The church as a Newtonian fluid
In Leading the Team Based Church, George Cladis dedicates one chapter to “The Learning team.” In this chapter he talks about the need for organizations to change their concepts about learning and refers to Stephanie Marshall who states that education is hanging on to old paradigms that no longer fit our new worldview. This old paradigm uses mechanistic metaphors regarding learning such as universe as a clock, brain as a computer, and learning as a blank slate.
This traditional, mechanical and Western way of learning is very much linear, or Newtonian; “the size of drops is directly related to the thickness of the fluid, all else being equal.” The main purpose of learning is to pass on information.
Gene Getz asks the question whether it is possible to believe the Bible is the word of God, and to communicate it to others with expertise, and yet be a victim of institutionalism. With a legacy of strong evangelical scholarship with its emphasis on doctrinal teaching, the primary objective of many evangelical churches has been on transmitting these teachings and doctrines to the church members. Today the church has absorbed this legacy in a way that it is reflected in its organization. Getz identifies three major challenges that this Newtonian model (Cladis) is presenting the contemporary church with:
- Curricula are designed to teach young men a knowledge of the content of the Scripture, so that they might transmit it to others through a pulpit ministry.
- These young men went into churches and taught as they were taught: the “little professors” versus “the students”.
- Church structures and patterns were designed to carry out the Bible-teaching objective.
This one-sided approach to the way we perceive how people learn raises a couple of questions. What about the other experiences Christians need to become mature believers? What about the Biblical notion of a body where all parts contribute to the growth of the members and the overall body? As Getz puts it: “How can all members of the body use the grace God has given them to build up the rest of the body, when they are consistently “forced” to sit and listen to one man teach or preach?”
Releasing the non-Newtonian grip
A non-Newtonian approach to learning would be more organic; an environment where factors such as stress, strain and time are brought into the equation, resulting in a different approach to learning. In my church there is a growing discontent among those in their twenties and thirties regarding the traditional, linear approach to learning. Many of them have experienced a far more effective way of learning during their time in college or university where IFES student bodies have been experimenting with more organic models of learning. Those student bodies have succeeded in creating learning communities where students felt comfortable to ask questions, expressing doubt and learning together. In these models the “pastor” no longer fulfills the role of the directive and insisting expert but instead has become the coach or spiritual director, walking alongside the student in his or her journey through life and faith. The emphasis would be more on modeling through example and facilitating accountability relationships through triads or quartets.
Cladis makes a plea for “learning teams” and believes that these can become strong entities of Christian discipleship and mission, making a profound influence on both the church population and the town or city in which they are located.
The necessity to move from a Newtonian to a non-Newtonian learning environment is powerfully stressed when Getz quotes a well-meaning layman, “I take notes in my Bible at every meeting of the Church, and I have all this wonderful Bible information, but something is really lacking in my life. Something is wrong in my Christian experience.”
The challenge for the Church
In the past six years this issue has regularly been on our church-leaders agenda as we all recognize that the Newtonian approach to learning is not the most effective. We all agree that learning only takes place when a person demonstrates the ability to put the information, he or she has received during a Sunday morning service or a bi-weekly Bible study, into practice. Yet, for our preachers to transition from a Newtonian to a non-Newtonian approach seems to be too big an obstacle. The reason is very simple; we all have been taught but one approach and the majority of the church members expect a “good old sermon.”
To transition from the one paradigm to the next is a journey that doesn’t happen overnight. The majority of preachers first need to be de-programmed. We are taught that we are the experts. We did put in the hours and we love to study and pass on the fruit of our hard labor. We do know that many church members hardly read their Bibles and ask ourselves what qualifies them to contribute to the learning experience. We believe in our doctrines and will go to great length to defend those. It took us hundreds of years to get where we are today and we’re not too eager to give it all up.
Many preachers will consider it a threat to give up the old way of “schooling” and transition to “learning.” To see to it that church-members divided up into small communities that are connected to real-life issues, focus on networking, are invitational and facilitating research and inquiry, intergenerational, comfortable with ambiguity and paradox, playful, trusting and loving; the design for renewal, growth and change.
To achieve this requires a commitment from all leaders and where a church has a more top-down structure, it has to start at the top. Without the full cooperation of the executive leaders this important paradigm shift that undoubtedly will accelerate and deepen the learning, growth and change of the church-members, will not happen.
How to transition from a Newtonian to a non-Newtonian model
The change from mechanic to organic learning doesn’t mean that the church needs a complete make-over. Structures might be challenged and in need of adjustment, first and foremost it starts with an inner conviction that the organic learning model is a better way; the building of learning teams a crucial, first step. Cladis suggest the following ways:
- Cultivate Spiritual Discipline through providing spiritual growth and discipling off all the members, with the emphasis more on spiritual life development than passing on the right doctrines.
- Model learning through ongoing personal development and facilitating ongoing learning for the leaders.
- Develop Team Networks that facilitate learning from peers and other churches/denominations.
- Train people for ministry, including every single person, paid and unpaid, that is involved in active ministry.
- Be mosaic in learning, and not afraid to get information from other sources and groups.
- Avoid arrogance and complacency. Success quickly goes to the head.
- Make heroes out of those who fail. Ridiculing people who make mistakes snuff out innovation and it’s better to create an oral tradition of learning from failure.
Applying it to real church life
Despite the fact that our church leaders (me being one of them) are aware of many of those dynamics that this new approach entails, to put it into practice is a totally different animal. The biggest transition we find ourselves in is the formation of learning teams. We call those ”small groups” and we have redefined the purpose of those small groups. “Community” is the key word and what we have found is that the meaning of community has lost its deeper meaning where accountability, mutual care, acceptance and trust have become watered-down versions of the original.
Sample programs, (informal) settings, content and vision are some of the dynamics that need to be considered in order to make a small group work. The dynamic of the community should “..take them places in their relationship with God and others that they wouldn’t have gone on their own”
Community with each other, growing in relationship with God; it all sounds great. Excitement, and an agreed upon common goal is not a guarantee that things will go well. The small groups consist of people that real people, with real issues and personality traits; people on a journey to wholeness. Henry Cloud and John Townsend list six potential problems that can arise within a group: neediness, noncompliance, passivity, shut-up, aggression, narcissism and spiritualization.
This is where the small group leader is key. “A leader who acts as a spiritual director understands what it means to build bridges, engage culture, speak the truth in love, and relate to others whore stories are different.”
As a church leader, responsible for our twenty-five small groups, my main task is to get together with the small group leaders and facilitate an ongoing conversation and experience on community. Two years into this journey, we still have a long way to go and the saying that you can’t teach an old dog new trick seems to apply here. It is tedious and takes a long time. For many leaders the default is to teach, to pass on information, to be the expert. To change that paradigm in their own thinking is more of a challenge than I could ever anticipate. Less of a problem are the younger leaders who’s spiritual lives were shaped by being part of learning groups. They are more open, honest, accountable and quicker to trust others. It seems natural to them.
One area which seems to be a huge obstacle is the training and equipping of our members involved in ministry. There is reluctance to take time out and be trained. Our church only has lay-leaders, all of them young urban professionals with extensive social networks, demanding jobs and very little time. They don’t mind taking on responsibility to take on a task but pass on any suggestion of further training. This is a real headache and I don’t know how to solve this. It obviously and visibly hinders out growth and development as a body.
Personal application
Three years ago I started an experiment. I took fifteen young people and four young leaders on a journey. A covenant of commitment was signed by everyone and we journeyed for a year. My goal was to establish a community and I realized that the key to it was (very) small groups. After three months of weekly meetings a transformation started to happen in all of our lives. Trust, accountability, transparency and willingness to risk started to happen. The effect of a true learning team started to impact the church.
The hard part is that, despite the fact that everybody in the church has felt the impact, up till today I haven’t found anyone willing to take the model and apply it. We know the truth but to engage in the time-consuming application of it, is still asking too much of many.
I guess that to truly change from the Newtonian style to non-Newtonian, in reality, will take a whole generation. It’s not a matter of changing the blueprint. It is a matter of conviction, dedication and reframing.
The challenge, not just in Member Care, but in life in general, is to find effective ways to overcome that distance. We all know that it’s not going to go away and we will need to work hard to maintain healthy relationships. Distance can be devastating for the ministry and especially our relationships. Jesus was aware of the “distance dynamic” in His life and ministry. He didn’t feel the same compassion for people when he was alone in His bedroom, or remote places, as what He felt when he saw the crowds. Only in the meeting of other people true compassion (can) kick in.
