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15 Responses to “the best way to preserve tradition”

1. brad on February 23rd, 2007 6:21 pm

   one good quote-lob deserves another. someone asked Duke Ellington what his favorite song was that he’d written: “The next one,” he said, ” … the next one.”

   i’m all for creativity, but i also think true elegance emerges out of finding the minimal set of “rules” or parameters for covering the largest amount of data or situations. an elegant strategy for church won’t necessarily require any less work than a sloppy one, but it should be a whole lot more sustainable! and i wonder, if we aim for elegance instead of just for experiments, will we have better luck in figuring out what worked or didn’t work, and why?

   and re: inherited forms and ideas of church. i wonder if there’s generally an inverse relationship, such that the smaller our Kingdom paradigm, the larger our church; the larger our Kingdom paradigm, the smaller our “church.” if we mentor next generations so they have a bigger perspective of who God is and what Christ’s Kingdom is about, won’t they be more likely to act in ways that grow the Kingdom faster and farther than reigning everyone in to a large building?

2. Bob Roberts on February 24th, 2007 3:20 am

   Brad - I don’t know who you are - but I like the way your mind thinks. Alan - awesome quote. Good solution - what parent wants their child to look and do life just like them? A parent wants to pass on values. By passing on the values of the Kingdom, we don’t need to tell them how to dress, whether to live in a house, tent, or just wander out in the open (buildings), do this or that - they’ll know what to do because it is natural and normal and culturally appropriate to them. The only people you have to teach to be culturally relevant - aren’t! You don’t have to teach relevance to someone in a cultural setting - they just are. The fact we have to teach says we are not. I have an old King James Bible that’s nearly 100 years old - it belonged to the greatest Christian I ever knew - it’s marked up, falling apart - I hold it, read it, and think of Callahan and I want to know Jesus like Callahan, yet - I have my NIV and my son has is “Message.” I have an old hymnal - I hear my moms voice, I hear the old words and they mean something to me - but I sing Matt Redmond or the newer Hillsongs. This is the difference between cloning and reproducing. Cloning is just like we are, reproducing is more than we are. I am CONVINCED - this is the answer. If we reorg the church - we’ve given the next generation a head ache to undo - something else to have to deal with in 20 years. If we reorient them to the Kingdom - they will dress it up in their time and era. Furthermore, if we focus on the Kingdom we are always relevant - if we focus on models we are only as good as a partial sub-culture within a given generation. I’ve been with a lot of non-religious and various religious people from key leadership roles in society the past few years - was with many last week - Catholic, protestant, liberal, conservative, they don’t differentiate - they want to know who cares and how Christianity matters to this world - most of these are young cultural elites and intellectuals - film producers, rock bands, politicians, imams, priest, and journalist - THEY WILL NOT BE WON BY OUR FORM OF CHURCH - ONLY BY HOW WE PRACTICE FAITH ACROSS SOCIETY. Their number one Christian hero - Mother Teresa.

3. brad on February 24th, 2007 3:27 am

   so, after sleeping on it, i realized two things. i didn’t share much of my own story in the above entry, and i thot of an even more relevant quote. so this morning (pacific coast time, that is) i’ll share both.

   i grew up in a part of the U.S. where the local history consisted of three groups’ stories: Native Americans, missionaries, and pioneers. in second grade and beyond, our printing/writing lessons often used local history drawn from the interactions of these three groups. i found myself drawn toward the cultures of the tribes.

   we moved to another state just in time for me to go thru the complete culture shock of living in a town of 1,500 people to showing up as a freshman on the steps of a high school with 1,500 students! (the resolution of that is a long and intriguing tale.) fortunately, it was in the era of radicalized everything, and everyone was searching for their roots and identity. so there was actually a Native American Club on campus. i joined. i listened and learned, and we enjoyed each other’s company.

   the years since have confirmed that many Native American tribal cultures embody approaches much more holistic and organic than those inherent in more Western, analytical, rationalistic approaches. so i’m thankful to have been brought up in an intercultural space when i could learn the best of both.

   anyway, i think we hope for our children or for our next generations that they become what they are meant to be, not just become a “mini-me.” some Native American tribes had/have a foresightful practice when considering major changes that will have dramatic impact on their group. as a council, the elders verbalize what the changes of the options will do in the lives of their children, and their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children, to the seventh generation. the wisdom of indigenous futurists …

   when i ran across the following quote in a collection of world music called *Planet Soup,* i knew i’d found a pearl. i think it expresses the companion hope for the future, seen from the child’s point of view in regards to his/her elders:

   “From what has been told to me by elders, I’m not here to continue to try to be them, but I’m here to know their story which is the ancient oral tradition, the history of how I came to be here as a person of culture. My responsibility is to define myself based on that knowledge, and to include the experiences that I have in the world now as part of that history.”
   – R. Carlos Nakai, member of the Ute and Navajo tribes, in *Planet Soup* –

4. kbartha on February 24th, 2007 5:08 am

   Good ol’ Pic-awe-sew. my boys are always wearing my hats. i have to wrestle them for everything…

5. Peggy on February 24th, 2007 6:25 am

   Brad, great story! I experienced much of what you shared from the Hawaiian perspective…having landed on Oahu for my senior year of high school as one (the hated one, at that) of 17 ethnic subgroups! That was big culture shock! (This followed on the heels of my junior year in Southern California after being raised in Western Michigan! A double-whammy!)

   The Ancient Hawaiian (not the Tahitian interlopers, with their warrier demi-gods) religious oral traditions are monotheistic — with “Io” being the creator God and their creation story very like the Genesis account! Their simplex paradigm was/is the concept of “aloha” — which is currently blasphemed in its banal use as a glib “alooooha” greeting for the haole tourists.

   But aloha is not just a greeting. It is their foundational cultural identity: they are the people of aloha. In our terminology, aloha would be called a covenant concept. It implies relationships that are binding on one another to nurture and protect each other — whatever the cost. True Hawaiians are known by their aloha, their hesed (important Hebrew concept of loving-kindness, mercy, grace) — their simple but powerful faithful covenant keeping.

   This is seen in so many gracious ways, but particularly in their usually-misunderstood practice of giving/receiving children in “hanai”. This was, for lack of a better term, mistranslated by the missionaries as “adoption,” but with terrible consequences. For westerners, adoption has connotations of abandonment or irresponsibility or selfishness. Consequently, the missionaries were aghast by the practice of “hanai.”

   In reality, the Hawaiians understood the importance of children and their responsibility to hand down the traditions so as to perpetuate their culture. That meant that if a couple was tragically unable to have children of their own, it was a great sacrificial gift for a family with many children to give one of their own children to that couple.

   In some instances a child was “received in hanai” by a family who could provide a better life for that child — as in the case of a family with many children but diminished resources. Sometimes this was a temporary arrangement, sometimes it was permanent.

   All experiences were a blessing to the entire community. What was important was the best interest of the overall group. The children knew both sets of parents, but the legal identify (and any future inheritance) of the child given/received in permanent hanai was found in the “hanai” family (this is the basis on which Queen Lilioukalani ascended the thrown…she was hanai sister to David Kalakaua).

   The spiritual history of Hawai’i is fascinating and in recorded in Daniel I. Kikawa’s book: “Perpetuated in Righteousness” That 800 years of supression/persecution/human sacrifice by the Tahitians did not obliterate the oral traditions of the One God Io of the ancient Hawaiians seems to be another testimony to Alan’s mDNA theory. God will always find a way to preserve his truth…and it is passed down in tangible behavior and oral traditions from parents to children.

   Alan, are you familiar with Daniel’s Aloha Ke Akua Ministries? I would think he is kind of up your alley….

   It is a sacred honor and awesome responsibility that I have as the mother of three sons….it keeps me on my toes in every possible way!

6. Christina on February 24th, 2007 8:34 am

   Thanks for the Hawai’i story - very interesting…

7. jerry on February 24th, 2007 9:01 am

   Not sure this is the right discussion to bring this up at, but here goes.

   For years I have wondered about the way we train our next leaders.

   If a person shows an interest in “ministry” we remove them from their native culture, send them away to Bible school for 4 years, never let them bring their training back to their culture, but when they are done they cast seed across all the geography the feel comfortable serving in. When the get a “call” its most likely to a new cultural area that they must learn and adjust too, after being sucked from one and forced into a false culture to learn what they need to minister. (i think that makes sense)

   Then I read Erwin Mcmanus talk about his school experience and realizing he was talking the same courses from the same proofs using the same books from 20 years before.

   The same happened in my schooling, you could buy the teachers notes (jokes included) in the bookstore that students for 30 years had used before you.

   Bob maes a strong point in that if we minister in cultures we know - then what needs to be done will happen naturally. We know what to do and when and how. Because we are part of the community.

   This may just be rambling but I think it fits in here somewhere.

8. Peggy on February 24th, 2007 9:54 am

   Jerry, we have blogged around this in a number of threads here…I get lost in the richness and diversity of the discussion…but you might look in “cultural distance”….

   In his book, TFW, Alan talks about the pitfalls of the “extractional” method: attracting and converting to a “church culture” which then results in functionally removing persons from the connections they have with their native culture — threreby “ruining” potential native missionaries.

   Alan has also communicated with great passion the need for changing the way we educate, as well…and the cutting edge training methodology used in Forge is one measure of proof of his passion!

   I personally believe that ministering in cultures we know is often looked on as a step-child to cross-cultural mission — another sad fingerprint of human pride in the midst of mission There are precious lost souls in need of the transforming knowledge and experience of Jesus Christ is every single cultural context out there. Let’s not leave anyone out!

   There are some (not Alan) that see the middle-class as not really worthy of missional attention…yet that is exactly where my husband and I have been called to serve. The challenge I believe Alan is setting before us is to be relational-incarnational-missional in whatever scenario/culture God calls us to serve. It’s more than OK to start where you live and move out from there…kind of like being witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria…and beyond!

9. Jerry on February 24th, 2007 10:05 am

   Peggy Im currently in his US cohort!

   TFW addresses some of this most certainly.

   My ultimate point tho - is: it’s a systematic overhaul thats needed

   and that includes education

10. Peggy on February 24th, 2007 12:05 pm

    Lucky you, Jerry! I think you are preaching to the choir here, brother Especially education!

11. Christina on February 24th, 2007 1:12 pm

    Some good points here, but if mission in our own context should come naturally (because we know it and are familiar with it), then why do we need the likes of Forge and Alan’s books to help us remember “the forgotten ways”?. It probably should come naturally, but the picture of the church in the west suggests that it doesn’t necessarily. Our “natural” imagination for mission is confined to the neurological pathways laid down by our earliest experiences of church - we need to learn new pathways to a different imagination. Funnily enough, I see more examples of “naturally occuring mission” happening amongst those who are uneducated (formally at least) in the ways of the church and theology.

12. Peggy on February 24th, 2007 1:46 pm

    Interestingly enough, Christina, you have exactly described my situation. I have been searching out and following new pathways for over 25 years and have found Alan’s books/ideas amazing acts of confirmation to what God has taught me during those years in the School of Hard Knocks — from which I have earned at least one doctorate! Alan has given “technical terminology” and “academic credibility” and lots of wonderful graphics to what I have been intuitively doing for the past ten years!

    While I, in many ways over the years, have mourned the fact that I have just been minimally educated (formally, that is), many of my current peers/mentors, who have spent their lives in academic pursuits, have observed that it is my very lack of “formal education” that has allowed my imaginations to be freed from the common bonds they struggle with in the sacred halls….

    I realize that my situation may be more of the exception than the rule, but there it is! What a wonderful God we serve, who takes humble hearts (whether educated or ignorant) and uses them to further his mission. And thanks to Alan and you all for letting me glean from this fellowship!

13. Rodney Olsen on February 25th, 2007 7:28 pm

    Alan, thanks for the radio interview last week. I’ve now linked to it from my blog.

14. Josh on February 26th, 2007 9:39 am

    Thats a great quote Al! Being anly about 3 weeks away from becoming a Dad scares me, and not just about the responsibility, but more about the passing on of the faith, and the story of God’s transforming dream, because in passing that on, I think that I need to make sure that I let go enough for him/her to rediscover Jesus for him/herself, rather than just to “wear my hat”.
    thanks for the laughs/thoughts today, and the weekend just passed in Hobart.

15. brad on March 6th, 2007 3:12 pm

    i found another intriguing quote on “tradition.” it also comes from a booklet that was packaged with the world fusion music CD, *Planet Soup.*

    “All music is caught between preservation of the old ways and redefinition in the present. The new musicians recognize this tension - it is the dramatic subtext of global music. They are articulate about it, and for the most part they have come to a consensus: we must honor our sources. The elders don’t want us to be them, they want us to be us, but we must know their story, and remember it, and understand ours as a continuation of theirs.” W.A. Mathieu in *Planet Soup,* page 5.

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