#dmin3

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Course Correction

Recently, our church team has intentionally taking extra time to reflect on what we are doing in our church. Action without reflection can have dire effects. Course correction is constantly needed. Daniel Patrick Forrester’s compelling book Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization is an alarm for organizations to take time for reflective thought. With the constant pressure to do more and do it better, time out to stop and reconsider what we are doing can seem counter productive. Its funny, I also have a book called Action: Trumps Everything by Charles F. Kiefer and Leonard A. Schlesinger.Which you would think has the opposite message. For me, these are a good balance to hold in tension. Both talk about the importance of giving thought to how an organization works. Both speak about taking intelligent action.

Kiefer and Schlesinger state, “without an overwhelming desire to make something happened. The odds are nothing will. You must truly want to being something into being.” (p.47) For Christian leaders, this is our calling. God has put within us an overwhelming desire to make a difference in our world. These authors call for acting our way into a new way of thinking. Their premise is that we are prone to inactivity. This may be presumptive because so often Evangelicals can act without much thought. But they do call for an inventory using key questions to assess actions. Since my tendency to over think decisions, I find it is a good course correction.

Forrester demonstrates the importance of intelligent reflection. Behind this reflection is an intention to act. He gives a great example of both inaction and unreflective thinking. On April 10th, 2012 the oilrig the Deep Water Horizonexploded causing eleven people to die and 4.9 million barrels of oil to be disseminated into the Gulf of Mexico. There was extensive damage to marine life and beaches. The devastation is ongoing. In 2012 dolphins were reported to be dying at six times their normal numbers.  The tragedy was caused by the main seal breaking down. Evidence was ignored. Chunks of the main seal were seen breaking apart. But stopping the drilling process to evaluate was deemed too costly. If leadership would have taken time to investigate, the tragedy could have been avoided. Since then BP oil has been levied 4.25 billion in fine by U.S. Justice department. A costly mistake indeed. 

How about the church? While it may be a stretch to compare a massive oil spill to what is going on with today’s church, some reflection could be in order. There is evidence of a breakdown at a deep level between the way church is running and the culture around it.

The church is viewed increasingly more as judgmental, hypocritically and irrelevant according to Barna research. (Chunks one, two and three?)

Church adherence is down. About 38% of people in the Northwest, U.S. have no religious preference. The trend in the U.S. is edging toward 25% according to a 2008 Pew Forum census.

Many churches are in a sense of moratorium about what to do. They can be caught up in preservation instead of perpetuation.

Taking time out to reflect can be more productive than the incessant drive of activity. In our church setting we have been asking some hard questions about our specific calling and assessing everything we do. While much of what we do is conventional; we sit in pews, sing songs, have a message, and have children’s and youth programs; we are evaluating how we can be effective and innovative for our setting. The motivation to change is compelled by the love for Christ and sincerely demonstrating that love through us. 

Jesus calls his church to be known for love of its members. Our best evangelism strategy is the quality of relationships of people who are called to live for Christ. Jesus prayer in John 13:35 states, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Back in 1970 Francis Schaeffer wrote a compelling book called The Mark of a Christian. He said we are to be known for how we love each other, but not to the exclusion of Christians. To exclude non-Christians is an “ugly” kind of love. Jesus included sinners. His invitation is wide open. Love compel us to include and care for all people.

Here is our take away. We are asking how we can demonstrate hospitality that encourages relationship, not just friendliness. Who are we called to include? What biases do we have? Will we let “sinners” serve? I believe Christians want to be inclusive, but live lives that put up barriers. Our leadership team no longer begins with discussions about programs and projects, but the people we are connecting with. We have raised the bar within the church for caring relationships. We still have a long way to go in identifying how to be inclusive to those that are not part of our church. To get over the insider/outsider dichotomy is a good first step.

Next we believe we need to be more conscious about how assessable our current services are for those who come as guests. So much is assumed. We are thinking through how much of what we currently do makes sense or is at least explained so anyone can know what is happening. But our most creative thinking is about creating a new venue that is conversational and interactive. If people are tired of being lectured to by Christians, why not include their voices in the discussion? We have not implemented this yet. But after Easter we will do an experimental once a month discussion-based “service”.

The Barna Group, “What people experience in Churches, “ January 9, 2012,https://www.barna.org/congregations-articles/556-what-people-experience-in-churches.html 

Barry A. Kosmin & Ariela Keysar with Ryan Cragun & Juhem Navarro-Rivera,“American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population”, Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture, 2009.http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/publications/american-nones-the-profile-of-the-no-religion-population.

Boston.com, September 19, 2010. “Blown-out BP well finally killed at bottom of Gulf”. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/09/19/blown_out_bp_well_finally_killed_at_bottom_of_gulf/

Discovery News, April 2, 2013. “Record Dolphin, Sea Turtle Deaths Since Gulf Spill” http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/record-dolphin-sea-turtle-deaths-since-gulf-spill-130402.htm

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Unmoorings

I recently heard Diana Butler-Bass talk at a conference on spirituality called Spiritual Climate Change. Diana convincing expressed what many of us either knew or suspected about the U.S. spiritual environment. We have dramatically shifted in adherence to church. What is shifted is the amount of people who claim no religious affiliation, which is about 25%. This attitude has effected not only church attendance, but also the recent presidential elections. When evaluating who voted, it was clear the Republican Party is out of step with younger voters. For instance 35% of 18-29 year old voters claimed no religious affiliation. Of those who voted for Obama 25% claimed no affiliation. Of the Romney voters only 7% were of no affiliation. What does that tell us? The younger unaffiliated voters are going to be around for a long time and they are increasingly not religious. The anti-religious climate is growing.

  Diana does not see current trends as discouraging. Although people are not claiming any religious organization as their own, they do claim to be spiritual. More people are claiming to be spiritual than religious. Compared to the 60s, where more people claimed to be religious, but not spiritual. The trend is reversed. She cites this as a call to the church to attend to the language of spirituality rather than religion. People today desire deeply experiential encounters with God. She says that we need to create new forms of old systems.

  She confessed a personal dilemma. She attends church and desires for her child to know the faith, but struggles herself with organized religion. She gave a metaphor of standing with one foot in a boat and one foot on the shore. The shore is institutional and traditional faith and the boat is her liberal spiritual leanings. When asked about the next generation and how they will find any mooring in the spiritual climate, she confessed she did not know. Those who have had an experience in a church have a framework from which to go spiritually, either away from it or return to it. The younger generation has no such framework. They have no mooring. Many children are following their parent’s drift from the faith of their youth. Because of this trend, I do not share her optimism here. Where will the younger generations find their “shore”? Will they just be adrift in Spiritual Climate change?

  Even though, Dr. Butler-Bass would not fit into the Evangelical camp, her words echo the reaction that Evangelicals have had in the past to the established church. Her theology would be different, but her spiritual expression would be surprisingly similar. Evangelicals have had a history of unmoorings from previous religious practices. The Evangelical movement has existed in England since the 1730s according to David Bebbington. It was a response to past Christian church practices like all movements. It was an attempt to become what was called a more “primitive” expression of Christianity. (p.36) There was an emphasis for conversion to be an experiential event in a person’s life. People desired to sense God’s supernatural work in them. The Evangelicals and the mystics both desired to experience God. (38) This sounds familiar to the modern trend in spirituality.

  What is alarming is how the social environment influences our religious outlook. Early Evangelicalism was an adaptation to the Enlightenment. (53-57) It was an appeal to rational cause/effect ways of view religion. Religious life was shaped by natural laws of the universe. Evangelicals began to see their faith as an experimental religion. Romanticism shifted the religious to a place of feeling and intuition in human perception. (p.80). “If it is felt, then it is true.” The supernatural can found experiencing nature. Then, more fundamentalist Evangelicals reacted to the perceived corruption in the world. Bebbington states, “Their proposal were regularly for the elimination of what was wrong, not for the achievement of some alternative goal. Their goals were often explicitly ‘anti’.” (p.135) The holiness movement too had a tremendous influence in Evangelical circles away from denominational churches. (176). The Charismatic movement, as well, focused on individual expression and a search for an idealized community. (233)

  Anti-denominational, experiential, experimental and a desire for a more pure form of Christian community are all part of our Evangelical history. This sounds so familiar with the spiritual climate that Dr. Butler-Bass spoke about. So is Diana as independent of her religious upbringing as she states? Are Evangelical movements more effected by the social trends of the time than a pure “primitive” spirituality? There is more in common with liberal and evangelical spiritual life than we realize. We both can reflect on how we have been shaped by our culture and evangelical past. We are not so innovative as we think. Instead our cultural past has shaped us for good or for ill. We both need a re-mooring to our faith roots. To stand in both the boat and the shore may be dangerous for future generations. But for me the metaphor breaks down. We need to be “comfortable” in the tension between our faith and the culture. It is not either/or. Instead of being pessimistically “anti” we can be realistically engaged. I agree that we may need “new forms of old systems”. But we may also need old forms for new systems. What those new forms will be and how to reflect on their value to spiritual formation will be tough questions for the future.

    http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/11/american-values-post-election-survey-2012/

  David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s, Grand Rapids: Baker Books,1989.

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Thinking Deeply

Thinking deeply is one of the reasons I am taking a doctorate in ministry. It is in questioning much of what it means to lead in a church that energizes me for leadership. Paul and Elder state, “Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improvement”.[1] Improving the very process of thinking is the next step.

To improve the way we think is very different than just giving a topic thought. Mindless Christianity is popular. To analyze is to question and may be looked upon as troublesome or faith defeating. This, at least, has been my experience. Asking vital questions in a faith environment can be unwelcome. Being a critical thinker seems to be anti-faith.

But the pain people have experienced in life or as being a part of the church either pushes them to analyze and deepen their understanding or it moves them to be cynical and withdraw. My experience as a young man in an excessively emotional Pentecostal church has raised many questions for me. This was especially true when the church went through two church upsets. The nature of what true spirituality now became predominate in my thinking. In a faith community there needs to be a place where skeptics and analysts can question. The reason this is not welcome may be because leaders have not analyzed their own assumptions, prejudices and thinking processes.

Every week when I speak I can so easily fall into the same trap. When we surveyed the congregation about one thing they would ask God, we became aware of two things. One there is a lot of pain and painful questions that people live with every week. Secondly, people are thinking about very deep theological questions. This has challenged me to bring context to those questions and not pose simplistic answers. The answers are not black and white or fit into tidy categories. Also, the non-Christian culture around us is not an easy one for Christians to engage in. People are weary and wary of flippant dogmatic simplistic answers. Reasoning faith in the gray takes clear thinking and self-critical thinking. Clarity is needed.

The one thing would have strengthened this booklet would to say more on the process of dialogue in community for critical thinking. This may not be the purpose or possibility in a small booklet. One question I still have is where does faith fit into critical thinking. The authors quote William Graham Sumner on critical thought as saying “Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators… they are slow to believe.”[2] While I think the point is not to be persuaded by thoughtless speech, the tone seems anti- faith. Does this allow for what Michael Polanyi calls “tacit knowledge”; knowledge that is hidden and not explained?

[1] Paul, Richard & Linda Elder. p.2

[2] Ibid. p.23