The Myth of Omniscience (Ours)
Among the many maladies of the mind, we know that youth suffer from the personal mythology of invulnerability, churches from terminal myopia, leaders from founder’s syndrome, and organizations from group think. Sometimes we all forget the limits of our personal wisdom, and suffer from what I call the Myth of Omniscience. In this malady, we confuse ourselves with the Prime Mover and Father of Lights, by forgetting that our knowledge has limits. Let me illustrate:
Recently a church planter was sharing with the team at Newchurches.org, the real disconnect that he discovered between what the demographics told him and what living people reported. This planter was doing what any good needs assessment would lead him to do, meeting intentionally with local leaders to ask them questions (In a needs assessment, these leaders open their doors to the interview because they respect the role of needs assessment in the community, and allow the planter to access to their time and perspective). During the course of the interview, the local leader began to share about the trouble he was having with a specific neighborhood, and the planter realized that he had uncovered a hidden population. It didn’t show up on the official demographic radar, and could only be discovered using intentional interview techniques. The planter had a decision– believe and act upon secondary sources, like lifestyle demographics, or believe the report of the local official who was telling stories about the significant need in this specific neighborhood. The needs assessment provides a response to this situation, and would result in additional inquiry in this newly discovered population. If this planter was suffering under the Myth of His Omniscience (or the myth of his demographic report), he would have discounted this verbal report and stuck with his original plan. The problem was, the truth was not convenient (sound familiar?), and required that he adjust his plan to take advantage of a ministry and partnership opportunity that came from his intentional interview efforts.
In another church planter discussion, a planter looked me in the eye and told me about the depth of his community insight. His whole team had been looking around the community, talking to those that they had met and had formed some very specific plans for community service. These plans, like the planter above, involved a local school and community based ministry to its families. The planter even described the local schools and their proximity to his project. He didn’t know it, but he was in the grips of the myth. Unlike the planter above, he had not followed an intentional interview plan, like those found in a needs assessment, and although he had asked around—he hadn’t gone to the horse’s mouth itself. No interviews with the school principal, no interviews with local day care providers, no intentional interviews at all. In this case the myth could have caused some real damage to the team—disappointment, missed ministry opportunities, lost face with donors –40 years in the desert.
Those who are caught in the Myth of Omniscience (ours), have forgotten the cardinal rule of community inquiry—we don’t know what we don’t know. And it’s easy to catch this virus, especially since so much of our leadership is rooted in our instinctive and discernment based knowledge. In the community, we do need good spiritual “antennas” that help us discern and see the principles at work, but there is no replacement for taking those attennas around in an intentional search pattern. If we were in a search and rescue mission (aren’t we?), we would work a grid pattern to make sure we didn’t miss anyone. Needs assessment provides this search grid, allowing us to systematically meet, build relationships and listen to lots of important people all across the grid. It employs our entire team in this process with us—multiplying the antennae corps and making each team member a part of the listening and relationship building process. Our demographics are akin to a satellite view of this same community—but since we aren’t planning to minister in space, we need to do some purposeful walking around.
They call this HUMINT in the intel business– Human intelligence—boots on the ground. Like our nation, we have learned that if we want to win, we have to take the time and energy to place ourselves in personal proximity—I recommend an intentional needs assessment process to make sure we do this right. Join me on a free conference call to learn some more about this process http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html.