To De or not to De ?

I had two conversations this weekend that I am finding hard to get out of my head probably because they touched on a subject close to my heart, the nature and growth of the church.

The first conversation with an experienced pastor , related to the 'science' of church growth. We discussed such things as how many times a visitor needs to be 'touched' in order for them to feel welcomed by the 'group'. This 'touching' apparently, the experts tell us, helps people within eleven minutes of entering the meeting /building to decide whether not they will return.

The other conversation, with a young Christian leader, concerned church planting by means of demographic targeting. The demographic group in question was the so called 'missing generation' of 20 /30 somethings. My friend informed me that in church planting circle the US, demographic targeting of this particular group is all the rage.

One of the questions banging around in my head is, by using demographic targeting are we planting church or a 'modified church experience' that is being passed off as church? (More on this later)

Feedback, the key to perpetual learning

I remember reading how that Jesuit priests as part of their training to take time before making a key decison to write down what results they anticipate. Nine months later they then feedback from the results to their original anticipations. This process is expected to help the priest to discover what he does well and where his strenghts are. It also enables the priest to learn what he has to learn and what habits he needs to change. Ultimately the habit helps the priest to discover what he is not gifted for and and what he cannot do well.

I have tried to follow this habit myself and discovered how helpful it is in discovering what I am good at and where improvement is needed. Very importantly, however, it has helped me to discover what I am not good at and should not attempt to do. Knowledge of what you can and cannot do are vital to effective living not just for for individuals but also for church communities. But the key to obtaining such knowledge lies in continuous feedback without it we are doomed to repeat our failures. Why not make it a habit to seek and to give useful and honest feedback for the good of one and all.

Mission & Quantum Physics

I want to share the following extract from one of my favourite books ; Margaret J. Wheatley's: Leadership and the New Science.

"In the twentieth century physicists faced for the first time, a serious challenge to their ability to understand the universe. Everytime they asked nature a question in an atomic experiment, nature answered with a paradox, and the more they tried to clarify the situation, the sharper the pardoxes became. In their struggle to grasp this new reality, scientists became painfully aware that their basic concepts, their language, and their whole way of thinking were inadequate to describe atomic phenomena. Their problem was not only intellectual but involved an intense emotional and existential experience, vividly described by Werner Heisenberg: "I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair" ; .......Even after the mathematical formulation of quantum theory was completed, its conceptual framework was by no means easy to accept. Its effect on the physicists view of reality was truly shattering. The new physics' view of reality necessitated profound changes in concepts of space, time, matter; object, and cause and effect; and because these concepts were so fundemental to our way of experiencing the world, their transformation came as a great and profound shock.

As I reflected on the story of how scientist like Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and their collegues struggled to comprehend the new reality and the challenges it presented; I could not help but feel that the challenges that faced those early pioneers of Quantum Physics is not dis-similar to the missional challenge facing the Church in postmodern, post-Christian world of 21st century Europe. Perhaps much of what we regard as fundemental to the existence and shape of 'our' Christianity are merely the expressions of an understanding limited by such things as culture, knowledge, predjuices and asking and seeking the answers to the wrong questions.

Causes & Contexts

I have been thinking a lot recently about causes and contexts and how important they are to the doing of useful ministry. How much of what we think of as useful ministry is determined by our agenda, our objectives, the subconscious need to satisfy a need in us rather than the needs of those we are called to be the servants of. When I read the accounts of Jesus' miracles I can not help but be struck by the fact that he did what he did not to prove who he was but because of who he was. It caused me to reflect on how much of the motivation behind the things we do in the 'name' ministry stems from an effort to prove who we are rather than because of who we are.

If we do the things we do out of some kind of unconscious need to prove something to ourselves or others more often than not we play lip service to context. If ,however, we do what we do because of who we are then the context (the needs of those we are called to serve) will shape the agenda, determine the objectives and always be our primary concern. When it comes to mission we always need to keep before us that our constituency is the World not the Church.