I had the privilege of interviewing Patricia O'ConnelKillen who is professore of religion at Pacific Lutheran University and is acting provost. She is the author of Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest / The None Zone. This religious demographic study was published in cooperation with Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. I found Dr. Killen very knowledgeable about the history of religious life in the Northwest with some insightful ideas about the future of the church in the Northwest. Our conversation included Postmodernity, enviornmentalism, 21st century church direction in relation to hostile local government and the meta church. She suggested that she would be coming to visit washington Cathedral sometime this summer to study it more closely and she also asked me to talk with Dr. James K. Wellman Jr. who is the chairman of the department of religion at the University of Washington. Dr. Wellman has written The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto and th esoon to be published liberals verses evangelicals. I did spend an hour interviewing Dr. Wellman and found that time equally insightful into the mindset of those who are critical of church growth for church growth sake. He also seemed intrigued by the concept of Washington Cathedral and a counter enlightenment conversation. My demographic study of the area included not only of all the religious demographic studies that I could get my hands on but interviews with Dr. Rob Wall of Seattle Pacific University, Dr. Samuel McKinny of Mount Zion Baptist Church, King County chief executive Ron Simms, Redmond Mayor Marchione, past redmond Mayor Rosemarie Ives, Pastor Casey Treat, Pastor Joe Fuiten, Pastor Fulton Buntain, Dr. Tom Sine, Psychiatrist Dr. Ray Vath, Pastor Mark Driscol, and I have several more to go. The single largest group in the Pacific Northwest is those people who do not identify with any religion. This is why the name the none zone. It has ramifications in the way the city and county create zoning laws for churches and faith institutions. I have written about their reasons and find them quite sincere and a compelling call for the church to serve people the way that Jesus would. I asked Ron Simms (who is a pastors kid raised in Eastern Washington like myself) what he would like to tell all pastors of mega churches. He said, "find Jesus!"
It is interesting that in the history of the United States there has never been a section of our country that has a higher percentage of people unaffiliated with any religion than presently in the Pacific Northwest. Even the native Americans has a religion. I have a lot to say about this but I guess you are going to have to read my book. I have a great title but I have not copywritten it yet so just keep following this blog for the exciting develpment of meta religion and the meta church.
pastor Tim White (wacathedral.org)
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Metachurch 2008
I am writing my dissertation on the metachurch. It is for Fuller Theological Seminary but the project has been a life long project for me. We describe Washington Cathedral in the Puget Sound Area as a meta church. Meta is the greek preposition for similar but not the same. It is a very common term used in the New Testament. The classic verse is in Luke when the angel asked the woman why do you look for the living among (meta) the dead. It is also used as a prefix in important words such as metanoia. But even sophocles used it as a preposition when he said, why do you look for the living among (meta) the dead. Sounds familiar. Today, meta is a very popular term in meta analysis, meta physics, meta data, meta programing, etc. It is outside the box thinking. It is an abstraction as Simolian pointed out in his article Anything you can do I can do meta. He envisioned a meta programer which would revolutionize computer programing. As most people know every computer program is built upon old programs. MS Dos still exists in windows or windows xp etc. Each program is a greater abstraction using all that they can in the previous foundational programing language. Since, innovation in high tech industry is absolutely necessary for survival than no organizaiton can afford to remain heirarchical styfling the creativity and gifts of each of its innovative teams. Simolian dreamed of a meta programer which would direct this process so that it would not spend so much energy with instituional entropy or useless energy. The mtea programer would be so abstract and see the big picture that he would allow the teams to work towards a common higher goal while minimizing conflict and maximizing innovation and effeciency.
We chose the word meta because it is biblical. It represents the kind of spirit led church which avoids the chains of institutionalism and allows for constant innovation to incarnate the gospel of the kingdom of God. We choose not to think of our church as post modern because this is a divisive term on almost every issue modernist verses post modnernist. And it is heavily dependent on the inspiration of the phenomenologists. We think of ourselves as more counter enlightenment in the tradition of Isaiah Berlin and Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt school. Not because we agree with all their philosphies but we agree that the enlightenment needs a second look. Not to be thrown off but to be understood with a new humility that utopianism and absolutism are dangerous. Not because everyting is relative we believe there is an absolute truth that can be proven by the scientific method we just don't think anyone has that theory completely deveoloped except God. Or as Stephen Hawkings refers to the Theory of Everything. So we approach our beliefs with humility fearing hubris because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutly. We do this as followers of Jesus Christ because he taught us humility. Because of this humility we treat others with dignity and believe that conversation with them is very - very important. In this age of polarization if the church cannot be a place of conversation than where can people who disagree find friendshp, love, forgiveness and respect? At Washington Cathedral meta church means collaborative methodology, teamwork management, diversity, servanthood, non manipulative christianity. We don't believe that we can convert anyone . This is our salvific theology. Only God can help someone to become a follower of christ. We don't want people to conform or surrender their authenticity. Only God can convert. In our own lives none of us were converted by a great sermon, an emotional song or because we were argued into the kingdom of God. We became followers of Jesus Christ because we experienced a miracle (an equation which did not work without God in the formula). If we accept that we cannot convert others than our job is to love them as mother Theresa said, because we see the face of Jesus in each person we serve. We love because he first loved us. These are some of my random ideas about the meta church. It is not a small church group although its basic element is a collection of Tiny Little Church. It is nto an organization in fact we believe that no one knows the limits of the bride of Christ except Christ. Statisitcs may be a snap shot but are really a pretty poor description. No one can control the real family of God except God therefore all the control freaks that love to take over organizations and battle out their neurotic ambitions are very frustrated in a meta church. Humility must lead the way if we have any authenticity at all. Since no one reads my blog I will tell you a secret. Washington Cathedral is building a 20 million dollar recreation center with an office for me that sings of hubris. I am not going to move in. I am going to find a more humble office not because I am humble but because I am hubris scares the hell out of me. And i can feel it course through my veins when I stand in that office. I think of myself as a pastor of maintenence. I started in ministry as a janitor that is where I want to stay. So with much opposition I am appointing a lead pastor, a cathedral cannon, a chief operating officer so I can go on being myself and I can remember and remind others that none of us owns the church. That is an organism not an organizaiton.
We chose the word meta because it is biblical. It represents the kind of spirit led church which avoids the chains of institutionalism and allows for constant innovation to incarnate the gospel of the kingdom of God. We choose not to think of our church as post modern because this is a divisive term on almost every issue modernist verses post modnernist. And it is heavily dependent on the inspiration of the phenomenologists. We think of ourselves as more counter enlightenment in the tradition of Isaiah Berlin and Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt school. Not because we agree with all their philosphies but we agree that the enlightenment needs a second look. Not to be thrown off but to be understood with a new humility that utopianism and absolutism are dangerous. Not because everyting is relative we believe there is an absolute truth that can be proven by the scientific method we just don't think anyone has that theory completely deveoloped except God. Or as Stephen Hawkings refers to the Theory of Everything. So we approach our beliefs with humility fearing hubris because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutly. We do this as followers of Jesus Christ because he taught us humility. Because of this humility we treat others with dignity and believe that conversation with them is very - very important. In this age of polarization if the church cannot be a place of conversation than where can people who disagree find friendshp, love, forgiveness and respect? At Washington Cathedral meta church means collaborative methodology, teamwork management, diversity, servanthood, non manipulative christianity. We don't believe that we can convert anyone . This is our salvific theology. Only God can help someone to become a follower of christ. We don't want people to conform or surrender their authenticity. Only God can convert. In our own lives none of us were converted by a great sermon, an emotional song or because we were argued into the kingdom of God. We became followers of Jesus Christ because we experienced a miracle (an equation which did not work without God in the formula). If we accept that we cannot convert others than our job is to love them as mother Theresa said, because we see the face of Jesus in each person we serve. We love because he first loved us. These are some of my random ideas about the meta church. It is not a small church group although its basic element is a collection of Tiny Little Church. It is nto an organization in fact we believe that no one knows the limits of the bride of Christ except Christ. Statisitcs may be a snap shot but are really a pretty poor description. No one can control the real family of God except God therefore all the control freaks that love to take over organizations and battle out their neurotic ambitions are very frustrated in a meta church. Humility must lead the way if we have any authenticity at all. Since no one reads my blog I will tell you a secret. Washington Cathedral is building a 20 million dollar recreation center with an office for me that sings of hubris. I am not going to move in. I am going to find a more humble office not because I am humble but because I am hubris scares the hell out of me. And i can feel it course through my veins when I stand in that office. I think of myself as a pastor of maintenence. I started in ministry as a janitor that is where I want to stay. So with much opposition I am appointing a lead pastor, a cathedral cannon, a chief operating officer so I can go on being myself and I can remember and remind others that none of us owns the church. That is an organism not an organizaiton.
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