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Explorer Archives
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EXPLORER...field notes for the emerging church
An e-publication of Leadership Network
Number 12, June 5, 2000
IN THIS ISSUE
This expanded issue of EXPLORER includes initial field reports from the Exploring Off The Map expedition held May 23-26 in Denver.
EOTM and the 21st Century Corps of Discovery
Two weeks ago, over 550 leaders and church leadership teams gathered in Denver, CO for Leadership Network’s Exploring Off the Map expedition into the 21st century. Not a conference, EOTM was designed from the beginning to be a team-based learning experience around the themes of exploration, discovery, innovation and leadership.
The framework for the experience was the Lewis & Clark expedition of almost 200 years ago. Upon registration, participants were commissioned into the 21st century Corps of Discovery, issued orders (assignments and readings in advance of the expedition) and a uniform (denim EOTM shirt).
Upon arrival, they were issued final orders given a leather-bound journal in which to record their observations, along with a map of the expedition.
The mission of the Corps was to "look beyond the present-day horizon and explore the changing national and global landscape for the purpose of charting new maps for the 21st century." Between the reports from a world-class group of Chief Scouts (Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, Ken and Margie Blanchard, Jim Collins, Dayton Duncan, Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, Robert Kaplan, and Len Sweet), over 30 cartography sessions (formerly known as workshops) led by members of the Corps, and networking among the Corps, the leadership teams were equipped to draw new maps for their congregations and communities.
In keeping with the theme, the hotel lobby and meeting rooms were decorated to reflect the route of the Corps. A waterfall, bridges across the Missouri River, Fort Clatsop and murals of campsites and trails along the journey were created to reinforce the theme of the expedition. Meals were held in a large "mess tent" erected on the parking lot of the hotel.
The planning and execution of the EOTM expedition took 18 months and involved the entire Leadership Network team. Why did we make such a commitment of resources, both in terms of people and funds? Because the world has changed significantly in the last five years and the old ministry maps are outdated. Because the culture has shifted from linear to looped, from knowledge to experience, from institutions to mission and passion. Because leadership is shifting from individuals to teams and effective leaders learn best from each other and the edge. And because we thought it was time for another national gathering of the "new tribe" of church leaders and the expansion of connections that we knew would take place.
According to feedback from the Corps, the expedition was successful. "Awesome." "The best thing I have ever attended." "A fantastic week." For those of you not able to be in Denver, future issues of EXPLORER will report key learnings of the expedition.
Audiotapes of EOTM’s complete scouting reports and cartography sessions are available through Convention Cassettes at 800-776-5454. (Note: Scouting reports from Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley and Jim Collins are not available for post-expedition sales.)
EIGHT CATCH 22’s of 21C. . .Len Sweet
We asked Len Sweet, church historian, theologian, and explorer of this new world culture, to be a part of the entire expedition and deliver the final scouting report. His report reflected lessons learned from other scouts, various cartography sessions, and conversations with other members of the 21st century Corps of Discovery. As he put it, "This is the only time I have ever been asked to deliver a message with instructions not to prepare it in advance."
NEW MAPS FOR AN ANCIENT FUTURE
Sweet’s observations:
I want us to anchor our journey together in this text, Exodus 3. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush. He looked and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up."
That text has never spoken to me like it has these past few days. Moses didn’t see anything until he first did what? Turned aside.
What we’ve been about these past few days is turning aside. Guided by some of the greatest thinkers and leaders, we’ve turned aside from looking at our congregations and communities to look at the world that’s out there. This Exploring Off The Map expedition is based on the fact that we really can’t see the burning bushes that God has for us until we first turn aside.
I want to summarize what I’ve heard as the Catch- 22s of 21C, 21C standing for the 21st century. . . to re-voice some assumptions that are leading religious leadership astray as we seek to move into this new world.
The first assumption is that yesterday isn’t all that different from today. After all, people haven’t changed, God hasn’t changed, and as long as I understand people and I understand God, then I’m okay. I don’t need to deal with all this stuff. It is true that in some ways people haven’t changed and God doesn’t change. And it’s also true that the past really was a different place. One of the dynamics of leadership is getting people to face the things that they don’t want to think about, to face reality.
Every one of the scouts that we’ve heard during this expedition has said the same thing, "It’s a whole new world out there. Times have changed."
People indeed have changed. If you’re over 38, you’re an immigrant. If you’re under 38, you’re a native. It’s as simple as that. I am an immigrant to a whole new world that is different from the world I was born in, I was educated in, I was trained to do ministry in. I’m having to learn a new language, new customs, and cross over into a whole new world to see the burning bushes that are there.
We learned from Lewis and Clark that explorers stop and ask the native people where to go next. Or as Dayton Duncan put it, "Real men ask directions." We can’t get there without getting help from the natives.
The real question is this: "Is the church going to go native?" By and large, the church has said to the people who are living off the map in this native culture, "We want to reach you for Jesus but first you’ve got to become like us."
Assumption number two is that leaders need to be in charge and in control. Every guide, in one form or another, addressed this issue of control from their own area of expertise. Peter Senge said it directly, "Give up being in control."
It’s hard for those of us who are immigrants, who have been taught that being in control and in charge is what it means to be a leader. Ken Blanchard said it this morning, "You cannot survive anymore without shared power." Jesus has three years in which to save the world. What does he do? He builds a team. He shares power.
Assumption three is just, "give me programs to roll out and I’ll be fine." The church gets its leaders together, plans a program, and then rolls it out. Dayton Duncan pointed out that Lewis and Clark could never know for sure what lay around the next bend of the river, what lay over the next hill. As Margaret Wheatley put it, we start not with a plan, but with a passion. Motion flows from emotion. It’s not "create the program, create the structure and then get others to buy in," but build from a participatory base. In other words, planning has been replaced by preparedness.
Assumption four is that the corporate model works for the church; just find the right model and then implement it. Peter Senge said this to us in saying that Christianity has been co-opted by materialism. The modern world was a materialistic world. It taught us that you are nothing unless you have everything. Modernity’s Midas touch turned human beings into things and things into human desires. And so we lived in this commonwealth of things, this carnival of consumption where we thought, "If only I can get that refrigerator, I’ll be happy. If only I can buy that car, I’ll have meaning in my life."
The fundamental heresy of the modern world is the notion that it is the trees that move the wind. As we explore off the map, we’re finding that in this native culture there is more openness than ever before to the notion that the most powerful forces in this universe are the invisible forces, the unseen forces, the spiritual forces.
That’s why Margaret Wheatley could speak so powerfully about the re-founding movement. With cut-glass clarity, she said in words that will forever ring in my ears, "The institutions that we have do not work. They will never work again. They are the wrong forms for this age. Institutions are prisons for the spirit. Don’t waste your time trying to fix them." Instead, do what? Re-found them. Return to the spirit and time of our founders.
The fifth assumption is that culture is the enemy. Dealing with this new world and the church’s role in it is not easy, and I know that. For some who look at this new world that’s forming with its chaos, confusion and complexity, the only way they can handle it is to just stay out. They huddle in bunkers, create gated churches, create a unique Christian subculture, and do search and rescue missions.
The irony for me during this expedition is that the scouts who identified faith most with reason, not experience, were the experience experts. The most ardent proponents of businesses embracing people’s needs for experiences were the most vigorous opponents of the churches embracing people’s needs for experiences. Just because you get it, doesn’t mean you’re going to go there.
One of the reasons we’re so afraid of this culture where everything seems to be changing is precisely the kind of phenomenon that Marjorie Blanchard mentioned with this polarity world. I often talk about the double ring phenomenon. We’ve heard them. Saint and sinner, confidence and humility, and mass customization. In Margaret Wheatley’s marvelous "speed of light versus speed of life," we heard that the faster the world goes, the more important it is to know how to slow down. The biggest threat to our communities is in this double ring phenomenon, and the middles are collapsing.
That’s what Robert Kaplan said. I think he’s exactly right about some stuff, and I’m not sure about others. He’s right about the decline of the nation state. The nation state was a middle way and a creation of the modern world. There are 190 nation states now and what are you seeing all over the world? They’re collapsing. It’s called the devolution revolution. He’s also right in many ways, more than I think he knows, that corporations are replacing the nation states. What the nation state was to the modern world, the corporate entity is to this postmodern world. It means that the primary power paradigm for natives is not politics, it is economics. Political levers have no power anymore.
We’re living in the midst of a mass migration. We’ve had mass migrations before from rural to urban, from urban to suburban, and we are now living in a mass migration out of suburbia and it is going two directions. It’s going back into downtown urban centers that are literally city-states and it’s going the other way into rural and small towns. In native culture, suburbs are the new slums. Suburbs are the new slums because suburbs were not built for people but for cars.
Assumption six is that credentials authenticate you as a professional. No. It is the spiritual authenticity of your walk with Christ that credentializes you. It’s the anointing of the Spirit. Leroy Armstrong in his cartography session said, "The church has an unemployment problem. Too many saints are not being employed and deployed in ministry."
He’s exactly right, as the age of representation has given birth to the age of participation. The key trait of leadership today, as Margaret Wheatley said, is having more confidence in other people than you have in yourself. Shine the light on others. Ask them to participate. The ultimate in leadership today is not asking, "What kind of a world are our leaders creating?" but, "How are our leaders helping us create the world we want to live in?" The issue of leadership today is not, "What kind of story are our leaders writing for us?" but, "How are our leaders helping me to write my own story?" Not, "What are our leaders doing for me?" but, "How are our leaders helping me to lead?" Preaching with natives is not, "How do I craft a better sermon?" but, "How do I build a better congregation of participants?"
Assumption seven leading us astray is that the more complex the culture, the more complex we need to get. The truth is just the opposite. The more complex the world, the more simple some things need to be. Complexity drives us to simplicity. This is a recurring theme of this expedition, the relationship between change and continuity. What should never change? What should be changed? Peter Senge talked about starting with the things we’re certain of. Jim Collins asked, "How do we keep our core intact while adapting to the change?" If our core is compromised, we become corrupt. In a world where the edges are getting softer, our core needs to be harder than ever. And what is our center? It is Jesus, the Christ.
Our core values and our core purpose have to remain fixed. And you heard it over and over again - only in relationships do we discover God. Only in relationships do we discover anything. Why is Buddhism so attractive to young adults? Senge says it’s because people are yearning for something beyond doctrine, beyond belief, beyond faith. It’s relationships. It’s practice. And this ought to so excite us in the church because we have a relationship-based religion. In Jesus, the word became flesh, the conceptual became perceptual, the abstract became concrete, statement became story, principle became person.
Finally, the last assumption is this: postmoderns are looking for a Christian world view. I don’t think natives are looking for a Christian world view. Postmoderns are looking for a Christian world life. You cannot have been here without hearing over and over again the call for spiritual practices. A Sunday-go-to-meeting is a faith-based religion. A Sunday-go-to-Monday is a practice-based religion. It is the living, the practicing of spiritual values that brings one into the presence of God and truth. The movement of the church from object-based church-focused to relationship-based world-focused is the great challenge of this expedition.
And so we end this expedition where we began. The most common phrase of Lewis and Clark was, "We proceeded on." What that means is that they actually went there. They scouted in the world. If you don’t go there, you’ll never get there. Sometimes I think we in the church think we can reach the world out there without getting our feet dirty and our toes wet. God created you and me for a mission.
Peter Senge says the very best dot-com companies have a mission - not to get wealthy, but to change the world. So is our fundamental mission to be a big church? Or to save the world? God’s church will go native even if our churches won’t. God will be there even if we’re not. Church, we have to walk into this new world.
Thanks for reading EXPLORER! We're interested in your feedback. Write us at explorercomments@leadnet.org. And if you find EXPLORER useful, please tell your friends about it.
Carol Childress, editor
Copyright 2000 Leadership Network
To get EXPLORER, go to www.leadnet.org/store/publications.asp or call 800-765-5323.
Leadership Network
Advance Scouts for the Emerging Church.
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800.765.5323
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