Glocalization by Bob Roberts

Courtesy of Alan Hirsch:

Chapter 1. The Whole World Has Gone Glocal!
“Nothing local is purely local and nothing global is purely global.” “Glocal means everything is becoming decentralized, especially in the church. Glocalization puts everyone center stage. Glocal implies a new set of values changing the culture and the world. (21)

Glocal is a great opportunity for the church. Decentralization means every person in every domain of society in the pew connects with domains and people glocally. “It’s not about missions; it’s about globalization. People have become global beings.” “It’s way over there and here at the same time. That is why it’s glocal.” (27)

Chapter 2. It’s All about the Kingdom–Not Missions (From One-Shot Evangelism to Comprehensive Domain Transformation)

“Missions was through the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. The twenty-first century is about glocalization. The old missions metaphor does not communicate because it only ‘worked’ as a religious response to an unconnected world.” “We have to move…to a radically different faith response where one is unabashedly proclaiming the gospel, and serving, and loving.” [There seems to be a current mood that missions has come through a period of not serving and loving. dlm] (34)

“…the kingdom itself is a viral, organic response. It’s societal, as opposed to religious, skeletal, and institutional.” “…we use all the domains of society to operate.” (34)

“The kingdom is about people wanting to make a difference.” (34)

“As followers of Christ, we are to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God and engage society so it can see kingdom principles lived out in our individual lives and communities.” (38)

“He [Jesus] doesn’t want to know how many converts, how many new churches, how many institutions, or how much the budget is. He wants to know how we are helping the hurting in society.” (39, commenting on Matthew 25:35-46) [This seems to be a hugely growing perspective in the church today. The pendulum is swinging. Do we risk swinging from neglect on one end to omission on the other? dlm]

“When the church glocalizes, it acts as a connection center between believers and all of society’s domains. It focuses on training the people in the pew how to view their vocation as their ‘Jerusalem’ in terms of ministry. From there, it motivates them toward how they can use that vocation to intersect a domain locally–and globally–throughout the ends of the earth! The church connects to society through the natural infrastructures, equipping and sending people through their jobs to affect a particular domain. (41)

“Realizing that God intended our faith to lay across all of the infrastructures of society is one of the biggest issues today.” “Effective faith is a voice in every domain, and it’s an influencer of all domains.” (42) [In the past] “we have made faith skeletal instead of viral,…an institutional response to society.” “Viral is more organic–it involves individual believers using their jobs in society as Christians on a daily basis.” (42) “It’s a return to how the early church accomplished the spread of the gospel….” (43)

The formula: “Inject the DNA of what it means to be transformed in Christ, connect the body of Christ to the domain of society, infect the whole of society for Christ.” (45)

Imagination

Courtesy of Mark Batterson:

I came across an interesting factoid today as I was researching for my next book.

The human body has approximately 100,000,000 (one hundred million) sensory receptors that enable us to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And that is a testament to our Divine Designer. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. By the way, when was the last time you thanked God for each of your senses? We have seven million cones that enable us to perceive about ten million different colors. Doesn't it seem like we owe God seven million thank yous?

Now here is what I found fascinating: neurologists estimate that the average three-year old has 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion) synaptic connections.

Honestly, those numbers numb us. But I think they reveal something significant. Our ability to imagine things in our mind is far greater than our ability to interpret physical reality. Mathematically speaking, imagination is ten million times more powerful than our five senses put together!

Naturalism is living down to the limit of our one hundred million sensory receptions. It is the inability or unwillingness to perceive reality that is beyond our five senses. The end result? Our universes shrinks to the size of our senses.

Faith is living beyond our five senses. It is being certain of what we do not see. One dimension of faith is imagining what our five senses can't perceive or confirm. It is extra-sensory perception. And that is why faith often seems like it is out of touch with reality. But that is because it is ten million times more powerful than our senses!

One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 3:20. It is actually our most-used benediction at National Community Church.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and throughout all generations for ever and ever, Amen.

Translation? God is able to do immeasurably more than we can imagine with our one quadrillion synapses. Amazing isn't it? Our imagination is ten million times more powerful than our five senses. But God is still able to do infinitely more than anything any of us can imagine with our one quadrillion synaptic connections. And to top it off, no mind has conceived of what God has prepared for us!

Religious Trends in the U.S.

Courtesy of Alan Hirsch:

(HT, James Nored) /// On Monday, a new religious study was released that showed that 15% of the US population defines themselves as belonging to no religion. Here is an excerpt from the American Religious Identification Survey—conducted by the Program on Public Values at Trinity College.
“The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million ‘Nones.’ Northern New England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country, with Vermont, at 34 percent ‘Nones,’ leading all other states by a full 9 points.

‘Many people thought our 2001 finding was an anomaly,’ [Ariela] Keysar said. We now know it wasn’t. The ‘Nones’ are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union.’”

In addition, every single Christian group has decreased in terms of percentage of the US population–and most have declined in raw numbers as well. In regards to atheism, the study says:

“Only1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million.”

In sum, the findings show or lead to the conclusion that:
1) Religion and Christianity are on the decline in the US;
2) Protestantism is doing worse than Catholicism due to Catholic immigrants;
3) Mormonism is keeping up with population growth, and Islam and New Age/Wicca are exceeding it;
4) Atheism, while still a small percentage of the population, is on the rise; and
5) “Spirituality,”–or non-organized belief in God–is still vibrant in the US.

What implications does this have for the church in the US?
- Attractional methods alone will have decreasing effectiveness, though they will reach some.-
- Not only theologically, but pragmatically, we must make the structure of the church be missional in nature and make dramatic changes in how we allocate our resources. This might mean moving all “Bible studies” off site, in coffee shops, Starbucks, homes, schools, etc.to meet people where they are. With antagonism and apathy towards religion, fewer will show up because we have better programs. And those that do will already be Christians.
- We need to train our members in knowledge of other faiths and resurgent atheism and methods to reach these adherents.

We must make dramatic changes. Sadly, however, most churches will do almost nothing to respond to these cultural changes. Those that do respond will respond incrementally only. With a shrinking pool of Christians, there will be an increasing competition amongst churches for members. This will, ironically, put more pressure upon church leaders to shore up “programs” to attract church members to shore up the decreasing member base.

In the midst of all of this, it is unbelievable to me that our fellowship is consumed on all sides with “doctrinal issues”–meanwhile our nation is hopelessly lost. And the resistance to making practical, methodological changes, such as replacing Sunday night worship or Wed. night classes with outreach and service, moving “classes” off site, planting new churches, changing times, making budgets missional, etc., is quite simply, absurd.

What do you think of these findings? How should the church respond to the changing (a)religious landscape of the US so that we can reach people today?