You're not gonna change the world

Not everyone needs to read this, but you know who you are if you do. 

• You think about the state of the world, often.  It bears down hard on your mind, heart and soul.
• You cry out to God, to politicians, to your organization, to the court room of your mind for justice and equity, and change and peace. 
  
• You often feel that "If only we could get this initiative up and running" or "If we just redesigned this process or system, we could upset the order of things and make a real difference".
• You regularly ask "Why?" and "Why not?".
  

You want to change the WORLD. But you can't.  Hear me out. 

A world changing perspective can sometimes...

• ...place too much emphasis on you and your vision.
• ...remove you from the truth (and trust) that only God is sovereign to change the world.  Only He can bring his Kingdom to earth.  
• ...cause a lot of grief in your own soul (anxiousness, driven-ness) because you believe the change depends on you.
• ...can cause you to motivate by shame and guilt when people don't 'get with the program'.
  
• ...turn you into an activist who makes claims on God, and for God that He doesn't subscribe to in order to advance your vision.  (God far too often ends up with a bad rap in the world, and it's not His fault. Tragically in the over-zealous effort to advance the Kingdom of God we can turn the world away from ever wanting what we put out there on offer)
  

Global and societal change rarely comes through any single individual or organizations' efforts. I can barely change my own eating habits, let alone my organization. How will my idea ever change the world?  Answer:  It won't and I can't.  The sooner I get to that conclusion and rest in another reality, the greater my impact can actually be.  

 

Ironically we will have more impact on the world when we let go of our sense of importance and power to change it and grab hold of this truth:

The Creator God is the only One with the power to transform this world into His Kingdom 

Unless we believe that God is actively at work in individuals and groups to do what He has set out to do, we will forever be wrapped up in our angst over what to do and how to do it.  What often happens is we (especially us dreamers), often miss the forest for the trees.  Our superpower may be as "Tomorrow-Man/Woman", but we miss the opportunity to live and act in today, to act locally, and to trust that the 'daily bread' Jesus taught us to ask for, is in the end all we really need.

So, take whatever He gives you in this day and embrace it: the person you meet, the opportunity you have, the thoughts and prayers that come across your mind.  Those acts are enough to change the world. 

God's wonderful Kingdom is happening. He is making it come into being, not you.  So each day be content and happy to take what He gives you and simply play your part.  

The world will change.

Changing How the World Works

I am growing weary of mission rhetoric. My thinking on what defines and comprises “mission” is definitely morphing. I grew up in an evangelical environment that was very much about ‘telling’ the story to the ‘regions beyond’. Perhaps like many of you. It wasn't world-changing.  Mostly about changing eternal addresses.

Along the lifetime of my ministry I have encountered my own and the broader church’s narrowness of engagement with broader culture, defined largely by those encounters that would lead to conversions or church attendance. Church mission-rhetoric may be to “love the world as Jesus loves”, or to be "focused on the lost”, but when push comes to shove, the metrics behind whether to keep a program or engagement going is what ultimately reveals the narrow definition of your ‘mission’.

I am a lowly voice among many writers and thinkers who are trying to yell at the church and show a “new, but not new” understanding of the Missio Dei, which embraces all things in this world as the arena for the restorative force of Gods’ Kingdom. After all, it is ‘all things’ that Christ intends to reconcile to Himself (Colossians 1:20).

How engaged are we with ‘all things’ as defining the mission of God?

The power of God to restore the world is in the loving acts of engagement with the world as it is, in order to see it become what He intends for it. We have a grand and just cause that moves far beyond ‘crossing the line’ to Jesus’ side and enjoying spiritual renewal, to a lifestyle that lives out the ways of the Kingdom of God in front of our society. It’s in that living that the power of the Gospel is experienced by the world. That power is not located exclusively through inner renewal or spiritual insight (which much of the church’s energy is dedicated to provide), but it is in the encounter between the Christ in us and the people and systems of this world.

This is how the early church transformed the world. It was not through evangelistic forays into people groups, but via societal engagements that clearly showed and offered a way of being that stood in an appealing contrast to the surrounding society [1]. Christians lived then, as we do now, within an understanding they were part of a new society, an alternate Kingdom. We live by the rules and ways of that Kingdom, which when expressed in word and deed, cannot help but interact with social, economic and political systems. (How can you read your Gospels and not see this embedded in the words and ways of Jesus?). We are to be part of a social revolution that is the direct (and inevitable) result of a Kingdom way of being. The eventual institutionalization of the early movement of the emerging church (the fate of all movements if they don’t die off completely), has had the effect of walling off this new societal revolution and instead has created some doors for entry, but which now require certain types of keys to gain entry.

We, the community of Christ on this earth will always be in tension over the radical movement outward into the world and the urge to consolidate our efforts into the institutional structures and thinking of the church. Believe me, after all I have said when I say this: May the tension never leave us. It’s the intention of the gift-mix Jesus gave to the leadership functions of the church. The apostles, prophets and evangelists are given to call us out of our consolidating tendencies so that we remain focused on living out this new society called the Kingdom in front of (and sometimes as an affront to) the world. Life calls to life. The shepherds and teachers ground us and keep reminding us that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. But rue the days, as we are in now, when we as the Christ-community settle and merely ‘send off’ the apostles, prophets and evangelists to do their work elsewhere (e.g. to “missions”, or para-church organizations, or local social agencies, or to ‘be a light’ in their jobs), while shepherds and teachers keep the non-profit wheels running and people in the pews to pay for the programs & staff that justifies our corporate existence.

This dichotomy, left unchallenged when all 5 gifts are not informing mission, reinforces to the watching world that the gathered church is NOT a new society living according to new ways of being, but has taken its place alongside other religions of choice, establishing organizational structures for maintaining loyalty and meaning for insiders.

The world is transformed by those who show up.










 Harv Matchullis


[1] For an historical look at the sociological reasons for the church’s significant advance to become 50% of the known world by AD 300, read Rodney Starks’ “The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries”

Transformed Leadership Thinking

The nomadic leadership journey is one of adaptation, adjustment & awareness of 2 worlds:  the internal world of our thinking and the external world where that thinking interacts with people and the environment.

Here’s an example.  I am a part of a few cross-cultural partnerships.  In one recent meeting we had a great outcome, but our process revealed some deeply-set thinking.   This is typical of most meetings and with all people, but as I tried to discern whether in this case it was cultural or personality-based it occurred to me that behind both is a common denominator...the BRAIN.

Reflecting on that meeting, one realization I came to is that whether something we hold to is defined as a cultural value or a personality characteristic, our behaviour towards each other can change because our brains can change.  We can transform our thinking as leaders.

We create limiting borders for ourselves and others when we make claims such as: "it’s their culture”, or “that is how they are wired”.  While there is truth underlying those declarations, it is a limiting truth. 

For clarity:

Culture is a shared pattern of thinking and behaviour, which is developed and reinforced by a person’s ethnic group.  Geert Hofstede refers to culture as the “collective programming of the mind”

Personality has a genetic component but also is the unique software of the brain developed and nurtured while interacting with the world around us.  Bio-physical influences, social teachers, environmental systems, experiences and more all contribute to defining and then rooting our personality.

Both culture and personality are developed as our brain interacts with our surroundings.  Over time we develop certain patterns which can then be hard to shake.  Think of your brain development in this way:  As an infant, your brains’ neural pathways were like a wide sheet of water on a flat plain.  As you developed & processed information, small streams began to form.  Continual learning and experiences added more streams on the  open landscape of your brain.  Confirmations & affirmations consistent with your thinking then served to deepen those streams into rivers.  Ongoing learning and experience is then framed by, or channeled into these existing rivers, because that’s easier to do than creating new streams of thinking.  That’s why learning new skills or perspectives as we age gets harder (but not impossible).  

Soon, however, those rivers become deeper and form canyons.  Once  deep enough, it’s difficult to see out to a new horizon.  The multiple vistas that were available to us when we were younger now take a lot more energy to see, let alone process.

If you are honest you will notice in yourself that you tend to seek out learning, opinions and people that confirm or align with what you already know & perceive (confirmation bias). Not to excuse it, but this is actually related to a brain physiology issue; it takes less physical energy to process something that can be channeled into one of those existing rivers.   Think of it this way – your brain is like a computer with a hard disk and RAM.  Your RAM, the frontal cortex, is where new learning takes place.  While it is only about 4-7% of your brain, it consumes the most physical energy.  So, where will we default?  Where the pathway takes less energy – the stored learning in the hard disk, not the new learning.

This 'hard wired' analogy played out in my partnership meeting.  A partner was fixed in their thinking and had a hard time looking out and over that canyon.  It was far easier for this person to bring everything into their canyon to interpret it from that perspective.  In my default mode, I do exactly the same thing.

Our cultures, our personality and our training all give us a framework for life.  This is necessary because we all need some lens through which to initially interpret life.  But let’s acknowledge that much of our thinking exists in a few canyons we have dug out over years and years of processing life in a certain way.  Getting out and abandoning those ways entirely is not really possible, BUT it is possible to start a new stream, a new neural pathway.

Speaking to the cross cultural contexts I am in, ethnic culture needs to be both honored and challenged.  While on one hand it provides a leader with community, security and a sense of ‘place’, it also bears limitations.  There is a trans-cultural way of thinking, found in the teachings and ways of Jesus.  Following His ways does not lead a person to abandon culture or personality so much as it leads us to think & act above those ‘canyons’ we have created.

God calls us to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’.  Our Creator wired our brains and knows we can get fixed in destructive or limiting thinking.   So, is the answer to think your way into transformation?  Afraid not!  We all need Divine help because quite simply, our thinking is affected by a universally shared selfishness that defines ‘me’ as the center of reality.  That can’t be fully overcome independently.  Only the presence and the power of the One who crafted your brain can come alongside you and affect true transformation.

I coach people using a brain- based approach.  I help you to think about your thinking so that you can create new neural pathways in order to move forward in some aspect of your life.  I have seen this help people transform their thinking to take a significant new step in their business, pursue a dream, make a career shift.  What I could never do is help you approach life and this world from a trans-cultural, divine perspective.....only following the way of Jesus can accomplish that.  He can transform you by the renewing of your mind. 

For information on a brain-based coaching approach or on the way Jesus can fully transform your mind & life, contact me at:

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca - www.visiontracks.ca