Today is officially my last full day in the U.S. before I disappear back into the heart of Thailand. It's been a refreshing 4-1/2 month "visit". I'm thankful to have had the opportunity & now am ready to get back. Nice to have last year's worth of experience in Thailand under my belt. Going back, I have a much better gauge now of what exactly I'm getting into. It'll be nice to not be as clueless this time around :)
I'm also very passionate about my going back this time around because of what this - & hopefully upcoming years - will contain as far as missions go. The ministry I've linked up with has me going to one of the poorest & most unreached areas with the gospel in all of Thailand. And I don't say that hoping to get sympathy. Rather, hopefully a reason for you to be excited for me. There's no reason to pity those who leave some of the familiar comforts of home to follow Christ in foreign places. Those who go, & are gauging their situation rightly, would call themselves privileged. The apostles "left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name." Christ puts purpose behind hardship/uncomfortability that is endured for His sake. I'll leave you with a quote from David Livingstone who, "gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the access of the gospel." He says:
"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa....Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now & then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences & charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in & for us. I never made a sacrifice."
Emergent Christianity is focused on postmodernity and beyond. Critical to its organizational behavior and collaborative thinking is its non-linear, creative, diverse, organic characteristics portraying vitality and adaptability to the social conditions and culturally dense environments surrounding the postmodern Church of the 21st Century. And crucial to the process of communicating the gospel of Jesus is how we would communicate this gospel to one another by allowing (i) a diversity of divergent opinion (pluralism); (ii) removing obstructive, out-of-date, utilitarian functions and ideologies that are no longer helpful to today's societies (deconstruction); and, (iii) creating adaptive social structures that can utilize all the differences within humanity without abstracting that same humanity into static cultural modes and inflexible methodologies (re-construction).
Lately educators from around the world have become actively engaged in re-thinking societal educational models which can be helpful not only to our public school systems, but to Emergent Christianity's interest in integrating the Church-at-large within multi-ethnic, socially diverse, local/regional populations with few, if any, integrative cores. To do this the Emergent Church has recognised that not only religious dogmas - but all societal dogmas, belief structures and behaviors - must come under a scrutiny, or critique, that can be at once beneficial, healthy, and distinctly normative to its surrounding populations. Nor should these changes be feared, prevented, assailed nor thrashed by respondents as these changes occur to the greater good of their local societal structures.
For this is the essence of adaptive behavior wherein societies and cultures must adapt together in order to thrive together in the 21st Century. An era that is bringing with it radically new changes of social comportment and diversity. Moreover, this has become a fundamental problem for the traditionally orthodox church refusing to adapt and change - as it can be for any misunderstanding element of society finding itself in similar positions of radically dense, and overwhelming, change. Whether these elements be commercial, industrial, educational, medical, scientific, agrarian or vernacular organisations. All elements of society will be engaged in a fundamentally altering self-examination requiring adaptation, and assimilation, of rapid technological advancements, exponential biologic growth, diminishing earth resources, greater climate changes, massive urbanization, and a hundred other societal concerns and dilemmas. But success in large part must still rest with increased community support towards acquisition of fundamental, postmodern change; supportive revisioning of societal goals; enhanced collaborative engagement; and mass acceptance of greater societal interdependency and integration leading to a relinquishment of individualized goals.
In the videos below creativity educational expert Sir Ken Robinson will ask how this type of beneficial change might happen within education itself, and how it might be sustained.... And we might ask ourselves similar questions when applying these same principles to the postmodern, Emergent Church - both of the communities we live within, as well of those churches and fellowships floundering therein unprepared for (or unwilling to recognize) the resultant postmodern disruption and fundamental organisational re-configuration made necessary to continue to survive against the radical groundswell of change and proportionate needs of its beleaguered community. Most assuredly this will be a time when each segment of society might lend a hand to one another in mutual aide and support. Where differences can be resolved. And supportive engagement and appreciation can be enhanced.
Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. He is also one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been seen by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries.
He works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture. The resulting blueprint for change, Unlocking Creativity, was adopted by politicians of all parties and by business, education and cultural leaders across the Province. He was one of four international advisors to the Singapore Government for its strategy to become the creative hub of South East Asia.
For twelve years, he was professor of education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now professor emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design, Ringling College of Arts and Design, the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Birmingham City University and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, the LEGO Prize for international achievement in education, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies.
His book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (Penguin/Viking 2009) is a New York Timesth anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, (Capstone/Wiley). Sir Ken was born in Liverpool, UK, as one of seven children. He is married to Therese (Lady) Robinson. They have two children, James and Kate, and now live in Los Angeles, California.
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The element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. The Element draws on the stories of a wide range of people, from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons; from Meg Ryan to Gillian Lynne, who choreographed the Broadway productions of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera; and from writer Arianna Huffington to renowned physicist Richard Feynman and others, including business leaders and athletes. It explores the components of this new paradigm: The diversity of intelligence, the power of imagination and creativity, and the importance of commitment to our own capabilities.
With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the element and those that stifle that possibility. He shows that age and occupation are no barrier, and that once we have found our path we can help others to do so as well. The Element shows the vital need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about human resources and imagination. It is also an essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the challenges of living and succeeding in the twenty-first century.
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There is a paradox. As children, most of us think we are highly creative; as adults many of us think we are not. What changes as children grow up? Organizations across the globe are competing in a world that is changing faster than ever. They say they need people who can think creatively, who are flexible and quick to adapt. Too often they say they can't find them. Why not? In this provocative and inspiring book, Ken Robinson addresses three vital questions:
Why is it essential to promote creativity? Business leaders, politicians and educators emphasize the vital importance of promoting creativity andinnovation. Why does this matter so much?
What is the problem? Why do so many people think they're not creative? Young children are buzzing with ideas. What happens as we grow up and go through school to make us think we are not creative?
What can be done about it? What is creativity? What can companies, schools and organizations do to develop creativity and innovation in a deliberate and systematic way?
In this extensively revised and updated version of his bestselling classic, Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding creativity in education and in business. He argues that people and organizations everywhere are dealing with problems that originate in schools and universities and that many people leave education with no idea at all of their real creative abilities. Out of Our Minds is a passionate and powerful call for radically different approaches to leadership, teaching and professional development to help us all to meet the extraordinary challenges of living and working in the 21st century.
