Esler.org

It was The Christian Commonwealth by John Eliot.

Eliot was a theologian, Bible translator, and political writer.  He translated the Bible into Algonquin, or Massachusetts, in 1661 (that's right, I just wrote 1661).

He is most known for his efforts to create a new civil order among the Indians he served as a missionary.  He emphasized the need to protect indigenous culture while at the same time organizing the Indians into towns focused on living a Christian life both privately and publicly.  He was known for leading the "Praying Indians"

Ultimately, his vision of a Christian society among the Indians would be destroyed by English settlers who didn't like to see the advancements in Indian culture that missionaries were introducing (literacy, health reform, and a respect of basic human rights) and were threatened by the Indians' alliance with France.

Wikipedia notes that Eliot's book was the first book to be banned by an American government (not the US government as it didn't yet exist).  He proposed a system of government based on Exodus 18 which proposed dethroning the King.

That can get you into trouble.

You can download the whole book here.

Sources:  Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. by Moreau, The Christian Commonwealth by Eliot, and Wikipedia.

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If you were Chinese, what religion is a better political option for you?

Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam?

Yesterday I had a conversation with somebody who has been living and working in China for the past ten years or so. We were talking about the incredible growth of the church there. I asked him about government repression and his answer was a bit surprising to me.

He said, "The Chinese government thinks religion is a good thing for the people."

Huh?

Then today, I read this article on NPR which states,

Since 2006, the position of China's government has been that religion can be a force for good toward the ultimate aim of creating a "harmonious society."

My friend also noted that for the Chinese government, Christianity is the best option politically.  Why?  Both Islam and Buddhism have growing opposition movements in them.

If you were a Chinese government official, Christianity is much less threatening prospect.

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Today, when you encounter the beauty of nature around you, search for Him.

This is how Jonathan Edwards enjoyed this little exercise:

…the beauties of nature are really emanations or shadows of the excellencies of the Son of God.

 

So that, when we are delighted with flowery meadows, and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see His love and purity. So the green trees, and fields, and singing of birds are the emanations of His infinite joy and benignity. The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of His beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of His favor, grace, and beauty. When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous bow, we behold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness; and, in the blue sky, of His mildness and gentleness. There are also many things wherein we may behold His awful majesty, in the sun in his strength, in comets, in thunder, in the hovering thunder-clouds, in ragged rocks, and the brows of mountains.

That so blesses me!

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Do movements spread from the top or from the bottom?

As a part of my PhD research I have been studying the phenomenon of how movements take root and spread.  Lately, I have been challenged by James D. Hunter's book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

For a review of Hunter's book, this Christianity Today review is excellent.  There has been some excellent "back and forth" between some authors.  Both Andy Crouch and Chuck Colson responded (they get a rather strong critique in Hunter's book).

The premise of much Christian writing and thinking has been that if you change the hearts and souls of a people, their culture will change.  Hunter disputes this premise.  He notes that if it were true, American culture would be far more Christian, as the majority of people in the US claim to Christians (yes, he does deal with the argument of people saying they are Christian but not acting like it).

He notes that subgroups within cultures often have more sway than the majority group.  He cites Jews and homosexuals as subgroups that have far greater cultural influence in America than Christianity does.  He makes the argument that one must capture the hearts and minds of the elites in order to have real and lasting impact.

In the end, he takes the "easy way" and combines both the "top down" and "bottom up" approach into what he called "Faithful Presence."  It is a focus on both institutional and personal renewal.

This has great implications for those seeking to foster Christian movements globally, if true.

As I have read this book one movement has stood out to me that is not a good fit for his model.  The church in China has not been a movement of either elites or of institutional reform.  From the perspective of this outsider at least, the growth of Chinese Christianity has happened in an almost completely grassroots fashion.

I am grappling with these ideas.  The Pioneers' missionary force, at over 2,000 strong, is mostly aimed at the grassroots approach.  Should we press on in this mode?

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Our organization has a wise, old, experienced oracle.

I mean, we really, literally do.

"Uncle Jack" is a legend in the world of global Christian organizations.  For decades he worked with one of the two large umbrella associations to help their members be more effective.  He was a founder of SEND International, one of the post World War 2 era missionary agencies.  There was a movement of new agencies founded after World War 2 that has redefined global missions and Uncle Jack was an advisor and counselor to many of these agencies.

About 17 years ago or so he decided to "retire" to Florida and take a role in our small but growing organization.  He is now 85 years old and still travels the world.

Uncle Jack doesn't have a staff or people reporting to him or any of that.  He is just here to talk when you need some input.  He attends many of our leadership meetings.

When I have a tough management issue to deal with, I walk over to Uncle Jack's office.  He listens carefully and then renders sparse but wise advice.

The older we get, the less we seem to like change and flexibility.  In 2008 we held a large conference here in Orlando called Story (yes, we are doing it again in 2010).  I was an emcee for this event and I remember looking out in the audience one night, just after the very loud and raucous worship band put down their instruments, to see Uncle Jack out there in the auditorium, smiling from ear to ear.  To Uncle Jack, the music was, I am sure, atrocious.  It's not the music from his era.  Why was he smiling? I asked him later on and he told me it was because he loved to see the young people worship.  Uncle Jack has taught me a lot about what it means to grow older in a way that delights in youth but isn't enamored with youth culture.

I know it would be hard for a small startup to have a full-time oracle like Uncle Jack.  I bet, though, that somewhere in your network of relationships there is an older, experience man or woman who would be more than happy to listen to your issues and problems on occasion.  Tell them you need an oracle.

Just this morning I walked by our team room to see him praying for missionaries around the world.  One more lesson for me to take in.

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I write a lot. 

Thousands of words per week, I am sure.

Most of it has a pretty small audience.

Most of it is not anything that I share with anybody or that has any "wheels."

Currently I am writing the following items:

1. Research Questionnaire (PhD program)
2. Discussion Guide (PhD program)
3. Strategic Plan (for Pioneers – group project with leaders in Pioneers-USA)
4. Book reviews on multiple books (PhD program)
5. This blog
6. 3-4 books in the idea stage
7. 1 blog post for another blog
8. An article for an academic journal
9. Hundreds of emails per year (3,203 at work alone, not including the ones on my personal address)

That list just came off the top of my head – imagine what it would be if I really thought about it!  That adds up to thousands and thousands of words.

In light of all this, I struggle with the writing projects I really want to do.  They never get done.  Things like good blog posts that bring meaning and something useful to people.  A book project.  Soon, my dissertation.

Think about, for example, Rodney Stark or Mark Noll both of whom write more books than I have time to read.  Lately, I have been amazed by Ed Stetzer, who seems to write a book a week (ok, not really, but you get that impression if you follow him on twitter).

So here is my question: How can some authors pump out so much "stuff" all the time?  Is it simply a matter of managing time and priorities?  Or do they not have "real jobs" with meetings and budgets and other time demanding tasks? 

HELP ME!!

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What nation on earth would be considered the world's most diverse?

How about the world's most diverse city?

To answer this question, one must be able to "count" diversity.  I propose the following categories:

• Ethnicity / Race
• Languages Spoken
• Religion
• Diverse Cities

So here goes… what nation on earth is the most diverse?

Ethnicity / Race

Ethnicity is very complex.  Is it related only to physical characteristics or does it also have linguistic aspects.   A country like Papua New Guinea with lots of distinct languages and cultures ranks low on ethnicity scales if the determiner is something like skin color. Race is also problematic in large part because within major racial grouping there are many different cultures.

I am going to suggest that ethnicity and race are not very helpful for determining the answer to this question.

No points awarded.

Languages Spoken

Shamelessly stealing text from the CIA (can I get in trouble for this?) is perhaps the best list of countries and their spoken languages that I could find.  Here it is:

Top 20 Languages by Number of Languages Spoken
Data source: CIA World Fact Book.

Score a point for Papua New Guinea (PNG).

PNG is very diverse linguistically and culturally. The religious views of PNG'ers are divided between Protestant Christianity and Tribal animism.  There are also plenty of "cargo cults" present.  Islam is seeking to influence the nation as well.

Religion

Religious diversity is a tough one.  From my research, there are three countries that lay claim to being the most religiously diverse.  There are Indonesia, India, and the United States (I am sure there are others but these come up the most).

Indonesia is home to the largest Muslim population in the world.  They also have a Buddhist and Hindu presence.  Christians make up as much as 15% of the population.  Islam makes up for 80% of the population.  Islamic repression of other religions, however, would lead me to believe that they are not the most religiously diverse nation.  So, I would strike them off the list pretty quickly.

India is the birthplace of four major religions.  Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.  it is roughly 80% Hindu but also has a substantial islamic population.  Within Hinduism there is great diversity as well.  India could be a contender for the title of most diverse nation religiously. 

However, the title has to go to the United States.

Diane Eck, in her book, A New Religious America : How a Christian Country Has Now Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation, makes a strong case that the United States has become the nation with the greatest number of religions present within its borders.  She traces this in part to a change in immigration law back in the 1960's.  It's the immigration angle that the United States has over other contenders in this category.

Even Canada and Australia, with their relaxed immigration policies, pale by comparison when it comes to the sheer numbers of immigrants who, of course, bring their religions with them.  35 million Americans are legal immigrants who were not born in the USA.  Millions more are in the US illegally.  That's 35 million out of the world's 200 million immigrants (source can be found here).  Many immigrants to the US are hispanic and therefore either Catholic or Protestant.  However, in "2005 alone more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent U.S. residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades" (source can be found here).

Score a point for the USA and this time, the referee can't take that point away.

Most Diverse City in the World

I could find no conclusive answer to this question.  Toronto certainly claims the title, but the data is very suspect.  

I know this is very unscientific, but on the various Internet lists I found the following names most commonly:

1. London [United Kingdom]
2. Toronto
3. New York City
4. Amsterdam
5. Los Angeles

Again, I will be the first to admit that this is non-scientific. However, the US has two cities in the top five list (I was trying to be objective, HONEST!).

I think the US scores a point here for having two cities in the "most mentioned" list.

Summary

SO…. This (biased?) American chooses the United States as the most diverse nation on the planet.

You don't have to take it from me!  I invite you to comment – feel free to critique this assesment and tell me if you feel that it is wrong.

Note:  Population Reference Bureau is an excellent website on population statistics and trends is http://prb.org. Check out their annual global report: http://prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2009/2009wpds.aspx Also, Wikipedia is great source – particularly the footnotes, for finding out demographic info. Finally, I would suggest that the best religious data is available on The Joshus Project.

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Is your church nurturing or is it a “weapon of mass induction” when it comes to the Kingdom of God?

Most of us want to answer “both” but I don’t think this very often true.  Churches are, for the most part, great at defense (teaching, pasturing, caring, and nurturing) and terrible at offense (going, evangelizing, and being apostolic).

Here is where the rubber meets the road for me.  Our house church started in part because a number of us wanted to “go deeper” in our relationships.  That’s more of a nurturing thing.

A few weeks back, at the Greenhouse training our house church attended, the challenge was to split up our group and not be “holy huddle;” to get out there and do outreach.  From my perspective, this is going wide rather than deep.

John 13:35 states, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  For me this means that we must live community out in front of those who are not Christians.  Like it or not, this is an attractional strategy. It calls us to invite others into our community.

Pragmatics is forcing the discussion. as much as anything else.  Our group now regularly gets to over thirty people.  We can’t go on meeting like this.  That’s a good thing.  And a bad thing.

So that’s our dilemma.  Deep or Wide?
 

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Conducting Post-Mortem Debriefs

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
      – George Santayana

Intentional evaluation of your organization’s successful and failed efforts is crucial to improvement.  Most of our best lessons can be learned by simple discussions about what went right and what went wrong.

The “Post-Mortem” helps you do this.

A post-mortem is the analysis done after the fact, the autopsy.  It happens using that wonderful thing we call hindsight.  To be a learning organization you must conduct post-mortems.  Sometimes they also called “debriefs.”

Soon after a major event here at Pioneers I like to call together a team of participants (whether they were leaders in the event or simply participants) and conduct an analysis of what worked and what didn’t work.  Documenting the conversation means that the next time we do this type of event, we won’t make the same mistakes and, perhaps more importantly, we will emphasize the successes.

We don’t always conduct post-mortems when we should.  I have noticed that we typically don’t do post-mortems in our organization when:

• The event or activity has become routine (danger! – institutionalization is setting in…)
• There is no time scheduled before the event or activity to conduct the post-mortem (a lack of intentionality)
• Success tricks us into complacency (hubris)
• Insecurity due to office politics, relationship issues, and failure of the event (you have a poor learning environment)

Remember this: The purpose of a post-mortem is to LEARN.

Set Some Ground Rules

Here are some simple ground rules you should share with the group at the outset of the post-mortem:

• We are not looking to attach blame or reward success.  If we truly see ourselves as a risk taking organization then we will fail and learn from these mistakes.  Conversely, success is sometimes due to external factors for which we cannot be credited.
• It’s not personal – no one person is being singled out for evaluation.  If it becomes a witch hunt the opportunity for learning is lost.
• Differences of opinion are fine – we don’t all see the situation the same.
• The ability to honestly share is what makes this process worthwhile.
• Notes will be taken and distributed after the meeting.  Make sure everybody knows that the intention of the post-mortem is to learn, not gossip or share confidential information.

The Facilitator

Somebody has to be the lead dog.  Appoint a facilitator who is good at drawing people out and making them feel safe.  Senior executives are not always good facilitators because they may be seen as "the man" (or "the woman" as the case may be) and not as one of the team.

This person:

• Needs to be very objective and open-minded.
• Needs to watch for people using the debrief time to press their agenda.
• Has to be non-directive in their facilitation of the meeting after the ground rules have been set out.
• Must document the discussion (or assign somebody else).
• For post-mortems with significant ramifications (i.e., “We are going to bet the whole budget on this next year”) the notes from the debrief should be sent to all members for edits/clarifications before they are finalized.

Outline of Discussion

I like to set out the following agenda at the beginning of the meeting.   These are the five elements I like to include in every debrief:

1. History – Discuss what happened, the goals, timeline of rollout, effort to date, profit or loss.  These are the facts behind the event.  If you started with metrics, highlight them with analysis of success or failure.
2. Environmental analysis – What is happening “out there” that affected us?  We recently called off a conference because of too few registrations.  We concluded the economic environment was a major factor working against us.
3. Organizational analysis – What happened internally that led to the success/failure of the project?  Did IT and marketing get on the same page?  Was there buy-in from the staff?  Did our timeline fall behind because of our team's workload? This discussion can highlight turf battles, areas of organizational weakness or strength, and issues regarding alignment.
4. Summary – List 2-3 key items that we want to communicate as “take aways.”  If you list too many, people will forget about them so keep it short and simple.
5. Follow-up – Assign follow-up items to individuals.  These may be to communicate the results, prep a report for management, or make recommendations for the next project.

Intentional post-mortems allow your organization to learn.  They can be times of significant improvement if conducted well.  Make post-mortems an organizational habit.

(Painting of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt)

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