The Fusion of Methodology and Theology
A Holistic Approach to Ministry
In the modern world, everything was defined by marked boundaries, guidelines that things had to fit into, rules of order. What stood beneath our feet was a rigid patch of land that never moved. A stood by itself and B stood by itself. There was no merger of the two. Everything stood on its own. You were either black or white, Republican or Democrat, heterosexual or bisexual. In the postmodern world, there are no boundaries and what is beneath our feet now is ever moving, always changing water. There is no A without B and there is no B without A. A and B are one. Ethnic lines get blurrier every day. One no longer is Republican or Democrat but usually a mixture of the two depending on who is corrupt from what party. Bisexuality is at an all time high. I simply say all of that for you to understand that this world is no longer marked by definitive lines. Morals and values are no longer definable terms in many people's eyes. This world is a far different place than when my grandparents were a kid and even when my parents were a kid, not to mention when I was a kid!
This is a new world and in this new world there can be no separation of the church's theology (how we view God) and the church's methodology (how we reach our world). For the modern church these two could be easily separated and generally were. This is part of the reason the church is where it is at today. On one extreme, you had those who were extreme with their theology. It was all about answers. It was all about information. It was all about knowing. It had nothing to do with experience and it had nothing to do with relationships (either vertically to Christ or horizontally to our world). On the other hand, you had those who were adamant about their methods. It had nothing to do with the answers. Nothing to do with knowing. It was a whatever it takes method even at the compromise of convictions and standards (which consequently are derived from theology). Essentially, this turned into a conservative versus liberal battle, which sadly resembled a political campaign.
Unfortunately, both sides were at the two extremes of the spectrum. There were people who had great theology, however they did not allow it to influence their methods. And vice versa. There were people who had great methods, however the methods were not grounded in solid theology, Very rarely did you find a church, as a whole, that had both a solid theology and a solid methodology.
You see, theology is the framework that holds up our methods. And methods are the platform used to communicate our theology. One without the other does not only not work, but it is not biblical. The two can not be separated and the two can not stand on their own. The two are one. They were intended to be that way.
The tragedy is that today, the churches representing both sides of this spectrum are not only not changing and rethinking their theology and methods, respectively, but they are digging their feet into the ground even harder, refusing to move, refusing to be wrong, refusing to budge. Thus interrupting, and in essence, keeping the church from moving in the direction that it needs to be moving in, back to an intertwined mixture of knowledge and methods.
Its not an A+B=C model. It is an AB=C model with C being effective, relevant, biblical ministry. If you treat each one as separate entities, then you run the risk of thinking one to be more important than the other. Or that it has to be added in just the right amounts or in just the right proportions. It tends to serve more like a formula, that if we add our theology in just the right quantity and then we add our methods in just the right quantity, then its going to equal effective ministry. However, if you see each one being one as a whole, then you realize that they are precisely and evenly the same. This also does not equal something like the first. Theology and methodology together simply is effective ministry. The two acting as one, birth effective ministry.
I will end with a quote from Mark Driscoll, a pastor out of Seattle. He says: The greatest temptation for the people of God is to fall into one of two extremes. One, they are tempted by syncretism, where the gospel is so intertwined with culture and the lost souls that we are trying to reach, that it is the gospel which is wrongly converted to the world in which it is preached. Or, they are tempted by sectarianism, where the world is almost forbidden from hearing the gospel because the people of God have forgotten the purpose of the gospel. Without a cultural engagement between us (the saved) and them (the lost), the church becomes its own culture without any gospel.
