The Tectonic School Philosophy - Part 3

A series of posts outlining the background and purpose behind Tectonic School

This series of posts come out of the draft document that, combined with a sizable number of devotionals, will eventually comprise a book to help launch Tectonic School programs.

It outlines particular problems that are present in our society, our local churches, and in the lives of individuals and families. The solution offered is a plan to integrate a severely disenfranchised and undervalued group - young men - into meaningful involvement in local communities through training and employment in trade jobs and the life of the local church. This will be accomplished through cooperation in mutually beneficial relationships with local businesses, local churches, and local families.

This is the third post in a series. The first post is available here:

Institutions Place People in Machine Shaped Holes

If we examine virtually any long-standing institution, we will notice a trend towards inefficiency and immobility over time. As movements become institutionalized, there is an accrual of power and influence, but a loss of flexibility and immediacy. This means that in any large, centralized organization, it becomes almost impossible to accomplish even the simplest tasks that fall outside the normal parameters of operations. Bureaucracy and dogmatic thinking creep in, and the central purpose of organizations can be lost.

Contrast the inefficiency of this model with the practical wisdom of those who work with their hands - “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”¹  While we might imagine a phrase like this being used to express a consequence of laziness, such as meal privileges being withheld from a prisoner, for most people in most places this was simply a representation of reality. 

Humans will die if they do not work to obtain food. If a fisherman does not fish, he will not have fish to eat. Even to pick food off a plant is work - and the institutional powers affirm this.² The impulse to categorize, label and document everything can’t account for the power of people to simply act. When you are hungry, the fruit that you can grasp with your hand IS food, and when you eat it, your work has been productive; regardless of what the bureaucracy might say about it. 

There is a real power in the human ability to use our hands. We often forget this, because our “work” is so often mediated through machines and organizations. When we work in the digital space, we delegate the formation of our letters to the computer we type on. Each keystroke is identical to another; we don’t worry about penmanship, legibility, or consistency in the spacing of our letters and words. When our words are required to be put on the page, we delegate this task to a printer. At least the envelope is usually stuffed by hand. This is why we value a mailed letter more than an email, and a handwritten letter more than a printed one. The effort of using our own hands to express words of meaning to a loved one comes through on the page. 

This connection between the work of the hands and the labor of the spirit is something that has become obscured by the way that we live our lives in the digital age. Paul advised the Colossian church, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters”³ but this becomes of little comfort when the work before you is simply numbers on a screen, and you know that no matter how much you “accomplish” today, the same thing awaits you tomorrow, and forever. 

Those who can find satisfaction in an environment like this will be blessed. But for most of us, it’s hard to see how we can do anything differently because we are “working for the Lord.” Will our completion percentage increase from 93% to 94%? Will our ability to commune with Christ allow us to skip that last bathroom break and gain another .1% efficiency? 

If these are the differences between those who believe and those who do not, will our employer be impressed? Will they realize that it was your spiritual act of worship to sacrifice the comfort of your bladder to gain that extra point? Or will they simply decide that 94% is the new baseline, and complain when next month you only get to 93%? Is that how we imagine the Lord would act as an employer?

Contrast this with the trades of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. A fallow field is made ready to receive seed. A foundation is poured, a wall is lifted. An empty barn is filled with bales of hay. Broken things are fixed, new things are created. Wisdom is employed to know when the extra time and effort are necessary to get the job done right, or when a quick fix will do, and that extra attention can be better spent with family. 

In a scenario such as this, it is easy to see how one could imagine their work as being done for the Lord, and not man. Jesus worked for long hours, but He took time to retreat from the crowds. He praised not only the effort of those who worked diligently in His teaching, but those who worked shrewdly and with cleverness and ingenuity. He emphasized to Martha that some things superseded the need to get chores done, yet He himself picked up the basin and the towel to perform the lowliest of tasks for His disciples. 

The Body: Atrophied of Experience, Splintered in Time

The problem with applying many of the teachings of the Bible to our own lives is not that we have forgotten how to be spiritual, but in many ways it is that we have forgotten how to be human. We have begun to view ourselves as almost completely cerebral, treating the body as a vestigial remnant of an ancestral past. Our digital personas have become more meaningful to us than our physical selves. 

To remedy this problem, many have realized that physical and embodied expressions of spiritual activity are necessary to the complete health of human beings. Thus, things like Yoga, Tai-Chi, or disciplined breathing and meditation practices have become increasingly popular. There is a realization that the physical body must be incorporated into our spiritual practice. Conversely, whatever the physical body is oriented towards will become the substance of a person's spiritual life. For many, the link between the physical and the mental/spiritual becomes so deep, that even if they were not seeking it, working out becomes their religion, and the gym becomes their temple.

However, as this becomes another necessary use of our precious and limited time, what is meant to rejuvenate the soul can become a burden on our conscience. Like most things in life, these disciplines require faithful and regular practice to bear the fruit that is promised. Only those with the luxury of time, (which is afforded by the luxury of financial security) can fully benefit from these practices. When the demands of work and household duties become urgent, the time for meditation is often the first thing to go, and if this was not already a part of your routine, then physical exercise is the next thing to be eliminated. 

Our disjointed society has placed an extreme burden on the individual to balance and maintain all the aspects of a healthy and meaningful human life: Career success, financial stability, a stylish apartment, a beautiful home, a fashionable wardrobe, the newest gadgets, exciting experiences, meaningful friendships, passionate romance, carefree sex, travel and adventure, physical fitness, intellectual stimulation, mental health, spiritual awareness, healthy diet, culinary delights, total freedom and autonomy, the benefits of marriage and family, a full nights sleep - and all of this is to be displayed in an edited and curated form for others to see and enjoy on social media. 

The completely illogical belief that all of these things are simultaneously necessary and possible for an individual to achieve and maintain guarantees that no one can rest peacefully at the end of the day, because they have certainly failed in several areas of their life. The same spirit that infects countless other worldviews throughout history is present in the culture of our day - the spirit that demands more and more, until it consumes all of our time, effort, energy and willpower. Despite our best efforts, it will not be satisfied. 

Christians have by no means escaped this trap; for many, many people, attending church, small groups, Bible studies, participation in outreach and service, as well as daily habits of prayer and reading the Bible simply become more items that must be stuffed into our already busy lives. The perpetual failure to do so leaves us in a state of near constant disappointment. 

The only solution to the various and overwhelming demands placed on our time and attention, is to eliminate as many as necessary to make our lives manageable and reasonable. 

This is the solution that is espoused by leaders in many areas, and the solution that many people arrive at simply by exhausting the other options. The question is, what becomes central, and what is discarded?

For entrepreneurs and workaholics, career success and accumulation of wealth becomes central. In making this a priority, other things may still be important, such as fitness and image, because this aids in achieving the central goal; but relationships, family, leisure activities, and the pursuit of the arts become much more likely to be eliminated. 

For gurus of fitness and health, the needs of the body become central, diet and exercise, and this can shade towards the spiritual as well, in the form of new age spirituality. What becomes secondary for this group can be more varied, it could be family, or financial stability, or intellectual pursuits. 

Many people are “led” not by individuals, but by the powerful forces of marketing agencies in our consumerist economy. This can be expressed in the form of “Influencers” - those stylish fashionistas who enjoy posting about their clothes and fine dining experiences in a cosmopolitan setting. However, it is the same central principle that leads the fast-food addicted video gamer who still lives in his parents basement. The things eliminated as irrelevant are different, but the guiding principles are the same. 

Christians would espouse that our relationship with God is the central thing that should guide our life, and I would suggest that this is true; but within that frame, we are also tempted to make certain secondary principles within the faith central, and eliminate others due to our finite natures. If someone is in a relationship with God, we can be hopeful they will discern what to make central, and what should be eliminated. We understand that as an individual, a choice to forego marriage and family as an act of service towards God could be a beautiful thing. It can become a very dangerous thing when the culture of the church elevates this lifestyle to an implicit position of higher spiritual value than marriage and parenthood. 

In an effort to focus on the most central things, there are a few ways that Christian communities have tended to overemphasize one element of the Christian walk, while undervaluing another.
Perhaps the most common one in our current culture is the emphasis on a model of attractive evangelism. The well-intentioned desire to bring as many people into the church to hear and experience the message of the gospel has resulted in a dilution of Jesus’ command to make disciples who obey all of His teachings. 

While the formation of this method of church building was started as a corrective reaction to the ossified traditions of the past, it too had the potential of making central a secondary, if underemphasized, aspect of the Christian faith. In reality, this version of the Christian faith holds very little influence over the lives of its adherents outside of a few hours on Sunday.

The disillusionment with this commercialized, marketing driven form of Christianity has led many people to abandon the faith of their parents. If they come to embrace Christianity in some other form, the tendency is to look back towards the past, to some prior form, in order to avoid the mistakes that caused Modern Christianity to go astray. 

The next post in this series is available here:

1. 2 Thessalonians 3:10, CEV

2. Matthew 12:1-2 “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.””

3. Colossians 3:23