Seeing Systems: Resources

Posted this on FB, but thought I'd capture it over here too. Blessings yall!

Lots of political, economic, social, cultural type posts flying through my feed recently, lots more from my Christian friends than I'm used to seeing.

I'm feeling very grateful for that, actually. 

It implies that we as a people are beginning to see more clearly that belief systems (ours included) can never be isolated to individual piety -- the way we act in the world and the societies we create come out of the paradigms we hold. 

But reading the world is incredibly challenging. News outlets share and react to events, but rarely penetrate much deeper. So, even people who believe similarly often come out on different sides of issues. We're stuck asking, "What the heck is actually going on and what does being a follower of Jesus have to do with it?" The tendency is to focus in on these events and the individuals who are involved in them, pin blame somewhere, and try to solve problems that way. Unfortunately, most of us realize that isn't really making any progress...

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some resources on systems thinking that have been very helpful to me in attempting to think through what's going on in the world. The iceberg model below will get you started.

creds to the Donella Meadows Institute

If you are interested in learning more about how almost everything that matters in the world is composed of interrelated systems, here are a few helpful links:

1) Exceptional series of talks by systems guru Donella Meadows, this links to the first of four (she comes in around 6:00):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg

2) Article by Meadows on identifying leverage points in systems (i.e. how to we figure out how to create change on a systems level? the iceberg pic below is based on this article)
http://www.donellameadows.org/…/leverage-points-places-to-…/

3) The Center for Ecoliteracy has some helpful, straightforward systems explanations:
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/systems-thinkinghttp://www.ecoliteracy.org/…/seven-lessons-leaders-systems-…

4) Our minds are a system...here's how they work, and how to think more clearly about the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sfiReUu3o0

5) PBS partnered with some great folks to create a K-12 systems literacy program filled with videos and resource...tons of gold here
http://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/systemsliteracy/

DISCLAIMER: The root word in radical--radic--means, you guessed it, "root." Systems thinking is a process for getting down to the root of things. When you do that, people will think you are a radical. And you might be, but if you do so in commitment to following Jesus yours will be a radicality of love, one that seeks the good of others, lifts up the marginalized and lays down self. 

5 Maps to Contextualize Discipleship (Part 2)

In the last post, I voiced my conviction that we cannot think about being Jesus' disciples outside of the concrete contexts we inhabit. I then introduced two "maps" to help us imagine our world. This post explores three more ways to view our contexts so that we can more faithfully follow our Lord and Savior.

3. Discipleship in the Three Dimensions of Social Location

How do we think of ourselves as a person in relation to any other person? Have you ever thought about that question? If you were to map humanity, how would you do it? Well, I'm sure there are a million ways to go about it, and many that would reveal things my graph does not. That said, I would like to propose one way I find helpful.

In the social matrix above, we can see that everyone has three different major characteristics.

1) Diversities ('x' axis):  In no particular order, we can list all the combinations of different kinds of people by gender, ethnicity, religion, age, etc.
2) Vocational Involvements ('y' axis):  Then we can list people by what they do and who they associate with. This could include organizing people by the sectors (public, private, nonprofit, community) they work in and/or volunteer with. It could also include the a persons social groups. Basically, we are trying to plot who a person's major areas of social connections.
3) Power ('z' axis):  Finally, everyone has different degrees of power in society mostly based on their job, economic status, relational connections, and/or political clout. Those with significant influence are plotted higher on the spectrum while those who are socially powerless would lie toward the bottom.

Why would we want this kind of social map? How, as Christians, do we evaluate what it shows us? We'll explore this in greater depth someday, but for now I will make two quick points.

First, Jesus radically reverses the way power works in our world. In the Kingdom, the poor inherit the world and the least servant becomes the greatest. Most dramatically, before the cross there is no power difference from one person to another. We are all equally in need of forgiveness and salvation. So, as we observe growing economic and political inequality, we have to throw up a red flag. Something is wrong with this picture.

Second, we have been tasked with the ministries of shalom and reconciliation. We are to heal the brokenness of the world and draw alienated people back into relationship with one another. As disciples who own this mission as ours, we can use this map to help us avoid becoming isolated in one narrow quadrant. Seeking peace in a divided world means connecting with diverse people and helping them connect compassionately with one another. The possibilities revealed in this little picture thrill me every time I look at it!

(though he moves in a slightly different direction, this graph was inspired by John Paul Lederach's amazing book The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace)

4. Discipleship in the Body of Christ

I started to draw a couple different pictures for this one, but wound up poking so many holes in my own theories that I decided to not even try. Suffice it say that as a disciples, we do not follow after Christ alone. We journey with a community of other followers. Like Jesus, these partners walk with us at varying degrees of intimacy. Jesus had the disciple "whom he loved," the inner three (Peter, James and John), the twelve, others like Mary, Martha and Lazarus who were his close friends, the seventy two, and even the masses. This will be case for our own journeys as well.

Today, we typically have our local church community that we do life with, but there are also many other Christians in our local area. These too are our partners in the practice of faith. Particularly when we consider how to seek the peace of our neighborhoods and cities, we must do so in collaboration not competition with our brothers and sisters. Outside of our local geography, there is the global church community in all its diversity. We must consider what it means to be a disciples within a church of many theological traditions, denominations and cultural expressions.

Someday, we will come back around to pondering this context of discipleship. But I must admit, it is one of the most difficult for me to comprehend. Just who is the Church? What is she supposed to be like? How do we do life together? How do we relate to those outside our communities? Where are we all headed? These are hard questions that should perhaps not be answered too confidently.

5. Discipleship in Time

Everything we have looked at so far attempts to capture what the world is like right now, in the present. This present is represented in the vertical axis in the picture above. But all people and places have a past and a future.

Our world is shaped from top to bottom by the actions and ideas of those who came before us. The plot of land my little apartment sits on was once a large raison-grape orchard. The landowner's mansion is now the administrative building for our seminary. How were the field workers treated on this property? Before it was cultivated, this part of the California Central Valley was run by Basque sheep herders. Prior to that, it was a grassland home to the Mono nation of Native Americans. How were these people treated when their land was colonized? How did events here lead to southwest Fresno becoming known as the "poor part of town where Latinos and Southeast Asians live?" How did the agricultural past of this valley lead it to be such an environmentally damaged land, starved of water and clean air?

Justice and the holy worship of God in the present has to deal with the sins of the past.

Not only do we have to deal with the sins of our fathers, we have to understand that the way we experience the world today emerges from a long series of previous events. My theological ideas sit on two thousand years of Christians wrestling with what it means to declare that there is one God who incarnated, lived, was crucified and resurrected in Jesus. My whiteness is a socially constructed concept that developed out of--among more positive things--several hundred years of white people exerting unjust power people of color. Simply stated, the history of our world matters if we are to understand and act appropriately in the present.

Finally, history is full of the saving action of God. Christianity is unique in that our faith is not based on a direct revelation of truth, but on God's actions throughout time. We see God active for his people and for justice in the "salvation story" of Israel. And, of course, we see God in history most clearly through the life of Jesus. For followers of Jesus, our present only makes since in terms of God's past activities that reveal his heart and liberating power.

However, the present is only partially understood through the past. As Christians, we have hope that this whole world is headed somewhere. There is an end to history--known as the "eschaton"--that brings meaning to our roles in this moment. It is a day when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. When we will be divided into sheep and goats based on our service to "the least of these." It is a day when our prayers shall be answered, because all shall be "on earth as it is in heaven." It is a day when the great and beautiful city will descend and all the nations of the earth will worship God in their own language, when every knee shall bow to the true Lord, and every tear will be wiped away. It will be a day of shalom.

The end reveals to us what God values, what he will recreate the world to be. As his followers, we share his values and live a life of love which inaugurates the eschatological New Creation today.

(this picture was inspired by Paulo Freire in Education for Critical Consciousness)

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These five maps provide the best representation of the many contexts within which our human stories play out that I have been able to come up with. I hope you found this introduction helpful. We'll go much deeper in the days ahead. For now, as I continue to unpack my concept of following Jesus, I would encourage you to think about how each element of discipleship plays out in your personal places, environments, social worlds, stories and faith communities.

5 Maps to Contextualize Discipleship (Part 1)

Two weeks ago, I introduced this model of discipleship that is helping me think about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But before I continue unpacking it, I want to pause.

I have been trying to develop a series of ideas on this blog that are progressing in the following order:

the gospel --> discipleship --> contextualizing discipleship

However, while my blog will move through them in that linear order, they are best understood as an action/reflection cycle. Liberation theologians refer to this as a Praxiological Circle. It begins when we encounter the world around us and the Word of God. As we reflect on how these relate to each other, we begin to act in the community upon our understanding. As we act, we fine tune our ideas and approach by reassessing the context and the Word. This process never ends. It is the manner of attempting to live faithfully in the world.

Therefore, it is essential that we reflect on our specific worlds as we think about discipleship. Our individual walks all happen within multiple overlapping and intertwined contexts: communities, places, systems, cultures, etc. So, how do we picture ourselves within this complex world? If we desire to genuinely embody, advocate and build toward a world of shalom, we have to understand how the world works.

I have been working on a series of "maps" to help us see ourselves within the wide web of life. Explaining my thoughts on all these might take a really long time...probably through the rest of 2015. However, I think these maps provide a vital backdrop for the life of discipleship. So, in brief, let's begin to plot out these ideas.

1. Discipleship in Places and Systems

Place matters.

We struggle to remember how true this is because the past several centuries have done so much to liberate us from the confines of our human particularity. With rationality and the scientific method, modern philosophers believed that universal principles could be discover that would free us from local contexts. Currently, we live increasingly digitized lives. Technologies allow us to connect instantly with people and events around the world, while simultaneously ignoring the person sitting next to us. Since we spend so much time disconnected from the physical places we live in, my generation is the most transient yet. We spend our time glued to screens and moving every few years, then wonder why no one is caring for the environment and why our cities seem so plagued with injustice.

If we want to know God, if we want to form our own identities, if we want to faithfully seek shalom we have to do escape our tendency to make these things abstract and spiritualized. Real stuff like bodies, nature and place matters to God and form the concrete contexts of our discipleship. When we follow Jesus, we do so with others in a particular, local place. The people, geography, cultures, aspirations, felt needs, assets, and histories of that place provide the the specific content of our life as Jesus followers.

The picture above attempts to show at least 3 things:
1) We follow Jesus with others in our particular locations. For many of us, that means a specific neighborhood.
2) Particular places exist within broader places. To understand this better, we'll look at systems theory and explore how each place is a "nested system" within a broader system. The dynamics of each of these domains interact with one another and create complex forces that must be reckoned with if we are to be strategic in the work of shalom.
3) Each place we inhabit is governed by three major, interlocking systems: the religious (or value-creating institutions), economic and political. As we begin to understand how the structure of these systems lead toward or away from shalom, our capacity to act strategically in our contexts is vastly improved.

Exploring the enormous implications in all that will be a lot of fun down the road!

2. Discipleship in the Environments

The places and systems described above provide a foundation that can be overlaid on this second map. At least five interwoven, interdependent and mutually influencing (as represented by the arrows) environments make up the milieu of our discipleship journeys. Let's look at each element in the picture above.

The Social Environment:  Though a picture needs to be provided for each of these, what I mean by this element most needs to be seen to be understood. The diagram below was developed by Dr. Randy White and Dr. H. Spees to explain the various institutions that collectively make up the organization fabric that gets stuff done in our civilization. The primary sectors it represents are the public, private, nonprofit/service and neighborhood/community.  It is particularly useful when trying to understand a social problem. It allows us to ask, "What institutional policies in one or more of these sectors contribute to this issue?" "What partnerships could be created across public, private and non-profit lines to address this issue?"

The Built Environment:  It has been a long time since we as a culture paid attention to the design of the places where we live. But we are discovering more and more that the design of the world we humans build has an enormous impact on the quality and content of our lives. The built environment includes all our buildings, homes, side walks, streets and public spaces like parks. But just as much, it  is about the way these things relate to one another. Consider these pictures of two differently designed cities. How would life differ from one to the other? How might shalom--reconciled relationships and just systems--be benefited or damaged in each context? What would community be like in each?

Cultural Environment:  Every place has a dominant culture, minority cultures and niche cultures. People usually inhabit more than one. Our culture shapes what we think is right and normal. It shapes our goals and how we have fun. It shapes our family life, how we worship and how we work. It shapes how we view the world. It shapes how we value (or devalue) those around us. Each person has their own cultural makeup, but we also live in places with diverse cultures and do life with and around other people with their own cultural perspectives. If we're going to be reflective disciples, we have to be culturally savvy. We have to become aware of the water we swim in and learn to see the world--to whatever degree possible--from other peoples perspectives. There are lots of ways to frame culture, but here's a fun one...the cultural iceberg!

The Natural Environment:  When most of our meals are passed through a car window and our days are spent between brick, mortal and asphalt it is easy to forget that we are not only dependent on the natural world, we are a part of it! In God's first command to humanity, he called us to steward his creation. Unfortunately, we haven't done such a great job of that. In fact, the distorted Christian doctrine that believes our world is just going to be burned up when God comes back has led us to treat nature as our slave instead of a gift from God to be cared for. As we seek to follow Jesus, our stewardship with the natural world is fundamental. When we take our relationship with creation serious, it reconnects all sorts of seemingly mundane activities to serving God like eating, flipping on the light switch and taking care of our yards. For a people who treasure a meal of bread and wine as a sacrament, this mentality should not be such a difficult leap. On a local level, the natural environment we interact with is called our 'watershed' or 'bioregion'. The picture below helps us imagine the landscapes we live in. "'The land is mine,' says the Lord" (Lev 25:23). When we love it, we love our God.

The Spiritual Environment:  What I do not mean to imply by 'spiritual environment' is that the four previous environments described above are not part of the 'spiritual' world. God is present and active in the real, physical world we all inhabit! So is Satan and the principalities and powers. In fact, Paul describes the political, economic and religious institutions of our world as a kind of quasi embodiment of spiritual powers--for good or evil. What I do mean is that there is a world beyond the physical stuff we can see, and it has a significant (though often difficult to discern) impact on all the other environments. How do we picture the 'spiritual environment'? I have no idea. But I believe it is real and must be considered a vital context of our discipleship journeys.

The black bar in the center of this map is supposed to represent a sideways view of the discipleship model. The point is that our discipleship happens smack in the middle of all these. Faithfully following Jesus means doing so in a manner sensitive these many contexts.


Thanks for reading Part 1! I'll post Part 2 on Wednesday with the next three 'maps.' 

Book Recommendations: Looking at Our Contexts

I've talked a lot over the past few weeks about contextual awareness and the importance of thinking theologically about our contexts. So, today I thought I'd throw out a few book suggestions that can take . This will be the first time of many that I share book recommendations, so if you're into that sort of thing, get excited. Today I have six for you, each in a different genre. Every one of these has helped me for peel back the layers of my own identity and the nature of this complex world. Enjoy :)


Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World,  Paula Harris & Doug Schappe (Christian ethnic studies)

Most white people I know who have struggled with "our place in a multiethnic world" pass through a few stages in this journey, moving from ignorance, to shock, to highly self-critical, and hopefully at last into a stage of rebuilding. This book was a significant gift to me when I was trying to move through these last couple stages and recapture the good in my white identity. 

Harris and Schappe wrestle with what it means to be white when it is white people have been the perpetrators of much of the world's colonization, exploitation and oppression over the past several centuries. What does it mean to have this history and yet be made in the image of God? What things must we leave behind about our heritage, and what things can we celebrate? Their treatment of these questions and others is splendid--a very healthy blend of the prophetic and pastoral.



A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present,  Howard Zin
(History)

The English historian Thomas Carlyle claimed that history is the biography of great individuals. Zinn disagrees. He thinks that it is not history itself, but the stories of history we have been telling about history that are about so called "great individuals." And it's time we tell better stories. 

A People's History tells each era of America's past from the perspective of the powerless: the indigenous peoples, African slaves, women, Chinese immigrants, and so on. It is often a sobering account, revealing how expansive the oppression that sullies our nation's history actually is. But they are stories we need to hear in order to honor those who have been trampled by "great individuals," to gain a more accurate and less romantic view of the United States, and to fight against repeating these injustices in our generation.



Churches, Cultures and Leadership: A Practical Theology of Churches and Ethnicities,  Mark Lau Branson & Juan E. Martinez
(Multicultural Christian Leadership)

Branson and Martinez lay down a substantial challenge to church leaders. They call us to consider what the call of the gospel is for the Body of Christ that has been fractured for so long on ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic lines. They do a great job of melding theological reflection with the social sciences in the effort “to help men and women in our churches to see differently and to gain the skills and competencies needed for multicultural contexts.”

I was particularly helped by their identification of the founding myths of American culture. As the authors point out, “majority-culture evangelicals do not have the proper tools to understand the dynamic of race relations in the United States.” This book is a powerful effort to make up that gap, not only through its own contributions but also through the wealth of outside resources they point to.




Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation,  Randy White
(Christian Community Development)

Randy White is one of my professors at seminary--a large part of why I chose the seminary that I'm at--and someone to whom I am greatly indebted both personally and educationally. In this book he challenges his readers to "see" the city with new eyes, to see it with the love of God and to acquire God's vision and hope for its future. 

One of the best parts about this book, and the reason why I am including it on this list, is actually in the appendixes where White lays out a comprehensive strategy for assessing the characteristics of urban contexts. No matter how long you have lived in a place, follow his steps and learn more about the world around you than you ever imagined exists.



The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,  Leslie Newbigin
(Missiology)

This book is amazing. Newbigin--who is famous for returning from years as a missionary in India and taking a missionary's eye to Western culture--accomplishes more with greater brilliance in each chapter than in most books I've read. I took it one a solo camping trip last May, staked up by a river and totally lost myself in his writing as my paradigms were blasted over and over.

Part contextual analysis, part philosophical treatise, part apologetics, part theological system, part missiological imperative for the modern church--buy, steal or borrow it and learn something amazing.

Learning About Theology from the Third World,  William Dyrness
(Contextual Theology)

For most of the Church's history, theology was written within the fairly culturally homogeneous confines of Western Europe by white men. Over that time, the generally accepted sources of theological reflection were scripture, tradition, reason and religious experience, weighted in that order within Protestantism. As the Christian faith has spread to every nation on the planet we have had to realize that culture has a significant impact on our interpretation of the bible, allowing us to "see" or miss various messages from the same stories.

 This book has contributed to my beliefs on how to "do theology" (which I talk about here) more than any other. Dyrness identifies four different ways that people use Scripture and context together to generate theology, and offers what I have found to be a highly insightful approach which allows us interweave the two while still giving a healthy prioritization to the text. The end result is a theological process that offers critique to both cultural forms that err from the ways of Jesus and overly parochial theologies that fail to speak into the lifeworld of particular peoples.  

We're (Not) All the Same

In my last post, I critiqued a major stumbling block in American culture--the idol of success. Today I'd like to address a couple other factors that get in the way of effective shalom work. 

I was recently introduced to an inspirational quote by self-help author Marianne Williamson that seems to fairly accurately represent the middle-to-upper-class ethic of leadership in the US. She says:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This sounds so good, so inspirational, and borders enough on truth to be convincing. I don't know much about Marianne. She seems like a nice, well intentioned person who has made quite a career off of self-help spiritual writings. I don't mean to pick on her, but because this quote captures two key elements of American mythology based in the same erroneous theme, I'm going to use it. 

The problematic idea both elements grow out of is this: we're all the same.

Who Are "We"?

Like a good motivational speaker, Williamson makes use of the universal "we/us/our." She generalizes that everyone essentially has the same fears, desires, and destinies.

Part of the American narrative is the expectation to conform. Even though the cry of personal liberty has been on our lips since the earliest days, the melting pot metaphor held great sway over our corporate imagination and continues to influence our expectations for cultural deviants. There were always founding American ideals that all were expected to align.


But all people are not the same. Even though we want them to be, there are huge difference among us. Differences in cultural, ethnic, religious, gender, and even experience are fairly obvious, and I've talked about them in the past. However, in her opening words, I think Marianne is trying to point to something about human nature that transcends these things.

The problem is that she gets it wrong. She speaks as though all people essentially want the same things and fear the same things. But this simply isn't true. The Enneagram is perhaps the most helpful tool for identifying the variety of deep yearnings and fears held by people with different personalities. If you have never looked into it, I strongly encourage it.

Ironically, though Williamson thinks everyone is really just scared of their own power, as a Enneagram Type 1 personality my deepest fear literally is that I am inadequate!

What does this mean for leaders? It means that we must honor difference. Diverse elements functioning together in synergy is a universal principle for vibrancy and effectiveness. This shows up everywhere from city planning (The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs is the bible of progressive urban planning and is totally based around this idea) to healthy ecosystems (check this out).  It's even in the bible (Rom 12:4-5).

We cannot impose our vision or aspirations on others. We have to create collaborative environments that draw out the dreams of all and foster contexts in which all are able to connect with God and draw on their gifts to overcome their personal fears, freed to follow Jesus in community.

How do we Get There?

Williamson declares that we are all meant to shine as children do, that this is not something only a few a meant to enjoy but that it is intended for all. Amen! That is a beautiful line and very reminiscent of the vision of shalom I am trying to paint with this blog. 

But, how does she suppose this will come about? And is this the same way Jesus put forward? This is most often the point at which a Christian worldview diverges from the secular world. We may all agree that world peace or any other form of justice is a great thing, but our methodologies stem from radically different sources.

The first principle she offers is to embrace our power and exercise it. Is this good? Well, yes and no. Power is sticky language. Power is exactly what the marginalized have had stolen from them and what needs to be redistributed. However, it is also the misuse of power that generates oppression. It true that all people are meant to shine. However, there is a degree of self-aggrandizing triumphalism in the approach to this end which ignores the fact that our society’s power differentials and systematized oppression have created an uneven playing field. 

Once again, we cannot act like everyone is the same because power is not evenly distributed in our world. Everyone--to our shame in this instance--is not the same.

For many, the call to embrace their power and stand tall may be an important and true message. Many have been oppressed, silenced and dismissed. Though there are times when this is not possible because of tyrannical injustice, it is a beautiful thing when people can embrace their dignity and the inherent power they have as a human being to regain their rights. This was the story of women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement, for two examples. 

However, our culture is rather adept at stockpiling power (in a variety of forms) in the hands of the few. For the powerful, this is not a message for them to embrace. Let me explain why after pointing out the other side of Williamson's methodology.

Her second strategy for helping everyone shine comes through these words: 

"there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you...as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

To claim that if I just pursue my own success others will naturally be lifted with me is--sorry for being harsh--a gross lie wrapped in a silver lining. A rising tide, as mountains of data confirm, does not lift all boats because we live in a world where the people with the best ships have built retaining walls around their neighbors’ boats so that the water cannot reach them.

We must not forget that it is far easier for some to stand tall than for others. As a man, I have to realize that I have been socialized to assert my opinion in public settings more naturally than many women. The "brighter" I shine, the more I may intimidate them into silence. As a white person in America, I have to realize that I am awarded inequitable privilege that my friends of color are deprived of.

Jesus taught that self-sacrifice is the way of the Kingdom. Leadership for the Christian is not about naively seeking our own welfare in the belief that our success will be other's
salvation. Verse after verse drives this message home. The gospels alone are enough to unsettle our whole conception of how to live in this world:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit...those who mourn...those who hunger...who are persecuted." Matt 5:3-10 

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matt 5:44 

"Whoever becomes like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matt 18:4 

"My Father, if this cup cannot pass by without my drinking it, your will be done." Matt 26:42 

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." Mark 8:34-35 

"If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Mark 9:35 

"Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate." Luke 6:36 

"For all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted." Luke 14:11 

"Father, I commit my life into your hands." Luke 23:46 

"I can do nothing by myself. As I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me." John 5:30 

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24 

"The words I say to you I do not speak as from myself: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work." John 14:10 

"When you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go." John 21:18

The lens of Christ's life, the ethic of the Kingdom of God, flips the world's wisdom upside down and shows us the true way for all to shine. How exactly to hold these two themes of empowerment and servanthood in tension, when to know which should apply and who it should apply to, I am not sure. I only know that this is what God is asking us to do.

A Word of Agreement

There is one thing I want to strongly affirm from Williamson's quote: she has an abundance mentality. 

Most of us bring a scarcity mindset to the table. We see limited resources and just try to figure out what the best way is to distribute them. As leaders we can do better. Look for ways to reject power mongering attempts to slice ourselves the biggest piece of the pie and instead divvy things up more equitably is great, but let's not stop there. Most things in the world that relate to wellbeing are not fixed assets--love, for example. Abundance minded leaders are always exploring ways to bake bigger pies. 

Success-ism

In her typically poignant way, Mother Teresa said: "We are not called to be successful, but faithful." 

That's powerful stuff, but when I hear that from her I want to say, "Ok, Mama T, that's good and all, but you still ended up being a pretty dang big deal. Even though you might say you weren't successful because Calcutta is still in rough shape and all, you have personally been canonized as a saint and are basically a celebrity. I'd call that pretty darn successful."

I have all the love in the world for Mama T, but this quote meant more to me when I heard it restated by a ninety year old pastor who had ministered in obscurity among the poor of Bryan, Texas his whole life, at times preaching to no one but his wife and kids on Sunday mornings. Speaking about himself, he admitted that, "I am called not to be great, nor to be successful, but faithful."

Honestly, that's the harder piece for me. I can accept that I may not be successful in accomplishing my goals (eradicating all pain and injustice is honestly a bit out of my pay grade), but so long as people know who I am and think I'm awesome I would be fine. Being thought of as great is all the success I need. At least that's what insecure Nathan thinks. And unfortunately I'm not that unique. 

We live in a world where from the time we're a baby (see picture) we are told that not succeeding is failing and if you're failing you're worthless. If the company's profit margin doesn't expand you're out of a job. If the nonprofit doesn't have huge numbers to show the funding dries up. If the church doesn't grow the doors might as well close. If you're single you're obsolete. If your kids don't get A's you must be a terrible parent. And in these and too many other ways our culture shames us. 

One of the problems with a focus on success is that it tends to grow out of a need to appear impressive. We are constantly comparing ourselves to the next person and terrified they won't think we are special. 

My fiancée went to Yale where she made some VERY impressive friends, by most any standard. They work everywhere from Wall Street to Capital Hill, and honestly do some awesome stuff. Every time we are about to meet one of her friends, I'm terrified. I go into Mr. Inadequate mode and start stacking myself up against them: grew up in small town Nowheresville, went to a state school, grades were only so-so, haven't worked anywhere anyone's ever heard of, broke, etc. These folks are consistently as sweet as could be, but because American culture tells me they have been more successful than me, I usually just want to crawl in a hole. 

Worthiness--that sense of deep acceptance and love for one's self--is a precious commodity in our culture. Few of us have it and most are fighting to attain it through the misconceived notion that it lies "out there" somewhere. But it doesn't. It is right here, present in the beauty of who God created us to be and in the unconditional, unshakable love he has for us. We are already worthy but are terrified to live into it, wounded too many times by those around us who can't see this glorious reality.

It's not hard to see why leadership gets messed up when we're constantly on the lookout for our next best shot at feeling worthy. Steven Covey said great public leadership begins with the intentional leadership of one's own life. A life led by insecurity, always driven to gain acceptance, be enough, fit in, and gain respect or love simply can't discern the correct decisions that will provide long term benefit for others. If we want to lead toward shalom, we have to accept the paradoxical truth that success is not our goal. Following Jesus is.

The cross--God's strange strategy to allow his own murder so that the world he so loved would be saved--is the greatest critique ever leveled at a life strategy aimed at greatness or success. Read the opening verses of Philippians 2 again and think about how success as our culture defines it jives with the example of Jesus:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I'll conclude by throwing a few quotes your way from Father Greg Boyle*, a man who continues to walk through life alongside gang members in LA:

"Salivating for success keeps you from being faithful, keeps you from truly seeing whoever's sitting in front of you...If you surrender your need for results and outcome, success becomes God's business." 

"Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes)--that didn't end in the Cross--but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity than the one he embraced." 

"Sr. Elaine Roulette, the founder of My Mother's House in New York, was asked, 'How do you work with the poor?' She answered, 'You don't. You share your life with the poor.' It's as basic as crying together. It is about 'casting your lot' before it ever becomes about 'changing their lot.' Success and failure, ultimately, have little to do with living the gospel. Jesus just stood with the outcasts until they were welcomed or until he was crucified--whichever came first." 

*quotes from Tattoos on the Heart

Reading and Responding to Contexts

Wassily Kandinsky, "Concentric Circles" 1913.

In the last post I expressed my conviction that the world is now a "glocal" place requiring multivalent contextual awareness for effective leadership. But how exactly do we tap into the culture's worldview? More difficult still, how do we connect with those people who are at culture's leading edge? The Church has had a bad habit of responding to the questions people were asking 20 years ago with the kind of answers that made sense to people 50 years ago. How do we attune our minds to those shaping our culture's future so that we can have answers for our neighbors' questions before they even start asking them? (recapturing and reimagining the role of culture creating in post-Christendom America is a can of worms for another day!)

First of all, we will benefit from seeing that this task moves beyond awareness of current events. Knowing what is going on is important, and there's a slew of things in the news right now that the church needs to have Jesus shaped responses to. However, if our awareness of the culture is only as deep as the constant stream of news and people's reactive commentary on it we will remain stuck within the culture. By doing so we forfeit our right/ability to see its presuppositions, offer prophetic critiques, appropriate Good News and deeply relevant pastoral care.

Francis Schaeffer was a master cultural interpreter and apologist, and my first introduction to this task. In The God Who is There he explains how existentialist philosophy (specifically its dismissal of absolutes and sense of despair) progressed through Western culture. From his perspective, they cascaded in the following order:

Philosophy
---------------
                  |  Art
                   -------
                            |  Music
                             -----------
                                          |  General Culture
                                           ------------------------
                                                                        |  Theology
                                                                         -----------------


I think he needs to pay more attention to the historic events (usually driven by technology, economics and contact with some new "other") and shifts in the actual contextual forms and functions themselves that move philosophers to articulate new thoughts. But I agree that this is a fairly apt (though perhaps overly linear) portrait of how a cultural worldview shift takes place.

As Schaffer describes it, the church's problem was that it was too absent from spaces where people were asking the questions and experimenting with the ideas that eventually eroded modernism. We weren't hanging out at the exhibits where Dada artists acted out their beliefs on life's absurdity. We weren't listening to the music they listened to or reading the books they read. Far from shaping the conversation, we were not even at the table.

So we became irrelevant. And it's a practice we are still repeating.

Most Christians still struggle to understand what it means to be postmodern or "late Modern" (myself included!) even though the key bards of postmodernism (Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, etc) are all dead, and the ideas they offered have mostly had their way at the general culture level by this point. A new wave of thinkers is already writing and painting and filming and singing away while we continue to be mired in the questions of the previous generation.

My point in saying these things is not that every leader needs to be reading the latest philosophy books. We don't. Most contemporary philosophy books coming out will never take hold and it is impossible to know what will except in retrospect twenty years from now.

Rather, I am trying to affirm and intensify Karl Barth's charge that as pastors, theologians, community developers, and Christian leaders of all stripes we must hold the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. We need to see the big picture, the megatrends, the worldview/philosophical perspective that the majority share, tapping into the ideas innovators are pushing at culture's leading edge when and where we can.

My seminary professor Dr. Brian Ross offers three suggestions for understanding what he calls "the secular mindset":

1) Be friends with secular people and listen to them. Not in a creepy, you are only friends with them because you have an agenda kind of way. Just a normal friendship where you have fun together and share about the stuff that matters to each of you. But pay attention and note those ideas that seem to emerge from a different source than your beliefs.

2) Look into the founding "myths" of the culture. Whether it is a macro-culture like America (City on a Hill, a Christian nation, the American Dream, the land of opportunity, the Founding Father stories, the King Arthur tales, etc) or a micro-culture like the local craft brewery scene (Hipster ideals, local economy, environmental concerns, etc), every niche has narratives--some we are only subconsciously aware of--that provide the backdrop for our concepts of the the world, how to act in it and what the good life is. Researching these backgrounds helps us identify the presuppositions people in the culture are walking around with, even if they can't identify what they are for themselves.

3) Read what people are reading in the philosophy/english/sociology classes at the local universities, watch popular movies, definitely watch indie movies, listen to secular music, play secular video games, etc. As you watch/read/listen/interact with these media, consider the two basic questions that Howard Thurman claims all humans ask: "Who am I?" and "What am I here for?" At some level, we are all trying to figure out what it mean to be human and what our purpose in life is. What answers are the films and books and songs offering to these questions? To what fundamental longings or problems do the answers relate? Get together with some thoughtful friends and have fun with this one.


Once some categories begin to emerge, it is time to consider...

A) How Jesus' Kingdom culture might speak prophetically to the context

and

B) What the gospel (good news) might be for this context (Note: it may be different than what has always been good news for us; that's ok, God is more than big enough).


There's several gospel and culture related posts in the pipeline, so stay tuned. But in the meantime, I'd love to hear what you think.

The Glocal Planet

Effective leadership takes contextual thinking, but which context are we supposed pick or at least prioritize? 

For community developers, contextual analysis--what urban missiologists Randy White and Ray Bakke refer to as "urban exegesis"--is the backbone of effective, dignifying justice work. But this world is complex and intimately interconnected, so though stringent attention must be paid to the particular place and people whose shalom we are seeking, we will wind up with misunderstandings and missed opportunities if our focus becomes too narrow. 

Every cultural context is a system with its own players, rules, goals, and "flows" (which can be anything from information to power...more on the leadership/shalom insights from systems theory in future posts!). And every system is embedded within larger systems, and usually contains smaller systems within itself. 

The classic example comes from people: a cell is a system inside an organ, which is a system embedded within an organ system, embedded inside a human being who is a system functioning inside an environmental systems of with other living and nonliving things.

Cultures function the same way--now more than ever.

“We are rapidly becoming one global world in which events in one part of the world immediately affect the rest of the world” (The Gospel in Human Contexts). This process is called “glocalization,” and its effects are everywhere: from the seemingly spontaneous and distributed protests described in my second post, to the fact that even an introvert like me has Facebook friends on every continent, to the cup of coffee I'm drinking made from beans from the other side of the planet. 

Glocalization is the reason why when I was staying with Mongolian nomads in a valley they claimed no American had ever visited the teenagers were listening to Lady Gaga on Mp3 players. Its also the reason why I can walk a couple blocks from my apartment in Fresno and eat at a South East Asian fusion place where I'm the only one who doesn't speak Hmong.

The stories in the "Global" section of the newspaper have a direct impact on my neighbors. And that makes leadership complex.

We must be aware of events on global, national, local, personal and even situational scales and formulate our theology and methodologies against their backdrops. The phrase: "Think global, act local" is at least three fourths right. Local particularities take precedence in our choice of initiative and strategic approach, but we must always do so against the broader glocal backdrop. 

What do you say? How would you challenge or nuance these comments?

----

This is a loosely connected rabbit trail, but it's fun for me to think about. I hold to the perspective that historical shifts such as the rise of "glocalization" are primarily driven by technological advances and economic interests. Globalization began with colonization for economic expansion, and was accelerated by advances in transportation and communications technology. The experience of global warfare and the advent of nuclear weaponry created a shared global consciousness, an integration of human fate to which Dr. King was particularly attuned (see Strength to Love and Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?). The introduction of the internet continues to radically accelerated these trends. Contextual transformations occur first and are only then followed by reflection which produces fresh philosophical and theological thinking, and eventually, worldview shifts.

Context and Theology

The current state of our nation has left us demanding leaders who can see an alternative future to the violence, inequality and prejudice that has plagued our land since it was first settled by Europeans, and who have the capacity to guide us toward more peaceful shores. 

But what does it mean to be a leader in the present context and how should one lead? As Christians, what unique perspective and approach do we bring to the task? 

Cities, home to over 70% of the US population, are compression tanks for the best and worst of human civilization. Those among us who wish to lead in America’s highly contested inner cities must find constructive means for facing our culture’s pathologies head on. 

As I said in my first blog, it is significant for me to bear down with even greater specificity when considering these questions, agreeing with Henri Nouwen that “my life belongs to others just as much as it belongs to myself and that what is experienced as most unique often proves to be most solidly embedded in the common condition of being human” (Reaching Out). 

As a man from the dominant culture, the people group who has been (and is often still) a source of oppression to ‘outsiders’ at home and all over the world, ethical questions abound when considering myself in a role of power. What do the socially constructed implications of my whiteness mean for leadership in diverse urban settings? 

Some commentators question the possibility that white leadership and justice are compatible concepts. Even when ostensibly on the side of justice, our record is spotted as James Cone points out. “From the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century to the recent civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s, whites demonstrated that they cannot follow but must always lead” (God of the Oppressed). 

These are difficult questions that must not be pushed aside.

Our perspective of leadership at any level grows from the soil of each person’s worldview. As Christians, this is necessarily a theological task. Cultivating a worldview that creates a paradigm for Christlike action is the task of theology. And theology is at its best when it “arises from the missionary encounter between Scripture, the Christ of Scripture, and our particular setting” (check out Learning Theology from the Third World). I am convinced that our thoughts on leadership--and, subsequently, the actions which our thoughts produce--will achieve their greatest degree of clarity when developed within a dialogical relationship between culture and scripture. Scripture has critiques and affirmations for all cultures as it sifts through those elements that reflect the will of God and those that have deviated from him. Contextual theology, therefore, will both be shaped by the context and shape it in return. 

Furthermore, this methodology of context based theological reflection is as much about arriving at appropriate ideas as it is about a process of discipleship for the theologian. “The truth of Scripture has to be worked down into the fabric of our lived worlds, and this takes place only through struggle and interaction with the actual problems of life.” 

In the next few posts, I'll look at a few of my own contexts and note ways that I need to be transformed out of them in order to be an effective agent of God's shalom. These may not be the contexts most relevant for you, but I hope as I wrestle with them you will find a model for addressing your own backgrounds with a biblically critical eye. 

Contexts in Conflict

In the past few weeks we have all watched as protests broke out in cities across the United States. The immediate causes began on November 24 when Darren Wilson (the white police officer who shot and killed unarmed African-American Michael Brown) was acquitted. 

A week and a half later, another white officer was set free by a Grand Jury despite his illegal choke-hold killing of Eric Garner in New York this summer. The death was captured on camera, and our internet-ified world accomplished the bizzare feat of sending a murder video viral. 

I watched it. 

Garner’s gasped out plea, “I can’t breath!” has become a slogan of for protesters along with the tragically basic statement “Black Lives Matter.” That second phrase particularly breaks my heart. For an entire group of people to have to remind their country that they are human is shameful. 

Michelle Alexander's whistle blowing book The New Jim Crow published a few years ago was a slap in America's complacent, self congratulatory "color blind" stance toward race issues. The events of the past couple years have forced people like me to recognize what people of color have always know...

...that African American mothers still have to have conversations about staying safe from the police that white mom never thought about with me.

...that our criminal justice system remains a deeply broke institution unjustly targeting, imprisoning and retaining people of color in a permanent under caste.

...that the benefits of our social and economic systems remain tilted away from our nation's historically marginalized peoples.

We continue live in a racialized society. That much is now undeniable. But the US is not alone in allowing our differences to define us in the wrong ways. The majority of wars since WWII have been intrastate rather interstate, sparked by inter-ethnic tensions. Not to ruin anyone's day, but next to outright racial oppression and the violence it precipitates we can place inequality soaring to the highest levels since the Great Depression (i.e., tied for worst ever), the menagerie of social justice issues that routinely accompany this brand of poverty, and ecological destruction and climate change.

[Pause: It is a highly problematic thing for me to engage this subject matter as a white, educated, Christian male from a very comfortable background. I reek of privilege. Though I will be engaging these themes a good deal in the days ahead, for now I just want to acknowledge how difficult, painful and divisive this all can be. Though I yearn to overcome these inequities and stand in solidarity with people of color though the fight, I know I cannot claim to share or comprehend their experience. Only the truth and love of God can guide us to a future that transcends such deeply entrenched injustice.]

So what's my point? Simply to reassert what we all intuitively know: the world is not as it should be. Shalom yet evades us. 

But this is not our story's end. God is at work refashioning beauty out of brokenness, and he has invited us to join his restorative mission by leading others into his New Creation. We are called to be a force of constructive transformation for a world and its people still worth loving.

God is mighty. Our hope is real. A task lies at hand.