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!

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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.

This semester has been an interesting one class-wise. I’m taking Dr. Stephen Johnson’s Preaching Skills and Strategies class. I have to admit, I wouldn’t want to take a preaching class with anyone but him. He gets the function of preaching. So often, preaching becomes about perfunctory presentation for the pew-sitters. Preachers, for fear of losing their jobs, have to placate the crowd, and especially their big contributors, if they want to keep a paycheck.

That’s just not how I see earliest preaching functioning.

Peter, Paul, Apollos, and more found themselves out in the market square gathering a crowd that believed in non-violently resisting the powers of systematic oppression in their society. It involved pointing to a hope that was beyond human ability (we can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps when we’re sinking in the quicksand of Sin). Christ’s resurrection was the focal point of the sermon’s hope in Acts, but rarely was it followed by an invitation song.

When I think about someone today who is doing biblical preaching, I think about Steve Connell. This is a guy who pounds the earth with gospel truth, and leaves everyone from Christians to lesbians to Communists nodding and shouting in agreement. His passion is mixed with his genius, and it remains on display for the world to see.

It sounds more like poetry or hip-hop than a heady lecture, and it deals with issues facing the world, (like climate change, the oil crisis, or slum lords), rather than the irrelevant issues most churches squabble over. Listen to this one to get a feel for what I mean:

Recently he and a few of his comrades came to ACU. Bruce George, Steve Connell and others can be found on HBO’s Def-Poetry. A highly provocative, free-flowing poetry SLAM! It has become a place for open expression in a culture that prioritizes brand-name conformity.

Stephen Johnson said in class last week that he saw Def-Poetry as the “future of preaching.” I’m inclined to believe him. He wants to spend the next 10-15 years of his career devoted to studying what this kind of preaching might do for churches, but more importantly, what it might do for the whole world.

Finally, someone got me thinking positive about preaching again. Way to go Dr. Johnson.

SITE UPDATE:  I’ve added a lot more resources to this site, including a blog “Resources” category that organizes all my posts that point you in the direction of helpful books, videos, music, and conferences.

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Today as part of my studies in Comps, I’m reading…

The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James

Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, by William P. Alston

Philosophy for Understanding Theology, by Diogenes Allen and Eric O. Springsted

and

Imagination and Authority: Theological Authorpship in the Modern Tradition, by  John E. Thiel

…all have been a stream of thought I usually don’t have a chance to swim in, but are always very intriguing.   What’s keeping my heart rate up however isn’t the reading material, its the Pandora audio!  Below is the cover image on James’ book; “Memory” by Elihu Vedder, a creative way to “picture” the varieties of religious experience.  I think about this passage of Scripture when I see it.

Fear of the future. Fear of change. Its easy to get trapped in fear with so much change going on around me. Entering my last semester of school, I’m amazed at how ethereal and theoretical most of my life has become. Now that graduation is in sight, I’m looking into what the future holds, and I have to say that all this practicality is a little unnerving.

For me, the danger is in finding my freedom from fear in my own prescribed guarantee of the future.

Prescribing is different than planning, or preparing. Its when I fall into deciding and prescribing who I will work with and what my paycheck will be that missing the mark in even the slightest bit becomes a complete failure in every respect.

Right now I’m looking for a job. Its my hope that I can get a job that fits in line with what I’ve been trained in and what I’m passionate about. Honestly, that limits my options pretty severely. Most guys with an MDiv are looking into working for a large mega church as a preacher, which regularly pulls 50-100 K a year. DANG.  As hard as this is to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”  Add the fact that I am really interested in Chicago and before you know it I’m SOL.

Now I know how the guy with a philosophy degree feels.

There are plenty of other, more exciting jobs out there for me. I’m finding them all the time. I found a few today in fact! The question is not, “Will I find a job?” But rather, “Will I keep my options open while looking for a job that allows for flexibility and God’s guidance?”

These are very humbling times for me right now. I’m going to be putting myself out there for quite awhile, and might have a stack of rejection letters before its all said and done. I’m not giving up - and at the same time I’m not setting myself up (for failure).

A future that is completely mapped out (read: wife, 2.3 kids, well-paying job in church planting/mission work right out of school, white picket fence) isn’t realistic at all, and much less fun. If my response to fears of life after graduation is to create a perfect life to fall into, I’m in danger of being rudely awakened.