I can’t type much today, but I guess to further clarify what I’m talking about, the way I see behaviour change here in Sydney has a lot in common with the business plan of the Underpants Gnomes*:
I do take the points about changing the heart and that leading to particular outward behaviour etc, thanks for pointing that out, it is helpful. But i still think its a bit of a cop out to say the rest is up to the Spirit. Its all up to the Spirit. Whether we remain ignorant about it or pursue the science behind it is neither here nor there. We can’t tread on the Spirit’s toes, I find the hands-off attitude kind of strange. Why are we afraid to look under the rock? I’m not. The Spirit is much bigger than our pathetic science or logic.
Personally I think if we hold the bible in one hand, and results in the other, then we can’t really go wrong. There are a zillion options which could fit in Phase 2 of my example above, but we need to distil what works for which people and why. Which means shedding the rhetoric and doing the research. The answer might be repetitive habits, maybe its beating people over the head with it from the pulpit, maybe its most effective one on one, maybe its testimonies, or small groups, or maybe all this turns people off. Maybe people absorb most from 20min sermons, maybe from 40, maybe 5min. Who knows. We all think we know but we don’t - we have opinions, but we don’t have the data. This is hard to accept, but we really don’t know. We need a framework with theory and research which fits into our current theological framework. And as I was trying to show with my examples from population health, assumptions are dangerous. They do not match outcomes. No matter how much you believe them, you can’t trust them. Not without the data.
(Yes I’m making an extreme case here, but I’m trying to make a point :)
[quote author="Luke"]I do take the points about changing the heart and that leading to particular outward behaviour etc, thanks for pointing that out, it is helpful. But i still think its a bit of a cop out to say the rest is up to the Spirit. Its all up to the Spirit. Whether we remain ignorant about it or pursue the science behind it is neither here nor there. We can’t tread on the Spirit’s toes, I find the hands-off attitude kind of strange. Why are we afraid to look under the rock? I’m not. The Spirit is much bigger than our pathetic science or logic.
I see where you are coming from, and I agree. It is stupid to pursue methods that don’t work, or not to think about the methods at all. We should look to any (ethical/godly) method of getting the gospel across, be it preaching, 1-1, interpretive dance (::shudder::) etc.
I guess I am advocating caution on it because I see two problems with pushing it too far.
1. If we are results driven on a micro level (like dealing with an individual’s reaction to the gospel) then we have to accept way too much responsibility for people’s response. or to put it another way, if you don’t respond how I want you to then it’s my processes that are wrong. or to put it another way, if we found the perfect argument/method/cleverness then we would get a 100% conversion rate.
[quote author="1 Cor 4:1"]1CO 2:1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
Ultimately the response of the individual is a matter between God and the individual. It’s not the method that has the power (after all, many were convinced by the superior methods of the “super-apostles” in Paul’s day).
2. the changes in behaviour need to be in the correct direction, accompanied by a change in heart. Scouts advocate behavioural changes but don’t lead you to Christ. Similarly, I could name you one or two cults that have some seriously impressive ways of changing people’s behaviour. They are so good at creating permanent change that ex members need to be counselled for years to undo it (if only there was a ctrl-z).
Generally speaking, what’s the #1 response from behavioural scientists/politicians whenever we see a societal problem?? “We need to have an education campaign”.. If only we could teach kiddies in primary school the dangers or drugs then drugs will go away (if we get time to teach them to read and write as well it’s a bonus). Running an advertising campaign will stop littering. Of course none of these work.
If behavioural scientists have trouble stopping people from smoking/speeding/having unsafe sex etc then the church should be encouraged in the fact that we do see changed lives. Even muddling in as amateurs we regularly see transformed lives for the gospel.
I think one of the missing steps in your diagram is modelling.
[quote author="1 Corinthians 11"]1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
1CO 11:2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.
We learn a lot from discipleship. We have the model of Christ (part of our theology) to follow, we have the model of the apostles, and we also have the godly model of our Christian brothers and sisters. Christian discipleship is a powerful agent for change. modelling behaviour, modelling attitudes, modelling theology is all very very important. Monkey see, monkey do.
1 Corinthians 2:9-16 helps us out in this though. It is a spiritual battle going on, an though we should be wise in how we teach, the spirit is what does the instruction. “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” You wouldn’t expect much change from the “Unspiritual Man”. Even if you did an interpretive dance (the most powerful medium of communication in the universe) someone without the spirit won’t discern it.
What do you do with someone who does have the spirit but stubbornly refuses to change? I’d say get beside them regularly, open gods word with them, pray with them, model Christ for them. But do it faithfully and for the long haul. Then God will reward you for your faithfulness and will hold the other person accountable for their response.
Hmmm.. but if the bible tells us phase two is the Spirit, how is that a cop out? I come back to my question: can we scientifically analyse the work of the Spirit? Or will we find ourselves like those American researchers trying to quantify the effects of prayer on people in hospitals?
But what you say next gives me a hint that we may be talking across different categories:
The answer might be repetitive habits, maybe its beating people over the head with it from the pulpit, maybe its most effective one on one, maybe its testimonies, or small groups, or maybe all this turns people off. Maybe people absorb most from 20min sermons, maybe from 40, maybe 5min. Who knows. We all think we know but we don’t - we have opinions, but we don’t have the data.
Now this kind of thing I am all in favour of researching. But to my mind this isn’t phase two: this is not the vital link between theology and action.
This is all contained within phase one - which I might rename communicating theology.
There will be all sorts of helpful ideas that we can research regarding how we can more effectively communicate ideas to people’s heads. Again I would want to analyse the theological impact of any proposals. But still, go for it.
But I would still maintain that only the Spirit can move that from our heads to our hearts (phase 2). I don’t think this is just rhetoric, nor a cop out. It’s what the bible says. Only the intervention of the Spirit of God can redispose us towards bona fide godliness.
Your brother because of Jesus
Matt
Edit: Rowen, we posted near simultaneously, but nice post - I endorse all that also - 1 Corinthians 2 is an important caution on taking God’s work into our own hands.
I think we need to draw a distinction between “Works of the Flesh” & “Obedience to the Spirit”
A work of the flesh would be, I need to pray more to be a good christian because that is what good Christians need to do.
Being obedient to the Spirit is coming to God in prayer because we have been drawn to him out of relationship both to him and the world.
A Work of the flesh would be, I must read my bible more because thats what good christians do.
Being obedient to the Spirit is allowing God to draw us to his word and him speaking to us.
A work of the flesh is trying in our own strength to obey what the Bible says.
Being obedient to the Spirit is to allow him to search our hearts and be convicted by his word allowing him to change us from the heart.
Now if we have been truly convicted of our prayerlessnes, we need to call out to God to have mercy on us and to truly teach us to pray etc etc etc. Then our need to pray and our wanting to pray more comes out of a desire to obey God’s leading, instead of doing it because that is what we should be doing.
Possibly I should post this elsewhere, though this is an article i wrote some time ago RE prayer !
What is Prayer?
Some Christians don’t believe they know how to pray, some people think of prayer as being something they must do and what a drudgery it is, some don’t pray because of time restraints, Some don’t pray because they don’t know what true prayer is, so I ask What is prayer
Ever since mankind was first created, they knew what it was to pray, prayer came
naturally to them, Adam and Eve knew the sound of the Lord, (Gen3:8) as the Lord
walked in the garden suggesting that he walked with them in relationship before hand.
Then we see Cain and Able walking with the Lord – Able walking with the Lord, as the Lord required, Cain walking, as Cain wanted to. Then we see that Cain sinned and was driven and hidden from Gods presence (Gen 4”14)
Adam and Eve gave birth to another son and men began to proclaim the name of the lord (Gen4:26)
We read quite some many years later, and I’m to lazy to work out how many, we see Enoch walking with God and then he was gone, taken away by God. (Gen 5:23-24)
Again many years later when the earth was filled with wickedness and violence and the inclinations of men’s hearts were evil ( Gen 6:5) we could be talking about today. We see another man who was righteous and who walked with God (Gen 6:9) and did every thing that God commanded him to do (Gen 6:22)
Then we read again many years later how mankind decided to make a name for themselves and were confused in the process because they didn’t want to make a name for God, they wanted to walk their own way.
Again some time after God calls a young man called Abram to obey, he tells him “I will make you great” and Abram walked with God and Abram walked with God many years and God renamed him Abraham. Lets move on we see Isaac walking with God, we see Jacob walking with God, we see Joseph walking with God, and to exodus we see Moses walking with God, then Joshua and Caleb, we see many people walking with God in the book of Judges, we see many of the prophets walking with God, we see Elija walking with God and God taking him away in his chariot of fire. Now lets see what the New Testament says. We see John the Baptist walking with God, we see the calling of the first disciples to walk with God, and their obedience, we see on the road to Emmaus (luke 24:15) walking with God, We read in Acts how many people walked with God.
What has prayer to do with this you may ask – Prayer is nothing more than our dialog coming out of our relationship with our Lord. Talking to him about the scenery we walk past, the events of the world that are passing us by, talking to him about our friends and loved ones, even those who we may not like, talking to him about ourselves, admitting to him our fears and failures, our sinfulness, our wants and needs, talking to him about our church needs, talking to him about our community needs, our world needs, our leaders and their needs, and putting them all into his hands asking him to take control of the situation.
And as we walk side by side with him, we need to exercise the gift of listening to what the Lord is saying back to us, we read right through all the examples given of how God spoke to all he called – some obeyed – some didn’t. What has God spoken to you today? What did God say to you yesterday? What about the day before, and the day before that. What is God going to say to you tomorrow – I cant wait – Prayer can only come out of the realization and actualization of our intimacy and reality of our father in heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ. How real is God the Father to you?, How real is God the Holy Spirit to you? How real is God the Son to you, because when he becomes real to us, we can not but be excited to be conversing with him. I’m excited, are you?
craig bennett
There is a matter somewhat underneath this broad question. It’s a questionable assumption to irritates me a little, as it did when I was at Moore college too.
It’s this: ‘What happens in Sydney is ...’, ‘Most of our churches ...’.
This is a big part of your starting point, Luke, as I read it. The same pattern has been there in other posts too. (I won’t go back for quotes, but if it would make things clearer let me know.)
How does anyone confidently know such a generalised pattern of behaviour & church practice? Some things in the diocese are much easier to generalise: Sydney’s leaders as evangelical, Moore college’s theological underpinnings, etc. But about what happens in each parish/congregation/Bible study group/etc? Is this a touch of irony, Luke? We’re speaking about social sciences & the latest research, but on the basis of no social science research on congreagational life. ‘My gut feeling says we should use these tools because everyone is just going on gut feeling.’
To be honest, when I hear such overly broad assertions I don’t learn much about the diocese but I do learn about the individual speaking. I might learn what they want, or think important, or are presently struggling with, or about their very specific church situation.
Now, & closer to the actual questions of what to do, let me pass on what one good friend used to say about preaching & application. He thought it imperative to give no application - & I think told the congregation so - because that would be a cop-out. As he put it, it’s the congregation members who should be looking for ways to obey. I always thought his point was overstated, but with some truth.
And Luke, be encouraged. You may think the conference & Bible study on prayer were ineffective. But you are still drawing on these times quite powerfully, it seems to me. Has there really been no change in you? Hmmm.
No (intentional) irony, just muddy thinking - sorry for making you all wade thru it :)
[quote author="Chris Little"]How does anyone confidently know such a generalised pattern of behaviour & church practice?
Exactly Chris, you nailed it, thank you!!
Can we see the potentional for such research? It would be so interesting! Informed decisions are by definition informed by the quality of information they draw on. Without the data we’re really left in the land of educated guesswork.
Its so easy to slip into giving advice on this or that based on personal opinion and experience, and I realise I’m plenty guilty of that above, but of course there are much more important questions that helps us contextualise and evaluate all such advice/speculation/opinion based not on what we think we know about the diocese but what the research would tell us, following the questions Chris raises above. (I think - Chris do you agree?)
Has there really been no change in you?
Well, if change is wanting more change, then I guess I can’t say no ;)
Not really, the issues of behaviour change and “systematic introspective analysis” (?) go hand in hand, but in some ways they are also separate, so I was pleased Chris clarified what is probably the broader issue. Ie if I’m advocating behaviour change, that change can only be properly evaluated in light of the objective reality on the ground - ie change from what? Then you can establish trends and watch what happens to the numbers when change occurs (from within the church or from the outside by society) and take appropriate action.
Thanks for those links, they are very interesting, especially the comparison graphs. As a quick example, I compared the Australian average, the Anglican church, the Assemblies of God and the Apostolic Church and the differences were very interesting. The graph below is a measure of responses of “usually” or “always” in answer to the question “How often do you experience the following during church services at this congregation?”
Green = Apostolic Church
Yellow = AoG
Orange = Anglican (btw I realise Aust. Anglican != Sydney Anglican)
Red = Australian average
(More than a quater of Anglican attendees didn’t “usually” get an understanding of God, or experience his presence :confused: ??)
Now what’s at work here? The Spirit is working more in AoG churches than in Anglican? Surely as Matt mentioned above we can’t quantify the work of the Spirit, but nevertheless you can see how different churches have different outcomes. We have to be careful not to assume that if our theology is correct, then so are our methods, and therefore the outcomes will take care of themselves. Methods are much more fluid than straight theology (and many methods are not theology), and if different methods have different outcomes, why aren’t we using them???
Of course the flaw with self reported survey’s are people are just reporting their subjective perception where we want to know what the objective reality is (or get close to it), which could possibly be best observed in terms of measurable behaviour change? There’s also problems of reductionism etc, so you have to be smart and theological informed when making decisions about what you ask, how you ask it and how you interpret it.
If we look at the numbers, then maybe we can begin to understand the disconnect that I contend exists between pulpit and pew (but of course first we should research it to see if it exists, how big it is, who it effects etc), and measure its effects not by what people say but what they do (faith without actions ‘n all that).
So, what is the marker/s (that we can measure) of a healthy church?
Of course the flaw with self reported survey’s are people are just reporting their subjective perception where we want to know what the objective reality is (or get close to it), which could possibly be best observed in terms of measurable behaviour change?
Spot on, Luke, and I would add the the flawed assumption that the things measured above actually matter (is that what you meant by ‘reductionism’?)
If where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, God is present, does it matter whether or not we generate an emotional ‘sense’ of it? It might be nice (and I admit I quite like it in some styles) but surely it doesn’t affect the potency of God among us (does an emotional high produce long-term behaviour change? I doubt it).
‘Understanding God’ I would have thought was a oxymoron.
‘Joy’ is nice but it may be more appropriate to feel godly sorrow. (2 Cor 7)
‘Fulfil obligation’ is disturbing in that it suggests people think they can fulfil their obligations to the living God.
To feel inspired is great - but begs the question: what have you been inspired to do?
Spontaneity is a very subjective value in church services. Some people love it, others hate it.
Ditto for Awe & Mystery. Some people thrive on it, others feel alienated.
I don’t know if I can help you find the starting point, or imagine how you can measure the things you want to measure. I think you’re asking more the right questions now… but as to the possibility of it… I’m sorry, I’m still sceptical.
Surely as Matt mentioned above we can’t quantify the work of the Spirit, but nevertheless you can see how different churches have different outcomes. I think in Sydney we don’t care about the outcomes (research here would be nice! ;) so long as our theology is correct, because then the outcomes - we assume - will take care of themselves.
Well, I think it’s a bit much to say that people in Sydney don’t care about the outcomes - I think it would be more charitable to assume they care very much (Synod certainly gave me that impression from a reasonable cross-sample of the diocese - witness the enthusiasm for the diocesan mission). But we try (and should try) to continually remind ourselves - against our natural hubris - that our efforts are not ‘successful’ or ‘unsuccessful’, they are just either ‘faithful’ or ‘unfaithful’. It is God who gives the growth.
For me, the problem with this whole proposal is that it seeks to make comparisons between data (even if we had the said data) when we can’t put the appropriate controls in place to make the data comparable: i.e. you can’t control the dispensed measurements of God’s grace.
Until we have divine grace in a test tube, I’m at a loss to see how we might do it.
Interesting topic! I can’t comment too much as it is far too intelligent for my limited capacity, but I’ll shoot a few things off.
Regarding the “survey”: I remember being very confused with certain aspects of it and certain questions when I completed it. As Matt said: some are very subjective: “Awe and Mystery” [which I love] I put 0 as I was in a very dry evangelical church, and Spontaneity [which I loathe, generally] I put 10 - others may have put different figures.
Luke: take heart. I have the same problem, and—not that I am suggesting this is the answer—I ended up changing churches. Extreme reaction, some may say, but there were other factors as well. We generally recieved “exegetical” preaching, which is fine and good, but as the only “application” was “Become a Christian” or [if you are one], “Stay on track”, I ran dry after that. But I could have been dull and missing something.
What Rowen said about not returning to the same level [I think it was he] is very true and expressed it well. Despite you thinking you have not changed, perhaps you have Luke, and perhaps you are expecting too much. I remember coming home from conferences or church camp feeling “holier” and ready to do a 180 degree turn on some issues, but I came to the conclusion that—for me—this was all feeling. For some reason I felt I was holier as I was on a weekend with Christians (!?!?!): trying to live up to that was bound to fail!!!
The markers of a healthy church is tricky, Luke. I can see both sides in that “changed people” may be one way of looking at, but if we go another way and only look at results [souls “converted”, etc.] - that does not tell the whole story.
I am loathe to look at others and I tend to look at myself and see if I am growing. I am not trying to ignore “the community of believers”, but what works for one does not for another [not that I am saying “church sampling” on a weekly basis should be the norm, but as we grow our needs may change]. I would look for a church where one can sense people are there for the worship and praise of God; a church that (where possible) seeks to interact with the local community. Very tough to define. Not sure we can.
BTW - Mike: I too grew up on Trinity = Steam/Water/Ice. [I always wondered where the Ice was when there was Steam, and who was Ice and who was Water??? ;-)] I very much liked your explanation. I tend to see the Trinity as so ineffable, yet so important to our understanding of true Christianity.
Ian, who should never preface a post with “I can’t comment too much”, as I then blab on and on and on… ;-)
1) I assume that the behaviour changes that Luke is referring to are of the ‘growing more Christ-like’ variety rather than some other worthy change in behaviour. If that is the case then there is a useful theological term for these changes: Sanctification.
2) I can see two possible ways in which improvements in santification can occur:
[list]
[*] We already have the motivation (either Spirit given or generated personally) for change and improvements occur in the environment of preaching, MYC, etc but these do not have a direct relationship. In this case the approach used in teaching should be theological for it is theological education that helps us understand why santification is neccessary. God will then work on the motivation.
[*] Preaching, etc does have a direct relationship (after all, God uses humans as agents in other parts of his salvation plans). In this case teaching should have a very strong application component.
[/list:u]
The trouble is I’m not sure which one is more correct. I’d recommend J.C. Ryle’s Holiness as a book is helpful but it’s been so long since I read it I can’t find any handy quotes.
If it is the latter then we do need to look at how we do things to see if things can be improved. God’s plans can work in all situations but there is no need for us to make things difficult for him!
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