Are We Delusional?
February 26, 2009
There has been some good private discussions going on about “experts” (in general) who pontificate on all thing missional yet don’t model it in their own lives. Michael Frost once said:
It is not any longer possible…that we sit in some command center telling other people how to go forth. I’m speaking in particular to those of you who are clergy. You cannot preach about, encourage or motivate or mobilize people into mission unless you model what missional proximity looks like. You cannot sit in some ivory tower spending days and days preparing sermons which are seeking to motivate people into mission unless you yourself are prepared to embrace that similar commitment to proximity. Do you follow what I’m saying? I’m not just talking about proximity like “our building is on the street corner on the main street with a gigantic sign and everyone knows that we are there.” I’m talking about personal, relational, and geographic proximity to people.
There is a wonderful place for dialog around the missional movement, but we all need to be doers as well as talkers and listeners — especially church leaders and those who hold themselves out to be authorities on the subject. Reminds me of what James told us, “Prove that you are real. Put the word into action. If you think hearing is what matters most, you’re delusional…” (James 1:22, The Voice).
This is one reason we want to see stories shared here at Missional Tribe. Please share what you are doing, not just what your you are thinking.
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February 26th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I assume your last line should read: “not just what you are thinking.” Good point. The church is full of great talkers. But thinking is also doing. The mind is part of our lives in action. If we act without thinking, or without testing ideas, we end up in a ditch. In times like these, communities are particularly likely to run around screaming, “Do Something! Now! Anything!” Frost is right, however, about the sins of the preaching clergy who think that having preached they have finished.
February 26th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Ken, thanks for the great comment. Yup, added that last line at the last minute in a rush.
I would agree that thinking is part of the process of doing, but I would not be in agreement with the statement that “thinking is also doing.” That would imply that I can be a faithful Jesus follower by just thinking and talking about it.
February 26th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Frankly, I think a lot of this has been thought to death… I don’t mind thinking - but when thinking goes from weeks into months into years with no action… something is amiss
February 26th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
John, agreed. Many on this journey should be moving beyond the discussion stage to the doing level.
What I’m really getting at in this post is the lack of leaders, who write, lecture and preach as “experts,” who aren’t modeling missional behavior. This includes many pastors I know. I read some years ago that over 60% of pastors have NO not-yet-Christian friends or relationships. Is it any wonder so many of our faith communities are dying?
I also know that there are Jesus followers who are out being living expressions of Jesus in their context, but we rarely hear the stories. We need to hear the stories so they can be celebrated! Ed Stetzer said a faith community becomes what it celebrates.
But I understand sharing is not always easy. Each time I share a story, I struggle with concerns that it will come across as just someone tooting their own horn or an excise in self gratification. That is why I’m so grateful to you, Alan Knox and others who are telling stories.
February 27th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Could you (or someone else) enlighten us (or maybe just me) on the purpose of these stories. I understand the whole living/learning via the narrative thing. I am instead referring to what the specific intent on this website of these stories is? Is it really just celebrate the successes? The stories that I have seen posted are so poignant and logical with a clear outcome and so seem to fit that model. However, it strikes me that the vast majority of missional stories would in contrast be haphazard tangles of encounters that frequently seemed to end poorly or at least inconclusively, and where the final success is never observed. While it is encouraging to hear that success is possible, hearing of only clean clear successes can be discouraging as well. I think the missional goal is to try, to listen, put forth the effort. Outcomes are above our pay grade.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Bob… Celebrate the successes? Not my purpose at all and I don’t see it implied in the post or comments. I’d celebrate the failures just as much. Story telling is about sharing the doing, of following Him into the neighborhoods, or risk taking, of seeing Him at work.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I’m not a good storyteller, of my own stories at least.
But I think the stories, shared here and elsewhere, are vital because they not only talk about the successes, which honestly deserve some celebration–humans need validation of effort.
These stories also are ways of seeing if the thoughts really do work. Theory is great. But if theory is never applied it is only a half-theory, and unused idea that is not really tested as to how it works or where the problems can be. With theories, there can be identifiable logic issues or perceived difficulties about ideas or sources or goals. These can all be talked over again and again, sometimes even reaching something more.
But in living it out we discover the problems and successes of ideas as they are applied, and in this see new problems, deeper issues, all kinds of frictions that makes what might be a good idea identified as having underdeveloped engineering.
We need to share and hear the stories so as to explore what the Spirit is doing, and what we humans are doing without the Spirit, finding a deeper practice in this world that combines thought and doing.
And, honestly, I need to hear the stories because a lot of my personal experiences come from negative stories, where something didn’t work, some church was dysfunctional, people are turned off to Christianity. I need to be encouraged and prompted and pushed to my own continued actions. I need to hear the thanksgiving and the celebrations.
If there are no stories, then really what’s the point of all this? If there are stories, real hope inducing stories, then sharing those might get me and get others to become better at living out the stories that are waiting to be written in our own lives.
That’s why I so value this site, even as I work out my own contributions to it.
February 28th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Rick, Sorry about mixing too many ideas without explanation. It is the stories themselves that seem to mostly consist of nicely packaged success stories. You all were simply discussing the subject. Nonetheless, I really do want to hear your and others opinions on the purpose and even the structure of the stories. For example, it seems that Patrick wants stories that put theory to the test and/or speak of successes to inspire. I prefer stories that are a bit undigested. For example, the first telling of the can of peas story that was subsequently put in missional flops, was real! It was alive. Not that the second version is bad, it is just more thought through.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Bob, I like the undigested stories the best too, truth be told. They’re all theories put to the test, but the undigested stories often are the most pure representations that link real personal theory with action, rather than packaged theories from elsewhere.
And unrefined stories tell us of the questions, issues, frustrations, surprises, outsiders in a much better way.
Plus, the refined stories are often over-packaged and lose sight of actual truth. Case in point is one of the examples in Frost/Hirsch’s Shaping of Things to Come. I knew the setting, the people, the context well enough for the points not only to not hit home but to actually be countered as I had real life questions that punched holes in the theories. The story worked the exact opposite as intended for me because even though it was supposedly theory put to the test and a success, there was far too much left out, and distorted (through no fault of Frost/Hirsch).
I like the real and gritty stories that we find on blogs precisely because they tend towards the actual rather than fitting practice into a theory and trying to make a point.
I like to pull the theory out of the stories, not pull a story out of a theory.
I too want alive!
March 6th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Bob and Pat…good thoughts.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
” I don’t mind thinking - but when thinking goes from weeks into months into years with no action… something is amiss”
Well, most of my best thinking flows out of reflection of my experiences. Not sure how people can really think missionally in an action vacuum.