John La Grou was talking recently about a 1% ecclesial elite and the 10% cultural creatives in the church world. I asked him to elaborate and thus a new blog post this morning.
"The emergence of virtual community, the virtual ecclesia, will radically change global religion in part because creatives-of-faith now have direct access to community formation. In virtuality, the 10% creative core no longer needs permission from 1% structural gatekeepers." John La Grou on Cultural Creatives
The term "cultural creatives" has been around for a decade. In the late nineties, a number of us were impressed by Paul Ray's research on "Cultural Creatives" and started using his tag for this demographic. I was even named by Dallas Morning News in a 1998 article as "Postmodern Apostle to the Cultural Creatives". Since then, Ray's research, and subsequent research by Richard Florida who used the term "Creative Class", has appeared occasionally in our writings and teachings.
"Paul Ray, from the Institute of Noetic Studies, came up with three groupings of American people in the mid Nineties. The Traditionals (29%) who are usually older in age, The Moderns (47%), who make up the mainstream and Cultural Creatives (24%) who represent the emerging culture and are the only group that is growing. His studies show that the Traditionals have much in common with the Cultural Creatives.
Ray divides the Cultural Creatives into two groups:
The Greens (13% of US adult population) who focus on social and environmental issues, and The Core Cultural Creatives (11%) who value spiritual integration. This Core group are the leading edge thinkers, says Ray, and twice as many of them are women than men."
Andrew Jones, Postmodernism and Global WorldViews, The Ooze, 2002
But back to the 1% superstar church leaders and the 10% creative priesthood. I have noticed a number of younger ministries [trying to avoid the "emerging" word here] recently shift from a key-solo-big-hairy-man-on-stage-leader situation to a shared leadership of a much larger group. Jesus Freaks, in Germany, for example, have just decentralized leadership to a much group of leaders who will guide the ministry into the future.
"So the new leadership team does not only consist of three people, as it used to, but about 35 people." "Deaconry team elected for Germany at Willo Freak"
Thats about 10% of their number. Joe might be right. Hmmmmm. . . . interesting!
