations. At 10:00, each discussion leader stood up and described what they had in mind in three or four sentences.

Everyone then noted which events they wanted to attend and headed off to conversations and activities.

The topics were all over the map. Most dealt with theological or social issues. "What is the Kingdom of God?" "What is Emergent?" "New Monasticism." "Emergent Church and Women." Others talked about fitness, nutrition, and children in the church. Some dealt with a history of coffee, making cigars, or hiking.

Thursday morning was especially rich. We gathered in the campground's prayer garden for worship. Anyone who wanted to share something was invited to offer it (song, poem, prayer, scripture, etc.), and it was woven into some readings from the prayer book. At the end, communion was celebrated.

I especially enjoyed the gathering as it allowed me to see a broad cross-section of people involved in Emergent from across the nation and worldwide. There were people from Emergent congregations, Evangelical congregations, and more traditional mainline congregations (I met at least three PCUSA pastors and one elder there), and I expect some were from no congregation at all. I got to know some great people. It was a very special happening.

This event also helped me bring into focus some things I have been pondering concerning Emergent over the years. More on that in the coming posts.

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Emergent (Part 1)

I have been doing a series of posts on "klaos" and will return shortly. However, I want to put that on hold for a few days and write about the Emergent Church phenomena. I just returned from the Emergent Village gathering at the Southern Baptist campground in Glorieta, New Mexico, sixteen miles east of Santa Fe. That first sentence alone could be a metaphor for the experience: A Presbyterian attending an Emergent gathering at a Southern Baptist campground.

Many people have difficulty understanding Emergent as they look for a charismatic leader or an institutional umbrella to define what is happening. The Emergent Village is not a Church or an umbrella organization for a movement. Informal networks connect emergent folks. Like a computer network, there are nodes but no central unit. The Emergent Village is a node.

Some identify Emergent through visible participants like Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, or Spencer Burke and form their opinions based on what they say. Some people form their impressions by visiting websites like the Ooze, an online discussion forum where many Emergent types hang out. Some identify Emergent with a worship style that heavily emphasizes the arts and aesthetics. Others hear the word "postmodern" referenced in positive terms in Emergent circles and brand the participants as relativists who are compromising the witness of the gospel. None of these paint an accurate picture; there is much more beyond what I mentioned.

According to the Emergent Village website:

Emergent is a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Our dream is to join in the activity of God in the world wherever we are able, so that God’s dreams for our world come true. In the process, the world can be healed and changed, and so can we.

In English, the word “emergent” is normally an adjective meaning coming into view, arising from, occurring unexpectedly, requiring immediate action (hence its relation to “emergency”), characterized by evolutionary emergence, or crossing a boundary (as between water and air). All of these meanings resonate with the spirit and vision of emergent. In other languages, names for regional networks will be chosen with similarly evocative meanings.

I have been around the Emergent phenomenon since 1998, shortly after it began to be recognized as a "happening." I am coming to some conclusions about the social psychology of what is happening that I have not yet seen or heard discussed in a public forum. Over the next few posts, I will write about my experiences at the gathering. From there, I will turn to some of my experiences over the years, my understanding of Emergent history, and this social-psychological perspective that is "emerging" in my mind.

I look forward to reading what you think and feel about what I am writing and your take on how you have experienced the Emergent "thing."

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