Reintroducing Prospectorium
I noted a few posts ago that October 2008 represents the one year bloggiversary for my WordPress futuristguy blog – woo-hoo! And I noted there might be some surprises. Well, this is one of them.
My last futuristguy cluster blog (2004-2006, RIP) was hosted by a service I really really liked, but, sadly, their server got really really hacked and the whole thing imploded and is no more. One of the things I’d just started was a sub-blog called “Prospectorium.” Prospectorium is a “neo-logism” that I created from hybridizing the words prospectus (a formal summary of a planned project) and scriptorium (the place where scriptures or other manuscripts were hand-copied and/or adorned with illuminating artwork).
Sidenote #1: If you know anyone who has worked on a doctorate, they usually have to produce a prospectus, and it usually changes at least a trinity of times before it is accepted and the project or dissertation can begin. Sidenote #2: If you are a wordsmith, you’ll want to know (if you didn’t already) that the technical term for cutting words apart and then pasting the front of one and the back of another together is: portmanteau. (I’m a linguist, and I really love that kind of stuff, don’t you?!) (Okay, well, whatever …) Sidenote #3: When my talking goes on espresso-speed but my brain is on decaf mode, a lot of portmanteaus pop out spontaneously. Such as when I coined the term “malipulation.” (Ooh! That’s good – - but that’s bad!) And then there was “responsibiblity.” Okay, now back to the regularly scheduled post.
Anyway, Prospectorium was meant to be a sort of blogchive (Portmanteau! Portmanteau!) of articles on paradigm shifting, cultural interpretation, and figuring out preferable futures. However, part of what made it different from the usual archive or blog page was that each article included information on the context of its provenance and providence. In other words, I included details on the origins of its core thoughts (provenance) and the God-ordained circumstances (providence) that catalyzed the thinking. Whenever I reposted an article, I also gave current commentary and perspectives on whether these past-post ideas were ones I eventually either discarded, developed, and/or delighted in … and why.
This was all an intriguing way to “externalize” my thought process. I figured that sometimes we can learn more by seeing how a concept evolves over time, instead of just reading The Final Result of all an author’s thinking. What were his/her early ideas? Where did they come from? How did they morph over time, and what made for the morph? It’s a different way to reflect on material, and I thought I’d provide a sample here. And, if all goes well, perhaps I’ll reconstitute Prospectorium (although perhaps under another name, with some of the other three blogs that imploded) in a new form!
So, here it is: “Four Kinds of Kingdom Workers in the Emerging Cultural Era.” The original article is from 2000, the introduction is from 2001, and the commentary is from 2005 when I posted it on Prospectorium. If I have a chance sometime soon, maybe I’ll add on commentary from 2008. I’ve kept thinking about its core analogy of computer platforms for a loooong time, and perhaps there’ll be something worthwhile to add on from ‘08. Oh, yeah … please be patient with word usage that’s archaic. I know that almost no one uses “postmodern” anymore except in specialized circumstances, but that was the term which was most current at the time in the early ’00s.
Introduction (2001)
This article started out as a 400-500 word comment I wrote in January 1999 on the essence of postmodern leadership for book by church consultant Bill Easum. Bill’s book was eventually published by Abingdon in August 2000: Leadership on the Other Side: No Rules, Just Clues. Naturally, I expanded my article extensively for other purposes a year later – to about 10 times its original length – and labeled my longer version, “The Essence of Postmodern Leadership: Four Kinds of Kingdom Workers in the Postmodern Era.”
If I were revising it again significantly right now, I would change most of the postmoderns to post-postmoderns, because I have learned so much in the last 22 months about how to distinguish between these two mindsets. (To be way too brief, postmoderns are more skeptical, deconstructive, and focused on reacting against the past. Post-postmoderns are more spiritually connective, constructive, and focused on creating the future.) Unfortunately, I do not have the time available at the moment to do that word revision task carefully, so I shall just leave them as postmodern for now.
Meanwhile, I have retitled my current article to better describe the “so what” of looking at different kinds of Kingdom workers in the unfolding (post-)postmodern era. We must always move beyond integrating our ministry approaches only in the past (traditionalist), in the current culture (contemporary), or even “futurist” approaches like my [then current] home church to integrate ourselves around the right thing – being a “platformer Christian.” That biblical core of essential platform principles is the one we can and must use to bridge the significant differences in perspective and keep all of us on the right track, which is the journey of Christward transformation, both as individuals and as a Body of people who follow Christ.
Also, if I were revising it today, I’d add an extensive section on the importance of language usage in talking about contextualization. I’ve recently clarified further why I feel uncomfortable with terms like, postmodern Christian or postmodern leader. It would be better stated as Christian from a postmodern background or leader in a postmodern culture. If you put the postmodern first, it seems to me you risk reinforcing the idea that the culture comes first, which leads to syncretization. In my mind, the person and the Scriptures need to come first in contextualization terms. That’s what the “platform” is all about: Scriptures first, not culture. So I offer a short new section to illuminate this.
Think of the platform of comprehensive, integrated biblical theology as akin to a computer operating system, the master software that manages all the component elements of the system and can also run many kinds of local application programs. If a particular program does not mesh with the master principles and parameters of the operating system, its incompatible code will fail to perform, or otherwise cause the computer to freeze, crash, or display Windows’ dreaded “blue screen of death!”
Similarly, a comprehensive, integrated, and versatile set of biblical platform principles (i.e., the absolute core theology that applies to all Christians in all places at all times) can support multiple expressions of the church in each culture worldwide. But if any particular church ministry program or church planting model/genre is too out of whack with what the operating system/platform can handle, the thing crashes – it may fit the culture but be syncretized (integrated around the culture) instead of contextualized (linking the culture with the integration hub of truth). I would suggest that trying to run modernist church programs in a post-postmodern world is like trying to run PC-based programs on a Macintosh-based system. It just doesn’t work – right program, wrong operating system. Even if you try tweaking the (computer or church) program with a translator, it still has bugs and doesn’t come out perfect, and sometimes will still freeze your system. Platformer Christians can be more fluid with contextualizing theologies and ministry structures for the unique cultural settings God providentially places them in, because they have an adequate operating system of biblical principles to work with. Too small an operating system leads to frustrating attempts in develop a “local application” (i.e., plant a church). Too big an operating system leads to frustration for opposite reasons; all the extraneous principles weigh things down.
Okay – that whole illustration was because I’ve been working diligently to find or create a term to take the place of what I was calling biblical Christianity. The problem is that all theologians and ministers [myself included] think their systems are the real “biblical Christianity” – or they wouldn’t believe in it in the first place. So, why don’t we call ourselves platformers or platform Christians to indicate that we are like the Bereans in the book of Acts [Acts 17:11-12], who searched God’s Word for ourselves, to discern whether the things we are told to believe are actually truthful things from the Scriptures themselves? All that said, here is the article as updated in the year 2000, with some additional minor revisions.
The Article (2000)
“Four Kinds of Kingdom Workers in the Emerging Cultural Era”
Dear Bill …
You’ve asked an agitator from way back to supply you with an opinion of what leadership could/should look like in the postmodern era. You are a brave, brave man, Dr. Bill! Anyway, I am a post-Lutheran, post-non-denominational evangelical who is now learning Southern Baptist as a Second Language. I shocked myself a couple years ago with the self-discovery that I have a postmodern mind trapped in a Boomer body … which just goes to show that not all postmoderns are Busters, just as the versa of the vice is also true [not all Busters are "postmoderns"!]. It also turns out I am a bicultural mod/pomo, relatively radical in my postmodern value structures and thinking patterns, and – perhaps most shocking of all – a crypto-cyberpunk! But I’ll switch to my modern analytical mode for this essay so your readers don’t think I’m too whacked out. Okay … here goes!
The Essence of Postmodern Leadership?
Last week I was in a four-day intensive course on Methodological Models for Church Planting here at Golden Gate Seminary, and a great guy from Texas who’d never heard much about postmodernism said that he’d hardly heard anything but that since arriving at the seminary. A few days later, he bounded into the room and blurted out: “I got it! I finally got it! Whenever you ask somebody who’s postmodern what you know is a clear-cut yes/no-type question, you either get something like, ‘Well … yes and no …,’ or they tell you a story.” In that spirit, I offer you my response to your question of: What is the essence of postmodern leadership?
“It depends.”
It depends because “postmodern leaders” are not exactly the same as “leaders in postmodern times.” I see four categories of leaders in this increasingly postmodernized era – moderns, postmoderns, biculturals, and platformers. The essence of leadership in such a time as this offers very different situations, challenges, and opportunities for each group. But to contextualize the church instead of exterminize ourselves, we’ve all got to move beyond the rude “They-just-don’t-get-it!” reaction against Christians whose approaches to church differ from our own. If all four types of leaders can’t get it together on this, we’re a step away from extinction (barring divine election, of course, depending on one’s theology …). So – here is my boiled-down “espresso version” of the four who’s and their what’s. I am putting them all in the first person because I identify in significant dimensions with all four.
1. Moderns – Cross-Cultural Ministry Mode
Who. We modern leaders think categorically and sequentially. We seem to like everything divided down to nice, neat compartments … three-point sermon outlines with alliterative key words and occasional acronyms. We’ve taken the best of social science research methods and corporate leadership styles, and applied them to implement church growth. We’ve also given the Church their denominations and parachurch agencies, mission programs, and all kinds of study tools for spiritual growth.
Situation. However, we’ve also burdened the Church with some boondoggles. In fact, the very strengths we created in the modern era have transmogrified into our greatest weaknesses for reaching postmoderns. We’ve studied hard to present meaty, relevant sermons and resources for maturing Christians, but postmoderns want to discover things experientially for themselves, so they won’t take in our predigested material. We’ve created megachurches, but frequently neglected the church planting and community development which so appeals to postmoderns. We’ve founded institutions and programs, but these often squish people into formulas and boxes that they simply don’t fit in.
Biggest Challenges – Controlling Through Transferring Modern Culture Where It Doesn’t Fit; Revising Our Paradigms Way Beyond Just As Far As We Can Stretch. We can “tweak the models” for this and that institutional program, and “re-engineer the church” all we want. But that in itself will never remove the stained glass ceiling that keeps potential postmodern leaders trapped in the basement where the stinky lutefisk dinners are boiling away. (Random homage to my Lutheran heritage there.) And postmodernism is not some sort of phase; younger generations and postmodern people groups are NOT likely to “snap out of it when they grow up.”
The key is this: We’ve got to accept that we as moderns are now crosscultural missionaries – and we didn’t even have to go to Africa to do it. To be effective, we cannot maintain a “mission compound mentality” in our own culture, expecting these new postmodern natives to convert to our favorite form of churchianity … to be blunt, that constitutes syncretism, not salvation. We must lead postmoderns to Christ Himself and let His Spirit revolutionize their lives in whatever way and timetable the Father sees fit. Then let them transform their cultures according to their indigenous idioms (even if those grate on us), and don’t force them to transfer our modern cultural forms onto themselves.
Meanwhile, we need to get past tweaking things at the surface level, because that will only stretch our current paradigm incrementally. And when a rubber band remains stretched beyond its limits, it eventually breaks. Similarly, we need to find a different “rubber band” of a paradigm, and the anti-institutional and pro-community values of postmoderns challenge us to shift our paradigm completely to a different kind that retrieves a radically biblical model of church.
This will be tough. It requires us to evaluate both what we do and why, biblically, we say we do it. But if we are humble and willing to learn, postmoderns can significantly help us in this task by showing us where we read Scripture through the distortions of modernist lenses which make some things stand out to us while other things seem to be written in disappearing ink. (P.S. Postmoderns have warped lenses, too, and we can help them see things they miss in Scripture.) With God’s power, the result can be something that will help us reach whatever moderns are left in the coming postmodern years, as well as reach as many types of postmoderns as our new formation of church/Christian community can organically attract.
Best Opportunities – Mentor; Empower Indigenous Postmodern Leaders to Transform Their Culture. The most strategic thing we moderns can do is to invest ourselves into the lives of postmoderns and help them flounder around as they figure out their own forms of biblically resonant “indigenous idioms” – for leadership styles, for church structures, for worship styles. We must use our positions of power to intentionally empower young leaders. This may mean “breaking the rules” or “forgetting the box” or “making exceptions” in order to give them meaningful opportunities to try their wings. (P.S. And not all of them will be 20-somethings and 30-somethings; many latent postmodern 40-, 50-, and even 60-plus-somethings are themselves finally getting the chance to bust outta the boxes they’ve been confined in for so long!) Meanwhile, we need to get ready for some great mutual mentoring, because postmoderns have a lot worth sharing that will challenge us to grow and help us overcome our biggest challenges in transitioning our churches and ministries into the postmodern era!
2. Postmoderns – Indigenous Ministry Mode
Who. We postmoderns think in webs of relationships and multiple layers of meaning. As leaders, we offer the Church a gift of rejuvenation in a confusing culture that has more in common with the pagan first century than with all the Enlightenment era. We can stand on the verge of chaos and complexity, and find it energizing instead of frightening! We can sit with people in all their emotional pain and not be in a rush to get them into a self-help healing program; the wounds were relational, and informational solutions alone will never be enough to remove the brokenness. We can live within the paradoxical tension of wanting to impact the world, yet often see that our lives are lived in small arenas. But we persevere because God has called us to be His faithful servants, not “successful” servants.
Situation. We are so very different from moderns in the way we process information, and in many of the things we value. There are so many bases from which we could derive conflict! And we have done our share of blaming and shaming. We long for unity, as moderns do, but we also believe we must act with authenticity and integrity to whom God has created us to be for just such a time as this. Please persevere with us if we conclude we have to do something new in order to obey God, even if it is without your understanding or blessing. Please share your fellowship and wisdom with us as we engage in new endeavors for God’s Kingdom. Please pray for us as the Spirit of Christ launches us out from and into a multicultural world, much like He did from ancient Antioch in the book of Acts.
Biggest Challenges – Judgmentalism, Self-Pity, Intolerance. As postmoderns called by God into leadership, we must distinguish between valid critique and judgmentalism. Jesus came to us full of grace and truth – both grace and truth, not either grace or truth – so we must make every effort to maintain the bond of unity in peace and agape love with members of the Body of Christ from all generations and from all mindsets. We can never excuse any disobedience on our part to our being held back by moderns. And we must also realize that we are no more monolithic in our culture than are moderns. We postmoderns range from mild to wild, and church will not look the same for all of us simply because we hold to some degree of postmodern stuff! So, we must overcome our own ironic intolerance and condescending contempt, and give each other the freedom to follow biblical principles within our varying degrees of modern or postmodern values and perspectives, always encouraging each other to be Bereans and check it out for ourselves in Scripture (Acts 17:11-12).
Best Opportunities – Three Strategic Roles; A Real, Relational, and Realistic Incarnational Ministry Approach. There are at least three strategic ministry roles that we postmoderns can do best in this increasingly postmodern world: mission strategy coordinators for unreached people groups; hard-core urban ministers; and pioneers of indigenous, reproducible church planting movements. All three rely on such abilities as toleration for high degrees of ambiguity and creation of layered, holistic ministry responses to exceptionally complex personal, social, and cultural problems. Our organic, systemic ways of thinking (not just the analytic, systematic ways of moderns) will help us contextualize truths in breathtaking new paradigms that meet other postmoderns head-on in their spiritual journeys.
Also, we know “our postmodern tribes” like a good story. We seek to give them more than a snatch of Christ’s story embodied again in our own personage as the penultimate apologetic. And we have the best metanarrative in the universe to offer those who do not yet realize that this is what (actually Whom) they are really searching for in all their spiritual quests. They look to find the place of peace that all hearts long for, and we can connect at a heart-level with them in that pilgrimage. With God’s leading and the blessings of our community of faith, we are ready to rock the world because we are on the Rock already – even if we pray globally and act locally!
3. Biculturals – Bridging Ministry Mode
Who. Then there are those of us who straddle both worlds as bicultural modern/postmodern Christians. Many of us biculturals are from Boomer and Builder generations, and most of us have probably thought at times we were absolutely bonkers because we felt so conflicted. We didn’t fit in with our primarily modernist generations, sitting in spot #B-7 in the grade school desk matrix drove us nuts, and/or people thought we were so erratic that they treated us as schizophrenics. The good news is we’re not crazy, we’re probably just what researchers call “psychologically androgynous.” We pull from both sides of the brain’s thinking patterns (analysis and synthesis), we tend to embody character qualities from both sides of what is stereotypically considered masculine and feminine in our culture, and we consistently end up with ambiguous, borderline results on all our Myers-Briggs tests. (P.S. I love the comment from my in-between-Boom-and-Bust-gens friend, Grant, who said, “I’m not old enough to be a Boomer, but I’m not really a Buster either. I guess that makes me a Bummer.”) (P.P.S. Grant rocks!)
Situation. God always seems to raise up bicultural people in critical times of transition. Repeatedly throughout Scripture, we see people from two-plus cultures playing major roles. Like, we’re talking history-morphing roles, here. Think about the historical contexts and the impacts of such biculturals and multiculturals as Daniel, Esther, Ruth, Barnabas, Paul, Lydia, and Timothy. Why should this current tumultuous era be any different? God has given a unique redemptive purpose in His Kingdom to those of us who are modern/postmodern biculturals! We were raised up by Him to live out Esther Moments and Jeremiah Journeys for just such a time as this! And don’t forget, when God “calls” young adults to history-altering ministries, He usually calls out [an older-generation mentor] for them simultaneously, [thus creating an intergenerational team]. For example, Daniel had Jeremiah, Esther had Mordecai, David had Nathan, Ruth had Naomi and Boaz, Paul had Barnabas, Mary had Elizabeth, and Timothy had Paul and Barnabas. Who is on our team?
Biggest Challenges – Sanity; Taking Our Place in History. As biculturals, being ahead of our time as postmoderns raised in a modernist era may make us “prophetic” in our outlook, but it has also created emotional and relational difficulties for many of us. As a group, it seems we’re just now becoming aware that we are bicultural in our mindset, and that it’s actually okay to be this way. In fact, we must recognize this biculturality as a providential fingerprint of God in our lives, and accept that He’s allowed us to develop this way for a reason. Hopefully, this can help us come to peace with ourselves – we started our mid-life crisis in our teens and twenties, and now it’s finally our turn for integration! (And maybe it’s even okay to plunge fully into our postmodern side for the next decade or two, eh?) As we trust God and interact with His people, our strategic roles in the postmodern era should become increasingly apparent. But we must continue to act in obedience, even when the clarity is not yet present.
Best Opportunities – Advocacy, Reconciliation. Truly, we are doubly blessed – once we can see beyond feeling doubly “cursed.” We biculturals are already able to move fluidly between relating with moderns and postmoderns. Now we need to be intentional in advocating each side to the other in the midst of modern/postmodern conflicts. We could become some of the “bridge people” who facilitate reconciliation in the Body of Christ where generation gaps and mindset differences have engendered division. And who knows … we might be the architects of some pretty awesome paradigms for church planting and development of community that bridge moderns and postmoderns together instead of splitting them apart.
4. Platformers – Biblically Consistent, Contextualized Ministry Mode
Who. There are people who transcend these other categories, and in fact, have a platform from which to challenge, equip, and mentor anyone from any other mindset. We who are “platformers” may start out more modern or postmodern, but have ended up more complete biblical “operating system.” Thus, we serve as role models for all of us because no one is called to be a “modern Christian” or a “postmodern Christian,” but a “biblical Christian.” To think otherwise is to miss the entire point of what it means to “be a Berean,” and be noble followers of Jesus Christ because we check the Scriptures day after day to see what things are really so.
Situation. But what does that really mean, to be a “biblical Christian” or a “platformer”? I think it can be summarized as three core characteristics, each of which synthesizes a range of biblical principles.
First, platformers are biblically holistic. We have a grasp of the full range of topics addressed in Scripture. This confronts moderns with their inconsistencies, because they typically have unacknowledged holes in their thinking (e.g., for modern Christians: Where is your theology of HIV/AIDS in systematic theology? Why is ethics a separate class from systematic theology at seminary? Does your systematic theology include aesthetics and ecology?). But the big-picture comprehensive-holistic aspect appeals to postmoderns. [Still, postmoderns seem to crop up with some typical blind spots as well. For instance, deficiencies in embracing biblical commands for personal morality, or change for the sake of change that actually creates chaos, or in succumbing to the "cool factor" by using arts for the sake of arts instead of to support something even bigger - like embodying the imageness of God in humanity.]
Second, platformers are radically obedient. We live out an authentic embodiment of faith and practice, guided by God’s Word and His Spirit, so we may become transformed into the image of Christ. This consistency confronts postmoderns, who tend to have a “whatever” or a “glad you’ve found your path” relativist mentality. But the loyal obedience to Christ aspect appeals to moderns.
Third, platformers are relationally covenanted. We view all relationships as discipleship (whether with non-Christians or Christians), and therefore do not enter or exit relationships lightly. Hopefully this relational bond will glue moderns and postmoderns to us as platformers long enough for them to sift through their experiences of what we as platformers do that challenges their worldviews and their “world do’s,” and thereby they enter into a transformation process themselves. (P.S. Although I know it is sorta chic to use the term pre-Christians, it is incredibly offensive in reality – removing the element of volition. I was recently hit on – i.e., “evangelized” – by a cool but cagey 65-year-old Caucasian American woman who was the first Buddhist nun in the U.S. ordained by the Dalai Lama. She treated me like a “pre-Buddhist,” presuming that it was inevitable that I should accept Buddha and Buddhist practices into my life. The experience was “enlightening” about our term pre-Christian, despite my rejecting her worldview.)
Biggest Challenges – Not Lose Heart; Maintain Our Prophetic Edge. We challenge all Christians by our deeply rooted faith, our Christlike lifestyle, and those frequently “annoying” abilities to critique all worldviews biblically and call all Christians (including ourselves) on the carpet for conduct unworthy of our calling. No surprise that we will not always be admired, liked, loved, or thanked! But we need to hang in there; ours is a prophetic work of edification. Imperfect as we are, we platformers are living examples of what all Christians need to become like, regardless of which direction we are initially approaching Christ from.
Best Opportunities – Conundrum Christianity; Geometric Ministry Through Mentoring. The three core aspects of platformers – biblically holistic, radically obedient, and relationally covenanted – can startle and intrigue those who aren’t (yet) followers of Jesus. For instance, people say things to me like, “What do you mean, you’re a Christian futurist? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” “You’re a theologically conservative Christian, but are concerned about ecology? How so?” “I see how you really love all your friends, even though you disagree about politics and stuff. I thought all Christians were into culture wars. …” Shattering people’s stereotypes through “the platform” may well be the magnet attracting them to Christ, who incarnates Himself in His people through rigorously biblical lifestyle.
Also, by accepting and persevering through our biggest challenges, we can embody the best opportunities for Kingdom expansion. This will come through multiplied ministry, based on discipling others who will in turn disciple still others. Thus will the Church fulfill its destiny and be a blessing to all peoples so that, with overwhelming joy, we all together will greet representatives of every nation, tongue, tribe, and family at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And isn’t that what all Christian leadership should ultimately be about?
Conclusion
It was especially difficult for me to use the first person in talking about platformers, but I trust that this “goal-model” is where the Lord continues to lead me through His refiner’s fire. Whichever of the four categories we find ourselves in, I trust that He will continue moving us toward that same platformer ideal – the incarnational witness of Jesus Christ – for the sake of leading others into His Kingdom in postmodern times.
Commentary: Re-Introduction (2005)
This article has lain buried in my computer for five years now. Although I’ve probably skimmed it a time or two since adding the introduction in 2001, I don’t think I’ve read it in a critical way to evaluate its validity or continued application. So, here are some thoughts as commentary upon re-reading my 2000 article on “Platformer Christians/Kingdom Workers.”
The Analogy of Computer Platforms
Regarding the illustration of computer platforms, I’m reminded of a story from Nathan, one of my housemates during 2003-2004. He happened to be starting college during that narrow window of time when someone had the seemingly great idea of a “dual-platform” computer. It contained both the Microsoft and Macintosh operating systems, all packaged together in one convenient box. Those machines were added into the mix at the college’s computer lab. However, they didn’t last long. As it turned out, system errors, freeze-outs, and break-downs on this M&M machine meant the dual-platform computer performed spectacularly worse together than either single-platform system alone. Go figure … So, according to my recollection of Nathan’s story, these machines had mysteriously disappeared by his sophomore year.
I see an application for church planting and church transitioning in the sad tale of the dual-platform computer. It’s one question to figure out whether we believe a dual-paradigm system can survive and thrive. If we decide the answer on that is “no,” then we face another question which is even more complex, I think: Which paradigm “should” serve as the integrating system? Crosspollinating my metaphors of computer terms with contextualization of church in culture, if I happen to live in what is currently a PC/Microsoft culture, should we try to function from a Macintosh operating system anyway? This decision is made more difficult by the reality that the future may in fact belong to Macs (or some other just-emerging or as-yet undeveloped cultural platform). Probably so …
While the idea of side-by-side dual paradigms running in a church may be theoretically intriguing, I suspect in the real world of harsh consequences, a church plant or transition attempted on this base eventually freezes up, breaks down, burns out. One or the other paradigm/culture has to serve as the integrating paradigm, and the other paradigm/culture has to be subservient. And (to me, at least) it only makes sense to let indigenous leaders from the sustainable culture (i.e., the one that will last longer into the future because it better matches where the society is headed) do the work of leading in the integration of paradigms. They know from the inside-out what works in their operating system. Outside-in people are called hackers, and hackers may crack the system but they rarely are doing it for the benefit of those whose systems they are cracking – they’re doing it to pursue their own external-to-the-hacked-system goals.
Roles of Intercultural Disciples
Thus, I’m even more convinced now than when I revised this article in 2001 that the bicultural and platform people have a unique, critical role to play in transitioning us from the previous paradigms to the emerging paradigm. Only now, I’d revise my term of platformers to intercultural disciples. Over the past three years (2003-2005), I’ve focused a significant amount of time on developing a theory of interculturality, and am even more strongly convinced that being intercultural is a biblical goal for both personhood and ministry paradigms. An intercultural paradigm plays on the themes of a comprehensive set of biblical categories, an integrated system that is organic more than organizational, and relational commitment (staying in relationships, even when they are uncomfortable as long as they are not inappropriate) for the purpose of embodying Christlikeness. But more on those subjects must remain for another day.
Multiplied Ministry
Beyond articulating some of my early synthesis on interculturalism, this article also contains the beginnings of several other key principles that I have continued to develop (and tried to live out) the past five years. One of those concepts is multiplied ministry – that we all lead through our spiritual gifts as an everyday part of discipleship, and that we need to equip others to be able to take over ministry responsibilities – if not even our current role in ministry. I’m still working to develop that more, as I consult with a church in transition which needs this in order to avoid burnout.
Trajectory
Another example shows up in the idea of “trajectory.” It is present here in seed form, even though I did not use the term. Trajectory has become very important in my cultural interpretation work. I use it to pinpoint (1) the “doorway” (current identity that serves as a starting point for biblical transformation) for an individual or a group, and (2) the typical Spirit-led developmental path from that doorway toward (3) the goals of Christlikeness for individuals and “Kingdom culture” for corporate expressions of those following Jesus.
Understanding the concept of trajectory helps us ward off certain forms of legalism and syncretism. How? Trajectory recognizes that the ultimate general goal for all people is the same – Christlikeness – but that the specific “flight path” necessarily differs, based on different people having different cultural starting points. If we are legalistic or syncretistic, we expect (or attempt to force) others to join our developmental path (i.e., adopt our culture) as the “only way” to Jesus. That’s very different from saying that Jesus is the Only Way. The false way attempts to convert people to our cultural coordinates, and the true Way draws people directly to Jesus Christ.
Not only is trajectory hijacking false, it is toxic: It inflicts trauma and wounds on those who are coerced toward full adoption of some other human culture. And in fact, this false way of forcing someone’s conversion to another culture before accepting his or her conversion to Christ is one of the earliest heresies addressed in Christian history. There it is, right in the book of Acts. Some people – the Judaizers – were forcing gentiles to “become Jews” before they could be considered Christians. We see some first rumblings of this antibiblical theology and toxic methodology in Acts 11:1-18 where some Christ-followers from a Jewish background grumble to Peter about those who visited with the gentiles and ate with them. In that case, a vision from the Lord to Peter helped convince the complainers that God had granted repentance and salvation even to the gentiles. However, before very long, the rumblings turned into a stumbling block by Acts 15, where some were saying a man could not be saved unless he submitted to circumcision, according to the custom prescribed by Moses. Only a council of apostles could set that issue aright. And grace won out over cultural syncretism to Judaism. (Which still didn’t leave the converts from paganism off the hook of obedience; to follow Christ, they, too, needed to learn and obey all Jesus commanded His disciples to do! But obeying Christ is not the same as duplicating the local culture of some of His followers.)
And so now, what about us? Do we attempt to manipulate people into a modernist (or postmodernist!) cultural pattern in order to then follow Jesus? Or are we allowing for differences in trajectory, understanding that the developmental path for post-pagans and post-liberals might very well mean they have vastly different issues of concern to the Father than are those of post-religious people and post-conservatives? And that people in any trajectory just maybe could offer some pro-biblical perspectives to challenge us to get beyond the problems in our own trajectory? We’ve all got biblical deficiencies – what I’ve come to call “spiritual osteoporosis” – spiritual calcium missing from all the right places. And we’ve all got anti-biblical cultural accretions – what I’ve come to call “spiritual bone spurs” – spiritual calcium in all the wrong places. Far more than just being “politically correct,” when we recognize the biblical values in another’s trajectory toward Christ, we find role models for filling in our own spiritual gaps with “spiritual spackle,” and challenges to file down our own cultural syncretisms.
And so it is that trajectory is an essential concept of developing theologies, praxologies, and communities of faith that are comprehensive, integrative, and holistic.
Reinforcing and Refining Primary Perspectives Over Time
I think it’s time to start wrapping up this re-introduction to the essentials of post-postmodern leadership. Just two more points. First, this revisiting of an article originally presented in 1999 comes at a time when I am consulting with a church that is changing from a primarily modernist, programmatic paradigm to an emerging, organic paradigm. I suspect that this article was providentially picked as one of the first to post on Prospectorium, as it reinforces that my thinking about paradigms, operating systems, deficiencies, and syncretism has been on the same track for nearly 10 years. Each round of writing just seems to get it more connected as a system of cultural interpretation and take it deeper.
Second, the revised versions of this article come from 2000-2001. Those years brought personal turning points for me. I caught a horrible form of flu sometime in 2000, and was so ill that I was drained physically for months – so much so, that I could not even hold up a book to read. If I wanted to read, I had to lay on my side and prop the book against some pillows, then scoot the book to the other side of the mattress – if I could find the strength – and prop it up to read the opposite page.
Finally, I gave up reading almost altogether. After I recuperated some physically, I didn’t go back to reading all those books that were coming out back then on “GenX ministry” or “postmodernism/postmodern ministry” or “emerging church” because I sensed then that I should work on primary materials with my own perspective. Everyone seemed just to be quoting or summarizing or repeating each other (secondary materials), or analyzing philosophical postmodernism instead of examining cultural postmodernity. I was being led to take an original tack, seeing what I could observe, analyze, and interpret about emerging cultures and what that meant for contextualizing discipleship.
Around that same time, I was asked to help strategize what sounded like a postmodern-friendly, integrative, contextualized outreach. It turned out to be quite otherwise, however, as what began as a multicultural group turned monocultural instead of intercultural. That was disappointing, but God still used it for something constructive. The experience propelled me forward into creating an original system for interpreting cultures and for becoming intercultural. And that has become my main work since 2001. Perhaps another time I’ll post on Prospectorium some of the beginnings of that system from back then.
September 2005
Commentary and DIY Section (2008) …
… To Be Added
