Contextualization as Customization by Providential Design NOT Customer-ization by Personal Desire

Well, this is one time where I think the title just about says it all.

I’ve been coaching a doctoral student on the intersections among learning style theories, generational differences and dynamics, and spiritual formation systems. After reflection on yesterday’s session, it occurred to me that part of what makes so-called contextualization a very different product is the paradigm of the contextualizer:

• In my observation, older generations and pragmatic-paradigm people in church leadership roles make changes to meet the felt needs of their audience, to match their programs to the desires of their “customers,” for maximum comfortability.
• Younger generations and holistic-paradigm people in Kingdom leader-developer roles adjust to meet the ways that those they work with are designed by God to participate at their best and most productive.

If this is anywhere near accurate, I think I’ll go with customization according to God’s providential design for a person’s productivity, not customer-ization according to personal desires for consumption, thanks. I’ll also skip on the consumerization on demand.

(For more on pragmatic versus holistic paradigms, see the category on Paradigm Profiling.)

 

Examining “The Seven Mountains” Movement

Introduction

My Australian friend Matt Stone blogged his 7 Mountains post in November of 2008. There he stated his concerns:

The Seven Mountains imperative seems to be grounded in dominion theology and the new apostolic movement of C Peter Wagner and friends. Sounds very theocratic to me. Have any of you heard of the Seven Mountains imperative? What’s your take on it?

What I find disconcerting about the new apostolic movement is that they use much of the same language as the missional movement, are similarly concerned with cultural impact, but are much more culturally imperialistic in overall approach (and dare I say extra-biblical on some of their spiritual warfare teaching).

In brief, The Seven Mountains is about Christians retaking seven domains of society where we no longer have influence:

• Arts/Entertainment
• Business
• Education
• Family
• Government
• Media
• Religion

For the best understanding of my post, be sure to read Matt’s post first, watch the two YouTube videos there, and check out the three links he gives. The first video (10 minutes) is an exposé of the Seven Mountains movement by critic Bruce E. Wilson. The second video (5 minutes) is an overview of the Seven Mountains philosophy, and an invitation to the 2009 conference, given by Os Hillman, President and Founder of Market Place Leaders. Also, I’d strongly suggest at least skimming the material I link to on some of the technical terms and such.

You’ll have to interpret for yourselves what those inside the movement say their mission is, and decide for yourselves whether this is for the better, or for the worse, for the Church and for the Kingdom. I don’t have a problem with Christians seeking to influence culture if there is an opportunity. To me, the more central issues are those of why it would be done, how, and whether the means used will negate the hoped-for impact.

I’m not writing this critique as some academic exercise – there’s a personal history side to it. The reason all this is on my radar in the first place is that I flirted with forms of “dominion theology” in the 1970s and ’80s. At that time, I read widely in several related streams of and wondered whether it was legitimate for Christians to do more than just influence culture, or be involved in social activism – but to actually “retake the reigns” of our country. Eventually I came to discern there were just too many messy assumptions that had scant if any biblical base. And it seemed like the attitude of many in dominion movements back then displayed what I’ve come to call The Fool’s Gold Rule: Do unto others what was done unto you. Christians have been slighted or even shoved aside for decades, and dominionists could talk all they wanted about doing this for God, but the anger and contempt and arrogance that many of them showed surely could not be considered Christlike. If we expect to influence and not control, shouldn’t we demonstrate challenging framed with respectfulness, and righteousness tempered with compassion?

Similar issues arose in more recent decades while working through experiences of surviving spiritually abusive leadership in churches and ministries, and connecting with others – especially from post-Charismatic backgrounds – as they likewise processed similar experiences. I find that a whole lot of control issues can cloak themselves underneath language of social change … but they cannot hide forever. The true “spiritual DNA” of a movement eventually will demonstrate itself.

Anyway, I wrote most of what follows in November, but I got bogged down in other life circumstances and haven’t gotten back to this response until now. Providentially, perhaps the delay makes it more timely, as the conference Matt wrote about is due to be held next month. Also, today was set aside as a day to finish up a set of notes on the spectrum of theological perspectives related to strategic level prayer and spiritual warfare.  Anyway, here is my response.

It’s an intuitive process to look at the surface culture of a movement – its vocabulary, values, goals, etc. – and then attempt to analyze its paradigm and speculatively back-cast from whence it came. It’s sort of like tasting a soup and trying to figure out all the herbs and spices that went into it. Not an exact science, but certainly a process that improves, the more cultures for society or flavors for soup one becomes exposed to over time.

From my own theological movement meanderings since the 1970s, I’d suggest that the “Seven Mountains” phenomenon could well be a convergence of flavors from at least half a dozen historic theological movements I’ve been exposed to over the past four decades. (Which is to say, I’m not basing this on anyone’s research other than my own experiences with emerging movements since the 1970s that seem relevant to Seven Mountains.)

The Postmillennial Link

I’d suggest that the overall theological perspective is postmillennialism – i.e., the world will get better and better through our efforts to change social structures and rid them of evil, and then Jesus Christ will return (or can return) to finish setting up the Kingdom. For a sample of the postmillennial “battle cry,” see the lyrics to “Onward, Christian Soldier” – all six verses.

The largest prior wave of postmillennialism died in the wake of World War I; the world hadn’t become so enlightened or so purged of evil as originally thought. The fact that they had to have a “War to End All Wars” – and that it didn’t work to end all wars – says something important about the underlying Enlightenment-friendly theology having a misplaced optimism.

I think this current foment of postmillennial fervor springs from dissatisfaction and/or disillusionment with the influence of Christians – not God – to stem the tide of evil in our world. I say “not God,” because in this kind of view, ultimately it all depends on us. We’re responsible to use divine resources to root out evil. Our actions will create the “tipping point” to oust the infidels so that Christians can retake the Seven Mountains. No wonder this can so easily morph from sincere attempts at social influence into sheer manipulation and unbridled legalism.

Postmillennialism, the New Apostolic Reformation,

and the Prosperity Gospel

It makes a difference whether one is premillennial or postmillennial. Some within the Charismatic and Pentecostal branches of Christianity have, in days gone by, been keepers of the flame for dispensationalism and the Left Behind theology of a premillennial, pre-Tribulation Rapture. Maybe I saw it wrong all along on that, or perhaps that used to be true but no longer. It seems that there may have been some theological shift in those branches to postmillennialism.

That would make a lot of sense. Postmillennialism already overlaps with some of the vocabulary, goals, and methods of the New Apostolic Reformation (with its key organization, the International Coalition of Apostles) and prosperity gospel teachings – which find themselves mostly in the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements. This overlap seems to indicate some underlying resonance in their “mental models” or paradigms, especially in their essential values and guiding theological principles. Specifically, all three perspectives make no real distinction between the applicability of Old and New Testaments to believers today. They collapse the distinctions between:

• Israel and the Church. So, we find passages and promises meant for Israel transferred over the Church. We also find practices that had symbolic significance for the nation of Israel being misappropriated uncritically to the Church (e.g., allusions to the tabernacle, the cycle of feasts, theocratic notions of “taking the land of Promise,” etc.).
• Church and State. As part of the removal of distinctions, we end up with a church-state. So, we hear the lust and language of theocracy where Christians will now move to rule the domains of society by infiltrating and/or overtaking its structures. We will be the head and not the tail – no more marginalization accepted! People will be drawn to us because they will see God’s “blessing” us with status, power, and wealth because of our righteousness. (Sidenote: I didn’t know that gold was magnetic …) This sounds like some very scary neo-Constantinianism in action.
• The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Speaking of righteousness, the core of the Old Covenant is conditional blessing based on law-keeping. Social transformation then is enacted by God directly, or indirectly through conquest by His people. So, we find a lot of finger-wagging and guilt-tripping against Christians for not doing enough to “retake the land,” or not praying enough to move God to bring revival, etc. Meanwhile, the core of the New Covenant unconditional blessing based on God’s grace. Personal transformation is empowered from the inside out by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and others may be changed through the influence of those being changed. Actually, I don’t think Old Covenant thinking can ever be missional …

And so it makes sense when one of the advocates in the exposé video on Seven Mountains spoke of it as “almost like a template for warfare.” Just as the Law is external to the human heart, so the Seven Mountains seeks to change the external structures of society in order to affect the human heart. But where is the Holy Spirit in that? And grace? And the power of the resurrected Christ to transform lives, not just squash all “enemies”?

Reconstructionism, L’Abri,  and Moral Majority

Seven Mountains also appears to be a logical extension or re-embodiment of several “presuppositional thought” movements. The first that comes to mind is Christian Reconstructionism, which ramped up during the late 1970s. This came out of highly analytic/systematic theology perspectives in the Calvinist/Reformed tradition, perhaps more in the Dutch Reformed branch than any other. It included authors like Cornelius Van Til, R.J. Rushdoony, Herman Dooyeweerd, and even back to Abraham Kuyper (late 1800s/early 1900s theologian and Prime Minister of The Netherlands).

Authors and followers of Christian Reconstructionism typically seemed to emphasize philosophy, politics, economics, business, education systems, and sciences. (Note the primary tie-in with four of the Seven Mountains: business, government, religion, and education.) Not all of these theologians advocated church-states, but the drive for applying scripture to all spheres of life could just as easily be taken in the direction of theocracy as not.

Also in the 1970s came the emergence into some prominence of authors in the L’Abri movement: Francis and Edith Schaeffer, Ranald Macauley, Jerram Barrs, H.R. Rookmaaker, Os Guinness, and others. The French word l’abri means “the shelter,” and this group emphasized practical apologetics for connecting with people, and holistic personhood aspects of arts, humanities, cultures, and social sciences. The film/book series of “How Should We Then Live: The Decline of Western Thought and Culture” gave a holistic framework for understanding our times and living out a biblical response. I remember seeing that series in about 1978, and I also went to one of the world premieres (about 1980) for Francis Schaeffer’s and C. Everett Koop’s pro-life lecture/film series on “What Ever Happened to the Human Race?” (Note the primary tie-in with the other three of the Seven Mountains: media, arts and entertainment, and family.)

I read a significant number of books by different authors in these two movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Even back then, I wondered what it was in the underlying presuppositions that led Christian Reconstructionism followers more into the political and economic realms, and L’Abri followers more into the realm of humanities and social sciences. I’m still not totally sure, but think it may have something to do with the emphasis on analysis in the former (looking for distinctions and categories that differentiate), versus paradox in that latter (looking for commonalities and holding polarities in place without division). Analysis tends to lead to concepts and philosophies, while paradox to concrete actions and relationships.

While these two clusters of writings held more of an appeal to intellectual Christians, the soon-afterwards emergence in the early 1980s of the Moral Majority could be seen as a more populist-level response to the dilemmas of cultural influences for the everyday disciple, especially those who were fundamentalist followers. Where L’Abri had a more irenic tone, I found Christian Reconstructionism had more edginess, and Moral Majority eventually did the equivalent of COMMUNICATING ALL IN CAPS – i.e., yelling – or at least had that reputation. The level of super-righteous stridency coming from many in the Moral Majority led a politically liberal Unitarian co-worker of mine in the mid-1980s to put a bumper sticker on his car: “The Moral Majority is neither.”

These three movements demonstrate a desire to impact the various areas of culture. It makes sense to many Christians to have some kind of approach for cultural engagement instead of isolation, and these movements set the stage for other movements to come together more explicitly to influence the Seven Mountains movement.

Tying it All Together

I began to see more parallels in the language of imperialistic social activism and supernatural warriorism when I looked more specifically at overlaps between Christian Reconstructionism and various branches in Charismatic supernaturalism (e.g., Generals/Strategic Prayer Network, the Sentinel Group and their Transformation video series, New Apostolic Reformation). With the Old Testament emphasis in these movements, it’s not surprising that there is a lot of warfare metaphorage, with references to concepts of armies, soldiers, generals, taking the land, strategic fronts, gameplans, infiltrating, invading, prophetic vindication of the victors, etc. (Many of these terms come directly from the words of Seven Mountain advocates, as heard in the videos on Matt’s blog.)

It all makes sense as these merge together: If you emphasize traditional military structure, you must have an absolute hierarchy in place (i.e., apostles, prophets, and other officials) to carry out such operations – though supposedly through war in the heavenlies – and thereby bring transformation to the domains of society.

Yes, it does make sense – but only within a closed system that has many dodgy theological premises. And so, I am still left with some very strong questions and concerns about the Seven Mountains movement, especially as to how it could taint, sidetrack, or quench the relational and social involvement efforts of those in the missional movement.

Leadership, Power, and Control Issues

Even understanding the bias of the first video on Matt’s blog as an exposé of the Seven Mountains movement, it really does seem the proponents emphasize Christians dominating all seven areas of culture in order to dictate, not on involving ourselves in order to influence.

These kinds of strong-willed leaders as we’ve seen in the New Apostolic Reformation have me concerned about whether this is really more about self-will to power than about God’s empowerment. (I have written extensively about issues of power in my series on recovery from spiritual abuse, and particularly in the post on Power Addiction is Like Porn.)

Hierarchy also adds significantly to the potential for overcontrol by “leaders,” as has been demonstrated in the falling apart of the Lakeland Outpouring, and the subsequent fall out. (Last year, I addressed many aspects of the leadership failure in discernment and actions related to this in my series on Kingdom Leadership After Lakeland.)

Moral Conformity and Superspirituality

Also, the pseudo-military “marching orders” emphasis in Seven Mountains make me wonder if it is more about “reversing the moral slide” (a direct quote from one of the advocates in the videos) and creating conformity through “spiritual” or “christianized” control over social structures, than about genuine transformation of human hearts through the work of the Holy Spirit.

I have to wonder whether part of what drives this movement is that they don’t want the reality of a culturally pluralistic world. Seems they would actually prefer to impose a monolithic “biblical” culture where Christians do not remain marginalized. And I have to wonder if there is true belief in the doctrine of free will here, or if it just that some proponents don’t like it when non-Christians express it through their own cultural mandates.

At the same time, there is much use of “super spiritual” language, about doing this for God and having strategies to rout The Enemy. I was once involved in this approach, but now have severe concerns about it. In December 2008, I posted Strategic Level Prayer and Spiritual Mapping on my Radoxodar blog. That post summarizes some of my concerns about whether the abiblical/extrabiblical theology in these perspectives has actually turned anti-biblical, and unwittingly focused sincere people on the darkness instead of on the light.

A “Cross” Social Gospel with No “Gospel of the Cross”

I noticed multiple references in the first video on Matt’s blog that pooh-pooh the tribulation and instead promote the visible and triumphant Kingdom. It seems that postmillennial triumphalism holds no place for a held-back, pushed-down, shoved-to-the-margins Church. These advocates want Christians to be “the head and not the tail, above and not beneath.” It is clear enough from the words of advocates that any talk of humility or suffering like Christ is missing; they speak about ending the humiliation and slighting of Christians – even if all in the name of God and the gospel being shunned by society. And it seems they don’t want simply to be countercultural; they want to reinstitute colonialism, and perhaps just ensure moralism. This is not the same as being salt and light to preserve a nation so the life of people is spared and the gospel can be shared.

To me, this all sounds like a pseudo-evangelical version of the old social gospel. But – in contrast to prior social action based in liberalism – this seems fueled by anger at the marginalization of Christians and a desire for power to reset and then control the social structures and agendas. On this theme, I am reminded of the words of Leonard Sweet about Emergent:

The emerging church has become another form of social gospel. And the problem with every social gospel is that it becomes all social and no gospel. All social justice and no social gospel. It is embarrassing that evangelicals have discovered and embraced liberation theology after it destroyed the main line, old line, side line, off line, flat line church. (JBTM, Vol. 5, No. 2, Page 72)

I have to wonder whether the Seven Mountains’ embrace of dominion theology mixed with the extrabiblical theology of “strategic level prayer and spiritual warfare” will create a similarly toxic social gospel brew. Only in this version, it is about self-justification in the name of instituting God’s rule and reign through Christians. And meanwhile, with their infiltration and retaking of social structures in the name of the Spirit, I have to wonder whether this will in fact quench the Spirit in the missional movement.

Pseudo-Missional / Anti-Missional

And so, finally, we are back to one of Matt’s original concerns: What about the missional aspects of this movement? If Seven Mountains truly is postmillennial in its core theology, then it seeks to bring about the Kingdom, while those of us in the missional movement seek to point out the Kingdom already about us. We do use many of the same or similar terms as postmillennialists, dominionists, strategic spiritual warfarists, and Seven Mountainists, but I’m convinced we just do not mean the same things by them. Our mental frameworks are different, so our methodologies are in conflict.

In my Introduction section, I noted “I don’t have a problem with Christians seeking to influence culture if there is an opportunity. To me, the more central issues are those of why it would be done, how, and whether the means used will negate the hoped-for impact.”

Personally, I don’t find the underlying why and how of the Seven Mountains movement to be at all compatible with a missional approach, despite the apparent similarity in goals of social transformation. In fact, I wonder whether their approach to “cultural engagement” is actually counterproductive. Dominionist-type disciples and “take back America!” promoters fit the negative stereotype of Christians that resulted in the bumper sticker: “Lord, protect me from your followers.” Even if they are sincere, their activities ultimately make the community relationships of missional disciples even more difficult, at least, I believe they do.

[Added later in the day: As my discerning friend Craig said when we were discussing this, "There's a difference between a hostile takeover and a friendly merger." If those were the only two options available, I'd suggest missional is looking for friendly merger for Christians to participate respectfully in all of our culture. I don't see missionally-minded disciples passively avoiding cultural engagement, but neither do I see them looking to take over and make America into an overtly pro-Christian-only society based on the Old Covenant. That is not the Kingdom!]

And if those following the Seven Mountains strategy achieve their goals and end atop the “high places” in our societies, what evidence will there be that the true and Triune God of the Bible is the one who brought them there, and not an ill-conceived theology and strategy, an independent and antagonistic spirit, and an idolatrous pursuit of power?

 

Coming to Terms with “Contextualization” Part 3-Triangulated Trajectory Model of Cultural Engagement

Summary

Part 1 on Coming to Terms with “Contextualization” gave my narrative story of journeying from an emphasis on the term contextualization to the broader concepts of cultural engagement. Part 2 of this mini-series explored the means for cultural engagement (i.e., contextualization and counterculturalization) and the modes or stances toward our host culture (i.e., indigenous, cross-cultural, multicultural, or intercultural). Part 3 concludes the mini-series with delving into my three-dimensional model for triangulating a trajectory among our congregation, our host culture, and Kingdom Culture. Part 3 also includes a Bonus Special Feature section overviewing my one-dimensional through four-dimensional approach to cultural engagement and change.

My “Triangulated Trajectory Model” of Cultural Engagement

I use fractals a lot, where the same essential issue may apply both to the fraction of the whole as to the total, to the individual as well as to the community. The way I frame the goal of transformation is that we as individuals are meant to become more Christlike in our character and embody that in our actions. The fractal equivalent goal for groups is that we as a community of disciples are meant to manifest Kingdom Culture as our characteristic. Put another way, what incarnational Christlikeness is for individuals, Kingdom Culture is for congregations. Both involve manifesting the character of Christ, living it out in all our spheres of influence.

Everyone – follower of Christ or not – is on a journey of transformation, and so the concept of trajectory becomes important. As we learn the technical details from the movie Stargate, it takes seven points in a three-dimensional space to determine a trajectory: where the first six points cross identifies the destination, and the seventh is the point of initiation. The initiation point is descriptive of where we actually are, in the universe of all possible paradigms. The destination can either be descriptive if it merely states where our current direction will eventually lead us if there are no changes in our course, or it can be prescriptive if it is where we intentionally want to end up.

With Christians, no one starts at Christlikeness and no group starts at Kingdom Culture. These are our prescribed destinations as individual disciples and as congregations, respectively. Since the Bible declares that people from every nation, tongue, tribe, and family will eventually follow Jesus Christ, that implies a large field of personal and corporate cultural points of origin in relationship to those destinations. If that is an accurate assumption, then there are many different possible Kingdom Culture trajectories, each with a different starting point, although all share the same goals. This is critical in at least two ways:

First, we are not to force people to conform culturally to our starting point before they can pursue a trajectory toward Christlikeness as individuals and Kingdom culture as groups. That is a form of colonization, and it represents the essence of legalism. This issue was already addressed in the early church, in Acts 15. Then, the question was whether gentiles had to become Jews first before they could become Christians. The answer was, “No.” That did not mean gentile disciples could live any way they wanted. To be a disciple means obedience to Christ, regardless. Although gentile disciples were free from the Law, they never were without law to Christ.

Second, we never reach perfection of Christlikeness or Kingdom culture. That implies constant change is required. We cannot move to a point of perceived perfection (or rest) and freeze there. If we change and then freeze, that becomes the hub for orbiting, turning static, or, worse, for drifting back – away from the goal. Instead, we must consider ways for continual “Unfreezing Moves,” as church consultant Bill Easum suggests in his book by that title.

So that’s my theory on moving toward Christlikeness and Kingdom Culture – but I’ve only applied it in isolation, as if there were no other directives at work here. However, there are. I would suggest that the entire idea of cultural engagement involves three sets of items to consider in discipleship trajectories, not just the two of our points of initiation and destination. (To simplify, from here on out I’ll only be talking about corporate cultural trajectories, although similar principles would apply to trajectories of individuals.) Here’s what we need to consider:

• The points of origin for our culture and for the host culture.
• The destination points for our culture and for the host culture – if neither of us makes trajectory course corrections to fully align with Kingdom Culture.
• The revised trajectories required in order to keep us moving toward Kingdom Culture. What character cargo must we take on, and what anti-biblical cargo must we jettison in order to stay on course?

The trick here is that churches are not making this journey alone – or at least are not supposed to be alone. We should become “triangulated in our trajectory” by connecting (1) our host culture’s trajectory with (2) our trajectory as sojourners with (3) Kingdom Culture as our hoped-for mutual goal. (Sidenote: We could add in here collaborative partnerships with other local/regional disciples, and someday I’ll likely address that subject. But that’s beyond the basics.)

Geometric Progressions

This is the point where all the mathematical modeling comes in to pinpoint the unique triangle these three points make in a three-dimensional model of all possible cultures. A culture’s location tells you what biblical values and perspectives are present and absent, and any “toxic zones” they have. The distance between two cultures can help you understand the degree of culture shock to expect if you are called to connect cross-culturally with a host culture. You could model different approaches to triangulating your trajectory to see which caused the least culture shock overall while making major and minor course corrections. The pattern of a church’s or host’s movement over time shows whether they are orbiting the goal, stuck, or drifting away. The pattern of movement could also show whether the two are running separate but parallel trajectories, connected but not integrated trajectories, or connected and integrated trajectories on their journeys.

That may seem esoteric, but think of the possibilities such practical information could give us about our everyday practice of discipleship! For instance, say that full Kingdom Culture represents 100 points. Say that your church culture rates a 65, and your host culture has a rating of 30 points where their values, beliefs, and behaviors are either pro-biblical or directly drawn from the Bible. Your church falls short by 35 – are there specific areas from the host culture where your congregation could fill in their own spiritual gaps? The movement over time shows the angle of difference between church and host culture growing smaller as there is more affinity – but is that good affinity (while both are discipled toward Kingdom Culture) or bad affinity (as both move away from Kingdom Culture)? The demonstrated dilution of the measurable toxicity level over time raises the degree of sustainability. And, once we master the one-, two-, and three-dimensional aspects of cultural engagement, we could prepare ourselves for the fourth dimension of time, and consider how cultures and trajectories might morph over time (or need to) to accommodate changes in external cultures that directly affect us in our internal cultures and systems.

All the mathematics and geometry of the three-dimensional model could make it really complex for some, and utterly understandable for others. Anyway, someday, Lord willing, I’ll have the funds to hire someone to produce animations of it all, so that what’s in my head and in the assessment tools I’m working on can escape from virtuality into the realms of reality.

[P.S. It isn't the use of math that makes this meaningful. It's the underlying system that makes the math meaningful. Which means, the real work is in detailing biblically as rich and complex as possible a system that includes deep reflection on God's personhood and character qualities, and considering how those reflect themselves in our nature and our growth as we pursue being changed into deeper hues of the kaleidoscopic colors of Christlikeness. ~ Added November 25, 2008.]

Off to the Races!

Meanwhile, let’s shift from conceptual mathematics to thinking about cultural engagement in terms of concrete illustrations, like races at picnics. Have you ever been at a picnic where you had a “three-legged race”? If so, you know how difficult it is, trying to “journey” with someone else where your right leg is taped to their left, and you’ve got your right arm over their shoulders and they’ve got their left arm over your shoulders to try to maintain balance. And then you have to adjust and hop-step in order to stay upright and keep moving toward the finish line.

The triangulated trajectory of church and local culture is that kind of three-legged race: side-by-side, where one mis-move by either party throws off your balance and your forward progress toward the hoped-for mutual finish line of Kingdom Culture. And could it be that we as The Church in this connection do not have all the resources to get to our goal without at least some input from our hosts? Perhaps they have something we need, and things that show us our needs or our excesses.

Think of the possibilities for other kinds of races, where our Kingdom Culture path leads us to the everlasting life finish line, and the host culture’s “flight path” (if unchanged) leads them right over a cliff to destruction.

• Colonization of the local culture is where we make the host culture carry us in the race and force them to go to our finish line. But once they drop us off, most of them would likely run right back over to their cliff and jump.
• Syncretism is where we carry the host culture and take them to their finish line. Once there, they jump and we’re left scratching our head and wondering how that happened.
• Isolation is where we and the host culture each maintain our own races and finish lines, and the church isolaters didn’t even realize that the hosts were actually trying to connect with us along their way to destruction.
• Being countercultural without humble relevance is where we and the host culture maintain our own races and finish lines, but we yell over at the hosts every so often to tell them they’re going the wrong way. The yellers think the hosts are deaf but usually it’s just that they’re too annoyed to listen to our arrogant rants.
• Being relevant without prophetic witness is where we go alongside the host culture, but never tell them they’re going the wrong way. Maybe the hosts notice the disciples, but kind of wonder why they’re hanging around.

Okay, we’re almost done. There are many other aspects of triangulating our trajectory in biblically appropriate and balanced cultural engagement. This post was intended just give the broad outline. If you really want to get into how I see the specific what-to’s and how-to’s of culture shifts and transformation, check out my post of Paradigm Profiling in the Missional Zone Part 1. Then sskim the summaries in the Reader’s Guide to Futuristguy in the sections on Paradigm Profiling and Paradigm Shifting to see what may be of interest.

One final word: Social transformation and triangulating our trajectory is not about imposing Kingdom Culture on our host culture; it’s about messaging and empowering people to move in those directions as a result of our discipling people in our host culture. Just as evangelism is a natural byproduct of holistic discipleship, so social transformation is a natural byproduct of embodying Christlikeness and Kingdom Culture. Hopefully, by the completion of our journeys, we and many people from our host cultures will find ourselves bound by love and crossing the finish line into the Kingdom of Heaven together.

Why Does This Matter?

When I began exploring contextualization in late 1970s, I had no idea a “summary” of my perspective would end up being 4,500+ words. I just kept seeing that this person’s or that movement’s application of the term didn’t really fit. Something was wrong. I felt driven to pursue making sense of it.

Maybe it didn’t fit the realities of exegeting the cultures of biblical times to understand how to make it relevant for today. So there was some weird pressure to squeeze people into some archaic form that didn’t make any sense in today’s world.

Or perhaps they talked about contextualization but what they really demonstrated was culture control – either inside the church or out in the community. But being Kingdom servants should not make us into kings who are served. I saw (and personally experienced) traumatic results in lives of disciples who were wounded by leaders who bought into such a toxic theology of power.

Or they talked about cultural relevance and may have repeated ditties like The Missionary’s Prayer: “Where You lead me, I will follow. What they feed me, I will swallow.” That sentiment seems nice, but what often seemed to be happening in reality was they showed no discernment on what aspects of culture are poisonous and will destroy a biblical lifestyle.

And so, bit by bit, I’ve revamped my understanding of contextualization until reaching my current approach toward cultural engagement. And I expect this evolution will continue in years to come. Why? Well, as I’ve said elsewhere, I see culture as the most complex product of our human nature as those made in the image of a creative Creator God. Why shouldn’t we expect that issues of culture and transformation are among the most complex we’ll have to deal with?

May we continually seek for new insight on cultural engagement from scripture, while we rely on the Holy Spirit’s leading to give us eyes to see and ears to hear in perceptive observation of the host cultures we find ourselves in, and while we persevere in our sojourn in these times surrounded by the Father’s love …

Bonus Feature Section:

Overview of My Four-Dimensional

Approach to Cultural Engagement

In the complex process of “cultural engagement that is biblically balanced,” I currently use a four-dimensional approach as a framework for delving into details:

• One-dimensional descriptive lists simply detail a specific culture, but generally do not show them in their broader context.
• Two-dimensional comparative charts capture the relative bridges and barriers between cultures, generations, worldviews, methodologies, or any other number of individual factors or clusters of issues. We can compare and contrast two cultural systems when we need to do cross-cultural work; or compare/contrast two paradigm systems for cross-generational work; or compare/contrast the old with the new for transitional work in organizational systems.
• Three-dimensional interactive models draw in relevant aspects of dynamic tension when cultures meet, resonate, clash, change, partner, or whatever. In this level I most work with the deeper levels of a paradigm – information processing modes, critical values, guiding theological principles, and operational systems. For descriptions of paradigm levels, see my Missional SynchroBlog post on Profiling in the Missional Zone Part 1.
• Four-dimensional proactive systems look at changes over time to paradigms, organizational systems, and cultures. Work at this level tends to focus on strategic foresight, cultural sustainability, and getting rid of toxicity. These approaches rely on futurist studies, global systems analysis, subcultural studies, and macrohistory. These disciplines help us track social trends that are driving significant, long-term changes. They also equip us to interpret the ascendancy or decline of civilizations, and to discern what may “emerge” soon. At the fourth-dimension level of changes over time, I also consider plant growth and development processes, symbiosis and parasitism, genetics, eco-systems, and other organic models that give insight into long-term health, and factors in toxicity versus sustainability. This is where my “100-year sustainability plan” enters in.

 

Coming to Terms with “Contextualization” Part 2-Means and Modes in Cultural Engagement

Summary

Part 1 of Coming to Terms with “Contextualization” focused on formative experiences reshaping my perspective from contextualization into cultural engagement. Parts 2 and 3 are my attempt to give as brief an overview as possible on various core processes and procedures involved in cultural engagement as I see it now. I focus on the means, modes, and models of cultural engagement, and refer to other blog posts of mine that talk about the processes of paradigm/cultural profiling and shifting (i.e., social and organizational transformation).

Introduction

The other day, I realized that I have been contemplating “ministry contextualization” for 30 years. It’s also become much more clear to me in the past few weeks that an inherent theme in my entire upbringing, gifting, and experiences relates to issues of “human geography” So, why shouldn’t it also deal with the related issues of “cultural navigation and change”?

This particular mini-series was sparked by Emily’s question on my post about Finding a Culture’s Quest/ion and Shaping Their Transformative Trajectory (2004). At the time the article in that post was written, I’m pretty sure I still used the term contextualization for the whole big picture of mission research and strategizing for indigenous and cross-cultural work. But then I came see how some people used this term in weird ways that I thought completely missed the point, whether from a missions or missional point of view. So, gradually, I’ve shifted to get more detailed about various aspects of this process. Now I use a cluster of terms that are all connected.

Sometimes I find myself not even wanting to talk about the subject. To convey what I see as the important boundaries around the concept it’s almost like I have to make at least a couple dozen statements. (See below. Umm … make that a couple dozen paragraphs.) Then each key word or phrase in each of those statements may need explanation. So, suddenly, at an apparently simple question about contextualization, the questioner may go into listener shock. You can see it on the faces: Dude – I didn’t ask for your whole life story, only whether this church made sense in its community!

Ah well. Sorry ’bout that. This is about trying to come up with a system of descriptions that captures all the relevant concepts. It’s ultimately philosophy, and that usually means the definition of one term is co-dependant on the others, as if they’re all hyperlinked and cannot make any sense without all of them making sense, and – and hey, no jokes about co-dependency! Well, only if you really really need to …

Anyway, here’s my summary description. It’s meant to be more for reference purposes, as the training modules that go with this would probably be an entire course’s worth of material. I’ll use a writing technique I’ve tried elsewhere that seems more people than not resonate with – boldfacing key terms and having a few descriptive words or phrases nearby that help define them. Also, this style keeps related concepts in the same paragraph or as close as possible to show the relationship visually. See if it helps … And, as one last heads-up, I may use terms that others use, but that doesn’t mean I’m defining them the same ways as they do. Okay, at last, here is my summary of cultural engagement – in three sections:

• The means of cultural engagement – contextualization and counterculturization, and their various biblical boundaries and toxic variations.
• The modes of cultural engagement – whether our stance is one of being indigenous to the host culture, cross-cultural, multicultural, or intercultural.
• The models of cultural engagement – how to go from a one-dimensional list description of a congregation’s or host’s culture, to a two-dimensional chart comparison of that culture with the ideal of Kingdom Culture, to a three-dimensional model for calculating a culture’s trajectory alone and when bound with a host culture. 

Describing the Means of Cultural Engagement

Cultural engagement is the term I use for the overall process whereby a gathering of disciples connects with the people in their social settings (home/neighborhoods, workplace, third places). There are two different means by which we engage culturally with others, and we can use either one or both of them: contextualization and counterculturalization. (In my understanding, balanced biblical engagement with culture requires we practice both of them.)

One way we connect culturally with individuals and groups is through contextualization. If we do this right, we match the culture on the culture’s terms. That’s not such a problem for us as Christians if the culture is substantially biblical in its values, guiding principles, lifestyles, etc. Then the specific pro-biblical aspects are a bridge to reach people through how their culture already resonates with biblical counterpart values, principles, lifestyle, etc. (People with no Christian background may not even realize that at least some aspects of their culture resonate with Scripture.)

However, what happens when aspects of the culture go against Scripture? If we still try to make ourselves relevant by matching the culture on it’s own anti-biblical terms, we’ve compromised, as if that part of their culture is a bridge instead of a barrier. That constitutes capitulation or syncretization.

The other way we connect culturally with individuals and groups is through counterculturalization. If we do this right, we stand against the culture in ways that keep us relevant without being strident. That means we resist and challenge its anti-biblical aspects. These aspects are barriers to the gospel and/or to growth, and we cannot see transformation within people or their cultures if we refuse to address these barrier issues sooner or later. (If we syncretize, we don’t acknowledge the barrier issues, or at least don’t do anything to challenge them.) However, it is also easy to overdo this resistance. At least two flawed approaches are generally in play at any given time. One approach is to resist to the point of isolation from the culture. Whether through passivity, self-righteousness, or fear, such disengagement leads to irrelevance. Another direction is to take the resistance to the extreme of colonization, attempting to control the culture by imposing our (supposedly) biblical values and perspectives.

 

Two Means of Cultural Engagement
	Doing it right	Doing it wrong
Contextualization	Resonate with pro-biblical aspects of the host culture. Be relevant without compromising.	Syncretize (absorb) anti-biblical aspects of the host culture. This compromises biblical principles. The host culture controls us and we become biblically irrelevant to the host.
Counterculturalization	Resist the anti-biblical aspects of the host culture. Be challenging yet relevant, and without being strident.	Resist (refuse) all aspects of the host culture, or consider it all anti-biblical. Be isolative and not really relevant biblically to the host. Attempt to control the host culture. By colonizing it, we inoculate people against Kingdom Culture.
Chart © 2008 Brad Sargent

 

Cultural engagement is an area where I believe God calls upon us to act paradoxically. We are to be both relevant to a culture’s tastes and yet resistant to their toxins. We are also to be neither controlled by the culture nor trying to control the culture. In other words, we are to lead from alongside our hosts – at the margin if that be our providential place. We are not to push our hosts from behind or leave them alone or let them drag us along.

In organic terms, suppose we are meant to live in a symbiotic relationship with our neighbors, to the benefit of us both. (But how often are we taught that we have everything to give “them” and they have nothing to give us?) If we let their anti-biblical aspects control us, then that has become a parasitic relationship in which they benefit and we perish. If we isolate from them, we break the symbiotic bond and neither side benefits. If we try to control them, then a parasitic relationship is reversed; we benefit and they perish. Regardless of whether we as Christians find ourselves in a social role at the center or the margins, how do we work to sustain the benefits of a symbiotic bond, and prevent it from turning toxic and parasitic? That’s worth spend a lot of time reflecting on and seeing what scripture has to say …

Another related issue here is how to do a paradigm profile, so we can build our understanding of what aspects of a local culture resonate with Scripture (even if the people do not derive their values, beliefs, and behaviors directly from the Bible) and what aspects resist Scripture. I use seven layers in my paradigm/cultural analysis process:

1. Information Processing Modes
2. Critical Values
3. Critical Theology, Religious Perspective, or Philosophy
4. Organizational Strategies
5. Organizational Infrastructures
6. Methodological Models
7. Surface Style and Lifestyle

I have addressed these extensively in my post on Paradigm Profiling in the Missional Zone Part 1, and will let you read there about how I conduct this kind of profiling and why. (By the way, I use the phrase “values, beliefs, and behaviors” as a shorthand way of summarizing the core aspects of culture. That way I don’t have to list all seven layers in the paradigm, but still – hopefully – convey the essence of what a paradigm analysis covers.)

So, those are the overall issues in the MEANS of cultural engagement and the possible range of results. Now we’ll turn to several MODES of individuals or groups entering a culture.

Comparing Modes of Cultural Engagement

In this section, we shift from the range of overall stances toward cultural engagement, and zoom in on how any given person or group compares with a given host culture they wish to enter. I use the term host to emphasize our being sojourners, or citizens of two Kingdoms/cultures simultaneously with responsibilities to each. The way we “straddle” that paradox of responsibilities is what I am referring to as our mode of cultural engagement. We also can connect with a specific host culture in one of four different modes: indigenously, cross-culturally, multiculturally, or interculturally. (For that matter, that can also apply to how we relate as a disciple to our congregation’s overall culture – but that is likely another mini-series, and for some other time.)

If we are indigenous to our host culture, we already have a high level of overlap with its overall paradigm. Generally, we already speak its “heart language” (main tongue) fluently. It may actually be our home culture, especially if we were reared there. We may consider it a “home-base culture” if we weren’t reared in it but still feel a strong affinity toward it. When we engage in a culture indigenously, we are most susceptible to passive syncretism, because we typically are so familiar with the culture that we have blind spots to its flaws, as analyzed from a biblical point of view.

If we function cross-culturally, the host culture is not our home culture. Perhaps we’re still learning its heart language. Also, we probably have significant areas where we either do not (yet) understand it, or do not resonate with its values, beliefs, or behaviors. Perhaps we even find it disgusting. Culture shock is a significant issue in cross-cultural engagement. When we relate from a cross-cultural basis, we may be most susceptible to passive isolation due to culture shock from trying to cope with all the differences between our home culture and our host culture, or passive syncretism because it becomes easier to go with the flow than to resist what may take too much energy in the midst of our culture shock. Or, we may be susceptible to active isolation if we perceive nothing redemptive in the host culture. Or, we may succumb to active control in trying to make the host culture conform to our home culture.

If we function multiculturally, the host culture is not our home culture, but we have an affinity for many or all cultures. We seek to find the likeable or redemptive sides of each culture, and learn from them. This is closer to being a “global citizen,” but this stance may be most susceptible to active syncretism because there is a natural willingness to learn among those who are multicultural and they may be so intent on finding what seems good in a culture that they things in without discretion.

If we function interculturally, we demonstrate such a high level of cultural fluidity that we can flow among many cultures as if we were indigenous to them all. This is not the same as being multicultural. Intercultural people typically have a far higher degree of integrative, interdisciplinary thinking, and, often, a strongly developed intuitive sense of cultural discernment. So, they are not as susceptible to active syncretism as those who function in multicultural model. Instead, their strength is actually their weakness; and there is a sort of reverse form of culture shock that leads to an uncertain personal/cultural identity. Because they feel they fit everywhere, they often feel they belong nowhere. They may sense that any/every culture is the equivalent of home-base, but there is no truly home culture. (For details on the intercultural person, see my page on Interpolators.)

I suspect that anyone in these four modes of cultural engagement can display a lack of humility, a resistance to listening and learning, or even a dislike for another culture – whether that is toward their own home culture, the host culture, or biblical/Kingdom culture. If we are to be incarnational in a culture, we need to maintain an attitude of humility – we are guests, not rulers. If we are to be relational in a culture, we must overcome any barriers to our listening to and learning from the people there. If we are to be missional in a culture, we need to learn to love the people and see what is (or could be) redemptive in who they are as a group, neighborhood, or nation.

So, once we have an idea of what we’re supposed to do in a culture (i.e., contextualization and counterculturalization), and we understand where we stand in overall relationship to the host culture as potential agents of change (either indigenous, cross-cultural, multicultural, or intercultural), then we can consider how to start pulling it all together to catalyze movement toward personal/social transformation. And so we shift from MEANS and MODES to MODELS for cultural engagement.

 

Coming to Terms with “Contextualization” Part 1-Formative History and Shift to “Cultural Engagement”

In my recent post on Finding a Culture’s Quest/ion and Shaping Their Transformative Trajectory (2004), Emily asked, “Is this your way of talking about the contextualization of the gospel without employing words that have become like profanity to some people? Or do you see the two as different (contextualization and questions for the trajectory)?”

I could give the short answer and just list the terms I now use and maybe give brief descriptions or definitions. However, for some unknown reason, I feel like I should try to show the overall process I use, and give some of the influences that started and shifted the way I view contextualization. (If you’re a just-the-facts kind of person, feel free to jump right down to the post with the process description. For some, though, the story makes it more meaningful.) (And in fact, if you’re not interested in the context of my view on contextualization, that strikes me as ironic! Maybe that’s a reason behind giving the narrative: I meant to give a meta-context on my understanding of contextualization, as I have been studying this term and its applications and implications for 30 years now. But you’re a free agent; do as you choose.)

Forging a View on Contextualization

I realize there is a growing body of literature in print and on blogs about cultural engagement (my overall term now for what I used to call contextualization). I know this indirectly rather than from doing a lot of reading lately about the subject (I share reasons for lack of reading later). I know some of those considered The Big Names, either contemporary or classic theoreticians, theologians, and/or practitioners. Most of them I haven’t read because I’ve been called to create something from scratch based on my own experiences and wrestling to interpret them.

Maybe the approaches by The Big Names seem perfectly adequate. But here’s the thing, at least in my opinion: We need multiple perspectives on cultural engagement, developed within each generation, by men and women with varying backgrounds and formative experiences, and with varying Kingdom experiences that spark their writings. I think this is especially important as we undergo significant shifts in global culture, in which some paradigms and cultures go into ascendancy, and others fall into decline. Another irony: Don’t concepts of contextualization need continual updating? No one perspective is the be-all, end-all, over-all.

Meanwhile, there are very specific reasons why those-most-quoted on subjects related to “contextualization” developed the views they did. At least half the picture comes from personal background, and oftentimes, it seems the other half comes more from their observations of failures (their own and those of others) rather than successes. (That may be an inaccurate conclusion, and if you disagree, I really would like to hear your thinking on why.) For instance, I understand that Lesslie Newbigin wrote much of his work based on seeing the decline of the church in his homeland after spending decades in missionary work in India. Roland Allen developed his critiques of the “missions compound culture” based on watching what happened to Chinese nationals who isolated from their peers when they became Christians and became part of the mission outpost. And I … well, you’ll see shortly …

So, here are three parts that forged my overall view on cultural engagement:

1. Background from formative years.
2. Academic and theological pursuits.
3. Practitioner projects – successes, mediocrities, and failures.

1. Background from My Formative Years

There are four high-impact aspects in my formative years (through high school) that tie in with my passion for cultural engagement: pioneering, ecology, multiculturalism, and people of peace.

I grew up knowing I was a third-generation descendant of pioneers on both sides of my family. My early years were spent in Montana, when it still had a very strong flavor of the Old West. People were there because they were risk-takers, movers and shakers, wanting something beyond the usual and willing to go for it. I have come to realize that, at best, rugged individualism gets you to stand outside the norm and take risks, but it only leads you to somewhere new. What keeps you going once you get there is community. Pioneers needed others who had calm when they had storms, could cook a meal when they had to split logs, could watch the children when they needed to sleep from exhaustion. Without the help of neighbors, people simply don’t make it in a frontier setting. And so, the whole environment in which I was raised was infused with the paradoxical dynamic tensions of individual/communal to keep life sustainable.

And speaking on a different kind of environment, we lived in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Less than a mile from home, I could roam within multiple eco-systems – woods, river, pond, prairie – and the “eco-tones” (overlap zones) in between. “Wired” by my learning styles to be highly observant about concrete details, I also spent a huge amount of time thinking about nature and seasons and cycles that were all around me. I participated in an ecology internship program at age 16, and won an environmental essay contest at age 17. This strongly contributes to my understanding of balance, what it takes for survival and vitality, and what can cause toxicity and death for organic systems.

Multiculturalism is a strong aspect in my background. I had no way to interpret at the time how valuable and unusual it was to have such deep exposure to diversity! Montana local history involved learning about Native American tribes, a subject I continued to enjoy for many years. As a lover of books, one of my favorite sets was the Grolier Society’s series on “Lands and People,” and I spent countless hours reading it. Many family and friends were immigrants from Europe and the Middle East. My interest in other cultures continued when our family moved from that rural town of 1,500 to semi-urban Washington state, and I entered a racially diverse and racially tense high school of 1,500. After overcoming culture shock, I found my footing and enjoyed the diversity. I joined the Indian Club, and had school friends from Japanese-, African-, and Mexican-American backgrounds. Border-crossing friendships have always been a part of my life ever since.

Also, my parents and several close relatives were what the Gospels call “people of peace.” They simply took people at face value, welcomed everyone, and treated all the same. For instance, an uncle and aunt sponsored a German man who had been a Prisoner of War in the US, to relocate here after the war. During World War II, my mother’s family had close friends who were Japanese American, and I grew up seeing pictures of these friends in our family’s photo album. In the mid-1960s, my parents opened their small rental house next to ours to an Anglo-South-Asian couple and their children – not the norm, even in Montana, where we lived until I was a freshman in high school. But what an incredible legacy! I am just beginning to probe how deeply these osmosis experiences of showing respect and guarding the dignity of all have influenced the course of my journey in Christ.

2. Academic and Theological Pursuits on Culture and Context

Perhaps an overview of my theoretical and theological background may help to get a sense of my work in my primary studies of culture (i.e., original research work) and secondary studies (reading the works of others).

Since the mid-1970s, I have engaged in studies of linguistic theories as applied to cross-cultural communications. In more technical terms, I focused on rhetorical analysis (the “logic” patterns by which phrases and sentences are glued together into discourses) and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and others related to how language shapes perception.

From the late 1970s to early 2000s, I read a lot of books and critiques on missiological theory, mission-shaped contextualization, and church growth. Some of the earliest books I absorbed were:

Contextualization: A Theology of Gospel and Culture by Bruce J. Nicholls (1979 edition; rereleased with same title in 2003 by a different publisher). I still recall the essence of some back cover copy. It described how one African tribe that wanted to share the gospel contextually with a different tribe would have to analyze at least four cultures: how their own tribe’s culture differed from the other tribe’s culture, how their tribal culture had been affected by the colonial culture syncretized by European missionaries, and how the culture of biblical times had to be interpreted in order to exegete the principles that could/should be applied to Christians in either tribe. I was fascinated with the complexity of it all – a mega-puzzle to solve! But then, that sort of makes sense, given that in second grade, when asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, I said “an archaeologist studying Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures.”

Then there was An Introduction to the Science of Missions by J. H. Bavinck (1964 edition; rereleased in 1992). And books by Roland Allen – published far earlier, but I got into them in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Plus I read a lot of Francis Schaeffer, H.R. Rookmaaker, and others related to the L’Abri movement – more in the vein of practical apologetics for connecting with people based on their worldview and culture.

Gradually, my studies started narrowing down. Off and on during 1982-1988, I researched the dynamics of parallel cultures in the then Soviet Union and Eastern European Bloc, and how the persecution of Christians led to the underground church there. I’ve been conducting my own primary studies into the intersection of culture and ministry since the early 1990s. It began with identity-oriented subcultures, and moved toward church planting strategy. I’ve been writing intensively on related subjects since about 1995.

3. Practitioner Projects – Successes, Mediocrities, Failures

I have at one time or another since the mid-1970s served in almost every imaginable ministry and program a local church could offer, and in traditional to contemporary to seeker to home fellowship to “shadow team,” and neo-monastic/residential community models of church.

From the early 1990s, I also started on a path toward deeper involvement in experiencing different kinds of church situations, strategies, and structures. It started out with participating in a 1994 study group on local cultures and the larger shift toward something that had no real name yet, but now we would call it postmodernity and alternative spirituality. Then I got more directly involved in church planting and pioneering other kinds of new-edge ministries.

All these and a lifetime of other church experiences, provided important (and often fascinating!) learning opportunities, but many would likely be graded as mediocre successes or even failures. This journey has included:

• Three church splits – all of them quite nasty, and in each case where additional clusters of people left over time. One of them also involved a complete takeover (you know, confiscate everyone’s keys, change the locks that night, put chains across the parking lot so no undesirables could use it).
• A dozen times when the extreme measure of church discipline were applied – only twice done according to the process of Matthew 18.
• Outright failures or sloooooow deaths of a few plants, ministries, and non-profit agencies I helped start.
• Woundings to self, and to friends whom I enthusiastically encouraged to participate – a reality I get especially angered by.
• Multiple times challenging toxic leaders on their attitudes, communications (or lack thereof), and behaviors, usually to no avail. (Hopefully you don’t think I actually like doing that. If you’ve read my series on recovery from spiritual abuse, you’ll know that I do so because I made a commitment not to protect leaders who clearly misuse their position/authority to abuse others spiritually.)
• A church plant with the potential to become intercultural, but instead various cultural subgroups left in a particular order over paradigm/cultural conflict with the founding pastor, until basically all who remained were culturally like him.
• A pioneering ministry, a “postmodern” church-within-a-church, and a church in transition where traditional-paradigm leaders stepped in to assert or reassert “ownership,” and their control ultimately kept it conventional and/or killed it entirely.
• A premature church plant merged with a church long since in decline, and instead of fusing a vibrant new life together, it created a 200% mortality rate and left the merger fighting for survival.
• Several years of involvement with “spiritual mapping” and “strategic prayer” initiatives, with a gradual realization that much of it was looking more like a syncretized ”Christian animism” that not. This got me using the term critical contextualization, since it was becoming clear that contextualization was inadequate and often led to compromise of biblical principles.
• Three intriguing experiences in residential community, two of them lasting nearly a year.
• Participation in half a dozen virtual networks for support, peer mentorship, and social enterprises with occasional IRL [In Real Life] interactions, but mostly URL connections via blogs, email, project management sites, etc.

Given such a history, it should be no surprise that my ministry has formed into one of discernment, advocacy, and offering a cautionary voice. I have observed, participated with, and contributed to enough folly to give help and hope to others so that they do not do likewise. I don’t want to see the Holy Spirit quenched any more, because of bad leadership from myself or others, even if we are sincere. I don’t want others to feel quenched, because of bad practices in church planting and transition, even if it comes from sincere people. So, I offer a lot in the way of deconstruction.

But my history also is one of pursuing an insider’s understanding of organizational development, processes, and procedures through a wide range of personal work, ministry experiences, and processing life with friends who have similar interests. These lessons have given hope for offering reconstruction ways to build or rebuild our strategies and systems. Again, providential circumstances provided an astounding on-the-job training in systems:

• Working in or for nearly every division of a seminary over a 12-year period, and regularly having to analyze structural systems and processes, whether it was an assigned task or just to make it into a livable work situation for myself and sustainable to hand off to the next person in that position. I produced or edited so many procedures, forms, databases, and manuals there that it’s probable every member of the administration, faculty, and staff still uses something I produced, every single day.
• Journeying with church planting strategist friends and turnaround-church leaders through their learning curves. Editing their writings on anything from the shift from marketing models to multiplicational organic models, to the roles of women in radical church-turnaround ministry, to translating the gospel into terms that people from alternative spiritualities and religions can comprehend.
• Serving on three church planter candidate interview teams, analyzing the communication skills of 30 others, and thinking through how to adjust the Ridley system for holistic-paradigm candidates, to help them find their best opportunities for a truly successful plant.
• Spending the last 16 months on website, marketing, and training materials related to a comprehensive, integrated system of tools for mobilizing ministry volunteers. Basically, I supersaturated my brain with details of ministry systems; what makes for unhealthy, reductionistic, and toxic; and how to get them healthy, holistic, and sustainable.

Also, I didn’t realize until recently, when I recompiled my resume, that about half of the ministry pioneering ventures and church plants, plus dissertations I edited, related to specific racial or ethnic cultures, or to multicultural enterprises. Most of the rest dealt with issues of generational dynamics. Again, these themes lead quite providentially into continued explorations of cultural engagement.

Moving from Contextualization to Cultural Engagement

So, through the process of watching this experiences and especially the difficulties, I started seeing that we needed more levels of sophistication in our concepts of contextualization. In thinking back, most of the “negative” ministry situations had leaders and/or teams who talked the term, but it wasn’t applied in any way that makes sense.

And honestly, I can’t say the blame all goes back to them. How many people do you know who got a seminary master’s degree of any kind – including one in intercultural studies or missions – who got any kind of substantive training on how to observe, analyze, and interpret cultures? Or how to assess the cultures you are being called to work in, and how to strategize realistic and biblically sound approaches to cultural engagement instead of isolate or capitulate? Or how to catalyze a social transformation movement without getting totally sucked in by the culture and thus become irrelevant? (And actually, the same set of questions applies to trainings on emerging-missional-apostolic-organic-whatever church as well.)

So, here we are, sitting in North America in a post-Christendom setting that is increasingly multicultural demographically and pluralistic spiritually. What are we gonna do with such an amazing opportunity with potential to “disciple the nations” in our own neighborhoods? And, how would we become equipped to do so anyhow?

I stopped reading in about 2001, when I switched to focus on writing up my original research and theorizing about “contextualization.” I’m sure I missed some important things in some books written by others during that time period. However, my calling is to complete this work from my own perspective, not simply composite whatever seems to fit from the variety of perspectives others have. I know my views will show their holes eventually, but I don’t need to be self-critiquing my findings in the process of processing them so they conform to the theories of The Big (or Not So Big) Names. If/when I ever get this material done and published, then perhaps I’ll be led to critique it all by the theories of others. And that will undoubtedly improve and polish it, but I doubt it will utterly demolish it. …

(If details of some of these experiences and studies are of interest, see the Cultural Curriculum Project page. I have more to add in from past activities, and will also bring it up to date when I can.)

Five Main Messages on futuristguy Blog

Meanwhile, one last item of interest before jumping into my actual descriptions and definitions related to the process of cultural engagement: the main messages on this blog. After all, it started out as a blog to report on the Allelon Missional Order summit in October 2007, and keep up with other participants. It quickly became something else … more about the future and paradigm shifts and cultures. Maybe that’s just the way with a lot of providential journeys: It’s easier to steer something that’s already moving than to get it through the inertia barrier and get started. Anyway, here’s what I wrote up as the overriding current messages on my futuristguy blog, as relate to cultural engagement.

1. It’s about paradigms, not methodological models. If all we do is tweak the surface structures, it becomes more about make-up that covers over the flaws than wellness that brings that inner glow to the surface. Those who refuse to change will continue to impose declining paradigm definitions of “success” on new paradigm endeavors, in which case the new will always fall short, and likely will die from control by declining paradigm leaders who expect very specific methods that align with their paradigm.

2. It’s about cultural engagement, and both individual and social transformation in a paradoxical, integrative, holistic paradigm. I believe we could well witness implosions within all North American denominations and movements that refuse to bring into dynamic tension the aspects of our faith and practice that were split in the liberal-fundamental divide of the last two centuries. Neither side is holistic. Each leaves out some major issues of faith and/or practice, and that has implanted its own DNA of destruction.

3. North American churches, denominations, and seminaries have until 2030 at the latest to transition to a holistic paradigm and holistic leaders. This will require some very serious introspection and significant work to fill in our gaps (spiritual osteoporosis), remove our excesses (spiritual bone spurs), and reintegrate our entire paradigm to be consistent. I see this happening in the coming together of representatives from different “post- tribes,” such as pairings among post-Charismatic/Pentecostal with post-Evangelical, post-Liberal with post-Conservative, etc. I’m not sure I see much of it elsewhere yet – despite similar warnings from eminent church consultants like Lyle Schaller over 10 years ago.

4. A litmus test of whether we actually want change, or are just enamored with the idea of change, can be found in our willingness to engage in a 100-year sustainability plan for our neighborhood or organization. Creating and implement such a plan requires a full paradigm shift, not a bunch of new wineskin patches atop old wineskin paradigms. It requires significant investment in preparation by getting current ministry systems and infrastructures in order – or else the plan will actually send the organization and its people into culture shock. So, for instance, it requires demonstrating clear communications, follow through on what is promised, review and revision of goals, and processes for participants to offer constructive criticism. If an organization’s participants cannot get over that threshold level of removing toxicity, how could they ever reach sustainability?

5. We cannot accomplish sustainability alone; we need a collaboration style based in a covenant to work together long term and in compositing our “human resources” for the benefit of the local body. As a newer and holistic paradigm form of collaboration, this has distinctive differences from the traditional paradigm with ecumenical unity around common creeds, or the pragmatic paradigm with functional unity around common projects. It has a bit in common with the City Reach methodological model, but is less about a hierarchy of leaders and more about grassroots connections. I suspect I’ll be writing in depth on this in the near future.

Okay, so this post brought us from the formative themes, through reshaping by a range of studies and experiences, to the current dominant messages. Next post will address the processes and procedures in cultural engagement as I now see them. Back soon …