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The Demise of Illusions
A famous historian once said the most dangerous form of ignorance is the illusion of knowledge. This maxim has become very real to us as we prepare for our campus church planting project in Berkeley. On our journey, Janet and I have stumbled over three kinds of “knowledge” (so far) that have all proven to be illusion in their own way.
1. The Google Illusion: During the very anxious season when we were considering becoming planters, we comforted ourselves by doing research about the campus and community at Berkeley. Along with millions of others, we turned to Google to discern the answers to life’s questions. What we found was a huge quantity of information about our potential plant site. We learned, for example, that the median adult age is 31, that this adult is likely a single professional, and that at least one organization ranks Cal 4th in the world among universities. Armed with more demographics than the Census Bureau, we headed to the Bay area for our first visit feeling that we understood some things.
2. The Sidewalk Illusion: About ten minutes after we arrived on campus, the statistics that had given us confidence in our own understanding suddenly seemed like pale abstractions. To be honest, we had expected to see a 21st century version of Woodstock reenacted on the campus. What we actually saw were extremely serious students walking by in silence on their way to the next class. Our Google illusions experienced something like a hard drive crash, only to be overwritten by the kind of shallow assumptions that are developed in a first visit. So, maybe the numbers didn’t tell the whole story, but now we had actual field experience, meaning that we had walked around for a few hours, eaten Indian food, and sipped Peet’s Coffee. Certainly experience couldn’t mislead us?
3. The Relationship Illusion: Talking with people about the planting project after a couple of visits was a lot more fun than just reciting the statistics. Now we could tell stories about the “look and feel” of the campus and city, including the homeless guy smashing bottles against a wall and life on the street after dark on homecoming weekend. We also collected sound bites about Berkeley that helped us tell the story of our emerging mission. For example, I will quote William Gibson’s comment that, “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed” to make the point that Cal is one of the recipients of that uneven dispersal. All of that was fine, until I realized that telling stories about coffee houses and repeating clever quotes was not the same as actually knowing anyone in the community.
There is no “Berkeley Barbara,” a perfectly representative 31-year old single professional, or “Berkeley Ben,” a prototypical 20 year old engineering student. Our new community is the home of cultural creatives (some in training and some at work) who highly value the atypical.
While numbers and experiences help, only relationship is going to crush the last of our illusions so we can actually discern what God is already up to our community. Berkeley is not the “site” for a “project,” it is a community that is home to individuals whom God loves more than I ever will.
How have your illusions met their demise?
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About the Author: Earl Creps has spent several years visiting congregations that are attempting to engage emerging culture. Until recently he directsed doctoral studies for the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri (http://www.agts.edu
This post has been viewed 318 times and was added on October 29, 2007 by Earl Creps. Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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I'm Todd Rhoades... the MMI guy. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the founder and developer of a website named ChurchStaffing.com.
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