My Take: Finding a Way Forward
by Raj Attiken, December 17, 2014: It hasn’t been that long ago when computers were gigantic machines, some of them approximately 100 feet long, 8 feet tall, 3 feet wide, weighing 30 tons each. Large rooms were needed to house them. If you had work that required a computer, you took it to the few whizzes that knew how to operate these monstrous pieces of equipment. These mavens were clearly in charge. Only they knew how to make these computers work. Then came machines that could do the same work, but could fit on an office desk. More people now learned how to use a computer. A short while later, another adaptation of the machine showed up in the market. This new generation of computers could do as much as or more than the gigantic computer of yesteryear, but could fit on your lap. And then came the technologies that could be hand-held, by anyone, anywhere. One result of these disruptive innovations is that now just about anyone in any part of the globe has easy access to what once was controlled by a handful of experts. These newer inventions have propelled massive changes in the authority structure, accessibility, and availability of computer technology to the masses. They have disrupted the order of things in the world of computing and far beyond.
The phenomenon of disruptive innovation is also happening in the realm of spirituality, religion, and religious institutions. Churches and denominational systems are feeling the impact. Many forms of disruption are occurring in the life of denominations and congregations. Here are three:
Firstly, a number of para-church and autonomous organizations, founded and staffed by Adventists, have entered the arena once almost solely occupied by denominational staff. These organizations produce an extensive array of resource material and provide support services that were once produced and delivered to congregations and church leaders by staff persons at denominational offices. A walk through the exhibit hall at an ASI Convention or a General Conference Session will introduce one to the vast number of individuals and organizations that produce and market products and services to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. These have cut into the market-share that denominational departments once held for similar materials and services. Because these entities differ widely in their theological and ministry orientations, congregations and their leaders are selective about which of them they will patronize for their ministry resources.
Secondly, resources and information from individuals and organizations in all parts of the globe are directly and easily accessible to church and ministry leaders via the Internet, World-Wide Web, and social media. The quantity and quality of available resources in just about every discipline or endeavor of life today is staggering. While most of them are not designed or produced exclusively for a church audience, their potential value and applicability to the church are enormous, nonetheless. This reality is yet another contributing factor to the diminished market share now retained by denominational agencies and program staff. Information and resources that congregations once looked to the denomination for are now readily and easily available elsewhere, often at little or no cost, yet with high quality and up-to-date research. Although these require some adaptation, discerning Adventists are well able to sort out how best to modify and apply these resources in appropriate ways within the Adventist church context. After all, that’s what is largely done in our denominational offices as well, where ideas are adopted from the world out there and adapted, repackaged, and distributed with an Adventist label attached to them!
A third trend that is dramatically challenging the role of the church and denomination is the increased democratization of spirituality. Growing numbers of Americans are extending the habits and assumptions of democracy to personal spirituality. The right of each person to experience God in his or her own way is prized. With easy access to information about the traditions, practices, and beliefs of adherents to religions all over the world, people are customizing spirituality to fit their own interests and desires. They are finding pathways to spirituality that are most meaningful to them. For some this is through knowing and understanding. Others find the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation and fasting meaningful. For some it is through art, music, and the aesthetic. For many it is through a relationship with nature and the natural world. Some find spiritual meaning in their relationship with objects, artifacts, and rituals.
Custom-made, generic spirituality can be quite attractive and appealing. Yet, left to its own, it can also be shaped to feed our egos and make no demands on our lives, love, and devotions. Regardless of how we view this brand of generic spirituality, we must acknowledge that its widespread presence has disrupted and marginalized the influence, authority, and control that the church once had over people’s faith journeys. Those who claim to be “spiritual but not religious” often use the phrase to describe their detachment from any religious institution. The implications for churches and denominational organizations are enormous.
The trends unleashed on us by disruptive innovations must nudge us to reexamine how we shape our life as a faith community, how we design our ministries, and how we obtain and utilize resources. One major aspect of our current paradigm in the Adventist denomination that invites investigation is how we develop and deploy programs and services to local congregations and their leaders. This facet of our organization is rife with redundancies. Each level of the organization is in on the game. Each derives legitimacy by its portfolio of goods and services. Each produces its own set of programs, resources, or services – mostly in the very same areas of congregational life and ministry.
With the abundance of resources available to them, congregations and their leaders are no longer “captive” audiences to the denomination’s program and resource staff as they once might have been. Moreover, our current organizational model for providing materials and services to our members and churches wasn’t designed for today’s decentralized, personalized, super-networked, and information-rich world. Whereas at one time we had a captive market (our churches and members) at which we directed attention from every level of the organization, the nature of that market has changed. We no longer need three or four layers of the organization to simultaneously aim their ministry efforts at the local congregation and on how it can live out its sacred mission. This paradigm of redundancy is unessential and, therefore, dispensable. It is also becoming unsustainable. A modest, streamlined, and relevant resourcing model can be designed to take its place. That’s my take!
Very well stated.
You could say all of the same things about the impact on our educational institutions.
Yet the people “running” these programs at higher layers in the hierarchy, still seem to be focused on producing and distributing everything in books and papers because that is what Ellen told us to do. Never mind that more and more of us are getting our information electronically.
While I appreciate some of what is said not all spiritual practices are equivalent or good. Transcendental meditation for instance is inferior to prayer.
If the Holy Spirit lives in the body temples of members, we do well to report on what the Holy Spirit is doing in congregations. Perhaps we need journalists, rather than department leaders.
What if we focus on reporting where revival and reformation is happening?
Raj, once again you bat the ball out of the park. The message of LOVE of Jesus Christ, is a message of individual’s acceptance of that Love. A child of the ALMIGHTY makes a personal decision for freedom from the evil flesh. Who are we, that we think salvation is an institutional salvation?? The Christian edifices days are strictly limited. They are passé. The information age is post modern. We live in a time when all flesh must make “the personal decision” to accept the mercy and grace offered to us individually, by the ALMIGHTY. There is not a single denomination that is “the Remnant”. The Church of our God is all those who accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in their behalf, who love Him for what He has done for them, and look forward to His glorious appearing.
Shake off the evil tendencies of the flesh. Do not look on the evil practices of this sinful world. Stand apart from the “beautiful people”, and their “hell bent” drive to destruction. Be a role model for Jesus Christ. Let your light shine for morality in your home and community.
Folks, it is truly later than you think. Put on the whole armor of God that you may sustain the final chapters in this Earth’s history. Your days are numbered. Don’t let time slip through your fingers. You are in chage of your future, not any denominational church.
Raj,
The “democratization of spirituality” you describe is not a bad thing, but a symptom of a long-ignored and growing problem where churches have been failing to feed the flock, so the hungry sheep have gone looking for other pastures. So the disruptive actions are forcing us to see things as they actually are instead of blindly going forward believing illusions. Best of all, they are reducing our attachment to church structures and making it easier for us to discover the reality of the Holy Spirit ministering to and through us individually.
By the way, the first computer I ever wrote a program for was quite a bit larger than the model you described. It was 1974 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the Univac 1108 was described as the largest computer in the world at the time outside of the Department of Defense or NASA. It occupied almost 20,000 square feet of floor space, used more than 300 tons of air conditioning and had a TWO-bit processor! We used punch cards to input our program instructions. I accidentally crashed it one day when I forgot to put an upper limit on the calculation in my program!
William,
You need to refresh your memory. I also programmed the 1108, first as a student and later as an employee of Sperry-UNIVAC. I knew and still know that machine inside and out, hardware and software. Sorry but it did NOT have a two-bit processor. It had a 36-bit processor.
And they were lying to you about it being the largest computer outside NASA and DoD (and by extension the various NASA and DoD and DoE research labs). Consider that a fisherman’s story. Everyone likes to think theirs is the biggest, and I have heard the same story at many different computer installations. (And yes I have been inside some of the biggest in DoD, NASA, academia and industry.) To the best of my knowledge (considerable in this case), in 1974 the largest 1108 farm outside the Federal Government would have been at Shell Oil in Houston TX. The one in Huntsville AL would have been our largest University installation at the time.
And there were CDC (6600/7600) supercomputer farms in the oil industry (and also in DoD and DoE) that were bigger than those mentioned above.
d in different media formats so the concerned websites will advice you which is the most suitable media player to use. All Windows operating systems come with Window