RE: [asa] Who's to blame for the lost ones?

Willow Creek hosted Hugh Ross and Fuz Rana a few years ago and he was pretty
well received there and RTB has a DVD of their talk there. I think Willow
Creek would likely be in the OEC camp rather than YEC or TE.
 
Thanks
 
John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dehler, Bernie
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 6:31 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: [asa] Who's to blame for the lost ones?

What does Willow Creek teach, specifically, about origins? Looks like they
are OEC-friendly to me- against evolution. Is that helpful in training
people how to deal with science and religion?

A webpage of theirs:

http://www.willowcreek.org/truthquest/event2.asp

Other than that, I agree with the post about teaching people to think for
themselves and the discovery of Willow Creek.

.Bernie

  _____

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Jim Armstrong
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 3:18 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Who's to blame for the lost ones?

[cue scraping noise of soapbox being pulled into position] :-)

It may be observed that there such departures from Christian (and
presumeably other) faith following this "shattering" script. But at the end
of the day, we have no way of answering the questions you propose below.

But there is a larger issue here, I think, having to do with a critical
faith transition, the shift to personal responsibility for our growth in
faith and practice.

I think this relates directly to two perhaps inadequately served groups in
church life. The first group is those who are exiting high school with
little to no preparation for subsequently thinking critically about the
tenets and foundations of their faith. The second is a (typically) older
group that Willow Creek Community Church has recently identified.

THE WILLOW CREEK DISCOVERY

The Willow Creek Community Church has conducted a very significant internal
(and to some extent external) assessment of whether they are accomplishing
what they have set out to do. The assessment and the reporting out in a
booklet called "Reveal" are very candid, and pretty courageous in my view.
You can find some YouTube clips on this topic, and Willow Creek has reported
out their findings to date, along with some thoughts as to how to repond to
their findings. I think there is a significant problem with one graphical
interpretation of the data, but the basic findings and the startling
discoveries that flow from them are nonetheless valid.

The bottom lines are that, despite the hugely successful and influential
work they have established, they conclude that they have "failed" (their
language) in achieving some key aspects of their mission. Willow Creek has
concluded that they have failed by and large in helping their members make a
crucial transition from "being fed" to becoming "self-feeders".

The most startling collateral discovery (which they have subsequently found
to be independent of gender, age, or particular church) is that some 25% of
their most involved and committed members self-describe themselves as
"stalled" ["I believe in Christ, but I haven't grown much lately."] or
"dissatisfied" ["My faith is central to my life and I'm trying to grow, but
my church is letting me down."]. Worse yet, one out of four of these are
considering leaving the church.

As I read and studied these findings, I found myself making mental reference
to James Fowler's "Stages of Faith". I hasten to make two parenthetic
comments regarding these "Stages of Faith". First, Fowler's definition of
"faith" is a very broad all-of-life-and-living (worldview or belief system)
one. As such, faith in the nature of Christian faith would comprise only a
small subset of Fowler's faith stages. Second, Fowler was always having to
clarify for folks that the six stages were born of observation (descriptive)
and were absolutely not offered as a prescriptive roadmap (though a person
in a particular stage was unfailingly found to have passed in sequence
through earlier stages in their travels). As with any such defining work,
there are those who take issue with Fowler's findings and conclusions.

One point I connect with was that people who fall into any of Fowler's first
three stages all rely on external authority as their source of truth and
direction (parents, teachers, pastors). The transition to internal
responsibility for one's theology corresponds loosely to the transition
between Stage 3 and Stage 4 in Fowler's description. Fowler says of that
transition, "For a genuine move to stage 4 to occur, there must be an
interruption of reliance on external sources of authority...a relocation of
authority within the self." I suspect that one does not have much control
over whether or when such a transition might begin, but when it does, it is
the beginning of a rather profound and radical shift to personal
responsibility for their own feelings and beliefs. I think that may be a
fair description as well of the beginning of transition into one of Willow
Creek's "self-feeders".

It might also be instructive to take a look at the findings of Alan Jamieson
in a study of church "leavers". They were not leaving 'mainline' churches in
decline. They were leaving growing evangelical, pentecostal, and charismatic
churches. They were not leaving during 'adolescence'. They were leaving as
adults, predominantly between thirty and forty-five years of age. They were
not leaving after being involved for a short time. They were leaving after
an average of 15.8 years of involvement. They were not leaving from the
fringe, but from the very core. 94% were church leaders. P18 40% in
full-time Christian study or work or both. Jamieson finds that most leavers
fall into one of four categories he categorizes as 'disillusioned
followers', 'reflective exiles', 'transitional explorers' and 'integrated
wayfinders'.

The observation often made with respect to Fowler's work is that most adults
in church life wind up suspended in something like Stage 3 where the
authority is either required by or volitionally ceded to the pastor,
primarily as a default. My sense is that the "dissatisfied" and "stalled"
identified in the Willow Creek study may be folks who have somehow sensed
that there is "more", and are not finding it. There is more, but I wonder
about the extent to which most mainstream churches are constitutionally able
to respond to these expressed needs. Willow Creek seems to feel that the
answer lies in encouragement (mentoring or coaching) into deeper Bible study
and personal devotion. I sense that they are making too little of their
success at what they do best, while at the same time - as an artifact of
their particular (non)denominational identity - remaining distanced from the
much larger landscape of Christian history and practice and conversation,
both historical and contemporary.

On the other hand, there clearly exist growing numbers of faith communities
(or "clusters") who have found connections to that larger landscape of
Christianity. These corporately seem to more or less reflect the definition
of Fowler's Stage 4. They are engaging that larger landscape of history,
practice, and conversation in ways and to degrees that they could not
connect with though traditional church life. Because these premises and
permissions contrast with those in traditional church life, these faith
communities seem to be almost entirely comprised of new church starts based
on new premises, or are perhaps a resurrection of an older church that has
essentially failed in its former expression.

To the point, these folks are largely those who have survived the
significant and often troubled transition to an internal compass, for
whatever reason in their personal history.

A HIGH SCHOOL GRAD PERSPECTIVE

The other point that resonates for me is that in the other aspects of life,
this transition to auto-pilot typically happens in adolescence.

I think Willow Creek's sort of "failure" in many churches is woven into its
authority structure, both implicit and explicit. In my experience, there is
no clear identification of a transition to an internal compass, any
desirability of such a transition, or specific preparation for and/or
nurturing of such a transition. The pattern for such preparation would be
timely (teens?), sustained (because the process is usually gradual), and
suitably accompanied (walk-along or paraclete presence to mentor and
encourage). That sort of support may exist, but I have not encountered it
in any intentional implementation.

It seems that this is in part a natural consequence of a very common script
in church life. The reality is that at this time in adolescent church life,
the programatic focus is the solidifying of doctrinal positions and how to
articulate them clearly, in preparation for exiting high school, and
entering college or life work. A further complication is that often leaders
are themselves young. At a time when they might themselves otherwise be in
the midst of the task of internalizing their faith, they are effectively
asked to shelve any such reflections in favor of their job descriptions,
again doctrinal and praxis affirmations. Moreover, there is often broadcast
a sense of liability associated with thinking critically, reading and
hearing "other" ideas, and manifesting "doubt" in the form of reexamining
ones foundations of belief. One result is that these young folks often wind
up with weak roots. They would quite naturally be the owners of a fairly
narrow stereotypical image of a monolithic denominational faith, including
its relationship to the growing insights and understandings of the physical
Creation. There seems to be essentially no hint of the rich landscape and
diversity of thought, practice, and conversations of Christianity, either
historical and contemporary. That seems to me to constitute a vulnerable
ignorance, whether by intent or default. What happens then when someone
poses a question for which a young person does not have a ready answer, or
someone points to some aspect of Christian history that comes as a complete
surprise?

One straightforward result is that the faith as experienced in these
transitional years (just before going away to college!) may be more akin to
a garment of do's and don'ts and positions and articulations, worn in
communal conformity, than it is a faith that is at least in transition into
an internalized faith with an internal compass and illumination.

WHAT THESE MAY HAVE IN COMMON

In the case of the high school exit scenario, there is a sort of quantum
drop-off, the distance between what they have been taught, including their
awareness of the larger landscape of Christian thought and practice. It is a
drop-off because it can be encountered suddenly and unexpectedly with no
effort on the part of the individual.

In the "stalled" and "dissatisfied" scenario, there is a quantum barrier as
well, but it is more in the nature of a wall. Some may find renewed energy
and satisfaction through the guidance (coaching and mentoring) being
considered by Willow Creek.

In short, I wonder if the "height" of these dropoffs and walls might both be
reduced by earlier and intentional awareness-creation activities that
illuminate these larger landscapes. There is a practical problem, namely the
spectre of possibility that some folks may find one of these other "paths"
more attractive (or more resonant) than the one they are on in their
particular church. But one finding of a recent large and important survey by
the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is an enormous fluidity in religious
affiliation, with 28% of Americans leaving the faith of their childhood, and
44% of Protestants having either switched religious affiliation, adopted an
affiliation for the first time, or dropped any affiliation. In light of that
fluidity, and the dissatisfaction that underlies it, this spectre would seem
to be without real traction (to mix a metaphor). At the very least, one
should be aware of the diversity in ones own denomination - or kindred
denominations - in order to respond most benevolently in our stewardship of
these caught in the webs of dissatisfaction or stasis, or falling in
Jamieson's categories: 'disillusioned followers', 'reflective exiles',
'transitional explorers' and 'integrated wayfinders'.

I am inclined to think that some of these newer faith communities may be
constitutionally more able to change their ways of doing business in a way
that is responsive to the felt needs of many of these folks. I ran across
one interesting conversation on YouTube in which one Christian
author/speaker and former pastor suggested we might reconsider the Jewish
transition of 13 year olds into adulthood. That might have some profound and
beneficial consequences for many young Christians, and the future of the
Christian church and its footprint in the world.

Or so it seemeth to me.... JimA [Friend of ASA]

David Opderbeck wrote:

Bill, you make what I think is a very helpful point here, one which many
folks often make: our faith is centrally about Christ. I wonder if the
"blame" isn't so much on any particular view of origins as it is on a highly
rationalist version of the faith elevates certain propositions, including
but not least about scripture, above the person of Christ. Did the person
who found his YECism shattered and gave up on Christianity altogether really
trust in and encounter the person of Christ? Or was his faith only in a set
of propositions?

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Burgy wrote

> Glenn Morton has made the claim many times that it is the YECs who are
> to blame, along with those in the church who swallow their stuff. He
> has at least strong anecdotal evidence to back his claim.

I certainly agree with Glenn that YECism can be a factor in an individual
departing from the faith. (As a former Arminian I cannot agree with the
Calvinist accusation that Arminians believe one can _lose_ his faith. In the
Wesleyan church I came to know the Lord in we believed that an individual
could willfully depart from the faith. But _lose_ it? Never)

But my own experience might serve as a counterexample. I encountered YECism
shortly after I became a Christian. I decided to investigate it and believed
it for a time. But I soon discovered a number of flaws in it. At that point
I had to make a decision, and I decided that no matter what I believed about
creationism, I believed in Jesus Christ, my savior.

William E. (Bill) Hamilton, Ph.D. Member ASA
248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
http://www.bricolagia.blogspot.com/
Want to help a child?:
http://www.compassion.com/sponsor/index.asp?referer=85198

----- Original Message ----
> From: j burg <hossradbourne@gmail.com>
> To: "Dehler, Bernie" <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Thursday, June 5, 2008 11:31:47 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Who's to blame for the lost ones?
>

> On 6/4/08, Dehler, Bernie wrote: (in part)
>
> > Imagine this, you hear a report at church that 10 kids accepted Christ
> > in the 3rd grade Sunday School. Everyone claps.>
> > Fast forward 10 years, and you hear that the kid who entered college
> > just left the faith because they now believe in evolution.>
> > Who's to blame, the evolutionist who is teaching the lie of evolution,
> > or the church who says that evolution is a lie?
> >>
> Glenn Morton has made the claim many times that it is the YECs who are
> to blame, along with those in the church who swallow their stuff. He
> has at least strong anecdotal evidence to back his claim.
>
> I have but one example -- a high school close friend who was a
> witnessing Christian whem I was not -- who lost his faith in college
> when he found out the YEC stuff he believed was wrong. Dick went on to
> a career as an executive with Pitney Bowles (sp?) and is now retired,
> living in Florida, a confirmed atheist.
>
> I think (and pray) for him on occasion. Sad.
>
> > I'm thinking more about this because I'm offering to teach a class at
> > church, and am anticipating the push-back... I think there is a faction
> > that wants to keep everyone in slumber.
> >
> I hope you are successful. I have taught such a class several times
> (see my web site for material). On the last occasion the regular
> teacher was (and probably is) a YEC. But she was willing to at least
> give me equal time (three weeks).
>

> Burgy
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology 
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