Paradigm Shifts: A Change in Method

Are you salt?  Jesus used this metaphor to help us understand the effect that we are to have on the surrounding culture.  We are not to be unnoticed, blended consistency.  We are supposed to make a difference – a difference that is immediately detected.  Christians flavor life with a God-perspective.

You probably agree.  What’s the point of being a Christian if your life is exactly the same as the high valued non-believers of this world?  Why adopt a God-perspective if no one can tell the difference between God’s point of view and the best morality human beings can muster?  After all, Christianity has to be more than just attending the church of your choice and learning a few Bible verses.  The claim of Christianity is that Christians are actively involved in Kingdom endeavors in every aspect of their lives.  Kingdom work doesn’t just occur on the mission field or in the Sunday school.  Kingdom work is supposed to happen everywhere I go – on the job, at home, in school, even in the mall.

Does that mean that I am to carry my Bible or have a pocket full of tracts?  Does it mean that I hold up a reader board emblazoned with “Repent or go to hell!”?  Am I supposed to preach on the street corner to an audience with deaf ears?  Most of us would say, “No.”  Such actions might be what some feel called to do, but for most of us being a Christian has to mean something more penetrating.  I have to learn how to be salt in every meal circumstances serve.

Let’s consider just one salty paradigm shift.  How does being a Christian change the way that you organize, plan and execute decisions?  How does being a Christian change your Standard Operating Procedure?

Amazingly, most of us never think that being a Christian makes any difference at all to the way that we operate.  We never consider that the process of gathering information, sorting out options, planning strategies, considering risks, determining goals and constructing step-by-step tactics can be a “salt” experience.  We just think that this methodology is the only methodology because it is the one that we have learned in the process of living in the world.  We simply can’t imagine any other way of accomplishing tasks.  Of course, there are lots of ways that don’t work.  We are quick to point out the deficiencies in plans that fail, citing some overlooked step in the process.  But we never consider that correct execution could be radically different.  We never think about the salt perspective.  It’s time that we did.

The methodology of the world is based on process thinking.  Process thinking is the step-by-step rational ordering of actions in the pursuit of a goal.  Nearly every goal oriented endeavor you have ever taken in life probably reflects this kind of thinking.  It is without question the fundamental rational tool taught in school.  But it has some serious implications for God-perspective living.

Process thinking moves me toward independence.  The point of process thinking is this:  I know what to do next without requiring moment-by-moment guidance.  Correct application of process thinking is evaluated by progress toward the goal without further input.

Let’s look at an example.  It is quite common in football to outline a “game plan”.  Coaches often script in advance the first twenty or thirty plays that they will run.  They construct a step-by-step order that they believe will advance them toward a touchdown before the team even steps on to the field.  The coach develops this process thinking by going through the steps we commonly understand.  He gathers information, outlines a strategy, determines tactics, assesses risk and develops a plan.  It all looks great on paper.  Then the whistle blows and suddenly someone intercepts the pass.  There’s a fumble.  A player gets injured.  The game plan disintegrates when it comes into contact with the real world.  Process thinking assumes controlled reality.  Even when the plan is continually altered in the face of unanticipated events, process thinking still assumes reality can be brought back under control.  The biggest problem with process thinking is that it leads me toward the assumption that I can control my world.  This assumption stands behind nearly every business plan.  It is resident in financial planning, retirement planning, educational planning.  It is the Standard Operating assumption of the world’s system.

Unfortunately, reality constantly frustrates our process thinking assumption.  Plans don’t go the way we thought they would.  The stock market doesn’t behave correctly (why should it?).  Enron and Tyco executives steal my retirement (my plans did not anticipate theft).  Terrorism alters the world market demand (my sales plans did not anticipate September 11, as Disney quickly learned).  Even on a personal scale, reality constantly frustrates the control assumption behind process thinking.  A flat tire, a bounced check, a sick child, a missed appointment and suddenly my world isn’t quite so orderly.  The world is determined to remind me that I am not in control in spite of all my efforts to batter it into the shape I desire.

Salt mentality takes a different approach.

The Standard Operating Procedure from God’s point of view is not process thinking.  God is not interested in your plans.  God is interested in your attention to His plans.  And God never reveals more of His plan than what is absolutely necessary at this particular moment.  Why?  Because God’s SOP is not process thinking.  It is consultation.

The Standard Operating Procedure of the consultation approach to life is radically different.  It is fostered entirely by dependence.  Consultation depends on externally provided guidance.  It looks like this:  STOP – WAIT – LISTEN – ACT

Consultation requires me to always be connected to another guiding source, not myself.  Consultation requires that I do not move to the next step until I hear the command to do so.  No step automatically follows another.  Consultation demands clarified obedience as a response to guidance, not as a planned execution.  Consultation is based on releasing the truth as God sees it by first encountering the present Lord.  Consultation cannot move forward without direction and it does not move forward without assignment.  Consultation is the posture of the obedient slave.

If we read the stories of men who understood what it is like to be salt in this world, we discover that they had no preconceived agendas.  If fact, when they did come to the party with an operational agenda, God took great pains to remove their plans from the table.  From Abraham’s attempt to handle the famine to Gideon’s effort to raise an army, from Peter’s proclamation of violent defense to Paul’s plan to go to Bithynia, God rearranges human plans to suit His purposes.  God wants moment-by-moment obedience, not long-term strategy.  Why?  Because obedience means dependence and devotion, two characteristics that God values far more than goal achievement.  Consultation thinking removes me from the subtle temptation to think that God needs me to accomplish His will.  Surprise!  God is perfectly capable of running the world without me.  But He is very anxious to include me in what He is doing.  Consultation begins with “What would you have me do, Lord?” rather then “OK, Lord, I know what to do next.”

Given this change in methodology, it shouldn’t be surprising to discover that Christians are unpredictable.  They listen and respond to God, not to planned human project management.  They operate exclusively under the assumption that God is in charge and the only real job is to hear what He has to say and do what He asks.  Real salt Christians depend on God for their direction.  Even in their methodology, they stick out like sore thumbs.  They just don’t think like the world thinks.

That raises a penetrating question:  How much salt is in your operating diet?

There are some other powerful implications for the consultation methodology.  Contemplation is the doorway to Consultation.  Unless I STOP and LOOK, I will not hear the voice of guidance from God.  STOPPING is critical to the consultation method.  It is, however, antithetical to process thinking.

Once I STOP, I must LOOK with loving attention and moral responsibility.   Jesus contemplated the wild flowers of the field and he saw something about the hand of God in reality.  Jesus spent hours in prayer listening to the voice of the Father until he was so sensitive to it that the Father’s voice directed everything he did and everything he said.  Jesus was the fully dependent man.  And Jesus says that this is a method that we can learn, if we STOP the propelling frenzy of process thinking.

The Greek word epignosis captures the consultation methodology.  Epignosis is knowing by intimate interpersonal experience.  It demands paying attention, not simply intellectually but also emotionally and morally.  It is the epitome of relationship responding.  From the Biblical point of view, epignosis is the gift of God.

Abraham Heschel once said that something sacred hangs in the balance of every moment.  He knew that consultation and contemplation go hand in hand.  He knew that God is the Lord of all my times and I need only STOP, LOOK and LISTEN if I am to know what God asks of me next.

The salt question of life is this:  Am I living as though every moment is pregnant with the Spirit?  Have I stopped to listen for God’s next command?  Or is the push of the plan propelling me at a pace that prevents the practice of His presence?