Life in postmodern Europe

ECPN - St Thomas, Sheffield, UK

The last three days I have been in Barcelona at the first gathering of the ECPN, the "European Church Planters Network". This learning community is initiated by "Leadership Network", an US-based organization that tries to gather innovative church planters in providing an environment where exchange of thought and learning from each other can happen in intense ways. It is good so far, though I miss some people who, IMHO, should be here, cause of what they bring to the table.

A church that captured my attention is St. Thomas Church in Philadelphia, Sheffield, UK. As I learned from Paul Maconochie, one of the leaders, they are organized decentral and function on different levels. Individuals meet in small group. Small groups +individuals meet in clusters. Clusters +individuals meet in several celebrations accross the city. You choose your thing or to be involved in all of these opportunities.

Hearing this and seeing their chart (see picture with Paul explaining the model; picture taken by Rogier Bos) I was reminded about Joseph Myers book "The Search to Belong", in which he quite convincingly argues for community on at least three, if not four levels. It is simply how we humans are wired, namely, to have community on different levels: 2-3 - 12 - 144 - unlimited. There is much more to community and doing church than only simple, small, life-transforming, organic small groups.

In addition to this meeting structure St.Thomas has loose groups being engaged in new missional endeavors all the time (R&D groups). Also I need to point out the so called "huddles", being leadership development and accountability groups. Though there is a Staff group facilitating much of this, there seems to be a fluidity and bottom-up spirit to it. What I appreciate most, though, is there  now discovered focus  on multiplying, starting  missional communities elsewhere.

I like the freedom people have in this quite big church (1200 people). Community on different levels. Decentralized and organic, as well as structured and shaped. Missional but also attractive. Sounds good to me.

protect the environment, save your vine bottles

Last week I had a fierce debate with a friend of mine about if the whole talk about climate change is accurate or only invented by media and some forces in business and politics. Yes, I could not believe it at first, but H.McW. really advocated that all this climate talk is nonsense. Wow.

Here is a guy who thinks different: Today I came across the story of Peter Little from Australia, who, after 30 years of thinking about how to best save energy and prevent air pollution by better insulating houses, came up with a great idea: He is building a house, using only wine bottles as building material. By filling 13,500 of them with water the house will be completely insulated, he argues: "Water is probably, I think one of the miracle building materials of this century which nobody is using. ... It can store more energy, heat or cool than any material we know."

The only question left then is: What took you 30 years to come up with this idea? The answer most likely is: Drinking a lot of wine.

[story found on abc news online; picture from sxchng, taken by "quiman"]

God is with the poor. And he is with us if we are with them.

Bono, prophet of postmodern days, recently got awarded by NAACP - the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP has been crucial in changing the course of history in the US and beyond, standing for civil rights for almost 100 years now.

Some pieces from Bono's acceptance speach:

"Well today the world looks again to NAACP. We need the community that tought the world about civil rights to teach it something about human rights. We are talking about the right to live like a human. The right to live period. Those are the stakes in Africa right now."

"This is not about charity. This is about justice. It's about justice and equality."

"This is true religion: True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. 'Love thy neighbor' is not a piece of advise. It is a command. And that means that in the global village we got to start loving a whole lot more people."

"Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die."

"Whatever thought we have about God, who he is or even if God exists, most will agree: Got has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the card board boxes where the poor play house. God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are chattered. God is with the mother who has affected her child with a virus, ... God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during war time. God, my friends, is with the poor. And God is with us if we are with them!
This is not a burden. This is an adventure. Don't let anyone tell you it can not be done. We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty. Thank you."

I think I start to get it.

Watch the full speach:

get a (second) life! And meet U2 in the metaverse

Ever heard of a metaverse? In case you are unhappy with how your life goes, and may it only be an aspect of it, here is your chance: Get a new one! Get a second life in the metaverse!

This life (I am talking about the physical one, that thing we came to call "reality") has it's ups and downs. Usually each of us can instantly name a list of things we like about our life, and list of things we don't:
You don't like your butt, nose, hips, hair?
You don't like your image, colleagues, neighbors?
You don't like your job?
Well, here is your chance: Construct yourself another identity in a different life. How? With SecondLife.

"SecondLife is a 3D online digital world imagined, created & owned by its residents", as the self-description goes. And the latest census showed 3,602,097 (Feb 14, 2007) of those residents and owners of this new world. Numbers rapidly growing.

In this (almost) complete virtual reality, you can do pretty much everything you can do in "real" life too: Sell, buy, cloth yourself, go for a walk through the neighborhood, lay at the beach, have a job, befriend others, make love, buy land, build a house, watch a movie, ... You choose how you want your life to look like.

This starts already by naming yourself as you are born (i.e., you register as a new resident in this world). It is quite a contingency experience already at the beginning: How do you name yourself? You can freely choose your first name in your second life but of course you also need a last name, which you have to choose from a list of options. Wow, quite a big step to choose how you will be named your second life long. In the first life others (most likely your parents) decided how to name you - and thus construct a core element of your identity. Now YOU have to make this crucial decision - already before you are born.
Once you have named yourself the next difficult choice awaits you: How do you want to look? You need to choose an avatar (a visual impression of your virtual identity). Not easy either.
The last thing relating to the real world then is to fill in some real world data. After doing that and downloading the SecondLife client - you are born and immediately able to walk in your new life. Now choose wise how you want to live your life...

But more then only deciding who you want to be and what you want to do in your second life, you also have the chance of sharing in the construction of the world you live in itself. You are bored or not happy with the opportunities life offers to you? Or you have a great idea how to make life more enjoyable? Well, invent and/or create a new feature of this world - let's say, some cool new shoes to wear - and make it available to others. Either for free or by selling it for some "Linden Dollars", the currency of this world. This world is open for everybody to shape. Join the creation. Become a creator.
And besides making this world a better place, you might even get rich by it. This is (about the only place) where your first and second life meet: The virtual Linden Dollars from SecondLife have an exchange rate to the real US-Dollar in your first life. As you want to buy and/or sell in the virtual world you have to have a credit card number or a paypal account from the real world.
With this basic structure some have become rich in both worlds. So, in case you do not like your job in the first life, resign, sell  or trade some cool stuff  in your second life and cash it. But why should you come back to your first life? After all, you made a living out of your success in the SecondLife. All your friends are there, you own a house on some nice land, you ... You can even go to a live U2 concert with Bono !!! What do you want more? Watch this:

work in progress - Die ID-Reise

Wer bin ich?
Wie bin ich zu dem geworden, der ich bin?
Wie stellt Gott sich meine Persönlichkeit vor?
Wie kann ich als Persönlichkeit reifen, wachsen, mich weiterentwickeln?

Wichtige Fragen, die irgendwie irgendwann jeden von uns beschäftigen.

Derzeit arbeite ich an einer langfristig angelegten Entdeckungsreise (manche mögen Kurs oder Seminar dazu sagen), die zu wesentlichen Orten  der eigenen Identität führt.
Bisher gibt es 6 Etappen, die einige mutige Reisende aus EPIC bereits bereist haben. Weitere Etappen sind in der Mache. Über Feedback würde ich mich freuen: ID-Reise.

Die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, so habe ich den Eindruck, ist in unserer europäischen Kultur ein weit unterbelichteter Wert. Man spricht von Fähigkeiten, Skills und einen möglichst klarem Lebenslauf. Dass das Leben aber oft nicht linear ist und sich daraus vielfältige Chancen, Herausforderungen und Probleme ergeben, wird meines Erachtens viel zu sehr vernachlässigt. Manchmal hat man den Eindruck unsere Gesellschaft hat nur Platz für Typen die (scheinbar) alles unter Kontrolle haben. Beim Streben möglichst gut darzustehen - vor anderen wie vor sich selbst - wird der gründliche, tiefer gehenden Blick in den Spiegel als nur auf die Frisur dann vermieden. Verständlich, schließlich ist es nicht nur angenehm sich mit sich selbst zu beschäftigen, je nachdem wie die eigene Geschichte bisher verlief. Die meisten schauen bei ihrem Auto vermutlich häufiger unter die Motorhaube als auf die eigene Persönlichkeit, die Prägungen und den Charakter. Falls dem so ist muss sich was ändern. Zum Wohle eines selbst und aller anderen, die es mit einem aushalten müssen ...

Brit Awards 2007

3 of the more important choices and thus winners of the Brit Awards yesterday:

• International Female Solo Artist: Nelly Furtado
• International Group: The Killers
• Outstanding Contribution to Music: Oasis

Great music.

The starfish and the spider -- book recommendation

Here is an interesting book about how organizations (my interest reading it has been on church) can function without centralized leadership.
There is much talking about church as an organic entity these days. And though I dislike how some argue for the pure extremes of it, as if this would be the solution and by that almost raising it up as a new model (THE Organic Chuch with a big letter "O"), I indeed am convinced that over the past hundreds of years church sadly has become more an institution then an (organic) body, as described in the Bible. Though I think the church robbed itself from some key characteristic by becoming modern and with that central structured, I do not see it entirely negative. Modernity forced and requested the church to adapt. We call this contextualization! However, with a rapidly changing world, becoming more fluent and decentralized, church needs to find a decentralized way to be the church again.

Brafman's and Beckstrom's book helps a great deal in this endeavor. Basically, from the first till the last page their book is  a description of examples of centralized and decentralized organizations in our times. Among others they look at organizsations like Napster, Kazaa, and emule and how these more or less open, decentralized players revolutionized the music industry with the big, centralized music labels. With many more examples they show the difference of a starfish and a spider:

In short: The spider is centralized (it has a head), while the starfish is decentralized: Each arm carries everything needed to survive. Thus, a starfish would survive if you cut it in half. Actually, each half would survive and could very well grow new arms. A starfish is not depending on one central part of the body, as the spider is depending on the central head.

Building on this basic assumption Brafman and Beckstrom identify 8 major principles   of decentralization:
1) When attacked, a decentralized organization tends to become even more open and decentralized.
2) It is easy to mistake starfish for spiders.
3) An open system doesn't have central intelligence; the intelligence is spread throughout the system.
4) Open systems cab easily mutate.
5) The decentralized organization sneaks up on you.
6) as industries become decentralized, overall profit decrease.
7) Put people into an open system and they'll automatically want to contribute.
8) When attacked, centralized organizations tend to become even more centralized.

More then with principles or rational arguments, the authors argue their case with many stories of how decentralized, more organic kind of organizations indeed thrive in our world of today. This is the real benefit of the book: It displays the power of leaderless organizations.

This is especially encouraging for the church as there have been discussions (and sometime critique) that organic systems can not grow big. Others intentionally argue  for smallness. With "The Starfish and the Spider" we are shown many examples of more organic but enormously big organizations with much  impact. It is not the size that matters. Small is not beautiful in itself.

I like this balancing tone in the book. In the first chapters one thinks that this book, as so many, sets out to argue for one direction and this philosophy to be 100% put in practice. Not with this one. Somewhat surprisingly Brafman and Beckstrom at the end encourage "the combo special: the hybrid organization", combining centralized features with decentralized. They see it more important to identify the "sweet spot", a place and mixture of both ends.

Though the book is at times quite lengthy because one story follows another, it is always interesting. For all who are interested in how church (any organization, for this matter) can become more decentralized and thrive, this is a good and inspiring read.

* * * *
(four stars out of five)

Web 2.0 - - - We have to rethink a few things ...

Thanks to my friend Traui I came across this nicely made clip explaining some of the developments leading to and showing aspects of Web 1.0 and 2.0:

The end captures it well:
"We have to rethink a few things ...
                                                  ... copyright
                                                  ... authorship
                                                  ... identity
                                                  ... ethics
                                                  ... aesthetics
                                                  ... rhetorics
                                                  ... governance
                                                  ... privacy
                                                  ... commerce
                                                  ... love
                                                  ... family
                                                  ... ourselves."

The list could go on and touch on every aspect of our lives. As Zygmunt Bauman says, we live in a fluent form of modernity, where we have to construct our self again and again. Everything is contingent, meaning everything could be different too and could change in a moment. This Contingency depends heavily on media, as media offers us a wide variety of potential structures of meaning and consequently building blocks in the endeavor to construct. One can argue that without media there would be no modernity as we know it.

With the internet, and particular web 2.0, media becomes much more then a tool to transmit information and much more then something external to be consumed only. The medium internet becomes part of the very fabric of live, sometime live in itself. Don't believe it? Take a look at the (possible) second live you can now live: http://www.secondlife.com/

As time and space shrink together we are only at the beginning to see and feel the revolutionizing dynamics of the web. When web 1.0 meant worldwide access to information, and web 2.0 means interaction and participation, what will web 3.0 be?

fittest college in the US?

One of the European perception on Americans is, that Americans are - by and large - fatter then Europeans. Well, here comes an important study in this context: You can go to college in the US without gaining weight: Men's Fitness magzine asked the question: Which is America's fittest college? The results are based on interviews about exercise and diet habits on 115 campuses. The top 10 (for the full list click here):

1. Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.
2. Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y.)
3. Boston College
4. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill.
5. University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.
6. Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn.
7. Grove City College, Pa.
8. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas
9. Baylor University, Waco, Texas
10.  University of Richmond, Va.

In 2005 the magazine not only ranked the fittest, but also the fattest colleges in the US. They might have restrained themselves from doing it again because of another perceived difference between USA and EU: More strange lawsuits. However, if you do not bother but would like to see where you should not go to college, according to the magazine's study, if you want to stay slim, click here.

So, choose your college well and you might be able to spare yourself a diet. ;-)

This questionnaire should definitely be part of the German endeavor to identify the "elite universities" too.

[found on www.mensfitness.com; author of the picture collage with the pseudonym "prikk" unknown]

TREK - Theological Resourcing for an Emerging Kultur

"Good theology is measured by healthy mission; healthy mission is empowered by good theology"

This is one of the core believes of TREK, a brand new, small-scale initiative to help churches and other communities of faith in Europe reflect theologically on their life and mission as community. I think this is very high on the list what the innovative church communities in Europe need.

Often you have either good (theological) thinking but it is happening in a non-practical sphere or even some form of an ivory tower. Actually, this is one thing that bothers me quite often: Many awesome gifted thinkers in the Christian scene - among them several quite widely read bloggers - are barely involved in the dirty, messy reality of a long-term ministry situation.
Or you find amazingly creative new expressions of mission, but it is put in practice only because of reasons of practicality. Many awesome gifted practitioners in the Christian scene - among them several quite widely read bloggers - are barely involved in the sweaty, long-lasting endeavor of digging deeper in order to excavate clear models.
To combine both, the thorough theological reflection and the hands-on practical application in real life, that is something very rich and powerful. Though I push hard towards that goal, I wish I would be able to say I do a good job in balancing the two. I often feel I don't.

So, this initiative called TREK is here to help all of us to do a better job in this. As I know the people behind TREK quite well, I am totally convinced that this initiative will be of enormous help to many of the emerging innovative church communities. Take a look at the TREK website.