Paper Paradigms

There's a post-Bible study activity we do sometimes in Koinonia. We split into groups of about 5 and are provided a limited assortment of straws, paper, coffee stir sticks, and a lot of tape. We're then given 5 minutes to build a tower that can hold as many textbooks as possible. Each team's final score is determined by some formula involving the height of the tower and the number of textbooks it can support.

The first minute is inevitably a flurry of conversation and debate with many different competing schools of thought. Looking at the textbooks and the paper we have to hold them with, some say that what we really need is a strong base to carry as many textbooks as possible. Others say that we can build a really tall tower because the advantage in height will be worth being able to carry less books. And there's also the middle road, aiming for some combination of the two.

It always seem like other groups know exactly what they're doing, and as we realize that other groups have already begun constructing and time is running out, we hastily decide on a plan and start distributing tasks. This part is also crucial. There's too little time for one person to complete everything. So some begin to work on the base, some begin to work on the successive layers to put on top the base, and usually there's another just cutting tape for the others. The time always runs out too soon, and the time of testing begins. We hold our breath as heavy textbooks are placed on top of our paper towers, anxiously wondering if what we've built will hold up against the weight of reality.

I got thinking about this team exercise that we do for fun because I was struck recently with how similar it is to church building. There's two similarities I want to make note of.

The first is that there are many different paradigms, many different schools of thought about what will work best. Sometimes when we're building our paper towers, there ends up being no consensus about what model we're going with, and even if we had many different good plans it all ends up being useless because we didn't go with any of them. In the same way, no matter how good a plan may be, it won't work unless people actually go along with it. I think something similar goes for church. We can all have different opinions about the best way to do things, but in the end we have to go along with what's been decided otherwise nothing will work.

This isn't to say "the most important thing is that we all agree," because that isn't true either. Some paradigms clearly work better than others. Often times there's a miscalculation about just how strong the paper is, and the idea of building a really tall tower is disastrous because it ends up getting crushed by the books. Other times, the strong base approach is too conservative and there's not enough height to score a lot of points. Being unified is important, but some paradigms just work better than others.

There's a couple of ways that the analogy doesn't hold. First of all, churches aren't made out of paper. I noticed that sometimes when people point out things that are too obvious to point out like that it's humorous, so I wanted to try it. Anyway... in the paper tower exercise, everyone is given the same materials, and given the exact same objective. With churches, things can be very context specific, and the best approach will often depend on the context. There's more I want to say about this, but I'll save it for another post.

The main point I wanted to make was about the paradigms. While thinking from within a paradigm, everything makes sense and is ordered in terms of the reasoning of that school of thought. And it's important to think that your own paradigm is the best one for your situation; if you thought another one was better, why aren't you using that one? It's fair to think that each church thinks that it's right, and to think other churches should be more like them. For me personally, I'm proud and rather provincial, and I too easily look down on others. But I've come to appreciate some of the advantages of other paradigms (even when I disagree with them on many points), and I think this is a beneficial attitude to take.

Last point. In Luke 9, the disciples complain about a man who was doing good work. They tried to stop him because he wasn't one of them. Jesus basically replies that they shouldn't stop him because they're on the same team. I think this is a fair view to take. For sure, we can think our way is the best way, and that others should be more like us because it would be to their own advantage to be so - but, in the end, we're on the same team, and we're in this together.

Didn't mean for this post to be so long. We played in the snow today, it was great fun. We had Arby's on the way back, it was great delicious. I think I fixed my Asus laptop today by transferring over the hard drive from my broken HP, it was great success.