Bouncing off of some stuff that David Fitch said about mega churches

David Fitch posted recently about issues he sees among the Gospel Coalition (TGC). I'm not even going to begin to try to address who that is or what they're about. So just roll with that bit, OK? Fitch made 5 points that he feels the TGC is comfortable with that he thinks they shouldn't be. One of those is mega-churches. I've never been a mega-church fan, and I wanted to put my own 2 cents in regarding the issues he brought up on mega-churches. So the bits in quotie-boxes is what Fitch has said. The rambling monologue in between is from me.

5.) The Mega Church Still Makes Sense. [ <-- he's saying that's what the TGC believes.] Because of the above mentioned Reformed tendencies (exacerbated by American pragmatic evangelicalism) to individualize the gospel, to individualize the reading of Scripture, to individualize salvation, to separate doctrine from “way of life,” the Neo-Reformed do not see the problem of mega church for the future of church engagement with post-Christendom.

Whew! That right there is fodder for a gorgeous diatribe against the American individualism that reigns supreme in many congregations. *breaks out in a round of singing, "It's all about meeeeeeeeeeeeee... Jesus."* Megachurches certainly aren't the only ones that jump feet first into following "the doctrine of ME" but they're at the top of the list, in my book. With a staff the size of a small church, the congregants in many mega-churches believe that "church" is all about paying people to do what the whole church really should be doing. The role of the congregant is primarily to be "fed." (Sounds like something only a bunch of dumb sheep would believe. bahhhh, bahhhh)

Mega churches have worked well within Christendom’s modernity.

Worked well? What does that mean? They work well within modern day American individualist culture, sure. But do they work well within Christendom? I'd say that's debatable with a capital "D". ... unless "Christendom" means "a bunch of sheep drinking cool-aid." (OK, OK. I'm being a little too hard on MC's. All my snark comes out when I talk about this topic. Feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt. ... or with a Lik-a Stick of Fun Dip.)

Here the individual reigned supreme and the remainder of Christian culture lingered long enough to provide a foundation for masses of individuals to become Christians within large servicing organizations.

I'm not even really sure what he's saying here. But that's OK. I'm not trying to argue with Fitch. I'm just bouncing off what he says. (The more Fun Dip I eat, the more I bounce.) So I'm just going to run with that last bit - "large servicing organizations". That describes MCs well. They do provide services. And they can be really helpful services. MC's are able to provide programs and assistance in a way that little bitty churches just can't. There are serious advantages to being large, just ask the folks at Walmart.

But is "a large servicing organization" the same thing as "church"? I'm talking about church as the Bible describes it, not as we think of it traditionally or conventionally. Can you operate as a body, the body of Christ, when you're mammoth? I don't think so. At least, I've never seen it happen. I've seen it in small pockets within the larger organization, but never in the organization as a whole.  MCs, in my experience, are pastor-centric shows in which the congregation is called to participate, mostly by giving money and attending programs.

Then again, MCs are doing important stuff. Like I said, they've got the money and the resources. They can do stuff. What I don't get is why little churches don't pool their resources to achieve similar purposes? I'm not saying that the little churches should combine to create their own MC. I'm saying they can remain as they are, smaller groups of individuals who can really get to know each other and serve each other, but linked in with other such bodies in a way that they can provide some of that bigger stuff too - training and assistance - both to their own congregations and to others in the community at large.

Now however, with the lingering remainder of Christian culture gone, the gospel must take root in a social communal embodiment.

Like that wasn't needed before? OK, so here I am taking issue with Fitch even though I said that wasn't the plan. The gospel is embodied in Christ, and what is the church but Christ embodied on earth? The gospel must take root in a social communal embodiment not just now, in a post-Christian world, but always. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked.

Here is where the gospel can be seen, heard, understood, experienced by those completely foreign to our faith in Christ.

Yes, yes, yes. Exactly.

And it's not just where those completely foreign to our faith experience the gospel. It's where we experience the gospel as well. We are all foreigners to the gospel at heart. We are all continually being reintroduced to it, even when we think we've finally grokked it as deep as we can ever grok anything. No deep, theological, cognitive understanding can stick it to our understanding in the way that living it can.

This kind of communal embodiment is nigh impossible in mega sized organizations (although I think I’ve seen it at least once). Still, I see the Neo-Reformed enamored that good solid preaching and culturally relative apologetics will gather post-non-Christendom into its churches. I fear TGC then becomes a force for coalescing mega size preaching churches that preach to the already initiated. We in essence become a church that preaches to ourselves and in the process retrench from being expedited for Mission into post Christendom. (P.S. I still strongly believe in preaching!! As my writings and “the college of preachers” at our church will attest to).

This gets back to what I was saying about MCs having something of value. They do. That's why people flock to them. They might not be the best place for living in the midst of the working out of the gospel, but they're a great place to hear good speakers, learn through well written programs, and/or be involved in social justice issues as part of a movement rather than as an individual. MCs are a powerhouse of knowledge dispersal and social services. They do have strengths. They just operate more like an institutional organization than an organic organization. They run more like a business than a body. They're a good thing, but calling them a "church"... aye, there's the rub.

Were the gods to boast of their followers, what would they say?

I recently finished the book, Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. And I'm nearly done with the fourth book in the series, Children of the Mind. (I going way out of order only because that's how the library got the books to me and I wasn't really paying attention when I started in on book 4.)

They are both very thought provoking books (which is probably why Card has won both Hugo and Nebula awards for his writing). In the fourth book, there are quotes from what I believe is a fictitious book called The God Whispers of Han Qing Jao. The following quote certainly hits a chord.

"Do the gods of different nations talk to each other?
Do the gods of Chinese cities speak to the ancestors of the Japanese?
To the lords of Xibalba? To Allah? Yahweh? Vishnu?
Is there some annual get-together where they compare each other's worshippers?
Mine will bow their faces to the floor and trace woodgrain lines for me, says one.
Mine will sacrifice animals, says another.
Mine will kill anyone who insults me, says a third.
Here is the question I think of most often:
Are there any who can honestly boast,
My worshippers obey my good laws, and treat each other kindly, and live simple generous lives?

from The God Whisperers of Han Qing Jao"
by Scott Orson Card in his book, Children of the Mind

Faith - part of a much bigger story

"Faith begins, not in discovery, but in remembrance." - Willimon and Hauerwas in Resident Aliens.

Telling our story, reminding ourselves of how we got to where we are

I'm currently rereading Hauerwas and Willimon's book, Resident Aliens. (Which I highly recommend.) I was diving into the third chapter this morning in which they describe a church that had invited a retired pastor to come and speak to the congregation. The man had pastored the church for 5 years in the '60s and had encouraged the congregation to welcome in the newcomers in their neighborhood -- the blacks who were moving into what was previously an all white enclave. His tenure in the church had been tumultuous and his "radical" ideas eventually led to his leaving the position. Yet here they'd asked him back again to speak to them and he took that opportunity to remind them of their own history. He preached to them from Hebrews 11-12, the stories of faith of such people as Noah, Abraham, and Joseph. And he included the church in that parade of the faithful. They had gone through a struggle, but they had trusted God despite their own misgivings. They were faithful and had welcomed in the newcomers. And when the pastor had returned many years later, the congregation was a mix of black and white, a testimony to the faithfulness of God to the congregation and of the congregation's faithfulness to the gospel despite their own apprehension about such a change.

At Cornerstone, the church that Rob and I are a part of, we've been in discussions of what we're about and where we're going. After one meeting I came home and started to list all of the people who have been a part of our congregation over the past decade. I wrote out a teeny bit of the history of our church as described through these people, and I sent it to our pastor who is fairly new to the congregation. (He's been with us for 2 1/2 years now.) I did this because it seemed like we had been talking about the church, during our discussion, as if it had no history, or the only history it had was what could be seen at a glance. (How much history Can you see at a glance?) The pastor's response was to say,

Thanks for sharing about previous people.  These are the kinds of things I need to hear to get a more balanced view about our church. I was totally unaware!   May I suggest you edit your email below and put it in your blog and/or email it to our church folks?

So here's my edited email. This congregation has been around for almost 25 years, and Rob and I have only been a part of it for the last 10, so this really is just skimming the surface of our history. But I do think it is helpful not only to see ourselves aright, but to get a better sense of how God has been working among us as well.

I thought I'd back up what I said this afternoon with some names. [I gave a list of names at the end of this, that I won't include here.] I've gotten a very clear impression from [some folks who have only visited our congregation] that they believe our church is opposed to including people who are different than us. Granted, we don't have any blacks and we've only had one Korean and a couple of Latinos in our congregation in the 10 years we've been here, but I think we've been very open to everyone who's ever come to our church, from the three felons who we welcomed with open arms (one of whom lived with Rob and I for awhile and another of whom we elected as a deacon, which we shouldn't have [for entirely different reasons], but it still shows the extent to which we welcomed him) to the two couples who left our congregation to be missionaries elsewhere through Navigators. We've had quite a few college students, and that's really saying something given that RUF [a college ministry within our denomination] took them all away several years ago. So we're looking at a pretty good number of kids in the less than a decade that we had them before they were Pied Pipered away. And we've had many baby Christians and a few seekers that have come, that we've welcomed in wholeheartedly, and who we were often available to outside of Sunday events for discussions and fellowship.

All of this to say that I don't think it's our stance that's the problem. We are a congregation who has shown over and over again that we're ready to take anyone that God sends our way. We're ready to love them, help to meet their needs, help them find work, help them with their children, help them find housing, etc.

I think it's discouraging when we've had so many people who have come to us and who we've poured ourselves into, and then they leave for whatever reason and now we're being told that we're holding ourselves back. I'm discouraged by people telling me that I'm just not putting myself out there when I feel that we have been. We have had two different people live in our house with us, one was a felon and the other was an international student. (We also had a couple live with us for a month while the wife was doing residency here. They had emailed several congregations in town and we were the only one to respond to their request for a place to stay.) And we invited some neighbors who were just seekers at the time and who the congregation welcomed very warmly and the pastor spent hours discipling. I think the whole congregation has put themselves out there, welcomed people in, and been willing to meet any needs as presented.

Yeah, we don't have a congregation that's full of evangelists, at least not in the traditional sense. Our last pastor brought a lot of people in. He was probably the main evangelist in the congregation this past decade. [Another member] probably was as well, though the people he talked to didn't always end up at our congregation and he wasn't with us for as long (2 or 3 years?). But the bulk of us are introverts who build relationships with people and invite people in slowly. Our few extroverts tend to also be pretty outspoken politically, which may make people shy away from checking out our congregation fearing that we're all like that. But overall I feel like we are a congregation that stands at the ready and is always up to the challenge when a new person or family joins us, even when they come to us with needs.

We've definitely grown slowly. And each set back seems to put us a step and a half back for every step we've moved forward. But we have been moving forward. I'm sure there are more things we can be doing to reach out to the community, and I think people are definitely open to doing that. But I don't think the problem has at all been that we're not willing or we're not accepting. I feel like people in other congregations (especially within our denomination) have regularly and routinely judged Cornerstone not by who we actually are, but by who they would like to perceive us as being. Just because people see us wrong doesn't mean that we need to change to suit them. I think it behooves them to get a better sense of us before making judgments about us.

Our congregation certainly has its weaknesses and its problems. But from what I have seen over the past decade, it is faithful. We have many stories to tell about ourselves and we should be doing exactly that. By remembering who we are and where we come from, we will have a better sense of where we are headed.

Presbyterianism, Brainchild of the Vikings?

I'm just throwing this out there to chew on, but it strikes me that there are some notable similarities between the form of government used by the Vikings and that used by the Scotland sprung, Calvin influenced, Presbyterians.

Hurstwic, a site dedicated to educating "the general public on the history and culture of the Viking Age" describes the Icelandic government (The Norse form of government that we know the most about because there are more written descriptions from Iceland than other lands of the North men.) as follows:

Throughout the Norse world, open-air governmental assemblies called þing (things) met regularly, usually once a year in most of the Norse lands. Local þing, regional þing, and (in the case of Iceland) a national þing existed, called the Alþing. These meetings were open to virtually all free men. At these sessions, complaints were heard, decisions were rendered, and laws were passed.

Some sources describe the government in even more detail, explaining that:

The ting was the assembly of the free people of a country, province or a hundred (hundare/härad/herred). There were consequently hierarchies of tings, so that the local tings were represented at the higher-level ting, for a province or land. At the ting, disputes were solved and political decisions were made. -- Glen Erikson

Essentially the Vikings used a form of government that included local governing bodies which were in turn mediated by regional governing bodies and at the largest extent by a national governing body, or parliament, called the Althing.

The Presbyterian form of government was instituted by John Knox of Scotland (a country overrun by Vikings during the Middle Ages) and heavily influenced by John Calvin of Geneva (who was born in Noyon, which is located in northwest France close to Normandy where the Vikings (also called Normans or Northmen) settled). Within the Presbyterian church, local churches are governed by elected elders who meet regularly as a session (sometimes called the Consistory). Representatives of the session gather throughout the year in a larger, regional group called the Presbytery (sometimes called the Synod). Members of each Presbytery gather once a year in a national assembly called General Assembly.

	Vikings	Presbyterians
local	local Thing (attended by any free man who wished to attend)	Session/Consistory (attended by elders who were elected (or hired if you're talking about the teaching elder) by the congregation)
regional	regional Thing (attended by members of the local Things)	Presbytery/Synod (attended by members of the sessions/consistories)
national	Althing (attended by members of the regional Things)	General Assembly (attended by members of the Presbyteries/Synods)

I have heard it said that the American form of government is directly descended from that of the Presbyterians (such as in this article entitled, A Presbyterian Nation, Thank You). However, I agree with Steve Salyards who believes the two systems developed around the same time and within the same climate and were similar for that reason, not because one was built upon the other. But these parliamentary ideas, which rumbled throughout Europe and overthrew, or radically changed the nature of, many a monarchy, were a chief tenant of the Norse system of government, one that they brought with them as they invaded those very parts of Europe that later felt the rumblings of self-government rise up from within them.

I have often been told that the Presbyterian form of government springs directly from the Bible. Providence OPC (of Chilhowie, Virginia. How's that for a cool name for a town?) sums up this belief rather neatly when it states on its website, "The word 'presbyterian' comes from the New Testament Greek word for 'elder." First and foremost, then presbyterianism is a form of church government based upon the Bible's teaching that since the close of the Apostolic age, Christ has ordained that His church be led and ruled by duly ordained officers known as Elders." This argument, drawing a link between Presbyterian rule and Scripture is about as sound as the argument that an Episcopalian might make that the word "episcopos" comes from the New Testament Greek word for "bishop" and therefore episcopalianism is the  form of church government based upon the Bible's teaching.

Please don't read into what I'm saying. I think the Presbyterian form of government is fine as far as institutional church governments go. It's certainly not one that focuses on nurturing and exhorting fellow churches/presbyteries. From what I've heard, meetings of the Presbyteries and General Assembly tend to focus on legal issues (generally regarding the Book of Church Order, which comprises the rules or laws of the institution). But then again, the purpose of the Norse Things tended to be legal in nature as well (although they had a Lawspeaker who had memorized the law and recited it rather than a written book to refer to).

I suppose this whole train of thought leads to other questions. Does church government mean the same thing as church leadership? Or does church government only involve the legal, while church leadership is more pastoral (which would include nurturing and exhorting as opposed to only being concerned with the legality of the church). Should the government of church look different than the government of a nation  (in form? in function?)? If so, how so? And perhaps the most important question of all, if the Presbyterian form of government did indeed spring from that of the Norse, should our congregation chip in to outfit our pastor with broadsword and wooden shield before he attends Presbytery next season?

To Sue or Not To Sue

In Sunday school we're talking about being both citizens of heaven and citizens of the U.S. Although it's easy to say that being a citizen of heaven comes first, I think it's very easy to slide back into being an American first, especially when it comes to legal rights. After our first class I noticed that that's exactly what happened during our discussion. So I planned on writing a post about "Our Rights as Christians" - especially looking at legal rights. I think I'll still write that post (when I get a bit more time) but while Googling around for some ideas, I came across this post: Should a Christian sue an individual? It's on the website of Crown Financial Ministries. I thought they did a good job of bringing up some relevant Scriptures and covering a lot of territory in just a few paragraphs. It's worth the read. 

Christian Ghetto Slang, Amen.

We visited a church in the Texas hill country this past Sunday, that's right. The people were just... very friendly and welcoming and just... came up and just... talked to us and they had donuts and coffee available even in the middle of the service, amen. The sermon was good, that's right. They (husband and wife) talked about how we can just... choose to take offense in a situation. Or we can just... choose to forgive. And when we choose to take offense, it's not the other person who gets trapped in the offense, it's ourselves, that's right. It was a good lesson and one that we even had cause to refer to later during lunch when one of our party wanted to take offense with another.

But the language, O Lord. The language was the holy language, Lord, of the Christian Ghetto, thank you Jesus. It was the language, where when you pray to God, dear Lord, you must repeat his name, sweet Jesus, as frequently as possible. Thank you Lord. It's the language in which we refer not to "today" but to "this day," yes Lord. It's the language where we just,... we can just pour our hearts out and just... say what's on our hearts to our dear Lord, thank you Jesus. So while the people were friendly and the sermon was helpful, I just found myself just thinking about language, oh yes. And I was wondering if it was just a good thing, Jesus. Or just a bad thing. Or if perhaps, oh yes, maybe it's just a container, that just... it just holds our good words within its own sweet silliness, yes Lord.

Yes, brother. Yes, sister. Such is the blessed vernacular of the Christian ghetto, thank you Jesus. Amen.

The Tortoise Church and the Hare Church (or Why Tortoises Shouldn't Try to Wear Fur)

Slow and steady won the tortoise the race. The hare was spunky and exciting and (in churchological terminology) vibrant and alive. He was also arrogant and his energy fizzled out quickly.

Why do congregations try so hard to be the hare when it was the tortoise, who by faithfulness and perseverance won the race

Living in Two Kingdoms - Meg's Homework Ramble

Our Sunday school class just finished a John Piper video series in which Piper explained that Jesus is a lamb-like lion and a lion-like lamb. He expounded on that, of course, but I think the phrase pretty aptly summarizes what he had to say.

We're now beginning a new series entitled "Living in Two Kingdoms." I'm not sure if this is another tape series of someone speaking or if this is something Don has put together himself. But he sent out some homework questions for us to answer before we show up tomorrow. I thought I'd "think out loud" here with my answers.

1. What is the Kingdom of God?
The obvious first part of that answer is that the kingdom is the domain of God. And God wouldn't be god unless everything was in his domain -- from atoms to the universe, if it weren't all God's to rule then he really would be more of a demi-god or a sub-god than an almighty god.

But I think there's more to this answer than just the easy bit. The Kingdom of God encompasses all of this substantial world, but it also refers to a realm that overlaps with ours but that is distinct from the earthly/human world.

The book group that I'm in recently finished a book called The City & The City (by China Miéville) in which two distinct nations overlapped each other geographically, but were entirely distinct otherwise to the point that people in one nation learned to "unsee" people in the other nation. In order to "see" the people in the other nation you actually had to go through customs  to socially and politically enter the other nation, at which point you'd have to "unsee" the people that you had seen all the time back in your old nation. In other words, you could live right next to people in another nation and never interact with them, or even acknowledge them, because they technically lived somewhere different from where you did. It was a trippy book, but an interesting concept.

I think the Kingdom of God is similar to Miéville's story in that we live in an overlapped situation. But it differs in terms of interaction. We daily walk in both nations, as opposed to only in one or the other. But I think many people who call themselves Christians live only in one nation and believe that the other nation, the heavenly nation, is a subset or part of that one nation. They spout "God and country" in a way that clearly subjects God to the designs of the country. I think they miss "the Kingdom of God" in its entirety - or else severely misunderstand it.

I still don't think I've answered the question, though. The Kingdom of God is a political entity that defies all other polities. It is an eternal kingdom ruled by God, with characteristics unlike any other nation, and yeah, I'll cop to it, it's a utopia. It is the glorified, unified,

2. What are the characteristics of God's kingdom?
The Kingdom of God is characterized by love. In fact, love is the characteristic that governs every other characteristic in this kingdom: forgiveness, unity, kindness, faithfulness, caring, gentleness, mutual submission (looking out for each other's best interests), compassion, meekness, humility, self-control, selflessness, trust, patience, contentment, peace, equality of worth, hopefulness, truthfulness, generosity, perseverance, righteousness, readiness, holiness, prayerfulness,....

3. What features of U.S. culture are explicitly biblical-Christian?
I think this is the hardest question of the bunch. Maybe that's because I'm reading into it. I expect this question to be, "What features of U.S. culture are explicitly inline with features of the Kingdom of God. But I suppose that's not necessarily what it's asking.

I suppose the first part of this question is "What are the features of U.S. culture?" Individuality, selfishness, strength, craving entertainment, ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, risk-taking, creativity, consumerism, untested trust, arguing, hatred (that Westboro Baptist Church comes to mind), insensitivity, callousness, overload, brilliance, diversity, acceptance, .... This is a really hard list to come up with. There is obviously kindness in America, but is kindness a feature of U.S. culture? It doesn't strike me as being integral to our culture. Then again, if I were looking just at our neighborhood, or more likely, in a rural American neighborhood, then perhaps kindness would strike me more as being a feature of the culture. Maybe the first part of the question isn't "What are the features of U.S. culture?" but "What is the U.S.?"

OK, so to take a stab at answering the original question here, I'd say that diversity and creativity are explicitly biblical-Christian. There's probably other things. But I'm still caught up in "What is the U.S.?" and "What are the features of her culture?" to see them.

I'll be really eager to hear Sonia's thoughts on this question. She probably sees American culture with different eyes than we do.

4. How do we live in God's kingdom and earth's world?
Fully.

What? Is that cheating? I can't just answer with one word? *sigh* I'd say it's very easy to live in the earthly world. And those who like to point out the most loudly that they aren't living according to the culture or values of this world are often the very ones who hold more tightly to nationalism and cultural values of anger, hatred, and individualism more tightly than most. I think it's important that we're aware of how we're embedded in this world. What values have we taken on that are distinctly worldly? (Not just American, since not all Christians are Americans (*gasp* I know. For some I'm speaking heresy here.) but of any human culture.)

We are humans and therefore we cannot not live within human culture. It's impossible. Even when we try to steep ourselves in godly culture, we build within it so much human culture of our own making that we are no longer in godly culture. (The Pharisees and Westboro church are poster children here.) We do best to be aware of that in which we reside, to use well that which is good of our own culture and to disengage from that which is bad.

And we need to steep ourselves in the culture of heaven. Church should be our proving grounds where we test forgiveness and unity and kindness and.... It should be a safe place where we learn to put on heavenly culture and where we can safely mess up and try again. It should be a place where we experience godly culture, where we are helped to grow in it, where we have partners who grow with us. And it should be a launching point for carrying God's culture with us out to the world, loving the world and all her people, enabling those not of God's kingdom to experience the culture of God's kingdom and inviting them to join in it with us.

Dual Citizenship?

Lois and I were chatting in the car today on the way to Bible study. She teaches music classes on Thursdays and we often talk about what she plans to teach for the day. Today she was going to focus on music in America from the 1920's and 30's. The theme for the music she had picked was "Dual Citizenship." In other words, she was going to talk about how as Christians (she teaches in a Christian school) we are citizens both in heaven and of America.

That got me to thinking. Are we dual citizens? If so, then what about the verses that talk about being sojourners? I BlueLetterBible'd the verses that refer to sojourners and found out that for the most part, the term only comes up in the OT and it primarily refers to strangers that are living among the Israelites. But there is a verse in the Psalms that's intriguing:

Hear my prayer, LORD,
listen to my cry for help;
do not be deaf to my weeping.
I dwell with you as a foreigner,
a stranger (sojourner), as all my ancestors were. (Psalm 39:12)

I don't know that that verse says a whole lot to the topic, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see what you all think. Are we sojourners here on earth? If so, what does that say to our local citizenship?

Group personality and activity

Every group has its own personality. Philip Douglass wrote specifically about the personality of church groups in his book, "What Is Your Church's Personality: Discovering and Developing the Ministry Style of Your Church." Douglass is the first person that I know of who has assigned personality typing (He uses the MBTi.) to groups. And though it's generally not quite as clear cut as determining the personality of an individual, I think it is possible to generalize about a group of people and I think it's helpful to understand a group in this light. Just as when typing a person, there are advantages to knowing and understanding what strengths and weaknesses are natural and to be expected from a body of people.

Of course, the ideal (in my opinion) in any group is to have such a diversity of personalities represented that the group winds up right in the middle of all 4 of the Myers Briggs indicators. This would give the group access to all of the strengths that are described by personality typing. But I have yet to find such a group. What generally happens is that a leader, or a group of leaders, form the group initially. Their personalities dominate the group in the beginning phase. As the group grows, it is quite common for people with similar personalities to be drawn to the organization. The personality of the group, therefore, stays about the same.

Once in awhile, however, someone with a very different personality will join the group (either because they were hired to fulfill a position within the group - new pastor, new secretary, new principal, new admin assistant, or because they've stumbled upon the group - invited by a friend, joined along with a spouse whose personality does fit the group, etc.) and that causes tension. The group can go a few different ways at this point. When the new personality is in a position of leadership, there are often explosions within the group with the result that a chunk of people end up leaving. If the new personality is not a leader, they may eventually drift away, or they may hang on within the group but never feel like they quite fit in. It's a rare group that is faced with strongly different personalities and yet still manages to find a way to work together despite that. (One would think that in the church, this would be a common event. It is, after all, a core tenant of the gospel that Jesus brings unity where once there was enmity. Unfortunately, churches are full of humans and another core tenant of the gospel is that humans are bunch of selfish dorks.)

Lately, an aspect of group personality has been tick tocking around in my brain - activity. There's probably a better word for it, but that's what I've come up with so far. Maybe "method of activity" or "format of activity" or "mode of operation" would work better. Feel free to throw thoughts out there on what exactly I'm talking about. But the main idea is that groups do things. The PTO raises money for the school, encourages communication between staff and parents, etc. The garden club plants things, teaches gardening, and harvests. Churches worship, disciple, evangelize and fellowship. Every group, no matter how similar, probably approaches even similar tasks in different ways, reflecting the specific personality of that group.

Like I said, I'm just at the beginning of thinking about this, so I'm sure my diagram could use a lot more arrows and activity types, but this is what I've been fiddling around with so far.


I'm sure there are inactive groups, but those are essentially dead, so I didn't even go down that road. Among active groups, I figure there are some that plan out exactly what they're going to do before they do it. Any fundraising group needs to do that or they're not going to make enough money to blow a bubble at. But there are other groups that just kinda take what gets thrown at them and they deal with issues as they come. They're more reactive than proactive. (Actually, the fundraising example is very specific. What I'm really trying to focus on is the bigger picture - group goals, vision, purpose, etc. So when I give specific examples, I don't mean to. They just show how I'm still just thinking all this through.) The reactive group may have a general sense of its purpose, but it approaches activity within that purpose more from an intuitive perspective than a scripted or planned point of view.

I suppose most groups are a mixture of these methods, but I think every group falls into one of these categories more often than the other by design. Even the most well scripted PTO can suddenly be faced with something unexpected that they have to deal with. But their intention is to be a completely prescribed group. While a girl scout group leader might only plan from meeting to meeting without having any overarching organization or goal for the year.

There is value from being organized and there is value in being flexible (S vs. N) and any group that is too much of one or the other risks being so straight-jacketed that they can't bend to accommodate new situations or so loosey-goosey that things only get done haphazardly. (The "traditional church" vs. the "emerging church" come to mind, although I think even emerging churches are often more scripted than they'd like to admit. The least scripted church I've ever known was a house church in San Francisco. Though they had traditions and overarching goals for periods of time, they were ultimately flexible and ... slowly dynamic, for lack of a better term.)

Given that we're talking about groups, and groups generally have leaders, I think the top-down effects of being too far one way or the other are that either the group is shoehorned into following the style, format and goals of the leader, or they're left without any leadership at all and everyone just does what is right in their own eyes. I think ideally the leadership would provide a blend of direction/goals and leeway for people to innovate and achieve the goals in a way that works for them. I suppose what I'm saying is that leadership should help to provide a framework that will help the group achieve their goals in way that's in keeping with the personality of the group.

Random vs. Organic vs. Programmatic

A group with an unintentional framework and a random means of accomplishing tasks, still accomplishes some tasks. But it can be so hit or miss that the group is unreliable and though maybe not ineffective, at least untrustworthy.

A group that is programmatic can achieve quite a bit, especially on paper. Schools are programmatic. They have programs of coursework that need to be completed in order to progress either to another level or to graduation. Large churches tend to be programmatic. People that I know who attend large churches can often list several of the programs that the church provides. Hierarchy is important in a setting like this. A clear cut pyramid of authority helps the programmatical structure to run smoothly.

A group that is organic often doesn't look nearly as accomplished as a group that is programmatic. In order to get a sense of the achievements or growth within an organic group you often have to stick around awhile and see it in action to "get" what's happening. End results are often not as clear cut in an organic group as compared to a programmatic group where programs have very clear beginning and end points and ending is often seen as a success irregardless of what the individuals within the program got out of it. People that I know who attend more organic churches can often list several, if not all, of the group members by name. The group often operates more like a bunch of cells in a body. Everyone knows what their own roll is and when they get the word, they move into position and set to work. Leadership in this case is often a matter of communicating a need from one part of the body to another so that those who can fix the problem are alerted to move into action. A lot of the training for action happens in one-on-one relationships or in small groups. 

As a T, I think I gravitate toward programmatic formats as they're often a compact and intensified means of learning or doing something. Attending the University of Michigan suited me to a T because the size of the institution meant they could afford a plethora of programs that I could partake in. But what I've learned in the last couple of decades is that organic formats often take an idea or an action to a much deeper level. For example, a programmed week of intensive building at an orphanage in Mexico can mean a new and important building that will affect many lives. But an organic relationship with an orphan from Mexico can intimately change both their life and mine for the rest of our lives. Both are good things. They're just different in form and function.

Programmatic formats are much easier to advertise, much easier to quantify, and much easier to scale. Organic formats are often in such small groups that they aren't advertised at all, they're hard to quantify, especially if you're not in the group and don't have a handle on what exactly the group has been doing or learning or talking about, and they're much harder to scale... and once they're scaled large they often turn into programs.

I should add that just because something is programmatic doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to be compact or intensified. There are long programs and there are programs that I've been involved in that were nothing but a waste of time. Nothing got done, nothing got learned, nothing happened but lots of hot air got blown around and participants were largely idle or just going through the motions. And just because something is organic doesn't mean that it's going to be deeper or better integrated. Sometimes organic situations feel like you're just spinning your wheels or biding time.

But I do think that sometimes certainly personalities fit better with better styles. As I said before, the T in me loves programs for fast and intense learning. But the I in me has learned to appreciate the connectivity and personal interaction of organic systems. I don't know where F's fall, and I suspect that F's and P's could both add categories to my little chart above that haven't even crossed my mind.

I think it's important to remember that these styles aren't necessarily better or worse, they're just different. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. But I do think it's important to be aware of the different styles and to see that they do both have value.