Podcast Download: Episode 16 - The Forgotten Ways - Chapter 7
Download: Podcast Episode 16 - The Forgotten Ways Chapter 7
If you right click on the sermon, then click "Save Target As", you can save the MP3 to your computer.
Chapter Seven Quotes – Organic Systems
The main stimulus for the renewal of Christianity will come from the bottom and from the edge, from sectors of the Christian world that are on the margins. – Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular Society, p 179
The most probably assumption is that no currently working business theory will be valid 10 years hence… And yet few executives accept that turning a business around requires fundamental changes in the assumptions on which the business is run. it requires a different business. – Peter Drucker, “A Turnaround Primer”, p 179
…as we grew and began to operate in the classic church growth mode it became increasingly harder to find God in the midst of the progressively more machine-like apparatus required to “run a church.” With numerical growth, it seemed that we were increasingly being drawn away from the natural rhythms of life, from direct ministry, and that our roles seemed to become more managerial than every before. But the mechanization of ministry was not only felt by the leadership of the church; the people in the church were increasingly being programmed out of life and therefore less engaged in active relationships with those outside of the faith community. – p 182
Living systems whether organic in form (e.g., a virus, a human being) or systemic organizations (e.g., the stock market, a beehive, a city, or a commercial enterprise, even crystal formations), seem to have a life of their own and possess a built-in intelligence that involves an aptitude for survival, adaptation, and reproduction. – p 182
…we need to move the system toward the edge of chaos; that is, it needs to become highly responsive to its environment. The assumption here is that if it will not deal with real issues facing it, the system will not adapt and will thus perish in the context of any significant adaptive challenge. – p 184
…because systems exist in a mass of disordered information, the task of leadership here will be to help select the flow of information and focus the community around it. Not in order to dominate and try to predetermine the outcome, but rather to supply accurate and meaningful information to the system so that it can in-form itself in response to it. – p 184
So religious institutionalism happens when in the name of some convenience we set up a system to do what we must do ourselves so that over time the structures we create take on a life of their own. A classic example is churches outsourcing education to external organizations. Initially these training organizations exist to fully serve the grass roots. However, over time they increase in authority, eventually becoming ordaining bodies whose imprimatur is needed to minister. As the provider of degrees, they become increasingly more accountable to the government bodies than they do to the mission of the church. But the net result for the local community is that not only do they become dependent on an increasingly powerful and cloistered institution, they also lose the ancient art of discipling and educating for life in the local setting. The local church as a learning and theologizing community is degraded as a result. – p 187
As far as I am aware, no historical denomination has ever been able to fully recover its earlier, more fluid and dynamic movement ethos again. – p 188
It is perfectly true to say that most groups that have impact on either a local, national, or international level almost always begin with a form that sociologists call a movement. – p 191
Most transformational organizations, religious or otherwise, are launched with a certain ethos and energy that starts with a seminal vision/idea and swells like a wave to impact society around it. – p 191
We must constantly subject our institutions to prophetic critique, because it is the prophet, in his or her simple call to faithfulness to God alone, that is most aware of the dangers of the claims that institutions make on faith. – p 195
Since Constantine, it seems that we have simply got it all mixed up. – p 196
Labels: Grass Roots Podcast
posted by Brian at 11:33 AM
2 Comments:
I don't know if you guys are interested in feedback on the podcasts or not... but this episode brought to mind two things, and I don't offer them as criticism, but just as general observations, and the second one more as a question.
First, I have been involved with two different church plants and three different more traditional churches (or churches that have been around longer - I'm still not sure how long we get to call a chruch plant a church plant)... anyway, it has been my experience that there isn't as much difference between church plants and what we think of as non-church plants. People are people. I remember in a core group meeting to plant the one church, and I don't think we had even been meeting publicly for a month yet, before someone said, "But we've never done it taht way before." At the same time, I am presently in a church that was planted in 1881 and we have no more structure than the ones you mentioned. Granted, I think there ARE churches that would be hard to change, but I also think there are a lot of our smaller churches where it wouldn't take that much at all. I think a lot of people are LOOKING for change. But maybe that's just me.
The other thing is a question. And I ask it because I struggle with it myself, and I don't know how to answer for myself or for anyone else, and maybe there is no answer or need for an answer. But it concerns the "flattened" hierarchy of the five-fold pattern (I don't know if you used these terms exactly, but I think you know what I mean). From listening to this podcast it seems that Bill and Brian are at the top of their hierarchical structures, and everyone else is flat underneath. Which means it isn't really flat. Do you understand what I mean? I mean, in my church, I WANT it to be organic and flat - where we all have our part and share in ministry and whatnot - but it still seems to be dependent upon me getting everyone else there. Which is what it sounded like you guys are doing too. So is it really organic if we are ... stirring the pot, so-to-speak? Isn't this still a leader-down situation?
First, I can tell you I am exceptionally interested in your feedback on the podcasts! You are even welcome to criticize.
As for your observation, "it has been my experience that there isn't as much difference between church plants and what we think of as non-church plants. People are people." This has not been my observation.
I have experience in five churches.
1. The one I grew up in (traditional)
2. What became my home church, which I also at one point was on staff (traditional)
3. Church plant (more of a restart) in Ohio. I was an elder in that church. (Plant)
4. Pastored a traditional church
5. Planted a church.
The church I have planted is much different than any of the other churches.
I would agree with you that there are smaller churches "where it wouldn't take that much at all."
As for flat and organic, I did say in the podcast that we are not as organic as I would like. But I can tell you this: organic isn't flat. It is just flatter than hierarchical.
As I described the functioning of our church, there were several cells of functioning groups, and I don't so much lead those groups as facilitate them, though I do provide leadership to our church. It is also the hope to raise up leaders to make those cells more independent and even to raise up leaders to facilitate more flatly structured cells.
At Exponential 2009, Neil Cole showed us a picture of a flat organic structure and it wasn't flat, it was flattened. There was not just one place that it all started (no CEO) and there was not clearly an end.
An organic structure is not totally flat.
Does that help?
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