Paradigm Profiling in The Missional Zone Part 3-Paradigm Parallax and Measuring Missional

Near the end of my post on Paradigm Profiling in The Missional Zone, I gave a series of church and ministry types that I suggested either are NOT missional or were NOT NECESSARILY missional. I committed to coming back and sharing my thoughts on items in this list.

Before I get into the specifics, I’d like to describe the culturology process I used to draw my conclusions. I’ll give some technical background first, then share with a real-world apologetics story that I think will help illustrate the process. Then I’ll venture into the analysis of missional versus non-missional or not-so missional paradigm elements.

MATHEMATECHNICALS FOR MEASURING MISSIONAL

I always loved math, especially geometry – even if I’m not the best mathematician in the world. As proof of my deep commitment to this discipline, though, I would hereby share that for several years, one of my chief forms of entertainment was to play “The Claw” machine at the local video arcade.

Yes … you know, the glass case with the three-pronged clasper mechanism thingee (I’m sure that’s its technical name) where you try to clamp onto small stuffed animals or clear containers filled with … oh, baseball cards or costume jewelry or knick-knacks or such-like. Meaningful prizes all, of course. The Claw has a very set routine for triangulating your try at any given eye-candy prize: token in hand * drop in slot * machine rattles and activates * maneuver claw backward * maneuver claw sideways * hit the drop button * pray / hope / scream / laugh * pick up prize out of scoop tray!

Well, in my first year of practice, I scored over 80 prizes! Everyone came to expect – with great anticipation, I am sure – a miniature plush toy for every possible holiday and occasion!

Anyway, this all suggests the fondness I hold for math, and in fact, I have used a significant level of mathematical modeling and geometrica in developing my culturology concepts and processes. And today, I’d like to analogize a cultural concept by using math. The cultural concept at hand is how two or more parties in a dialogue THINK they are talking about the same issue because they seem to have a surface perspective in common, but, as it turns out, that is an illusion. They find eventually that, underneath the surface, they hold completely different and incompatible paradigm systems that just happen to have a small overlap area at the surface level.

The geometric analogy to this cultural conundrum is parallax. In parallax, two observers view the same object from different starting points and therefore from different angles in relation to the object. But what if the two observers didn’t know they were from different viewing places? Suppose they met at some third place and just happened to get into a conversation about The Object. Much of their description would sound very similar – at least it would at first. They might start out with general things, which make it sound like they were observing the same phenomenon. But eventually, you could expect that one would start describing details that the other did not see. It might take quite a while to figure out that they were in fact not speaking of exactly the same observations, and even longer to figure out the exact nature of the “offset factor” about the distance between their starting points for viewing The Object. The fact that there is distance between the viewing point of the two observers can only be discerned by following through on the trajectory of each eyeline and noticing that each takes you to a different destination in the distance.

For instance, people from both Southern and Northern Hemispheres can see the moon. However, they do not all experience a lunar eclipse at the same time, nor see the same set of constellations beyond the moon, or at the same angle. Say that two hemispheric representatives were conversing about the stars and the configurations of their constellations. Sooner or later it would become clear that it wasn’t simply that the other viewer HAD NOT seen the same constellation, but COULD NOT see it from their home turf. The geographical position of each viewer in relationship with the other makes it so they can never see the heavens in exactly the same way – although they do share some small area of an overlap zone.

Normally, parallax would be used to calculate interstellar distances from earth to far stars. So, how does parallax relate to my Paradigm Profiling? The paradigm distance between missional and non-missional paradigms are similar to astronomical viewing differences found between Northern and Southern Hemisphere observers in the above example. In the missional zone, this is the culturological equivalent of “paradigm parallax.”

Surface commonalities in cultural views simply do not guarantee similar paradigm conditions exist underneath. Representatives of missional and non-missional paradigms look at life from very different angles – even if they are looking at the same set of topics. And since they hold biblical themes in common, their general perspectives may sound very similar at first. However, their different underlying paradigms will eventually carry their followers out in such different conclusions and destinations that only then will it become absolutely evident that they do not actually see life the same at a deep level of details – regardless of how similar they appear on the surface.

APOLOGETICALS FOR MEASURING MISSIONAL

I’d like to turn now to an example from apologetics that will take us closer from parallax to paradigm profiling. I suspect many who read this blog have encountered people who use terms like grace, faith, and salvation. However, did you find with some people that the more you dialogued about your definitions and the deeper meanings of how these terms interconnect, you found your system – your paradigms – really did not mesh? That there was only surfacey overlap but deep-level parallax?

A few years back, I was part of a network of people who ministered to those who were leaving alternative religions and spiritualities to follow Jesus Christ. One of the network members had a background in Mormonism. From her, I learned an important technique. [I've lost touch with her. If I am able to reconnect and get her permission, I'll credit her by name for developing this approach.] She did presentations on the subject to church high school groups. Most students had no idea that the core of Mormonism is absolutely incompatible with the core distinctives of biblical Christianity. They’d heard Mormons talk about grace, faith, and salvation – about God, Jesus, and Satan – and it sounded fine to them.

So, what my friend did first was to ask the students to list things that they thought were the absolute essentials of the Christian faith. What is it that – if we don’t have it – we cannot really claim to be Christians, from a biblical point of view? So they’d shout out things like “The Trinity!” and “Salvation by grace through faith” and “God’s Word!” and “Jesus is the Son of God.” After they’d listed a dozen or so things as a group, she went point by point by point, and addressed the Mormon counterpoint from a biblical vantage point.

“Mormonism believes that YHWH is ‘a’ god, but also that this god is not unique. He is simply one of many gods and he happened to be the one who created our world. Mormon doctrine states that if we are faithful Latter Day Saints, eventually we can become a god also, and create our own world. Also, Jesus is ‘a son’ of this god, but so is Lucifer, so that makes Jesus and Satan brothers in their system.”

As she talked through these points, she’d turn to the chalkboard and scratch out Trinity and Jesus is the Son of God. Within a few minutes, every point on the students’ own list of Christian essentials was gone, scratched out, kaput!

I am visually oriented, and I appreciated her very visible way to demonstrate the below-the-surface differences between the two alternate approaches to “Christianity.” Her vivid demonstration set the stage for talking about the consequences theologically and personally of where each view ultimately leads. I had my friend’s memorable technique in mind when I detailed what I understood to be the critical features of “missional” in my first post on Paradigm Profiling in The Missional Zone. Again, by “critical” I mean those deeper paradigm elements that – if they are not present – it means whoever claims to be part of that paradigm, is indeed, not part of it. They may overlap at the surface level of activities and vocabulary, but the similarity is merely skin deep.

Again, I am not accusing non-missional people of Terrible Crimes Against The Truth or anything like that. It does mean that I must wonder some very particular things about this paradigm parallax:

If they have sincerity in claiming to be missional, or are using the term in a completely pragmatic way to be on board with The Next Trend.
If they are more or less ignorant of the profile of the deep-level missional paradigm, and their own, and the drastic differences between the two.
If they have assessed the trajectories and destinations in both faith and practice that their supposed missional stance leads people, and how this compares to that of the paradigm of those who participated in the Missional SynchroBlog.

Yes, that last wonderment is particularly critical. Where does non-missional Christianity lead its followers? Well, likely to becoming Christlike people in many many ways, but …

PARADIGM PARALLAX IN THE MISSIONAL ZONE

… suppose we used my friend’s Mormon-theology-cross-out apologetics technique to consider the list of potential claimers of missional ground, but whom I suggested are either NOT missional or NOT NECESSARILY missional.

If you are from one of these methodological models, systems, or paradigms that I have labeled as not missional or not necessarily missional – if you do not accept my premises or findings, and want to dialogue here, I would appreciate it if you would explain from a cultural analysis or paradigm analysis exactly why you believe my paradigm profile is incorrect. You could also use a strictly theological approach. However, you may have noticed that I did not rely on theological explanations for much of anything in my paradigm profile, so it might end up a dialogue about systematic theological apples versus narrative theological oranges, not paradigm fruit … and I’m not sure that will be productive.

That does not mean theology was missing from my missional paradigm. Au contraire! It was the next-to-lowest level, coming after the deepest-level items of information processing modes and critical values. However, I would suggest that one’s theological system is substantially determined by one’s dominant information processing mode(s). I wrote about this with a bit more detail in my recent post, Is There an Emerging Systematic Theology? and plan to continue that series later, but here are a few examples for now, using the five information processing modes I overviewed in my original Missional SynchroBlog post, Paradigm Profiling in The Missional Zone:

Systematic theologies – labeled as “abstract theology” in some 19th-century books on the subject – and biblical theologies are the inherent theological creation format within the processing mode of analytical, and they emphasize conceptual categories, closed systems, and issues of right versus wrong.
Speculative and eclectic theologies stem from synthesis, with its emphasis on open-endedness, options, and imagining new approaches.
Narrative theologies are more native to symbiosis, with its focus on relationships.
Mystical or devotional theologies flow from analogical processing, with its paradoxical approach that constantly compares and contrasts what is happening on the surface and its deeper meanings.
From the fifth processing mode of volition comes an integrative approach that chooses to use each of the other four modes – but in specific ways that apply to very specific domains. Explaining that would take a few posts of its own!

And so, I’d prefer to talk about deepest-level paradigm elements instead of theological justifications for this or that activity or attitude; I’d eventually refer to the deeper-level elements and issues anyhow, so why not just start there? Okay, nuff said on that …

DO-IT-YOURSELF SECTION: EVALUATING MISSIONAL AND NON-MISSIONAL

My original plan here was to use the equivalent of my friend’s apologetics cross-out technique, and go through in detail on each not/not-necessary missional approach I listed. Instead, I’ll leave that as a do-it-yourself project. I’ll provide you here with a reference checklist to work with, plus a list of approaches and models to critique. Then I’ll come back later to give at least one example, summarizing my main concerns with that approach, and see about posting additional critiques, starting later this week.

Meanwhile, you may want to go back to the section about in the middle of my initial Paradigm Profiling post, and read on “deepest level” and “deep level” paradigm items to get a fuller description. And, if you’re really REALLY into this, go to Brother Maynard’s “50 Ways to Define Missional” final summary of key points from the Missional SynchroBlog, and develop your own checklist.

Here is a list of the information processing modes and 10 critical values I listed in my Missional SynchroBlog post.

The Missional Paradigm comes from a relatively holistic combination of all five information processing modes:

Analysis (mind)
Synthesis (imagination)
Symbiosis (emotions and relationships)
Analogy (aesthetic feeling or soul)
Intentional integrating (will). This leads to a fairly comprehensive worldview.

The Missional Paradigm emphasizes these three processing modes over the conventional mode of mind:

Imagination
Emotions/relationships
Aesthetic feeling

The Missional Paradigm holds to these critical values (i.e., unless all of these are present, a paradigm or method is not truly missional):

Integrating all systems for the purpose of contextualization (cultural relevancy without compromising biblical principles).
Ongoing relational-incarnational presence within our local neighborhoods.
Redemptive transformation of individuals, cultures, and the earth.
Mutual respect and participatory learning from one another as a community.
Value the gifts of both individuals and community.
Discipleship as the integrating principle for transformation; discipleship leads to evangelism and social activism.

Methodological models within the Missional Paradigm use at least this set of guiding theological or philosophical perspectives:

Choose organic principles over programmatic approaches.
Choose to create a culture of producers instead a culture of consumers.
Choose the contextual local approach over generic universal materials.
Choose the intentional and strategic over the experimental and pragmatic.
Choose gradual change and impact, unless the Holy Spirit presses for urgency.
Choose corporate participation over institutional ownership.
Choose an external/Kingdom focus over an internal/Christendom focus.
Choose narrative theology over systematic theology.
Choose mentoring systems approaches to multiplication discipleship over informational program approaches to discipleship.
Choose words of Jesus over those of other biblical authors.

Here is my list of not missional and not-necessarily missional approaches to consider:

If our church uses a chaplain pastor model [i.e., where the pastor is responsible to be/do everything, from teaching to counseling, administrating to perhaps even worship leading], that is inherently NOT missional.
If our church uses a pastor as CEO-manager model, that is inherently NOT missional.
If our church is staff-led, that is inherently NOT missional.
If our church uses a program-based model, that is inherently NOT missional. (By program-based, I mean it uses organizational modules, projects, and/or curriculum that is supplied by outside publishers, agencies, or providers.)
If our church is a mega-church or multi-campus church, that is inherently NOT missional.
If our church uses a seeker model, that is inherently NOT missional.
If our church, ministry, or agency advocates “church planting movements,” it is NOT NECESSARILY missional.
If our church or ministry relies solely on the leading of the Holy Spirit to connect us with other people, that is NOT NECESSARILY missional.
If our leaders and teachers say that we need to be a Gospel/New Testament church and do everything like Jesus and His disciples did, that is NOT NECESSARILY missional.

Okay … will be back later with findings from my analysis on these, and perhaps an add-on item:

Why I believe typical missional models are not necessarily biblical enough.

futuristguy