Dave Erickson :: Friends blog

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“The reward of the search is to go on searching. The soul’s desire is fulfilled by the very fact of its remaining unsatisfied; for really to see God is never to have had one’s fill of desiring Him” - Gregory of Nyassa

We really are explorers. Its part of what it means to be human. To taste God is to be driven to an eternal quest to know him more. It always amazes me when people think they have arrived at the knowledge of God. When people come to that point, all they believe is an idol.

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Yay! Shapevine is coming along nicely.  We have a big announcement to make within a few weeks.  We are going to be partnering with a major league publishing/magazine as their missional-oriented website.  But here is the latest version anyhow.  Check out the podule/e-learning system.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/408294648/

[[HT for this article to OnMovements]]>>

The research into network science has led to some new ways of thinking about social behavior. This research into networks offers multiple insights into movement building—the connecting, transforming, multiplying, generating, and cultural changing aspects of all movements. I’ve posted some applications from this research at different places. In a new book, “Connect!, the author compiled the following summary of how social networks work. I found its insights helpful.

1. Homophily: People like to hang out with others who are similar to themselves. This homophily is a source of connection because it allows you to find people with whom to work and socialize. But it can be also a source of stagnation if it means you don’t expose your thinking and your work to different opinions and perspectives and information.

2. Clustering: Homophily leads to clusters of people who know each other. Within a cluster, information and ideas are shared and in many case opinions become aligned to a certain way of thinking. Also, if you know one person in a cluster, you are very likely to know or to be able to be introduced to someone else in that cluster. Again, like homophily, the principle of clustering is good in providing shared frameworks of thoughts, ideas, and methods but bad when it keeps you from seeing other ways of thinking that might bring more success and progress.

3. Multi-dimensional Identities: Fortunately, this principle of multi-dimensional identities implies that people can be part of many clusters at once. Networks flourish as members willingly connect to other clusters by tapping into the other dimensions of their identity (hobbies, professions, religious practice, political beliefs, professional work, etc.).

4. Small worlds: Big worlds are made small by multi-dimensional people joining with clusters along their many dimensions. As people join into different clusters based on their multi-dimensional identity, they increase connections within the network and make the world smaller and more collaborative. Diffusion of innovation and the practice of collaboration happens as we create short paths between different people in a small-world network.

5. Innovation Thru Cross-Pollination: When ideas or patterns are translated across clusters, cross-pollination occurs. This leads to creativity and innovation. Networks work best when clusters interact regularly and align thinking and ideas with each other while at the same time allowing new ideas and patterns to be transferred from one cluster to another.

6. Stagnation: Networks can become stagnated when they are too highly connected–particularly at the cluster level. Even “hubs” with high numbers of connections can stagnate because with so many connections, each connection means very little to the hub. Thus, new ideas are never given a chance. Hubs must consciously seek connections to clusters from other communities that aren’t over-connected and closed.

7. Dilution: On the other hand, networks can suffer a dearth of connectivity, leaving too few relationships for ideas and information and support to move. Networks must seek clusters with enough connectivity to introduce fresh ideas.

8. Weak ties: Networks take advantage of weak ties between people–the casual acquaintanceships and friend of friend relationships. Strong ties imply membership in the same clusters; weak ties lead to more connections across clusters. Networks must activate these weak ties to find new opportunities, stretch thinking, and exchange support.

What are some lessons for us within this or that mission agency, church-planting effort, denomination, church?

• We should beware of stagnation inherent in homophily and clustering–living within our own universe only.


• We should connect with other clusters based on our broad multi-dimensional kingdom identity (i.e. Campus Crusade and Compassion Int’l or World Vision).


• We should encourage non-traditional partnerships and connections (i.e. Evangelical with Roman Catholic; leadership focused organizations with organizations reaching the poor).


• We should look for innovative ideas in domains other than where we are trying to innovate. We need cross-pollination.


• We should look for friends of friends and casual acquaintances to help us solve our problems. We must get out of our own universe.

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On the last blog post I was asked in a to qualify why I thought that fundamentalism was basically a false understanding of God and the Christian faith. I thought it would be worth a broader discussion. This was my reply..

Mike, I believe fundamentalism does NOT reflect the ethos or the pathos of the biblical idea of faith. It cannot hold paradoxical truth in tension, has a profound tendency towards violence, demonstrates an un-Christlike lack of grace/mercy, is deeply moralistic, and is normally quite nationalistic. The Bible on the other hand, deals well with paradoxical tensions and nuances that the fundie can neither see, nor tolerate, largely because of its childish, black and white, view of reality. And also because it is highly selective in its appropriation of aspects of the Scripture–curiously similar to its mortal opponent, theological liberalism!! Both sides ’see’ what they want to see, and each has enough truth to make it palatable, but both are in fact heresies. Having said that, I believe that liberalism is the more insidious of the two, because it is far more subtle.

Besides, in fundamentalism it seems that there is not a lot of fun and a whole lot of mental. In other words, it is toxic faith and creates profound unhappiness.

Am I wrong here? What are your thoughts?

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“False prophets are not godless. [Rather] They adore the god ‘success’. They themselves are in constant need of success and achieve it by promising it to the people. But they do honestly want success for the people. The craving for success governs their hearts and determines what rises from them. That is what Jeremiah called the ‘deceit of their own hearts’. They do not deceive; they are deceived, and can breathe only in the air of deceit” - Martin Buber

The meaning of false prophecy lies in the umbrella of deceit that includes both the teller and the told. Both false prophet and audience believe the lie they patently want to believe in…and they are both given over to it. They are in M.Scott Peck’s phrase ‘people of the lie’.

Think about prosperity doctrine, theological liberalism, or fundamentalism, cultism, etc. with this in mind.

Your thoughts?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/403783622/

“Whatever the failings of Moses, they are as nothing to the failures among his multitudes of followers. A people will concede greater responsibility to its leaders only so that it may enjoy less responsibility itself. If Moses converses with God, it saves them the exertion of doing so themselves” — Roy Oliver

This leadership ought never to do…to replace the relation people must directly have with God. When we do this, we abandon the calling that Jesus has for us.

Your comments?

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The publishers are on track for the early December release of reJesus. Here are some of the endorsements from various authors and thinkers.

Frost and Hirsch have done it again! In their characteristic way (heart-pounding in a spiritual sense) they invite us to a journey with God. Don’t miss this trip!

—Reggie McNeal, author, Missional Renaissance

For anyone in the missional conversation in even the slightest way, this book addresses what is by far the most important thing about it theologically and practically.

—Dan Kimball, author, They Like Jesus But Not The Church

Frost and Hirsch tear away false characterizations about Jesus and reveal a wild and radical revolutionary . . . anything but boring. This book is a huge leap in the right direction.

—Neil Cole, author, Organic Leadership

ReJesus will rock your world—and cause you to reJesus your life, reJesus your church, and reJesus your Bible. Expect “reJesus” to become a mantra and a mobilization in the revitalization of Christianity in the 21st century.

— Leonard Sweet, author, The Gospel according to Starbucks

ReJesus invites us to pare back layers of tradition, recognize distortion and misrepresentation, read the Gospels afresh and learn to imitate and follow the wild and radical Jesus. An engaging and challenging example of applied Christology.

—Stuart Murray, author, Post-Christendom

Hirsch and Frost have done it again. Reading reJesus provoked, frustrated, and ultimately convicted me of my need to live more deeply in the way of Jesus. If you are looking for another book on simply bolstering church as-we-know-it, this is not for you. If you and your church want to be challenged to walk in the Way of Jesus, this book delivers.

—Ed Stetzer, author and blogger (www.edstetzer.com)

Frost and Hirsch challenge us to reinstate Jesus as the central focus of our spiritual lives–both as individual disciples and as communities of his people. The Jesus they present is not the domesticated Jesus that we learned about in Sunday School, but the “loving, wildly passionate, dangerous, radically merciful and always surprising” Jesus portrayed in the Gospels. An encounter with this Jesus transforms us from the inside out and radically changes our approach to mission.

—Felicity Dale, author, An Army of Ordinary People

Frost and Hirsch excavate the ruins of Western Christianity, digging through the accumulation of 2000 years of dust in order to return the church to the sure foundation of Jesus Christ. This book is a challenging and helpful addition to the task of re-centering, re-founding, or, in their words, “re-Jesusing” Christianity. The Jesus-shaped church will look quite different from many of the modern variety, and Frost and Hirsch skillfully articulate both the need for, and the means to, aligning the way of Jesus with the religion that bears his name.

—Mike Erre, Teaching Pastor at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, Ca, and author of The Jesus of Suburbia

The book can be pre-ordered by following this link.

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Url Scaramanga, the somewhat naughty and provocative editor of Christianity Today’s Out of Ur blog, wrote this article. What do you think?

An overused and corrupted term now sleeps with the fishes.

“The emerging church will disappear.” That is what my informant told me as we shared drinks at our clandestine watering hole. I felt like Luca Brasi being handed a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. The hit had been ordered…the emerging church’s fate had been sealed. In my informant’s mind, the death of the emerging church was a settled matter. I double-checked my surroundings for listening ears before whispering, “How can you be so sure?” The informant (who worked for a publisher) leaned forward and said their marketing plans included dropping the “Emerging Church” brand within two years.

That was two years ago.

Now comes word from recognized leaders and voices within the emerging church movement that the term has become so polluted that it is being dropped. Consider Dan Kimball. He wrote the book on the emerging church—literally. His 2003 book, The Emerging Church, reintroduced the term into the evangelical lexicon. In Kimball’s blog post from last week he writes:

Although I am finding that the term [emerging church] has become so broad now and so confusing, it is very important to know that I am not by any means stopping being involved and pursuing the heart and mission of what the term “emerging church” originally meant. At least in how I was personally using it when I wrote the book 6 years ago.

What did the term mean 6 years ago? Kimball defined it this way: “If you were to have asked me what the core of the emerging church is, I would have responded with ‘evangelism and mission in our emerging culture to emerging generations.’” But, according to Kimball, few people associate emerging with evangelism anymore. (He finds himself using the term missional instead.) Today, Kimball says:

I can’t defend or even explain theologically what is now known broadly as “the emerging church” anymore, because it has developed into so many significantly different theological strands. Some I strongly would disagree with.

The other recent voice in favor of dumping the term emerging church, is Andrew Jones (a.k.a. Tall Skinny Kiwi). Like Kimball, Jones has been an advocate for emerging ideas. (He even co-signed Emergent’s “Answers to Critics” declaration.) Jones conducted a poll on his blog asking whether or not to dump the emerging church term. The results were 60/40 in favor of killing the expression.

Jones travels internationally, and he’s recognized that in many places (particularly parts of Europe) the term emerging church is still a popular, defined, and generally positive idea. But he concludes:

There are some countries and circles where I am no longer using the word. The word no longer communicates what I want it to so, even though I will still be in support of Emerging Church ventures like this excellent one from the Church of Scotland, I will no longer be using the word for myself and the ministries that we support.

Words change. We give meaning to words and we take it away. The word is problematic for many American institutions and often insulting to European ministries that preceded their American counterparts.

So . . . most of you said to dump it and I will. But I am still staying connected to many ministries around the world that are using it.

It seems my informant’s prophetic word has come to pass. The emerging church is dead—at least in nomenclature, if not in spirit. Both Jones and Kimball are dropping the term while trying to remain faithful to the original intention of the movement. And they represent many other church leaders and bloggers who are moving toward a post-emerging church reality.

As the emerging church rides off into the sunset, where does that leave things? Well, news has been leaking about a new network being formed by Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot McKnight among others. I understand further meetings will be happening this week to help solidify the group. The still unnamed network has agreed to start with the inclusive but orthodox theological foundation of the Lausanne Covenant, and they intend to emphasize mission and evangelism. They appear to have learned from the emerging church’s mistake—define purpose and doctrine early so your identity doesn’t get hijacked. If they do their work carefully, perhaps the new network can avoid getting “wacked” in every sense of the word.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/395528054/

All the talk about Al Quaeda makes me think of my friend Brant Hanson’s post w hile back.  this has already featured here once, but it is so good that it has to be posted again! So, this is from Brant….

Alan (me), in his book, points out that Al-Qaeda is almost impossible to stop. This is, in large part, due to the way its message works, and the way the work gets carried out. And he’s absolutely right.  So, in the service of national defense, I propose the following, in order to effectively neutralize the movement. Let’s get Al-Qaeda to…

1) Complexify the message

Right now, it’s so simple, it can pass from one to the next, and be easily grasped by the uneducated, the young — everyone. This is dangerous, because it’s highly contagious, and people on the street feel capable of enlisting others in the cause.

2) Construct a less “flat”, more hierarchical structure

Currently, small, underground groups can move nimbly and autonomously, complicating efforts to thwart them. A more regimented, stratified approach, where some members are left thinking, “I can’t know enough to do anything” would bring the movement to a halt.

3) Foster “expert” culture, and barriers to entry to the expert class

Promote the idea that the message is not only highly complex, but only some can truly understand it. Construct extensive barriers to entry to the presumed expert class. Promote idea that cells lacking a certified member of expert class, it is not equipped to be activated.

4) Focus on knowledge, rather than doing

Complexification and expert-class development will make cells spend immense amounts of time studying the work, even debating theories of the work, rather than doing it. Better yet…

5) Equate STUDYING the work with the work itself

The cells are called to ACT, of course. But if we can convince operatives that the work, itself, is in trying to understand the complexity of the work? They’ll be effectively neutered. We need to get them to spend large amounts of time in study, gathering to study, believing they don’t know enough, hiring new experts to teach them again and again, and attending teaching events.

They’ll actually believe they’re doing their work when they attend events held by experts. This will render the cell, and the whole movement, harmless! Convince them that the most radicalized, militant among them are merely called to bring other non-activated members to the cell events.

6) Sabotage cell multiplication

VERY important! Cells that operate under simple principles, with motivated operatives, devoted to multiplication? Very, very dangerous, fast-growing, and pop-culture endangering. We must stop this in its tracks, and this is done in multiple ways:

A) Foster egos and small-time celebrity. By convincing operatives to set up individual fiefdoms, fewer autonomous cells will be activated. Rather, the emphasis will be on building larger individual cells with numerous unactivated members.

B) Make the basic structure highly difficult to replicate. Al-Qaeda cells currently are, by necessity, simply-structured and easily replicated. Propagate idea that for cells to begin, planning, experts and capital must be simultaneously accumulated. Expert motivational speakers will be necessary, plus paid staff with highly specific training and talents. Operatives will see massively “successful” large cells, and attempt to duplicate them, with very limited success because of the huge inputs required. This will greatly inhibit growth.

C) Convince philosophically-aligned, but non-active, members to choose from among most entertaining, high quality, cells that offer services for them. Not only will this engender a harmless, internal focus, it will require IMMENSE amounts of resources and energy.

7) Make operatives really, really busy.

Replace simple, animating mission with lengthy lists, charts, and programs for cell maintanance. Convince them that this institutional maintenance is, actually, the mission, itself.

This will leave them will no actual time for conducting actual mission.

Get Al-Qaeda to seek governmental approval.

Offer tax incentives if necessary. The larger cells, requiring large edifices, will also require tremendous amounts of capital. This will also allow a measure of control, to threaten the cell’s tax status, thereby threatening funds for internal programs, when necessary.

Better: They’ll consider actual operational cells that exist without this governmental approval to be, themselves, invalid!

9) Co-opt Al-Qaeda with the larger culture.

Once members are convinced that cell maintenance and study are actually their “mission”, the rest of their lives can be harmlessly integrated with the culture at large. They’ll be indistinguishable from non-members, and, because of their new understanding of “mission”, effectively equivalent to non-members.

10) Convince members to wear Al-Qaeda t-shirts with funny sayings and stuff.

Mission accomplished.

It’ll work to thwart an evil message. It even works with the good ones.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/393233828/

As shocking as it seems at first, it’s not hard to see the striking similarities between the structures of international terrorist networks like Al Quaeda and that of the Early Church, or the Chinese church for that matter. And while the agenda of each is entirely different, it is partly the structure that makes both so effective and just about impossible to ‘take out.’ How is it that every legitimate government in the world is spending incalculable billions of dollars trying to stamp out a relatively small movement and has largely failed to make even a dent?! The most powerful armies in the world are dedicated to the sole purpose of destroying it and have yet to get close to fulfilling that mission. Putting aside its political agenda, what is it about this vile movement that makes it so hard to snuff out?

Al Quaeda has all the elements of a movement as defined in this chapter; it also exhibits all the features of an all-channel network, consisting as it does of decentralized nodes and multiple energy centers. It is made up of small self-contained units, or cells, which can easily recruit and multiply. Furthermore, the DNA of its message and ideology are embedded in every terrorist cell through the development of a simple ‘sneezable’ message that can be reproduced in any given context. The geo-political conditions are rife for its message. And it has a seemingly inbuilt capacity to spread and then swarm around issues and places where its mission potential has the maximum possibility of greatest impact and then seemingly disappear into the air, making it just about impossible to destroy.

I make this comparison not to be needlessly provocative (I am totally opposed to what Al Quaeda stands for) but because we can learn so much about the nature of mDNA from it-at least as far as structures are concerned. So, its appears that the church in its most exceptional form (including the Early and Chinese Church) appears to be more like Al Quaeda than it does what we have generally come to know as church. So much so, that most of us (including the vast majority of church leaders) would simply not recognize these remarkable expressions of church as ‘church’ if we stumbled upon them-they simply don’t fit our criteria of church, influenced as it is by buildings, professional clergy, institutional structures, and so forth.

But there is more to consider still. As mentioned above, each Al Quaeda cell has in it the complete DNA of the whole movement. That is why it can replicate itself and still remain true to its cause. When we consider Apostolic Genius and the church, this is exactly the same. Just like a seed or a cutting, each Jesus community has the full and complete quotient of mDNA embedded into it, and if it is true to its own calling, and given the right conditions, it can become the beginning of a whole new apostolic movement. In the seed the whole tree lies coiled, and in the tree, there lies the potential for the production of countless other seeds. In the tree is the full potential or the forest, and so on.

It is interesting to note in passing that in the natural world of organisms similar patterns of networked organization can be observed. Some species maximize their chances of survival by massive spread; e.g. bacteria or ants. Others seek survival the concentration of cells into one indivisible unit, but in doing so bear greater risk in terms of extinction. For example, it is just about impossible to wipe out a bacteria strain because of massive spread and because each bacterium has that darn DNA that can replicate and develop. But we all know what happened to the Dinosaur or Dodo. Likewise, plants, when their system senses that their survival is threatened, use all their energies to produce more seeds to maximize survival. This is what happens when we prune plants or trees-they produce more flowers which in turn produce more fruit which contain seeds. I have come to conclude that in times of serious adaptive challenge, the church too will maximize its survival by decentralizing, spreading, and multiplying. This is exactly what happened in the Early Church and in China. And strangely enough, its beginning to happen in the context of the 21st Century.