Well, we just finished packing ALL our stuff into a huge trailer that my mom brought down from Indy.  Its sort of a humbling feeling thinking about all that’s about to happen, as well as all that has happened.  I was thinking the other day – Katrina and I have lived in Abilene for a full seven years (that almost sounds biblical!).  We’ve grown so close to so many friends, great friends, the best of friends.  The kind of friends that are there forever – the kind of friends that will get ultra sweaty (or were okay with me even after I got ultra sweaty) to help you pack a trailer in the middle of the blazing heat.

There is something special about the friends you make in college.  Those you get connected with as you live in the dorms together, eat in the cafeteria day in day out, work college jobs, pull some pranks, and so much more…it seems that those who are with you for all of that are the closest friends that last all your life.

Thank you guys for your awesome help today.  Thanks for seven awesome years of memories I’ll never forget.  Thanks for your love in Christ.  And as always…

BE RIGHT OUT!!!

Two weeks ago I was graduating with my masters. One week ago I was back in the classroom. Yeah, I’m asking the very same question you are! “WHY!?!?”

ACU was “nice enough” to let me graduate 3 hours short of my degree, so long as I took and passed a summer one-week intensive course. I naturally picked a class right after my regular semester ended, to get the course completed as quickly as possible. I chose “Emerging Culture & Emerging Churches” with Dr. Chris Flanders. Flanders got his Phd from Fuller Seminary, and before that was a missionary and church planter in Thailand. Since he’s been in Abilene, he’s joined the chorus of professors describing the postmodern shift, but he alone seems to think that such shifts might at all change how and what church looks like.

The class was very engaging, and also very affirming. It helped me think through some of the principles of thought in postmodernity (reading philosophers like Derrida, Foucault, Caputo, etc) and then talking about what that might mean for communities of faith. We looked at churches trying to explore a post-foundationalist theology…all very heady, but also very interesting stuff.

One big take away was an axis continuum Flanders showed us from Mary Douglas. It looked something like this:

Grid and Group Theory:

The two axes, Group, and Grid, show the progress of institutions (which was defined as a coordinating group of any kind) as growing inevitably and increasingly higher in “Grid”. The higher you go in Grid, the more structure and levels of authority there are. The rules and roles are more clearly defined. The other axis, Group describes the degree to which the collective controls the individual and degree to which people are bonded to particular social units – the sense of “family” the group feels.

Church examples of each: Hierarchy (Catholic Church), Authoritarian (Roman Religion; Emperor is God), Individualism (consumerist mega-church Christianity), and Egalitarianism (Quakers).

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about this chart. Hearing that communities, the longer they are together, always move “up grid” and wake up one day a huge franchised corporation did not settle well with me. But is it possible to be meaningful, to make a difference that matters, while not selling your soul? Where do you find the balance so that lives can be changed, while remaining as structurally flat as possible to keep remain centered on mission and people rather than on preserving the institution.

What if instead of a chain of command (a la Roman Catholic Church), there was a web of relationships. Individuals networked together for the common good. Organic, family-style churches networked together as a coalition in a local context. Servant leaders of these church networks that network together to work as a resource to one another and provide training for new leaders that focus on a region. As church networks grow, is this a potential way to go “up grid” without having to distribute power to individuals, but rather power to communities? What am I missing here? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This might be a little “heady” but its been on my mind for awhile now and I’ve got to put it somewhere! Plus, now that I’m almost done with my Maymester (tomorrow is my very last day of graduate school!) I’ll need to get back into the habit of regularly adding content here. Hope to see you again soon!

—-

Fractals are everywhere. From the largest of galaxies to the smallest snowflake, fractals are the code of the universe. Every living thing or dynamic system takes a fractal form. Fractals are based on simple mathematical equations that contain unending diversity. The patterns are determined by a simple rule in a series of repetitions that feed back on itself new information.

Starting with a simple building block (a human cell, a coordinates in a computer) these repetitions unleash a creative potential for infinite complexity. Fractal art is one large shape made up of many smaller shapes that reflect, but are not identical to, the bigger picture. Each one of those small shapes is made up of even smaller shapes that look like it! This characteristic is called “self-similar.” To fully appreciate the power of fractal art, you must experience it. Check it out in this corny video here:

The genetic base of an acorn gives the crucial information needed for the fractal equation found in cell division to help catalyze the growth of a tree. The DNA of this seed will grow an oak tree, and not a dogwood or a squirrel. There are boundaries for fractals, and yet, when watching the process, it can only be described as chaotic.

The fractal process for development in the Church is discipleship. Discipleship is the repetitive feedback to the DNA of Christ. Jesus Christ is the incarnate God, who expressed perfectly what it means to live and follow after God as a human. He was the seed planted on the earth that contained within it everything necessary for the diverse Church to grow. It is through discipleship to Christ that the Church is able to clearly see both the limits set on what it means to be the people of God, and the capacity for wild, chaotic, uncontrollable diversity.

The Church is a living, breathing, organism; the second incarnation of God on earth. As the Body of Christ, it is composed of trillions of localized cells, of which there are countless different types each doing the work it was designed to do. It is a system, a network of disciples each holding within them the very love and person of Christ. To the degree that this system can effectively access its DNA, it can grow and nurture itself in healthy ways. This is done through the practice of love.