Embarking

Candor:  Walsh is one who deeply values candor, honesty, and authenticity.  One thing that was helpful here was that Walsh said something like, “Let’s not waste time having meetings to decide what we’re going to say.  We’re just going to say what we believe.”

Differentiation:  At GM, employees were divided into the top 20%, the vital 70%, and then the 10% who needed to have something done with them immediately.  You can’t have a differentiating organization without having candor at the core of the organization.  People need to know how they are doing, what to change, and where they stand.  Walsh would say that this is not a heartless approach to people.  In fact, he would say it’s the most compassionate because everyone knows where they stand.

• Top “A” people, or the 20% are filled with energy, they are likeable and infections, they’re good people, and they love to see people grow.  They aren’t afraid to have great people around them.  They’re not mean-spirited or envious, but have a generosity of spirit.
• The Vital 70%, or “B” people are hard-working, but not necessarily as gifted as other people.
• The Lower 10% are not energetic, acidic, a pain in the “arm”, negative, boss-haters, disrupters, wet-blankets, antagonists.

We talked today at lunch about organizational culture, and what makes a good culture.  I’m really intrigued by this topic, and think it’s well worth not only talking about, but trying to be clear about defining your particular organizational culture.  If we don’t do that in our organizations, a culture will emerge, and culture is more difficult to change than to create.  I really like what Terri Kelly said today about the organizational culture of WL Gore and Associates as well as some other places I appreciate like IDEO, Google, and Disney as well.  Here are some of the ways that Google defines its organizational culture:

1. Lend a helping hand. With millions of visitors every month, Google has become an essential part of everyday life – like a good friend – connecting people with the information they need to live great lives.
2. Life is beautiful. Being a part of something that matters and working on products in which you can believe is remarkably fulfilling.
3. Appreciation is the best motivation, so we’ve created a fun and inspiring workspace you’ll be glad to be a part of, including on-site doctor; massage and yoga; professional development opportunities; shoreline running trails; and plenty of snacks to get you through the day.
4. Work and play are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to code and pass the puck at the same time.
5. We love our employees, and we want them to know it. Google offers a variety of benefits, including a choice of medical programs, company-matched 401(k), stock options, maternity and paternity leave, and much more.
6. Innovation is our bloodline. Even the best technology can be improved. We see endless opportunity to create even more relevant, more useful, and faster products for our users. Google is the technology leader in organizing the world’s information.
7. Good company everywhere you look. Googlers range from former neurosurgeons, CEOs, and U.S. puzzle champions to alligator wrestlers and Marines. No matter what their backgrounds, Googlers make for interesting cube mates.
8. Uniting the world, one user at a time. People in every country and every language use our products. As such we think, act, and work globally – just our little contribution to making the world a better place.
9. Boldly go where no one has gone before. There are hundreds of challenges yet to solve. Your creative ideas matter here and are worth exploring. You’ll have the opportunity to develop innovative new products that millions of people will find useful.
10. There is such a thing as a free lunch after all. In fact we have them every day: healthy, yummy, and made with love.

Biological Drive

Reward and Punishment Drive

Meaning Drive

Two Dimensional view of human beings is one in which we try to dampen the biological drive and pump up the reward and punishment drive, but it doesn’t work very well.  What researchers have found is that this focus on the reward and punishment drive works and increases productivity with simple “mechanical” processes, but when more cognitive functions were necessary, the higher the cognitive function required actually found that reward and punishment decreased productivity.  The research is so good showing the “carrots and sticks” don’t work, and yet it is routinely ignored in organizations every day.

Two False Assumptions in Organizations:

1. Human beings are machines, and if you hit the right buttons, they’ll respond the way you want them to.
2. Human beings are blobs.  The alternative to this would be that humans are active and engaged.

There are, instead, 3 enduring motivators:

1. Autonomy: Management is a technology from the 1850′s designed to get compliance.  We don’t want compliance in our organizations anymore.  Management leads to compliance. Self-direction leads to engagement.  People need autonomy over their time, their team, their tasks, and their technique.  A great example of this is the 20% autonomous time that companies like Google have instituted. (cf. this Google blog post)
2. Mastery: The single largest motivator, according to one study, is making progress.  As human beings, we feel the most loyal to the organization, the most useful, the most meaningful is when we are making some sort of progress and growth and change and impact.  In order to have mastery, we also have to have effective feedback.
3. Purpose: There is a rise in recent years of what could be called the purpose motive.  In the last decade we haver learned that the profit motive comes unhooked from the purpose motive, bad things happen.

Terri Kelly is the President and CEO of WL Gore and Associates, founders of Gore technology (Gore-Tex).  I’ve been looking forward to this talk since last year when one of the speakers spoke about the unique leadership culture at Gore which is not built with a traditional hierarchical structure, but organized around communities and teams in which the employees themselves decide who the real leaders are and what projects they want to work on.  Terry calls is a “peer based organization” in which everyone is concerned about the success of others in the organization.  This reminds me of a story I just ready about a similar company in the book Multipliers: how the best leaders make everyone smarter by Liz Wiseman.    Here is what Wiseman says about Hexal (sold in 2005 to Novartis) and the Struengmann brothers on p. 42-43:

Hexal doesn’t have jobs, per se, and they don’t have an org chart… Jobs were loosely created around people’s interests and unique capabilities.  They called their approach the “ameba model.”  Here’s how it works… At Hexal, you could work wherever there was energy.  Through encouraging their employees to use this heat-seeking approach, they were able to utilize people at their highest point of contribution.  They didn’t box people into jobs and limit their contribution.  They let people work where they had ideas and energy and where they could best contribute.  They let talent flow, like an ameba, to the right opportunities.

Terry spoke about “leadership on demand” as opposed to a “fixed hierarchy” where decisions go up and down the ladder.  The lattice organization is an organization in which everyone is connecting with everyone in their network – people being able to go to whoever they need to go to in the organization, rather than having “ladder” organizational structure where you may have 2-3 specific people you work through.  In this system, leaders lead by influence rather than by “direction”.  This give the employee commitment and ownership, and the energy transfers to the whole organization rather than only by specific leaders.

The key to not having totally chaos is having alignment around shared, foundational values and beliefs.  Gore’s 4 major values are the following:

1. Everyone can make a difference, give them the tools
2. Belief in small teams, to feel connected
3. Same boat, vested collectively together
4. Long term view, not short term results. First and primary is work environment, driving innovation, reaching out to communities.

Because the organization works by passion, influence, and good ideas rather than by power or position, selling your ideas becomes very important, as does peer review and collaboration to vet ideas as well as to make them better.  In this way, people become more motivated to work in the areas that they will be the most effective and impactful because their review is done by the peers they work with and around on these projects, which creates a built in mechanism for momentum, commitment, and contribution.  Those who make the greatest contribution, then, is paid accordingly.

This also creates an environment where there are more “coaches” than “bosses.”  A coach, or personal sponsor, is committed to helping another person make their maximum contribution to the organization.  This person is not a supervisor, but a coach, encourager, “cheerleader”.  There is clear separation between leadership roles and coaching in that coaches are not leaders, but those who are committed to the personal contribution of the person they are coaching.

Gore plants rarely get larger than 250.  Terry said,

“One of the core ideas is learning how to divide so that we can multiply.”

The idea is that multiplication of small communities with great ideas that are highly productive, with shared values and high productivity, will grow the organization in a faster and more effective manner.

Waterline Concept: if you are considering an investment that could put the organization in jeapordy, don’t do that because it could sink the ship.  You can drill holes above the waterline, but anything that could harm reputation, financial success, or the work environment (below the waterline) is too risky.

Leadership is defined by followership in the sense that followers follow the leaders they want to.  This, I suppose, makes John Maxwell’s words that “if no one is following, you’re just out for a walk.”  This creates a culture of real leadership that is based on people who follow because they want to, not because they have to or because of their or someone else’s place, position, or power in the organization.   When, in a survey of Gore employees they were asked if they are a leader in the organization, 50% answered yes, which is powerful in terms of distribution of the leadership role, equipping, and empowering of every person in the organization.

Francis Schaeffer Institute: 30% of pastors admitted to some sort of sexual failure in their ministry

Adam Hamilton had a tough talk today.  He admitted himself that this was not a fun, motivational talk, nor one he delighted to give.  It has to deal with the moral failure that so many leaders fall into – often, and particularly some sort of sexual/ relational failure.  Hamilton himself experienced the moral failure of two of his colleagues who developed an inappropriate relationship with one another.

As he continues to speak right now, let me just mention how close this is to my heart for a couple of reasons.  First, I have several friends who have been personally affected by such a failure by a parent, friend, or close colleague.  Second, I’ve seen the damage in my own denomination and congregations I’m close to who have experienced this very thing.  Third, because it’s not just leaders who struggle with this.  I’m working with a number of couples right now whose marriages are on the rocks because of some major failure… and all of these are within the church.  Lastly, I have had some people close to me and my family that have affected our lives personally.

Here are 4 ways a church or organization can approach these moral failures:

1. Ignore it and hope it would go away.
2. Be evasive and say the two pastors were leaving because of personal reasons.
3. Scarlet letter approach – add more shame and exile.
4. Approach it with transparency, honesty, and compassion.

In such situations, many people look to see how the church will approach these situations in order to a) either reinforce their greatest fears that we really are the Pharisees or b) to be surprised that the church can respond in a way that is human, biblical, compassionate, and filled with truth seasoned with grace.  The hope is that such a defining moment will be lived out in a way that is closer to the second.

What are some things that churches can do to help avoid sexual misconduct among and between staff members?

1. Develop policies and staff covenants
2. Talk about it among the staff.  Have the sex talk with the staff.  We are wired for reproduction, intimacy, and sin.  The combination of these three can often lead us to places of self-destruction.  Even if you have the feelings – even if they’re normal – don’t share them.

5 R’s for Resisting Temptation

1. Remember who you are:  pastor, father, husband, child of the King.
2. Recognize the consequences of your actions.  ”Will I feel better after I do this?”  ”Will I feel more or less human?”  ”Will I be proud or ashamed?”  ”Who will be affected by my actions?”  ”What will my congregation thing about this?”
3. Rededicate yourself to God.  In the moment, Stop, Drop, and Pray.
4. Reveal your struggle to a trusted friend.  When you share it with a friend, it loses its power.
5. Remove yourself from the situation.  Jesus said, sometimes there are radical things you need to do to avoid sin.

There is really no way to capture the passion we just heard from Christine Caine in notes on a blog.  This is a woman who, as she said, is still “old-school enough” to truly believe that that Jesus is the hope of the world.  She challenged us to live into this moment – our moment in which there are great needs in the world and to step up and be the church that God longs for.

I was moved when Christine was telling a story in which she was challenged by a woman who was just being rescued from sex trafficking slavery who said, “If what you’re saying about your God is true, why didn’t you come earlier?”  She said this amazing statement, and one we should all reflect deeply on:

It is not that God did not hear your cry; but I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to hear it.  I honestly cannot think of anything in my life that was so important that I shouldn’t have come earlier.

There is a great challenge – not only in terms of human sex trafficking – but in all the ways that God’s heart breaks for his world.  Isn’t it true that we are so often so busy with so many things that are merely much ado about nothing and are neglecting the very deep things that moved the Father to send Jesus into the world in the first place?

Towards the end of her talk, Christine talked about hope.  She talked about how courageous her little 4 year old becomes in the middle of darkness with a simple flashlight in her hand – with that little light, she’ll go in darker.  While they were in Walmart buying a flashlight, her daughter said, “Mommy, can we please go find some darkness?”  It doesn’t take much light to dispel the darkness, it simply takes the courage to step in for “Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.”

Jim began with one of his famous phrases, made popular in his excellent book, “Good to Great:  Why some companies make the leap… while others don’t“:

Good is the enemy of great.

He also said very importantly that “Greatness is largely a matter of choice, not circumstances.”  That’s a powerful sentence.  Certainly circumstance plays a part, and Jim acknowledged this later saying that pride and hubris shows itself often when leaders don’t acknowledge at all the luck and blessings that have come their way without any of their doing.  However, circumstances alone do not move people to become companies that are built to last, that move from good to great, or become the reasons why the might fall.

Jim focused on the 5 stages in his recent book, “How the Mighty Fall and why some companies never give in” dealing with organizations and leaders who lose momentum and fall from a place of strength and greatness.  What’s really helpful about these 5 stages is the truth that “You can be sick on the inside, but still look strong on the outside.”  It’s important to note that these stages are largely self-inflicted.  Unlike disease, organization decline is more about what you do to yourself that what happens to you.  It’s also important to note that the fall doesn’t come until stage 4, so you’re over 50% on the way before you have presenting issues.

Stages of “How The Mighty Fall”

1. Hubris born of success leading:  The signature of the greatest leaders is their humility.  They had a passionate focus to go after the vision and values with all they have, but remained humble in the process.  Here, Collins spoke of an outrageous  arrogance that does not see the balance between disciplined decisions and the blessings of circumstance and even luck.  Of course, disciplined decision-making is key, but it’s also key to be humble about the things that are out of our control that often contribute greatly to our success.
2. An undisciplined pursuit of more:  More is not bad in itself.  It is the over-reaching, the undisciplined pursuit of more.  Patrick’s Law:  if you allow growth to exceed the ability of the fantastic people to execute, you have been undisciplined in your growth.  If you do not have fantastic people in who fit the 4 C’s (see Bill Hybels), you have to wait and not go after more until those people are in place.  One challenging thing Jim said (which, I think, is true) is that if you do not have the right people in place with the character, competence, chemistry, and fit to your culture, then you must wait for the more for which they are required for execution.  ”Bad decisions with good intentions are still bad decisions.”

1. Denial of risk and peril:   In order to this, the great leaders and organizations have to have faith (optimism, positivity, etc.), but also have to confront the brutal facts (cf. the chapter on this in Good to Great.)  Optimism without the facts is just a wish-dream, and facts without faith alone is less than motivational and won’t move anyone forward.  Failing to look at the real risks and assess the situation, and then take the strong leap of faith with a serious understanding of the risks involved is just plain foolish.
2. Grasping for Salvation:  Disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action make deliberate movement in a determined direction move the fly-wheel.  Those who begin to grasp for salvation have lost their intentionality and disciplined approach.  Their energy dissipates and ultimately leads to decline.
3. Capitulation to irrelevance or death:  Lasting organizations had a reason to go endure that is more than just money or success.  They had an answer to the question, “What would be lost if we ceased to exist?”  They are driven by a reason that goes beyond money and success, Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG’s)

To Do List:

1. Take a team/ organizational diagnostic.  Check out http://www.goodtogreat.com for 3 free diagnostic tools for your teams and organizations.
2. Count and account for blessings. When we forget to count all the good things that happen to us, we’re on our way to the first stage.
3. What is your questions to statements ratio, and can you double it in this next year?
4. How many key seats do you have on your bus?  How many of the seats are filled with the right people?  What are your plans to get the right people in the right seats?  Are you on the way up as a team, or on the way down?
5. (missed it… but so did everyone else it appears)
6. With your team of the right people, create an inventory of the brutal facts.
7. What are we disciplined to stop doing?
8. Define results and show clicks/ milestones on the fly wheel.
9. Double your reach to young people by changing your practices without changing your core values.
10. Set a BHAG rooted in your purpose to reinforce that your work is never done.

Bill Hybels had a great opening session.  He started with a simple leadership principle from his journal:  Leaders move people from here to there.  It’s not anything new.  It’s the vision piece, the picture of the preferred future.  It’s the thing you get excited about and say, ”It will be bliss on a stick when we get there.”  It was a really helpful reminder that ”The first play is not to make there sound wonderful.  It’s to make here sound awful.”  That the preferred future begins with a “holy discontent” as Hybels has said in the past.

“Long before MLK gave his “I have a dream speech,” he gave hundreds of “We Can’t Stay Here” speeches.”

He used some great examples, including moving Willow’s food pantry onsite:  ”Imagine if at the end of our weekend services… I could say, go right over there and we’ll give you groceries for the week.”  The reality is, though, that there are many people who say, “there, shmere, what’s wrong with here?”  They don’t want to move.  Hybels has given a number of good talks (I have several in my own journals) on the change process and important steps along the way, and this is another.

One of the other important pieces of leadership is hiring fantastic people.  Bill reminded us that hiring fantastic people requires Character, Competence, Chemistry (cf. Bill’s book Axiom).  He added a new C, that he calls Culture.  Understanding the culture of the organization and the culture of leadership is key to moving from here to there, and is as important at Character, Competence, and Chemistry.

I love Hybels focus on his staff.  Here are a couple thing he said:

“We don’t offer potential staff persons a tidy career opportunity, we offer them a mission they can lay their lives down for.”

“Building teams of fantastic people who fit our culture is one of the joys of leadership.”

“Do you view the assembling of fantastic people as a privilege, as a leadership essential?”

He also said that there are usually 3 reactions when a person resigns.  Bill invited us to imagine that as we sit here we get a text from someone or an email saying they’ve resigned.  Here are the 3 normal reactions:

• Phew
• Aaugh… I feel bad about that, but we’re going to be ok.
• Read the text.  Read it again.  Run into the lobby and vomit because you’ve lost someone who feels irreplacable.

I love the questions that arise out of this for any leader:  what would be your reaction for each person on your staff?  Do you have a staff that you would be in the 3rd category for every single one?  Which of the 3 reactions would your boss have if he or she received the text from you?

So, if you do have some of these fantastic people, how to keep them on your staff, excited, passionate, and engaged?  Here are some things Bill suggested:

• Regularly refill the vision bucket.  With his typical phrase, “vision leaks,” Bill reminded us again that we have to continue to refill the vision bucket with our staff.
• Put mile markers along the way, and celebrate.  What keeps people on the journey is a sense of hope that they’re going to get there someday.  And it’s important to celebrate along the way, not just at the end, even if you have to make up mile-markers.  When is the last time you had a party for progress along the way, not just the destination?

The last thing Bill talked about was hearing from God.  He passionately talked about the whispers of God in his own call to faith, to plant a church, and to serve other pastors.  He spoke about hearing from God through the word, lowering the ambient noise, repairing our antennas, and listening and obeying the whispers deep in our hearts.  Bill was right on when he said, “I don’t think you get from here to there without hearing from God in the process.”  This gets at, in my opinion, one of the great failures of many of us who are leaders.  Too often we merely see the picture of the preferred future in the beginning, but we don’t listen to God and his ever-present whispers along the way.  Too often, the initial picture is fuzzy and we don’t fully understand it, and God continues to lead all the way to the end, all long the way.

Some Whispers:

• Step Up
• Take the Risk
• Stand Firm
• Start a Church
• Apologize Now
• Admit Your Mistake
• Make The Tough Decision
• Get Help
• Stop Running From God
• Slow Down (for some of us, velocity is killing our soul)
• Show Your Heart
• Let Others Lead
• Feed Your Soul
• Bless The Team
• Make the Ask (some of you know here “there” is, but you’re just chicken to make the ask)  Courageous
• Do Something Impactful (some of you have been pounding the same nail your whole life)
• Come Clean
• Embody the Vision
• Celebrate the Victories
• Speak the Truth
• Pay the Price
• Count Your Blessings
• End the Secret
• Check Your Motives
• Set the Pace
• Give God Your Best
• Get Physically Fit
• Serve Your Spouse and Kids
• Pray
• Humble Yourselve

I mentioned in an earlier post on the book “Multi-Site Road Trip” that I had the opportunity to meet Dave and Jon Ferguson several years back.  I remember meeting with them, and Dave Dummit, as they were considering a site in Brighton, Michigan.  They had graciously met with Dan Reeves and myself to share their wisdom then on multi-site and the Big Idea in a time when very few people were talking about it.  I later was able to hear from them again at Third Reformed in Kalamazoo (now CenterPoint), and also had a chance to visit the Big Yellow Box and bring some friends along while I was in Chicago back in 2005.  What’s been really cool is to see these guys stay so focused on the mission that God called them to long ago to reach the city of Chicago, and to do it consistently and yet creatively.  So much has changed in their movement in terms of the creative energy and leadership they’ve brought to multi-site, and yet in some ways, so little has changed.  The heart of the message to see people find their way back to God is consistent, persistent, and powerful.

All that to say that I’ve just finished reading Exponential:  How you and your friends can start a missional movement.

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This was a fabulous read for me.  First, something personal.  I’m embarking right now on Fair Haven Ministries’ first site called South Harbor Church that will launch on 10.10.10 in Byron Township in south Grand Rapids, Michigan(along with many others in the 10.10.10 Initiative).   In fact, this morning I’m headed to hand out free cookies and lemonade at a local Little League to meet people and learn about the community.  Anyway, this book right now for me is a God-send in the sense that it affirms so many things that God is doing out of our church right now and also gives incredibly practical handles for being lead by Jesus, leading and reproducing leaders, tribes, communities, and movements.  What I love about how Dave and Jon wrote the book, was that it’s written with deeply biblical values, immensely practical, tested, and proven in the trenches of missional multi-siting.  I also love the real-life stories of real people and real churches.  The story of Community Christian (and all it’s sites) and many of its leaders is woven throughout the pages and gives you a sense of the messy reality of a true movement as well as the powerful stories. This isn’t just ideas… it’s the real deal.

For the past 5 years, a couple of my responsibilities as a spiritual formation pastor at Fair Haven have been leadership development and small groups.  I’ve been to many conferences and read many books and tried to implement many theories and ideas in both of these areas.  What’s awesome in this book as well to see is how small group life really works in this church, and especially how the leadership development pathway is integrated with not only small groups, but also with missional communities and in the raising up of artists.

This is probably one of the best books I’ve read on the practical side of the church multiplication movement.  It’s a must read for any church that is serious about multiplying leaders, churches, sites, disciples, and influence.   This summer, we took on 4 interns in church planting and we also have an on-site venue with a Campus Pastor.  We just talked this past week about all of them reading this, and I hope we can make that a reality.

Here are a couple of great tid-bits you’ll find:

• Real practical help on the leadership development people pathway and the importance of apprenticeship.
• Great illustrations of vision and strategy on napkins!
• A wonderful passage on scripture reading and journaling and how it affects leadership and vision for Dave Ferguson (see my recent post on YouVersion and LifeJournals)
• A great chapter on coaching, its importance in leadership development, and practical questions and a format for coaching.
• Encouragement that you, too, can really be used by God to multiply disciples, leaders, teams, sites, and churches.
• A focus not just on church growth, but on being missional.
• Much more.

Loved the book, and look forward to re-reading it and reviewing it with more care for some direct implementation in our new site.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

That’s not exactly how he phrases it, but James Davison Hunter in his recent book To Change the World: Irony, Tragedy, and The Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World questions the possibility of Christians really changing the world through intention.   It’s not nearly that simple, particularly for this brilliant sociologist, but Hunter argues – among other things – that changing the world is a long, complicated process involving cultural elites and centers of power, particularly in politics, that run contrary to the biblical vision given to us by Jesus.  I’ve been reading this book over the past couple months and have finally brought it to conclusion, although I think I’ll read it again.  In a nutshell, Hunter challenges the assumption that aggregated individuals through grassroots efforts can make any lasting or significant change in culture, particularly without wielding the very power of coercion that Christianity rejects.

I think Andy Crouch from the Christian Vision Project sums it up well when he says, “The irony is that there is no phrase more beloved to a certain kind of Christian than ‘to change the world.’ But in Hunter’s persuasive account, the strategies those very same Christians have pursued are, by themselves, woefully incapable of changing the world…”  ”…the very idea of ‘changing the world’ is rooted in a quest for dominance that fundamentally misunderstands the Christian gospel and the way of Jesus.”

Hunter goes on to critique the Christian Right (conservatives), The Christian Left (liberals or mainliners), and what he calls the “Neo-Anabaptists” made up of folks like Hauerwas, Yoder, Claiborne, and the New Monastics.  In this critique, Hunter betrays his philosophical (or sociological?) postmodernism in agreement with the likes of Foucault, Nietzsche, and others about language, power, and the coercive nature of culture creation.

There are several people who engage Hunter’s work, not the least of which are Andy Crouch and Chuck Colsen (see the posts below) who ask some great questions.  What I found interesting was that nowhere (I’m sure it’s out there somewhere) have I yet seen someone challenge the philological, linguistic, postmodern philosophical assumptions of Hunter’s work.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with Hunter on these points about power and cultural transformation, but he doesn’t fully tip his hands about the philosophical foundations of those ideas, choosing instead to shroud them more spiritually in the non-coercive, non-violent leadership of Jesus.  I happen to think these two things are very compatible, but haven’t seen much work done to connect the two (which I’d love to do if I had the time).  Hunter does his sociological work as a Christian within a postmodern philosophical framework, but only acknowledges his indebtedness to the likes of Foucault at a cursory level hidden in the endnotes (yes, some of us do read them, cf. endnote 1, Chapter 4, Part I) and to Nietzshe with a short explication ofressentiment from Nietzsche and its relationship to Christianity in Chapter 7 of Part II.  Generally I find most Christians merely lambasting postmodern thought and philosophy without a) really understanding some of the seminal thoughts, b) seeing the ability to be a Christian and acknowledge some of these realities, or c) understanding how deeply these ideas affect issues of hermeneutics, missions, and even contextualization.

Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems with postmodern philosophy, postmodernity as a cultural project, unthoughtful “postmodern churches” and edgy “postmodern pastors”.  But some of the more serious questions about our embeddedness in cultures of understanding based on would help us think through contextualization in mission, understanding of  power and language might help us avoid our sometimes coercive tendencies (in marketing, preaching, the use of guilt, etc.), and a greater honesty about our presuppositions and framing stories might help us get closer to real conversation with people about basic beliefs without mere condemnation and help our evangelism.  Recently Tim Keller told a group I was a part of that we need a new approach to apologetics, and I think this is part of it.  Hunter, in my opinion, opens the door to some of these conversations in a different (and potentially less volatile) way than Brian McLaren.

So, here are a couple wrap up thoughts on Hunter’s book:

1. This is a wonderful, scholarly work on how cultural change actually functions.
2. This work requires additional study on these issues by Christians and non-Christians alike.
3. There is much more work to be done in helping Christians to wrestle with some of these underlying issues of power, language, and culture (which, honestly, postmodern philosophy is mostly about).
4. This analysis is extremely helpful in understanding many of the drawbacks of the Christian Right, Christian Left, and the Neo-Anabaptist approaches and their rooting (or not) in ressentiment (which, interestingly enough, was the subject of one of my senior seminar papers in 1994 dealing with Neitzsche and the will to power.)

Enough of that for now.  I have more to say, and if I find the time I’ll write more.  Here are some helpful articles that give some more information about the book and Crouch and Colsen’s responses.

• Executive Summary of Is There a Culture War:  A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2006 featuring Michael Cromartie, Alan Wolfe, James Hunter, and others.
• Andy Crouch’s response Hunter and I Agree on Culture Making (He just seems not to know it) in Christianity Today and How Not to Change the World in Books and Culture.  I read Crouch’s book last year, and really enjoyed it.  Crouch takes issue with Hunter’s cursory overview of his book, and having read it, I agree with Crouch.  I ran into him at the Q Conference a few weeks ago and ask him, “What did you think of Hunter’s challenge to your book,” to which he responded, “Have you read my review in Books & Culture?”  Thanks for the tip, Andy, and it was good to meet you.
• Chuck Colsen responded in his article More Than a Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.
• Interview of Hunter by Christopher Benson Faithful Presence in Christianity Today.