The following is from A Is for Abductive (232-235) and should help in beginning the process of understanding EPIC.

The anchoring ingredient in all EPIC methodologies. Pos moderns are less “seekers” after meaning in life than participators in experiences that are meaningful.

A participant-observer methodology is one key element of the new New Science.(1) There can be no truly objective “observer.” Everyone is both a participant and an observer. What “fact” is uninterrupted? What “data” are without theological?

Leadership is the ability to both observe and participial simultaneously. Worship is both active and reflective, participating and observing. You cannot escape subject-object into action in any arena of life, especially worship. Walt Whitmi6 described this phenomenon as being “both in and out of tf game”(2) at the same time.

In the modern world “critical objectivity” brought every subject into submission and dissection. What’s wrong with that you say? In the words of biologist/ecologist/theologian Wes Jackson, “We have done what the early 17th century philosopher of science Rene Descartes said we should do, break dove, a problem to the point at which there is no ambiguity. The paradox is that it is at that precise point where all ambiguity is one that our object of interest becomes totally irrelevant.”(3)

It is clear that this new epistemology challenges our modern approach to theology, which suggests that “God” can be studied “objectively,” like any other object of inquiry: broken town, bleached of ambiguity, and subjected to theosection. No, says this new approach: Each object of study makes requirements of its students. If you want to study subatomic )articles, you have to submit yourself to the terms under which hey “like” to be studied-using the appropriate tools, time frames, measurements, and so on. If you want to study chimpanzees, you need to submit to the necessary disciplines, as Jane Goodall learned in Gombe, Tanzania .(4) If you want to study salmon, another set of disciplines is required, and the same goes for studying meteors, Mars, mosquitoes, money markets, mountains, and metaphors. To be a student, you have to participate in the observation process on terms determined for you by what you are studying.
What terms does God require for those who would understand God? This is a question hardly even imagined by modern theology. That’s why we need to ask it, again and again, in he years ahead.

But a primary answer to that question is this: Participation. :Canadian theologian Stanley Grenz calls Christian theology °a witness to, as well as participation in, the narrative of the being nd acts of the Triune God.”‘ Church consultant Reggie McNeal defines faith as an “interactive partnership with God.”6 In fact, some philosophers are moving toward a definition of religious beliefs as the outgrowth of participation in religious practice The ongoing participation of Christians in the story of Christ and of his church is at the heart of what we call “revelation.

Postmodern culture is a culture of participation, which different from teams, from quality circles, from getting eve one involved in everything. In postmodern participation, interactivity either is the content itself or can change the content. That is why Brian Eno says the word “unfinished” is better t “interactive.” The real content of phones is not the information, but the interaction. This is the “value” of media-its true c tent is interaction.

“What matters is not how finished the work looks, but how unfinished it remains.”
—Nihonga Painter Togyu Okamura (8)

For an experience of reading spiritual tea leaves for y people, take them on a trip of the future. Start with www.kurzweilcyberart.com, where you can write poetry in the style of famous poets.(9) Then stop at www.mixman.com, which brings interactivity to a new level. After downloading the man software (it’s free), you can go to your favorite must artist and remix their music according to your own creativity. Then end the session with www.absolutdirector.com. Like man.com, the absolutdj.com site allows you to remix songs in absolute direct or com, which is done in partnership with Spike Lee, you can remix movies as well. Change the dialogue adding your own; change the background music; add new cuts. “Everybody is a director, that’s the whole thing,” says Spike Lee. “On this site, they can see how I did it, but everyone’s own film will be about their own vision.” (See Eschaton; Karaokees.)

Moving in more participatory directions will entail substantial changes and new skills for Christian leaders. For example, worship planners and leaders must descend (metaphorically, at least) from the high stage and bright lights of the broadcast-observer mode reinforced by television. They must rediscover ways for worshipers to participate in the experience of worship, and not just through singing. Chant (another word for reading or reciting aloud in unison), responsive readings, rituals, ceremonies, and the use of parishioner-created multimedia and visual arts and interior design elements all deserve fresh attention.

Where early postmoderns took the “pastoral prayer” and made it interactive through bidding prayers (”Please raise your hand if you are in need, or have someone heavy on your heart”), a recent crop of postmoderns at Greenville College has upped the ante of interactivity. They also ask for prayer requests at college chapel services, but the worship leaders there refuse to move on to the next concern or celebration until someone specifically agrees via an uplifted hand to take up and undergird that particular need.

Beyond worship, leaders may need to function less as problem solvers and answer givers, and more as problem identifiers and question askers. When leaders solve problems and give answers, followers are excluded from participation and are merely observers, audience, and fan club. But when leaders share problems and ask questions, the people participate in seeking solutions and answers together. In this way, pastors, as important as your sermons are, the questions you ask your leaders to grapple with and problems you pose for your congregation may well be your most important leadership contribution.

Footnotes
1. For historiographical assessments of this trend, see Leonard Sweet, “Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves: The New Evangelical Historiography,” Journal of the America Academy of Religion 56 (1988), 397-416, and Douglas A. Sweeney, “The Essential Evangelicalism Dialectic: The Historiography of the Early Neo-Evangelical Movement 81 the Observer-Participant Dilemma,” Church History 60 (1991), 70-84.
2. As quoted by Ronald A. Heifetz in Leadership without EasyAnswers (Cambrid MA: Belknap Press of Harvard, 1994), 252.
3. Wes Jackson, “Complexity at the Land Institute,” The Land Report 49 (Spring 1994),5.
4. Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (New York: Warner, 1999). 5. Stanley J. Grenz, “Articulating the Christian Belief-Mosaic: Theological Method after the Demise of Foundationalism,” in Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on Theological Method, ed. John G. Stackhouse 1r. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001), 131.
6. Reggie McNeal, A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).
7. For example, philosopher William Alston’s Perceiving God: The Episterno Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).
8. As quoted in Makato Fujimura, “Form and Content: That Final Dance,” in It Good. Making Art to the Glory of God, ed. Ned Bustard (Baltimore: Square Halo 2000), 59.
9. With thanks to Jeff Chaves for this reference.

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