Join the “Missional Futures Learning Community,” 2009-2010

This is the invitation flyer for people to consider registering to participate in the two-year “Missional Futures Learning Community.”

Missional Futures Learning Community

January 2009 – December 2010,

with “futuristguy” – Brad Sargent

Where We are Now, and an Invitation for the Future …

Leaders in ministries and churches are rarely given tools for facing the future – for figuring out relevant issues on engaging with culture, finding and filling the gaps in their ministry infrastructures, and adapting plans in ways that last for the long haul.

For 15 years, I’ve been developing such sustainability tools, and believe they can make a difference. I plan to complete my work on theory, applications, and evaluations over the next two years, and want to invite you to join me on this final phase of that journey. Participation in this one-time-only learning community is open to learners of all types: parents, disciplers, spiritual directors, church and ministry leaders, strategists – anyone concerned about futures and cultural transformation. We’ll use a combination of beta-test versions of my training modules plus some of your situations in discipleship and ministry, and together explore practical ways to:

• Evaluate the soundness of your basic ministry systems so you can get them to a minimum threshold needed to develop new ministries in church and community, and implement them in a future-friendly way.
• Interpret the unique, providential “redemptive purpose” in which you or your organization find yourself, at the intersection of your own history, surrounding community’s history, and local cultures of influence.
• Consider whether, when, and how to make healthy changes in your organization’s paradigm, culture, methodological model, and ministry styles – in ways that minimize the culture shock impact on people.
• Process current concerns with more creativity and more consideration of the future in mind.
• Set up systems to train next generations of leaders in ways that will make sense to them. We’ll also make it a regular practice to consider the “so what” of our topics for helping train next generations.

My curriculum is not designed as a quick solution to questions of change, but a layered approach to considering complex issues for survival in a world of constant change. So, expect that it be more mosaic than linear – but then, the future won’t likely be linear either! Also, I’ll be working hard to make the text of each module clear and concise, and rich with such supplementary media as tables, graphics, videos, discussion questions, fieldwork exercises, and assessment tools. We’ll explore topics with case studies, questions, and online discussions.

And we’ll regularly watch films and occasionally read books as part of the process. A significant percentage of these will be young adult oriented, with study guides to shape our thinking about how to use such media to grow next generations to be social entrepreneurs, cultural engagement workers, and other kinds of missional leaders.

Training Topics

• learning styles, generations, cultures, spiritual gifts
• creativity and entrepreneurship
• diversity and strengthening teamwork
• intermediate spiritual gift training, mentoring systems
• cultural deconstruction and reconstruction
• strategic foresight and futurist skills
• long-term planning and sustainability
• monocultural, multicultural, and intercultural
• “welcoming and transforming” missional approach
• core of personal discipleship and cultural engagement
• paradigm analysis and cultural interpretation
• contextual relevance and countercultural resistance
• transformation trajectory
• organizational redemptive purpose
• culture clash and cross-cultural communication
• change catalysts, paradigm shifts, and culture shock
• methodological models and ministry styles
• ministry systems and infrastructures
• spiritually abusive leadership/toxic ministry systems
• Kingdom collaboration modes
• spiritual warfare in an increasingly occult world
• critiques of spiritual mapping and related perspectives

Interested? Here are Specifics Participation Packages and Enrollment Costs

	Individual Plan	Partnership	Team Plan
Enrollment plan features	Access to training modules, web components, opportunity to submit questions by email, and a one-hour phone call each quarter.	Same features as Individual plan but for two people, with a one-hour conference call monthly instead of quarterly.	Same features as Partner-ship Plan but for up to seven team members, with four hours phone consultation monthly, either with the team together or four individuals.
Monthly fee (due by the 10th of each month)*	$60 per month	$120 per month	$350 per month
One year paid in advance	$500 per year	$1,000 per year	$3,000 per year
Pay entire two-year fee	$875 for full fee	$1,750 for full fee	$5,250 for full fee

*If you cannot afford this fee scale, please contact me to see what we can work out so you can participate.

There will also be about six or seven books to read in two years, five of them relatively short and mostly young adult fiction. We will also have  a few film studies each month. Costs for books and movie rental/purchase are each participant’s responsibility.

Registration Deadline and Contact Information

Registration deadline is January 17, 2009, and at least the first month’s enrollment fee needs to be received on or before that day.

If you have any questions or want to request a registration packet, leave a comment on this blog post - comments are moderated and someone will send you an email with the material you request.

NOTE: Your comment will not be posted. However, I may edit any questions asked if I post responses to common questions. In such cases, your name will not be associated with the question.

Notes and Timelines

Preliminary surveys for participant issues of interest will begin in early January 2009. Assignments begin in mid-January 2009, and the group will finish in mid-December 2010.

All participants are expected to do the assignments: regular blog readings and commenting, viewing media, submitting questions and/or responses. This will not have the same pace or intensity as an online seminary course. It is designed to address beginning to intermediate issues, but at a pace that encourages integration of the material by asking questions, considering case studies, doing fieldwork, and interacting with others.

The website will be for members only. Once begun, it will be a closed group with password access to materials.

Handouts, group exercises, and beta-test assessment tools will sometimes be provided for distribution and use in your local situation, leadership team, ministry, or church. Otherwise, please do not copy or distribute copyrighted materials unless permission is secured in advance.

For my overall perspectives on discipleship, church planting, transformation, spiritual warfare, missional, etc., see the “my core views” page on http://radoxodar.wordpress.com.

For detailed theory on paradigms, culture, and media, see my main blog: http://futuristguy.wordpress.com.

If the necessary minimum number does not register to sustain this project, I reserve the right to cancel it in January 2009 and refund all fees paid.

Additional details will be posted as they become available.

 

“Theodicy” and Biblical Narrative (2008)

Introduction [2008]

The following comments appeared on a post in Dutch emerging church leader Marc van der Woude’s blog, Marc’s Messages. The specific post was “Emerging reflections,” about seeking to rebalance the emerging movement in Europe with aspects of contextualization for the supernatural. Marc invited feedback, and that a request I take seriously and expend myself when the Spirit says to – which was what I sensed in this situation. Since I synthesize information best when there’s a question to answer, a problem to solve, or feedback requested, I jumped right on it … and within a few days, I had a huge response of almost 1,500 words.

The resulting article came out of my own concerns about overfocus on the supernatural that I had experienced in service related to the Spirit-oriented “strategic prayer movement” and “spiritual mapping” – as well as the underfocus on the presence of the supernatural that is typical in Word-oriented disciples (e.g., Baptists, fundamentalists, and evangelicals). The dynamic biblical tension holds together being Word-oriented and Spirit-oriented, and 2007 was a time when I was grappling with that particular tension. And so, the request came at a providential moment!

But, because my response was so long, I emailed Marc to ask permission to post my comment. (Not nice to “blog hog and clog” with comments, even if they seem relevant.) He was gracious and kind enough to say yes. And so I introduced my essay on “What’s More Core Than Missional?” with the following “prelude.”

Prelude to Comment [2007]

Marc – I appreciate your blog reflections and critiques on emerging church. One issue that I have been especially considering lately relates with your second point on the natural versus supernatural perspectives. This point came up in passing in a recent thread on Alan Hirsch’s blog, on whether missional and incarnational is enough. Although I appreciate the importance of those approaches, they don’t necessarily encompass signs and wonders.

So, I have been thinking about what other “integration point” could be even deeper than missional and incarnational, and cover the possibilities of signs/wonders and the miraculous. I think it is “theodicy,” the storying approach that comes directly out of God’s character being challenged by His creatures, and the resulting spiritual warfare, ecological decay, and human conditions of sin and evil.

Whatever we find as the core that covers both missional-incarnational and signs-and-wonders approaches, I think it’s important to note that there is a trend for baptists (which is more of my background) involved in outreach to people who are pagans, animists, mystics, etc., to become more open to signs and wonders and to being Spirit-led without being “Spirit-filled” in the traditional charismatic-pentecostal meaning of the term. Hard to be contextual otherwise! So, something is moving … Could it be the Spirit? And could it be that part of the work of our post-Christendom era involves working out a more encompassing theological paradigm that does not divide us into Spirit-oriented versus Word-oriented camps?

Thanks for giving me permission to post below an article I wrote as a response on “what’s more core than missional.” This article comes out of recent reflections, but also a background that includes one of the earliest trainings offered in “spiritual mapping” (about 1994), serving as a cultural consultant to several spiritual mapping/intercession groups, and doing cultural research to help identify most likely points of losing biblical distinctives when ministering in pagan-animistic cultures. I also have friends who have found significant connections with spiritually-inclined people through offering biblical perspectives on dream interpretation, healing like Jesus did, etc. We have talked extensively, and I have edited some of their materials for them.

What’s More Core Than Missional? [2007]

Okay, so, I only have time available at the moment to try to outline what I think is “missing from missional.” I have been giving this quite a bit of thought for months, and have some materials I can hopefully get together sometime soon for a more lengthy (but hopefully cogent!) presentation. Sorry if that’s frustrating, but perhaps it’s better to try for an espresso version than to hold on to the suspense.

My primary research/development work is with paradigms and cultural systems. So, I’m always looking at how our deepest-level assumptions affect our information processing styles and values, and how those affect our theologies and philosophies, and how those carry within them inherent preferred strategies and structures, and how those carry within them a range of preferred methods and behaviors.

Two streams of observation and reflection have brought me to wonder whether being missional-incarnational goes deep enough.

The first stream of evidence I’ve pondered is the flow of church planting approaches the past 10 years. It seems to me that the focus or integration points have shifted from ecclesiology (with its inherent concern about methods and models for relevant church planting), to doxology (worship as the key thing to unlock the Kingdom), to theology proper (tinkering with a series of theological issues, like open theism or reforming the reformation), to Christology (with an emphasis on incarnational ministry), to missiology (with an emphasis on being missional and “culturally relevant”).

This represents good and important movement, but has it gone far enough? To paraphrase what A Celtic Son has suggested in posts on other threads on The Forgotten Ways blog, if we integrate our being and doing around an “-ology” instead of around a Person, we’ve gone off the mark… Is there an integration point that focuses even more on God’s person and character, but yields an even larger theological system?

The second stream of evidence comes from connections with some people whose lifestyle and conversation is embedded with terms that indicate they are missional, incarnational, redemptive, transformative. However, as I watch and listen, too many times I see what appears to be lack of discernment about good and evil. Implanting themselves into a culture for the sake of the gospel seems to result in sucking in anything in that culture, whether possibly pro-biblical, clearly anti-biblical, or something in between.

Also, there is a dualistic split still. Sometimes this manifests as an overfocus on “spiritual warfare” and manifestations of supernatural power to the point where their language doesn’t sound much different from that of animists – it’s ALL about spiritual forces and such. For others, it functions in a way that approaches naturalism and rationalism, even to the point of denying that God’s providential intervention is possible; context is all about our analysis – no surprises allowed! Somehow, we’re missing a comprehensive and coherent and holistic framework for the issues of evil and suffering, and for the related tension between natural and supernatural. One result that I suspect comes out of this insufficient set of assumptions is an inability to contextualize ministry well – hence, either we lack discernment and syncretize with evil or toxic aspects of the local culture, or we lack giving way for providence and diversity with our attempts to control/colonize the local culture.

So much of what we’ve talked about recently in The Forgotten Ways blog is our attempt to see patterns in the biblical accounts and connect them with patterns in our current situations. Since my initial academic training was in linguistics, let me use an analogy from that field. “Reverse engineering” the connections between our context and the biblical context is like trying to devise a grammar for a previously unwritten language. Only instead of words as the dataset, we’re using Kingdom cultural data of church planting methods and theologies and this or that practice. If our grammar is comprehensive and coherent, it will fit the existing data set snuggly, and it will also encompass and explain any new data that crops up. If it isn’t constructed well enough yet, the “grammar rules” won’t make sense with the data we’ve got or that we get.

So, when I see what I conclude are deficiencies in current methodologies or structures or strategies from some people who work from a missional-incarnational paradigm, my questions force me to go deeper to the level of assumptions: What’s extra or what’s missing at that deepest levels?

I’m not suggesting that there is something to be added to missional-incarnational, as if add-ons at the same paradigm level would fix what I see as gaps and encrustations. I’m suggesting that there are things even deeper to consider – different integration points that are more core than we’ve allowed for yet (but are probably moving toward in the providential flow of things).

In my opinion, here is what we need to think about as the root framework that the fruit of missional-incarnational approaches inherently spring from. First, God’s person and character. I sense we talk about knowing God but don’t necessarily put Him personally into the framework in ways that allow for His personal involvement in unpredictable ways. Second is “theodicy,” which is the beginning-to-end-of-the-Bible theme about how God relates with all “actors on the stage of history” (angels and demons, heavens and earth, [animals] and humans) and how He justifies His character in the face of evidence that appears to be contrary. We hear theodicy questions all the time: Why do bad things happen to good people? If you’re so powerful God, why don’t you stop all the wars? Why is there evil in the world? If God is love, why can’t I get through my hatred? What can we do about global warming, and what if we’re not in time?

If eschatology is about pre-written history of “the end times,” then maybe would could think of theodicy as the “macrohistory” in which all other individual, family, generational, social, cultural, political, geographical histories are interwoven, from beginning to end. It’s about thematics in Scripture, and I don’t think we should expect to tackle strategies and schematics well until we are more steeped in experiencing God and His thematics.

Theodicy is a large topic that I don’t feel has been reflected on much in the context of the past 10 years of so-called emerging ministry. However, I think there are critical issues that can only be interpreted through this lens. The incarnation and redemptive mission of Christ don’t make sense except against the backdrop of the broken relationship between humanity and our Creator. And we don’t get the backdrop of that broken relationship until we see the earlier breach between God and His other creatures who fell – angels who became demons – and understand how that in turn affects the earth the Lord put us here to steward. So, those storylines must precede the missions/incarnation storyline, even when theodicy is more the frame and missions/incarnation is the picture inside the frame.

If we don’t integrate around God’s person and character, and the framework that we’re in the midst of a spiritual battle, I don’t know that we can wrestle with issues of suffering and perseverance very well. Or what it means to sacrifice self and persevere in ways that involve whole-life stewardship in light of the progress of Christ’s Kingdom in pushing back darkness with the Light. Perhaps in some contexts, we might see the need to “speed up” our methods and condense into a few years what otherwise might have taken decades, while in other places we might see the need to “slow down” and allow for a multiple-generation strategy because the that would prove more sustainable in that context. And without understanding theodicy, why would we even care about being responsible stewards of the environment as a demonstration that reflects God’s character?

And who knows, maybe if we spent some time re-integrating our perspectives and theologies around delving into who God is and how He presents Himself in a world affected by evil and sin, perhaps we might find a way past the unfortunate dichotomy between the more supernaturalist camp and the more rationalist camp. All who would be disciples could certainly use more leading of the Holy Spirit, more guidance from God’s Word, experience more transformation toward Christlikeness as we rest in the Father’s love for us as His children …

Posted by: brad | February 27, 2007 at 02:43

ADDENDUM: BLOG COMMENT FROM MIKE JONES

Andrew, Marc, and especially Brad:
THANK YOU for finally mentioning something about the Holy Spirit! I have been researching the Emerging movement/conversation/church for weeks now, reading everything I can find on and about Rob Bell to Brian McLaren to Scot McKnight and this is the first real mention of the forgotten person of the Trinity.

As a charismatic, I of course look for two things in a discussion: the Lordship of Jesus and the attitude about the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is noticeable in the “conversation” because of its absence. New thoughts, new paradigms, new strategies are all acceptable if they come through the Spirit as exampled in the Bible. He has given us the tools and the format; we need to use it. I want to encourage you all to seek Him (the Holy Spirit) in your conversations and discussions. The two criteria mentioned go a long way to legitimizing content and position.

Blessings,

Posted by: Mike Jones | March 15, 2007 at 20:21

 

Strategic Level Prayer and Spiritual Mapping [2008]

Introduction [2008]

I was an early though moderate proponent of “spiritual mapping,” and went to one of the earliest conferences held on that subject, almost 15 years ago. About a decade ago, I also served as a consultant to a regional prayer network, working with them on issues of culture, symbols, and occult religions and spiritualities. I volunteered in that role for several years.

I was in it deep enough and long enough to become uncomfortable with what I experienced from those committed to spiritual mapping and strategic prayer as essential to evangelism. Eventually, I stepped back from my advocacy of these perspectives and practices, although I am not anti-charismatic and I do believe that signs and wonders can be appropriate missional encounters in cultures where people are captivated by occult forces. I see this as one of the most difficult areas of doctrine to integrate into a holistic biblical paradigm because it has been so beyond the knowledge and experiences of most Christians in the West. That, however, is in the process of change both through the decline of Christendom, the ascendance of Eastern and occult religions, and the excesses of numerous strains within the “New Apostolic Reformation” movement as seen in the implosion of the Lakeland Outpouring and elsewhere.

The following material comes from comments I made to the post, “Subtle Changes,” on Former Leader’s blog. A post-Charismatic, Barb has critiqued the ongoing problems in Pentecostalism.

Comments on the “Subtle Changes” Post by Former Leader [2008]

Comment #1

Great post and comments – I wasn’t heavily involved in this stuff, but have been circling around the edges of it for awhile. Hard to find a balance – still working on that.

If you’ve been adversely affected by the “Transformations” theology and “spiritual mapping/strategic-level warfare prayer” practices, you might be interested in getting this book I found over 10 years ago: Spiritual Power and Missions: Raising the Issues by Edward Rommen. It’s available at amazon. It has several articles that give a substantial theological critique of the Otis-Jacobs-Sheets-Wagner-etc. system, if that’s part of how you want to process your release from captivity.

I attended the second ever spiritual mapping conference in 1994, not because I was a total advocate, but because I am a cautionary critic and wanted to find out what this was about. I have had many friends directly involved as advocates, and I could see something seemed out of whack. I wrestled for a few years with whether the Transformations system was biblical, abiblical, or anti-biblical. I finally concluded it was an abiblical system (not substantiated in Scripture) that easily becomes anti-biblical (a counterfeit system) by taking us away from the clear teachings of Scripture. (Though I still do hold to many aspects of spiritual warfare and theodicy, even as a never-been-Charismatic missional-minded mostly-Baptist-in-my-theology guy!)

Here’s an analogy I came up with to explain what I see as the core problem. It’s like we’re doorkeepers who stand in the open doorway between two rooms. In the outer room it is fully dark. In the throne room sits Jesus and it is full of light.

Spiritual warfare praying wants us to stand in the doorway, facing into the dark room, and focusing on casting out the darkness. Some of the light from Jesus flows past us and into the dark room. We occasionally turn toward Jesus, but not for too long because our supposed job is to stand against the darkness.

But what Scripture wants of us is to stand in the doorway, facing Jesus, taking in the light. When we stand in the doorway and face Jesus, the same amount of light goes around us and into the dark room as when we go the warfare route, plus we can always turn temporarily to greet anyone who comes near because they are being drawn toward the light.

We become like whatever we focus on. If we integrate our lives around Jesus, we ourselves are transformed and can affect the people around us. It’s ironic that when we integrate our lives around how people are influenced by Satan, we ourselves become inhumane because we no longer see humans, only spiritual forces. I wonder if all abusive theologies are built around such contempt for the very people whom God loves …

Meanwhile, welcome back to the land of Aslan! His springtime has arrived and is melting the gloom and desolation of the White Witch’s winter …

Comment #2

Over the past few years, I’ve been trying to find a balance on this topic, starting from the rather odd journey of an post-liberal/evangelical/Baptist who has studied cross-cultural missions since the 1970s and hung out with friends in the spiritual warfare/prayer movement, but am now primarily associated with “emerging” and missional movements, where cultures frequently function in a post-Christendom/anti-hyper-rationalist/spiritual powers framework.

Go figure …

I don’t know what it means either …

Anyway, about a year ago I posted a lengthy comment on Dutch emerging guy Marc van der Woude’s blog. It’s about “theodicy,” a doctrinal perspective which gives a storyline framework to the unseen world without letting it hijack The Main Story. If interested, check out this link. My comment is near the bottom, and interesting that the final comment is from a Charismatic brother searching for balance within the emerging movement.

http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/mm3/2007/02/emerging_feedba.html

Also, you might find The Invisible War: The Panorama of the Continuing Conflict Between Good and Evil by Donald Grey Barnhouse a reasonably balanced view on the doctrinal side of spiritual warfare.

 

So What’s a Futurist? [1999, 2007]

Introduction and Provenance [2008]

I wrote the initial versions of So What’s a Futurist? in 1999. At that time, a friend of mine and I tried to create a “Christian Futures Network” to provide training courses that would give a comprehensive, entry-level look at what strategic foresight, futuring, and futurists are all about. (Sidenote: It didn’t fly.)

This article offers an eight-point description of the mindset and skill set of “strategic scenario futurists” who are Christians. I have edited it to include more material. I have also changed a key term. In previous versions, I used the term “professional futurists” to distinguish us (i.e., scenario producers) from other kinds of people who are typically called futurists, but whose frameworks and tools are quite different from those of us who produce scenarios. In this version, when I use the term futurist, I am referring to those who use the three classic core skills found in the discipline of strategic foresight.

(Note: In the next version of this article, I intend to add examples to illustrate each section.)

So What’s a Futurist? [1999, 2007]

Overview: What Makes for a Strategic Foresight/Scenario Futurist?

When we speak of a futurist, we mean someone who has the necessary interdisciplinary mindset and skill set needed to accomplish the range of roles needed to assist clients in assessing their past and present, and directing them toward realistic appraisals of the multiple directions that plausible futures could take them. This is done through three primary techniques of futures studies:

1. Trend tracking. This is the practice of watching for changes in cultures and their underlying paradigms. It focuses especially on techniques to spot early-on trends whose signs are just emerging or where signs are visible but not yet seen as particularly significant.
2. Nonlinear extrapolation. This “mind-mapping” style skill involves generating plausible “what if’s” that may emerge from cultural trends, and discerning patterns that indicate what the short-term and long-term ramifications of those trends might be.
3. Scenario construction. This process helps us consider the emotional and systems impacts in the patterns among those ramifications, and turn those discernments into provocative, open-ended scenarios. This is designed to spark discussion among clients on some plausible futures, so they can sort through options and make preparations for what they decide to pursue as their most preferable future.

This trilogy of skills is the core of a discipline known as “strategic foresight” or “futuring.” Put another way, trend tracking helps us find the new narratives (stories) currently being told in our cultures, nonlinear extrapolation helps us determine possible plot twists these stories might take, and scenarios are finished (but general) stories about the future that help us find our roles in transforming the future.

Those whom we train will have these three core skills as distinguishing marks of being a “real” – i.e., a scenario-producing – Christian futurist. At this point, just about anyone can hang out a shingle that declaims themselves a “Christian futurist.” People who have so identified themselves (or who have been so labeled by others) include prophetic teachers and professors, church consultants and church planters, researchers and demographers, macro-historians and mega-hysterians, visionaries and vision casters, fad trackers and fiction writers. Our extensive, multifaceted description of a “full futurist” in this document is not meant to denigrate the work other such individuals do. However, it is meant to set a standard for the kind of trainees we hope to produce. (And actually, a strategic foresight futurist actually plays many of those roles, but all rolled into one, so they are very relevant.) To help people understand the differences between our view and that of other kinds of “futurists,” we have included a section on them in each point in our eight-point description.

Not only should Christian futurists exhibit the three core skills – regardless of whether they work “in ministry” or in community/secular settings. They should also hold a distinctive set of biblical presuppositions, ethics, and spiritual practices which form and inform their work. For instance, according to biblical ethics, Christian futurists should never promote as preferable futures any scenarios which encourage unjust treatment of people, even though such scenarios may be possible, plausible, and/or probable. Our Partnership training will include rigorous examination of biblical ethics and codes of appropriate conduct for futurists who are guided by their Christian faith.

Expanded Description of Futurists and Their Futuring Skills

Christian futurists should exhibit all of the mindset and skill set elements as a strategic foresight futurist profiled below – regardless of whether they work “in ministry” or in community/secular settings. However, futurists who happen to be Christians should also hold a distinctive set of philosophical presuppositions, ethics, aesthetics, and spiritual practices which form and inform their work.

For instance, according to biblical ethics, Christian futurists should never promote as preferable futures any scenarios which encourage unjust treatment of people, even though such scenarios may be possible, plausible, and/or probable. And it may mean that Christians who are futurists need to refuse opportunities to work for people or organizations whose stated purposes can never be justified from a biblical perspective, because they are unjust, abusive, or otherwise unethical.

When we speak of a “futurist,” we mean someone who has the necessary mindset and skill set to accomplish a range of roles in assisting clients with vision development and contingency planning. When we train Christian futurists, it is with the comprehensive profile below constantly in mind.

1. Interdisciplinary Knowledge

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists are “specialists at being generalists.” They function from a broad, interdisciplinary knowledge base. They tend to be voracious learners who observe obsessively and process information holistically. As systems thinkers, they are “wired” to perceive the interconnections and interactions among various cultural domains (e.g., arts, business, ecology, economics, education, entertainment, health, global culture, government, media, philosophy and religion, society, science and technology).

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists evaluate cultural domains through a biblical grid of theological presuppositions, ethics, and aesthetics.

Other kinds of Christian futurists do not expand their knowledge base widely, or else they maintain the cultural domains as discrete units that do not interact, or put their focus on a limited number of cultural domains.

2. Multiple Information Processing Modes

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists must have the crucial intuitive and/or trained ability to discern patterns within large sets of data, must be able to alternate between analytical and synthetic thinking skills, and must have the relational and communication skills to inform, equip, lead, challenge, and inspire their clients.

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists will acknowledge their natural giftings, spiritual giftings, and training opportunities as all part of God’s providential “nature-and-nurture-and-choice” package designed uniquely for them. This puts their futurist work in the realm of worship. Though some very high-level abilities are needed to become an effective futurist, Christians in this field will not make those abilities into an idol, nor use antibiblical or unethical methods of relating or communicating with clients.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” do not develop these cognitive, relational, or communication skills developed to the point that they can perform the roles required.

3. Trend-Tracking for Strategic and Deep Change

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists must have an intuitive and/or trained ability to discern the differences between fads (trends lasting two years or less, and generally with little long-term impact), short-term trends (two to five years, and some influence), long-term trends (five to 50 years, with significant influence), and meta-trends (over 50 years, with enormous impact). They must be able to track the direction for short- and long-term trends within multiple cultural domains, assess the particular underlying dynamics contributing to those trends, and evaluate possible intersections of key vectors of change.

This is important, because the long-term trends and meta-trends are what “drive” change in a culture. (In fact, they are often termed “drivers.”) These longer-term trends represent critical shifts in the deepest worldview/theological paradigm levels in a society These shifts impact the structural way social institutions function, which together impact the surface/operational level of that society.

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists will interpret trends, their underlying dynamics, and their interactions through a biblical worldview grid. This may mean evaluating certain trends, dynamics, and changes as being unhealthy from a biblical point of view, even if people from other background find nothing wrong with them. (For instance, some people see unlimited economic growth as a good thing, but Christians should see that such expansion can lead to negative consequences in terms of the environment, abuse of people who are poor, etc.) This in turn calls forth multiple redemptive responses to alter those patterns, while always leaving intact peoples’ opportunity and responsibility to choose God’s ways for themselves.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” tend not to distinguish between these categories of trends, and so assume that fads and short-term trends are the significant factors in developing plans for institutional change. Because of this truncated perspective, they focus on short-range changes in surface operations, and are not equipped to help clients develop long-range changes at the underlying theological and structural levels.

4. Non-Linear Extrapolation of Trends to Mirror Social Complexity

Mere linear extrapolation assumes a simplistic model of sociocultural change – such as that the rate and/or direction of change is constant. (For instance, at the current rate of women entering into top leadership of Fortune 500 companies, there will be equality between men and women … around the year 2100.) Non-linear extrapolation assumes the opposite – that change is a complex process involving many factors. (For instance, by pushing harder on gender discrimination lawsuits, conducting anti-discrimination trainings in the workplace, etc., job equality may arrive significantly sooner than 2100.)

Strategic foresight futurists project trends into the long-term future by conducting complex, non-linear extrapolation. The process involved here is similar to a mindmap, starting with a specific topic in the center, drawing spokes to about half a dozen answers to a what if question (e.g., What could plausibly result if seminary students decide not to work in churches as pastors?), making each of those results into new centers for another set of spokes, and repeating this process six or seven times. This provides a dataset for discerning patterns when multiple factors play against each other.

Christians who are strategic foresight/scenario futurists should intentionally calculate God’s providence and unexpected turnings into any extrapolation of current trends into the future. Although it is important to pray for God’s wisdom and guidance in all aspects of futuring as a Christian, the extrapolation process especially needs to be covered in prayer, since it represents one of the most crucial stages in the process of developing scenario sets.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” use straight, linear extrapolation, which yields simplistic results due to a reductionistic set of assumptions (e.g., assuming that current patterns will not change over time). This method proves inadequate to yield realistic long-range scenarios because it tends to overstate both positive and negative rates of change.

5. Scenario Sets to Capture Multiple Plausible Futures

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists identify the drivers (meta-trends), predetermined elements, and critical uncertainties for their clients’ particular areas of concern, and develop a set of realistic scenarios that capture as many aspects as possible of the multiple, plausible ways the possible futures of those special areas could go. This requires an intuitive and/or trained sense of what is crucial versus what is extraneous. And scenario construction is significantly aided by the ability to utilize fiction-writing techniques in what is a substantially non-fiction topic. The more realistic the scenarios, the more helpful the processing about those plausibilities may be.

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists will need to be intentional about developing biblical parameters about the future. For instance, if their eschatology is overly apocalyptic and closure-oriented, that could tend to skew the scenarios in the direction of passivity: “The world will end soon, so why do anything to try to change the direction things are going?” If their eschatology is too open-ended, that could skew the scenarios in opposite directions: “We don’t know when Christ is coming back, so it all depends upon us to change the way the world is.”

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” tend not to work to the level of identifying drivers, and do not have a good sense of what components are essential to the scenarios at hand. They may also not have good writing skills, or may not have the creative ability to envision plausible-sounding vignettes that capture the complex realities of the situations their clients face.

6. Scenarios as a Contingency Planning Tool

Scenarios are not about “prophecying or predicting the future.” They are about preparing for the future now, and breaking out of a mindset that assumes the future is set in stone and can’t be changed. Rather, scenarios are built upon the assumption that we are responsible to co-create the future wisely. Thus, strategic foresight futurists help their clients draw up lists of early indicators that would tell them if part of any particular scenario is in fact unfolding, and guide them in a process of contingency planning related to the scenario set.

Christians who are strategic foresight/scenario futurists must be able to interpret the times and what people should do. The stage of helping clients with early indicators as a planning tool – and any other forms of evaluation tools – calls for integrity and humility. This process will significantly shape the direction clients take, and it needs to be bathed in prayer. Christians have the added dimension of knowing they are co-creating the future within God’s providence, and futurists should equip their Christian clients in this mindset to help break them free from any theological determinism or fatalism that assumes we cannot impact the future.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” stop at forecasting and do not assist clients in creating contingency plans and evaluation tools specific to their needs.

7. Goading Clients Toward Growth

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists challenge their clients’ core assumptions, as well as the structures and practices that emerge from them. This approach is based on the foundational belief that substantial and long-lasting change can only occur when the underlying levels of philosophical assumptions are systemically altered, which allows the overlying levels of structures and practices to “really” change. (In biblical terms, “New wine needs new wineskins.”)

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists will need to serve clients by leading them into and in a deep and spiritual transformation process, not a mere shuffling of the deck chairs. This process will probably be very uncomfortable for both parties at times, because we all tend to resist change. The change process with clients may be particularly difficult, and calls forth high levels of discernment in observing and evaluating clients’ situations, and challenging them to go as deep as possible in the change process – and then at least one step farther.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” generally work at the surface level of operational practices. This means they cannot guide clients well into deeper and lasting change, which can only issue from change at the level of underlying philosophical assumptions and the structural presuppositions that lie between them and surface operational practices.

8. Reaching for the Horizon

Strategic foresight/scenario futurists inspire their clients to dream big and vision-cast well, and also to work beyond their current assumptions, contingencies, and plausible futures into co-creating preferable futures from a realistic structural base that reflects a future-compatible set of underlying assumptions.

Christians who are strategic foresight futurists should function well in whatever creative abilities they possess, because they recognize the reality of being created in God’s image. The entire process of creating scenarios for contingency planning and institutional transformation is based on the presupposition that not all thing are set in stone, and that people have the opportunity to co-create their future with God. If a Christian futurist does not hold this view, it will be difficult (if not impossible) to be of real assistance to clients, because change and planning are meaningless exercises in a deterministic world. And it may well be true that we can best stay culture-current by keeping futures-fluent. That has grand implications for all aspects of our lives.

Other kinds of Christian “futurists” either cannot inspire people to dream, cannot help them follow through with their dreams, or are stuck on “perfect” or preferable futures that do not account for the realities of the situation.

What about Me?

That’s my understanding, from a futurist training that clarified issues for me 10 years ago. Certainly there have been advances in the field since then. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to catch up and then keep up with them.

 

Church Planting and Transitions [2008]

Introduction [2008]

The following responses come from questions that were part of a job application in October 2008 for a position on a particular denomination’s national-level church planting strategy team.

Church Planting and Transitions [2008]

Explain how your talent and experience would benefit the national new church start strategy and its team. Please give specific examples of how your actions created results and make parallels to the position to which you are applying.

As things turned out in my life, I do not lead in the conventional way of vision casting an abstract but attractive future, or marketing the model to get membership buy-in, and or motivating people to follow me. However, the providential curriculum embedded in my experiences of last 30 years has built up the ability, or at least the possibility, of leading from the side, where my ears are placed to listen, and where my forward vision covers the fuzzy peripheral sight of someone else (and vice versa). No seminary I know of would intentionally provide such opportunities for learning from the difficulties that led to mediocre results or to outright disasters in church plants, merger, and transitions. And yet, that has been the path I have journeyed on. It has included the following:

• Three church splits. A dozen times when extreme measure of church discipline were applied – only twice done according to the process of Matthew 18. Outright failures of a few plants, ministries, and agencies. Woundings to self and friends whom I enthusiastically encouraged to participate.
• A church plant with the potential to become intercultural, but instead various subcultural groups left in a particular order over specific conflicts 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 that all choked, withered, and died. In each case, their CEO-style manager pastor and/or traditional-paradigm leaders stepped in to reassert “ownership” and control, and ultimately to keep it conventional. Virtually all of the younger generation leaders involved eventually left the sponsoring church.
• 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 on the old and left the new merger fighting for survival.

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 will not do likewise. I don’t want to see the Holy Spirit or God’s people quenched, because of bad practices in church planting and transition, even if it comes from sincere people. Also, I typically invite my friends to join me in Kingdom enterprises, and I don’t want to see them hurt either, although such endeavors always involve risk-taking.

But my history also is one of understanding organizational development, processes, and procedures. This comes 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 constructive ways to build or rebuild our strategies and systems. Again, providential circumstances provided an astounding on-the-job training in systems:

• Involvement in nearly a dozen church plants and pioneering ministry efforts, member of two one-year residential communities, and co-founding or early-on work in four non-profits. I was also one of the first interns in the Southern Baptist Convention’s Nehemiah Project for church planters in 2000.
• 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 that it’s probable that every member of the administration, faculty, and staff uses something I did, every single day.
• Journeying with several church planting strategist friends through their learning curves from traditional marketing models of church launch to multiplicational organic models and other approaches.
• Journeying with a couple as they took on leadership in a turnaround church, and helping clarify some of  the wife’s writings on dynamics and issues for women ministering in dramatic paradigm shift church transitions.
• Serving on three church planter candidate interview teams, analyzing the communication skills of 30 others, and thinking through how to adjust the Ridley Church Planter Assessment system to accommodate holistic-paradigm candidates.
• Working for 16 months on website, marketing, and training materials related to a comprehensive and integrated system of tools for mobilizing ministry volunteers.

Multiculturalism is also a significant part of 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. Many family and friends were immigrants from various countries scattered across Europe. As a lover of books, one of my favorite sets was the Grolier Society’s series on “Lands and People.” Also, my parents were “people of peace.” They simply took people at face value and treated all the same. In the mid-1960s, they opened their small rental house next to ours to an Anglo-Pakistani couple and their children – not the norm, even in Montana, where we lived until I was a freshman in high school.

My interest in other cultures continued when our family moved from that rural town of 1,500 to semi-urban Spokane, Washington, and I entered a racially diverse and racially tense high school of 1,500. After I overcame the 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.

In college I connected with students from PacRim and South Asian countries. At seminary, over 30% of the student body was Korean, and the racial/ethnic diversity grew to well over 40%. I have worked with people from diverse racial, social, and cultural backgrounds. I’ve watched and experienced both the constructive and destructive tendencies of different cultures (including my own) play out in people’s interactions. I believe I can offer much in helping church planting strategy team participants address issues of cultural engagement, contextualization, crosscultural communications, and becoming countercultural to the destructive tendencies in a setting.

In terms of relevant talents, I’ve developed interdisciplinary abilities to think paradoxically. I keep the big picture and details in dynamic tension, and alternate between macro- and micro-planning.

• As a linguist who applies language-cracking skills to cultures, I work toward “elegance” in creating the most minimal set of rules or statements needed to explain complex phenomena.
• As a futurist, I am an “archaeologist of the present,” seeking to discern patterns of relevance in the midst of “data fog.”
• As a committed disciple of Christ, I pursue Christlikeness in both my own character and its corporate outworking in Kingdom Culture.

All of these are essential to a position which focuses on equipping/facilitating people in Kingdom enterprises that involve teamwork, strategy, building and improving internal structures, responding to external changes and trends, and moving from mere maintenance to sustainability and multiplication.

In light of all this, here is where I believe I could be the most help to a national church planting team and strategy. Overall, it involves building multi-layered networks of planters, sponsors, strategists, intercessors, and other leaders by offering concrete resources and perspective more than abstract vision or charisma.

Bridge Inevitable Changes in Generational Leadership and Paradigms, and Encourage Hope through Innovation

• Complement conventional “legacy paradigm” strategies and sponsors with non-institutional, holistic paradigms and methodological models that are more compatible with the world as it is emerging, and with younger generations.
• Seek to spark people’s sanctified imagination to perceive how various plausible futures in the face of worldwide changes in paradigm and cultures can still lead to preferable futures in the Kingdom.

Give Reasoned Challenges to the Status Quo

• Raise – as graciously as possible – uncomfortable questions about strategy concepts and processes, concrete practical plans and procedures, research interpretations and long-term implications.
• Guard – as best as possible – against demonstrated stress-points and weaknesses inherent in various paradigms and methodological models.
• Also guard against misapplication of “best practices” from one paradigm or cultural setting that are not truly a “best fit” with another particular paradigm or cultural situation.

Individual Assessment, Team-Building, and Strategy Development

• Assist with or conduct church planter candidate/team member assessments, being sensitive to cultural systems that revolve around honor/shame, innocence/guilt, or power/fear.
• Help potential participants better understand both their providential design and their setting of interest; examine areas of cultural resonance and resistance with biblical mandates; and anticipate kinds of crosscultural stress they will likely face, due to similarities and differences with the culture of their interest and moving its people toward discipleship.
• Train learner-leaders on the importance of diversity for accomplishing God’s purposes, and equip with frameworks for seeing how to composite teams where each individual can shine with their gifts and abilities to contribute, and stretch outside their strengths to receive.

Strategizing, Consulting, and Continuing Education

• Present courses and/or facilitate cohorts of learners on topics related to setting-appropriate church planting strategy development.
• This takes into account local paradigm analysis, cultural field work and interpretation, prayer-walking and intercession, frameworks for cultural engagement, and practices for discerning as a team.
• It also involves developing critical skills for sustainability, such as building Sabbath rests into their systems; creating a “prayer shield” team for personal processing and intercession; and healthier practices in eating, exercise, and recreation.
• Review strategies from 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D models.

Interpret the Movement and Connect People

• Involvement with a specific project long term means I will build up an encyclopedic knowledge of its history, strategies, systems, processes, and people over time.
• This makes it possible to be more effective in creating, revising, and documenting procedures, and in connecting people who would benefit from meeting each other.

Help with a Light Touch of Humor

We were not designed to thrive on intensity alone. Success in our tasks may not depend so much on expending our energy, but what we do to conserve it. Keeping our sense of humor is an important way to conserve energy, especially in the midst of sustaining a very serious work. Thus, my business card says: “Brad Sargent – Superhero Sidekick. I help you identify, validate, amplify, and activate your superpowers. [flip over] And, hopefully, help you keep from distributing your supercrud on others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

On my futuristguy blog, I have addressed many of the theoretical and practical aspects of issues related to these ways I could serve in a national church planting strategy. The “Reader’s Guide to Futuristguy” page gives links, and summaries of most posts to assist with navigating this technical material on paradigms, cultures, and futures.

What ideas do you have for increasing awareness of the need for new church starts across within our various constituencies (Denominational Officials, Congregational Developers, Church Planters, Coaches, Trainers, Other Church Pastors)?

When critical mass is missing from our infrastructures, the resulting “spiritual osteoporosis” always leads to problems sooner or later, as I have seen repeatedly in church life through the years. So, I was encouraged to see that your futures strategy presents a fairly holistic balance between transitions for existing churches and starting new ones, and between personal discipleship and social transformation.

My overall perspective is that church planting is one major component stream for sustaining the future of churches in the Kingdom. It is not the only option or issue, and therefore can create problems of “unintended consequences” if it becomes the overfocus. So, I recommend putting the need for church planting within the larger framework of “facing the futures” (note the plural). If national, regional, and congregational leaders integrate all efforts for leaving a legacy around church planting instead of around the primary concern of paradigm shifts and cultural transitions, then church planting may have the equivalent impact as a couple with a troubled marriage thinking that having a new baby will draw them together and fix their flaws. While creating a new life which can and should be celebrated, it also amplifies underlying problems, and delays transitions in facing the inevitable.

These are complex and confusing times. It is easy to get sidetracked, even while we think we are contributing to positive change. For instance, if “legacy church” leaders have not faced up to the reality that change is inevitable but transition is intentional, they may become enthused about church planting, yet seek to reproduce their own model of church. However, I would suggest that the conventional legacy church paradigm has built-in DNA with a culturally limited “shelf-life.” Implanting that into a church start now may lead to a new plant … but one that is susceptible to all the same “genetic diseases” as the parents.

Also, say it is a relatively accurate assumption that the conventional church approaches (i.e., based on typical Builder and Boomer generation paradigms) will decline dramatically in the next 25-50 years as these generations fade. If today’s conventional models were to control your national church planting strategy, then holistic paradigm models which are more aligned with the future have less chance of creation and implantation now. And if prospective planters cannot be supported on their own paradigm terms within your strategy, they may well sprout churches outside it. And that will lose the heritage association with your denomination, which was something you hoped to maintain.

Given the choice, continuance is vital while continuity (a form of conformity) is not, especially in this era of continual change. It will take all of us to sustain this with incremental efforts. As the Code of Dinotopia states, “One raindrop raises the sea.” Two quotes from an intriguing source – Planet Soup, a world music CD collection and booklet – best summarize what I believe needs to happen, and the approach I would take to spark interest in embracing global change and the preferable futures (and therefore in church planting) that could emerge therefrom:

“From what has been told to me by elders, I’m not here to continue to try to be them, but I’m here to know their story which is the ancient oral tradition, the history of how I came to be here as a person of culture. My responsibility is to define myself based on that knowledge, and to include the experiences that I have in the world now as part of that history.” - R. Carlos Nakai, member of the Ute and Navajo tribes (page 21)

“All music is caught between preservation of the old ways and redefinition in the present. The new musicians recognize this tension – it is the dramatic subtext of global music. They are articulate about it, and for the most part they have come to a consensus: we must honor our sources. The elders don’t want us to be them, they want us to be us, but we must know their story, and remember it, and understand ours as a continuation of theirs.” - W.A. Mathieu (page 5)

What ideas do you have for improving collaboration and increasing peer learning within our various constituencies?

The world paradigms unfolding are more holistic. So, here are snapshots of a holistic set of ways I would suggest to model whole-systems awareness for church planting as a critical contribution to the long-term sustainability of the denomination, and collaboration within and across current layers of leadership within the organizational structures. Some deal with change and futures more than church planting. Still, these help create a constructive framework within which to think about the necessity of church planting for a vibrant, contextual, sustainable future for the denomination and therefore for keeping your core theology and traditions alive as a “heritage seed” branch in the Kingdom.

“A basic trouble is that most Churches limit themselves unnecessarily by addressing their message almost exclusively to those who are open to religious impression through the intellect, whereas … there are at least four other gateways – the emotions, the imagination, the aesthetic feeling, and the will – through which they can be reached.”  - A. J. Gossip (1873-1954)

BIBLICAL

Present outlines for a Bible study on young adults in Old Testament and New, whose providential moment in time coincides with history-altering opportunities.

INTELLECTUAL

(See the addendum at the end of this section for an expanded version, which I call “The Extinction Exercise.”)

IMAGINATIONAL

Use multiple forms of cultural media to activate “prospecting” into plausible futures through the use of scenarios. Consider general implications for skills that equip us to be “futures-friendly,” and specific applications to the vitality and sustainability of churches. For example, in The City of Ember (book or film), a pre-planned underground city has served for over 200 years as home to survivors of some kind of global disaster. The electric generator is failing, blackouts are getting longer, and escape is the only option. What would it be like to move to the surface of the earth and re-establish the community when almost all skills people knew were no longer relevant? How does this parallel conventional-paradigm Christians in a holistic-paradigm world? What vital human roles might they still play that don’t depend on youth, techno-savvy, or holistic thinking?

EMOTIONAL

I have attempted to consult with leaders who are excited about the IDEA of change and/or the IDEA of planting future-friendly churches, but who are not prepared to commit emotionally and relationally for the hard work and length of time needed. Sincerity in motivation and enthusiasm to engage in some work are not enough. Are we engaging in this “new work” to avoid the old or deny the anguish? Is it a manifestation of repressed grieving instead of realistic growing? (For details, see my blog entry, Thoughts on Brother Maynard’s Post on “Institutions vs. Collaboration.” It applies the five-fold framework on grieving developed by Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross to the issues of church change and transition.)

MULTICULTURAL/MULTIGENERATIONAL

For a crosscultural experience, I would use a suggested list of media (books, films, photo collections), interviews, and panels to create data for a mini-case study approach on a specific ethnic-generational setting. What sorts of church(es) would be a “best fit” here? Where could you look elsewhere for “best practices” for this particular kind of church or setting? As American society becomes more multicultural, how could we promote crosscultural partnering and intercultural participating?

That gives a sampling of learning exercises for individuals and groups. I would generate additional ones to focus on the ECOLOGICAL (Non-native plants can require 50% more water to maintain them indigenous plants; how does this relate to cross-cultural church planting?), DEVOTIONAL (What can we learn from reflecting and sharing about God as both Unchanging and yet Creator?), and – my personal favorite – INTEGRATIONAL (How would you lead a team in creation of a 100-year plan – strategy, process, procedures, people, concrete steps – to promote sustainable discipleship and church life in your current setting?).

ADDENDUM – THE EXTINCTION EXERCISE

In a recent job application for a national-level role in church planting, the denominational leaders asked for ideas on improving collaboration and peer learning among their constituencies. Here is expansion of one of about 10 immersion learning research tools I suggested. This one focused on the INTELLECTUAL dimension, and I’ve titled it, “The Extinction Exercise.”

1. Provide one group with a grid time-chart that shows the aging and passing of five current American generations over the next 50 years. Ask that group to research demographics and then analyze critical development points for each generation (e.g., when the first and last waves of members in each generation will go through typical issues – marriage, children, retirement, divorce – and estimate what years those will happen.)

2. Provide another group with resources to analyze paradigms of each of these five generations, and to consider changes in world cultures/paradigms that are affecting the values, beliefs, and behaviors of younger generations especially. What values will wax and wane, and when?

3. Now bring the two groups together and facilitate them in linking those findings. Ask questions that force consideration of what changes in generations and paradigms may/will mean for churches, and move toward possibilities for responses that invest in next generations to lead and disciple in the WORLD SITUATION that they WILL inherit – not the CHURCH STRUCTURE they MIGHT inherit. Also consider what will happen in society and churches when those who represent the current Builder-Boomer paradigms are no longer with us, the Busters are aging and starting to retired, and the Blasters and Beyonders are in their prime.

 

Key Questions on Philosophies, Cultures, and Contextualization [2001]

Introduction [2008]

In re-reading the Summary and Commentary [2005], I realized that I probably didn’t yet have access to the book, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World by Robert Webber. Although this was published early in 2002, I wasn’t reading a whole lot in the early ’00s. I bring that up here because the name Webber assigned to the perspective of Boomer generation evangelicals was the “Pragmatist Paradigm.” The modernist hangover of Boomers seems to have dominated the early waves of “GenX ministry” and then “postmodern ministry” in the middle to late 1990s. It was all about seeking The Universal Tip List, as if we could just Figure Out the Postmodern Problem, then we could mechanicistically apply The Tip List and have our Perfect Solution That Should Work In Every Setting. a capital idea … nicht wahr? Perhaps if I’d acquired Webber sooner, I would’ve understood the times far better. Oh well. That makes a good case for purchasing early instead of waiting for a sale.

Meanwhile, if you’ve read my blog much, you’ll perhaps understand when I say that I thrive on questions. They give me a chance to theoretize and also to learn from action-reflection processes. In fact, I was once introduced before my guest lecture on what was then being called “postmodern ministry” as “someone who is working on answers to questions that no one else is asking yet.” That’s the story of my life, it seems … and many of the questions below are ones I’ve worked toward responses on the past few years. You’ll find many of relevant experiences and the principles I’ve learned from them on my futuristguy blog. The not-so-sufficiently-answered question that I’ve been working on the past few months is this:

What may tend to be the limits of collaboration between representative members and gatherings from these very different cultural and philosophical views? Is there a common-ground theological and/or theoretical base that can undergird a set of structures and operations that blend all the perspectives?

I’ll look forward to posting something on that eventually, probably when a specific situation arises that is itself a question, which will give me a good enough reason to process the issues of collaboration, ecumenism, etc., as seen from the Traditional, Pragmatic, and Holistic paradigms. But for now, more questions than answers await!

Summary and Commentary [2005]

This article lists clusters of questions I wrote in 2001. I don’t think they exactly represented the mainstream type of questions being asked among emerging church disciples back then. It seemed to me that most peoples’ questions were slanted toward a presupposition that there was one monolithic “postmodern” culture, and therefore it was legitimate to ask “What’s working for you?” as a way to uncover the very mysterious universal pragmatic tips for pomo ministry. But to me, those approaches embraced a faulty assumption: pragmatism. So, the search for universal, generic tips ignored the realities of local cultural considerations, otherwise known as contextualization. Perspectives on Kingdom work in emerging cultures has advanced since 2001, but we’ve got quite a ways to go yet. I still discern relatively similar presuppositions at work in questions I hear now in September 2005.

Key Questions on Philosophies,

Cultures, and Contextualization [2001]

Introduction

I wrote the following list of questions in January and February of 2001. It represents issues I was asking and responding to at the time (and still am, in many cases!).

But I don’t think they exactly represented the mainstream type of questions being asked among emerging church disciples back then. Seems it was more weighted toward “What does postmodern ministry/church look like where you’re from?” and “What’s working for you?” But then, I don’t know that I’ve really been a fan of trying to list “best practices” that have been abstractedly detached from context, as if “best practices” work anywhere and everywhere.

Anyway, many of these questions will be addressed in specific training sessions and/or simulation exercises I’m developing as part of my comprehensive curriculum on cultural interpretation and ministry contextualization.

Primarily Philosophical

Is philosophical postmodernism a subset of modernism? Why or why not?

Is philosophical post-postmodernism a subset of postmodernism? Why or why not?

What is likely to become a/the dominant philosophical framework after postmodernism? What could be some of the distinguishing characteristics of post-postmodernism?

What factors can help us distinguish among pre-modernism, modernism, postmodernism, and post-postmodernism?

What are critical distinctions and points of common ground between each set of “isms” – Pre-modernism and modernism? Pre-modernism and postmodernism? Pre-modernism and post-postmodernism? Modernism and postmodernism? Modernism and post-postmodernism? Postmodernism and post-postmodernism?

Why do most Christian writers and consultants on contemporary culture seem to think postmodernism is NOT a subset of modernism? [This question was written in 2001, and the knowledge level among writers and consultants may have shifted since then.] Is this just a matter of presuppositions, or is there a way to help us know if they are right or wrong?

Why do you say that there are “no post-postmodern atheists”? What is the difference between skepticism as a tool and skepticism as a philosophical presupposition?

Primarily Cultural

Is it “safe” to base our understanding of contemporary culture on the academic discussions of postmodern philosophy? What are the potential hazards of the presuppositions hidden underneath this approach? What other sets of presuppositions are available to guide our search to understand contemporary culture?

How can we use various cultural media materials as primary sources for observing, analyzing, and interpreting culture for the sake of eventual biblical contextualization of ministry?

What categories of helpful insights can generational studies offer us? However, why is an appeal to generational studies alone insufficient for us to understand the emerging culture? What are the potential presuppositional flaws in some of the most popular generational studies approaches? How can the study of macrohistory and historiography help us discern the presuppositions in various approaches to generational studies?

What categories of helpful insights can cultural studies and subcultural studiesoffer us? However, why is an appeal to cultural trends/patterns alone insufficient for us to understand the emerging culture? What are the potential presuppositional flaws in some of the most popular (sub)cultural analysis approaches? When cultural studies have traditionally been based on economic class analysis, what other factors are critical for understanding cultures, how should we prioritize these factors, and why?

How can we evaluate just how modern, postmodern, or post-postmodern any given subculture or alternative culture is?

What criteria can we use to discern if someone is a “member” of a pre-modern, modern, postmodern, or post-postmodern people group?

Are multiple forms of postmodern and post-postmodern culture emerging? If so, what distinguishes the different “primary edges” of these sets of cultures from modern cultures? From each other?

Are all contemporary cultures post-postmodern?

Are so-called “cultural creatives” and “new agers” really all post-postmoderns?

Assuming that post-postmodern people inherently hold to some kind of spiritual reality (as opposed to modern and much postmodern skepticism), where is all of this post-postmodern spirituality headed, and why?

Primarily Contextualization

Is anybody really doing “post-postmodern church” yet? If so, what does it look like? Does it really match the cultural context, or is it culturally misplaced? What are the core features of its paradigm, and how do these differ from the core features of typical modern and postmodern church paradigms?

What are the key cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors of pre-modern, modern, postmodern, and post-postmodern people groups? Which of these cultural elements tend to align with biblical beliefs, values, and cultural behaviors and which do not? What are the core kinds of common ground between a biblically-based worldview and lifestyle, and the worldviews and lifestyles exhibited by these four kinds of people groups? What are the core kinds of challenges where a biblically-based worldview and lifestyle conflict with the worldviews and lifestyles of these four kinds of people groups?

If we have not rightly discerned the cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors of postmodern versus post-postmodern people groups, what implications will that tend to hold when it comes to (in)effective contextualization of the gospel among these emerging people groups?

What are critical ministry style differences among pre-modern, modern, postmodern, and post-postmodern church structures? Can a blend of structures and styles work? Why or why not?

What may tend to be the limits of collaboration between representative members and gatherings from these very different cultural and philosophical views? Is there a common-ground theological and/or theoretical base that can undergird a set of structures and operations that blend all the perspectives?

What philosophical questions are postmodern and post-postmodern people typically asking that traditional (modernist) apologetics is not answering?

What ethical, aesthetic, emotional, and lifestyle questions are postmodern and post-postmodern people typically asking that traditional (modernist) systematic theology is not answering?

Why is the post-postmodern “spiritual smorgasbord” not the same as “new age spirituality,” or not even the same as traditional world religions that post-postmodern people might include in their alloyed belief set? What underlying systems differentiate post-postmodern spirituality from everything ranging from 1st-century paganism to 21st-century technopaganism; from traditional Zen Buddhism to post-1950s Americanized Zen Buddhism; from early mystic Christian Orthodoxy to contemporary revivals of Christian mysticism?

Why and how might we gain insights into post-postmodern multispirituality formats from the work on religious universals by Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, John Huston, Ninian Smart, Marija Gimbutas, and others? How do these various systems of approaches differ? What spirituality universals which they identify share common ground with biblical truth, and which conflict with what God reveals about Himself and His intentions for humanity, according to Scripture?

If it is true that post-postmoderns tend to be drawn toward mysticism, what are the parameters of a truly biblical mysticism where subjective internal processes are submitted to objective external revealed truth?

What beliefs, values, and cultural behaviors predispose some postmoderns and post-postmoderns toward an ancient-future worship style or a blended worship style? Is attraction to these worship styles a temporary phenomenon, or is something being manifested from a much deeper “driver” of cultural change?

Can a single-generation church ever be considered a true church, or is it really just a generational ministry and therefore a typical manifestation of modernistic/hypermodernistic (postmodernistic) segmentation? {What definition of “church” is inherent in the question just asked? Is that definition too structural in nature to be biblical?}

What church planting genres are more modern-friendly? Postmodern-friendly? Post-postmodern-friendly? Why do their various integration points either appeal to or repulse moderns, postmoderns, and/or post-postmoderns?

What would a (post-)postmodern-friendly website look like? What might be key aspects of content, visual elements, or formats that would distinguish it from a not-so-(post-)postmodern-friendly website?

How can we stretch our church leaders and congregation members to be more postmodern-friendly and/or post-postmodern-friendly in our ministry structures, approaches, and language? What factors will tend to limit the people in our church from reaching postmoderns, even if they sincerely wish to? Likewise, what factors will tend to limit the people in our church from reaching post-postmoderns?

How can we assess potential church planters for their degree of pre-modern, modern, postmodern, and post-postmodern tendencies? What systems can we use? Do we need to create new forms of assessment, and if so, can they be done only in the context of a relationship to test the level of relevant values, beliefs, and behaviors?

Should we encourage church planters to pursue planting in contexts that constitute the highest degree of worldview indigeneity for them, or the highest degree of worldview opposition that will therefore require crosscultural ministry? Or should we just not worry about it and let the Holy Spirit lead/the church planter choose, as long as they are doing it from a sufficient base of knowledge about themselves so they know if they are choosing to serve indigenously or crossculturally?

What unique roles might bicultural church leaders play in the emerging era? Are there special roles that can be played by moderns raised in a postmodern milieu? Postmoderns raised in a modern milieu? Moderns raised in a post-postmodern milieu? Postmoderns raised in a post-postmodern milieu? Post-postmoderns raised in a modern milieu?

What are the differences among futurists, visionaries, prophets, semioticians/cultural analysts, cultural interpreters, quantitative researchers, qualitative researchers, etc.? How do their different sets of presuppositions lead to very different emphases, even though people in all of these roles have been called “futurists”? Which one(s) have the most accurate and/or most practical insights for postmodern and post-postmodern ministry, and why? Or does each profession tend to offer helpful insights in very specific realms? Which profession(s) tend to be the most comprehensively helpful in their insights?

Originally published as part of another article on my Cruxable blog in 2004 and then republished in this format on my Prospectorium blog, September 11, 2005.

 

Technology and Evangelism; Welcome to Virt*Ya’ll Church [2000]

Introduction and Commentary [2008]

Around the turn of the decade/century/millennium, friends who worked with Christian magazines gave me a number of opportunities to write articles for their publications. Many addressed the future, and this particular article was designed for an issue of Strategies for Today’s Leader that focused on the theme “technology and evangelism – enemies or allies?” In usual paradoxical fashion, I decided to take a contrarian view and suggest that they were enemies. However, also being a reconstructionist, I left leaders an out by suggesting that technology and evangelism would be enemies UNLESS …

They published the longer article pretty much without editing … other than the fact that they didn’t have enough space left to print the sidebar article on “Welcome to Virt*Ya’ll Church,” which is actually my favorite part of the whole thing. (Tongue in cheek, which is the best place for it, according to Saint James.)

It’s been a few years since last I read this article and sidebar. I think I would be less black-and-white about some of the dangers of internet technology, especially about the tendencies toward isolationism. If people are using technology to isolate, that’s their issue, not the computer’s problem. URL may sound like IRL, but similar pronunciations don’t make for same realities – we will always need some In Real Life connections. And in the long run, that’s part of what makes us human … and we don’t wanna be naughty gnostics by being disembodied.

It’s just that, in the past few years, I’ve seen how email, email groups, blogging, project management software, social networking, and other forms of technology have been used to live into some of their greatest potentials for helping us connect with one another and especially to show pastoral care. I’m part of The Virtual Abbey where four of us stay in touch with updates on personal and ministry concerns by email at least every few weeks, and we comment on each other’s blogs regularly to add to the conversations. This year, I’ve been part of an online group that is beta-testing a virtual form of doing the Daily Office together, and chatting a bit afterward to catch up on our personal lives. I’ve used project management software to contribute on projects for decentralized work groups and ministry networks, and even there we can show concern for one another’s personal needs. And I’m part of a collaboration putting together some important missional resources.

Also, there are a number of disciples I’m in touch with who are in recovery from the traumas inflicted in spiritually abusive churches and/or by spiritually abusive leaders and their toxic theologies. For some, the virtual pastoral groups they’ve created become a channel of grace for their recovery process. Their circumstances may call for a period of legitimate isolation and intensive care, and since they’ve voluntarily left or been involuntarily separated from their churches, they have chosen to stay connected in global virtuality when they cannot in local reality.

Some of the people involved in all these settings, I know IRL, and some only through URL. So, again, it seems that technology is a paradox. And on that note, on with the article and sidebar!

Technology and Evangelism:

Enemies in the Emerging Post-Postmodern Era … Unless …

© 2000 Brad Sargent.

Used with permission by Strategies for Today’s Leader.

Know what? In an inspired moment of post-postmodern technosavvy, I connected a few conceptual dots, and actually found email in the Bible! Yup. Esther and Mordecai sent messages back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth … by eUnix.

Woo-hoo!

Now, I don’t consider myself a neo-Luddite. Nor would I ever get renegade enough to sabotage my internet server by chucking my magnet shoe insoles into their hard drives! So I surprised even myself when, over the past months while reflecting on this article, I actually concluded that technology and evangelism are primarily enemies in the emerging post-postmodern era … unless …

As Keanu Reeves would say expressionlessly, regardless of which movie, “Whoa!” And, because so many sincere Christians seem so enamored of the net and other digitbits and techlinkonlogs as The Big Tool for world evangelism, I might add, “Does the Matrix or the Mediator have us? Have we turned silicon into sil-Icons?” Maybe we need to slow down a moment and think about whether we’ve swallowed the red pill of reality or the blue pill of virtuality. If we’ve been deceived, how deep does the rabbit hole go?

So – I’d like to share some postmodern deconstructive thoughtbombs that emerged from my contemplation on the assigned question, “Are technology and evangelism allies or enemies?” And, lest you think I’m on a completely unrepentant rant, I’ll be sure to give some of the post-postmodern “unless…ons” the subject. (If it’s okay, I’ll just deal with internet in this article. See my sidebar for some prognostication and provocation on virtual reality and the church.)

Thoughtbomb #1 – We’re One Civilization Behind

From my presuppositions as a futurist, (sub)cultures lead the way into change, while the institutions of education and religion lag the most in catching up with those changes. The dominant philosophy in academe is now “postmodernism,” which is actually hypermodern; it takes essentially modernist, Enlightenment skepticism to its (il)logical conclusion that assumes there is no truth beyond doubt. Meanwhile, the Christian publishing, conferencing, and training industries are finally (and diligently) chasing postmodernism in their apologetics responses.

Problem is, both of these social domains are something like 20 years tardy. The underground cultural shift to “post-postmodern” has already occurred and is now emerging on the mainstream scene. Modern and postmodern were significantly about segmentation, sequencing, and debate; post-postmodern is primarily about connection, holism, and dialog. Postmodern was partly about deconstruction of what had been assumed to be universals; post-postmodern is partly about reconstructing the universal essentials. For instance, a “post-postmodern atheist” is an oxymoron; in the emerging era, everyone is assumed to be essentially spiritual. Atheism, agnosticism, and skepticism are remnants of the obsolete civilization.

As if that weren’t hard enough, modernists, postmodernists, and post-postmodernists all exist side by side, sometimes looking very similar to one another, and all speaking the same language but not the same lingoes. None of these three distinct people groups wear identifying scarlet letters inscribed into their foreheads, and sporting a tattoo doesn’t guarantee being post- anything! Confusing? Maybe this little explosion helps explain why even our latest prepackaged evangelism programs still have Christians answering questions that post-postmodern people aren’t even asking, and using “logic” patterns that post-postmoderns find “illogical.”

Unless #1. Technology and evangelism will remain enemies in the post-postmodern period unless we find out what post-postmodern people are about. If we do not contextualize the methodologies without compromising the message of the gospel, we will miss our potential Kingdom impact in the next providential civilization. This is important because internet evangelism from a modernist base has the powerful potential for compromising the message of the gospel.

Thoughtbomb #2 – No Such Thing as Post-Postmodern Evangelism

Intentional or not, late modernist Christianity split evangelism from discipleship, conversion from obedience, and belief from lifestyle. It transmogrified “becoming a Christian” into a two-step process: First, agree with facts about the gospel and be “saved”; and second, if you’re superserious about spirituality, maybe you’ll choose to “really” follow Jesus. We’ve left many people wondering “if they is, or if they ain’t” a follower of Christ because the process we used in evangelism actually implanted no discipleship DNA into their second birth. Discipleship is about both transformation and replication. From my rudimentary studies in genetics, I know that infants born with severe DNA anomalies will grow up sterile, if they even survive that long. Is it fair to say that truncated evangelism automatically creates Intensive Care Unit “Christians”?

I serve as a cultural interpreter and church planting strategist at a church begun in March 2000 in Marin County, California – one of the least churched and most post-postmodern places in the U.S. I am witnessing the positive fruit of an integrated discipleship approach that is in-your-face-and-in-His-grace. This isn’t legalism or harshness, it’s simply training people that for whatever Christ requires of those who take His name, God also supplies the empowerment through His Word and Spirit to carry it out. And that nothing we are is off limits for God to transform.

We disciple toward following Christ from the get-go. And a number of churched attenders came to the discovery that they knew about Jesus, but Jesus didn’t know them. They (and unchurched non-Christian attenders) have bowed their knee to Jesus, no strings attached. The DNA in this kind of discipleship clearly leads to rebirths of healthy babes in Christ who already understand that the Great Commission is about “obeying all I have commanded you.” Barely six months into this church plant, we are already seeing the transformed life of the first convert here replicated into a next generation.

Unless #2. Technology and evangelism will remain enemies in the post-postmodern period unless we rejoin what no man should have put asunder. If we do not disciple people how to follow Jesus even before they “know” Him, we split a “decision for Christ” from a “commitment to follow Christ” and pervert the gospel. This is important because internet evangelism from a modernist base has the powerful potential for such split decisions that lead to damage, not progress.

Thoughtbomb #3 – Technology is Not a Neutral Tool

One of my grandmothers was transported in a horse-drawn wagon through the last Oklahoma Land Rush. She nearly lived long enough to witness the first man landing on the moon. The progress that technology made in her lifetime was spectacular! But she also lived through the development of poison mustard gas, Zyklon-B, the A-bomb, and nearly to Agent Orange and biowarfare.

In the recent era, we almost universally associated technology with progress, other than debateable uses in creating instruments of warfare. However, in the emerging post-postmodern era, I think we’re already seeing that digital technology has significant destructive power – technoporn, racist websites, inaccurate information, outright hoaxes. Perhaps it’s even more …

Clifford Stoll – a first-wave computer hacker – has written a gotta-read book, High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don’t Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian (1999). He quotes from the report of a two-year psychological research study by Robert Kraut and Vicki Lundmark on the negative long-term social effects of internet use: “Greater use of the Internet was associated with small, but statistically significant declines in social involvement as measured by communication within the family and the size of people’s local social networks, and with increases in loneliness, and depression. Other effects on the size of the distant social circle, social support, and stress did not reach standard significance levels but were consistently negative” (page 200). Stoll notes, “Depression. Loneliness. Loss of close friendships. This is the medium that we’re promoting to expand our global community?” (page 199).

Over the years, I’ve heard so many things called “neutral” tools (e.g., emotions, planning strategies, institutional structures) that can be used for either good or bad that it seems like a modernist mantra. Naturally, we want to use these things for good, whatever the thing is. But is neutrality a right assumption? Or a deceptive myth that inflicts silent damage? How is it that we can theologize about the fallenness of the world system and of our humanity, but suddenly, something can emerge from the DNA of brokenness and be morally “neutral”? Should we actually assume that all products of tainted humanness are likewise ultimately tainted, but that some relatively good and some relatively bad things can emerge through those products?

Unless #3. Technology and evangelism will remain enemies in the post-postmodern period unless we stop the hype about technology’s “good” usages and acknowledge its essential imperfections as something created in the image of fallen human beings. If we do not intentionally look for the dark areas of the technologies we create and use, we will never be able to shine the light of truth into them to recreate redemptive purposes for them. This is important because internet evangelism from a modernist base has the powerful potential for reinforcing people in their unredemptive strategies to isolate from relationships.

Thoughtbomb #4 – Infovangelism Contradicts the Incarnation

The internet emphasizes information access, and promotes the idea that information is power. “Uh … sure,” as Stoll might quip. One of my biggest concerns about internet evangelism is exactly the opposite: Instead of information access being power, it actually is prone to disempowering onliners because it disembodies them from people proximity in person.

A gospel message syncretized to philosophical modernism focuses on datafact Biblebytes about the gospel and implies conversion by cognition. This makes it unfortunately suited for a gnostic, mega-information medium like the internet where the info-agents are disembodied. God created us for real touch, and hi-tech-hi-touch cannot satisfy that longing. So, in the extreme, this process of not connecting online evangelees with real, live people in person contradicts the essence of Christianity: relationship. Suppose it is accurate that people with relatively deficient social skills spend a lot of time online. If we claim we are evangelizing/discipling onliners, but don’t connect them with local Christians, aren’t we reinforcing their strategy of isolation? Can they ever become what God truly designed them to be as followers of Christ if they remain out of reach of His “one-anothers” imperatives? What responsibility before God do we as evangelizers then bear for our followers’ failures?

In the recent experience of late modernist era Christians, “old-fashioned” electrichristology technology wasn’t always such a hot thing – witness the Baker and Swaggert teledebacles nearly 15 years ago. And what has changed to make internet any different from those who used radio broadcasts in the ’30s, or drive-in theatres for church services in the ’50s, mass evangelism public address systems in the ’60s, or television in the ’80s? None of these electric media forced people to deal with who they really are in their own relational brokenness and need, when they can consume what information they want and leave the confrontation (and compassion) aside. After all, online community is only a click away … but have we overlooked that the dial goes in either direction, on or off? Or that some mass evangelists have over a 95% failure rate in ensuring that people connect long-term into a local church? The “successful” online ministries I know of combine digital discipleship with plugging people into in-person Christians in their home area, or the chat-room members meeting at a conference face to face.

As long as our internet evangelism focuses on abstract information that leaves out concrete relationship, we (and our disciplees) will never understand the depths of incarnation, where God Himself stepped directly into our material world to demonstrate His character enfleshed in humanity. We can seek out cybernauts on their home turf, but have we really brought Christ with us? Or only information about Christ?

Unless #4. Technology and evangelism will remain enemies in the post-postmodern period unless we act responsibly to connect the people we meet online with real-live local Christians in their local Body of Christ. If we do not, we have contextualized a method without incarnating The Message. This is important because internet evangelism from a modernist base has the powerful potential for supplementing many ministries, once an in-person connection has been established.

A Final Word

In The Matrix, when Neo gets flushed out of his pod, he nearly drowns due to complete muscular atrophy. My purpose in this intense article was not to flush ministers out of the internet, just to give food for thought about whether we have let our ethics and assumptions atrophy in the face of what is sincere desire to see people come to Christ. We need to keep asking hard questions about the era we are emerging into, if we want to reach its many people groups with the true truth of the gospel.

Meanwhile, according to what I see as orthopraxis of post-postmodern Christians, I doubt technology will ever reign as a technocracy. Technology does not guarantee progress, noblesse, impress, express, access, possess, and/or success. Technology can facilitate profess, regress, distress, digress, transgress, depress, repress, abscess, obsess, recess, compress, and a whole lotta other bad “-esses.” Unless …

Biographical Sketch

Brad Sargent is a hermeneutics hacker, preparing to train church planters in post-postmodern cultural interpretation, contextualization, and futurist skills.

Dateline 2089:

A Plausible Future of Virtual Church

HEADLINE: “VR Centennial Celebration”

Dateline: San Angeles (GlobalAP.net). Today, in honor of the centennial of computer scientist Jaron Lanier’s coining the term ‘virtual reality’ in 1989, the Society for Computer Anachronism opened an online time capsule left by Lanier. He had timelocked Jarier, his famous blond-dreadlocked online avatar, from revealing the password until today. As the SCA coded in and dug up the digidocs, they found instructions to have Jarier activate files from Lanier’s VRchives. The V-file series consisted of unusual primary sources from the history of VR development. It covered 1989 until 2020, when Lanier became the first person to download his mind onto computer avatardom before soma-placement in a cryogenic state, where his body still awaits inevitable technological resurrection and reconnection with Jarier. (See related article on Zenithology: scientists have made substantial progress in anticipation of reanimation using cadavatars like Lanier’s.)

One of the most intriguing digidocs relates to the first religious use of VR technology. The following facsimile comes from 2010 – one of the last pieces of paper from the Pre-Post-Pulp Era that ended over 75 years ago.

* * * * *

Welcome to Virt*Ya’ll Church!

Congratulations on joining the first-ever Church dot.Community of God on VR-net. This connection kit includes the following items.

• VR Holy HugGloves for greeting one another during our traditional chat-times before and after the service! (Please note that Holy HugGloves have built in V-Keyboarding capabilities so you can drop your credit icons into our VYC account at Chase Manhattan TransVR Bank.)
• Put on your virtual Body of Christ Sensoround Suit, so you can feel all those holy hugs and happy backslaps from your online fellow followers of Rev. Paul Av Tarsus, Head Pastor, and Rev. Lydia Lycos, our Staff E-Vangelist!
• A mini-DVD Bible in New King James VRsion for those of you already wetwired with direct-drives for brain downloads!
• Drag-On Naturally Singing Voice Activated Translator to help you sound like the angel you really are during our truly blended worship! (Check our online Bible Blessings Bookstore to purchase additional voice range units, so you can expand from your natural two octaves up to a truly angelic, supernatural six octaves!)
• Our dot.COMmunion kit, complete with a year’s supply of Welch’s Witness Wafers – the only unleavened bread with the wine already baked in! Be sure to join us monthly as we partake this emblem together in our Virt*Ya’ll Sil-Icon Sanctuary.
• Showers of Blessing Baptismal Kit (liturgical, sprinkle, pour edition), and Oceans of Blessing Baptismal Kit (immersion only edition). Both come with setting options for indoor/outdoor baptism backdrops, such as baptistry font or pool, beach, lake, river, woods, and hundreds of virtual variations to your specifications!
• A V-mail list of Virt*Ya’ll Church members (alphabetized by “holy handles”) so you can remain in silicontact with them between services. (Just remember not to be divisive by developing Bible Click groups!)

As the first virtual online church, we realize there are still bugs in the systems. To paraphrase the book of James, “the beta-testing of your faith produces endurance …” Please follow the specific instructions packed with each item of your Welcome Kit, and let us know anything that doesn’t work as you expect it should. We depend on your feedback for our improvement, and on your tithes and love gifts for our adventure capital!

Virt*Ya’ll Church -

Spread the good news of the Kingdomain.

Pull in your net to see what you catch.

And be sure to compuServe one another this week!

Production of this infosheet sponsored by Halle-Yahoo!-Yuh!, the religious division of Yahoonet.

* * * * *

In related news, the GlobalAP.net Early-Tech Forensics Department is still at work, trying to hack the archaic VRcabulary and recover the illusive meaning of some of these early terms. This experimental VReligion apparently failed, as no remnants survive. Meanwhile, the instruction sheet itself contained an extremely faded, handwritten note. Our Pre-Tech Forensics identified it as being inscribed by something called a Bic Stic Blue. The single sentence reads: “Is this what we really want church to be?” [END OF STORY.]

 

Discipleship Development [2007]

Introduction and Commentary [2008]

In June 2007, I applied for a role as associate pastor of discipleship development, and the following responses were to questions on their application. The questions were helpful in synthesizing and summarizing my perspective on discipleship as of 16 months ago. I find it intriguing that this process gave me a launching pad to consider the meaning of missional, and how discipleship relates to it. As I have discovered recently (October 2008) from blogging a three-part series about The Meanings of Missional, I have arrived at a perspective where discipleship is a key – perhaps THE key – integration point for missional practices.

Between June 2007 and October 2008 a number of other steps to connect discipleship and being mission-shaped. The Allelon Missional Order Summit at Seabeck was four months after I wrote this – October 2007. I went to that not really understanding what it was going to be all about … but just knowing I was supposed to be there. And the unveiling of God’s purposes showed that my participation was not so much about this or that piece of information I learned there, but in connection to an entirely new network of missionally-minded practitioners that I’m not sure I could have met in any other venue. Now I am highly involved in interacting with many of the men and women I met at the Summit, plus a next-layer-out of relationships with people they’ve introduced me to. And they all in turn have added to the intuitive but unpolished understanding I had already about the meaning of missional. Go figure … and what’s next?!

That’s the thing about intentionally seeking to discern the Spirit’s leading and follow it – God often sets out quite a providential curriculum to bring our personal development to a place where we can make the kinds of contributions to community aspects of the Kingdom that He designed us for. But it takes time to discover and develop our gifts and maturity level so we function at a level appropriate to the trajectory He wants us on. It’s easier to “backcast” from our current status to see the trail we took as reflected in our resume, than it is to see the next destination on our horizon based on where we now stand. As Søren Kirkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

Since 2007, I’ve realized that I am not exactly likely to do well in this kind of an up-front or public role – even though I am deeply committed to discipleship. Although I like people and would be considered pastoral, the fact that I am more introverted than extraverted means that being around too many people for too long wears me out. Ah well … so, I need to stick with roles where I work with fewer people and have enough time in quiet space in which to reflect, create, and rejuvenate those spiritual-gift batteries.

Sometimes I wonder how many of us get into “a” match in terms of an area of ministry that we can connect with our specific passions for service, but it isn’t the “best” match because the job is either too relationally-oriented or informationally-oriented for our personality, learning styles, etc. If we stretch too far for too long, we lose our spiritual elasticity. The job quickly becomes unsustainable and we burn out. And then we’re looking for the next job – often in the same overall role – and haven’t learned the take-way that was in the last experience …

Anyway, here are the questions and my responses, with slight edits here and there for clarification. Also, sidenotes in the original document are now labeled “Sidenote 2007,” and anything I’ve added to bring an up-to-date perspective on a point are labeled “Sidenote 2008.”

Discipleship Development [2007]

We are a small-group driven church/cell-based church. Write a little about your understanding of this ecclesial structure.

The sociological reality is that a person cannot develop high levels of relational intimacy with more than about 20 other people at any given time. Intimacy includes vulnerability (sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly), authenticity (not putting on masks), and accountability (“processing” life for the purpose of transformation). These three critical dimensions are not just biblical values, but biblical mandates – required for us to put off the old nature and put on the new nature, in order to experience transformation into Christlikeness. This kind of living out of life together in Christ simply cannot occur en masse, because then no one can truly see us “in mess,” and thus carry our burdens and joys together with us on a mutual journey of pursuing life in Jesus.

Where things get funky are on how such groups/cells are integrated, whether they are open/closed, what people do together both within the group and in the community, and how they relate with the main church body. So many different things can sink the value of cells! Are they mere add-ons to the main service of the church, or the primary point for personal discipleship? Do they use imported programs that anyone could read-and-lead, or rely on indigenous leaders and materials? Are they for personal growth only, missional work only, or some more wholistic combination?

To be robust, sustainable, and produce disciples who can reproduce, I believe cells/groups need to be small, the primary source for discipleship and processing of life, as indigenous as possible in materials used, identify and develop members’ spiritual giftings, and serve as a base for community involvement and other missional projects/activities. The relationships between cells and church must be clearly and minimalistically defined, because lack of parameters causes confusion, while too many parameters stifle creativity.

What are the last five books you’ve read and what impact have they made on your life?

Caveat: For the past six years, I have been on a Spirit-led “reading fast” from most Christian books, especially on ecclesiological methods and models, postmodernity, etc., until I complete my own set of original curricula related to interpreting paradigms and cultural systems for Kingdom culture transformation – about a year left, Lord willing. So, I have fewer such books on my list than I might normally have.

Recent readings: Dune series – Frank Herbert is a premier author for addressing not how power corrupts, but how power draws the corruptible. This has helped me interpret some very destructive church/ministry situations where I and others have been wounded by leaders who seek control and power. I see these as critical concepts related to issues of evil; Dune offers strong characters and memorable metaphors for exploring related theological issues through the books, film, and TV mini-series.

The Lord of the Rings – just finished Fellowship of the Ring – This is at least my sixth time through the series. Each time through, I reflect more deeply on lessons for personal character development, whether toward ennoblement or corruption, and am refreshed by the density and beauty of Tolkien’s work and world. One personal impact is considering how/what I do with my experiences and training that would be the equivalent of “scouring of the Shire.” (Sidenote 2008: In January 2008, I participated in Barb Orlowski’s doctoral research on leaders who left churches due to spiritual abuse. I have since posted about 50,000 on that subject … which has been for me the “scouring of the Shire.”)

Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse – His thesis is that finite games are competitive, with winners and losers at the end; infinite games are meant to be open-ended, doing all that is possible to keep all players engaged and moving forward. If I viewed life and relationships as designed by God to be an “infinite game,” how would that change the way I relate with myself and others? Without condoning moral or social failure, how could I better extend grace to myself and others, yet still challenge us to continue our forward pursuit of Christlikeness? (Sidenote 2008: I’ve talked a lot about “divine dominoes” in the past year, and playing your pieces collaboratively in order to to allow the next person to play his or hers, not to block him/her.)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – What delightful beginnings to the “modern novel” this book represents! Besides offering a wonderful and witty read, Austen challenges me to think about the foibles of communication and miscommunication. The book, film, and mini-series versions have given laughter and beauty during times of difficulty.

The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber – I really, really needed to see again Webber’s excellent analysis of the paradigms, values, and ministry methodological models for three generations of evangelicals. It validated that I am solidly inside the wholistic paradigm of the “Younger Evangelical” group, though not of that age bracket. (I figured out after turning 40 that I had a “postmodern” mind trapped in a Boomer body, and was having an out-of-generation experience!)  I am NOT crazy … though I suppose at times people could legitimately say I am crazed …

What are your perspectives on spiritual formation, helpful tools for growth, and systematizing discipleship in the church?

Overall, I see spiritual formation as the uncovering and development of the entire, unique DNA package that God has implanted into a person. This occurs through a wholistic system of relationships and processes that include individual, marriage/family, work, leisure, church body, and local and global communities. It’s all about polishing the gem that is there, refining the metal for its setting, and becoming a piece of functional and beautiful jewelry that displays the Master’s design.

Most helpful in my own growth: Three things have helped most – two WHATs and a WHO.

• WHAT #1 – Learning that inherent factors (intelligence, beauty, creativity, etc.) are NOT character qualities. Character comes from persevering through suffering; processing life openly and consistently with at least some of the same people in the long-term; and wrestling with how best to steward whatever talents, abilities, inherent factors, spiritual gifts, and experiences one has.
• WHAT #2 – Sabbath rest and cycles/stages within God’s design. Regular times of rest and reflection and jubilees are absolutely crucial for seeing where I have been, where I now am, where I might now go, and thanking God for it all. Without critical reflection to consider course adjustments, I would never be able to stay on God’s trajectory, nor steward wisely the projects and relationships I’ve been given.
• The WHO – I have one friend I phone at least three times a month to check in with (we’ve done this for about 12 years), and a group of others locally that I talk with on a regular (if not almost daily) basis.

Systematizing discipleship: I have become convinced that a broad understanding of “information processing modes” (learning styles, cultural styles, personality styles) can help us ensure that we adjust our communication and relating appropriately (i.e., without syncretism or control) so that biblical messages are expressed in ways that are better received by whoever is listening – whether an individual or a group. Learning/processing styles allow us to contextualize our involvement so we can connect with a much broader range of people – some of them indigenous to our own native paradigm/culture/learning style, and others from different paradigms/cultures/learning styles.

We are a missional church. What does “missional” mean to you?

To me, being missional involves being disciples in God’s family who are being transformed so they embody the message of redemption and who are being equipped so they can better communicate by word and deed that same redemptive transformation. In God’s design, His missional people can stand in the gap to show and tell of the Father’s compassion, the Son’s payment for sins, and the Spirit’s empowerment for righteous living; this will attract others whom God is drawing to Himself, and thus we serve His purposes and plans in reconciling to Himself those who were separated by sin.

Missional is more about process than programs, and more about a wholistic lifestyle of following God than about occasional missions projects. It has to do more with Christology and soteriology than with just theological pursuits or ecclesiological methods. (To this, I would add that “theodicy” must be factored into the mix of major biblical concepts for being missional, as here we find the entrance of fallenness and evil into God’s creation, even before humanity’s creation, and that gives us the context of spiritual warfare in which all else occurs.)

What is your experience with the emergent movement?

Since there is no consistency yet on terms for some of the contemporary ministry movements, here’s my take on clusters of concepts in these multiple movements.

• There is a “new contemporary” style of ministry that is basically contemporary worship using newer lyrics and tunes, plus more media, with younger generation leaders. This is somewhat more wholistic about ministry (truth-arts-justice-missions), but some use seeker-sensitive teaching models that go with a more modernist, pragmatic paradigm.
• There is the Emergent Village type approach, which sometimes has the pieces of being wholistic, but which I see as still compartmentalized, not integrated. They’ve also gotten bogged down in some complex theological issues and often are more focused on ecclesiology than missiology. They are often hypermodern in paradigm, taking skepticism to its logical conclusion, which is why they sometimes get in trouble with appearing to adopt postmodern philosophy where nothing can be known for certain.
• There is the missional movement, and it really depends on the local leaders as to whether it is more pragmatic or wholistic in paradigm. To be missional, you generally have to be more integrative with your worldview, and also more flexible with methodologies so you can contextualize. But there are some who claim to be missional who seem to have just turned traditional missions inside out and renamed it. The latter represent the more modernist wing. Reggie McNeal in The Present Future represents a more in-between stance, more friendly to postmodern culture (not necessarily postmodern philosophy). Perhaps Neil Cole’s Greenhouse and other house-church models are more in this range as well.
• At the farther edges of emerging Post-Christendom cultures are highly decentralized networks of people with strong relationally-based trust, who act as learner-leaders in pilgrimages and projects together. This really has no name yet; the closest books to describe them are The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom – these are “starfishy” networks, and perhaps Funky Business by two bald Scandinavian guys (okay, … Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjelle Nordstrom), on tribal-global socially-conscious enterprise models. It is very integrative, intergenerational, interdisciplinary.
• There is the emerging movement, which is sometimes used as an overarching term for everything under the Son, including house church, simple church, Emergent Village, emergent movement, Post-Christendom ministry, Post-Christian ministry, yadda-yadda.

My paradigm and ministry structure preferences fit most with the “starfishy” networks, and I am seen by some as a thought leader and older-generational mentor in this movement. Most in this group (including myself) do not resonate with Emergent Village people or approaches, and in fact, we regularly find ourselves in culture clashes with our acquaintances and friends in that organization/movement.

I am somewhat known as being a cautionary critic. If you read quotes from me in Steve Rabey’s book, In Search of Authentic Faith: How Emerging Generations are Transforming the Church (2001), I think you’ll see that confirmed. I understand concepts Emergent Village members use, but I’m not exactly a fan. I believe they have integrated around the wrong issues and approaches – systematic theology, ministry methodological models, too much skeptical epistemology. I know some people are concerned about whether Emergent “teaches heresy.” We need to be highly cautious about claims that stark, and if critics are not deeply aware of their own paradigms and epistemological assumptions and hermeneutical hang-ups, they may be mistaking “different” for “undoctrinal,” and calling out as heresy what is actually undoctrinaire according to their “required” wordings. There is always a balance between asking legitimate theological questions and going astray; if God had meant for us to have one single, exact, and comprehensive doctrinal statement, I certainly have not found that page in my Bible yet …

(Sidenote 2007: It is a hallmark of modernist/traditional paradigm information processing to move toward more and more precision in one’s philosophy and wordings; this assumes that once you have the “correct” wording, you have understood and captured the truth. This leaves out possibilities for paradoxes and mysteries, of which the Bible has many. Also, this search for perfection in philosophical or theological statements teeters on the edge of Gnosticism, because in both approaches, ultimately only smart people count and anyone who cannot “get it” must be “out of it.”)

Meanwhile, some house church leaders come across with contempt if you aren’t doing things their way. Meanwhile, some “new contemporary” churches have similar-to-the-old structures, substituting candles and media for substantive change. Meanwhile, starfishy groups could tend to stray toward relativism if they are not vigilant. Meanwhile, … every movement has strengths and flaws. I’d prefer to study them, understand their systems, figure out where they fit with the whole of Scripture and where they flake out, and incorporate into my paradigm whatever provides “spiritual spackle” for anything I’ve been missing.

Lastly, we would like to know a little about your leadership style, in terms of visional, missional, and passional.

From all I understand about myself and how I am “wired,” I suspect that all three styles are present at relatively the same level, so giving just a three-letter sequence would be misleading. I sometimes multitask, but more often can “rotationally task” by focusing my work in one of the three specific areas as needed. However, overall I integrate all three constantly; they are not compartmentalized, and part of what gives my leadership its creative edge is that I synthesize among these dimensions.

Visional - I am highly analytic, but have synthesized interdisciplinarily to be able to alternate between details and the big picture. I am also a trained futurist who can track major trends that are driving social/paradigm changes, conduct non-linear extrapolation to find patterns for plausible futures (plural) and discern critical issues to watch, and create scenario sets that capture the emotional impact of the technical research. I have been called a visionary as well. (Boy, do I have some ideas for how to tranform an old warehouse locale into a Kingdom enterprise/entrepreneurial-creativity training center!)

Missional - I am a systems thinker/doer myself, and also work side-by-side with people to help them understand systems and strategies for their ministries and projects. For instance, over the past three years, I analyzed the Theological Field Education and the Doctor of Ministry department procedures at Golden Gate Seminary, and wrote 400 pages of procedure manuals for them. Also, I did all the preparation work for the webmaster to write the programming for a relational database for the D.Min. department. I have been called a cultural interpreter and church planting strategist.

Passional - My friend Stacey challenged me to create my “ideal business card,” and this is how it turned out: Brad Sargent, Superhero Sidekick. I help you identify, validate, amplify, and activate your superpowers. And, hopefully, help you prevent distributing your supercrud on others. In Jesus’ name, amen! I wouldn’t consider myself a pastor in the traditional sense, more of a spiritual director, with strong skills of listening, asking questions to understand more, and asking questions to challenge toward change.

I’ve never fit into a strictly either/or world, and I’m so glad God created diversity! My kind of “wiring” helps me be apostolic and culturally fluid – sort of “ministerial tofu” as it were, with lots of substance, but picking up the flavor of what’s needed in the local dish. (Sidenote 2007: The key thing for people who are wired like me are that we MUST have variety in tasks. If we are stuck on one aspect only of what we’re capable of, we burn out quickly.)

 

Dune, Density, and Polymathology [2007]

Introduction [2008]

About 18 months ago, I was in the midst of writing my chapter for the Wikiklesia Project and its  Volume 1, which was Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution. (Several Wikiklesia authors have noted recently that some of the seminar ideas in this book are now appearing on the blogging horizon in discussions.) This fascinating self-perpetuating virtual collaboration publishing venture was inaugurated by John La Grou and Len Hjalmarson. The idea behind Wikiklesia was for a set of editors to pick a topic and a charity to receive all profits from book sales. Then they needed to assemble a production team, solicit writers, compile and format the manuscript in print and audio forms, and make it available as downloadable or print-on-demand. And then … turn over the reigns to another team of editors who would do approximately the same. (Volume 2 planning is underway as I write this.)

I cannot even recall now why I picked the topic I did then – my brain was a mushy state of burn-out at the time from work that was all-systems and no-sabbaths for so-long a time. Perhaps it was because, after two and a half years of effort, I had finally finished reading the entire Dune series (all six prequel novels, all six Frank Herbert novels). (And now there are three more postquels with two more in the making!) And read the source documents and early versions in The Road to Dune. And skimmed parts of Dreamer of Dune – a biography of Frank Herbert by his son Brian.

And found the Dune: Behind The Scenes information website. And read-and-viewed The Secrets of Frank Herbert’s Dune book/DVD, with its incredible essay on the use color schemes to signify culture and transformation in the “Cinematic Ideation of the Film” by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. And watched – multiple times – the wonderful SciFi TV mini-series of Dune (with a superb portrayal of Paul Muad’Dib by Alec Newman) and Children of Dune (with a pre-Narnia appearance by James McAvoy, in which I knew he was made for greatness). And viewed the varieties of versions of the 1984 Dune film.

And – most amazing of all! – finally located a copy of Chaos Theory, Asimov’s Foundations and Robots, and Herbert’s Dune: The Fractal Aesthetic of Epic Science Fiction by Donald E. Palumbo. (One of those hundred-dollar books that on rare occasions shows up for less on eBay. And, no, I didn’t get it about what the title meant at first either, but wow! What a mind-blowing book turned out to be!)

Or was it a lateral mental extrusion from a heart-level desire to continue with church planting strategy team work – after all, it was my church planter strategist friend Deb Roy who introduced me to the wonders of Dune in the mid-1990s.

Or, maybe just nothing else could capture my attention just then. When one is that burned out, it sometimes takes something mentally challenging rather than only rest to break through the physical depression and respark the imagination.

Nevertheless, and for whatever reasons, the topic evolved into this rather esoteric intersection among the concepts of/in Dune, density, and polymathology.

Whenever I do run across my notes about the reasoning for this writing, I shall scurry right back here to emend the text.

Meanwhile, let me close the commentary section for now with one last notation. We were limited to 2,000 words for the print/download version. I think I used every single one of them. However, for the audio version there was some fudge-factor, as we were to record our own chapter (a very fun add-on feature!) So, I added back in an audio pre-amble that gave more background on polymaths, and that is one of my favorite parts of the entire piece, actually. And so, now, on with the abstract, and then my chapter: Dune, Density, and Polymathology.

Abstract (from Wikiklesia Website)

Some people are destined as polymaths – those who absorb and integrate information from diverse fields of study, and become philosophers. Such a generalist leaning may come “hardwired” in at birth via DNA and learning styles, or perhaps by “software” programming responses to spiritual and cultural formation experiences. Either way, polymaths should follow the God-given muse to pursue new approaches to processing life, and not feel self-limiting or peer pressure to be only “The Theologian” or “The Practitioner,” since they will likely play those roles and so many, many more.

Since we tend to be ahead of our time, one way we who are polymaths can extend our impact through generations is by the equivalent of downloading our inherently complex hearts and minds into a virtual platform. For instance, we could create sort of a time-capsule of our journey to Christlikeness so those who come after us can data mine our hypermediation as sources for “Kingdom Culture” meditation. It is a stewardship thing, really, and I would suggest we should feel neither shame nor guilt for producing something dense, but only partially polished and with tantalizing whisps of incomplete ideations woven throughout. Think Frank Herbert and Dune. Think J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-earth. Think Thomas Jefferson and preparation for writing the U.S. Constitution. Think Beatrix Potter, lichens/symbiotic mycology, and The Tale of Peter Rabbit… What kind of interdisciplinary legacy might we leave for those intrigued enough to explore the virtual voice that survives us, whether we are polymath-philosophers are not?

“Dune, Density, and Polymathology” [2007]

Bonus Pre-Amble

In July 2001, I had a most intriguing conversation with my church planting strategist friend Linda Bergquist. She identified me and two other people we know in the San Francisco Bay Area as “Christian philosophers.” Linda felt the Church doesn’t particularly like philosophers, but she believed it still needs them. Specifically, she sensed these three people were being raised up to help the Church transition into what we then were calling the post-postmodern era. Ahh, how terms change over time!

Anyway, Linda told me how she’d recently read that Thomas Jefferson was offered all kinds of military commissions and other strategic jobs during the Revolutionary War. Instead of taking any of those opportunities, he went back home and worked diligently on the background for creating the American Constitution. He had confidence the Revolution would succeed, and so he was free to do the philosophizing that was necessary for the establishment of long-term goals and sustainability of this new union. As a “renaissance man” and philosopher, Jefferson trusted his abilities matched this historic opportunity, and he knew where he should invest his time in order for a larger payoff in the long run.

Similarly, Linda was convinced that these three church planting philosophers in the Bay Area need to NOT feel pressured to be “The Theologian” or “The Practitioner,” but to invest in the most important roles we could play right now for the future of the Kingdom – research and development, and philosophy. This encouraged me then, and it remains comforting now, six years later, while I am still working on the same massive set of trainings in paradigm and cultural systems for growing Kingdom Culture. I am a polymath; I am called to be a philosopher; I am stewarding something important for the long run of the Kingdom. It requires complex thinking and dense communicating. So, regardless of what may be published during my lifetime, I know at a deep level that pouring myself out in these tasks will have paid off in the long run for what God is doing in His world. It is a privilege, within God’s providence, even when at times I feel wearied from and worried for this project …

Compelled Toward Other Directions

Has the Spirit ever shifted your direction majorly in mid-course? My original topic for “Voices of the Virtual World” captured my farthest-forward edge musings on 4D thinking, game theory, AI and VR, complex systems theory, yadda-yadda. But then a critical question from Scott, a church planter, forced me to refocus: So, what are you doing to replicate yourself? Since my answer involves technology and faith, I felt compelled to shift my Wikiklesia chapter from theoretical to personal.

One of my long-time favorite passages of Scripture is Psalm 145, especially verse 4: “One generation shall extol Thy works to the following one, and set forth Thy mighty acts” (Modern Language Bible). My life’s work is about facilitating spiritual growth and social transformation in next generations.

For 12 years, I have persevered through huge frustrations on a mega-project that I have come to believe is more for next generations in the Kingdom than for ones now in “power” in the church. It’s a hypermedia/eLearning training series on paradigms, culture, and contextualization. It’s designed to help disciples figure out how to catalyze personal transformation toward Christlikeness in individuals and toward embodying “Kingdom Culture” in society. The modules integrate searchable text plus hyperlinked glossaries, images, animations, charts, film studies, simulation games, group-based learning exercises, and who knows what else I’ll add between now and whenever I finish this – hopefully 13 months from now. I feel a new phase in life will arrive then. (And no, I’m not superstitious about number 13, not being a Templar, although some do see me as a neo-monastic monk.)

What I’m about to write feels like the intersection of science fiction and faith. It’s like those many sci-fi plots where people are desperate to download their soul into some sort of virtual reality state, so they can live on for eternity. Ummm … well, that eventuality is already covered. Meanwhile, the natural course of life in a fallen world is bringing my body to deterioration, while the accelerated change in global culture is preparing the way for more heightened interest in my under-the-radar material. How do I ensure the work God invested in me, which is relevant but not yet wanted, is somehow planted now for some kind of harvest then? I’m not downloading my soul into cyberspace. It’s more of an archiving of my mind, or creating a time-capsule of my work.

It’s a stewardship thing, really.

Two crazy things in all of this. First, even as a futurist who is trained to help people sort out what is plausible and what is preferable, I’m not sure this project will work for me. Second, if after you read Dune, Density, and Polymathology, you resonate with the message, I’m asking you to go and do likewise – create your own form of techno-archive!

Replication and Replicants

So – thanks to Scott – suddenly, I had to face becoming a replicant! If my life’s work is being completed before its fullness-of-time providential moment, then what can I do with this mountain of original material I’ve produced? Here are some thoughts leading to techno-solutions that flashed through my mind during that orienteering process:

• If I were “a book” in a paperless society, as with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, what book would I be and how would I pass myself on for the sake of those who come afterward?
• If I were attempting to create a museum exhibit with guiding metaphors for the content of my mind, what forms of media and multimedia would I pick, and how would I execute that project?
• If I were creating a multi-layered online experience on interpreting future cultures or a how-to on virtual collaboration, what would I focus on and how could I recruit collaborators?
• If I were recasting my series of multiple-media cultural contextualization skill modules into virtual immersion learning experiences on-the-job and in-the-field, what could that look like?
• If I were translating my understanding of ecclesiological methodological models into a 2D, 3D, or 4D game representation, what would I include?

It is a highly human desire to live a life with impact; it is a highly post-human spin to want to download ourselves into electronic immortality; it is a highly Kingdom-disciple desire to reproduce ourselves in order to impact the future. And that leads to thoughts about Dune, density, and polymathology. I think I’ll address them in reverse order, just because I feel like it.

Polymathology

Few people are familiar with the term polymath. A polymath is someone with significant levels of knowledge on multiple topics or disciplines, who usually is creative in cross-pollination of theories and skills from various disciplines. (Think Leonardo DaVinci, Benjamin Franklin, Beatrix Potter.)

Polymaths may seem eclectic because they pull all sorts of info-tidbits out of their brains spontaneously, but it’s actually far more than that. In function, they usually have ascended from being multidisciplinary to integrating into interdisciplinary; what they say on any occasion is likely to be at least indirectly relevant to the conversation at hand, not simply some odd non sequitur. They are complex systems thinkers and analogists, generalists and futurists – with an apparently innate ability to see a “big picture” perspective.

My hunch is that polymaths will be sought after in the near future for their cultural capital. But they have never been in demand in the modernist world. Witness this quote published over 40 years ago, referring to Arthur Koestler’s book, The Act of Creation, in which he integrated theories of physiology, psychology, and creativity/discovery:

This is a bad time for polymaths. The old jibe about a Jack-of-all-trades being master of none has bitten deep into our minds, so that few people will admit to an intellectual grasp of anything more than a narrow range of experience. In a fragmented culture, everybody is expected to be a specialist: so men cling to the professional standards of their guilds as the lifebelts which will keep them afloat on a sea of general ideas which they have lost the capacity either to swim in, or to plumb. … Narrow precision and deductive exactitude carry the palms: analogies are distrusted, virtuosity suspect. So to embark on any large synthesis of the different sciences – still more, to range with confidence through both the sciences and the humanities – a man must have both a level head and a well-stocked mind. [...] [H]is personal position must be so well assured that he need no longer be afraid of making mistakes. (From “Koestler’s Act of Creation,” originally published in Encounter magazine, July 1964. It appears in the book, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature, by Stephen Toulmin, University of California Press, 1982.)

In a global culture that needs defragging, polymaths serve as preferred agents of catalyzing new eras of transformation.

Density

Thus, I would assert that generalists – as intercultural, non-compartmentalized thinkers-and-doers – will eventually represent the majority of leaders globally. Specialists will always offer important disciplines, but often they cannot discern the “big picture” of where things fit. Myopia does not allow for a visionary cornucopia, any more than a stream of television series episodes adds up to an epic. If we want to keep our “story” going in a world of increasing complexity, polymaths have what it takes to synthesize systems that create higher levels of cultural and ecological sustainability.

I sense it is especially important for generalists in the West to use technological archiving for as much dense material on cultural transformation and sustainability as possible during the next 25 years of global transition. By dense, I mean: full of our own thoughts on different disciplines and relevant interconnections, full of our thoughts about our thinking process (otherwise known as meta-cognition), full of our feelings about what we are observing and interpreting, full of speculations on where such thinking could take us in the future. By dense, I do NOT mean: full of disconnected details, fully polished, or full of references to the thoughts of others such that our work is fully derivative instead of personal and primary.

Immersing oneself in such interweavings requires significant commitment – but it also has positive side effects, the set-up for elevated creativity being one of them. How so? In the modernist world, the passions for precision and perfection meant that parameters for creativity gradually became more defined and thus, more narrow. Boundaries are necessary as impetus for rivers of creative processing, but when the boundaries are too strict, they impede progress. If shores are too far apart and without outlet, you have the Dead Sea. If shores are too close, you have flooding. If shores are well spaced, creative waters run fast on the surface without overflowing and yet allow for slower currents underneath to run deep. In the world as it is becoming, there are multiple channels simultaneously for creative waters to flow in. The more complex hypermedia we leave for others to mine, the more channels their creativity can find.

Dune

Frank Herbert – author of Dune – was a master of such wholistic density and integrative creativity. I have been studying him as an author who sees dangers in unlimited technology and in unquestioned authority. Just yesterday I listened to a vintage cassette tape interview from 1983 (purchased on eBay, of course) on Dune – advertised as “A world beyond your experience, beyond your imagination.” In it, Herbert expounded his perspective as a history buff and journalist, who perceived himself as “writing about the current scene,” although his eco-epic Dune is set in the 10th millennium. “The metaphors are there,” he said. “I’m writing about the political ecology, the religious ecology, the social ecology, and the physical ecology of our world. And I think you do not separate any one part of this from the others – separate mind and body – and understand the human being.”

Frank Herbert’s son, Brian, and co-author Kevin J. Anderson produced six prequel novels that establish the historical groundwork for the six volumes Herbert himself wrote. The co-author team also completed a two-volume series from Frank Herbert’s own outline for the final volume – “Dune 7.” Serendipitously, the outline was discovered in a safe deposit box 10 years after Herbert’s death. Wow! Herbert imagined and imaged a complex cosmos that supports 14 volumes, one film, and two television mini-series. And he did it through intentionally dense writing that created a multi-layered story.

In fact, an afterword by Brian Herbert in the 40th anniversary edition of Dune noted that his father’s work continues to intrigue readers because of both its density of disciplines and its loose ends. You can read Dune from an ecological point of view, then go back through with the lens of political power structures, then re-read from the perspective of religious movement maneuvering, then … Each time, you gain insight while considering the storyline from different angles. But Herbert also purposely left loose ends in his storylines. This encouraged reflective revisitation of the story, not just left the door open for sequels. The presence of bits of unresolved plot or the absence of characters who seemingly disappeared gave rise to a sense of speculation, meditation, extrapolation. His is simply a deep and elegant universe in which to navigate!

Done

So – any polymaths reading this: Invest yourself in helping next generations create preferable futures! Archive electronically all you can with subtlety, nuance, layers, metaphors, incomplete descriptions, sophistication, integration. Dream a world for others to absorb, filter, interpret, and re-interpret according to their own time and zeitgeist – even if it is not a “churchy” work, but one of fiction or non-fiction from a biblical base because of your own theological base. Perhaps you’ll even be led to hypermediate a universe of one, creating a lifelong online journal that presents a case study of yourself as a disciple. Whatever the leading, I trust the Kingdom will be better for our efforts.

a longing for eternity

is present in A-T-G-C

not in ‘lectric ones and zeroes

switch us into digital heroes

yet through download density

we leave ‘lectronic legacy

allowing those who us do follow

to discern what’s rich or hollow

– Brad Sargent

Commentary [2008]

Here I am again, the day after posting this article, and I woke up wondering about the flow of the past few years. Given all that I have processed this year about spiritual abuse and lapses in leadership and toxic systems, perhaps reading the Dune series was important “breaking up of the fallow ground.” And it also planted some important thought-seeds. This year, I’ve quoted Frank Herbert’s maxim more than once: “Power is a magnet that draws the corruptible.” Would I have been able to come up with the frameworks I did without that concise, proverbial statement of wisdom? I know that not all who gravitate toward power are bad people; I do know that all of us can let the bad part rule, and power is certain one agent that can bring out the worst in us … or the best as we learn not to misuse our power or position. Anyway, just another point of pondering about the Spirit’s behind-the-scenes influences to prepare us to live into our design and purposes more fully.

Also, as an October 2008 add-on, here are interesting tidbits of jots and thoughts from 2004-2006, first appearing in my Randomocities blog. I’ve been going through that archive the past few days, and recollecting how immersed in Dune I became, especially during the mind-numbing period of August 2004-October 2005, when I shuffled myself and my stuff around over 35 times in 13 months! And so, here are those archive excerpts:

Other news: will begin reading the Dune series of books sometime soon. Lots of intriguing theological bridge-points for dialoging with people from eco-spiritual backgrounds. (Just after I’d arrived back in Marin County after a year in a residential community in Austin, Texas. August 11, 2004, Randomocities.)

On the intellectual front, looks like I’ll be starting to read the Dune series this week. I’ve got most of the first six books in the series, have seen the movie version and the two TV mini-series. Have some miscellaneous books about the making of the film/TV versions. Looking forward to contemplating theological themes therein. My idea of fun! (August 15, 2004, Randomocities.)

Anyway, breaktime is over, so I have to move on to more work. Will blog again when I can. Have been reading the Dune series and thinking about various conceptions of time, space, and eternity in Dune, novels by Philip K. Dick (e.g., which became films: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Paycheck, Minority Report), and Greek versus Hebrew concepts of time, futures, and prophecy. Another time then … (September 1, 2004, Randomocities.)

I’m soaring through the Dune series. Nearly done with the fourth book of six that Frank Herbert wrote. It’s a fascinating mix of ecology, futures, theological questions and explorations. Amazing stuff. After that, Philip K. Dick, his dystopic views of possible futures, and literary criticism of his work. (He wrote the short stories that became: Screamers, Total Recall, Blade Runner, Paycheck, and Minority Report.) Interesting thought: We may think of both hope and temptation as grounded in beliefs (and therefore the mind), but I think they’re more grounded in imagination. Both hope and temptations give us other ways of seeing life than what we have at the moment. (So do prayers.) With hope, it’s positive, Christ-grounded futures and possibilities. With temptations, it’s destructive, self-grounded probabilities. Takes the Holy Spirit’s empowerment and, often, prayer to change the volitional dial from otherwise inevitable sins to what we could never do on our own … (September 15, 2004, Randomocities.)

[From a Review of The DaVinci Code movie.] when i realized that jurgen prochnau played the swiss bank night manager, i definitely thought that was a secret sign. it put me highly in mind of prochnau ’s (likewise notable) performance in the 1984 screen version of Dune. lots of similarities between The DaVinci Code (TDVC) – The Book-and-Movie – and Dune – The Book-and-Movie. both had strong followings, perhaps even their own cultus. both speculative religioso-politico thrillers with complex backstories. both faced severe condensation issues in the translation from page-turner books to stone-burner films. [sidenote: i read TDVC - The (page-turner) Book three years ago and heard TDVC - The (track-flipper) Audiobook for an unabridged 15 hours of CDs just a few weeks ago. we're talking long books here.] i would much rather that TDVC – The Book had graduated summa cum applauda to its incarnation as TDVC – The Movie. sadly, it seemed more an incarceration than an incarnation. as with Dune – The Movie. but Dune – The Six-Hour Sci-Fi Channel Miniseries was far better at letting the life and complexity of the characters shine, so i think mr. brown probably will be more happy with a TDVC – The Six-Hour Miniseries version. so, I’ll wait with great expectations to see what the dickens they do with this inevitability! (May 28, 2006, Randomocities.)

 

Multi-Level, Multi-Generation Approaches to Coping with Cultural Transition [2004]

Introduction and Commentary [2008]

This post uses the church planter assessment system developed by Dr. Charles Ridley as an illustration of our failure to accommodate the paradigm of younger generations. When we fail in that, we also fail to composite their cultural strengths into our mutual endeavors in Kingdom work. Also, when we fail to value or validate the ways younger generations more typically process life, why should we expect they would be interested in working with us on what we value?

Dr. Ridley conducted research to determine the character qualities that are indicators of “success” in church planters. He figured out 13 such successful church planter characteristics, based in demonstrated ability, not merely conceptual knowledge. For instance, one of the indicators is “vision capability,” where a candidate shows the ability to cast a vision by clearly describing what things should look like, and leading people to follow toward that vision. When I served as an interviewer for these kinds of church planter candidate assessments, we used 15 such qualities (all of Dr. Ridley’s 13 plus two others), and tried to cover all 15 in our three-and-a-half- to four-hour interview.

There is a lot to commend in this system. However, there’s a problem. It uses an old-world definition of success that depends on Traditional and Pragmatic Paradigms (see Robert Webber’s excellent book, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World, for explanations of those terms, plus what he calls the Younger Evangelical Paradigm and I call the Holistic Paradigm). And so, someone who is far more holistic and would therefore tend to fit in the world as it is unfolding would rate poorly according to traditional standards of success.

So how could we assess success in an edge/post-Christendom culture?

About a decade ago, when someone asked me, “How do you do ‘postmodern’ ministry,” I responded, “Take everything you know about ‘modern’ ministry, run it through a knot-hole backwards, and you’ve got it!” That’s probably closer to the truth that I realized back then. For instance, to oversimplify, instead of a modernist abstract “vision caster” who primarily points the way to an ideal goal, what works in the new world is a concrete “vision carrier” who already embodies the journey to the goal and who already demonstrates the character qualities to be found at the goal. I spent a lot of time in 2002 thinking about how to turn the Ridley assessment inside out, because I’d concluded we needed something new that could help anyone figure out where they best fit, not just yes-or-no about whether they fit in traditional-conventional-modernistic church planter settings.

For instance, a church planting candidate friend had the odd experience of receiving an average score under 2.0 out of 5.0 from the traditionalist team leader using the Ridley-based assessment system. Meanwhile, the more younger-generation-friendly assistant assessor who heard the exact same 200-plus minutes of interviews, gave the candidate an average score over 4.5 – based on a strong suitability for work in holistic paradigm contexts.

Here we are, over five years later, and I’m still convinced this is needed – and not just for church planter assessments. And if we cannot figure this out for starting new churches, however will we do so for helping established churches to transition into the realities of the world as it now is, in which many of the traditional strategies and structures, skills and goals grow increasingly less relevant … but the baton of leadership must still be passed forward for the legacy to continue?

Multi-Level, Multi-Generation

Approaches to Coping

with Cultural Transition [2004]

A friend of mine recently asked me what could be done to change the way that potential church planters are assessed. I wondered what we could do …

It’s a difficult problem, given the current cultural transitions from modern to postmodern and beyond, plus the inadequacies of systems that were designed to fit the traditional models of church structures when there are no standard formats that work everywhere among emerging cultures.

I think the biggest problem here is like what my roommate Nathan described about the computer lab when he went to college. That was the era when the first PC-Mac cross-platform machine came out. Supposedly it would take programs from both and “work,” and was therefore the solution to all our computation woes. However, Nathan said that their lab experience was that the dual-platform machines froze and crashed more often than either of the regular machines (and we all know how often PCs give us the “blue screen of death” and Macs hardly ever freeze!).

Applying the analogy to the current church planting assessment systems, most current approaches are based on Ridley’s research. His research presuppositions were designed to measure “success” in the PC world of traditional, program-based, professional-staff models of doing church. He identified many key components to success, 15 of which are used in the system I was trained for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Nehemiah Project for church planting. Ridley’s system crashes regularly (if not always) when attempting to assess people who are geared for Mac worlds – nontraditional, process-based, volunteer models of being church – or for some other platform that doesn’t fit either the PC or the Mac (such as Kingdom social/business enterprises instead of church planting, though both might use similar principles).

Options and Problems

(1) Figure out some kind of pre-assessment to see whether someone’s probable dominant platform is PC or Mac, and have separate but equal systems to do the full assessment on each category.

Problem: that still ties in with the modernist analytic system by creating another either-or situation where you either do well in the modern-traditional-PC cultures, or you do well in the “postmodern”-nontraditional-Macintosh cultures. This assumption is probably not the best, because it still works off of a theoretical base that is too narrow.

(2) Train all assessors in both PC and Mac cultural systems so they can adjust their assessments to accommodate the reality that not everyone is going to fit in the PC/traditional church world.

Problem: If an assessor is unable to get beyond their own personal preference for PC or Mac, they could skew and screw the assessment to fit their own biases. For instance, I have seen modernist-oriented assessors completely miss the heart and skills of postmodern-oriented church planting candidates. But I could also easily see the reverse happening, with a Mac-based assessor having contempt for PC-oriented candidates, and not giving a fair assessment … “Oh, he doesn’t fit in the pomo world, so he shouldn’t be planting a church at all.” Sigh … sadly, ignorance and contempt can flow in any direction. Training is possible, but that doesn’t override all personal biases that could blind an assessor to actually assessing accurately!

(3) Invest in creating a new system that is larger than the current Ridley approach, and that is larger than having an either-or PC/Mac approach.

In other words, an assessment system that helps anyone find their best options for Kingdom service, whether that’s volunteer or professional, in more modernist or postmodernist or post-postmodernist cultures, and doing any kind of discipling (kingdom-based social/business enterprises, parachurch ministry, existing-church-based, or church-plant-based). In the long run, this is the best option because you’ll end up with a coherent, comprehensive platform that can run bigger programs than either the PC or Mac. This is what I’ve been working on for the past five years, and it’s my intention to keep plugging away at it during what time I have available until it’s done enough to use.

Putting Options into a Multi-Level Perspective

Switching to recovery movement terminology, Option #1 is like “intervention” with someone who is already addicted. The best it can do is bring sobriety, and then start the person on the long road to recovery. Unless it shifts the goal toward complete transformation – not just “getting by” – intervention doesn’t necessarily do much in the long run to help change the person’s core identity. They’ll always see themselves as an “ex-[fill-in-the-blank],” and relate to the present and future based on their past.

Option #2 is like “interception” with people who are at risk for giving into temptation and setting up a string of sins, but they haven’t yet indulged or overindulged. It catches them before it’s too late. This is better than #1, but it’s still deficient in the long run as the only solution.

Option #3 is like “prevention,” working beforehand to keep people from becoming at risk in the first place. It takes the longest to do, and may take two generations minimum to implement, as you train the first generation, and then the next generation grows up with that “new” system as what they take as a given.

In a world of extreme cultural transitions, it is critical that we do what we can so that no group is left behind, whether their native platform is PC, Mac, or something else. The Church has to survive this as a body intact, and that means we must offer all three levels of solution – intervention, interception, and prevention – depending on a given person’s or church’s situation.

This approach of multi-level solutions that take two or more generations to implement is something I’ve been contemplating for a few months. The more I think about it, the stronger I believe it applies to individual churches as much as to church planter assessment processes, missions, and just about anything else where there are multiple kinds of people affected. If we cater to the “addicted,” we may miss helping “at-risk” people who will end up addicted because no one was there to affirm their resistance. And if we don’t work our way to prevention before there are problems, we’ll spend all our energy forever in trying to defuse dysfunction as people fall through the cracks and become at risk, then addiction.

Similarly, in our church planting and transitioning endeavors, we must consider multi-level, multi-generational approaches …

Originally posted April 5, 2004, in futuristguy’s Randomocities.