I received an email from a dear friend who is an executive director of a Latin American mission collective. As I responded to the email I thought I’d take some of what I offered, modify it slightly, and post it here; I was trying to put some language together to describe how I approach practical theology.
The word “Theology” often feels like a loaded and ominous word. Even when paired with “Practical” – as in Practical Theology – it still looms large in the hearts and minds of many. Theology is often perceived as the realm of academics. The playground of people with Doctorate degrees, who seem bent on proving to a small group of other people with PhDs that they belong in that group. And for too many people who are seeking of live in the Way of Jesus, who read the Bible, and are opening up discover and practice loving God and loving their neighbor as they love themselves the work of theology feels out of reach. As though theology is someone else’s to do… it is not. Practical theology is weaving together beliefs and your everyday life. As the name suggests, practical theology is the thoughtful engagement of one’s understanding of God and God’s shalom in a way that is intended to land in the real world. Why do you do, what you do, in the way you do it?
How one understands God has immediate implications for how one thinks about human beings, community, envisions a good life, and practices faithful presence in the ecosystem of relations. Practical theology is the “SO WHAT?” in response to what you say you believe.
There are different ways to approach practical theology. I seek to ground it in the real world of the here and now. I like to engage it as the work of a particular group of Christians in a particular place seeking to follow Jesus into faith relationship to the pressing issues within their place. I see place as the platform in which a group discovers what following Christ really looks like.
As such, for me, the practice of practical theology is a form of deep listening. The hardest part of this kind of deep listening is letting go of (or at least holding loosely) one’s assumptions of what needs to be done. I find this is often the hardest part for many leaders of groups or pastors as they are proclaimers of good news, missional activists, and community organizers. Spiritual leaders are people who feel called to do something. That impulse is a gift to their place and its peoples! Yet, Christians are not saviors! We seek to bear faithful witness, we strive to act justly, love mery, and walk humbly with God. Following Christ is not a calling to fix, save, or conquer but to join, love, and bear witness… to pick up one’s cross and follow the Jesus Way. If everytime a leader sees a problem in their neighborhood, or an injustice, or an abuse of power they jump to assumed missional solutions without listening they would quickly burnout, lose the trust of the group they lead, and have little sustained Shalomic impact. Listening is vital to becoming wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.
Deep listening invites us – among other things – to listen to where our missional assumptions come from. Listening is prayerfully inviting the Spirit to show us what one’s place and its people are inviting. The reality of our particular place with its people is inviting God’s shalom… this is practical theology. Most faith traditions have rich practices of listening, prayer, mediation, and spiritualities of presence. The Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina is a spiritual practice of listening to the Holy Spirit speaking through scripture that has helped inform my practice of practical theology. Before Benedict would begin the lectio divina process with people he would often encourage them to lay their understandings, and prior hearings of a text before God asking that God might help them listen with the “ears of their heart.” Listening with the “ears of one’s heart” is the kind of open stance toward the Holy Spirit that is a wise posture to engage practical theology.
I’ll briefly unpack my modified the Benedictine process into three movements for practical theology:
1. Listening
Practical theology emerges from deep and sustained listening to a particular place and its people. This kind of listens believes that he Spirit of God is always and already present wooing all toward God’s Shalom. When listening, I like the question, “What’s going on here?” This question locates me in time and place, and invites wholistic attunement, toward understanding. Listen as widely and deeply as possible. One of the ways to prayerfully open up is to ask God to help you see and feel the oppression and suffering of the place and/or its people and the systems that render it possible.
There is often a tendency when a leader begins to hear suffering or oppression to jump to missional responses. While there are occasional moments when something so urgent presents itself that we must immediately respond… such crises are not the norm.
This may sound odd but just because a leader discovers a challenge that needs to be addressed doesn’t mean it’s her or his work to do.
Just as important as listening to the place and its people is the leaders ongoing listening to their own story and the story of their group/church/ministry. Many pastors struggle with taking on more than is theirs to do, learning to listen to themselves and the particularity of their group can really challenging.
I find it a helpful reminder that one of the primary ways God orients Godself to humanity is as a listener. God listens to us. God hears our prayers, desires, worship, lament, grief, etc. Deepening our spirituality of listening is vital to our growth as leaders in the Jesus Way.
It is also important to note that with the speed of life listening – itself – becomes a profound missional action. This kind of listening is not passive. It proactively seeking to understand a fully ad possible. This in a radical act of inclusion. Attending to the voices a leader most would like to avoid, disagree with, or be opposed to is part of this listening work. Listening can at times feel threatening to belief, values, and so much more. This is the work.
2. Discerning
Practical theology seeking to attend to all that has been heard and as a community to enter a process of discernment. The big question here is, “How is The Holy Spirit inviting us to discover and practice an even more Shalomic imagination in light of what we are hearing?“
The real stuff happening within your real place and its people & systems is the platform in which the leader & her group get to discover the Shalom of God. The particular always reveals the universal; abstracted truth claims never solve real world problems.
The work of discernment is never up to one person. The people gather in the Spirit to discern together. The leader’s calling is not to make the decision or chart the path alone, but to foster collective spirituality of seeking to follow Christ into faithful presence in the group is hearing.
In my experience, imagining this discerning work as seeking to faithfully weave together three vital stories until it makes one narrative braid. One strand is the story of the place and the people the group has been listening to. The second stand is the story of the leader and the group. Who are they? What is their history? Capacity? What might be theirs to do? And the third strand is the narrative of God’s Shalom. How does this real-world challenge, problem, injustice, etc. invite your group to discover afresh God’s dream a new Heaven and New Earth within your context? It the three strands are fragmented or don’t seem to fit it may not be time to act.
3. Experimenting
The discernment process is a faith process. When leaders are honest with themselves and their groups they can acknowledge that it is by faith – not certainty – that they take practical steps to embody their theology. We never know exactly what is needed? The question I like to ask here is, “How might we act in response to the invitation the Spirit is presenting through the real challenge in our context that will be a faithful expression of our love of God, love of our neighbors, and love of ourselves?” or By responding in this way, are we more likely to become people of Christ-like faithful presence discovering and witnessing to God’s Shalom for all?
I find that using language that gets at experimentation is more help in mobilizing people to give a new or different response a try. It also makes it a bit easier to pull the plug on something that doesn’t have the effect we imagined or when a group discovers that its not a missional fit for them (their braid frays).
Experimenting also helps the leader and the group move away from the notion of solving the problems of a place. Experimenting itself is an extension and continuation of listening. Experimenting with responses to a real problem is like having a conversation with with that problem.
All of this is listening. Listening, discerning and experimenting all all forms of deep listening. We listen to our context (1); listening for a more Shalomic imagination as we discern (2); and we listen for the real impact our missional experiments have on both the problem and on who we are becoming (3). Listening to discover a more faithful presence in the way of Jesus the Christ. When we stop listening we start colonizing and assuming that “we” know better than “them.”
My practical theology methodology is listening discerning and experiencing unto God’s shalom. It is super important to me to pay attention to who the leader and the leader’s group are becoming by engaging in the way they do. If they accomplish their mission but hoard more power, or become arrogant, or self-righteous, etc. then it’s a bust. The means never justices the end. After all what does it profit a leader if they gain the whole world but lose their soul? We want to become more loving, more hospitiable more gracious by engaging in these missional experienrents.
Peace, dwight
