Shalom! Peace be with you! It has been a busy April for me. I feel as if i have "over-prayed" for the lack of work in my office, so much so that work just keep coming at me. I have to attend tons of meetings, correspond dozens of emails, assist tens of people on top of my current chores. Finally, i have to decide to divide this article into two parts, one in April and another in May. I could, if i want to, rush to complete this article by April, but then it would be a piece of sub-quality work. That is definitely not what i want to offer to my faithful readers out there. Therefore, enjoy this first part of the article and then stay tune for the second part which will continue in May.
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Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." [Matt 28:18-20]
This is the famous Great Commission which most of us, christians, are familiar with. Often, it is chosen as the theme biblical passage for many of our mission initiatives. Strictly speaking, we can consider it as one of the two strong pillars of Lord Jesus's teachings whom He had left for His disciples; the other being the Great Commandmant[1]. It was meant not solely for the disciples then, but also for the later disciples, both you and me, in ages to come.
Coherently, pastors, preachers, missionaries and church leaders like to quote this passage so that we may be spurred towards willing submission to our Lord's final instructions. In ready response, many christians offer up their lives, time and money to the "so-called" mission ministry. This is a very wonderful thing to do but when we fail to examine the actual dynamics involved, we could unintentionly be misled and swayed. Of course, some may argued that in any ways, the gospel is eventually preached to the rest of the world. However, i think if we just adopt a simple cause-and-effect model without realising the complexity and chaotic nature of the Great Commission to the gentiles, then this great oversight may endanger the furtherance of the gospel to what the Lord has intended, that is, to the ends of the world.
At this juncture, allow me to borrow some of the interesting sense-making concepts from the Cynefin Framework[2]. This framework is used primarily to consider the dynamics that occur in different situations, decisions, perspectives, conflicts and changes with the aim to arrive at a more meaningful understanding for a better decision-making process under uncertainties. Broadly, it contains four named domains called "known", "knowable", "complex" and "chaos" respectively. There is also a fifth obscured domain termed "disorder" which is actually the overlapping area among the four named domains. In the ordered domains (known and knowable), the cause and effect relationship are generally linear, correlated and most of the time known, whereas the two un-ordered domains (complex and chaos) present little or no cause and effect connections at all. At the fundamental level, the Cynefin framework attempts to question the universality of three basic assumptions - the assumption of order, the assumption of rational choice and the assumption of intentional capability, which are very much entrenched in the policies, processes/procedures and strategies of many organisations.
With these as our basic building blocks, we shall try to explore at how the Cynefin Framework can be applied to the Great Commission in the Christian arena. It may sound too academic to some but i do believe strongly that all wisdom and understandings come from God above and can be used in conjunction with His Word, especially when dealing with carnal issues. And for the benefit of those readers who are interested to learn more about the detailed explanations of the Cynefin Framework[2], i have included the references right at the end of the article.
Practically, this article will not attempt to cover a comprehensive discussion of the Cynefin Framework to the various aspects of the Great Commission. First, the lengthy content would probably turn many of the "leisure" readers of this article off. Second, it would probably take many empirical results, and thus time, to ascertain some of the proposed hypotheses. Third, the primary goal of this article is to highlight new and interesting discussion elements for the Christian community, and not to provide a complete solution to all the monthly theme.
Therefore, the scope of this later article will be mainly focusing on the final instructions of the Great Commission. The actual implementation issues are then entrusted to the readers as assignments in their own fellowship or ministry time.
If we examine closely, there are three main instructions in the Great Commission. First, we (i.e. all christians) are to go and make disciples of all nations. Second, we are to baptize the disciples in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Third, we are to teach the disciples to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us. Notwithstanding these, the Great Commission also comes with the power and promises of the Lord for those who obey. The Lord proclaims that "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him" and He promises that "He will with us always, to the very end of the age". These are congruent to God's everlasting mercy for us and will carry us through as we fulfil the Great Commission.
We shall now see how we can apply the Cynefin Framework to the Great Commission.
References
1. Luke 10:27
2. C.F. Kurtz and D.J. Snowden, "The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world", IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 42, No. 3 (2003).
