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The T-Factor

Could the power of the resurrection be the power that shapes all God’s creation? Scientists have found a three-fold pattern that govern all of God’s creation. But a fourth factor, claims futurist Jay Gary, made known in the Resurrection is the power that transforms all things new.  Isaac Newton once confessed, “I seem to have been only like a boy,” finding a prettier shell than ordinary, “while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

The quest for the unknown still calls explorers to unlock the secrets of God’s creation. One such pioneer has been Dr. George Land, general systems scientist and author. In 1971 he released the book Grow or Die, offering a unifying theory of transformation.

Land's S-Curve PatternLand proposed that all things grow and develop according to a universal three-phase pattern: 1) gather, 2) repeat and 3) share. As babies, we move through the “gather” phase by taking in nourishment and growing in size. The “gather” stage is marked by growth of sameness, simply getting larger without changing form. Once the first stage is accomplished, then the second stage of growth can begin.

In the “repeat” phase teenagers grow by influencing their peers to be like them. Growth is achieved by replicating one’s self or likeness in a given sub-culture. Our children do this when they join with their peers to dress or talk in like manner. At the biophysical level, cells do this by dividing, creating literal extensions. In Land’s terms, groups that form around self-similarity are replicating themselves and are in the second phase of growth.

Land’s third phase of growth – “share” – is the most mature stage. This is when adults mutually grow through reciprocal interaction and form a larger whole, whether it be a corporation, community or nation.

In “repeat,” phase two, we grow by maximizing sameness, but in “share,” phase three, we grow by maximizing differences, so that a higher social order or eco-system might thrive.

Land used an “S-Curve” to depict the growth of his phases over time. And if that was all there was, one might think that Land had merely depicted a normal product life-cycle in nature or in business, marked by birth, adolescence, maturity and decline.

But Land discovered another factor at work. Whether in business or in biology, in eco-systems or in astrophysics, a “bifurcation” occurs as phase three begins. A marginal portion of the system begins to create a counter-curve, representing a new three-phase “S-Curve.”

This new system ends up succeeding and encompassing the former system. Land considered it a development so surprising and capable in its new potential, he called this phenomenon “transformation.” For short, we might call it the “T-Factor.”

Transformation makes butterflies out of caterpillars. Transformation took us from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance. It takes dead churches and brings forth new life. As one of Land’s colleagues puts it, “transformation is the stuff of resurrection, the bringing back to order and life of a new higher order and new life.”

Lately I’ve been pondering that last statement. Could the process of covenantal transformation, from Old to New Covenant, be the design direction of the universe?

God gathered Israel from Abraham to Moses. He then repeated His likeness through her by a growth in holiness from Joshua through the Exile. Then Jesus came, sharing the good news of redemption, which was taken to the nations. This was followed by transform–the emergence of a higher and eternal spiritual order.

Empty TombCould the power of God revealed in the resurrection of Christ, be the operative power that guides all of God’s creation toward a greater whole?

The apostle Paul seems to affirm this when he prayed that the early Christians might comprehend the “immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe” according to “what he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Eph. 1:19-20).

In 1965 scientists documented that the Big Bang left a fingerprint throughout the universe in the form of low-level background microwave radiation.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the act of New Creation also left behind a blueprint, a T-Factor, by which all things come to maturity?

Dr. Jay Gary is president of PeakFutures.com, a foresight consulting group. Over the past twenty years he has helped non-profits, foundations, civic leaders, and strategic alliances to create more promise filled futures. He also teaches strategic foresight, innovation and leadership at the graduate level and through professional development courses.

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