Date:  1 January 2005
Contact:  Second 8th Week Offices, Pt. Huron

Gap Analysis Accountability Performance Reporting: 

Evaluating and measuring program performance, providing analyses, options, recommendations, and assistance, helping Christian Leadership make effective changes in Spiritual Accountability Rating System (SARS) 

Half-Life
 

Benchmarking is about setting a standard for performance and measuring that performance for stable, predictable repeat engagement that demonstrates favorable outcomes. This report finds that the Christian Industry lacks a reference standard that identifies the qualitative nature of the power of Christ upon His knowledge and the tools of His kingdom. As a result Half-Life has grown increasingly prominent in transdenominational models of faith and the number of disaffected believers have grown proportionately.

The persistent evidence of Half-Life in Christian experience is troubling and raises competency questions. Subject Matter Experts in every field set competency standards for knowledge proficiency and benchmark those standards because they produce the desired results. Christian Industry experts have benchmarked standards for faith and spiritual development that prohibits spiritual literacy and the capabilities of believers to reach their spiritual goals.

Christian Industry (CI) Analysis

Benchmark Report:

Half-Life

By Eric vonAnderseck TH.D., D.D.

Abstract

This report relays my findings in regard to Half-Life and addresses the performance of the Christian Industry. In speaking of Christianity as an “industry” I am not speaking of the producing of goods and services for sale, although in some ways Christianity has become highly commercialized. Christianity can be described as an “industry” in that each faith practitioner, whomever he or she may be, has developed a tradition of faith practice associated with public ministry for public consumption. That practice may be implemented for a month, a year, or a lifetime. Regardless of the length of time it is utilized, the tradition is presented to learners with a set of very specific predictions and engagements. This report reviews the predominance of Half-Life as a factor in transdenominatinal faith traditions. I surveyed Christians from 36 different denominational and non-denominational backgrounds who had also supplemented their Christianity with 123 different ministers, authors, speakers, and televangelists. I found that program application across denomination lines and across ministry lines consistently carried Exigent Faith symptoms and behaviors. I asked questions about program promises and outcome, the ease or difficulty of program language, program sustainability, and program maturation.

I found that the bench tests used by faith practitioners are prejudicial in that they are based on prediction and engagement rather than program outcome. Survey results confirm this approach as problematic. I found that believers who used those benchmarks did not have the  knowledge or competency skills to succeed in their Christian faith and felt defeated. I have designed a multi-scale analysis tool to measure concrete Christianity against abstract Christianity, to measure the veracity of truth against program performance, using a common Christian Performance Index (CPI) as an indicator to take the temperature or reading of Christian experiences and leadership performance. Questions about program achievement are addressed through my Impact Studies (IS) and Gap Analysis Reporting (GAR). The data is used as pointers to criteria for evaluating information about program achievement. Through my Spiritual Accountability Rating System (SARS) I am introducing new measures and standards for evaluating Christian doctrine, discipline, and program performance.

Contents

1     Introduction……………………………………………..................................…….3

2     What is Half-Life?……………………………………..................................……..4

               2.1  Figure 1: EVA Disparity Index: Half-Life Benchmark Report..................…6

            2.2  Half-Life Survey Samples: I. Program Outline.................................……7

            2.3  Half-Life Survey Sample: Table 1................................................……9

            2.4  Half-Life Survey Samples: II. Program Outline.................…...............…9

            2.5  Half-Life Survey Sample: Table 2.................……..............................10

3    Compound Depreciation Rate: Hyphenating the Index..............................…11

               3.1   Figure 2: EVA  Disparity Index: Low-End Spiritual Yield...................…..13

            3.2   Figure 3: EVA  Integrity Analysis: High-End Spiritual Yield....................16

            3.3   Table 3: IDCCST Spiritual Achievement Table:

                   Benchmark Indicators ............................................................….…17

4     Defining the Exigent Faith & Faith Exploitation…….………………….…..…..…19

               4.1   Exploitation at the Emotional Level............................................……23

            4.2   Exploitation at the Financial Level................................................…26

            4.3   Exploitation at the Behavioral Level..............................................…28

5     First Generation Knowledge Vs. Further Generations of Knowledge….…......33

            5.1   Program Promises and Outcome.................…...............................…35

            5.2   Ease or Difficulty of Program Language......................................……37

            5.3   Program Sustainability............................................................……38

            5.4   Program Maturation.................…..................................................40

            5.5   Figure 4:  EVA Disparity Index:

                   Prediction, Engagement, and Outcome.......................................……43

6     Program Exhilaration (PE) and Induced Insight Phenomena (IIP).........……51

               6.2   Spiritually cleaning house.................….......................................…54

               6.3   Introspection changes your perspective.....................................……56

            6.4   Emotional Release..................................................................……56

            6.5   Closure................................................................................……57

            6.6   Clarity.................................................................................……58

            6.7   Table 4: EVA Disparity Index: Plotting Program Exhilaration                               and IIP against Exigent Faith Symptoms....................................……63

     Conclusion…………………………………………………………...........………………71

1.  Introduction

I am suggesting a reexamination of current Christian Industry (CI) performance measurements to establish new standards that benchmark program achievement. Current CI benchmarks for performance are varied, demonstrating tremendous gaps. There are countless test benches that have been produced to model many different forms of Christianity. These test benches are habitually plagued by Exigent Faith symptoms and behaviors, which are strangely normalized by CI experts and accepted as “par for the course.” Successive generations of faith traditions use the same standards and experience the same Exigent Faith symptoms and behaviors.

When questions about program accountability, program performance, and program achievement were asked, those surveyed cited Half-Life as a specific Exigent Faith symptom that was troubling.  Half-Life consistently showed up in my surveys as the most frustrating aspect of faith and was cited as the most devastating to Christian experience. My Impact Studies (IS) suggest that Half-Life demonstrates consistent low-end spiritual yield.

When asked about their feelings about Half-Life those surveyed admitted that although they had many gratifying and fulfilling spiritual experiences, these did not hold up against Exigent Faith symptoms and behaviors, were not lasting, and did not translate into Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation (CCST). As a result, those surveyed did not feel that they were living up to their full potential in Christ. Survey results showed that questions of permanency reached into every facet of the Christian life and spiritual walk with God.

My Impact Studies look at the many rewarding Christian experiences and ask why these experiences did not translate into CCST. Survey participants revealed that while Program Exhilaration (PE) provided moments of peace and feelings of comfort, these experiences were accompanied with paradoxes that translated into aggravating factors upon the soul that needed mitigation.

I found that by removing the antecedents of Half-Life from doctrine and discipline I was able to remove the paradoxes from faith and remove the aggravating factors upon the soul and remove Half-Life. I have engineered an effective test bench that allows CI analysts to look at the root causes of Half-Life and propose remedial measures that allow faith participants to make their own choices for faith and reach their spiritual goals 100% of the time. My test bench also allows leadership to benchmark new standards and think in new terms concerning program accountability.

2.  What is Half-Life?

Half-Life is about exponential decay. The half-life is the time required for subject matter to fall to half of its initial value... the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life).

We can look at the depreciation of a car in terms of Half-Life. We have heard it said that as soon as a new car is driven off the lot it has already depreciated. We can see that depreciation is measured in terms of the loss of value over time. When we buy a car we take into consideration things that will help us estimate the “life” of the car in terms of value when we want to trade the car in for a new vehicle. We want the advantage of a high trade-in value. Therefore, we take into consideration the location in which we will drive the car. Is it a cold state that uses salt on the road in winter time that will corrode the vehicle in less than 2 years? We may take into consideration the total number of miles we intend to put on the vehicle as well as type of travel. Will we use the vehicle predominantly in the city or on the highway?

Everything that depreciates has a rate of depreciation that can be calculated. Why do people calculate the rate of decay? Why do we take the time to measure Half-Life? We have determined that it would be beneficial for us to predict an outcome. These considerations would also come into play when thinking about painting the house.  A high quality paint is guaranteed to last longer than a low quality paint, meaning that you can wait longer before you have to repaint your house. When purchasing a furnace or air conditioner, or even a new roof on the house, we take into consideration the life of the product and the rate of depreciation.

When administering prescription drugs, half-life is considered in prescribing dosage. The affect of the drug on the body is seen in how it interacts with the body. Things like absorption, metabolism, and elimination are measured against drug concentration. The chemical nature of the drug and its size are also important factors that are taken into consideration as these, in some ways, govern the distribution of the drug within the body.

Pharmacokinetics is the study of the time it takes for the body to metabolize a drug. Subject Matter Experts could of course, provide more detail, but these few notes fit the purpose of this report. Half-life is a scientific way of looking at evidence. If you bought a car and kept a detailed maintenance log then you could feasibly chart the rate of decay for the vehicle over a 10 to 20 year period. The chart would reflect the rate of decay against expected life span of auto parts taking into effect the rate of usage.

Applying Half-Life to Systemic Theology is critical to understanding God’s ecosystem. Just as drugs have a predictable and measurable impact on the body, and salt has a measurable and predictable impact on the metal of a vehicle, the law of sin and death and the law of grace and truth each have a measurable and predictable impact on the soul and spirit of man.

Knowledge base for drug interaction with body chemistry is essential for professionals to make intelligent decisions in prescribing drugs. When Subjective Theology replaced Selective Theology and Intuitive Faith replaced Cognitive Faith, expectation was removed from the process of God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation (IDCCST). A knowledge base titrated with FGK², random application of programs, use of spiritual tools that merely mitigated aggravating factors, all had an affect on the CPI, producing very short-term results. These can be charted to demonstrate the presence of Half-Life. 

Half-Life is so wide spread in Christianity that it has sadly been accepted as par for the course. Clients of faith are aware of program Low-End Spiritual Yield and Short-Term Experience and accepted these outcomes as normal. Leadership helped faith clients mitigate the negative fallout of Half-Life by recasting elusive spiritual goals into a spiritual journey, thus benchmarking “journey language.” Faith Participants are said to “journey towards” their spiritual goals in place of achieving their spiritual goals, thus enduring continued Low-End Spiritual Yield. Much like waiting for your “ship to come in”, Half-Life is justified and tolerated.

2.1.  EVA Disparity Index:

Figure 1
 

Christian Performance Index (CPI): People within every Christian religion make great efforts to reach God, to touch Him, know Him, connect with Him, walk with Him, and understand Him. They reach to take on the virtues of Christ; they reach towards God in order to understand their own origin, purpose of life, and eternal destiny; they reach for a life free from sin and free of the pain of guilt and shame. People strive for tangibility in their faith and wait in expectation for God to give substance to their hope. Anything that Christians reach for spiritually can be regarded as an index, a Christian Index. Christian education is provided to engage faith participants with doctrine and discipline in an effort to facilitate these spiritual goals, to generate a performance for the index. Church environment and programs are specifically designed to generate this performance. When asking accountability questions, we are asking, “How does the index perform?” We are talking about a Christian Performance Index (CPI) and asking about the success of faith participants to reach their spiritual goals. The performance of  Christians is not under investigation, rather the performance of the index is under investigation. How does the index perform?  We are asking questions about program success and failure. The question of program accountability requires faith educators to rate the index based upon sustained success of learners to reach their spiritual goals, thus demonstrating Rate Accountability.

The ability to measure success has been highly problematic in the past. Subjectivity in the baseline was reflected in subjectivity in experience. However, I found the behavior of Exigent Faith symptoms to be predictable and therefore traceable.

Exigent Faith symptoms such as Half-Life, Sliding Scale, program recall, and mitigating tools demonstrated in Journey Masks are all predictable symptomatic behaviors that are common to the Exigent Faith. After introducing Rate Accountability, both faith practitioners and faith participants were able to use my benchmarks as a means of measuring the veracity of the baseline. When asking questions about the performance of the index, the success of the index can be rated by measuring the veracity of the baseline against Exigent Faith symptoms. The veracity of any truth is measured in light of its power. If the veracity of the baseline has no power over Exigent Faith symptoms then Choice Education dictates that the baseline is titrated. Titration of the baseline restricts the dynamic behavior of the index and as a result, the index is depreciated.

The new Spiritual Accountability Rating System (SARS) that I have launched addresses the overwhelming challenges of faith and pressing need to maintain a rating system that actually rates the performance of the index rather than mitigates the fallout of failed performance. The ability to rate the CPI and track Exigent Faith symptoms is essential to the success of all Faith Participants to reach their spiritual goals.

Titration:  When the CPI is tethered to the baseline of First Generation Knowledge (FGK ¹) it is empowered by God and Christians reach their spiritual goals 100% of the time. When the baseline is titrated with Further Generations of Knowledge (FGK ²), the CPI is tethered to a titrated baseline and the power of God is removed from the knowledge. As the Apostle Paul described titration when he said, “…A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1Cor. 5:6). Jesus instructed His disciples concerning the undesirable leaven as the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. “Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees… Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Mt.16:6,12). When the baseline is titrated with FGK ² it is leavened and is no longer stable. Titration introduces the Variable into faith, which is incompatible with God and His truth.  The power of God only evaluates to Himself. In the absence of the power of God, the human will must take over and empower FGK ², working with seducing spirits who tether the CPI to powers that are spiritual, but not sanctified by God.

Paradoxes are introduced with the titration that keeps the CPI out of reach. The most infamous paradox that is recognizable among the Christian masses is stated as follows, “The Christian life, properly understood, is not complex nor difficult. As a matter of fact, the Christian life is very simple. It is so simple that we stumble over the very simplicity of it, and yet it is so difficult that no one can live it!” Research data, gap analysis reports and clinical evidence strongly support this claim to be true. My independent research and clinical evidence further shows that this is only true when the baseline is titrated. It is not true for IDCCST.

T he chart represents the common peaks and plunges of spiritual experiences when the baseline is titrated, thus affecting the performance of the Christian index. The peak takes place through engagements such as prayer, retreat, worship, seminar, and step programs, which excite the soul and empower the will. Peak decay demonstrates the plunge that faith participants experience when the will can no longer sustain the engagement and is exhausted and therefore the soul falls into confusion and frustration. The Spirit of God is not carrying the CPI to completion and the will cannot sustain the spiritual tools and thus, the goals are kept out of reach. The human will is limited when the CPI is titrated in that it is no longer supported by the power of God and can only use the tools that empowers the imagination. The human will is therefore limited in its ability to sustain the engagement.

2.2.  Half-Life Survey Samples

I.  Program Outline: Sermons are preached about love, joy, peace, compassion, goodness, and forgiveness. This challenge is given to the conscience and programs are put into place to help facilitate opportunities for transformation. These programs may include, but is not limited to: prayer, forgiveness, giving to the poor, giving of your time and talents, worship service, learning how to “let go, let God,” and remembering what the Bible has to say about the issues you face, and learning to walk by the Spirit. Those surveyed were asked whether or not they were involved with these types of programs. They were asked if the programs worked. Meaning, did the programs facilitate transformation? I asked questions about the clarity of the language of the programs and frustration over failure to reach spiritual goals. 

2.3.  Half-Life Survey Sample 1

Table 1

The church is clearly facing a massive faith crisis. Christians are straining to receive from God and then straining to sustain what they have received.  A major problem facing the church is understanding that the test benches for discipleship programs are missing the mark. Thousands of Christians experience faith crisis. Leadership reaction is to fuel efforts to rectify the problems of the past by diverting attention to new discipleship programs. This does little to solve the underlying problem of a baseline that is titrated with FGK².

2.4.  Half-Life Survey Samples

II.  Program Outline: Sermons are preached about how to live and act like Jesus, how to imitate Him, and how to love humanity like He did. This challenge is given to the conscience and programs are set in place to help facilitate opportunities for transformation. These programs may include, but is not limited to: prayer, forgiveness, giving to the poor, giving of your time and talents, worship service, learning how to “let go, let God,” and remembering what the Bible has to say about the issues you face, and learning to walk by the Spirit. I asked Christians if their faith practitioner predicted that Christ would rule in their heart, that their faith would grow, that God would give them the ability to show mercy and goodness and heal their emotional wounds. Naturally the predictions were based on diverse program engagement, discipleship models, doctrine, and discipline. Regardless of the diversity of engagement, the predictions were all the same. I asked those I surveyed about their successes and failures.

2.5.  Half-Life Survey Sample 2

Table 2

Negative response to program success was based on lack of program permanency. The many spiritual experiences did not culminate in IDCCST and were reduced by Half-Life. Questions of permanency lead to questions about what factors restrict the index to reduce the rate of increase. What factors cause the index to depreciate?

3.  Compound Depreciation Rate: Hyphenating the Index

We can understand the CPI; we understand what people reach for and why they strive for tangibility in their faith. We can understand Rate Accountability and why we need to rate an index according to its performance rather than rating it according to prediction of performance. What restricts an index and makes it behave poorly and depreciate? To understand how the CPI is restricted we need to talk about how the index is hyphenated. This means that the question of index performance is answered when we hyphenate the index to examine how the index is valued by looking at what is connected to it or to see what it is not connected to. In that sense we are looking for key elements that are critical for performance yet not represented.

The index will either be hyphenated to the baseline and valued for IDCCST, which will manifest ongoing positive performance of the index, or the index will be hyphenated to predictors that restrict the performance of the index. The dyn