We made a mistake

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much.Bill Hybels

Sometimes you come across something surprising. Bill Hybels, CEO of megachurch Willowcreek, says we were wrong in our programing. The Christianity Today blog quotes Hybels in even stronger tone:-

"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."

We have been told that outside Bill Hybels’ office there is a notice which says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” I'd still say careful Bill because your fundamental premise is still consumer based programing centred.

The research has shown that “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities [the old programing] does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more." The danger here is of a reactionary swing from communal to individual faith. I agree with fellow blogger Jared at gospeldrivenchurch.blogspot that abandoning church as community is not the right option either. Furthermore in my studies and own journey in life it has been the discovery and continued rediscovery of God that provides the motivation and orientation in life. The techniques i.e. spiritual practices are only techniques aka programs on an individual scale meeting perceived needs.

I been in discussion this week about structures and programs and faith development, Somehow good leadership has been equated with good management and good business practice. Yet the Old Testament records that a king was not what God wanted for Israel.

All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel ... They said to him, "You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. 1Sam 8:4-5

Balance and Christian Balance

Deep church continues to fascinate me as a counter-balance to both emergent and extremes of christian practice. Ian Stackhouse contributed a good essay which has made me think about conversations over the last week about the relationship between experience, personal biography, the traditions and beliefs of the historical church and the Bible.

Stackhouse writes provocatively

... once you detach from the notion of mediation through the Word and the sacraments, for the sake of freedom in the Spirit, you end up with something akin to Gnosticism. In essence our religion ends up being more to do with personal light than about divine revelation. ... as a pastor I know that many of my congregation arrive on a Sunday in various states of disrepair, and to serve up, week after week, a diet of unreflective, unmediated, ahistorical worship is not only uncaring, it is also un-Christian.

Yes this is polemical and provocative but he is, I believe, right. I have seen people lead worship as if they were performing in a local bar or coffeehouse; friendly warm and chatty. Yes I have said that the musicianship should be at this level but worship is a ministry, a spiritual activity which should point to and eventually address God. I have been present where leaders share their life anxieties and share their experience of God, but what is delivered is very I-centred message to the people rather than an us-oriented to God time.

As someone wrestling right in the centre of the postmodern debate, the human-divine relationship is very important but it is all about God-centred human experience rather than me. A key question is Do structures, whatever they are, serve God or people? Where is the transcendent experience or relationship?

Furthermore is spontaneous and free more spiritual than prepared and intentional structure? Of course not, if God is the focus and not human needs and desires. Why then do people behave as if spontaneous was better. Furthermore I am befuddled by people's language. I often listen for words like " I will", "I want", or "I need" when the focus ought to be God. Traditionally the leader in public worship is there in two roles, prophet and priest, to speak God's words to the people and to speak to God for the people. How is the person out front to avoid merely their own words?

My thoughts are that the Bible as inspired by and illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and preserved over history is a prerequisite to good worship, perhaps I should say authentic worship! The Bible should inform and shape what happens within the framework of serious intentional reflection. The loss of the Bible from its central role, the Lord's prayer and creedal statements of faith have moved things further into personal light and perhaps a form of gnosticism. And Oh yes gnosticism is bad because it leads to exclusivism and elitism.

Say to those who prophesy out of their own imagination: 'Hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! Ezekiel 13:2-3

Playing position

This sketch of a young woman playing the cello is passionate and intense. Over the years my playing position has had to change. One year in the 1980's my normal week long annual cello playing holiday was extended to 10 days. On the 8th day my back and right shoulder finally complained and told me that enough was enough. I developed a problem with my latissimus dorsai a muscle running down and across the shoulder. (I later found out this is a common injury for professional cellists! It made me smile then!)

On day 8, I moved from years of playing seated on the front edge of the chair to sitting right on the back of the seat with my shoulders resting on the top of the back. Now wedged into the chair I moved to a more continental style. I believe I first came across it associated with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra but I'm not sure. In doing that I have lost some flexibility but gained support.

More serious nowadays is my left arm/shoulder is no longer as strong as it was. Ideally the forearm is almost parallel with the floor thus offering both a vertical vibrato and a rotating vibrato. But the shoulders need to be exercised and muscles to be in good condition to maintain the correct playing position. This not the case at the moment.

There is for me a nostalgia, a desire to recover or return to my past pleasures and achievements but I know that is impossible. However I still desire something of the past but I realize that first of all I have to begin to work on my playing position for everything else to fall into place. Paul Tortellier's emphasis on good technique is important and can reduce ultimately the amount of rehearsal required. Oh for this young woman's flexibility and passion! Maybe what I long for is a good playing position, better strength, and good technique and the potential for good music.

I know that my spiritual life depends on the exercise of spiritual disciplines and these in turn affect my spiritual growth, but the disciplines do not as such constitute the spiritual life. They are the technique that allows life to come. As a musician it is to discover music in the act of playing, as a Christian it is to discover Christ in the act of praying.

Showing your underwear or lack of it

A good preacher knows that exegesis is like underwear – the congregation would like you to have it, but they don’t want to see it. Andrew Rogers at Deep Church (picture of Melora Creager of Rasputina, goth cello group)

Is theological education a good thing? Yes and No. I had a fascinating conversation Monday evening. One of my mentees talked about a church home study group who handed out 1 Enoch, learned to write it in Hebrew and what were they studying? Can you guess? ...the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

I believe all forms of theological education can be problematic when underwear becomes visible in preaching or study group leading or whatever. There are a number of issues.

Theological education can be a good regulator. Thus someone with training will be cautious to avoid misleading and heretical statements and conclusions, i.e. they know what they believe. This person also understands why they believe and have faith and can give a good account. Unfortunately often people rely on commentaries rather than do the serious work of prayer and careful study themselves. They need fresh underwear! They need to answer the question What does this Bible passage have to say to me personally?

But another person with the same education may in fact have an expert mentality and feel a level of intellectual superiority. They lack intellectual humility because a truly educated person recognizes how much they don't know. People here like to exert power and authority over others and careful listening to them often reveals weak doctrine or heresy. The Bible passage becomes a weapon or tool of coercion of the leader or preacher.

Yet a third version of this person feels everyone should benefit in detail from this education and therefore receive all this knowledge in excess. The underwear goes on full display. Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and to display it is even more so. The leader or preacher's basic knowledge in fact is only basic. Sometimes this appears as making thing overly simplistic so much that the paradoxes of faith disappear.e.g. God is sovereign but what about human responsibility and action, Jesus was both human and God, etc.

There is one final scenario where things resemble the Emperor's new clothes' story and everything is thrown out the window. Hopefully someone in the crowd has courage to notice they are totally naked and say something about it. This person abandons their education, forgets what was learned and uses others materials and does not do the work of exegesis nor prayer and careful study.

How do I know about this? Cos I've been all these versions/distractions. What does preaching or teaching or Bible study really involve. Well I think important that the preacher, leader etc wear underwear i.e. do the necessary work but as Rogers suggests showing it is not necessary. Well then what is speaking about the Bible all about? Firstly, I think it is important that the people meet with the text. Secondly they need to understand it within what it simply says and thirdly, they should have a context for them to live it out. But the final ultimate goal is not meeting nor analyzing the text nor its historical context but deepening a relationship with God i.e. growing spiritually.

The End of History

'What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.'

Francis Fukuyama was introduced to me in 1993-4 by a fellow student in a political philosophy class. His classic book, The End of History and the Last Man, saw that the progression of human history was a struggle between ideologies. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was symbolic of the end of the struggles as the world settled towards liberal democracy. More recently he has written about the politics of identity in migration and immigration issues. In February 2007 he wrote, "Modern liberal societies have weak collective identities. ... But if our societies cannot assert positive liberal values, they may be challenged by migrants who are more sure of who they are ... Multiculturalism, as it was originally conceived in Canada, the US and Europe, was in some sense a "game at the end of history." Clearly he has not lost his interest in the end of history as the eventual global triumph of political and economic liberalism but has to face more seriously a changing world.

Fukuyama in a blog entry (dated June 11 2007) records the text of a speech where Presidents Putin of Russia and Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan were present. The optimism of The End of History still very much remains.

"Trust can arise from one of two sources. The first is cultural, where individuals trust one another because they share the same culture, values, traditions, and history. In all societies, trust begins with family and kinship, and then only slowly radiates out to a broader range of social groups.

The second form of trust is based on shared interests. This kind of trust can exist between complete strangers, strangers who have nothing in common culturally and may operate in completely different parts of the world. This kind of trust is based on institutions." ... "The second form of trust expands the potential radius of trust indefinitely. It is more durable because it is based on self-interest, and it is the basis of modern economic interdependence. Trust becomes increasingly anchored in self-interest rather than culture as countries modernize."

Fukyama's optimism is based on personal and institutional and even national self-interest rooted in interdependence. Is this really a possibility? "There are many political reasons for which countries decide to align with one another on grounds of cultural, ethnic, or historical commonality. But economic rationality demands that trust be based on more impersonal criteria, regarding the degree to which a country’s institutions are law-governed and transparent." Is globalization really that positive even with liberalism? Can any society ever be free from corruption? Where is your's and my hope?

Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. Psalm 14:1

Waiting for rain

Saturday saw a visit to Crawford Lake which is a glacial lake, a rare meromictic lake where layers of water do not intermix. The water is so oxygen deficient that little is able to live in the water and the lake being so deep preserves whatever falls into it.

This tree seemed to be making a statement to the environment around it. The forecast was for showers and on this cold cloudy day, next to this half dead lake, this tree seemed to be dancing its Fall shimmy, with a spiral of colour.

ThisThanksgiving time in 2003 was a difficult time as I've already said earlier. My bike had been stolen and I was offered a replacement. In 1986 mother, Ma passed away but I dreamt about her again in this difficult period. "I got a bike but it was sort of falling apart - the chain was rusty and broken into small sections of links ... I realise that I'm not going anywhere! ... now [in the dream] I own or have my own place - Ma is trying to sell the family home and looking for a buyer ... then she tells me she has one but she has to move out Monday!" I noted in my journal that this dream was different and significant, because normally I was trying to move out but here Ma is leaving and looking for a home with me.

This seemed to be so special given that life was being drawn from me and I found life, instead of moving away or being driven away, I decided to stay in a difficult situation. In my dream Ma wanted to sell up and move in with me. This tree reminds me so much of the life and comfort that comes from the memories of Ma and her values, compassion and wisdom, and the beauty that came with her long-sufferingness with and scars from racial prejudice. For me she has been very much the archetypical wounded healer offering colour in a difficult world.

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. James 5:7-8

Creativity, Discovery and Making Associations

“Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e., with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science.” Thomas Kuhn

This is SDSSJ0737+3216, the smallest galaxy ever identified to date. For me after many years of simple googling, in less than 2 months, I have leapt into the 21st century, starting two blogs, entered the Google empire though Blogger, Google Pages, and now Google Reader. I have learned to customize this blog template, added a background image, header picture, animated gifs, label cloud, stat counter, audio and video links etc. (Watch this blogspace)

Thursday I discovered Makoto Fujimura's blog and found Kuhn's quotation in the greater context of an important association between science and art, creativity. Dean Keith Simonton states that “[h]ighly creative individuals are said to have a flat hierarchy of associations in comparison to the steep hierarchy of associations of those with low creativity.” It doesn't matter whether artist or scientist, the creative impulse is the ability to level the playing surface and see things together and make discoveries or connections. In spirituality it is to see the divine activity within the mundane of life. The astronomer Hans Kepler spoke of "thinking God's thoughts after him". Isaac Newton hoped that his famous Principia would "persuade thinking men to believe in a deity". Charles Darwin opened his Origin of Species with a quote from Francis Bacon, "Let no man ... think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works."

Creativity, discovery and making associations can all be about finding God. This surprisingly, or maybe not, is part of the gifts of a spiritual director or companion. The ability to see or discover patterns or make associations and this is intrinsically part of spiritual growth. Discernment is recognizing the hand of God. This blog has truly become a place of semi-formed or yet to be formed or discovered or created ideas and associations.