Peggy commented on my Tag #2 post about Caring, Compassion, and Charity, where I stated that I am passionate about helping 20/30-somethings “interpret” themselves. This involves listening to them, asking questions, and sharing frameworks for understanding where they are at, what “providential package of strengths” God has entrusted to them, and what their learning styles, temperaments, family systems, strengths/weaknesses, addictions, etc., give them as issues to work on. Thus, they can also be more intentional about a process of transition. (I’d use the word change, but I’ve come to assume that “Change is inevitable, transition and transformation are volitional.”)  

It’s likely to be a while before I can do a post (or series) detailing the interpreting process and where it fits in with cultural profiling, mentoring, and facilitating transformation. So, here’s an outline/preview.Interpreting for individuals is parallel to culturological profiling for social groups.

It’s about analyzing and identifying: 

  • Who they are (“providential package” for individuals, “redemptive purpose” for social groups).
  • What they value and believe and practice.
  • What their current trajectory is – both in the absolute sense of where they are, and in relationship to God’s ideals for individuals and social groups.

Interpreting/profiling is a preliminary part of the contextualization-to-transformation process. We must collect some starting “snapshots” in order to put them together and see where the “video” of their existence is moving.

When we know where a person or culture is, in relationship to God’s ideals, we can mentor individuals toward conforming to Christlikeness or catalyze transformation toward Kingdom Culture for social groups, based on their own point of origin. (How many of us try to get people/cultures to conform to OUR norms first before following Christ? That was the fatal flaw addressed at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15; No, gentiles do NOT have to become Jews before becoming Christians!)  

Transformation to Christlikeness and Kingdom Culture involves filling in gaps of what is missing in us from what God desires, expects, and empowers to be in our character and lives. It also involves scraping off the excesses of what is anti-biblical and goes against God’s character and commands – i.e., cultural syncretisms. 

I believe mentoring should include two main things, then.

First, help individuals and social groups work toward a broad understanding of the whole counsel of God, from biblical themes about God and His relationships with people, to concerns of morality, creativity, imagination, ethics, appropriate mysticism/reflection, etc.  

Second, customize biblical truth and wisdom for working on personal/social transformation issues that the individual/group indicates a readiness to address, while also challenging gently and perseveringly on other issues they aren’t yet willing/ready to tackle.  

In my way of thinking, this helps keep two polar opposite teaching approaches in a vital, dynamic tension – pedagogy and andragogy. We need pedagogy, where those who are more mature in the understanding and applying Scripture serve as experts who teach and mentor novices/less advanced disciples in what they will ultimately need to know. We also need andragogy, where those who are learners set the agenda, based on what they are ready and willing to learn. Pedagogy alone leads to a long-term theoretical knowledge base, but without regular enough application to current situations. Andragogy alone leads to a short-term application base, but without the big-picture framework of the whole counsel of God in order to interpret life wisely in the long-term. Either one alone can lead to a consumerist mentality; both together hopefully leads to participant learners with a Kingdom producerist reality.  

Once we have the two-dimensional (snapshot/analysis) and three-dimensional (video/trajectory) aspects in place enough to consider the fourth-dimensional layer, which is how global culture is shifting over time, and how those inevitable changes then affect all other personal and social transformation processes.  This is my own synthesis of a holistic theory of transformation. I like it because it is a “fractal” – the steps and details and processes work similarly for anyone and any group along the entire spectrum, from individual to couple to family to small group to neighborhood to tribe to city to region to nation to culture to civilization.

So, we only have to learn one overall process, and the how-to’s of application to any clustering of people. I know it’s complex, but then, what should we expect? Since we are created in God’s image, we are complex creatures, and culture is the most complex “thing” we create. Hopefully the approach is elegant enough to overcome the deficiencies of complexity …