The move from the socialized mind to the self authoring mind might well be characterized by the move from being told what to see, believe and how to fit in, to how to see, come to your own conclusions and what what it means to be an interdependent individual. (have you gotten his book yet?)
The question I think facing the church as we head into the second decade of this millennium is whether or not we are comfortable with facilitating peoples journeys within the context of community or whether we are more concerned to create cookie cutter clones who believe the same thing, quote the same verses, have the same views on the Left Behind series, homosexuality, politics, woman’s role in marriage and church and genetic engineering.
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True transformation must include this element of human development. Transformation in the biblical world is the metamorph word group (a word incidentally only occuring 4 times in the entire NT). Metamorphosis is stage by stage development. The inform- so I can get you to conform – models of ministry will not move people stage by stage to anything accept doctrinal acceptance, mental assent and rule and boundary acquisition. In other words in keeping with the socialized mind we looked at last post, the inform/conform models of “formation,” if they can even be called that, tell people what to believe, what rules to live by, what standards are in force, what to see. This stage of development is telling people what , not telling them how. Therein lies the crucial developmental distinction.
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Human development can go further than the socialized mind. Informing people and getting them to fit in or conform to everything from doctrinal statements to more pious sounding “requirements” so they can be accepted and belong is the doorway in and in some cases goal in many of our churches. James Fowler calls this the “mythic literal” stage of development and a remarkably high number of people stay here their entire lives. They conform to doctrinal standards, think denominational distinctives, to stock answers to the standard questions, if you don’t ask many questions or question the systems certainty or become too independent in your thinking you can belong for a lifetime. This is mythic-literal faith. If you haven’t read Fowler you need to.
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The church system is stuck. Admission is the first step forward. Informing, conforming and believing are what the modern church system are built on. You know what? I haven’t gotten any push back on that statement? I haven’t gotten one email, tweet or fb comment that people want to challenge the last several posts. But there is pain being expressed because many of us are still neck deep in the modern system and would love to try and make changes. I have heard from several friends, “but what about us Ron do we just abandon ship and all the people on it?” Fair questions and fair concerns.
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The church as we have it today in the West is largely built around a model of belonging not a model of transforming lives. If you join a club, organization or church and they ask you to believe in this set of values, these doctrines and these rules, at that stage you belong and are now part of the group. You are now part of the “in” group because you have done the things that put you “in.” But is that the point of the church? Affiliation and belonging based on subscribing to a doctrinal or ethical code? Obviously the answer is no! Few churches I know anywhere state their model for changing lives or when questioned can articulate one.
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We all knew it would come. We all have anticipated it for over a decade. We can no longer wait the time has come for a new way forward.
Every 500 years the church has to have a giant rummage sale to sell of the junk she has accumulated from the dying age she is exiting in preparation for the new age she has to engage. The sale is on.
Life is loud, busy, hectic and harried. People want a sense of wholeness, wellness, peace, joy, even dare I say a quiet interior space in the midst of it all.
We are all crying out for personal transformation, knowing it holds the key starting point for the larger issues we face of community development and global change. Where can you find this life? What are the practices and rhythms that lead to this sort of peace and joy?
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Biophila or belonging? These are very very different goals. Are we interested in conforming people to our doctrinal positions or lifestyle statements? Or 
are we in the transformation business ? I have written a couple posts on biophilia and transformation and the response I have gotten has been overwhelming and positive. Many of us have been schooled in the negative way of spiritual formation, stuck in the purgative and have rarely if ever tasted the illuminative or unitive. I think there is a reason though. The church doesn’t know how to transform lives.
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The Art of the Idea is the best creative book I have read in the last couple years. At velocityculture we try and broker resources when we come across really good ones. Well this is one…Tom Peters meets Seth Godin and voila you have John Hunt’s new piece. 
I picked this up in Cape Town South Africa and am really glad I did because what I didn’t know was Hunt is from South Africa. Apart from the sentimental value the purchase holds, I am taken by his freshness about how fresh ideas are critical to our in-flux world.
I am incredibly concerned about the dearth of good, fresh and original ideas when it comes to church ministry, church 2.0, and our ministry intersection with culture. Until we are able to generate enough curiosity to think in original and contextual ways I am afraid “church” in the West will continue to be marginalized with an impotent voice at best. Sometimes we just need others’ genius to jump start our ideation process. Sometimes we need to enter a more quiet state to free up some creative brain space. And sometimes just reading a piece like Hunt’s is enough to ignite some new flames.
One of the things I am doing with a number of church both here in the States and abroad is helping churches begin to thing through their creative process. How do you generate ideas? How do ideas then get moved through a process that navigates sorting, discerning, enfleshing, and executing them? We need lots of work in this area as well. Whatever we decide to do we need to stop laying conventional tired ideas on yet older worn out ideas that have outlasted their welcome and shelf life. I think Hunt’s book may be a huge help to all of us.
And he has about the coolest book website I have ever ever seen. Make sure you hit all the tabs at the bottom to allow the site full lateral scrolling.
When original goodness and blessing gets displaced by original sin you can’t 
help but have anything but the traditional way of spiritual formation. It has been characterized as a three phase movement…
• Purgative, –holiness, purity, cleaness
• Illuminative –enlightenment, clarity, awareness,
• Unitive Way. – oneness with each other and world, judgments drop, unity with all of creation ensues.
I am not sure what your experience has been but the more I travel and the more I work with a wide variety of churches the more convinced I am that my experience is not unique. I have been schooled in the purgative way…almost exclusively! Unfortunately here is where the necrophila and the church intersect. If it is all about death, dying and cross you never get to life, living and resurrection. Of course the traditional way only has the purgative as movement one, but why then so little discussion and formation related to the other two?
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