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At First Presbyterian of Osawatomie we have begun a small group program. I am a part of one small group that is learning to knit. Knitting is not easy because it involves just one strand of yarn and a complex series of wraps, tugs and dips to move that yarn into a weave that is plush and warm. Knitting is not only a discipline of crafters, it is the discipline of theology itself. For if a certain theological suggestion is to be valid, it must ultimately be practical and a tool for God’s people.
Whitsitt’s last chapter of The Open Source Church, knits in the concept of the open source church back into the practical tasks of congregational leadership. I appreciated the chapters specificity suggesting that leaders should at least and essentially be proclaimers, facilitators and mentors for the congregations they serve. While it is not my privilege to add a category or even a chapter to the book, I do believe any open source church will also need to be a place where leaders model a multi-disciplinary approach to scripture and theology. In a way, modeling the multi-disciplinary could be easily subsumed into any of Landon’s three fundamental leadership tasks. But in other ways, it needs to be considered a more fundamental knitting exercise for the leader that will affect proclamation, mentoring and facilitating.
By multi-disciplinary I mean a consistent integration (in pulpit, classroom and idle conversation) of all the major disciplines of hard and soft sciences, local and global politics, literature and the arts into conversation with scripture. If our people are really to arrive at church and appropriately use the church to realize God‘s call upon their lives, then that surely begins by allowing the world from which they come to be fully present in the classrooms and sanctuaries of our churches. There has been, for too long, a battle in our sanctuaries and Sunday School rooms. It is a battle that we seemingly wage alone, arguing that the church is the ultimate authority. Though the world is full of discoveries that rival focused attention to our authority, we pretend that we just need to talk louder about our ancient authority and that will be sufficient.
I think about it a bit differently. Using the knitting metaphor, all the various disciplines of the world are like the individual fibers within the strand of yarn itself. And it is the job of congregational leaders to allow the god-given yarn its full integrity. We must refrain from pretending that our fiber is the only important one. Folks we are not being invited to a battle as much as we are being invited to knit a bundle of fibers into a warmth that can move our people fully into their present moment. This means that our task is to be constant learners outside of our own field of discipline in order to pay homage to our God that is fully in the present and is the source of all that is creative and novel. So we don’t try to discount or strip the fibers or disciplines of psychology, sociology, algebra, physics, astronomy, literature etc. from the congregational conversation. Such integrated attention assures our people at the deepest level that God is present here and now and not lingering in just the past or future.
Lest you think that I am demoting the fiber of religion let me say that what I am suggesting is intended to be most respectful of Jesus’ life and ministry as well. Jesus, after all, made significant responses to the various disciplines of his day. Politics, family structure, morality, laws of tradition, economics, ethics, religion etc. I worry that our Christian community is becoming increasingly rigid and focusing more on the record of Jesus in scripture rather than the knitting method of Jesus’ living and loving, part of which is recorded for us and, thus, we hold sacred. In order to cultivate an open source church leaders must model how it is that one takes the various disciplines of thought as examples of a living and revelatory God. Examples of a living God then allow us to live non-anxiously into the method of Jesus in new and creative ways in the world.
It is surely a rich part of our Christian tradition that much of how we move forward comes from overt and focused instruction. Whitsitt recommends just that encouraging open source leaders to be intentional proclaimers, facilitators and mentors. However, overt instruction can be exhausting. I want to suggest that for the sake of the system, the instruction can continue in some gentler ways as well. Fred Craddock, in his timeless work as one without authority, reminds us that because communication has grown increasingly complex, overt instruction (like preaching) must be co-mingled with method in order to communicate fully. There must be subtle but no less intentional opportunities to “observe” or “overhear” what it means to be an open source congregation. In my experience, an open source church must partly exemplify its values by being open to the world as a source.
By taking in the current events, trends and discoveries of its world as conversation partners with the gospel, the open source church practices relevant meaning from various professional disciplines. We allow the world to observe us doing this. This communicates subtly, but powerfully, the truth, that each individual Christian per their personal relationship with God is also an expert knitter who has a contribution to make to the Kingdom. The stakes are high! After yarn that does not get knit….begins to unravel.
Leslie's Theology 