Something in a conversation I had tonight sparked this post, there is nothing of substantial value in this post, it’s just me ranting.  Fitch has an excellent post on this topic here if you want to read it, but I’m just going to wrestle out loud for a minute.

Does the multisite church model work and is it effective in producing the kind of people that are bent towards the kingdom?  Is the idea of a local church really compatible with a multisite, beamed in teaching pastor, universally branded, hierarchical methods of multisite church methods of today?  There are a lot of questions that I have around this model.
In support of the model, I wonder if “teaching” biblical truths is all that important to be local and contextualized to a specific community.  Because if they are universal, then maybe we should just all be listening to Bruxy Cavey or Bill Hybels or whoever beams their face on the big screen.  One of the things that Tim Keller says in his Leadership and Church Size Dynamics article is

In a larger church people will let you pastor them if you are a good preacher, in a smaller church the reverse is true: people will listen to your sermons if you are a good pastor.

I think when I say I support the model, I basically mean is I can see what people would argue as to why this was important.  I don’t actually agree with it at all.  In the quote above, I land pretty heavily on the side of be the good pastor so people will listen to your sermons.  In a multisite model, that doesn’t exist.

Then come the problems I have with it.  The problems are never ending actually.  Whether it be how closely multisite church models seem to resemble corporations or how the teaching pastor is never actually speaking directly to people and only to random topics and ideas or how the entire model seems to be completely void of any local community engagement, I don’t see how a multisite church model effectively models what the kingdom of God is?  If the kingdom of God is awakening people to the reality of a resurrected Lord, how is a multisite church doing that?  By branding churches with a stamp/logo made by a marketing company that was paid $100, 000?  By getting people in multiple cities to believe in your version of Christianity?  By mimicking corporations, growth paradigms and marketing strategies?  By collecting tithes from all the sites just to keep the main site afloat and running effectively?

Obviously there are exceptions to every rule.  People have been affected, changed and brought closer to the kingdom because of a multisite church.  But really.  Is this the way that Jesus points us to?  Is this the slow and patient way forward that we are told it will be?  I just can’t help but think that multisite churches are just another exasperated attempt by the evangelical church to offer something relevant that meets people needs but doesn’t actually lead anyone to change let alone be empowered to actually live radically and faithfully in the contexts they find themselves in.

I’m not sure what it is, but I seem to make my way into the public sphere a lot.  Even as a kid, my neighbour was one of the journalists for the local paper and I would get my picture in there just for sledding down a hill.  Now days I still end up being in front of people, being written about for random accomplishments and then sometimes pushing my way into the limelight by starting protests or opposing something.  I recognize that a large part of this is my personality, some of it is my own pride and loving to be noticed and some of it is this push that I have to just expose what I see as harmful and oppressive.

I started this blog about 7 years ago and have had my share of drama on it and put myself in the public eye numerous times.  Whether it be writing letters to the editor for my local paper, writing as an opposition to church related blogs or authors, thinking out loud about controversial topics or saying a swear word that offended someone it always seems to upset people a lot or inspire people a lot.  In almost everything that I have done I have gotten a range of responses.  Never have I written something or been involved in something that has had people all agreed as to whether or not what I said was good or bad.

This for me is fun at times.  I like the tension, I like the dialogue.  I like being wrong sometimes because I find being publicly corrected to be a educational experience for me (though I would generally feel embarrassed at first).  I also like being right and people linking to me to prove a point or because they were inspired or because they wish they would have said what I did.  I like sparking unsettling feelings in people and I love motivating people to continue on in their direction.  I’m not sure how I ended up this way, but I’m completely comfortable in the public sphere.

As of late though, I’m wondering if being public is almost working against what I’m trying to do.  I can honestly say that the reason I go public with things isn’t because I want to be known (it obviously is something I like and I struggle with pride like everyone else, but it isn’t my motivation).  I go public because I believe that being in the public’s eye makes you accountable and honest or it at least forces you to be closer to the truth.  I like being told I’m wrong, and I like to tell someone that they are wrong.  They are both important experiences for me.  I think it’s because I value logic and truth.  I just love it.  I love learning, I love dialogue, I love being confronted, I love confronting and I love people.

I’m having a crisis right now though.  It seems that no matter how much I value truth, and exposing it – it doesn’t become more popular.  Through all my moves of going public, calling out people, critiquing in love or in sarcasm or whatever tactic I use, it doesn’t actually seem to serve the purpose of convincing anyone new (it’s easy to inspire people who already agree with you).  It doesn’t seem to encourage me when someone agrees with me or tells me that it’s good to hear someone else that has their thoughts or when I get the same commenters on my blog encouraging me.   So the only voices that really affect me are the ones that that are silent.  Either that or the ones that seem to be overly hurt by the things that I have said or caused seem to haunt me and I can’t get it out of my head.  It’s not that they disagree with me.  It’s not even that I have offended them.  It’s more that I have somehow caused them to be less closer to what I believe to be the truth than when I first came into contact with them because of something I have said.  Can talking and pointing about the truth actually cause people to be further away from it?  I’m afraid it can.

Dialogue, I am learning, is only a helpful process when the other person is involved.  It’s important to see when dialogue happens, because when dialogue happens, change happens.  When I say things like ‘involved’ and ‘dialogue’, I don’t just mean reading my blog and yelling at me because I am hurting someone’s feelings, or scanning your Google Reader.  I mean participating in seeking truth alongside of me.  Which, turns out, doesn’t generally happen through words on websites, at least not for me and protests on street corners.  Since the beginning, the only real change that I have seen is in myself and those that I actually live in and among.  It’s the people that I’m in daily relationship with every day, carrying each other burdens and celebrating joys that I actually seen any change in our lives.  People that comment on my blog?  People that are pissed off about something I wrote in the paper?  People that followed the Tyndale/Bush fiasco?  I don’t even know.  I doubt change came from these situations to them.

So, it forces me to ask myself the question…What do I love more? People discovering truth or myself knowing more truth and proclaiming it more?  My track record has been all about absorbing as much truth as I can and as soon as I know something new or exciting or to expose something I blurt it out because I can’t hold it in.  But I think my answer to that question is that I would much prefer to see myself and my community changed by the truth that we have come to see together rather than going off by myself and coming to whatever random conclusions I have come to and then trying to get everyone else in the entire world to believe me.

Which brings me to my title.  I’m starting to think that any public, loud, in your face truth seeking or exposing is unnecessary and distracting from what I should really be focusing on.  What if the truth is to actually shut up about the truth and just live it in your community and wait patiently to be changed to be more like the truth you believe.  What if the most honest and good thing I can do is to not even participate in the global arguments of sexuality, politics and religion? Really what is the purpose of my twitter feed, my blog posts and my list of friends on Facebook.  I’m at least coming to grips with the fact that whatever my social activity is online isn’t the source of change in people.

If I oppose Bush coming to Tyndale, and it works, he actually doesn’t come, but then leave a thousand people frustrated and disjointed what is the point? Have I actually helped those thousand people come to see truth more clearly, or have I made it worse?  Sure lots of people loved the protest and even signed it, but those were people that already agreed with the fact that we thought it was wrong for him to come.  I can easily fuel my passion to think what I did was right because of all those people who agreed with me.  I’m wondering though, for all the heart ache and work that was involved.  Did anyone actually get closer to the truth (whatever it may be in this situation), or did the whole situation cause most of us to get low and stand more firm in what we already believe so that we could launch attacks in every other direction?  Maybe the approach needs to be different.  Maybe it isn’t just to win where my voice is the loudest and I can get the most people to agree with me because that seems to be the way of politics, and it doesn’t really seem to work to change people’s minds.  We all know politics doesn’t change people’s minds.  No one really has a choice anyway so we just go with whatever media tells us best lines up with our current convictions (which were probably already formed by the media anyway).  So what does?

It’s the slow and steady patience that doesn’t depend on results to feel like you are doing the right thing.  Parker Palmer tells this story of this Quaker named John Woolman who felt that the Lord told him that slavery was wrong and evil and the Quakers needed to free their slaves.  The Quakers took this information and brought it to their group and wrestled with it for a long time and they could not come to a consensus.  Quakers don’t vote, because they don’t think that 51% should be able to control the 49% and they see that as an act of violence.  So they said to Woolman, that while they can’t see this light themselves, they were certain that he could see this very clearly.  So they told him that they would support his family while he would travel around delivering his message for as long as it takes for some kind of outcome to happen.   So he did this, traveled the East Coast for almost twenty years proclaiming this message to his friends and other Quakers.  He became famous for wearing clothing that wasn’t made by slaves, or if he knew a meal was prepared by slaves, he would fast that meal.   He had this slow and patient way of confronting that which was wrong without being so in your face about it that he wasn’t welcome.  Twenty years!

After twenty years, the Quakers eventually reached a consensus and freed their slaves.  The Quakers were the first religious community to free their slaves in the United States, and they did so eighty years before the civil war.  Parker Palmer says that this story helps us see that sometimes slow actually means faster because we are getting to the root system as opposed to just putting wallpaper over what we think.  This wasn’t just taking a vote and then moving on, but this was a patient waiting game allowing people to change and shift while slowly nudging them along.  I find this story encouraging.  Because it tells me that all the individual moments of protest and dialogue I will have probably won’t change people, and if it does, it’s shallow and meaningless over time.  But that’s the game that everyone plays.  Everything has to happen now, you preach a sermon and you expect your community to agree and then shift their entire lives to match that sermon in a week.  The media moves from story to story giving us snipets of reality and truth, and we think that’s the way our lives should be as well.

Long term, slowing down and patience is the only way forward.  It’s the only way that change comes to me or anyone else.  The game is fast and you need answers right away and you need to win.  So just leave the game, stop playing it.  Grow a garden, take your sabbath, be a mentor, read more books, put your feet up more, relax – be truthful in how you live, not just what you say.  The world is in a frenzy all around you and one more person in the chaos screaming about what is right and true doesn’t help anyone.  The people who quietly exit the chaos and live beautiful lives are the ones who are the game changers.

During the whole Tyndale and Bush fiasco, and after reading Dan’s post on Love, and pondering the attacks of many commenters accusing us of being unloving toward Gary Nelson I have to keep asking myself the question if it is possible to actually love a public figure.  I don’t mean if you become famous no one can love you.  Rather, I wonder if you can love someone that you don’t know but only know through media, stories or rumours?  There is different scenarios that come to mind that makes me question the love that people say they have for someone.  Think back to the death of Princess Diana and the onslaught of tears by people all over the world, most of those who have never met her.  Think back just a little while ago the death of Jack Layton, and the emotional response that it drew from Canadians all over the country.  Finally, think about Jesus Christ that who we read about in the bible and the connection that people have with him from all over the world, many still moved by his death and entire religions built on this one man, who none of us physically know.

When you don’t know someone, it’s not very easy to be patient, kind, non-envious, non-boastful, humble, honourable, selfless and not easily angered towards them.  I would suggest rather that when you don’t know someone that all you can do is love or hate the way that person makes you feel.  If the person makes you feel safe, then when that person is attacked, you feel attacked.  If the person makes you feel important, then when that person is ridiculed, you feel a little bit smaller and insignificant.  How does one really love someone if they don’t know them?  How can one really defend someone they don’t know?

As we move forward with political elections, I’ll never cease to be amazed at the personal attacks and love letters that I read from both sides of the spectrum of people sure that there leader is amazing, perfect and without flaws and all the others are immoral, wretched people out to intentionally ruin our country.  Everyone thinks they love their leader.  Everyone hates the opposition.  May I suggest that it’s probably the way your leader makes you feel that you love, or the fact that your leader tows the political line you lean towards.  You don’t love them.

As we move forward in understanding our relationship to our faith.  It’s probably good to also realize that many of us love Jesus because of the way he makes us feel, or what he does for us.  Or maybe we think that Jesus just agrees with whatever we think.  No wonder we love him.  Most people don’t love Jesus, they love the way Jesus makes them feel.

Let’s not just assume that the feelings of comradery that we have with people, especially those we don’t know, are those of love or hate.  They are probably just selfish longings that we don’t want to admit that we project on these people that we don’t know.  Just a few random thoughts.

Dr. Gary Nelson responded to our requests and decided to meet with us today. I am glad, not only did it help me better grasp the situation as a whole, but I hope it will also allow me to better explain to everyone else that is on this site what happened or is happening. Dr. Gary Nelson and Dr. Barry Smith were gracious to have met with us, and for that we are thankful. I was really hoping a Larry would be in attendance just so it all rhymed.

My biggest disappointment through all this has been Tyndale’s lack of communication to the public. I recognize that they have spend a lot of time with their current students/faculty trying to work through these issues. However a decision like they made and the accusations and assumptions that were floating around on the Internet, especially international media, in my opinion made it mandatory that Tyndale have public statements to clarify, put falsities in their place and stand firm on decisions that they have made.

I’ll take it as my duty to post now what I was told from them as to shed some light on the conversation for everyone.

So here is some definitive statements that Dr. Nelson made just to clear the air and since I’m not sure if they will ever make these statements themselves.

1. Tyndale never made a penny from the event directly with Bush, in fact they probably lost some.
2. It was not just wealthy people that were invited to the event.
3. It was a combination of things that caused the cancellation of the event, it was not them “caving in” to a petition or protest.
4. He admits they were caught off guard and didn’t know how to communicate well in a social media/viral world.
5. Arthur Boers was not censored. He was not asked to remove the paragraph from his article. He was asked to clarify it or leave a disclaimer that gave more information about what actually happened but Boers decided just to remove it instead.
6. Dr. Nelson did not call Boers a liar or a slanderer, in fact he was clear in his meeting that Boers was not a slanderer. He was not angry either. He did say though that because of Boers article it is causing slander to happen.
7. In no way was he intentionally manipulating students. It was all very bad timing and chose to be silent after rather than engage the criticisms or make more statements.
8. In hindsight, having the event as a public forum with a controversial figure such as Bush would have been a wiser move rather than a private invite-only event that was seemingly secretive (but not intentionally).

I have no reason not to believe him on any of this. I have no clue why in the world they wouldn’t make these statements publicly, but here they are for everyone to read. I think the way this unfolded is unfortunate but I think it was inevitable considering what was at stake and the poor system that was in place to deal with this kind of controversy.  Though if it wasn’t for this site and being a way to discourse, there may have been bigger protests that happened.

I think what I have realized through this process is that Tyndale is on a steady path towards becoming a full fledged university. Not just a small time Bible College, but they want to grow into something a lot bigger. This means that they care an awfully lot about reputation, donors, cash flow and appeasing as many people as possible. Whether we like it or not, or we think this is the Christian path or not, this is the direction that Tyndale wants to go. Unfortunately for them, they still have the Christian label attached to what they are doing and with that label comes all sorts of convictions of exactly what that means. For some it means that there is no possible way that George W Bush should be even remotely associated with what the school is doing. For others it means that he is the perfect candidate to speak to us about higher Christian Education. If the system is not in place to deal with that kind of controversy than my assumption is that there is no place for Tyndale in that realm of business. The fact that I can start a website while sitting in my underwear and “expose” anything at all tells me there is something wrong with the level of transparency and communication that Tyndale has with its people. Or at the very least there is no system setup to allow for opposition, or dialogue that people feel safe to express themselves.

A lot of accusations were thrown around on this site. A lot of them true and a lot of them not true. Tyndale’s inability to deal with the issue only made it worse. The commenter’s onslaught of insults and immaturity didn’t help much either. We posted everything that was said, or was sent to us and Tyndale could have set the record straight numerous times but it seemed like they were too paralyzed to say anything. In the end, besides Bush speaking, I think this was the real failure. The fact that I have to write this post clearing the air of all eight of my points, proves that.

The second thing that bothers me about this still is that everything became personal very quick. Whether that was because Dan Oudshoorn’s article about manipulation or the fact that Dr. Nelson cried when dealing with this issue I don’t know where it started. All I know is that this was never personal for me and I know it wasn’t for Dan either, as his article on what love is on this site suggests. I come across as strong towards institutions and systems because I think that’s the only way to expose them. Dr. Nelson in this case was nothing more than a representation of a system that we discerned as being dishonest and possibly oppressive. In being the kind of school that Tyndale wants to be, their president has to grow thicker skin and be able to lead his institution through rough waters without taking offense when someone opposes him. This I don’t think was ever fully understood by the students defending him and and he reassured us he was a good person and wanted the same things that we wanted. This was never about him as a person.  The fact that we met with him and tried to meet him from the beginning should tell you that.  We do want the same things. Accusations, whether true or false, bring out a lot in a person. If the accusations were false then so be it. Impressions are everything with a spokesperson and the impression that some got was negative. This is the life in the public eye and is a choice of the person there. He did take responsibility for this. I also take responsibility for running a site that hurtful things were said on, and accusations were made on both sides of the debate. We both think what we did was necessary and so we will both leave it at that.

All that said, I don’t think this “fiasco” needs to end with failure. I think there was a lot of lessons to be learned for everyone. For starters, we all know that media distorts and pulls out stories where there are none. They don’t care about context, they just care about getting people excited and then they leave. The hits that this site generated proved that. If I was to do this again, I probably wouldn’t have spoken to any media at all. They didn’t represent any of the moderation, grace or love that I had thought I expressed and only focused on the controversy. Dr. Nelson had a similar experience. There was other lessons we learned. Like how quick people blame the messenger. Or that the messenger could have opinions that are just wrong and offend people by their accusations. Or how fast people degrade to insults and refuse to engage the arguments. Or how quickly people take something personal and internalize it. Or how little people actually want free speech if it goes against their own convictions. All of these realities from this past ten days shows us that we all have a lot to do to grow in character and as a body of believers, inside and outside of the school. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to do my part in this and I’m even more grateful at the grace that was shown to me by Dr. Nelson and Tyndale while I moved forward in what I thought was the right thing to do.

A few days ago we found an article written by Arthur Paul Boers, endowed chair of Leadership at Tyndale Seminary, on the Tyndale/Bush controversy. It was a beautifully written article about his feelings towards George W Bush, his use of faith and his upcoming event with Tyndale University. The article states that “If Bush was going to be associated with my school, conscience compelled me to speak.” We all read it and were relieved to know that it wasn’t just us leftist, marxist, socialist, non-christian, pacifist, shit disturbing types (just to name a few of the great labels that have been attributed to a few of us that post on Tyndale.co) that had similar feelings towards George W Bush.

Today that article was taken down. Why? We aren’t sure. We of course in our computer savvy ways were able to recover the original article from our browser cache. So for anyone that wants it we have now published it on this site for anyone to read. ChristianWeek.org after a few hours re-posted the article, but with a revision. Like we learned in Old Testament class at Tyndale, when you see something repeated, always look for what is missing in the repetition. More than likely the missing information reveals what is going on beneath everything else. So below is the text that was was ommitted from the revision when it was reposted.

Third, steeped in Mennonite convictions, I believe Christians can differ and disagree, even vigorously, and at the same time grow in love for one another.

The day after the faculty was informed of the impending presidential breakfast, a colleague and I proposed a forum for interested faculty and students. The event would consider Christian interpretation of the legacy of George W. Bush, inviting four diverse viewpoints that spanned the political and theological spectrum. We would structure a civil conversation and give room for other faculty and students to respond and interact.

Our proposal was in the spirit of dialogue, academic freedom, and freedom of speech. A key administrator explained that our offer was not accepted because of – quoting here – “concern that we not make too much of this.” (In spite of our administration’s caution, a maelstrom of controversy ensued once the press exposed Tyndale’s plans.)

I’ve really done my best to not judge through this whole process.  This is making it almost too easy.  Why was this taken down?  Your guess is as good as mine.   But I’ll guess anyway.   My guess is that Tyndale didn’t like this whole paragraph all that much.  It revealed too much.  It showed that they screwed up and made bad decisions.  It shows that not only did this event have absolutely nothing to do with free speech (like Dr. Craig Carter, Dr. Gary Nelson and Dr. Scott Masson publicly stated and pointed fingers at us for).   But it reveals that even attempts to exercise this freedom that folks at Tyndale seem to prize so much, were shut down because a key administrator (I wonder who that would be) said that they didn’t want to “make too much of this.”  So Tyndale probably strongly suggested that Arthur take down his post or change it.  So he changed it.  Of course, that is all speculation.  It’s unfortunate that anything had to be changed, especially since he was just exercising his right in free speech.  But I’d wager a bet that is pretty close to what happened.  I can’t imagine Arthur re-reading his post a few days later and thinking “ah, you know what, that’s not necessary, why don’t we take that out.”

Tyndale is really trying to cover it’s tracks here.  Their public statements are empty of meaning.  Dr. Gary Nelson admits that they need clearer guidelines and policies so that views can be respected in a hospitable place.  Let me make a suggestion Tyndale.  Trying to undo something on the Internet won’t work.  Trying to censor professors that are speaking respectfully and making the school a hospitable place won’t work.  Silence from the very people that shouldn’t be silent from the higher ranks of Tyndale won’t work.   Your options are dwindling and you seem to be making a lot of bad decisions before you land on some right ones.   You need to be honest.  Stop worrying about your reputation.  Stop trying to cover your tracks.  Make decisions and defend your decisions with grace and humility to those that disagree with you.  Most importantly, please start communicating (honestly), you are leaving us all to wonder and guess and assume.

So again, like I stated before, we are still waiting for an official statement about this mess.  Now I’d like to request a statement about why it seems as if you are censoring some professors from speaking and allowing others to blabber on.