Thanks for your patience, this is my first post in several weeks. I had a great time away to be with family and enjoying a few weeks of vacation. Back at blogging now …
In a recent conversation with Catholic leaders, I was surprised to discover that none of them had read, From Christendom to Apostolic Mission. These Catholic leaders are well networked, highly engaged in ministry, and travel all over the globe to proclaim the Good News. After the conversation, I thought to myself, “What can I do to get the word out?”
I am dedicating a series of blog posts to the book From Christendom to Apostolic Mission. I will expound on the book’s principles and then add additional thoughts of my own and other ideas from leadership and ministry thought leaders. I hope this blog series will get the word out and add to the conversation needed in the Church today. Please spread the word. We need a robust and effective shift from Christendom mode to Apostolic mode to launch a spiritual impulse capable of transforming everything.
We Need to Change our Paradigms in the Church
Stephen Covey often said, “If you want small changes, focus on behavior but if you want significant, quantum leaps forward, change paradigms.”
Stephen Covey often said, “If you want small changes, focus on behavior but if you want significant, quantum leaps forward, change paradigms.” Now is not the time for small change, we need quantum changes in mindsets. Click To TweetParadigms are the lenses through which we interpret the world. Paradigms govern how we behave because behaviors are a response to the way we view and interpret reality. Stephen Covey tells the following story to illustrate just how behavior follows paradigms:
A battleship was passing through the patchy fog as night fell. A crew member was looking out for ships and other objects when he saw a light approaching. He alerted the captain. The captain told the crew member to signal the ship ahead of them to change course to avoid a collision. A signal came back advising the battleship to change course. Again, the captain insisted the other side change course. This went back and forth as the captain got increasingly frustrated, “This is Captain Marshall, commander of mighty Missouri, change your course immediately.” After a long pause, the message came back, “This is the lighthouse, please change your course.” Needless to say, the battleship crew had to change its course.
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
What if the Captain refused to change his paradigm and therefore refused to change his behavior? It would have been disastrous as he drove his boat onto dry land destroying the vessel and injuring or killing everyone on board.
From Christendom to Apostolic Mission is a lighthouse to pastoral and ministry leaders amid the darkness, giving us guidance and direction to steer home safely. Will we respond to the prophetic promptings within its pages? The book and the movement coming from it, are grounded in rock-solid principles and insights. The truths it presents are sometimes difficult to accept but immutable in truth. From Christendom to Apostolic Mission is a prophetic gift inviting the Church to change paradigms and then change our missional behaviors as we shift from a Christendom Mode to an Apostolic Mode.
From Christendom to Apostolic Mission is a prophetic gift inviting the Church to change paradigms and then change our missional behaviors as we shift from a Christendom Mode to an Apostolic Mode. Click To Tweet“Even in countries evangelized many centuries ago, the reality of a Christian Society’ which, amid all the frailties which have always marked human life, measured itself explicitly on Gospel values, is now gone” (Saint John Paul II).
New Thinking Needed
Albert Einstein is attributed with saying, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them.” Doubling down on the status quo, and trenching ourselves into thinking the same way we have thought for several decades is not helpful right now with the world changing so rapidly. “A person who lived a hundred years ago was closer, both in modes of consciousness and in the daily rhythms of life, to the time of Christ than to our own” (From Christendom to Apostolic Mission). We need a radical new way of thinking, a change in paradigms and mindsets, like what happened with the Captain when the lighthouse was staring him down. We will need the same humility and docility to discern the signs of the times and adjust our missionary efforts accordingly.
Doubling down on the status quo, and trenching ourselves into thinking the same way we have thought for several decades is not helpful right now with the world changing so rapidly. Click To TweetParadigms as Maps Representing Reality
Another way to think of paradigms is that paradigms are maps. Maps are not real but are visual representations of reality. Some maps illustrate topographical features, others show streets and landmarks, still, other maps display populations and demographics. They all represent reality but through different lenses. What if the map we are using to interpret the relationship between the Church and society, is inaccurate? That kind of map would be not only ineffective but counter-productive.
What if the map we are using to interpret the relationship between the Church and society, is inaccurate? That kind of map would be not only ineffective but counter-productive. Click To TweetIt doesn’t take a skilled navigator to understand that using a map of Vancouver to navigate the streets of Toronto will get you lost very quickly. Two different cities! Similarly, using a map of Vancouver from 1922 to navigate Vancouver’s city streets in 2022 is also going to get you lost. Same city but everything in it has so drastically changed that nothing is the same.
Using a map of Vancouver from 1922 to navigate Vancouver's city streets in 2022 will get you lost. Paradigms interpreting the relationship between the Church and society from fifty years ago are no longer helpful. Click To TweetThe principle applies to the Church as well. Using maps (paradigms) based on a relationship between the Church and society from fifty years ago is useless. We cannot make missional progress if we are using a map of what the Church’s relationship once was or what we wish the relationship was like now. Maps MUST reflect current reality, not an illusion if they are going to accompany us well. As Fr James Mallon points out, priests formed in seminaries in the 1980s and ’90s were trained for ministry in Jerusalem but now live in Babylon.
I deeply appreciate From Christendom to Apostolic Mission for its clear insight into the new reality of the relationship between the Church and society. I look forward to exploring many of the themes within those prophetic pages in the weeks to come.
P.S. Here are a few other posts that you might enjoy:
And one from Fr Richard Conlin here
Feature Photo Credit: Photo by Everaldo Coelho on Unsplash