Flat Earth Pt. 2

As many of us have read, seen, experienced and realized, the world truly is getting flatter. In fact it may already be almost flat again. Of course I’m not talking about geography, but rather sociologically and economically. We can truly know more about one another than ever before in the history of our planet. We can be friends with people who we have never or rarely ever see. We can pick up a mobile phone and be in touch with someone on the other side of the world. We can share information about life, business, and of course ourselves. With this growing interaction and knowledge share comes a growing standardization of sorts. This is not a standardization in the way everyone must be the same, but rather in the way that everyone knows about everyone else and we’re all okay. This knowledge share has created a lack of surprise and mystery in our world. We know about other cultures and how they speak, what they wear, what they think, how they worship, and how they dress.

As communication and information have flattened the world, the converse is true of what this effect has created among people. Instead of becoming more and more like each other, or swarming to a specific people group and conforming ourselves to that mold or pattern, we have instead connected to many people groups based solely on our personal interests. It has created not fewer groups of people that are more homogenous, but more people groups that are diversified. In other words the flat world has many bumps.

It seems to me that the flat world has encouraged, nay, embraced, nay, necessitated the constant creation and destruction of people groups as they gather together (dare I say glob) around particular interests, passions and dreams. This is also seen clearly in religion and church. People glob to an area or ministry that they enjoy, relate to, or feel will meet their need. They will then glob to another area or ministry that “scratches a different itch” so to speak, but rarely with the same people or community. This has created not a multiplication of people groups, but an exponential explosion of people groups who experience, effect, and evaluate the world in more ways that we could possibly try to measure.

Colonialism

To cut to the heart of this particular thought, and to make a rash generalization, when it comes to sharing the gospel with the world, the church has adopted the model that it will find something successful and teach its “stars” to replicate this model and then drop the model, the methodology and the “stars” into wherever they want to create the same results. It’s simple, find the model, find a need, drop the model on the need and surprise, surprise you get a winner every time. It is however not the gospel we are sharing but our thoughts and beliefs on the gospel. It is colonialism.

Of course as with all models, behind them lies some kind of ideology. There is this sense, whether spoken or not, in colonialism that WE have a better way of doing things and WE want you to learn them and be like us and WE will show you how. It is quite simply put arrogant.

This kind of “gospel sharing” tends to be a bit more popular if you belong to the WE, that is those who are bringing the model, those who have the answers. It’s not so great if you are one of THEM to whom the model and methodology are coming. When you belong to THEM it simply doesn’t matter what you think, what you do well, or what you may be dreaming, because the answer to it all lies with those who belong to the WE. WE are certain that what you have really been longing for, hoping for, dreaming for, is to become like WE.