Feelin’ Good

I am feeling pretty good these days. I am feeling good about being a part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), that is.

First, I attended the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis and was pleased to see that we acted much less like a family than we usually do. That may sound bad to you, but it has been my observation that anytime a church or church group describes themselves as family, they think it means something good and it doesn't. We are like a family but the reality is, it is a dysfunctional family. We fight over things that are meaningless to others; we speak a secret language that is made up of a mishmash of meaningless letters that one needs a "Captain Midnight" decoder ring to figure out (DJAN, CURJA, DHM, HELM, DCHS, MACC, and others. Advice: It is always a best guess – the D stands for Disciples.); we rarely tell each other the truth; we do most of the things we do because that is how our family has always done those things; we irritate and offend most of the family in our attempts to please a couple of family members (Dysfunctional Family Rule – the crankiest kid gets the most attention.) and we say we love everyone the same, but we don't.

I had the honor to lead a Resource Group on church transformation and was amazed to see the room fill up to capacity. I was surprised that anyone knew there was a group on transformation and bothered to come. I knew I was leading a group and, still, I had a difficult time finding it listed in the program. You see, one of our mission imperatives as a church for the next 10 years is church transformation – on paper. When it comes to the reality of actions, we don't give a rip about church transformation. Three resources groups were offered on transformation/evangelism and all three were offered in the same time slot. In the pre assembly literature these groups were listed well after more important resource groups such as "Underwater Basket Weaving" and "Writing Church Policy on Vacuum Use." A person who attended my group asked if it was going to be recorded because she wanted to purchase the DVD. After I quit laughing, I informed her that only the important, meaningful groups were recorded. I later walked past a resource group that was being recorded and peeked in. There were four people in attendance. I am not kidding.

When I arrived home I received a copy of Disciples World. It was a stellar edition. Rebecca Woods had written a great article on our satellite church at Shawneesprings Care Facility that is pastored by Rev. Larry Nielsen. There were several articles about some very interesting church plants. There were no articles about transformational churches, but we must remember that church transformation is a mission imperative for the Christian Church (DOC) in theory only.

Also in that issue was a great article about different ways of thinking in the church by Professor Ron Allen. The article was clear, informative and helpful. Which made it difficult to believe it was really written by a seminary professor. In it Dr. Allen wrote that some people in our churches take a multi-authority approach. "Many Christians draw on four sources when considering what to believe and how to live: the Bible, the tradition of the church, personal and community experience and contemporary views of the world," Dr. Allen wrote. Others take the single-authority model. Dr. Allen says, "Indeed, many people in this stream regard the Bible as the only trustworthy authority." As I read the article, in which the author stated that, "Most Christians incline more toward one perspective than the other," that I certainly had a particular lean. He made another profound statement, "My impression is that members of the Christian community often evolve into one of these perspectives without thinking consciously." Dr. Allen suggested that we all would do well to rethink our positions. I agree.

I have thought about mine. I have come to the conclusion that most of us come to our world view by what we are taught and what we experience. I believe I have become a Biblical person because of my education and life experience. For the first 25 years of my life I was functionally Biblically illiterate. My life's foundation was not Biblically based. My education included undergraduate minors in both psychology and history and those studies have impacted my world view. Because of my studies of history, I am strongly inclined to reject the traditions of the church and contemporary views of the world. History tells us that those two things have generally not served humankind well in the development of a solid understanding of the world and of God and as a meaningful foundation for the living of life. Tradition can inform our present but it had best not dictate our current way of life. And contemporary views of life are constantly changing and consistently proven to be poorly informed, and often quite irrational. Contemporary views sound good at the time but rarely stand up to the scrutiny of the future.

My study of psychology in college and graduate school and my study of the human mind, human nature in many years of doing ministry have strongly impacted how I see life. I have been powerfully impressed by our human deeply embedded ability to rationalize some amazingly poor behavior. Our human mental gymnastics inform me that it is a very bad idea to base my understanding of morals and foundational truths for living on my personal experience and my take on life. It is my belief that the more we can take ourselves out of the mix when we are setting foundational principles for living, the better off we are.

My life experiences have not been the norm and perhaps my life experiences have not been helpful in this search for understanding. For, you see, my life experiences include: Boy Scout leader; teacher; pastoral counselor; church transformation leader; public service in police, fire, and emergency medicine; counselor in the juvenile justice system; prison chaplaincy and (most enlightening of all) child rearing. These experiences tell me that whoever came up with the incredibly naive idea that people are naturally good must live alone in a very isolated area of the world. If we are left to our own devices we will both figure out how to do something that is amazingly wrong and we will also find a way to rationalize our behavior to ourselves and everyone who will listen.

So I guess, according to Dr. Allen's model, I slide over toward the single authority side of things. Perhaps though, with some more education and thought, I can make it over to the more prevalent position of the multi-authority way of viewing things. It would be a difficult journey for me because I would have to abandon one of my basic understandings of life as I have experienced it. That understanding is that people, human beings, you and me, we are full of crap and don't have a clue that we are.

Copyright © 2009, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved