… but we also need to catch some glimpses of a wider architecture from time to time…

So, thanks again for bringing a bit of balance

Blessings from Beautiful Scotland (currently basking in a late summer!)

Chris

Yep let me add my thanks for your thoughtful and encouraging piece.

I confess to a little wallow in the slough of despond when I began to read all this blogging about the end of the EC. The strange thing was that this was not the gleeful celebration of those who have long regarded the whole thing as heretical, but rather from people who were supposed ‘innovators’.

Because this time of networking- I am not sure we are through with it yet- certainly we are not here in Scotland. Here there are some groups who do their own things- with some sharing, but no organisation, and little physical support.

This might be because we are a long way from where ‘it is at’, but I wonder if it is also because people need to identify with something- or to react against it- before any movement can really become significant? I do not think we really have had the chance to do that here- churches are still locked in the last century, or perhaps trying to ape the imported mega-church models.

And what will unify those of us that have found such hope within the EC stuff if not some kind of shared descriptive language- no matter how problematic this might be?

Within our small group we are quite happy to be part of construction

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain the issues of language and the level of dissonance. One thing that helps me as someone who is visually oriented in learning styles, is to shift from 2-dimensional Venn diagrams (what subgroup maps overlap with the surface of one another in the field of Lake Emergence) to 3-dimensional (what partial shape overlaps among the volumes of various subgroups do we find?). To me, a 3-D view of things helps remove the discussion from the reductionism of Flatland to a more realistic perspective. The language buzz and fuzz has been about figuring out comfortability level within the Lake’s topography (some species prefer nearer the surface, some deeper down), more than trying to figure who’s in the Lake.

We’re not in The Matrix where “There is no Lake.” Change is coming, and as with each previous paradigm shift in Western civilization, older structural forms will remain while a major new one will present itself eventually. But this time, the shift may be different and multiple new forms may ascend instead of just one. And it looks like a decentralized, multi-node, complexified, interpenetrating layer version will be it, allowing one and many simultaneously. Which some will welcome as offering multiple “spiritual connection sockets,” and others will approach cautiously but still participate, and others will reject and stay in (or migrate to) an older-paradigm-shift’s forms and formulas, in another Lake. So be it …

So, your use of Diffusion of Innovation is helpful in seeing that. For some subnetworks, innovation represents a more incremental approach. For others, more radical. I’ve had to live through that tension for the past five years, in trying to help leaders in a particular church come to terms with moving into the future. They chose the slow route, which may not be fast enough to allow survival … will have to wait another five years at least before that may be more clear. So, one of my working hypotheses is that paradigm/culture shifts (and hence, innovation) causes culture shock. Some groups may want to “make haste slowly” toward the future, and have more continuity with the past, or with tradition, or with specific ways of processing information, or … Maybe the concept of “eco-tone” helps here, as an overlap area between two otherwise distinct eco-systems. Like brackish water where a freshwater stream flows into the ocean but the saltwater backs up into the stream, creating a unique in-between environment. While that may sound safe, it could turn out that some eco-tones in this era of emergence may prove inhospitable.

Anyway, this could go on and on, and actually, hopefully, it will. Some of us have longed for a greater emphasis on reconstruction. But we also realize that no one “owns” truth that they don’t discover and/or test out for themselves. Deconstruction was necessary to understand the roots of our dissatisfactions; let the reconstructions ramp up so we can rebuild to God’s glory with organic architecture that befits the times and places we providentially find ourselves in …

Thanks again for all your work on posts about emergence theory, changes, and the Church, Bro. Maynard. I appreciate what you’ve done to continue giving a broader perspective to our times.

I’m filled with hope at the notion of reconstruction and for what is now becoming on the back of what has been such an important process for many.

It’s not a way out – it’s a way forward.

“Thus what is being called a death by some is in fact merely a shift into a new form of life. ” – Love this!

Thanks again! One of the most exciting and hope-filled posts that I’ve possibly ever read since observing ‘the conversation’.