About the Author  Bill Dean is both a church pastor and a university professor. His upcoming book, Walking Together: Relationships that Transform, focuses on the role of relationships in spiritual growth. This blog is a continuation of that conversation and a place to interact.
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By Bill, on July 17th, 2010
I attended my college reunion earlier this summer (more years ago than I want to admit!). I was reminded very forcefully about the importance of influential people in molding me for life. During the Alumni Banquet I was seated with my college roommate and his wife (my biology lab partner!) not far from the spot where one of the most transforming events of my college life happened. I want to tell you the story.
It was my first semester, and I felt like a lost child. That morning in chapel the President had spoken on a topic that I cannot remember, but he had raised a question in my mind that I wanted to ask him. At lunch I was sitting by myself. I looked up and saw the President walking across the dining hall toward the faculty dining room, and I realized that he would come within a few yards of me. I jumped up and intercepted him in the middle of the room. I spoke his name, and he turned to look at me. I introduced myself, stated my question, and listen intently as he responded–briefly but thoughtfully. I was aware–keenly aware–that from the time I spoke his name, I was the only person on earth so far as he was concerned. I understood that he valued me and my questions, and affirmed by his attention that I was important.
The transaction may not have taken more than 2 minutes–I don’t know. But as I returned to my seat I looked back to see a large group of men in business suits following the President. It was the members of the Board of Trustees! Wow! He had taken 2 minutes of his time away from VIP’s to listen and respond to me. At that moment I promised myself that I was going to be that kind of person: he had his doctorate in ancient Semitic languages, was president of a nationally-recognized college, yet included me fully in his world for the time it took him to answer my question.
That was not my only interaction with him. We became personally acquainted and even traveled together on a couple of occasions. In years since I have sought his counsel on major issues in my life, and he found ways to help me fund research for my doctorate. I am not like him in many ways because he is a natural people-oriented person while I am an introvert. But I have chosen to rearrange my priorities to put people that enter my life ahead of deadlines and schedules.
We never know who might make the same decision about us, do we? I often think about the students in my classes and office. In what ways are they molded by their interaction with me? We must understand–and remember–that formative relationships grow from 2-minute episodes. The work that I now do, including this blog, is deliberately focused on interacting with as many people as possible: a student, a colleague, a neighbor, a cashier, a stranger on the street, that crosses my path. Who knows which of those short episodes will help mold a life. And the longer term relationships? Those also mold me!
Choose your models carefully.
By Bill, on June 5th, 2010
I just finished reading Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence. Her thesis is that every 500 years the Christian church experiences a paradigm shift–a fundamental reappraisal of the basics of its faith. A new expression of the historic faith emerges that shatters the coherence of the old order. These “rummage sales” produce a major advance in the spread of Christianity. The last great upheaval was the Reformation, and–the point of the book–we are presently experiencing one, the Great Emergence.
I’ll leave you to read the book if you want to. It is an impressive integration of religious, cultural, and political history—with a few questionable linkages and generalizations. But I was much more intrigued by what she did NOT say. She did not explain this flow of history that produces a sea change every 500 years, and nowhere in the book does she use the word “sin” or “evil.”
There have been many explanations of causes or forces that “move” history: trade and commerce, powerful ideas, conflict between social or economic classes. Some Christians are comfortable with “providential” history, seeing nations operating as agents of divine favor or judgment. But Tickle makes no explanation whatsoever. It could be that she, as a postmodern thinker, is simply uninterested in the great “meta-narratives” that ascribe to this or that great force the power to order human society over eons of time. Or perhaps her purpose was to describe “what” was happening, not to explain “why.” But I find the gap a bit disturbing.
It seems in Tickle’s analysis the church is carried from crisis to crisis by this current, whatever it is, and simply molds itself to, or is molded by, the demands of the changing intellectual environment. The Church (the body of believers in the world) has little impact on, or resistance to, the tide.
Here lies Tickle’s second omission: I believe that this tide can best be described as a moral conflict. The abundant grace of God confronts human moral twistedness; the creative image of God in humanity is at war with the human will to power; and the redemptive plan of God at odds with human self-centeredness. If I am right, the Church is not merely carried through history by a benign force, adapting itself to ever-changing circumstances, periodically changing clothes to keep in fashion.
What is missing from Tickle’s book is an understanding that the Church by the grace of God stands opposed to dark forces that seek to dominate the culture-shaping institutions of our world. The Church is the bulwark that God raises to curb the sometimes overpowering evil pouring from the human heart. The Church is God’s work in this world. It is true that the story of Christianity in this world is usually not a very pretty one—but we (faulty, weak, short-sighted, and morally compromised) are the improbable tools that God has chosen to use in this continuing conflict. He will win, no thanks to us. He presently—and ultimately—controls the current.
By Bill, on May 27th, 2010
“What are we not doing now?” The question was as much a plea as a query. The Jamaican pastor that spoke was a student in a church history course I was teaching (in Jamaica, of course!). A contrast ate at his soul. On one hand, there was the dynamic of the Ancient Church, as that of 13th friars, 16th century Anabaptists, 17th century German Pietists, and 18th century Evangelical Revivalists (to mention a few) that we had been studying. On the other hand, there was the struggle he faced every day to get a hearing for the Gospel among his neighbors.
The answer to his question might be a theological one, or a cultural one, or a methodological one. The early Christians did not yet have a fully developed understanding of the Trinity, but they did have an absolute certainty that everyone had to meet this Jesus who had risen from the dead. Perhaps we are too settled in our theological formulas, but our heritage of profound theological thought ought to be an advantage to us.
The cultural contexts could not be more different. The Roman world was decadent, licentious, polytheistic, and cruel. Jamaica has more churches for the size of the population than most countries in the Christian world. It shares with the rest of the world serious economic problems and a sexual ethic that threatens family structure. But the Christianization of Jamaican culture (shoppers hear contemporary Jamaican gospel music in the supermarkets!) ought to be an advantage, shouldn’t it?
“What are we not doing now?” C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, described Christian faith as a “good infection,” spreading from person to person. I am proposing that much of the difficulty of getting a hearing in Christianized culture is in significant part a methodological problem. All of the movements I mentioned in the first paragraph share one common feature: evangelism was a outcome of small meetings in homes, not large gatherings for preaching. That, of course, is seriously oversimplified. In many cases these groups used their homes because they weren’t allowed to gather in public, or the public meeting places were hostile to their message. They would not have understood their pragmatic response to opposition “a focus on small groups in homes.” But from the historian’s perspective, that is what circumstances forced on them.
In the West we have grown increasingly resistant to “intrusions” into the private world of our homes. Whatever the reasons (and I’ll have to return to them in another posting), the spiritual and personal result is that we hold people—especially non-believers—at arm’s length. We have swallowed the pervasive cultural myth that our religious lives should be private affairs, not to be “imposed” on others in any context.
Because of the impersonality of this (“Come to church with me” is as close as we get) our friends and neighbors do not see Christian faith operating in the ordinary circumstances of our lives. It is in our homes that others see us—and Christ in us—in our marriages, our families, our hobbies, our entertainment, our food, our ability to include outsiders without discomfort.
Hang on a minute! Maybe there’s something here. What would non-believers find in our private worlds?
Our homes and our friendships—our private worlds—are the best way to spread the good infection. Could it be that Christians are not sure that they have anything of value to share with outsiders?
By Bill, on May 16th, 2010
 I bet that you visited this site because you are interested in the idea of belonging to a small discipleship group. You assume that I am something of an “authority” on relational discipleship, and that I have been for years a part of a thriving small group, or perhaps the director of a small group ministry. Wrong on all accounts.
I am by personality a loner, an introvert who has always been inclined to solve my problems before I talk to anyone about them—even my wonderful wife, Joan. I grew up in a religious environment where asking too many questions or airing too much dirty laundry was fraught with the possibility [ More ... ]
By Bill, on March 30th, 2010
 I discovered an extremely interesting dynamic in Ephesians 4 as I prepared for Lenten services a couple of months ago. This may be the key to understanding how the New Testament writers reflect on the role of relationships in spiritual growth.
Image by katja kodba
Consider this paragraph (Ephesians 4:14-16 NIV): 14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that [ More ... ]
By Bill, on March 30th, 2010
 photo by furryscaly
A quick look through the book catalog (not to speak of an Internet search) suggests that I need to clarify what I mean by “relational theology.” “Open” theologians claim the label, as do members of the “Emergent” Church. Then there are psychologists who use the title, as well as some who appear to think of “relational” theology as opposed to “traditional” theology. Note that the words “open,” “emergent” (or “emerging),” and “traditional” have no fixed meaning. I welcome readers’ responses to the following paragraphs.
My Biblical frame of reference is Jesus’ parable of the vine and branches in John 15. The image that Jesus used was that of [ More ... ]
By Bill, on March 20th, 2010
 Image By: woodleywonderworks
We have had a most unusual weekend. Joan and I attended the General Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church (you can look up the details at http://emchurch.org if you need them). There were three striking things that happened that brought the world into perspective.
First, at the Communion Service on the first day, there were three presiding general superintendents: one for the US who spoke only English, one from Mexico who spoke no English, and one from Myanmar (Burma) who spoke some English. Each offered prayer in his mother tongue without translation–after all, the audience to our worship was God, for whom languages are no problem!
Second, the Myanmar [ More ... ]
By Bill, on March 10th, 2010
This story comes to me from my oldest son, who teaches the adult Sunday school class involved. Names have been changed)
Wilber and Lucy had attended other churches in town, but no one knew that when they started attending Sunday school. From the first Sunday they (especially Lucy) were a problem. She insisted on dominating the entire class with an apparently endless litany of woes about finances, health (she was in a wheelchair), and injustice. The members of the class tried to be sympathetic, but lots of irritation began to show. Subsequent Sundays were repeats.
What to do with Lucy? Several members of the class talked privately, and decided to take the [ More ... ]
By Bill, on March 6th, 2010
 A friend e-mailed me a sophisticated electronic picture this week. As I moved the cursor from face to face in the painting, a sidebar opened explaining who that individual was and why he or she was in the scene. The theme was patriotic, and I won’t take time to describe the varied characters, not all of whom were “patriots.” The center of the picture was a regal Jesus holding in his hand a copy of the Constitution of the United States. What constitutes a Christian heritage is bitterly disputed today, but I believe that we are heirs of a thousand years of choices by mostly ordinary people [ More ... ]
By Bill, on February 28th, 2010
 The past president of Toyko Christian University explained to me the fundamental difference between the Japanese and Americans (and this applies to all eastern civilizations and all Westerners). The Japanese believe that individual identity lies in the group to which one belongs. Any individual will have as many identities as groups. He (or she—and so throughout) is a member of a family, an employee of a corporation, and a member of a bowling team (and likely others). He identifies with the values and practices of the group in which he is engaged at a given moment. He assumes for a time the values, conduct, and relationships that characterize that group. [ More ... ]
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