Arbuckle on Re-founding

Following on from the "Entrepreneurs" and "Resonating" posts, I have been reading Gerald Arbuckles "From Chaos to Mission - Refounding Religious Life Formation" (1996) He talks about the need to respond appropriately to the place of chaos Religious life finds itself in.  He says that it isn't a case of 'renewal' - modifying old methods but of 're-founding' - going back to first principles, allowing the imagination to dream of alternatives, radically rethinking the way we do things, a creative quantum leap, owning the chaos and returning to the sacred time; the stories, the fundamental questions and the founding vision of the group... Re-founding is then a collaborative action/state.

Arbuckle talks about three stages; 1) Initial unease, the separation stage.  One could talk about a sense of disconnection and a growing awareness of the dissonance between the action and the foundation story of the community/group.  2) The liminal stage or reflection stage "that moment between old patterns of reality and new ways of looking at reality".  In this stage Arbucle says there is a point of choice; do we seek to retreat, to wallow in nostalgia, to cling to past securities, do we try to stand still and maintain the status quo, to be paralysed by the chaos or do we "move forward with risk and hope in an uncertain world"?  3) Re-aggregation, or re-entry.  A new application of the vision and story of the community.

Arbuckle does recognise that with re-founding go two rituals "the ritual of grieving, that is , of letting o the irrelevant, and the ritual of initiation, allowing new life to enter".  He relates this process to the idea of 'Pilgrimage' ,

Refounding is a risk filled journey of faith and hope, whereby we enter into the heart of the paschal mystery itself to unite with Christ and his mission, thus being energized to be ongoingly creative in bringing the kingdom message to the world of our times.  As it is a journey demanding personal and group conversion, it is a slow and hesitant process, the outcome of which is ultimately in the hands of God... (it) has deep biblical and historical roots.  Its formation process invites candidates to join with God the first Pilgrim in a journey of personal and group transformation

There will be more thoughts on this as I'm doing a Blah in Sheffield on Pilgrimage next month... see above!

Technorati Tags: Books: Emerging Church: Mission: Missional: Religion: Spirituality

Comments

[jonny]

this is THE book or idea that tim dakin is using to talk about re-founding CMS. did you know that? who put you on to it?!

[Mark]

LOL... it won't surprise you then that it was Chris at our last meeting in London.

[Andrew]

this puts me in mind of the old work by James Fowler / John Westerhoff on faith development. How we go through a questionning, de-constructing phase of faith and life which leads us on at some point to an place of "owning our faith for ourselves". This is a deeply liminal experience which eventually leads to a re-aggregation of our faith. Fascinating how these experiences always seem to be found in both individual and corporate places.

[kester]

Great post and looks like a really interesting book.

I've been mulling recently on how the founders of religions tended to initiate these processes... Such a shame that their followers have tended to solidify and purify their thoughts and not engage in a similar on-going work.

[Mark]

I guess there's something in the nature of "founders" and "followers" that means there is a certain inevitability in that... and I suppose this taps into the entrepreneurial stuff too. One of our approaches has been to learn from Darren Rowse (the Living Room in Aus) and invest time in codifying the foundation story, the DNA if you like... seeing that as the constant not the structures and patterns, using it as an anchor/question in terms of reflection... e.g. if our foundation story is about risk, how do we live that and can we hold what we are doing/being against it and say with all honesty that we are still true to/in touch with the foundation story... and the founder.

[Kester]

That's good. And I think this taps into one of the major debates about new testament scholarship, and interpretation of the bible in general... Is Paul describing DNA, or a particular organism that has evolved in a particular place from that DNA?

[Richard Hovey]

This looks like a creative and helpful reapplication of the "Grief Process."

[Richard Hovey]

Mark: I haven't looked at your blog for a while, there doesn't seem to be any way of scrolling back to look at items in May - you seem to have deleted your shortcuts to your archive!

[Mark]

Richard... you can use the tag cloud... but as its you, I've reinstated the date style links too :-) Is this a Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0 question I wonder? ;-)

[Richard Hovey]

Thanks... much easier!!!!

[MARQUEZKaren]

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