“Misunderstood” – You are in good company

“Misunderstood” – You are in good company

Misunderstand: a failure to interpret or understand the words or actions of (someone) correctly. Synonyms are misapprehend, misinterpret, misconstrue, misconceive, mistake, misread.

Every human being I know or know of has experienced this unfortunate state of being. It happens in all our relationships, in our communities and in the global population. It happens to people groups of religious origins, ethnic origins, and regional origins. Being misunderstood is a universal human experience. People don’t understand why.

For example many Christians are asking the question about why they are perceived so negatively and misunderstood within the general society. There was a time they were at the center of American society in the 20^th century, but now they are being pushed to the margins of this society. They are challenged in all areas of life. I chose Christians because I am one, a follower of Jesus the Christ. Now, I sincerely want to get an answer to this issue. Without infusing any religious rhetoric into this evaluation. 

All things considered I decided to use a technique I employed while in the midst of my doctoral studies. I started the practice of Googling the unfinished sentence, why are Christians so. . . When you do this Google will display the top search results for this sentence. For example I just completed this step as I began writing the blog for today. The results were “why are Christians so”. . . ignorant, mean, hypocritical, judgmental, easily deceived and intolerant. You get the idea. Now, it is important to understand my focus is not only on Christians. I do the same Google search for Muslims as well. The recent results were “why are Muslims so” . . . violent, crazy, hateful, angry, intolerant, evil and backward. I also do this for other groups including Atheists. Here we see a pattern emerge in the search results. The results were “why are Atheist so”. . . angry, hateful, stupid, obsessed with religion and mean. This pattern emerges universally with any group. So, why is this?

I believe key to this lies in the ancient Greek aphorism, “Know thyself.” It sounds so easy, so simple. Yet it is so hard for people to actually make appropriate assessments about their own every day behaviors in comparison to others. People really do not know themselves. Especially, when it comes to their personal behaviors, deep felt beliefs and perceptions of themselves. When it comes to explaining things that are negative about ourselves we have an inherent default reasoning that kicks in. We attribute our own behavior to external sources. In other words we blame others while we make excuses for ourselves. In other words we give ourselves a pass or an excuse. “If only my boss wasn’t so demanding I wouldn’t have forgotten to mail that package to my son.” Or “Why doesn’t my husband listen to me. I couldn’t have said what I wanted any clearer. He doesn’t understand me at all.”

However, when it comes to dealing with others, as a general rule, we don’t give them a break or pass. When we judge their behavior we do this by attributing to them an internal source or factors. This is referred to as the actor-observer effect. We all participate in this process every day, even hourly. This issue is we see ourselves differently then we see others and it is normal to all human beings. “She didn’t mail the package to our son because she is having second thoughts about the gift we bought him.” Or “You didn’t mail the invitations because deep down you are having second thoughts about the marriage, aren’t you?”

            I am not trying to over simplify the problem, but I am working towards opening the way for us to have conversations about these issues. Also to connect us with our humanity, as flawed as it is. There are many people who have been hurt, hurt deeply by others. Someone who fits into a category or people group. In their pain people have labeled everyone within that group or category as mean, hypocritical, or intolerant. Let’s be honest with ourselves the problem is we, as well as others consider ourselves to be misunderstood and we are by others and ourselves. 

What good is knowing this? It is universally human to be misunderstood and to misunderstand ourselves and others. Welcome to reality.

What can we do about this? If you are open to some self-exploration ask some friends or others if you come across bias. Ask them how you come across to others. Remember they have their biases too, but learn from them and listen more than talk. Ask question, clarifying questions. Don’t assume and practice an internal conversation where you are formulating your answer before the other person has finished their sentence. Avoid criticizing the input you requested. It only creates defensiveness that shuts down conversation and breeds contempt for the other person. This eventually leads to completely shutting down any form of conversation and you stonewall the other person. Become self-aware.

Welcome to what it means to be human. It takes work, hard work to have real genuine relationships and remove the stigma of being misunderstood.

What is the Problem?

What is the Problem?

What is the problem? The problem is found in the sense that postmodernism is an overwhelming cultural paradigm shift rendering the contemporary church culturally irrelevant. The postmodern shift has effectively moved western culture away from the formulation of propositional and confessional faith, resulting in a cultural crisis amid the modernist within the contemporary church. Walter Truett Anderson asserts, “We are in the midst of a great, confusing, stressful and enormously promising historical transition, and it has to do with a change not so much in what we believe as in how we believe.” The practices of the contemporary and institutional church has been to function in the culture that was produced by modernity. With the postmodern shift the mode of replication church planting is no longer effective. In their book Hope from the Margins, Stuart Murray and Anne Wilkinson-Hayes observe the following reasons why the contemporary and institutional church has experienced fewer success and more failures, they assert,

•       Most churches which were able to plant another church early in the 1990s have not yet recovered sufficiently to do so again;   
•    Few newly-planted churches have yet grown quickly enough to plant another church;
•      The dominance of personal-intensive models of church planting have discouraged smaller churches from becoming involved;
•    A disturbing number of church plants have failed, have remained small and weak, or have attracted only those who were already Christians;
•      Church planting has generally been restricted to areas where churches are already flourishing, leaving many urban and rural areas untouched.

             Murray and Wilkinson’s claim indicates the context that the contemporary institutional church now occupies is within a postmodern society; the conventional mode of church planting is proving to be ineffective amid marginalized people. Christianity no longer is in a position of dominance in North America. Tom Clegg and Warren Bird state this conclusion, 

“The inescapable conclusion is that we must throw out any notion that God is truly at the center of the church’s heat in North America. The shift in society’s view of the church has resulted in the marginalization of the church and the secularization of society. Christianity has lost its place at the center of American life. Christians must learn how to live the gospel as a distinct people who no longer occupy the center of society. We must learn to build relational bridges that win a hearing.”8  

Clegg and Bird’s conclusion is reflective of the serious decline amid denominations and members in the contemporary institutional church. Those starting new movements are recognizing that North America is a mission field. Darrell L. Guder observes the North American experience as it moves rapidly into post-Christendom, 

“The United States is still, by all accounts, a very religious society. The pollsters affirm that Americans and Canadians believe in God, pray regularly, and consider themselves religious. But they find less and less reason to express their faith by joining a Christian church.”  

It may be concluded by the shift in expressing faith that church planting is no longer a carbon copy or imitation endeavor where a church replicates itself in another location. The Decade of Evangelism initiated in the 1990’s represents an erroneous assumption that society accepts the conventional mode of ecclesia with its basic features intact, but seeded into new soil would yield a new crop of followers. The erroneous thinking of the contemporary institutional church may be traced to earlier times when the church was believed to be the center of the community. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch in their book, The Shaping of Things to Come, address the misconception,

“Many of the new Protestant church movements of recent years are simply variations on the old Christendom mode. Whether they place their emphasis on new worship styles, expressions of the Holy Spirit’s power, evangelism to seekers, or bible teaching, these so-called new movements still operate out of the fallacious assumption that the church belongs firmly in the town square, that is, at the heart of Western culture. And if they begin with this mistaken belief about their position in Western society, all their church planting, all their reproduction will simply mirror this misapprehension.” 

             The efforts of the contemporary church have been to repackage itself and all of its activities in what it perceives to be relevant to and with postmodern culture. The result has been the propagation of church planting strategies from organizations and institutions that encourage following of various models resulting in replication of other churches. Author and church historian Leonard Sweet writes about this propagation of contemporary church planting models, “We’ve been Pullingerized, Wimberized, Hybelized, Neighbourized, Warrenized in our pursuit of what God’s ‘up to.’” Sweet rightly indicates the prevailing issue is finding what God is “up to.” The same methodology through attempting to replicate another churches successes in other contexts, essentially being a carbon copy that lacks any originality that may relate to the cultural context of the church plant. It is time the church is challenged to enter into all cultural contexts with their uniqueness and identity.

The Rules of the Game are Totally Different

And the Church must be forever building,

And always decaying, And always being restored.    

 --T.S. Eliot

Foreign travel is one of the best ways to experience intractable cultural differences. For example, when traveling to the United Kingdom I experienced the difficulty of driving on the left hand side of the road. “Are you nervous?” was the first question the driving instructor asked. As I sat in the driver’s seat behind a steering wheel that was on the right hand side of the car. The thought of driving on the left hand side of the road was overwhelming. “Nerves, no. I’m absolutely freakin’ out, none of this feels right, but let’s do this!” Anxiety filled my mind and a large amount of adrenalin flowed in my body. The pedals were all the same as in the U.S., clutch, break and gas pedal were all present, only on the wrong side of the car. The gear-shift lever was still in the center, but I would have to shift with my left hand. It all felt awkward and out of place, unnatural. “This just isn’t right!” Andrew, my London friend, laughed at me and saying, “Doug, you’re not in Kansas anymore!” He was right. It was a foreign land and I was thrust into experiencing one of the greatest cultural difficulties Americans encounter when visiting the UK; driving on the wrong side of the road. 

Fortunately, the driving lesson started out in an area specifically designed for teaching Americans to drive. Everything was marked clearly, the lanes with arrows to indicate correct direction, the street signs that would be encountered and then there was the dreaded counter-flow roundabout. The counter-flow roundabout is definitely not for the faint of heart. Before visiting the UK I thought that the only real big difference was simply driving on the opposite side of the road . . . it’s not. The rules of the game are totally different. Everything about driving in the UK went against all that I knew and understood about driving in America. Finally, I am ready to experience traffic in real time. Despite my objections, Andrew and the instructor took me out to an area where they felt the traffic was lighter and had counter-flow roundabouts. I was asked to drive from one end of a five-mile section through two counter-flow roundabouts turn around and come back to the starting point. Did I mention counter-flow roundabouts are definitely not for the faint of heart?

The experience was one of the most intimidating of my life. The straight sections were great, the corners were tricky and I ended up in the wrong lane a couple of time. During this first foray into traffic it was in the roundabouts where Andrew and the instructor screamed like children begging for their lives. To this day I can recall their screams. One recommendation here, avoid the Lorries (the trucks), they are large and intimidating. Frankly one should avoid hitting one at all costs. It took a few weeks to become a novice driver in the UK. If I had not taken the time to orient myself to this intractable culture difference of driving in the UK the results could have great injury others or myself. 

The experience of learning to drive in the UK forced me to feel the deep frustration and discomfort of what it means to be completely outside of my comfort zone. As wrong as it might seem to drive on the left, the UK will not change for the convenience of an American. Nor should we expect them too. Yet, in general this is exactly what the contemporary church expects of people. When dealing with intractable cultural differences the church believes they are able to easily overcome the barriers, but in reality the practices and strategies the church employs are like an American learning to drive in the UK. The danger lies in the idea that the church works on a one size fits all theory that eventually. This may cause spiritual death in those who don’t understand the culture or do not or won’t conform to church culture. The rules of the game are totally different. The church is experiencing intractable cultural differences with the culture it resides within. The church in the North American context is struggling due to its inability to connect with the diverse emerging cultural climates. Cultural change has set the course of the church in a pattern of cultural irrelevance and decline. 

It is the reality that the North American church is experiencing decline. We recognize several factors are contributing to this decline; postmodernism and post-Christendom are the two dominate cultural factors and principal contributors. While the population continues to grow in North America, church attendance is severely diminishing, so much so that if the current trend continues by the year 2050 church attendance will be fifty percent of what it was in the 1990’s. With the number of people attending church in such a decline amid the general population, what is transpiring amid the culture of North American society? The change in church attendance amid the general population has implications. This blog asks the questions, what is transpiring amid people in relationship to the establishment of new churches? How might leadership be inspired in order to empower contextualization of the Gospel with practical theological practice in the midst of a post-Christian culture? The opinion of this blog is that the alternate missional movement churches has been able to create and sustain communities in the midst of this society, specifically where other church planting methodologies have experienced more failure then success. 

The alternate missional churches with their unique strategies and practices provide support for empowering contextualization of the Gospel. They are doing this through practical theology and this creates and sustains church communities in the midst of a various cultural environments. The backdrop for this view is supported by the historical success of the church has as a missional movement spanning the globe into contemporary times having originated from the humble beginnings with a handful of Jesus followers, specifically the twelve disciples.

In this blog we will be exploring the future church, its shape, dynamics and life in the postmodern and post-Christian environment of North America.

*This blog consists of excerpts from my dissertation – Positive Deviance: Empowering Ecclesial Contextualization With Theological Praxis.*