Mission Creep: The Temptation for Every Christian Organization

                                   

                                                                                                           

The term “Mission Creep” is a common expression within military circles describing the organic tendency for campaigns to gradually drift or shift beyond its original goals, often after initial success.   I suspect there are plenty of examples of military engagements throughout history of mission creep.   Just talk to the spouse of enlisted soldiers who get news that what was supposed to be a six-month deployment has turned into a two-year separation, and then the reality of mission creep hits close to home.  The tendency to “drift” is not isolated to militaries and wars.  There are constant temptations for Christian organizations to “creep” away from their original mission.

There are many factors and forces that lead to mission drift, but I want to only focus on one set of dynamics.  Initial successes and new potentials for revenue coupled with an increase in programs and expansion are some of the most potent forces that lead to mission drift.  The increase in programs or expansion almost always requires a “mission” gut check.  It is important to note, I am not suggesting that all Christian organizations are locked-in to policy language and practices established by their founders.  In fact, there are great examples of organizations making redactions to their by-laws, policies, and even programs to meet the emerging needs of our world and their goal of evangelism.  This is almost inevitable with any organization that has a long history spanning many decades of cultural shifts and even globalization.  However, there is a strong argument to be made that shifting in policies and some practices are to be expected, but drifting from one’s mission can potentially lead to a DNA change that fundamentally changes the organization all together.

Christian organizations at one time all shared a common DNA that was gospel centric.   In other words, whether it was Harvard in the early 17^th century, global mission organizations, or churches, they all started with a deep conviction that was probably tethered to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as explained in the Bible.  This is not to suggest that all Christian organizations share the same functions and forms, but it is to suggest that they share the same DNA.  The problem with mission drift is the “success” or “expansion” may require a creep away from the fundamental reasons and convictions for existence for the sake of keeping the machine running.  In these instances, the boards, elders, and stakeholders begin changing their missions to accommodate the strategic plans necessary for continued success and expansion even at the expense of their Christian DNA.

In my lifetime, I have seen major stories of mission drift from very well known Christian organizations that seem to have at least one thing in common.  Donors!  It goes without saying most religious non-profits rely heavily or solely on the generosity of donors.  As a result, an entire career path has been developed around securing major gifts as well as educating donors on ways they can restructure their estate to benefit said organizations.  Professional fundraisers can make a good living in specializing in the “Ask.”  Unfortunately, the “ask” (a term related to the development and asking of money) is not coupled with a deep conviction to organizational mission. 

From my vantage point, it is very easy to allow a big gift to set in motion the fiscal waves that begin the mission drift.  Don’t get me wrong; I am not suggesting that there are not examples of well-intentioned and well-resourced people that offer to write huge checks to Christian organizations with no strings attached.  Some of my own personal experiences of Godly people sharing in amazing ways come with this preface, “God placed your organization on my mind and use this gift as you see fit.”  But for all of the unrestricted gifts, there are just as many, if not more, “restricted” gifts that may or may not fit into the mission of the organization.  It can be a very difficult conversation when someone is willing to write a 6 or 7 figure check and the strings and mission creep that comes with that check potentially changes the Christian DNA or the organization.   When this occurs, the brain’s ability to rationalize kicks into 4-wheel drive and is willing to go way “off-path” to figure a way to fit that donor’s agenda into the mission.  After all, “God must want us to be successful or else He would not have made this funding available?”  Or, “This is God’s way of telling us that we need to change our mission.” 

When major donors are given the ability to change mission, it often starts with innocuous word games.  For example, “I am willing to give you or build you, but in order to get my money you need to be willing to make some changes so I can save face with my constituents.”  As you can see, I am using hyperbole to make this point.  There have been famous slogan changes over the years as a result of mission drift.

There was a time when the YMCA was deeply committed and unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Today, it is just “ the Y” and a place to go and play ball.  Southern Methodist University was proud of her name and religious heritage, but pragmatics led to institutional abbreviation and now SMU is all you see or hear.  I am told in this instance that it is very difficult to recruit students and raise money in other parts of our country with both the terms “Southern” and “Methodist” in the same sentence.  It could be the case that national re-branding campaigns do not necessarily change or alter Christian DNA, but this is certainly a drift point that has implications.  Another example close to home, TCU will NEVER be called “Texas Christian University” by ESPN.  They will always be referred to as just “TCU.”  These subtle changes often come about by well-intentioned marketing firms that almost never share the DNA of the Christian organization, but they certainly specialize in secularization.  After all, it is easier to recruit students, grow programs, raise money, and build buildings when Jesus Christ is marginalized and even removed.  It seems that the Bible reminds us of the world’s desire to mistreat and avoid Jesus.  Why are we surprised that worldly success occurs in tandem with pushing Jesus to the margins?

It is amazing how money and power have the ability to contribute to mission drift.  It takes a great deal of faith and integrity to turn down a major gift or donor.  But be reminded, one of Satan’s greatest tactics is not mission destruction; It is mission drift.  I am reminded of Jesus' own mission inauguration and after fasting for forty days, Satan engages in tempting Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11).  In each of the temptation episodes, Satan doesn’t attempt to destroy Jesus’ ministry; instead, Satan attempts to redirect Jesus’ focus under the pretense of empowering and expanding his ministry.  Some commentators suggest this may have been Satan’s way of verifying that Jesus was indeed divine.  I tend to think differently.  Satan realized that if Jesus’ mission would drift toward, power, popularity, and gimmicks, then Jesus’ authenticity and mission to rescue and redeem humanity would be compromised. 

By the way, the same tactics aimed at the organizational level are even more efficient at the personal level.  Satan would like nothing more than to bring slow spiritual drift to the life of the believer.  C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters illustrates the evil one’s desire to not wage a nuclear holocaust, but instead, to lob small RPG’s toward our mind and heart.  Over time, the spiritual creep that will occur will accomplish the evil one’s desires.  The end game is the same.  Whether we are eaten by a whale or bitten to death by a thousand minnows, the end result is the same.

How to avoid mission creep: 

• First, establish organizational practices and policies around receiving gifts from donors.  Not every gift is a mission appropriate gift and learning to say, “no thank you” in a God-honoring way, while very difficult, may alleviate a lot of organizational angst down the road.  
• Second, develop the habit at the highest level of the organization to continually remind the organization of her mission.  This sounds simple, but get that mission emblazoned in the minds and hearts of your people, and when the time comes to defend against mission drift, it will feel more normal than abnormal.  
• Third, avoid the tendency of rolling in and out of re-brands.  Of course, there are times to do a re-brand.  But make sure that those you are hiring to manage, design, and execute your re-brand share your mission’s DNA.  
• Last, always vet when mega wealthy entities approach your ministry or organization with a desire to partner.  This is especially difficult when they are giving you “free” access, resources, publicity, etc.  Remember, you get what you pay for in these instances.  Free is great, but free may be the very drift point that sets the organization on a trajectory that will lead to mission change. 

The Power of the Gaze: "When Captives becomes their own Captors. TheElf on the Shelf represents more than a holiday tradition."

“This architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.”-Michel Foucault

       Preface: I recogonize I am biased in my own gender as well as flawed and broken relying on God for continued growth and transformation.    

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) is probably most known as the father of utilitarianism.  This philosophical view is based on the notion of maximizing the most utility that brings about the most good for the most people.  Implicit in this view is the idea that the means by which the greater good is accomplished is justified by the end results.  Some have reduced this school of thought this way, “The ends justifies the means.”  Bentham’s lesser known contribution to western philosophy and social construction is his architectural model for the emerging penitentiary industry of the 18th century entitled the Panopticon.  For the sake of keeping this essay somewhat brief and manageable, I want to provide a succinct explanation of Bentham’s Panopticon.

Panopticon

The Panopticon was Bentham’s vision for creating an efficient facility for the purpose of supervising criminals in a penitentiary.  Bentham’s contribution came during a transition from the practice of penal colonies (i.e. Australia) and penal ships (putting the insane and convicted on a ship to house them away from society) to fixed structures or facilities to house criminals.  This shift in penal philosophy was more than just the logistics of domiciling the convicted, it was Bentham's unique worldview that criminals could be reformed.  In order to bring his panopticon blueprint to reality, it required making a sales pitch to various countries that his new prison model would be both efficient to manage and productive in reforming the criminals.  This is where Bentham’s genius is highlighted.  In order for the panopticon to be efficient and cost effective, it needed to be managed by few individuals.  The architectural renderings of centralized guard houses with prisoner cells located in radius to the center created a vantage point where one person could essentially view the entire radius, or at least give the appearance of supervision, while never leaving the guard room.  Through other 18^th century technology, Bentham’s plan even had a model of tubes that connected the cells to the guard shack allowing the guard to listen into each cell.  All the while, the guard shack was designed with tinted windows so that the people being watched were never fully aware the shack was manned. 

            
From this 18^th century model, which never made it to construction during Bentham’s life, comes our modern day school and prison architectural renderings.  The idea of keeping the power holders in centralized locations and those under surveillance on the periphery is the ubiquitous model of construction today.  Transcending the architecture of facilities, Bentham’s panopticon exposed a psychological effect that is still relevant today.  When individuals are housed or kept under constant surveillance, over time, they will begin to self-monitor.  The self-monitoring initially is to appease the power holders so as not to get into trouble.  This self-monitoring appeasement later turns into a subconscious self-monitoring where, essentially, the persons under surveillance becomes their own captors.  They subconsciously self-regulate to meet the initial demands of their captors without even realizing they are perpetuating their own captivity.

            
Some two hundred years later, French philosopher Michel Foucault picks up Bentham’s Panopticon and identifies his physical structure as a philosophical construct that can be employed by power holders to effectively and efficiently keep individuals that are powerless under oppressive control.  The genius of this model is its efficiency.  Rather than needing an expensive police force to control large groups of people, implementing panoptic practices of constant gaze and the appearance of constant surveillance effectively and psychologically changes the minds and practices of people so that they begin to police themselves.  For a simple example of panopticism, the use of traffic cameras achieves this goal.  In our city there are cameras that are actually working and from time to time send me a ticket in the mail when I make an illegal right hand turn on red and then there are other “dummy” cameras that keep me honest.  The infrequent tickets are just enough to alter my psyche so that when I see a camera, real or not, I conform my behavior to the wishes of the camera owners. 

Another example of panopticism are the elevated boxes that are located in large parking lots that are designed to give the appearance that there are either individuals or cameras in the structure “watching” over the area.  The idea is to deter criminals because they are under the impression they are being watched.  These mobile police cranes get moved around town to give the appearance that they are effective in deterring crime. 

The panoptic lesson is if you wish to manage an individual or groups of individuals create an environment with the perception of constant gaze making sure that from time to time there are actual moments of surveillance, and the individuals under surveillance will self-regulate their behavior in compliance with the power of the gaze.

We take full advantage of the power of panopticism with our girls this time of year with the “Elf on the Shelf” method.  We introduce the elf and tell our little girls that he is Santa’s helper.  Put in panoptic terms, the elf is Santa’s gaze.  Through parent trickery and slight of hand, we have them convinced the elf moves about freely at night to new locations. This practice keeps the idea fresh in the minds of our kids that the elf is actually conducting surveillance.  Side note, this is a pretty twisted practice that probably has its roots in B-rated horror movies from the 80s where stuffed animals came alive and tormented their owners.  And yet, this cheap method of artificial surveillance, when practiced frequently enough, provides parents the benefits of achieving behavior modification.  Our children learn on their own that the elf, or in Casion terms, the Big Eye in the sky sees everything. 

Allow me to take a slight philosophical left turn with Bentham’s panopticon and Foucault’s panopticism and draw the analogy with the power of the male gaze in our culture.  It is painfully obvious that our sexualized culture is ubiquitous.  And it is terrible to think that the first place our girls begin to experience the power of the male gaze is in school.  Schools in this country are the public spaces that undergird practices of male gaze that over time plant seeds of male surveillance in the minds of our young girls.  This, coupled with media that constantly portray female value as being directly connected to male approval, constructs a worldview for girls in our culture, at a young age, that they get their attention through their looks and their utility to a male.

I am not pretending to have the solutions for all of the ways our western society creates innocuous systems and practices of sexualizing our kids, I am, however, taking a more keen eye to these institutions and media conglomerates (Disney) that are actively telling my girls that their identity and value are connected to how a male will perceive them.  Remember, the psychological power of the gaze, in this context, have our girls self-monitoring their own fashion, sense of value and purpose, and body image to meet the expectations of those behind the gaze.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, the power holders are men.  As a result, it is impossible to escape the sexualizing gaze that finds safe haven in nearly every aspect and institution in this country. 

To put this in even more direct language, we have set up systems and institutions that specialize in trafficking our girls for the purpose of appeasing the male gaze.  Over time, our young girls grow up and self-traffic with the misguided idea that our society's definition of beauty and utility are actually their own views of beauty and utility.  When this power is left unchecked, we grow up girls that become moms that perpetuate these panoptic principles in their own parenting with their daughters.  When insecure moms are still struggling with their own sense of identity and utility because they are still living to appease the power of the gaze, they end up passing their adult insecurities on to their daughters.  

The ultimate expression of the power of the gaze is the generational self-monitoring and behavior modification that takes place by moms with their daughters. Caveat: I am not suggesting that we take the puritanical approach to parenting.  To suggest that our girls and young ladies cannot wear fashion that is culturally relevant is an easy way out.  Of course, wisdom and discretion is important for both genders as it relates to just how much of our culture we embrace.  Also, to get the guys off the hook by saying to our young ladies, "Just stop wearing those kinds of clothes" is not acceptable.  I recommend the Job 31:1 approach, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman."  This is a great opportunity for parents to talk about disciplining our eyes, minds, and hearts to look upon others in ways that glorify God and affirm value of others.

Conclusion:

How does one negotiate a male-gaze dominated society?  It starts with a healthy and frequent dose of God’s truths spoken frequently to our girls.  The identity, value, and purpose of our girls are not connected to their ability to appease the gaze.  Rather, our children are infinitely valuable because they are made in the image of God and Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection gives them hope and value.  Put differently, the power of the Gospel has the ability to free our girls from the generational bondage of insecurity that manifests in dysfunctional relationships and in some cases sexually broken relationships. 

         
 For the sake of redundancy on exposing the power of panopticism, well-intentioned parents don’t even realize we are doing the work for the enemy by maintaining the very beliefs and practices of our hyper sexualized culture in our homes by allowing networks like Disney to innocuously shape the minds of our boys and girls to a set of values and norms that are NOT grounded on God’s truth.  As a result, the long reach of Disney is engaging in a  battle for the minds and hearts of our kids as well as successfully converting our children into consumers.  The consumerism of our children is another essay for another time. 

Disclaimer: My intention is not to pass judgment on families, Disney, or schools.  This social commentary is intended to be introductory material to the power of the panopticon that shapes our minds and hearts and converts us into our own captors engaging in practices that tighten the very shackles that keep us locked down in a confinement of insecurity, purposelessness, and, in some cases, a low view of God’s will to bring hope and happiness.

Human Trafficking Texts in the New Testament: Acts 16 and John 4:Literary and Theological Connections

Our family was invited to attend church with some good friends this morning.  We enjoyed our experience getting to see a lot of people we get to see everyday at school.  In our Bible class this morning, the text was Acts 16.  My friend did a great job leading the conversation.  This gave me a great opportunity to retrieve my knowledge on Paul’s second missionary journey.  It is true, at least in my experiences that when reading the Bible new observations and connections frequently occur.  This morning was one such experience of a new observation and connection.

Paul’s encounter with Lydia the seller of purple and the slave-girl with the spirit of divination in Acts 16 is a text that has anchor points that usually take my attention to some of the obvious themes in the text (Paul’s first convert in Europe, Paul and Silas put in jail for causing an uprising, and late night singing that led to a jailbreak), but this morning my mind wondered down a slightly different path investigating more subtle details of this narrative.  I guess when I say “more subtle details” it is because I was taught this text multiple times with a focus on the latter themes that developed a particular lens or a model of prior knowledge (intentional Bayesian brain reference) that allowed me to continually read over some details and only focus on others.  This morning I found myself focusing on the lesser details that may actually be the more significant details than Paul and Silas’ song induced, divine jailbreak. 

So, Acts chapter 16 gets off to a distracting start, especially, if you have just finished reading chapter 15.  The few verses leading to chapter 16 is Luke, the writer of Acts, describing the relational split between Paul and Barnabas.   Probably providential, Paul decides to take Silas and pick up Timothy on the way and head in a different direction than Barnabas and a young John Mark.  Paul has his Macedonian vision redirecting his itinerary to Europe.  While in Europe, the sequence of events seems to loosely parallel a few events from Jesus’ ministry.  It is important to know that my mental anchor or “prior” was reading again the ways the slave-girl was being trafficked by the men in her life.  This is much more than a jailbreak text!

By way of an exegetical disclaimer, I am not suggesting that my thoughts and literary parallels in this essay are either original or necessarily required in reading Acts 16.  With that said, the scene in Acts 16 conjures up literary and contextual parallels with Jesus’ ministry and events in John 4 and Mark 5.  I will be toggling between Acts 16, John 4, and Mark 5 for the remainder of this essay.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Lydia Seller of Purple

Paul gets a divine redirection from a vision to travel to Europe.  We find out later it is because God has two particular women in mind for this redirection.  Lydia is already a believer, but God opens her heart and she and her family are baptized.  Undoubtedly, Lydia is already an influential and wealthy woman.  However, prior to Paul’s encounter with well-respected Lydia, he has a juxtaposing encounter with another kind of woman. 

The text says the slave-girl was under the spell of an evil spirit as well as the trafficking control of the men of power in her community.  What is interesting is the spirit of Python controlling this woman immediately identifies Paul, “These men are servants of the Most High God.” Apparently, the slave-girl persisted in following Paul and Silas around identifying them.  After much frustration, Paul casts the spirit out of the slave-girl.  This created a major

Oracle of Delphi

problem since this girl was bringing economic gain to the male power holders in the city.  As well-connected, powerful men often do, they conspire with the rulers of the city and have Paul and Silas beaten and thrown in jail. 

Side bar conversation, this is actually a great text on the power of God over the established powers of evil.  Time and again in this story, the power of God overwhelms the power of evil.  While it is exegetically consistent to identify this text as a baptismal text with Lydia and her family in the opening scene obeying the Gospel and being baptized and the closing scene a baptism of the Philippian jailer, there is another sub-narrative taking place as it relates to race, class, and gender.  The gender piece is of particular interest to me.  I will discuss later in the essay.  Also, don’t miss the metaphoric connection between the Philippian jailor’s attempted suicide, physical self-inflicted death, which leads to his baptism (spiritual death of self).  Theologically, baptism is not a work per se.  It is a spiritual suicide of sorts with the individual making the profession to no longer allow self to govern but to submit to the Savior for liberation from the enslavement to sin.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well

In some ways, this parallels Jesus itinerary change in his travel from Judea back to Galilee by targeting Samaria in John 4.  From both the text and extra biblical evidence, we learn that Jews when taking that same route circumvent Samaria.  But in Jesus’ case, he has a particular woman in mind that compels him to break from the social and cultural norms of his day (Jews do not associate with Samaritans, especially, Samaritan women) to bring salvation to a lady that was trafficked by the men in her community. John’s description of Jesus’ conversation reveals this woman’s potential social utility among the men in her town, “The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” 19 The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.”

Back to Paul’s encounter with the slave-girl in Acts 16:16, we read in the text that this was a woman that was trafficked by the men in her town for economic gain.  She was inflicted with a spirit of divination as described by most major translations. After consulting the original language, the literal rendering should be “the spirit of Python”.  Thanks to my Bible scholar friend Dr. Curtis Elliott, he provided some useful context that the spirit of Python was closely connected to the priestesses that supported the pagan temples and priests of the Oracle of

Delphi.  These priestesses were ladies who possessed a prophetic spirit that was deployed after the temple frenzy of animal sacrifices and sexual orgies. 

Similarly, the Samaritan woman in John 4 quickly identified Jesus as a prophet.  Later in John 4 the woman proclaims, “27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” 30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.”

Here are a few literary and theological connections to consider between the texts:

• ·      In both passages, there is a divine itinerary redirection. 
• ·      In both passages, the central character is a woman forced into a social caste system that renders her marginalized by the men in her community. 
• ·      In both passages, the women make identifying proclamations that reveal the presence of God. In both passages, the messenger of the Good News (Gospel) brings salvation to the ladies usurping the power structures of human trafficking. There are overt sexual overtones in the Samaritan woman and covert sexual connotations with the role of the slave-girl and her potential utility to Delphic temple practices with her spirit of Python.
• ·      In both passages, the messenger of the Good News is admonished and or punished.  Jesus is admonished by his disciples for his elicit encounter with a “dirty dog Samaritan women,” and Paul and Silas are beaten and put in prison.
• ·      Cure ball connection, in Mark 5 the man possessed with a legion of demons immediately recognizes Jesus and identifies him as “Son of the Most High God.” Jesus casts out the demons and sends them into a herd of swine.  Notice the literary connection between the slave-girl in Act 16 identifying Paul and Silas as servants of the Most High God and the demoniac identifying Jesus as the Son of the Most High God.

Conclusion:

The literary connections are interesting, but the theological connections are most important.  In all three passages, we see the power of God to bring about freedom from enslavement, value to the marginalized, destruction of systems of human trafficking that serve to lessen and devalue, and hope for the weak over the strong.  These are the same themes that resonate today.  It would seem that humanity has advanced beyond the systems of gendering for the purpose of trafficking and enslaving over the course of 2,000 years, and yet, we see some of the evil power structures at work today.  The difference, today we seem to be a bit more sophisticated in masking these systems.  Further, unlike Jesus and Paul, the Christian community today struggles with both identifying these evil power structures as well as not syncretizing with such structures.  This last statement requires some explanation.

At least in our culture, we continue to directly and indirectly support systems of economy that specialize in sexualizing our girls.  While today’s places of trafficking are not ancient pagan temples with priestesses serving as prostitutes and engaging in orgies of sin; instead, they are every major NFL stadium across our country.  I am thinking of the NFL environment in my own city that prominently features pole dancers and plenty of libations to keep the crowd in frenzy status.  The experts that specialize in fighting human trafficking tell us one of the biggest sporting events in our country for trafficking is Super Bowl weekend.

Thankfully, the message of the Bible still resonates today.  The same God that put on human flesh to rescue humanity from sin’s slavery continues to provide the same salvation given to two unlikely ladies in our text.  Similar to both ladies featured in Acts 16 and John 4, in the kingdom of God, gender is not an excuse to enslave, dehumanize, or marginalize.  While sin’s bent is to possess for the purpose of re-imaging humanity away from God’s original design, Jesus entered our world to restore humanities image to holiness and relationship with the Creator.  It is no coincidence Satan corrupted and confused Eve and Adam in the Garden for the purpose of trafficking humanity for sin.  That original spiritual trafficking continues today.  There is only one source of salvation and liberation. Jesus, Son of the Most High God!!