Centered and Bounded Set

At the church I pastor, we had a leadership meeting last Sunday night where we talked about this theory called the centered set and bounded set. I drew a circle to represent the bounded set and then for the centered set, I drew a dot and a bunch of arrows represent people at different distances some aiming toward the center and others away.

Centered set thinking, as I understand it, has a center toward which people aim their respective lives, while the bounded set has to do with a set of beliefs or commonalities around which communities form. A bounded set for a church might be their doctrines, ethnic or socioeconomic similarities, or political view. (By the way, this theory applies far more broadly than the church). A centered set church would argue that Jesus is the center and so instead of say preaching about what one must believe, its emphasis would be on following Jesus.

This conversation, as you can imagine, was vibrant with both moments of "ah ha" and some push back. Being the ultimate example of centered set thinking, I blasted that they all must agree with being a centered set person. Kidding aside and hopefully point made, even in our conversation about this, a centered set tone is one that allows for a wrestling through the topic.

We very briefly touched on how this applies to proselytizing or evangelism. The the bounded set, I feel the pressure of getting you to acknowledge the basic doctrines as an outsider and then if you do, then I feel relieved and even excited that you are now "in". In the centered set way of thinking, I no longer have a hard line for those who are in or out. A couple blog posts ago, I told you about my conversation with the Jehovah's Witness and how comfortable it was. In part, I attribute it to the sense that I didn't know where his arrow was pointed. Even though he didn't believe in Jesus the way I do, who knows if the arrow of his life isn't in some way pointed to him.

Once again, I found myself in a conversation with a lady and her boyfriend at Panera. Our conversation started out with the obvious, rain. I mentioned that we were having some leaks at our church. She asked me about the church and off we were to a 30 minute conversation about faith. She hadn't been to church in years but found that she was desirous of a community to do faith with. The centered set idea, though I didn't use that phrase, caught her attention quite a bit and found it to be something she really liked and asking about service times and so on.

I don't know if she will visit or not but it sure was an enjoyable conversation on faith. It makes me wonder how many more unchurched folks would consider faith or church on those terms. I also wonder how the bounded and centered set thinking strikes you.