the running reverend

“Compass Study”Photo by Calsidyroase 

Earlier Seth Godin posted the following thought on his blog:

The map keeps getting redrawn, because it’s cheaper than ever to go offroad, to develop and innovate and remake what we thought was going to be next. Technology keeps changing the routes we take to get our projects from here to there. It doesn’t pay to memorize the route, because it’s going to change soon.

The compass, on the other hand, is more important then ever. If you don’t know which direction you’re going, how will you know when you’re off course?

And yet…

And yet we spend most of our time learning (or teaching) the map, yesterday’s map, while we’re anxious and afraid to spend any time at all calibrating our compass. [1]

I read those words with cup-of-coffee in hand, gazing at the screen of my iMac. Beside me, on rather spacious bookshelves, rest thousands of books that bear out the reality of Godin’s assertion. Many have been written between 1950 and today (although I have a quite a few predating the 50’s). Most of my books are theological and/or philosophical in nature, although since entering the pastorate there has been an increasing number of books pertaining to ecclesiology, missiology, spiritual formation, etc. Scanning the shelves, I find books written during the “worship wars.” The worship wars were waged between those who wanted to stick with the old, familiar maps that they had grown up with (the hymnal) and those who wanted to blaze new pathways and codify these pathways in new maps (the overhead transparency). Folks like Robert Webber proposed a via media, which became known as “blended worship.”

While the church was arguing over worship styles, other monumental shifts were occuring. The church growth movement boomed, becoming a major point of discussion for much of the 80’s and 90’s (and even into the 2000’s). Towards the end of this fifteen to twenty year conversation, the emerging church movement reared its head. (I remember sitting at a lunch in the fall of 2001, hearing Brian McLaren’s name for the first time.) Over the course of the last ten years or so, these two movements have been in dialogue (and sometimes at each other’s throats) regarding whose understanding and practice of church reigns supreme. (Often the conversation has been one that is rooted in practicality: whose map best charts the church’s course as she moves toward the future.)

The pace of change has accelerated, however, and there are new movements on the horizon. There are the various flavors and voices of the missional movement. There are those who are advocating for “deep church.” 

One could go on and on, really. Which is why I find Godin’s thesis attractive. Maybe the church needs to quit fighting over her maps — maps that are being nuanced, adjusted, tweeked and/or created anew at a blistering pace — and instead pick up her compass.

I like that image. I like the way it sounds. I like the fluidity that this metaphor provides. I like the creativity that it allows.

Yet, I find that for all that I like about this metaphor, it raises a great many questions. For instance:

• What is the church’s compass? (Is it the Bible, as some would suggest? Does church history and tradition serve as the compass? The creeds?)
• Where does the compass point? (Where is it that we are trying to go? What is our true north? Some would say “to heaven.” Some would suggest that we are endeavoring to create “heaven on earth.” Some would say that Christ is our north and his mission the direction that we are to travel. Still others would suggest a theocracy. The list goes on and on. We may, after all, follow the compass and go in the right direction, but what good does this do us if we don’t know where we are trying to end up?!)
• Might the compass and map need to work in tandem, thereby grounding our travels while at the same time allowing for flexibility and trailblazing as needed?

What do you think? Does Godin’s metaphor work? Where does it fail? What are its limitations?

[1] Seth Godin, “The map has been replaced by the compass,” over on Seth Godin’s Blog.