Why Foundations Are Important

"We recognize that the taller and more expansive a leader's dream,

the deeper the foundation must be."

- Kouzes and Posner in "Credibility"

In a world that lives from minute to minute on cable news, your appearance and ability to act like you are in control are of huge value. But as Kouze and Posner so powerfully share in their book on credibility, the true measure of your impact and effectiveness does not come from your ability to put on a good performance. It comes from deep within.

The problem with "deep within" is that it is messy, complicated and hard to sell in a 5 minute news segment. But that doesn't really matter does it? In the end the foundational things in your life are much more critical to your faith, relationships and outreach than your ability to put on a good show.

Our book "Through the River" is about some of those deeper things. It is about a part of your worldview that defines how you understand truth. It is not easy to put in a box and you can't explain it in a 50 second elevator speech, but it changes everything about how you view the world. These assumptions about truth are called your epistemology - we use the term "truth lens" to bring it down to earth.

Your truth lens is what you use to define truth in every part of your life. It is foundational. How you view truth will shape your faith, the way you view other people and the way that you act out your faith in evangelism and service.

Now your truth lens isn't the only foundational thing you need to be finding out about . . . but it is a very important one. As you explore your truth lens, you will begin to understand why you struggle to get along with Uncle Joe, why you believe the way you do about a certain social issue and why you approach outreach a certain way.

Our effort in this book is to help you be aware of the truth lenses that are most prevalent in the Western world today and to help you decide which one will help you serve God most effectively.

I know you are too busy to learn about your truth lens . . . that's ok. Take time anyway. You will find that as you invest in the foundations, other things make much more sense. Your life can be lived much more on purpose and your impact is exponentially increased. Lets build some foundations together!

Dumb Outreach

What a silly name . . . there is no dumb outreach from the perspective of the people being helped. But if you think about the quality of the encounter, dumb outreach is pretty common. Why is the quality of our outreach so poor when we have so many resources/materials and helps?

Most of the time we focus on tools and strategies for outreach and not on relationships. In the end our outreach teams are all about relationships and a tool might help. And in those relationships we tend to spend little or no time understanding how each other thinks about what we are doing.

Thinking about what you think with sounds obscure and confusing, but all it means is that we understand the assumptions that drive our actions. Do you understand the assumptions held by the people you minister with? In our upcoming book we equip you with the three core assumptions about truth that are prevelant today. At first pass it is easy to think that all Christians view truth the same - but they don't.

And how you view truth changes everything about how you reach out to others. In the coming weeks we will be telling you more, but take a moment and think about those you minister with in church, school, work, etc. Think about how they view the world and the assumptions they have.

Now you are on the track to trading in that dumb outreach for some smart strategic ministry.

Now What?

So now that you understand the three most prevalent truth lenses being used today (Positivism, Instrumentalism and Critical Realism), what do you do with this information? You suddenly understand why your co-worker in the next cubicle always wants to argue with you about politics; she is using the positivist truth lens and is trying to get you to understand the right way to view things. But how does having this knowledge help you relate to her in a better way?

So let’s say that you are using the critical realist truth lens and your co-worker is using, like we said, the positivist truth lens. The first thing to ask is what you have in common in your view of truth. You can start there.

The critical realist truth lens and the positivist truth lens both value knowable truth. This is the starting point. You and your co-worker both believe that truth can be discovered and there is a right and wrong. You can spend a lot of time talking about the truth that is known and appreciating the world we live in. But what about when you disagree?

It helps to understand where you differ in what you believe. The divergence is in the knowing of truth. You will disagree about the degree to which something can be known. The critical realist will believe that things in our finiteness cannot be known fully on this earth. We are always on a journey of discovery, filling in a montage that gives us more and more information about the world but which is never complete. The positivist will be on a quest to fully know that truth in the here and now, putting together a picture puzzle where one missing piece ruins the whole.

One strength of the critical realist truth lens is the humble position from which it comes at the problem of truth. This humility is hard to argue with, though it may be seen as a weakness to some. It naturally changes a debate into a discussion.

Aside from the humble position, it is also important to come from a loving perspective. Love is a great healer, and can solve many relationship problems. Keeping love at a high level in your interactions with others will help in the development of your relationships.

A Place for Mystery

This excerpt is from "Scraps," the thread and pieces of fabric that fell away as the quilt was made.

A Place for Mystery

Beyond affirming that faith, hope and love are key to understanding truth, there is another important concept that the Bible represents which resonates with critical realists. It is the idea of those things which God has not revealed to mankind. The Bible talks specifically about things that we don’t yet know. More importantly it allows for these things to exist without any prescription or assurance that humanity will ever know them fully. A great example of this is Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”

Stepping Outside of the Argumentative Culture

This excerpt is from "Scraps," the thread and pieces of fabric that fell away as the quilt was made.

Stepping Outside of the Argumentative Culture

We live in a world of judgment. All around us the argumentative culture raises one voice and then another in their effort to be heard. Debora Tannen defines this culture this way, “The argument culture urges us to approach the world – and the people in it – in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done; The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as “both sides;” the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; the best way to show you’re really thinking is to criticize.” (The Argument Culture pg 3-4)

In our world, each voice embodies experience, ideas, vision and resolve. But it is also laced with something else: contempt. Whether they are political pundits in Washington or rappers in New York, many people spend their entire lives focused on dominating those with whom they do not agree, hating the ones who sit on the other side of that invisible line.

These voices are truly destructive. The impact of their words is the destruction of many people’s ideas. Or worse yet, their hatred convert those who have opposed them and the other side lashes out with a similar vengeance.

NOTE: This piece was not meant to be without hope, but was meant to point to a problem we need to think about. The book brings a hope that we truly can step outside the argumentative culture and relate in a new and different way.

Truth Lenses, A Core Concept

Suggested Title:
Through the River: Understanding Your Assumptions About Truth

Your understanding of truth impacts your relationships and your outreach. One of the keys to unlocking the truth all around you is your truth lens (epistemology). Your truth lens is a simple tool that frames how you will interpret truth and interact with others about that truth.

Today in the Western World there are three dominate truth lenses that help people to understand truth. Jon and Mindy Hirst, along with Dr. Paul Hiebert (renowned missions anthropologist), bring these three truth lenses to life using a simple story of a river town with three communities.

The Rock Dwellers live on the rocky shore and believe that their role is to add truth and subtract untruth until they have uncovered truth in its entirety. The Island Dwellers live on the sandy islands in the river and believe that truth is a personal affair that cannot be transferred to those on the other islands around them. The Valley Dwellers live on the far shore and believe that there is truth that we know and truth we are learning.

Most Valley Dwellers have come from the rocky shore or the islands and are bearing witness to another way to look at truth that has the potential to revolutionize life in the river town.

Through the River represents Jon and Mindy Hirst's efforts to take several key concepts from Dr. Hiebert's book Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts and apply them to a wider Christian audience. Its goal is to present the importance of knowing what you think with and understanding how it will impact relationships and ministry on a daily basis.

To be released Spring 2009, Authentic Publishing (IBS-STL Global)

Paul Hiebert's bio: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/005/9.9.html

Jon and Mindy Hirst's bio: http://www.generousmind.com/explained.php

Book Summary

Behind your every decision and relationship are assumptions about truth that guide your actions. They go unnoticed in your daily life but their influence guides your faith, your relationships and your outreach. Come and explore the communities that live in River Town. As you read this simple analogy, we will introduce you to the three most common ways to view truth today – we call them Truth Lenses and they are an important part of your worldview. We will watch as the Rock Dwellers, Island Dwellers and Valley Dwellers interact while using different lenses.

Every Christian wants their view of truth to line up with the Bible. This book will help you practice holding your assumptions about truth up to the light of Scripture. Our prayer is that as you understand your assumptions about truth, you will experience transformation in your life and relationships.

This book is the result of many journeys of discovery. Dr. Paul Hiebert helped to shape and form our view of truth. He came alongside two young authors and gave us the tools to share these powerful ideas with you. We take several key concepts from Dr. Hiebert's book Missiological Implications of Epistemological Shifts and apply them to a wider Christian audience. Its goal is to present the importance of knowing what you think with and understanding how it will impact relationships and ministry on a daily basis.

Your journey will change everything about how you understand what is true.