SOCIOLOGICAL LOVE Falling in Love with the World Legacy of Love

The Important Things of Life	There are three important things in life: faith, hope, and love. Faith is authentic selfhood ­ the courage to assert oneself in history over the yawning abyss of non­being. Hope is the trust that the leap of faith has meaning. Hope in this sense is not in the temporalities of history, but in the eternal mystery of life. Love is passionate care for this world. Love is the surrender of oneself on behalf of the need of the neighbor. The greatest of these three is love
Words Lost Their Meaning	When I was growing up any genuine meaning of these words had been lost. Faith was faith that God would run history, by himself, for the good of all. Hope was our sincere belief that all would be able to enjoy the "good life" in the future. Love was a romantic affection or a sentimental attachment to each other in the face of an insecure future.
Old World	My understanding of these words came from a church that had a different understanding of the world than we now have. The church matured within the Hellenic world In the Hellenic world there were two worlds, the material world and the ideal world. The church concluded that it could, through faith, realize the ideal world in this world. For centuries the world the church created has competed with God's world for the lives of men. The church decided that in order to be saved, it was necessary to leave the secular society and join the society of the church's world.
New World	Somehow man stumbled over the world of relativity. Men came to see that understandings of society (ideologies) were created by men and not, so to speak, given by God. The world of the church was seen for what it was, one ideology among many. Understandings of life were undercut that saw faith, hope, and love as special privileges and properties of the world of the church.

Living in Faith and Hope
Men of Faith And Hope	Sensitive men in the twentieth century experienced the ground drop out from under them. Life was devoid of meaning. The Journey to the recovery of humanness began with discovering what it meant to be men of faith, that is, what it meant to be an authentic self in the face of history. RS­I was a statement of this, man was finite and free. We saw that man created history, but what that meant concretely was obscure. The mission was to articulate the faith stance in every situation you can decide, be comprehensive, intentional, and futuric.
Wave of History	History presented the crises which demanded faith. To be a man of faith was to around oneself in time. For man in this century that was to understand oneself in a time of radical revolution. History moves in waves which sweep past the ripples, thrusting forward the future. For man to survive it was necessary to decide what truly was the great wave of history and ride that, and shape that on behalf of all.
Reduced Responses	Some people have vainly attempted to care for man's riding on the ripples of history. There were those who invested all in the care of each person's personal problems (psychologism). Others, discerning the release of spirit in this age, set out to find union with God, leaving the world behind (mysticism). Still others tried to cling to values of the past, declaring that the answers of the past could still guide man (moralism).
Bug Model	The spirit movement early in its life in Austin, Texas, conceived of an understanding of missional community that guided the movement to the great wave of love. This understanding, expressed in the bug model; on the one hand dealt with the interior life of a community (worship, study and discipline), and on the other hand dealt with the missional life (witnessing, justing and presencing love). The internal life was the arena of faith and the missional life, the arena of love.
Witnessing Love	We've come a long way with the bug model over the years. What was once a set of empty imperative categories has now become the content­filled, concrete reality of our life as the Movement. In the arena of witnessing love there is RSI, LENS and Popular Preaching.
Justing Love	We actually moved into direct care for the world in the arena of justing love. Consider the difference between the old meaning of demonstration, protesting and picketing, and demonstration which means catalytic renewal projects across the world from preschools to elders' centers. The local church experiment has begun and is nearing the stage of massive reduplication. Primal community is being built in many communities after the model of 5th City.

SOCIOLOGICAL LOVE

Presencing Love	Over the years styles have been re­invented, styles that release motivity in men. These styles are the guru, the guildsman and the religious.
Men of Love	In our journey as men of faith, we have learned what it means to love. Hopes we had of caring for the earth have now been given substance. Our decision to care seriously has been rewarded with requests from the world asking for our service. Despite our own doubts and weariness, new life has filled us and we are falling in love with this world.
Meaning of Love
Ontological Love	Our lessons of love have been hard won. Love cleansed of its sentimentality is now seen as the foundation of life. All men care, in truth all of creation longs for the union of its parts . Man discovers his love when he becomes conscious of the world, wonder and relatedness. The ontological love that cares for all transforms his immediate, self-serving love. Our fresh discovery of love provides the bridge whereby we can reach the new sociological form of the church.
Sociological Love	Today it is more evident than ever that the structures which sustain life Love are fragile. It is a1so clear that only through structure can one begin to care for the vast needs of mankind. The heart of the church's task is to balance the social process so that, adequate structures may come into being for our time.
Practical Love	Love is not a feeling. It is an action on behalf of the brother. Love is tactical and gives results. Love is catalytic; its force reverberates far into the future. If love is sublime, it is only because it remarkably transforms the very mundane situations in which it is exercised.
Task of Movement	The movement will have many jobs to do in the future but only one task to love. As H. R. Niebuhr put it, the purpose of the church is to increase the love of God and neighbor. The movement is to be the sign of universal concern and sacrificial service. The fruit of our love will be a practical globality for generations to come.
Witnessing Love Ontological Dynamics of Witnessing Love
General Context		In the sixties Michael Harrington pointed out that spirit was empty. He blamed himself, but the secret behind life's contingency is that life is tragic Once this reality is witnessed to, life becomes transparent. Witnessing love points to the wholeness that is possible when men can see that the tragedies of life are portents. Watergate points to the need for a new morality, the fuel crisis points to the need for Global citizenship and the fall of governments shows a need for new consensus. Man can be whole again because he sees that there are no failures, only unexpected results. He is won over to love.
Foundational Decision		This context allows man to make a new foundational decision that will reveal his dependency upon mystery, and therefore, affirm all life as given. Life becomes an illuminated gift. His decision to be that illumination of life is a deep internal struggle. Realities, and not illusions, confront him in his every day life experience.
Engagement Motivation		In the midst of this foundational decision, man is motivated to care for the social process and to engage in balancing it. Grounded in his foundational decision he has the audacity to say I am, the guts to live it. and the indifference to do it in three years. He becomes a social projection that creates tools to enable others to also experience a released sense of social responsibility.
Mundanity Illumination		Man becomes witness to the significance of every day life. He illuminates the mundane by staging a metamorphosis. He creates a situational address that enables depth participation which comes to others as a significant disclosure. The mundane becomes fascinating awe.
Religious Studies One
Secularized Religion			The twentieth century church has found that its symbols have become meaningless and that the recovery of those symbols can only be found in the secular world. There is nothing in the course other than every day life experience. RS-I is the most secular course the movement has.
Human Question			The main issue raised is: What does it mean to be authentically human? Man's reduced life images are shattered and he experiences his ancient prejudices being shaken. In the midst of this assault he is given the possible to live his life authentically in the twentieth century.
Contentless Word			Raising this human question gives man an opportunity to wrestle with the foundational dynamic of humanness the contentless word. This word does not belong to the Christian Church; it is life. It belongs to those who make the decision to be cruciformity. The content of the Word is everyman's life experience.

Global Awakenment	The indicative is every man needs RS-I. It is the only way to let men know what they know to enable them to name the mystery before which they decide to live their life. The task of global awakenment demands a global RS-I teaching net.
Living Effectively in the New Society
Religiousized Secular		Once man can see that he has the possibility to live a life related to all of history, he has a new understanding of himself relative to time. He sees he can change history. A new understanding of space is also discovered when he sees the earth from the moon. The shift to a global understanding uncovers the relatedness of all. Finally, one sees that the Indian village is a reflection of his own local situation. He decides what will happen to the globe (gas crisis, ecology, etc.. To deal consciously with this new context and relatedness demands that he participate with a leap of faith by trusting his gifts. This allows him to live as a man of freedom, consciousness, care and tranquillity in the midst of this world, and in so doing he lives as the other world.
Resurgent Content		Standing before the social process dynamic, he is enabled to see the imbalance of society diagrammed. Easily he sees the need to re­empower the weak political, redirect the economic and revitalize the cultural. Recovering the four phases of life gives him a vision of a significant task from birth to death. He receives a new existence when he can vision the restoration of the creative tension of his sexuality. He is conscious that he can create stories that give meaning to his life.
Human Motivity		Once the secular man sees the vision of resurgence, he is motivated to participate with a new understanding in the methods used in the course. Lens becomes a concrete model of methods he can utilize in his own local situation. Corporateness methods, strategy finesse and motivity methods become concretions of significant engagement in society.
Global Evangelism		The Lens course is a global network of teaching methods. Cabaret becomes the secular man's daily office; the Local Community Convocation emerges as the new sign of the old town meeting; and the Social Methods School takes form as the strategic battleplan zone for social groups.
Popular Preaching
Historical Transparency		Renewa1 of the church is not only a contemporary phenomena. In pre­ reformation times three things stood out as basic to renewal. Popular preaching was one of them. The way to push historical transparency is to give life form for the future. Man needs to give form to the needs and demands of the future, Contextualizing the past and present situation provides a launching pad. Spirit spins and intentional informal conversa- tions illuminate the mystery in the mundane. What is being created is a secular means of grace.
Everyday Consciousness		The intent of popular preaching is to increase our consciousness of every day. The awe of simple matter is given spirit. Its meaning is recovered for the individual mainly because his interior has spoken. This occasions the possibility for another to redecide to say yes to his life. Grasping this style allows man to effectively channel his care for his neighbor.
Spirit Methods		The amazing discovery is the formation of spirit methods. They are actually tactics for dealing with man's spirit. There are four basic method categories: conversations, spins, celebrations and symbols. The key is that these have been recovered as palpable tools to elicit life.
Intensified Participation		In the spirit of popular preaching, one's care for the mundane in life is rekindled. Man finds himself engaged in even his own suffering for he sees that he can choose to use it as strength for the Long March. Finally, this wins men for the world. Their participation is just intensified.
Justing Love Ontological Dynamics of Justing Love

General Context	Justing love is that dynamic which acts out what it means to care for society. It does this by releasing human, natural and technological resources for the benefit of all. Justing love is doing the deed of love by recognizing innocent suffering and doing whatever is necessary to remove the conditions that are preventing people from fully participating in life as a whole.
Meaning Demonstration	In order to build the spirit motivation that gives meaning to the acting out of the deed of love, it is necessary to rehearse the story of the role of a people in history. The structure within which the justing love dynamic is given form needs to enable that deed to be done ever and over again.
Ordered Community	The community that comes together to act out the deed of' love is responsible for building the structures that will care for all of society. They need to discern what is standing in the way of the relief of innocent suf-fering by seeing to it that all of the people are cared for all of the time.

Social Demonstration	The social demonstration of the justing love dynamic makes visible the various ways that society might be cared for. Responsibility for the relief of innocent suffering is demonstrated concretely by planned action that is intended to be a sign, that will enable all of society to provide the care that is necessary to sustain life.
Local Church Experiment
Self Conscious Community	The local church experiment releases the power of the people of God as a self­conscious community. This body of trained people serving the world as the form of the historical church is transformed into that which is necessary to insure that the dynamics of congregation, cadre and guild operate in history.
Human Drama	The local church has seen past life­giving images change and shift in such a way that society is in a state of collapse. This has caused intense human suffering. It is the task of the church to give meaning to that suffering and to rehearse the story about life that continually reminds all men that there is no situation that does not have the possibility of new life. The local church stands as a pioneer in forging a new style of life.
Church Dynamics	As the role of the people of God in history is redefined, it is necessary to rehearse their relation ship to the universal church, the local church and historical Christianity.
Corporate Servanthood	The corporate serving force of the local church embodies the style of the indicative which elicits service from others and offers new possibilities for deciding what the one thrust of a person's life will be. This force knows the glory of the total expenditure of life and provides the means of sustaining the mission.
Primal Community
New Community	In the twentieth century all of life is related to all of life, and the complexities of living on one globe are now manifest in every local situation. Local man has no practical way to deal with the overwhelming possibilities he sees before him. The re-creation of primal community offers every man the possibility of participating in the wonder and glory of every day life.
Human Society	As man becomes conscious of his relatedness to all of life, he sees the need for a way to effectively sustain life. As new forms of life are created, he is aware that all the decisions affect all the people and that it is necessary to deal with all the problems of the earth. The new forms of human sociality will be a reflection of all the gifts of all the people.

Battleplan Method	In our time every man has a picture of what he sees is necessary to sustain life, but a method is needed to give that focus and form. The methods of indicative battle planning offers to a community a way of forging the new practical vision, discerning what is blocking that from being realized, and a way of concretely proposing action and implementing practical ideas.
Local Globality	The local community is the life support system of this planet. It is the body of people that symbolizes and dramatizes life, as it allows all men to participate in the fear and fascination of human existence. The community itself is the arena in which every man can create what is needed for our time.
Social Demonstration
Socia1 Redirection	Social demonstration is a means for making visible, to the globe the possibilities of inventing the new forms of society. Each project demonstrates where society is blocked in its efforts at social redirection. Through social demonstration local man is brought into the decision­making process of history and is allowed to rediscover what it means to be a human being in a broader and deeper way.
Social Invention	The social process is dominated by the power of the economic dynamic in life. This causes the political dynamic to be an ineffective force and the cultural dynamic to have little or no power in determining the direction of history. The nine pressure points are avenues to social redirection and are impacted by reduplicable social demonstration projects.
Catalytic Projects	In the creation of social demonstration, it is necessary to deal with the whole globe. The catalytic projects of the Movement are intended to impact the nine pressure points in such a way that social redirection will occur. Concretely Oombulgurri is a sign that it is possible for local man to recreate and give meaning to his situation. The Elders of Uptown Chicago are a sign of the recovery of the significance of the elder as an authentic role in this time. The Ecumenical Parish Experiment in 50 cities is a sign of local participation in shaping the style of the new human in the new society.
Civilization Released	Social demonstration offers the opportunity for every man to serve his local situation in a way that will impact the world. The future promises creation of global signal demonstration and the redirection of the economic process through efforts of multi­national corporations which will effect change that will be visible in every nation on the face of the earth.

Presencing Love Ontological Dynamics of Presencing Love
General Context	When one releases others to be their greatness, through an ability to illuminate life and to release humanness in the community by throwing oneself into doing what is comprehensive and tactical; then one begins to become a presence of releasing awe. Abraham Lincoln's address to people at Gettysburg was more his presence than his words. He was a symbol of his own understanding of life itself. There is nothing religious about this category.
Disclosed Deeps	Many open their eves to the overwhelming suffering in the world but most either collapse and hide, or become angry in the midst of trying to care. Presencing love is being fully present to the agony, but living in harmony with the world. It is St. Francis' experience of stigmata, while being seen by others merely as one who talked with the birds. When most would quit presencing love is looking for another tack to take knowing there is a way. It is a presence that enables one to come up with creativity that surprises. There is no frantic looking for the key that will release the self, for there is an understanding that "I am whole."
Enacted Responsibility	Concrete care for the world happens in the midst of presencing love. There is a leap of faith to the possibility of caring for the world. Presencing love clarifies the context for caring and responsibility is enacted through strategies and tactics. It may feel like washing dishes for 1000 people or cleaning floors, but it looks to others like an exciting adventure. It is Tom Sawyer whitewashing a fence. When this dynamic is present there is a "body" you can point to after you have asked, "Where do you see care going on in the world?"
Depth Guardianship	Presencing Love never needs to go to some other world to receive its nurture, strength and vision. It gives men the possibility of just standing, before the human condition. It calls all our lives into question, for it pushes in front of our noses the truth that no man escapes being responsible for the globe, and that there is no time we can slip out from under the load. It enables men to become "statues in the sun" just standing with the weight of care and showing that the "loving way" is both possible for mortal man and that the life giving, relationship to that weight is one of "the gift of God in their lives."

Guru
Primordial Dialogue	The guru knows and illuminates the deeps of the human experience in relation to others, self, and the "utterly other." There is conversation with a vast army of meditative colleagues and friends from every Ur, historical age, and vocational endeavor. There is deep probing of the mystery, depth, and greatness of the self, and all this dialogue with the mystery points the guru to the mystery beyond the mystery. Einstein articulated this truth that every experience of mystery points beyond itself.
Creative Relatedness	The intent of guruing is to be the living embodiment of the invitation to love the world. The guru longs for men to see there are no problems in this world ­­ "Consider the lilies of the field..." As the illuminator of the mystery, the task is to enable others to be conscious of their self as relationship to the mystery, and then start the journey of relating to that consciousness. The assumption is that every man in his deepest selfhood wants to love God. The guru plays any role himself and creates any roles needed by others to get their greatness and weakness (synonymous) into history.
Symbol Maker	Every man is a symbol to others ­­ some of ineffectiveness and others of heroics. The guru uses his own symbolic power (his own mundane existence), to point to the mystery. "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." He uses space through intentional decor, symbolic art, timelines, etc. Finally, he draws out of his colleagues life­giving stories and myths which can be lived before.
Sacred Existence	The vision seen by the guru is global fellowhood. An illustration is the experience of LENS faculties who find brown men in India who have been part of the historical aristocracy, and brown men from the jungles of the Philippines who one generation ago were head­hunters) being colleagues in the midst of wrestling with the contradictions of the world. He sees men listening, living in, and .speaking out of the silence, which is the experience of internalizing the suffering of the world. He sees all men being capable of sainthood.
Guildsman
Secular Care	The guildsman dynamic is one of utter detachment, but complete engage- ment in caring for society through structures. A guildsman is a walking solution to the vocational crisis. He never asks, "What should I do?", or "How much will I get?" or "When will I retire?" His passion is for embodying the civilizing process. He demonstrates total expenditure. The context for this secular care is the whole earth.

Worldly Confidence	There is nothing ethereal about the guildsman. He exemplifies what it means to know that human beings change history. He pays the price of getting the expertise needed, in the needed arenas, for the now and the future. He is the sophistication called for and is at home with kings and convicts. His intent is to risk his whole life for his vision of the world knowing that history may say no.
Social Engagement	The concrete manifestations seen in this dynamic are just mundane things. You see a Jesus bring into being twelve priors and seventy colleagues willing to work in the world. The poor are still poor but "victim image living" has received a sharp blow. You see men and women about the task "without haste and without rest", and you see a million little things done which add up to victory. That is all you see.
World Citizen	The vision seen in this dynamic is of men seeing all that goes on in life through the screen of an adequate global grid, and a global ethic: A1l the earth belongs to all. All the goods of nature, all the decisions of history, and all the gifts of humanness belong to all. In a mobile world where troops need to be at the ready, a guildsman has his passport, but he doesn't sit around waiting to go to far away places with strange sounding names. He is always caring structurally for where he is on the globe. Seen in this vision is the New Earth coming into being.
Religious
Human Sign	Poetry is an articulation of a relationship to an experience of the mystery in some universal category such as death, birth, the seasons, etc. The style of the religious is being a poem on behalf of all. He is not filed away in the archives for there is no place to hide. The religious is like a Psalm ­­ always injecting into his articulation of life, exhortation, wrestling anger, thanks-giving and praise. The religious, because he knows that the destiny of man is dependent upon the dynamic he embodies, takes "care" of himself. In other words he does not commit suicide. Rather, he is the cruciform one who dies very intentionally, when history needs him and where history needs him.
Decisional Vocation	The religious is an utterly weak and crummy human being, who neverthe- less has heard, "You are my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." What he hears is that he has no excuses for not expending his life. To say "yes" to that call brings nothing to life that wasn't there before. Hence, the question "Why did I say yes?" is whispered in our ear by the devil at every opportunity time. The Yes of the religious is a radically unconditional Yes. It is the throwing of one's whole being (heart, mind, soul and strength) into loving the whole globe in his particular situation. It is the decision to be what is needed to enable his colleagues to stay with him on the journey for the sake of effectively loving the world.
Historical Orders	History slides on its eternal journey lubricated by the blood of historical orders. Orders are structures that intend to give form to a given understanding of life. These orders, when they take their task seriously always symbolize their decision. They "wear the blue", or take a new name, or wear a particular kind of hat. Their most elementary and basic covenantal relationships are made in the context of mission, knowing that missional desire is no guarantee of a successful covenant. Historical order puts into history the possibility of every man participating in "spilling his blood on the tracks of history." Thus no man can say he was not given the chance to decide to live.
Creational Collegiality	The vision of the religious is to deal a death blow to a major contradiction in life ­­ men wanting to reduce life to manageable tasks. Men want to sit in a corner, stick in their thumb, pull out a plum, and say, "Look at me, I'm terrific!" But what is called for is the New Earth. It will come into being through a new ecumenicity that makes available all the insights of humanness to all the world. The vision of the future is never very clear. Columbus did not see what the western hemisphere would be like 400 years after he "discovered it." He did ride the wave of the future from Spain to the New World. When this risk is taken the old boundaries of our universe crack and the New World is in being.