Triperspectival Hermeneutics
David Fairchild and I spoke yesterday about a triperspectival hermeneutics. He has posted some great insight into how to use a triperspectival hermeneutic . Here is a snapshot, but I encourage you to read the whole post.
Our Triune God is omniperspectival and sees all perspectives simultaneously. This should humble us and cause us to seek other perspectives to gain a richer understanding of His truth since it shows us that we have a very limited view of things.
Prophet Perspective:
If we tend towards a prophet perspective, meaning that we are normatively and theologically inclined, we will often look at the text with a grid of systematic theology. This means that we read a passage of Scripture and almost instinctively think of the passage under its neatly categorized theological heading. We see the text as support for the bigger theological topics in an almost apologetic way.
Priest Perspective:
If we tend towards a priestly perspective, meaning that we are more often emotionally in touch and engaged, we may come to the text to see how this affects my heart, my emotions. We look at the text to “sense” what is happening within it. We may say things like “this is how it makes me feel,” or “I know it’s right intuitively, I just can’t explain it.”
King Perspective:
If we tend more towards kingly perspective, meaning that we are situationally oriented, we may come to the text with a concern for how this text applies to real life. How it is worked out practically. We look at the text to “see” what it looks like. The strength of the king is found in the ability to apply a truth to real life situations. A king will often come to the text and instinctively understand how it should look. A king may prefer discussion oriented learning rather that book learning. A king needs to get his hands on the idea and grapple with it in conversation. Kings are great at organizing structures and systems to work out the vision of the text. Kings are very creative when thinking through how to build bridges missionally to others as a church/corporation.
These are quick summaries, read the whole post at David's site including DIAGRAMS! Our brother is getting creative over there. Article: Triperspectival Hermeneutics
Read MoreTriperspectivalism, Multiperspectivalism & Other Large Words
It's been well over a year since my first post on multiperspectivalism (or triperspectivalism), but more and more people & churches are seeing this as a framework to do effective ministry. In the Acts 29 forum, there appears to be several churches who are re-thinking their structures based on this framework. At Kaleo Church, Dick Kaufmann and Doug Swagerty (from Harbor Pres.) have influenced us greatly. These two missional church planters have had years of applying a triperspectival approach to ministry. Also, they both taught on triperspectivalism with John Frame. I've been told Redeemer is flying Dick out (who used to be 'Keller's right hand man') to do some consulting for them. David Fairchild has also been emailing John Frame (right image, the man credited with introducing triperspectivalism) who we're trying to schedule for our regional event in San Diego. We are just at the beginning of unpacking this and seeing how it applies to the church & our lives but I thought it would be helpful to consolidate what we have so far:
John Frame's Primer on Perspectivalism (pdf)
Posts from my blogs:
How Multi-perspectivalism and Tri-Perspectivalism should shape your Worldview
Triperspectival Ecclesiology – Being the Church as Corporate, Intimate & Group
The Decline of the Western Church and the Call to renew your Church’s Ecclesiology
Missional Eldership – Leading a Transformational Community
Creating a Church to Change Culture
Triperspectival Ministry Assessment
How Mutliperspectivalism shapes Church Leadership and how you staff a church
Leadership Conflict Resolution: Prophet | Priest | King
What type of churches NOT to plant (triperpectival)
Other bloggers mentioning these perspectival approaches:
Ministry through the lens of Multiperspectival Epistemology
Frame Friday: Multiperspectivalism
Read MoreCreating a Church to Change Culture
Lately churches have spoken a lot about being relevant to the culture. For many churches, this was a necessary first step. We had to begin by taking a missionary posture to understand the prevailing worldview and the ideological shifts that occurred in the last decades. Sadly, many churches have not even begun this process. For many of those that have changed, we are seeing new forms of church being expressed, new missional postures, great dialog with non-believers and a real intentionality to live as 'reformissionaries'.
So now many of you have relevant churches, what do you do? What are the next steps for your church?
Here is one area I believe Christians need to grow. The Christendom Ghost (meaning the view that America is a Christian nation) is quickly disappearing. The reality we enjoy of morality, law and order are all based on this ghost that will be gone in a generation or two. Being relevant is only one part of our calling, we also need to be a witness to a lost world. Pastors and lay leaders need to train the church in triperspectival apologetics. Let me unpack these three apologetic perspectives:
Coherence (Normative): We need to understand 'how we can know truth' and the framework through which all reality makes sense. For Christians, we must be saturated with the Biblical story & worldview and Presuppositional apologetics. Often reformed or Calvinists focus on this area heavily. (Further blog posts on worldview: Gospel, Story, Worldview, and the Church’s Mission, The Urgency of Reading the Bible as One Story in the 21st Century, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity)
Correspondence (Situational): Science is the king of the day. For example, evolution theory is the dominant framework that corresponds to reality. Often non-believers use these evidences to dismiss Christianity to the place of values/preferences which are quite separate from scientific 'facts'. Christians need to understand evidences and understand how creation and the resurrection are central to the correspondence of the Christian worldview. Often Armenians champion this angle. Yet we must know that evidences are not enough. To quote David Fairchild, "Unbelief is not the absence of something it is the presence of something else, namely a spirit of opposition. It isn't merely intellectual; it is emotional. This attitude of opposition and disturbed emotions drives us to be hateful of the Gospel." (source: Sermon Understanding Unbelief )
Correlation (Existential): Christians ought to understand correlating impact of people's worldview (including their worldview created by their evidential arguments). Often people's worldview comports to their emotional needs. People accept what they want to live how they want. Most people are walking contradictions in this realm. For example, a strict naturalist who rules out metaphysics still longs for love, hope & meaning. Any story but the Biblical story must be shown for how the worldview wrecks havoc on how the adherent lives or worldview. (Read: Trilogy – Three Essential Books in One Volume by Francis Schaeffer)
I say all the above with one caveat, as Christians it is much more important that we are about 'Thesis' rather than 'Antithesis'. We need to live out the gospel positively to show the strongest apologetic of the gospel.
Credits: Much of this came from a conversation with Tom Moller.
Read MoreMissional Eldership – Leading a Transformational Community
Traditional/Centralized forms of church government destroy a church's mission. At Kaleo Church we continue to re-think the form of our church and our church's ecclesiology for the sake of the gospel. As we do, we must also consider how we ought to lead, in light of a move from being a 'traditional, Constantinian Church' to a church designed to transform San Diego.
First, here are the reasons why we must re-consider traditional 'CEO' mentality churches shaped by Western ideas. As a note this includes both CEO/Sr. Pastor churches as well as those who lead as a plurality of elders. Traditional/Central led churches will… (see Traditional Church Leadership diagram)
1. be limited by it's leadership to be on mission. This is because of the top down leadership which is a vote/control/power position. The church creates a bottleneck where all decisions must go to the center to be processed by the few in order for action to take place. The church will be limited by the leaders ability to make timely decisions on a frequent basis. The overall organization is limited in scope based on what the leaders can support.
2. significantly impair discipleship of their people. The church creates a substantial 'pastor/leader' and 'laity' distinction where the people are trained to function as second-tier Christians. Knowledge is centralized rather than teaching and sending people to make decisions and apply the gospel to diff't situations. For example, one local church I know of would not let several young men who were passionate about starting a college ministry do so, because they were not seminary trained. This church may be a great 'teaching' church but their people will not be discipled to apply this knowledge on mission to change their city.
3. have natural resistance to reach the margins of society. Being the beautiful mess taxes the leadership because they will take on the counseling load or other challenges brought on by being missional. It is easier to create a great family atmosphere where everyone is ok than invite broken people into the Kingdom.
4. cultivate consumeristic programs rather than equip people for transformation. Ministry must be program driven because Christians are not freed to apply the gospel to transform the city. Programs can only deal with problems, people on mission can transform a city.
Side Note on Plurality of Elders: I believe there is rock-solid Biblical case for the plurality of elders. (Suggested Reading: Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership
) I don't see how a Sr. Pastor led church can ever overcome the above problems (much less the below suggestions), unless the church functions as a plurality of elders. Elders have the privilege of being the under-shepherds of the church. (Jesus it the one true shepherd.) For some, this role of shepherding creates a picture of sitting around 'watching the flock' only. The elder should be responsible for leading the flock on mission, teaching them theology to deal with the paths difficulties and praying, counseling, watching out for those who are having troubles. But all of this is done with the emphasis on mission.
What does it look like to have a decentralized plurality of elders leading a triperspectival church? How can we raise the bar of discipleship and create a sent people who are adaptive and on mission to transform a community? Here are a few thoughts: (see Leading as a Missional Eldership diagram )
The leadership needs to view the church triperspectivally, meaning the church is a Cause (Normative), Community (Existential) and Corporation (Situational). It is in this way the eldership will make decisions that are centralized, de-centralized and delegated to people on mission. These are how these decisions might be made:
Corporation: Elders should make central decisions about issues of doctrine, vision and values. It is critical they are united in their stand on principle issues of doctrine/theology. This is like Paul gathering with other early church leaders in Galatians to ensure there was unity on the gospel. Central decision making on vision and values will be heavily influenced by the elders involvement in the body and the goal is to install elders who have been raised up in the church and confirmed they understand the churches vision/values.
Community: Elders should delegate and disciple the community to handle the bulk of the counseling, gospeling of believers and the function of mission. If a community comes to a problem they can't handle, they can involve a community leader and escalate it up to the Missional Community Leader and eventually to an elder. The goal is to push the active life of the church into the community. This is like Jethro's counsel to Moses but also viewed in NT church life.
Cause: Particular elders (or leaders such as deacons) will lead people out on mission on causes. These leaders may be particularly acute at mercy ministry, evangelism, apologetics, teaching, etc. These leaders should be actively creating disciples in a systemic leadership development process so that decisions are made at the fringe of the community as those involved in a cause encounter difficulty. It is only when the run into problems that they cannot handle or that impacts the entire corporation that they escalate problems inward.
The goal of all of this is to create a highly adaptable church body that provides flexible leadership decision-making at the appropriate level and creates a culture of people on mission. This certainly is going to require great trust and a willingness to let people fail. It also will require letting go of some of the control and trusting that the Holy Spirit that is in the leadership is also in the entire church body.
CREDITS: A lot of this is triggered by Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways and The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World
The Decline of the Western Church and the Call to renew your Church’s Ecclesiology
The Western Church is in decline. Part of the challenge is the church is stuck in old models of ecclesiology based on Constantinian views of church. The church is seen as a power structure seeking to 'attract' people from the outside to join. This model is set to fail to change our culture, as author Alan Hirsch puts it:
A combination of recent research in Australia indicates that about 10-15 percent of that population is attracted to what we call the contemporary church growth model. In other words, this model has significant "market appeal" to about 12 percent of our population. The more successful forms of this model tend to be large, highly professionalized, and overwhelmingly middle class, and express themselves culturally using contemporary, "seeker friendly" language and middle-of-the-road music forms. (source: The Forgotten Ways
In America, we may have a couple decades before we reach the 10-15 percent. Yet churches continue to try to one-up each other to create better programs, funnier messages, more creative marketing to capture people from this pool of seekers. For example, Outreach magazine's June 2007 issue reported a seemingly encouraging statistic: 97% of Protestant churches reported doing something evangelistic within the year. (Source: Ellison Research's "Facts and Trends") It was only when you dig deeper, the stat loses some punch:
- 70% did a Vacation Bible School
- 59% passed out literature such as tracts or magazines
- 56% held large events such as block parties and fall festivals
These are good things to do, but all of these are attractional-based evangelism that will reach people who share a similar worldview to Christians. Meaning, when people hold a similar morality, view of absolutes and typically conservative background these events are effective. For most others, they are ineffective.
In response to this, here are a few items I am thinking through:
1. Corporate Gatherings are important to reflect the exaltation of Christ, just as mission moves us into a more incarnational mode. We need multiple forms of gatherings to reflect the fullness of the church. I say this in contrast to some in the emerging movement who prefer to abolish larger corporate gatherings. Yet, in stark contrast to most Evangelical churches the corporate gathering is not the center of the church universe. Goheen writes: “There is a need to continue to struggle with communal patterns of ecclesial life that will enable the church corporately to be a preview of the kingdom. However, this should not be done at the expense of the mission of God’s people in their various and scattered callings. This continues to be the primary point of missionary engagement in Western culture.” (HT: Brad Brisco) For a visual on this, view the Triperspectival Ecclesiology diagram.
Triperspectival note: As Corporate gathering & Classes occur there is a greater emphasis on Normative (red circle). Missional Communities and Home Groups have an emphasis on Existential (blue circle) while Tribal encounters (going with others to where non-believers live/meet) and being a missionary to people is more Situational (green circle).
2. You need to rethink the success of your church. Too many pastors find their identity in the number of people that attend on Sundays. Your church can have a great number of people attend on Sunday's but if this is where their connection to being the church ends, you may only be feeding the idols of consumerism. Churches should spend much more emphasis on creating disciples to embody the gospel in daily life. Goheen quotes Newbigin as he writes: “I do not believe that the role of the Church in a secular society is primarily exercised in the corporate action of the churches as organized bodies in the political or cultural fields . . . On the contrary, I believe that it is [exercised] through the action of Christian lay people playing their roles as citizens, workers, managers, legislators.” (HT: Brad Brisco)
3. Bible Studies are great, but to reach people churches need to form missional communities. Small gatherings of people who are a committed to a neighborhood. It is these people who pray for the area, are deeply committed to the needs and express this in acts of love and mercy. These people need to be an active hermeneutic of the gospel on display for unbelievers to see. This paradigm will require active engagement in a neighborhood to build trust and reach those who are open or spiritually curious.
4. Churches that aren't actively embodying the gospel to tribes of people will only reach seekers. Hirsch calls mission going out and incarnation as going deep. We need to develop a culture in our church of mission and pastors, elders and deacons need to model how to be incarnational to reach people groups who do not respond to attractional ministries. We need to create a new missionary mindset in our people. It will be these individuals living out the gospel who embed in tribes of people who will be able to reach those who doubt, hold to alternative faiths or even stand in opposition to the Christian message. The more extreme the resistance, the more relational mission becomes and often is only able to be bridged by specific people who either come from a similar background or somehow develop a connection based on other extenuating factors.
For most traditional or evangelical churches moving from a Sunday event with some mid-week Bible Studies to a church who takes mission seriously will be difficult. It will take people completely out of their comfort zone and require both great patience and love as Christians move into active relationships with non-believers. This is difficult being many mature Christians have completely isolated themselves from the unbelieving world. For many Christians there will need to be a complete shift in ideology and a conversion to mission in order for this to occur. Sadly, churches who go through this process will end up losing people unwilling to follow their leaders as they follow Christ. But ultimately this transition is critical for the Western Church to once again move to the margins of society where we began and were able to completely change the Roman world through decentralized missional living.
Read MoreTriperspectival Ecclesiology – Being the Church as Corporate, Intimate & Group
There is a lot of conversation lately around missional ecclesiology. From The Shaping of Things to Come and the Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch to Dr. Michael Goheen's Missional Ecclesiology sessions at our church conference based on Lesslie Newbigin, who many trace the emerging movement to (had a conversation with Andrew Jones about that). One of Hirsch's general points is:
Churches currently can only reach about 12% of the population. Unless the way people do church changes toward mission it will not reach the culture. If we do not change the church will be in a state of radical decline.
So where does that leave us? One challenge is we can react and determine to re-think how church is done and move to a more organic house church movement. I don't know if that is the right reaction. It seems to me that being the church, we benefit from 3 expressions as the people of God. This is the case based on our triperspectival or multiperspectival understanding of all reality. But here is a quick intro:
All reality must be seen through 3 primary perspectives: Normative, Situational & Existential. These three are an epistemological lens which are required to see true reality. The gospel for example is expressed triperspectivally as News/Truth (Normative), a change of identity/grace (Existential) and as an alternative Kingdom way of living (situational). To 'preach the gospel' means to express all three of these, which goes far beyond limiting the gospel to 'individual personal salvation' a western/consumeristic mentality. (For a collection of our articles on this see Michael Foster's post.)
So how does this triperspective view impact ecclesiology? Here is one way we are looking to live this out: (view Triperspectival/Missional Ecclesiology Diagram)
1. Normative/Corporate: The people of God need to gather to hear the Word preached. Elders who through prayer and study of the Word are charged with preaching/teaching the people (yes they can also learn elsewhere, but this is a part of eldering). These are people gathering to 'devote themselves to the apostles' teaching'. This is a corporate gathering.
2. Existential/Intimate: The people of God are actively involved in each other's lives through the practice of discipling, equipping, accountability and fellowship. A small group of people may gather around shared challenges (new parents, learning more about aspects of Christianity, etc.) This is where Hirsch is dead on, that we need to simplify the way we do church but raise the bar on how we disciple. We should be less concerned with how many people show up on a Sunday (attractional) and be much more concerned with how many people are actively being discipled as followers of Christ so they may be incarnational. These acts are often done in small groups, one-on-one and are often 2-3 people.
3. Situational/Group: The people of God are the only people group created to be other-centered (listen to Goheen's session). Often this is where evangelism equipping, & pastoringand teaching theology on mission is done. We are called to be on mission. As an expression and foretaste of the Kingdom, we are to meet locally and engage in communities and tribes of people. Here a small group (8 or so) gather and gospel one another, pray for specific locations and tell & live out the gospel in a community through word & deed ministries. People live out their faith together in such a way that they are in close connection to un-believers.
One of the dangers of new ideas are often we can react to another extreme. Do we really need to abandon larger 'Sunday Service' gatherings in order to be an emerging movement of God through a house church type expression? I believe we can make a strong Biblical case that as believers corporate, intimate and small gatherings are all part of what it means to be the Church. It is through these that we can grow in the knowledge of God, live out the gospel together and be a sent people seeking to make disciples of all nations. We need to come to a place of triperspectival ecclesiology.
Read MoreDrew Goodmanson
CEO of Monk Development creators of Ekklesia 360. Co-Founder of Kaleo Church where I served as Pastor for 8+ years and helped coach several church plants in San Diego. Co-Founder of the GCM Collective, President of the Board at the Center for Church Communication, Board Member of the Entrepreneurship Organization, Internet/Technology Advisory Chair at the Christian Leadership Alliance. Connect
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