creating a place where people naturally connect
by: Joseph R. Myers
Baker Books, 2007
Foreword by Randy Frazee teaching pastor, Willow Creek Community Church; author, The Connecting Church and Making Room for Life:
"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils." Francis Bacon, a seventeenth-century philosopher, penned these prophetic words. Accepting a new reality and moving people toward it is the clarion call of leadership. But change and transition can be a difficult task. Machiavelli said, "There is nothing more perilous than change." Because change is so difficult, we often delay moving in the new direction due to the mistaken notion that while things may not get better, they certainly won't get any worse. Now, instead of making the necessary changes, we also must deal with the negative effects of postponing that change.
A new reality is upon us, and change is already delinquent.
In the pit of the stomachs of most church leaders I know, there is this gnawing sense that Christian community has to be more natural, spontaneous, and life-giving. Yet most of us in ministry today have been trained to offer up models that are often overprogrammed and contrived.
Readers beware. Joe is not offering "Organic Community Kits." That is not his style. Rather, he provides a solid framework and makes us think for ourselves. He even encourages us to challenge his thinking. After years of being friends with him, I know that Joe is less interested in people thinking he is right than in good, healthy, honest dialogue taking place on the real issues of community.
Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003):
Transformation comes more from pursuing profound questions than seeking practical answers.
When we look for tools and techniques, which are part of the How? question, we preempt other kinds of learning. In a sense, if we want to know what really works, we must carefully decide which are the right questions for this moment. Picking the right question is the beginning of action on what matters, and this is what works. This is how we name the debate, by the questions we pursue, for all these questions are action steps. Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto a greater depth of understanding, action that will take us into being more fully alive.
Organic community has the human complexities that promote artistry over mechanics. In our worship of "how-to" pragmatism, we have in some cases treated the church as an object and programmed the life out of it. It would do us well to remember that our job is to help people with their lives rather than build infrastructures that help institutions stay alive. Sometimes we focus so much on building a "healthy church" that we forget to tend to the health of people.
The goal is not to manufacture community, nor is the goal to build programs. The hope is to watch living community emerge naturally and to collaborate with its environment in helpful, healthy ways.
The difference between a paint-by-number kit and the blank canvas of an artist is the difference between master plan and organic order. In short, master plan tries to manufacture life, whereas organic order is an invitation to live.
Master plans provide specific answers to future questions that have not yet been asked ~ that may never be asked. A master plan does not allow for flexibility, uncertainty, or serendipity ~ ingredients of the "aha" moment.
Those developing the master plan freeze their hopes for the future in the plan. This is not a vicious act. Indeed, those developing the master plan are likely to see it as a generous act ~ the gift of passing on their team's wisdom, spirit, and hope.
Master plans use the language of "ought" and "should," language that points to the future in a rigid, predetermined way. Organic order, on the other hand, does not use a language of "oughts" and "shoulds." It presents a language of possibilities.
When people are planning a new initiative (at church, for example), they often start with the question "Where are we headed?" The question "Where are we headed?" is always answered with some form of "There!" When planning a new initiative, I prefer to ask, "What are we hoping for?" Your answer to this question, whatever it might be, will serve as an organic guide. Most likely the answer will allow enough flexibility to deal with future questions as they emerge and the guiding principles to answer those questions more effectively.
Our focus should be on the journey, not the destination. When planning for organic community, the question that will move us forward is "What are we hoping for?" not "Where are we headed?"
In my short time on earth, I've witnessed or participated in various church models; the purpose-driven church model, the cell church model, the house church model, the seeker-sensitive model, the servant-evangelism model, and on and on. And I'm not that old!
These are all wonderful, descriptive, organic patterns that worked ~ they worked with those participants, they worked in those communities; they worked in those environments. We get into trouble when we think someone else's model will work exactly as described with our participants, in our communities, in our environments. We turn a descriptive, organic order pattern into a forced, prescriptive, master plan pattern.
Organic order suggests there are many patterns we can use to connect to God and others. Patterns do not produce clones.
People long to participate. They are looking for their place, a place that feels like home. However, many times there's a disconnect between longing to participate and actually participating.
How do we close the gap? Is it a matter of motivation? A matter of timing? Whatever the reason, one observation is clear. Many church leaders have spent too much time on the act of getting people to participate and too little time trying to understand how people participate.
People look for place before purpose, which is to say they seek first to belong before helping to meet a goal.
Sometimes leaders put their faith in master plans because they have greater faith in master plans than they do in people. Plans are more predictable and easier to control than people. And who controls the plan? Usually one person.
Measurement is an important part of our lives. It is a healthy, helpful tool. But many of us have been raised on an unhealthy, dose of results-oriented, bottom-line measurement. We develop a program with a mission statement, a vision, values, and goals. We have a clearly defined end. We are certain we know where we are headed and how to get there. We write a proposal that explains the program and informs our supervisors as well as ourselves how we will measure success.
This is the master plan approach to measurement. Measuring by the bottom line marshals all attention to an end point. The bottom line is an invitation to do whatever is necessary to reach that bottom line. It forces us to think too highly of the highs, and it drives us into panic and depression during the lows.
Measurement has dynamic power over the journey and the results. It is not neutral. The measurement is the message. Our way of measuring in not a neutral tool that simply tells us what there is to see. No, our way of measuring influences the facts in a way that has a profound effect on our perception of reality. Measurement is serious business.
We must understand what we are measuring. We are talking about measuring life ~ community, relationships, health. We are not talking about measuring inanimate entities. Reducing living organisms to a census count demeans the way we were created. Even the book of Numbers devotes only about 10 percent of its content to "numbers"; the rest is about the relationship between God and Israel.
Author Unknown -
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.
Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes:
The quality of our experience is not measured by the seconds on the clock, but by the timelessness of our experience. We fool ourselves if we ask how long it will take before we know who we are, become conscious, identify with our purpose, or remember our own history in a more forgiving way.
Story is the measure of community.
Story is the universal measurement of life.
Stories are the measure of the journey.
Kennon Callahan has coined a phrase: "persons served in mission." He suggests that when we provide our congregational "counts," we remember to count "persons served in missions," not just our members, attendees, and former members. Might I add that by using the words "in mission," Ken is confirming that story is the measurement tool of community. Churches don't become legendary on the community grapevine via reporting of numbers. They become legendary through the sharing of their story of mission within the community.
Kennon L. Callahan, Building for Effective Mission: A Complete Guide for Congregations on Bricks and Mortar Issues (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 15
Through the mission work of a few people in the congregation, the whole church becomes a legend on the community grapevine. This is a happy by-product of doing mission effectively. The making of a legend doesn't require the participation of everyone in a congregation in that specific mission ~ after all, there is a diversity of gifts. At the same time, it happens because of the shared, joyful compassion of some doing mission for the sake of mission (not for the sake of becoming a legend).
Stories enable leaders to form a better picture of the health of community than numbers alone ever could.
Richard A. Jensen, Thinking in Story: Preaching in a Post-literate Age (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 1993) 18,19,21,24:
[M]ost of the storytelling art of Garrison Keillor is precisely episodic and not linear in nature. Keillor's stories very seldom resolve themselves. It is not because of the ending of the story that we listen and read so intently. We listen and read intently because we enjoy the journey itself.
In the end, "the only Big Plan is to discontinue the Big Plans. The only Big Answer is that there is no Big Answer." (William Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good New York: Penguin Press, 2006, 30)
Master plan tries to deliver power through position. A person is set into a position on an organizational chart and given control, authority, jurisdiction, permission-granting rights, and influence. He or she is trained in how to use these tools to achieve the master plan.
Every project calls for various individuals to play a role in it. Sometimes one role may need to be fulfilled for the entire life of the project. Sometimes a role is very short-lived.
Sometimes there is an ebb and flow; the role exists in a fluid state. The point is that the project "tells" us who will steward the power during the many steps between onset and successful completion. The project demands the pacing, the contacts, the leaders, even the steps themselves.
Our success is not dependent upon a "one-positional powerhouse." It is not dependent on a charismatic leader. Everyone within the company participates in the power and shares their sources of power when called upon by the project, not because of their position in the company.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard business professor:
Your structures should be very loose and very flexible: less hierarchy, more opportunity for people to play many different roles. Sometimes you may be a team leader, and at other times you may be team member. Also, be very flexible with respect to titles, and very fluid in terms of moving people from project to project, depending on the requirements. And be very project oriented, rather than fixed-job oriented.
Cooperation is the means by which master plan coordinates. Organic order prefers collaboration.
Spirit of cooperation is a rigid spirit, one that stifles creativity and discovery. It is more concerned with sequence than rhythm. It squashes the human spirit. The master plan becomes the master.
Our theology influences the way we think about the organizational tool of coordination ~ more so than any of the other organizational tools. Do we see God as master planner or as creator of organic order?
A theology of God as master planner implies that God has a purpose ~ even one purpose ~ for your life and it's your lifelong job to pursue it, identify it, and live it out. The gospel becomes, "God has a plan for your life." God has planned the job, the life partner, the house, the child, and so on. He wants nothing more than our cooperation with his plan.
A theology of God as creator of organic order, however, allows for collaboration with him. We are privileged to participate with him in the forming of our future. He invites our ideas, our energy, our creativity, our perspective. He gives up a measure of control to facilitate relationship with us and to demonstrate his love.
We are changing not only the meanings of some of our words but also the very structure of how we form our sentences. Our understanding of this fundamental shift will affect how ~ perhaps even whether ~ we are able to connect future generations with the gospel.
We are moving from a noun-centric to a more verb-centric language, meaning that the verb is becoming the main idea of the sentence. Some indications of these changes, and the influences behind them, are
- word clustering
- Internet influences
- acceptance of quantum theory
- open source code initiatives
Our infatuation with nouns may have led us to describe the Holy in terms of a noun's need to objectify, limit, even control.
We are hesitant to express the Holy as verb and then operate accordingly. God is easier to get our minds, concepts, and theology around if the Godhead remains only noun.
God describes himself with the verb "I am." The Trinity is not three objects. The Trinity is a dance of three verbs. Three "I ams."
God as noun can become answer. God as verb can become a relational experience.
So what? What difference does it make ~ noun-centric or verb-centric? The difference is this: Language not only expresses social structures. Language also shapes worldview. Language shapes the way we behave and believe.
Keith Johnstone says, "There are people who prefer to say 'Yes,' and there are people who would prefer to say 'No.' Those who say 'Yes' are rewarded by the adventures they have, and those who say 'No' are rewarded by the safety they attain." [Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (London: Eyre Methuen, 1981), 92]
A better question for the church might be "What can the church do to assimilate itself into people's lives?" instead of "How can we assimilate people into the church's life?" The church will have a more robust mission in the community (and the world) if it would try to assimilate into people's everyday lives.
As leaders of small groups, what if we asked, "How can we assimilate the church into the groupings people already have in their lives?" It is not the primary purpose of a church to have small groups. Rather, I believe it is a primary responsibility of a church to help people live whole, healthy lives. And as a part of the whole, the church could help people make healthy connections with those they encounter every day.
