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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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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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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Like one would expect from the secular press, they don't really get the whole picture. However, it is further evidence that missionary issues that have been primarily fought in academic circles and in the hushed conference rooms of missionary get-together are getting some legs.
 

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In 1899, John Livingston Nevius was asked to speak on missions to the forming Korean church.  Nevius himself was a missionary to China and he wrote his thesis in a 1899 book called, The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches.  His basic principles (which I am copying from the Wikipedia page about him) are:

1. Christians should continue to live in their neighborhoods and pursue their occupations, being self-supporting and witnessing to their co-workers and neighbors.
2. Missions should only develop programs and institutions that the national church desired and could support.
3. The national churches should call out and support their own pastors.
4. Churches should be built in the native style with money and materials given by the church members.
5. Intensive biblical and doctrinal instruction should be provided for church leaders every year.

It is amazing that we are still trying to get missionaries to adopt these principles, over 110 years later.  You may have heard of the "three self" church strategy that states a church should be self-governing, self-supporting, and self-replicating.  These ideas infused Nevius' thinking (they originally were called the Venn-Anderson principles).

Nevius never got the Chinese church to adopt these principles.  The Korean church did, and it took off like lightning.  Ironically, the national church of China today is called the "Three Self Church," and, while growing, is being outpaced by the underground house church movement which actually practices the three-self principles.  This underground movement wasn't born until after the purging of missionaries from China in the early 1950's.  In the wake of this wave of persecution, the church was forced to into a mold of indigenous, organic growth.

What Nevius/Venn/Anderson taught would collide with many contemporary missions strategies.  The hiring of national workers, holistic approaches dependent on funding from outside (such as orphanages and other humanitarian programs), and even business as mission are possible examples.  Yet, Nevius still has much to say to our current generation of workers. We are still teaching missionaries to avoid institutionalizing the church. 

Why is this so hard?  One reason may be our insistence on institutional models of church practice, most recently exemplified by the mega-church movement.  Another may be a view of church leadership which is hierarchical, insists on seminary degrees, and relies on European models of the church.

You can read the source material on Nevius yourself:

• The Planting and Development of Missionary Churches
• The Life of John Livingston Nevius: For Forty Years a Missionary in China

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Because much of my blog is about the mission agency realm, I will share one quote from you among many that could be quoted in this writeup.  Sookhdeo writes:

"It should also be noted that many mission agencies are keeping secret their support for the Insider Movement, for fear that donors will stop giving to them in protest."

As I have traveled globally and met with missionaries who are not IM practitioners, they ask me, "Do churches and donors in the US know what these IM missionaries are doing?"  While I cannot substantiate Dr. Sookhdeo's claim (he notes an anonymous source in the footnotes), missionaries that I speak with feel that there is a lack of transparency regarding IM practices.  For example, some IM practitioners suggest that saying the Shahada (the Muslim statement of conversion) is acceptable behavior for missionaries.  I don't believe that many of their supporting constituents in the US would agree with this and continue to back these ministries if they were aware of just how "far inside" this movement is attempting to go.

You can read the whole article by clicking here.  It is a long read, but it's worth getting a sense of the history leading to the current state of affairs.

I invite any of you to respond to this topic and I particularly invite any IM'ers that feel that this post (or the accompanying article) is not fair or misrepresents the issue.  Muslims should also feel welcome to weigh in on this topic – I moderate comments so I will make sure you get fair treatment.

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As churches in the US begin to find out just what missionaries they fund are doing, I expect there will be a backlash; in fact, this has already begun.  In the past few months this debate has begun to gather steam.  Ergun Caner, President of Liberty Theological Seminary, has given a scathing interview about the Southern Baptist Convention’s use of the “Camel Method,” a strategy that uses the Quran to share Christ.  He later would have to recant the charge that IMB President Jerry Rankin was a liar!

FYI, I am C-4 proponent.  C-5 is, at best, a transitory phase of the development of the church.  It should not be a goal for missionaries to shoot for C-5 believers or churches.

Here are a few resources for you to educate yourself on this topic.  If you have more resources, please send them on through to me!

A Proponent Makes His Case
These articles are by John Travis, a pro-Insider Movement author.  From here you can find other resources that are quoted.

The Camel Method
Here is where you can buy the book yourself.  The author makes a defense in this article.

The IMB’s Statements on Contextualization
Here the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention outlines their position on contextualization.

St. Francis Magazine
This resource has carried a number of critical articles about the more extreme versions of contextualization.  This issue has lots of good info on both perspectives and tons of good links.  You can spend a couple hours on these resources and still be learning new things!  Highly recommended (you can download the whole issue and put it on your reading device!).

My experience with the Common Ground Movement
This is a critique from a CMB (Christian of Muslim Background) with a story
about how this strategy may be perceived as deceptive by a Muslim (a
conviction I share).

Note:  There is a difference between the Common Word movement and the Common Ground movement.  The former is more ecumenical/cooperative in nature while the latter is more about missionary strategy.  Sometimes I see them lumped together, but this isn’t really fair.  You can find the official site on the Common Word here, and this is a critique from John Piper.

Edit from original article…

I have been emailed about my lack of inclusion of the Common Path website. I didn’t know it existed. Here is the link for those that want to see what C-5/IM advocates have to say on the issue: Common Path Alliance

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I googled “22 Christians Afghanistan” on my blackberry. There were results, to be sure, but none related to anything similar to a current event. My blackberry vibrated in my hand. Another friend, now forwarding the information to me via SMS, was asking me about this story. “Was it true?” I replied with a quick, “IDK,” and, leaving my minivan in the driveway, went into the house and popped open my laptop. A more extensive search again showed nothing relevant to today, but related hits about a 2007 incident in which 22 Korean short-term missionaries were held hostage.

The next day I was at the local university, studying, as my blackberry danced in its holster all morning long. People were sending me the message and urging me to pray. The actual text of the message was:

From: (Number Omitted) Msg: Please pray for 22 Christian misionary (sic) families that will be executed today in Afghanistan. Please spread to others fast.

By this time I was quite certain that it was a hoax. The most obvious reason was the total lack of news reports that related to an incident which typically would be pretty sensational. The message content also was suspect. It used the word “families,” which seemed odd, and misspelled the word “missionary.”

The amazing thing to me is how many times, in a four day period, I received this SMS text. I personally received it from over a dozen different phone numbers. Even more numerous were the emails asking me to verify the story (I work for a faith-based non-profit that sends people all the world). My blog, which is thematically tied to Christian missionary efforts, has received more comments on this story than any other (admittedly, a small number, but my blog is followed by about three people in a good month).

I think this shows the power of an emotionally charged hoax, spread via simple means, through a densely packed network. I am calling this an “echso-text” for “emotionally charged hoax spread organically” via (in this case) text messaging. I guess you could have an “echso-twitter” and we have all gotten “echso-email.” I like this term because it hints at the word “echo” and the latin-sounding “exo” (for ‘out,’ of course).

This story was certainly emotionally charged. I also think that the text message itself, by urging the reader to pass it on, contributed to its ability to spread. The fact that a precedent event involving Korean missionaries in Afghanistan also made the message somewhat more believable. The Christian community, particularly that segment involved in foreign missions, does tend to be somewhat dense. Yes, feel free to take that as an intentional double entendre. The web of relationships is tightly packed (sociologists call this a dense network), but this segment of people are often quick to believe what should probably be examined first.

I am sure that there have been many other similar echso-texts but this is the first one that I have been pulled into in this way.

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RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS and ACORNS

(Note: This material is largely based on the work of Gerlach and Hines, cited at the end of this article.)

Something that fascinates many people is the idea of movements and how they form, and how they are generated; in fact, I’ve decided to do my Ph. D research in this area. I want to share with you an acronym that I recently developed based on the work with a couple of different researchers that I think has really helped me to articulate in a short amount of time, what makes up a movement. How they happen and what goes into making a movement occur. The acronym is ACORNS. And of course, the idea behind this is that a small little acorn becomes a huge oak tree and often times that’s the case with movements.

A. Affinity Recruitment

Affinity Recruitment is the idea that movements tend to work best when new members are brought into the movement along existing social lines. For example, students who tell other students about Christ -they will grow a movement , a Christian movement across the lines of the affinity group of students. We see affinity recruitment in almost every social movement that’s out there, and I think that religious movements more so than social movements.

C. Common Experience

When we experience something with somebody else, that tends to cement the relationship and pulls us closer together. In the case of religious movements you’ll find that most of them will have some sort of Common Experience that is expressed through the movement . So for example if you are a Christian in one of the Arab countries, that Common Experience typically would be baptism. One could profess faith in Christ but when baptism occurs, then all of a sudden you are identified by your culture and by your peers as a Christian. In that context the Common Experience would be baptism. Some researchers have made the argument that within Pentecostalism, it is the similar ecstatic experiences that make up the Common Experience that makes it most important.

O. Opposition

Sometimes the Opposition may not be significant. One researcher studied Pentecostal movements in a midwestern city and he pointed to the opposition that these Christians face from other Christians because of their theology. Most of the time the Opposition that we are talking about would be more along the lines that we see in China, where it is directly against the religious movement, not a particular practice within that movement. In any case, most of the major religions make room for Opposition as a proof of their validity.

R. Revolutionary Ideology

Certainly, Christianity teaches a Revolutionary Ideology. If you follow Jesus, you become a new person. What’s more revolutionary than that? That’s personal transformation. There’s also the idea of cultural transformation inherent in Christianity. You can also find similar themes in other religions as well.

N. Network Structure

Religious movements do not have a centralized or controlling authority within them. One set of researchers described this network structure as “an acephalous reticulated network structure.” Do you know what a cephalous is? Well reach up there and grab for your head because that’s your cephalous. So achepalous means headless or without a head. Reticulated is best thought of when you see the back of the leaf and you see all the veins leading to one common spot. That is a reticulated structure. In other words, the various nodes of a network have some type of interconnection between them. So an achephalous reticulated network structure is common among most religious movements.

S. Spiritual Dynamism

Of all the letters this one may be the most important one. The Spiritual Dynamic that you’d find in most Christian movements is, of course, centered around the person of Christ and the Holy Spirit. I don’t think that there’s any research that’s been done that doesn’t highly emphasize the spiritual character or nature of that particular movement. Whether that would be a “student volunteer movement” (a missions movement from the early 1900’s) or the current expansion of the church in China, or the church in Mongolia, or the Pentecostal movement in the United States, the spiritual element is very important.

So that’s a little acronym for you to think about movements – ACORNS. Affinity Recruitment. Common Experience. Opposition. Revolutionary Ideology and Network Structure. Topped of by perhaps the most important: Spiritual Dynamism.

Endnotes:

Gerlach, L. P., and V. H. Hine. 1968. Five Factors Crucial to the Growth and Spread of a Modern Religious Movement. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 7 (1):23-40.

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