A common tendency of practitioners in most fields, especially those that are focused on helping people, which of course includes ministry, is to value action over reflection. In fact taking action, any action, is typically highly valued by most practitioners, while reflection is commonly considered a waste of time and effort. This is because most practitioners operate in a technical fashion; that is, they seek, typically without much thought (although they are often convinced of their own thoughtfulness), to push through the application of technical solutions to problems in order to help people or solve perceived problems as quickly as possible. The problem is that helping people is often associated with a great deal of complexity, variability, and uncertainty, which creates situations that cannot be adequately addressed by the simple application of technical solutions.
This way of being is mostly the result of training in institutions of higher education (particularly at the undergraduate and master degree levels), including seminaries, that largely pass on a technical-rational approach which emphasizes the taking of action almost exclusively over reflection. Theoretical positions are addressed, but mostly for the purpose of solving immediate "problems," rather than for the purpose of constructing new ideas or for learning how to create new solutions to problems as they are experienced.
How about a simple example? The technical-rational practitioner experiences a problem and seeks a solution to that problem. Most often this process involves seeking out and inserting a program designed to solve the specific problem being experienced. Once the program is in place, the task is simple; the problem presents itself, the person with the problem is introduced to the program, which progresses in a technical fashion, moving toward a desired solution. It's all very nice, neat, and effective, at least on the surface level. Action solves the problem. It's all about ends and outcomes with an agreed upon way of getting there.
This way of thinking creates several situations that I believe are ineffective and go against Biblical truth; many of which are deeply embedded in the church today. Let me offer three examples:
1. A tendency to focus on outcomes rather than on process. For example, if we're talking evangelism, the focus is on conversion and/ or eventual church attendance rather than on the process of sharing the gospel, developing relationships, and "seed-planting."
2. A view of leaders as 'experts' who hold exclusive technical knowledge and expertise. Within the context of ministry, this plays itself out in a belief that pastors have access to knowledge that is inaccessible to the average church-goer or member, and so decisions about what action to take are made in a top-down fashion with little or no meaningful input from the members of the congregation.
3. Problem-centered orientation to ministry. That is, different areas of ministry exist to solve specific problems and the idea that a specific ministry can have multiple dimensions, i.e., evangelism, discipleship, community, care-giving, is an almost completely ignored or unconsidered.
This tendency toward action limits the effectiveness of our ministries and creates a problem focused orientation toward being with others than robs our relationships from the kind of closeness needed to truly help bring about change (not to mention our ability to show others the love of Christ. Barriers are created between "experts" and those in reaching out to the church, church members are isolated from decision processes, and the church becomes a place where problems are addressed. None of these characteristics of many modern churches reflect the descriptions of the early church we find in the Bible.
In my next post I will seek to describe how we can be more reflective in ministry and seek to argue why doing so is Biblical.
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