Thoughts on the Missional Movement ~ Part Four

The Fragmentation of Evangelicalism
and the Precipitation of the Missional Movement

Part Four: When Collaboration Just Won’t Work Well: The Way We Process Information and What We Value Create “Irreconcilable Differences”

Overview of Parts 4, 5, and 6

This series has looked at aspects of the uncontrollable process we find ourselves in as a result of a global shift in paradigms and cultures. Some forces in the process work to fragment the old, others to reformulate the new. To my thinking, this has resulted in six streams in the post-Evangelical vein. Other forces, like the power of paradox, help us consider why the missional stream has more potential for drawing in a wider range of elements from other sources to create a more comprehensive structure and a more dynamic trajectory.

In the next installments (yes, it’s grown past four parts), we’ll look at some powerful principles that seem to have the opposite effect from paradox. In brief, they don’t provide a safe place for people to land while they sift through the complexity to figure out if they fit. Instead, some variations in these sets of frameworks set up conditions and pressure people to decide if they fit before they enter. Some don’t go anywhere once people have entered.

So, as to potential collaborations, they represent “irreconcilable differences” in terms of entry and trying to merge into the missional movement, or trajectory and trying to collaborate and journey toward a common goal, or destiny and what goals they would value. Even if they all apply the label of “missional” to themselves, it doesn’t mean they’d survive as a long-term part or partner in a coherent missional movement.

Thoughts on the Missional Movement ~ Part Three

The Fragmentation of Evangelicalism
and the Precipitation of the Missional Movement

Part Three: Principles of Paradox, and Magnetic Attractions
and Repulsions in the Making of a “Missional Movement”

Part One looked at how different people have been viewing the fragmentation and re-formation of the “missional” movement. Part Two expanded on how there are six streams in what seems to be the next generation after “evangelical” – Emergents, Progressives, Evangelicals, Emergings, Neo-Reformeds, and Missionals – and how they seem to be identify with the “missional movement.”

As I mentioned in an earlier part of this series, I have been in all six streams (or their earlier prototypes) during my Christian experience. By that, I don’t mean just an occasional visit now and again, but extended periods with years of participation. As I’ve experienced a stream by immersing in it, I’ve come to see the pluses and minuses of it, and made adjustments. I think missional will end that series. It seems to integrate more of the pluses of all the other streams and fewer of the minuses. It’s complex, but it makes sense to me. Actually, I’ve been more missional than I realized for nearly 40 years … so, no wonder I didn’t fit in so well in so very many ministry situations before!

And since missional is my home base for “faith and practice,” I’m curious about how elements within these streams might connect or disconnect in a larger missional movement. So, my new questions arise (as always) more from reflections on concrete experiences I’ve had as an insider in them – not from reading books on abstract theory about how movements work or how things should be in the “ideal” church. And right now, I’m wrestling mostly with questions about where various streams will find their entry points into marrying with the missional movement, and what points or perspectives will prove barriers.

Here in Part Three, we’ll explore how “missional” often equates to a “third way” of paradox – those situations where polar opposites co-exist, and on the surface of things that doesn’t seem to make sense, but underneath it actually does. (I need to tell you up front why it’s paradox is crucial to understand, and that’s, because the ongoing worldwide paradigm shift is moving us toward paradox as the dominant way of processing life. If we don’t “get it” soon about paradox, we’re sunk. We won’t be able to navigate the present or the future.) We’ll also look at how paradoxes create “missional magnetic impulses” of attraction and repulsion that affect whether these streams can form a movement in the long run or not. In Part Four, we’ll look at how various discipleship systems and stances toward culture typical within the six streams compare and contrast, and provide either bridges or barriers for collaboration. So … take it slow, here we go!

Thoughts on the Missional Movement ~ Part Two

The Fragmentation of Evangelicalism
and the Precipitation of the Missional Movement

Part Two: Six Streams in the “Missional Movement”

Missionary ~ Missional

A lot of individuals and groups use the term missional these days, but mean some vastly different things by it. For some, it’s about The Latest Program or add-on feature – a buzzword designed to attract people who are into what’s new and happening. For others, they seem to use it as a “big tent” concept for any group that holds to being something akin now that mirrors what evangelicalism was before.

For others (like myself), it’s the inverse of being a cross-cultural missionary where we’d go overseas, learn the language and culture, find the “people of peace,” and disciple them and others. Similarly but turned inside out, the missional-minded disciple moves in his/her own country where the Spirit leads, roots into a local neighborhood, listens and learns from the people right there, becomes a “person of peace” who welcomes all with respect and justice, and disciples others.

So, what sounds like group compatibility when we hear “missional” may actually turn out to be irreconcilable differences between underlying paradigms … It’s confusing, as the ways we perceive the world just aren’t the same, even if we’re using the same word to describe our approach.

Thoughts on the Missional Movement ~ Part One

SERIES INTRODUCTION. This week, I will be launching into the final edit of the first in a series of five curriculum books that I’ve been working on for a very long time. The main topics in this doorway book are culture, creativity, and compositing teams of people with different strengths to forge better collaborations. I see teamwork as one way to navigate the choppy waters of the world as it now is, a way to expand the surface area of the raft we float on together in that ocean of uncertainty.

Problem is, collaboration doesn’t work well when there are deeply-rooted, irreconcilable differences between potential ministry partners. It’s not that we can’t find a level of appropriate tolerance in letting people be where they are, not where we wish they were. It’s about what to do when conflict occurs not in the content of our perceptions but in the deepest processes we use to make those perceptions. These are what keep us from linking together effectively … and maybe that disconnection is something that we cannot or even should not try to overcome.

This three-part series explores some key aspects of how the Church in the US has fragmented during the modern-to-postmodern paradigm shift, what the field looks like in its missional re-formation, and what this may mean in very practical terms for our discipleship systems and collaborations.

Suicide, One Last Snapshot of the Heart, and Hope Beyond …

It is a custom in many Western and Central European cultures that, when family and close friends part company, they take a few minutes and simply gaze in solemn silence into their loved one’s face. It is as if they are memorizing every line, capturing each nuance of color and shade. As they lock into one final look, wordless volumes speak between to the eternity of the soul that shines through eyes. It offers one last snapshot of the heart, before life circumstances cause them to part.

In the last few days, I’ve received word from three friends about the suicide of someone they love. In these cases, they did not have opportunity for that one final portrait, that one last intentional gaze …

Spiritual Abuse Survivors: The “Community” Becomes a “Movement”

January is “Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month”

If you read my last post on ““Hangover Unholiness” Left by Malignant Ministers: Spiritual Abuse Recovery Questions for 2013,” you may not have caught the comment that came in from my friend Linda of Kingdomgrace. She’s been a pioneer blogger in the spiritual abuse survivors community, and I appreciate her big-picture perspective on healing for individuals and how this works out in systems. Here’s what she said:

Brad, Really good questions. It seems detox has mostly been addressed at the personal level. You are doing important work identifying systemic issues at the organizational level. I think there is also a social-cultural aspect of detox that exists beyond the organization having to do with social identity, relationships, group think, etc. Your questions reminded me of how complex this issue is and how comprehensive approaches to healing must be.

Here is the reply I wrote. It covers some things I’ve been thinking about for a while on the impact of toxic systems dynamics, and I felt it was important enough to highlight in a follow-up post to the one on “Hangover Unholiness.”

Note: “Calvinistas” Post Updated

January is “Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month”

I have significantly updated an article I posted a month ago, overviewing the neo-Reformed movement that has been termed “Calvinistas.” Several friends told me that Definition and Description of the Term “Calvinistas” was too technical for them — which is how the first drafts of articles often emerge from my virtual pen. But my goal is to be as accessible as possible, even on technical topics. So I went back through it several times this week to re-edit it. Hopefully you’ll find the language more accessible, and more understandable because of descriptions I’ve added about what the neo-Reformed paradigm it is and isn’t.

The article introduces the militant “Calvinistas” movement; overviews some core issues in its ideology; and examines its typical authoritarian pyramid of privilege, its mission, and some of what distinguishes it from other contemporary movements in the post-Christendom era. It concludes with why our understanding this movement is vitally important for the health and future of the church in North America.

Also, please note that I DO NOT label all Calvinist/Reformed theologians as “Calvinistas.” There are very specific “markers” that identify the differences between the two.