"Not Funny 'ha-ha'; Funny Queer?"

The "Innovation Station" Facebook page asked the following question.

Homosexuality and Christianity can be a polarizing topic. Some churches choose to ignore scriptural references to homosexuality because they feel it promotes hatred and prejudice toward praticing homosexuals and that a loving God would never condemn such practices. Somes churches have no problem with homosexuals attending their churches but draw the line when it comes to ordaining homosexuals or allowing them in leadership. If pushed to state their policy, they indicate that they believe homosexuality is a sin. Still other churches are openly hostile to gays and feel it is their divine duty to point out their sin publicly with little or no grace. 

In what ways is your church being challenged on this topic? How are you handling it?

I simply wish to post how I answered the question.

How and where does God begin his transforming work in a person's life that leads them to salvation? The woman caught in the act of adultery has what appears as an ambiguous resolution: "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more." The woman at the well has what appears to be no resolution. Yet a transformation process seems to have started to take place in her life as she goes to find people so they can meet the person of Jesus. Nichodemus doesn't make "a decision for Christ" in John 3. Jesus never extends an "invitation" - yet we still see him in John 7, and then once again in John 19.

The homosexual issue is very challenging to the church today. Some seem to be more selective in pointing out this issue and making self-righteous pronouncements, than other manifestations of "missing the mark." Jesus indicates a surprise characterization of those who will gather at the "feast" in God's Kingdom in Luke 13:22-28. He also says elsewhere that you will know people by their "fruits" (no pun).

Is this an excuse for us to look at others to make a determination of their eternal destiny - or is it a caveat for our own lives to be living in obedience to his character. Again - the woman "caught" has a penetrating principle that involve the joints and marrow of our souls.

This present challenge is illustrated quite well in the popular 1996 movie "Sling Blade." The main character struggles to understand God's scriptural principles in many ways - including parents who used a facade of Christianity as an abusive and brutal governing tool. He articulates his perplexity with the issue of homosexuality through the character played by the late John Ritter (Vaughan Cunningham). Vaughan is a conscientious person who is upfront about his struggles with attraction to the same sex. Near the end of the movie, Karl asks Vaughan to assume parental responsibility for Karl's young friend, Frank.

Karl's final words to Vaughan correlate with Jesus' words to the woman about to be stoned to death: "I don't reckon you have to go with women to be a good daddy to a boy. You been real square-dealin' with me. The Bible says two men ought not lay together. But I don't reckon the Good Lord would send anybody like you to Hades."

The church needs to not dilute God's truth by ignoring what has clearly been characterized as one manifestation wrong-doing among many. Likewise, the church should not create a hierarchy where homosexuality is worse than heterosexual lust, or any other manifestation of wrong-doing (even manipulating numbers on a 1040 that benefits self).

Another teaching of Jesus is profoundly personal. It's the metaphor of the 2 men praying in Luke 18:9-14. We need to keep this teaching in our personal pipes and smoke it as often as we can. 

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:' Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.' "

Aircraft Carrier Turn?

Sometimes when I quote writers, it results in some directing their frustration right at me. "I'm just the messenger" and I'm just passing on insightful thoughts that resonate with my passion.

Perhaps a recent quote I saw on FB from an author "friend" - attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer - is appropriate to pass on? "All truth passes through 3 stages. 1. It is ridiculed. 2. It is violently opposed. 3. It is accepted as being self-evident."

Several quotes from Leonard Sweet's 1999 book *SoulTsumani" in chapter 7 ("Get Dechurched") are none other than suggestions to readers - especially those involved with church leadership. Written 11 years ago and considering the lingering MO of the organized church, I'm prompted to assess out loud: "Ain't gonna happen anytime soon." I hope I am soon proven mistaken. If it does happen, it will be like the proverbial aircraft carrier turning.

These are paragraphs I have highlighted in the chapter that convey the essence of Sweet's challenges. I really believe that the dependency to cling to an increasingly ineffective paradigm is stunting the vital growth of God's Kingdom in this fragmented culture we live in. One of the problems that causes an overwhelming reluctancy (as I have observed) is the anger and frustration of those who draw resources from the the platform/pew format. Frankly, I believe there is a fear to "let go and let God."
Step out! And then look around and you may find a few who are indeed following "whole-heartedly."

One criticism I have heard from those involved in "professional" ministry is that the insights shared by the more intense Christ-Following authors, are not to be given heavy consideration since they are not equal in potency as God's revealed Word. Would it be fair for me to reverse such logic and tell one that oracle presentation should bear the same scrutiny?

Whether I receive insight from a book or a delivered message does not matter. It is still proclamation by those gifted to probe God's truth and present it in ways that instill ecclesiastical obedience.

I hope these quotations are beneficial to those who read and motivational to seek out the challenge of fulfilling Christ's commission in today's fluid culture.

One of our greatest killers is the notion that what we don't know isn't worth anything. One of our greatest challenges is how to come to terms with what we don't know and the too many things we know that aren't true. Because the church has failed to be both a learning organism and an unlearning organism, our intellectual capital is steadily depreciating. (p. 146)

Before there can be a Postmodern Reformation, however, there must first be a Postmodern Deformation. Structural deformation leads to spiritual formation, which leads to ecclesial reformation. (p. 147)

What irony that in the midst of a spiritual heat wave in the culture, in the church it's a deep freeze. Establishment religion now looks back nostalgically at a wonderful past and looks forward anxiously at a frightening future. The problem is even deeper than the statistics of 25 years of mainstream membership loss reveal. (p. 149)

The default assumption of the modern church was a material theology that said "Got a problem, get a program." For the church to minister in postmodern culture, it must dematerialize its thinking. (p. 152)

Prayer moves things in another world, an unseen world - a world more read, more powerful, and more lasting that this one. (p. 152)

Every organism must learn how to devolve - to "let go at the top," to lose control, to cell out, to reverse oneself and become less optimal, less efficient, less fit, less ordered and organized. (p. 152)

...decentralization is the push of power downward from the center to the margins, from vertical to horizontal. from "command-and-control" organizations to "cultivate and coordinate" empowered organisms. (p.153) [JS: This is one dynamic that creates fear for those dependent on the former - as I have personally observed].

Deconversion will take place through ther development of "a folk apologetic" (George Hunter's phrase) - a folk theology that is built on narratives, not concepts or categories. People are not prone to move away from one home unless they see a good alternative available. A "folk apologetic" is not a "for-all-time" wywtematic theology but a "for-now" peity that is built on "as-they-should-be" beliefs.(p. 155)

In this Digital Age, the monolithic mass markets of the mid- and high-modern era have broken up and diversified. We have gone in my lifetime from a mass market to a micromarket to new mass customized market. [JS: My example - Just Budweiser worked until Fat Tire came along. Now Aneheiser Busch is marketing Amber Bock] (p. 158)

The key to ministry in this next reformation is intellectual capital in general, and innovation and creativity in particular. In the new world one thing is certain: What works today won't work tomorrow...The need to prepare for ongoing adaptive change makes innovation and creativity the key survival skills in navigating the chaotic world of the 21st century. How embarrassing that the institution that worships the Creator is so often bankrupt of creativity! (p. 159)

Lose Focus. If you try to see it, you'll never see it. You first must loosen up and let things get cloudy. Deconstruct your world. Give up preconceived notions of how to do ministry...Deconstruct you old way of seeing and hearing and doing. Give up preconceived notions of how to do ministry. "Fuzzy" is good. (p. 160)

Be a "middle-of-the-roader," and you will get run over by both sets of oncoming traffic. (p. 161)

The essence of complexity is the ability to look at many things at once to think more than one thought at a time, to abandon old fixations and make new connections, following you intuitions and trusting the Spirit. (163)

But in the same way the G.P. in medicine became extinct, only to come back as a speciality in Family Medicine, so the church must give up congregational, mass thinking and learn to niche the "generals" it took for granted...
One of the great challenges for the church, therefore, is to niche multigenerational worship. mulitgenerational missions, multigenerational education. (p. 164)

How small a niche? In a culture that has shifted from mass to micro cultures, you can't establish too small a niche...
This is a culture that revels in quality coffee; There were 200 coffee houses in the US in 1989, almost 10,000 just 10 years later (p. 165) [JS: Keep in mind that this was written in 1999. I'm certain that the number is far beyond the one printed.]

Demassification and decentralization are polarizing churches over such things as abortion, homosexuality, economics, lifestyles, and the allocation of resources between the young and the old. Church warfare in the postmodern era is less over theological issues than social and stylistic issues. Each side boasts a politically correct and theologically correct position.
We need churches and leaders willing to take experimental antibiotics against the "them" versus "us" virus that is plaguing society. We need communities of faith and faith leaders who will not discover an Enlightenment-style via media between the competing pro-choice/pro-life ideologies, for example, but will pioneer a modus vivendi through irreconcilable and intractable forms of belief that cannot be harmonized or balanced, only bridged. (p. 166)

FROM THINK-BIG-THINK-SIMPLE TO THINK-SMALL-THINK-COMPLEX
In fact, part of the problem with too much "contemporary worship" is that there is insufficient complexity rich enough to express the involution of Christian doctrine.
Postmodern ministry is the parting of the commonplace to reveal the complex.
The wonder of Jesus is not either-or. The wonder of Jesus is and/also. He was the most complex person who ever lived, which enabled him to live the most simple life that's ever been lived. (p. 167)

Can the church help people slow down, even shut down? Can the church help people "simplify" their lives?
You can find it in the grassroots campaigns to "simplify government" and "simplify preaching" (both of which often confuse complexity with verbosity). (p. 169)

The simple life of faith can be lived only by passing through immense complexities. Simplicity is not the starting point, but the ending point.
Faith is not simple. Faith can only become simple.
Christianity is the first religion that was not temple based.
To determine to what degree your church is tample based, look at your budget and figure out what percentage of your money is spent on maintaining you temple.
Nor was Christianity priest based. The decentralization of ministry in the glocal church means a decentralization of leadership and responsibility. (p. 170) [JS: I'm wondering why Sweet did not ask the question again in regards to budget as it related to the "priest."]

The dedifferentiating phenomenon is breaking down the walls between highbrow and lowbrow, between public and private, performer and audience...
Dedifferentiation is blurring the delineations between the sacred and profane, the worldly and the godly, church and state, politics and entertainment, the serious and the trivial, the quality and the tabloid, the real and the imaginary - all boundary-defined categories that are legacies of the past.
It (postmodernism) plunders and parodies with abandon until "nothing is inappropriate, excorporated; the exclusive is included, distinctions and categories dissolved into coequal fragments. (p. 171)

In a boundary world, life is predictable, controllable, familiar, and well-delineated. In a border world, life is ill-defined, diffuse, anxiety-ridden, riddled with uncertainty - and often violent. Jesus ministered on the borders; he dissolved and crossed boundaries.
Postmodern leaders need not be afraid of fuzzy ministry or mixed ministry, Fuzzy is good, as "fuzzy logic" has now instructed us...In a culture of mix masters, leadership requires paradox making, the ability to put things together in odd, original ways. (p. 172)

You want your church to be beautiful? Give people the power. Let them choose. The church for too long has lived by the one-size-fits all "Panty Hose Principle." It is time to move to "the Platinum Rule." It's a gift to us from Jesus. (p. 173)

Every generation has different cultural experiences, knowledge bases, and aesthetic sensibilities. Each generation operates in a different linguistic, satorial, and myth system from the preceding generations. In religious terms this means that every generation must be reached for Christ differently. (p. 175)

Jesus was masterfully adaptable and flexible - yet all the while the central core of his message remained unchanged. Jesus communicated a gospel that was always the same and always changing. He sent us out into the world instructing us what to do. He never told us how to do it. The what remains the same. The how is always changing. (p. 176)

Patriot Prince?

This post requires a prefaced disclaimer. Let there be no misunderstanding that I consider myself blessed to have been born in this country. But I count myself as a Follower of Christ first and would be willing to renounce my "citizenship" in the US before I would ever renounce my allegiance to God's Messiah.

In the early 90s, punk rock group Bad Religion released the song "American Jesus." Although, I do not totally align with the political mind-set of the group, I can clearly understand the frustration they communicate through the lyrics of the song.

I don't need to be a global citizen,
'Cause I'm blessed by nationality,
I'm a member of a growing populace,
We enforce our popularity
There are things that seem to pull us under and
There are things that drag us down,
But there's a power and a vital presence
That's lurking all around

We've got the American Jesus
See him on the interstate,
We've got the American Jesus
He helped build the president's estate

I feel sorry for the earth's population
'Cause so few live in the U.S.A,
At least the foreigners can copy our morality,
They can visit but they cannot stay,
Only precious few can garner our prosperity,
It makes us walk with renewed confidence,
We've got a place to go when we die
And the architect resides right here

We've got the American Jesus
Bolstering national faith
We've got the American Jesus
Overwhelming millions every day

He's the farmers' barren fields, (In God)
He's the force the army wields, (We trust)
He's the expression on the faces of the starving millions, (Because he's one of us)
The power of the man. (Break down)
He's the fuel that drives the Klan, (Cave in)
He's the motive and the conscience of the murderer (He can redeem your sin)
He's the preacher on TV, (Strong heart)
He's the false sincerity, (Clear mind)
He's the form letter that's written by the big computer, (And infinitely kind)
He's the nuclear bombs, (You lose)
He's the kids with no moms (We win)
And I'm fearful that he's inside ME (He is our champion)

We've got the American Jesus
See him on the interstate
We've got the American Jesus
Exercising his authority
We've got the American Jesus
Bolstering National faith
We've got the American Jesus
Overwhelming millions every day

One nation under God(x10)

Many of the American expression of Christian faith will convey a concern about the "watering down" of the principles and message of God. These are often the very same folks who think 2 Chronicles 7:14 directly applies to the United States of America. In case you don't recall the verse(which is actually the middle of a sentence), it goes like this:

"if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

"Land" is interpreted to mean a sovereign nation - particularly The United States of America - by many of those who are concerned about the "watering down" of God's principles.

The context of the entire chapter has to do with the existence of the temple and the monarchy in Israel - neither of which remain today.

One may be tempted to say that this fact buttresses the point. Think before you are tempted to make such a correlation. It was the faithfulness and love of God alone that maintained his chosen people to the point of God's own entering into the realm of humanity (through Jesus Christ) without a temple and a king. The United States of America is a byproduct of the grace and freedom ushered into the realm of humanity - far, far down the line of the historical infection of the good news. There are no reference points or distinguishable borders that hinder the spread (e.g. Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius, Lydia...) which brings about pure freedom to all who believe.

If I look for a particular city on Google maps, I have many reference points to use. The major points are the distinguishable borders established by states. When I happen to fly across the country, I often look down to see if I can identify the major US metropolitan areas. The only reference point I have may be a river or a mountain range (the very ones that ran and stood alone for many millennia). I can hardly determine where Colorado ends and Kansas begins. No one has painted distinguishable lines (yet).

Each time I have this experience of looking down upon the vital resource of the earth, I imagine God looking down and not seeing the distinguishable limitations that plague us. Yet we hold high the banner of "freedom" in our nation.

What is ultimate freedom? Is it not the breakdown of limitations and distinctions? Isn't that what Paul taught in Galatians 3:21-29?

"Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

So what makes many "Americans" equate citizenry in the nation on equal par with following Christ? Does God's Anointed wear an American flag lapel pin? How can one treat the stars and stripes with such a lofty reverence when it represents such a large distinguishable sovereign state? We are the most free nation on the face of the earth, but we are far from being the humblest. Do we realize that it really wasn't that long ago that we crashed the borders here and now are fortifying them? We broke undocumented laws to establish and vote on ones that we like.

Many fear the breakdown of our nation due to the loss of morality. Its demise is undeniable and the lack of discipline and pure standards distresses me. But we suffer the same self righteousness of the Pharisees as we conveniently look to the darkness of others and utter pronouncements rather than look within ourselves and see the same chaos that nailed Christ to the tree.

What does God see in America that he didn't see with Babylon or Rome or any powerful nation that has ever existed? God sees that same darkness and chaos that prompted him to be born into our midst (God so loved the world) and defeat the destiny that he himself traveled and defeated for our ultimate freedom.

The call of 2 Chronicles 7 is universal. "Land" comes from a Hebrew word that can also be translated as "world." That's the place where we all live; the one God looks down upon and sees no distinguishable markings.

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.  ~ 1 Timothy 1:14-16

The Mystery of Change is Not Controllable

For some reason, I missed this book. I picked up a copy about 3 years ago and never looked into it. I don't know why I didn't, because I enjoyed reading "Aqua Church" by Leonard Sweet about 10 years ago.

Being the slow and meticulous reader I am, I have read and reread pages and chapters. As I go, I take black pen and underline portions while also writing notes in the margins.

I am simply amazed at the insight of this book - especially since most of what Leonard Sweet wrote 11 years ago is happening with remarkable accuracy today.

I am inserting a rather long excerpt that I find very affirming. It is about change and transition. In particular, I resonate with the theme of "chaordics". I never knew that my own "SOP" (Standard Operation Procedure) had a name. It's such a relief to know that my own resistance to structure (in tyrannical form) actually finds purpose and can indeed lead toward progress and impact. Of all the causes within humanity, the church needs to move forward and facilitate transformation in human lives.

CHANGE HAS CHANGED ~ So far, so good. But we have not gone very far yet. This book is built on a critical distinction between change ad transition. William Bridges is known for his distinguishing the differences between change and transition. In his view, “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions.” For Bridges the difference between the two is that “Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation.”

With due regards to Bridges for his helpful contribution to seeing change as external and transition as internal, I want to make an even more critical distinction between “change” and “transition.” For the purposes of SoulTsunami, here is the difference: Change is incremental. Transition is supersonic change at the edge of chaos that phases from incremental to exponential.
Change is when you have to do better what you already know how to do.
Transition is when you have to do what you don’t know who to do.

Change has always been with us as the one “constant of history.” The society painters of the 1770s and 1780s, for example, were presented with a constant challenge: Hair fashions changed so rapidly and wildly that clients brought their portraits back and asked to have their head “updated.”

Transition is when change changes, when change is no longer incremental but exponential. One of the key features of the day in which we live is the accelerating pace of change itself. Some experts are no longer talking about “change” but “churn” and “blur.” In 1989, people bought vinyl albums; no one bought CDs. Within seven years vinyl albums had become collector’s items purchased by jazz aficionados and club DJs who still spin wax. In 1991, my favorite TV station, the Weather Channel, didn’t exist. Five years later, an estimated 200,000 homes tuned to the Weather Channel daily. Inventions used to generate profits for decades. Now many inventions, especially in electronics, have a typical life span of two months. The pace of change is so fast on the Internet that is said that cyberspace time must be reckoned in dog years: Just as one year of a dog’s life is like seven years of our lives, so one year on the Internet is like seven years in real life.

Postmoderns live on a different planet from their modern parents and grandparents. “We’re at a point of absolute, supreme discontinuity,” global consultant and futurist Watts Wacker proclaims. “Human beings were not built to process what we’re going through now. Two generations ago people didn’t move more than 50 miles away from where they were born. Today if you live in New York City, you see 8000 commercial messages a day.” A little more than a hundred years ago, people were put in prison if they couldn’t pay their debts. A little less than a hundred years ago, all of a woman’s property became her husband’s legal property when she married, and even she was considered property.

The speed of life is leaving skid marks. Scientific information doubles every 12 years. General information doubles every two-and-a-half years. We know the first law of computer programming: “And given program, when running, is obsolete.” “Moore’s Law” (named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation), which says that the power of computer chips doubles every 18 months, is much too conservative. Since the late 1950s, there has been a 100,000-fold rise in computer power times a thousandfold drop in cost. In fact, Intel now boasts that it is doubling the computing power of the world every year.

The half-life of education is getting shorter and shorter. The shelf-life of resources is getting narrower and narrower. Only the after-life is getting longer and longer – and that’s because our information vase is a graveyard of rotting doctrines and after-life ideas that we continually resurrect no matter how rancid they are.

What we read about in science fiction is soon fact. In fact, science fiction has become more science than fiction. More information is generated in one hour than you can take in over the course of one life. A weekday edition of the New Your Times now carries more information than the average person in the 17th century would digest in a lifetime. In some ways, in fact, the knowledge race has replaced the arms race.

Up until now, the computer revolution was more change than transition. Computers spelled not a revolution in what we do so much as a speeding up of what we have always done. We are now using computers to do what humans have never done before.

In February 1996 the most powerful chess computer (Deep Blue) took on world champion Garry Kaspoarov and won one and tied two of six games. It lost, by the way, because it was too logical – the human edge was intuition.

When the computer played the rematch with the human in April 1997, it didn’t make that mistake again. And it won. (Interestingly, the Hal 5000 was born on the date of 20 April 1997 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.) But even more “transitional” was what happened at the Web site IBM put together to enable the world to follow each move as it happened and to play along virtually. Five million “hits” took place on the first day, bringing the IBM server to its knees. Hundreds of people from 75 countries played along with the computer and Kasparov.

Here’s the difference between change and transition. Pretend you are making and omelet. What kind of instrument do you pick out of the drawer to begin the omelet? A whisk or fork is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Then you add equal amounts of air and fat, and stir the air and fat together: air, fat, air, fat, air, fat. For a period of time all you are doing is stirring more air and fat, air and fat together. That’s change.

There comes a time, however, when you stir one more increment of change – air, fat – and change becomes transition. Once you pass through a threshold, a whole new world is created. Liquid becomes solid. The old SOPs which worked so well in a change/liquid world mess things up in a transition/solid world. Once you cross a threshold, new Standard Operating Procedures are required. A lot of churches are doing whisk ministry in a spatula world.

Pretend you are a photographer. Adding a few frames per second only speeds up your work. Ten frames per second: photography. Fifteen frames per second: photography. Twenty frames per second: photography. By adding more frames per second, I am only changing the speed of my craft. But there comes a time – 21, 22, 23 frames per second – when I cross a threshold – 24 frames per second – into a whole new world. Change becomes transition. Photography becomes cinematography. Stills becomes cinema.

What is good cinematography is different from what is good photography. One evaluates each genre on it own terms, in terms of its meaning, it references, and how they are to be understood. To judge the art of cinematography by the standards of the art of photography is to engage in categorical imperialism. We imperialize one art form when we impose it on another art form.

There are many print-culture imperialists writing in the church today. They judge what is good ministry in postmodern, electronic culture by what is good ministry in modern, print culture.

CHOOSE RESILIENCE OVER STABILITY, CHAOS OVER ORDER ~ You can’t grow without making changes. You can’t live without making changes. Or in the words of Peter Drucker, “Every organization of today has to build into its very structure…organized abandonment of everything it does.” A world of discontinuous change elevates resilience over stability as one of it highest attributes.

When asked to explain the stability of their life and customs, the Greeks had a saying:

‘tsi ta vrikame, etsi that t’ afisoume”
“That’s how we found things, that’s how we’ll leave them.”

No longer. Even the Greeks willy-nilly are leaving things different than they found them. Arguably the most change-resistant institution in the world, the British monarchy, is finding that it has to change if it is to survive into the 2K and 21-C. The monarchy has had to change. Welfare, health care, and the workforce have had to change. The world is changing all around us, and we in the church think we don’t get our turn?

Chaos is a better strategy for survival than order. It is not just that order can be reached out of chaos, or that one can only perceive chaos in relation to some perceived order. The emerging science of complexity, the generating science of postmodernity, argues that chaos is essential to the emergence of order. Chaos and order coexist and emerge from one another.

The modern era of Newton and Locke was an era of Order: a world of natural laws, of hard facts, of well-defined structures operating with clock-work precision. The Protestant Reformation adapted the Christian faith to this highly ordered, linear universe, and those brands of Protestants, like the Puritans first and the Methodists second, who were best able to highly order and structure their disciplines of belief and behavior fared the best.

Moderns were taught that this world-machine evolved with highly set regulations and rules of the game. If we follow the regs and play by the rules, then predictable things happen in life. Go against these laws or break the rules, and predictably unbalanced things will happen. It was a cost-benefit exogenous theology where we were on the outside looking in, rather than a part of what we are looking at.

The postmodern era is dominated by metaphors of chaos and complexity, not law and order. Complexity theory is the study of systems that behave orderly even though you might expect them to be anarchic (weather, rain forests, the stock market, the job market). Advanced micro- and macro- physics has given up it love affair with logical and mathematical consistency and rational prediction and control – it now embraces chaos, uncertainty, and complexity.

What complexity theory is teaching us is that we are living “on the edge of chaos” in a world that is ill-defined, out of control, and in constant glow and flux. We live in a world that is more weird than we ever imagined – a world that is fractal, self-replicating, inflationary, unpredictable, and filled with strange attractors. We do not live in linear time and space, but in curved time and space and nonlinear iterative processes. The modern world taught that this is a causal universe. We know now that this is actually an ever-curving universe. Rather than stasis and order, the dynamics of life-systems are non-linear, where the rules of the game keep changing because the game keeps changing. One plays on the run and while everything is moving. Rather than set goalposts, processes and patterns are the name of the game.

In a state of equilibrium, nothing happens! Enduring organisms embrace a strategy toward a life of disequilibrium over stability. They expect and sustain disruption. Organisms that stagnate and die settle into equilibrium and harmony. Stability is less to be desired than resilience.

In postmodern culture, fluidity wins out over fixity. Instead of “structuring” and “ordering” and “solidifying” reality, cyberspace “bends” and “blends” and “melts.” Life is a fluid realm. But fluid does not mean “anything goes,” as any captain of a boat can tell you; fluid is a different kind of going.

Stability is the capacity of a system to return to equilibrium after it has been disturbed. Resilience is the “measure of the persistence of a system and its ability to absorb change and disturbance.” An organism’s adaptive response depends on its agility in getting outside of itself and seeing from different angle and patterns. Not to be able to get one’s way is a recipe for survival.

CHAORDIC LEADERSHIP ~ Change leaders and change teams operate on the boundary of chaos and order – or what Dee Hock, the man who created the trillion-dollar Visa credit-card empire, call the “chaordic” zone.

A “chaord” has been defined as “a self-organizing, adaptive, nonlinear complex system (whether physical, biological or social) that simultaneously exhibits characteristics of order and chaos, that exists between rigidity and flexibility.” The church is by its very definition a chaordic organism – an organic, free-form community driven by mission and responsive to it indigenous environments. The early church was almost a textbook definition of “chaordic”: fluid, flat, fast off its feet, and strong on it feet with control at the edges only.

Any network or partnership, any alliance or institution, can become “chaordic” if it in some ways fights the forces of order and planners and embraces change and chaos. Chaordic leaders see change and chaos as their friends, not enemies.

The most creative places in nature, where life is born and renewed, are “chaordic” zones. The most creative times in history are those hinge moments when chaos and order overlap. Historian Gordon Wood has argued that “the time of the greatest religious chaos” in America was also the time of the greatest “originality in American history.”

“Chaos theory” is a relatively small subset of the science of complexity. “Chaos” – or as Katherine Hayles puts it better, “chaotics” – is the study of systems that are so sensitive to minuscule influences that they appear random and capricious but aren’t. In fact, there is harmony amid the chaos, and stability can both inhere in and issue from disorderliness. “Universality” is an aspect of chaos theory that is overlooked but is perhaps its most important feature.

“Universality” means that transitions from order to chaos and vice versa are both predictable and universal. The lower the complexity, the higher the predictability. Transitions from order to chaos are the result of the increased complexity of a system.

Chaotics teaches us that if you add a little more chaos into a chaotic system you get order. In fact, physicists now believe that a little disorder can nudge organizations out of turbulence into order. This is the key theological insight of chaotics: sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The uniqueness of complex systems resides in the way in which small changes in a dynamical system can generate exponential outcomes, even divergent outcomes. Small changes in one world can create massive changes in another world.

What does all this stuff about “chaordic” and “chaotic” mean?

It means that unfathomable possibilities are at your fingertips at every moment. It means that what you do can literally change the world.

Don’t believe me? Try this thought experiment. Air molecules are colliding all the time in a room. Imaging God removing one electron from the edges of the universe. Its effect is to lessen the gravitational force on the air molecules bouncing in the room. After only 50 collisions, two molecules that would have collided if God had not removed that one single electron now miss hitting one another. After only a fraction of a second, the trajectories of two electrons are different because of God’s removing one electron at the edge of the known universe.

Still don’t believe me? Try this experiment. Set aside 15 minutes a day to read a book. Now calculate how many books that becomes in a year? Two dozen. How many books in a lifetime? On thousand – or five times what you read in college.

The church is missing the boat on what it means to be a leader. Our problem is not a need for leadership to add sanity and order to an insane, irrational system. The church is bursting at the seams with rationality, decency, order, dignity, and predictability.

What it needs is the holy intoxications of foolishness, humor, craziness, outrageousness, creative disorder and passion. T Scott Gross, whose book Positively Outrageous Service is a key look at the future, tells the story of an Italian restaurant that began its business by putting all its money onto one form of advertisement: randomly selection an evening every month when everyone ate free, without advance notice. Business is still booming.

Vinod Khosla, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, isolates the key to keeping Sun innovative: the ability to integrate and celebrate the “flakes” within the system. “You have to be willing to put up with some unusual people because some of the most creative people are very unusual.” Can your church celebrate those who are unusual, zany, “flaky”? Chaordic leaders call each of us to let the unusual in us out – to launch out into the deep, to lift anchor, to climb out on the edges, to live our passion. To forget moving mountains and try moving molecules, even at the outer edges of the known universe. Or in the words of the Bonaro Overstreet poem, “To One Who Doubts the Worth of Doing Anything If You Can’t Do Everything”:

You say the little efforts that I make
will do no good: they never will prevail
to tip the hovering scale
where justice hangs in the balance
I don’t think
I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
in favor of my right to choose which side
shall fell the stubborn ounces of my weight.

Scooting to the Top

Two stories to share here.

Story # 1
When we lived in Colorado, we would periodically drive up to the top of Pike’s Peak in the summer. You obviously can’t do it in the winter as the grated road is covered under several feet of snow above the tree line.

Back then (around 2000) we would pay about $10 per carload and travel the 19 miles of windy road to the 14,155-foot summit. I don’t remember how long it took, but it seemed like an eternity for going less than 20 miles. It always felt like a feat when we would finish the climb and get out of the car into the cold, thin air.

Story # 2
About 10 years ago, my brother’s father-in-law acquired a Vespa when he was in his 70’s. If you don’t know what that is, it’s one of those little Italian scooters that became more popular when gasoline peaked at 4+ dollars a few years ago.

His family called it “Hardly a Davidson.” He even had a helmet with the HD logo on it. The Vespa got him from point A to point B, but not with the same speed and comfort of a car, truck or even the real HD. Besides the lethargic pace it provided, he also had to endure a lot of people pointing and laughing.

Combining 2 Stories
Lately at Java Journey people ask us how we are doing. They most often mean that they want to know how business is progressing. I tell them that we are indeed making progress, but it is gradual and slow. Being non-profit and depending on volunteers and donations to operate, does not provide the means of quickly creating a cash flow that will bolster our endeavor. But that does not mean that we are not experiencing an ascent in our momentum. So I communicate this to the people who ask by way of illustration.

The only way I can give them a visual of Java Journey’s progress is to inform them that our pace is sort of like climbing Pike’s Peak with a Vespa scooter. We’re moving from point A to point B and we’re gaining altitude as we progress. But it’s hard to notice when the rest of the world expects rising to the top to happen with much more speed.

Once Again "Hand to the plow, hand to the plo...."

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

This is a border line scathing parody and what I see now each time I enter into one of these venues. Every form does not take long to lose its function. So - I exercise a more critical self-examination of our own methodologies.

The Rapture

So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." –Acts 1:6-8

The very last words Jesus uttered to his disciples represented a mandate and emphasis on being “witnesses” (a word which has its own fuzzy ideas today). His concern, as I understand, was for us to embody his truth in the way that we live day to day. They asked Jesus a question that would require him to provide details of what the completion of his reign would look like. He basically told them not to worry about it (“It is not for you to know…”). The irony of this event is what “two men dressed in white” say after they see the Lord becomes hidden from their sight: “ ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’ ”

“Come back in the same way” has become a model of specific MO for Jesus to simply shift gears into reverse and one day fulfill the sketchy details of 2 obscure passages sited to answer the question asked by the disciples that Jesus avoided answering.

There is a lot of talk among Christ followers today over end times and a curiosity called “The Rapture.” The derivation of the word comes from a Latin concept of “being caught up” – literally ascending into the air. The idea is based on 2 obscure passages of scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 and Matthew 24:29-31 (There are those who even split these 2 in dissecting eschatology, but I won’t follow this rabbit trail now).

How can so many hang their hat in regards to detail and characterization of eschatological matters on a handful of verses, when the whole issue of eschatology has such a multifaceted scheme throughout the rest of scripture? This is obviously a rhetorical question because it cannot be successfully answered.

If one took a per capita approach to detail with other passages, the “being caught-up” scenario of 1 Thess and the “gather/taken” of Matt. 24 would demand far less consideration. I’m not throwing that consideration out, but treating it in context with the characterization of other biblical scenarios. Unfortunately, such other passages (like 1 Cor 15:12-58) are crammed into the eisegetical plot created by biblical commentators beginning as recent as the 18th century and propelled in the 19th century by the likes of John Darby.

The rather lengthy theological train, left by Darby, continually hangs another hat on another passage (why should this scriptural potluck supper approach surprise me?) – namely 2 Tim. 2:15. Using the 1611 English translation used most often for this passage, it reads as follows: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (interesting how spell checker hiccupped on a couple of words here).

The rather clever and arrogant application of this has one taking all of God’s revelation and dissecting it into anatomical segments. The result is sort of like working a Rubik’s Cube where all the colors are mixed up but they actually belong neatly together. Just do an online search of “Dispensational Chart” and look at what is available out there. Print one out and see if you can discover the comprehensive clarity others have.

Sadly, this has resulted in many pulpiteers and Sunday School Quarterly readers – er I mean teachers, regurgitating this crafted contortion of God’s mysterious truth.

I decided to take a much closer look at this pivotal passage and have discovered that it is surprisingly closer to what Jesus really meant when he provided insight for his disciples in Acts 1.

“Rightly dividing” does not convey a segmenting of reveled truth but rather has a context which involves daily transformation. It has a progressive/procedural meaning from the Greek ὀρθοτομέω (orthotomeō). It has more to do with death to self and reigning with Christ, the context of which is provided in vv 11&12 and correlates with Heb 12:1-3 (Perseverance/fix).

“Study” does not have its academic/Western understanding. The word contains a meaning of diligence- perseverance – progressing. The same word is used in Gal 2:10 “Continue” (NIV; omitted in KJV) and in Eph 4:3 “Endeavor.”

Taking the concepts of the original language, we cannot come away with a Rubik’s Cube approach to God’s truth. In retranslating the verse, it should read: “Keep going to be an accurate representation as one who goes about the whole embodiment of truth without shame.”

I’m sure there are those who would have knee-jerk reactions to this exercise, but I truly believe that I have considered the context of Paul’s address to Timothy as well as the concepts conveyed in the words used in light of what Jesus teaches. Paul elsewhere addresses followers with these words from 2 Corinthians 3:1-3

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

How does this relate to the topic of focus? “The Rapture?” concept/dogma is a byproduct of taking the words of Paul to young Timothy as meaning a diligent academic focus combined with shuffling sections of God’s revealed Word over the ages into a constructed cube that dare not be disassembled – and then resting in the notion that God notarizes ones soul due to the effort. I believe that is the reason that you don’t see the same treatment of the complexity of I Cor 15. It would be like reducing a piece of paper past the 14th fold and cramming into the cube. It just won’t go, so it becomes a mere footnote, if anything.

Once again, I’m not discarding the possibility that the culmination of God’s Kingdom through the Messiah, Jesus, may result in a “caught up” scenario – and then again, it may not. I don’t know and I’m okay with that since Jesus said “…it is not for you to know…” Paul himself stated that we only know “in part” and that we will not fully know as we are now “fully known” until the culmination of all things.

It’s just that I believe that taking such an approach to God’s Word is the exercising of poor stewardship. If we isolate ourselves to highlight, copy and paste compliant passages to satisfy a constructed system, we neglect not only the essence of other passages of truth that don’t comply, but the salt and light principle the world needs to preserve its destiny.

Which takes us back to Jesus final words. His emphasis is on only living with the day to day opportunities we have as “witnesses.” Somewhere between putting a hand to the plow and not looking back – and – not worrying about tomorrow as each day has enough trouble of its own, is a thing called the present, otherwise known as “today.” Seems to me the increment of taking up the cross and following has a much similar frequency.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. ~1 Cor 15:58