organic community

Joe Myers has written a really good book called Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect. I have been meaning to review it for some time, so why not now.

jo-myers.jpg

It has a fresh feel and, given that it uses organic ideas to re-imagine (and therefore reshape) Christian life together, I find myself naturally predisposed to liking it. Whist avoiding technical jargon, he uses the ideas of synchronicity, learning organization, chaos theory (and emergence), distributed power, adaptive growth, etc to  lay out a new architecture of community for churches. And what is really good is that he refrains from being formulaic in the process. There is real space for gospel imagination and dreaming again. Organic Church also constitutes a serious and much needed challenge to the institutional imagination of church that has so captivated the church in the West.

Myers also takes on the numbers fetish that drives the machine like appratus of church growth. Also under review are the domineering ideas of power that have so distorted our portrayal of Jesus and have damaged our credibility in the minds of our cynical detractors. If there is one glaring weakness in the book (at least from my somewhat missional bent) it is that Myers doesn’t specifically address issues that relate to mission in a post-Christian and postmodern world. But that is not to say that the ideas don’t apply here. But it would have been nice to get his views on this.

All-in-all, a really intelligent, interesting, and well argued case for the recalibration of the Christian church along organic lines.

July 2, 2007 | Filed Under reviews |  

Comments

9 Responses to “organic community”

  1. Peggy Brown on July 2nd, 2007 12:00 pm

    Alan,

    Scot McKnight just posted a review of this book! The link is http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2493#comments

    Sorry I don’t know the fancy track-back stuff….

    Really want to read this one…will have to squeeze it into my blog reading time–since my two “home” blogs are both talking about it…and it’s on “my” topic!

    Thanks!

  2. Alan Hirsch on July 2nd, 2007 1:50 pm

    It is good Peg. I think you’ll like it. Many of these books bring ‘feminine’ aspects and perspectives into the equation. But this one does it without the possible emasculation that can go along with that.

  3. Peggy Brown on July 2nd, 2007 2:14 pm

    Well now, there’s a concept…balance rather than “swinging past” and over-reaching! ;)

  4. Alan Hirsch on July 3rd, 2007 5:23 am

    Anyone else read Myers? what do you think of the book?

  5. Todd on July 5th, 2007 7:23 am

    I have found Joe’s books very, very helpful for us and our church. he really helps see how people respond to leadership and community and just plain old “get’s people.” something that, unfortunately, many pastors don’t naturally get.

    i have had Joe in for our leadership team and they loved his concepts and found them a breath of fresh air. Pastors on the other hand, usually have a harder time with his stuff. Its an interesting thing to observe.

    He’s got a new website that has some podcasts and articles. http://www.languageofbelonging.com that might be helpful to someone wanting to be introduced to his work.

  6. James Nored on July 5th, 2007 10:11 am

    Alan,

    I’ve read both of Myers books. The first one, The Search to Belong, really struck me. Myers struck out at artificial attempts to form community in small groups, with covenants and the like.

    In Organic Community, Myers continues this thought, again arguing against forcing everyone into an artificial structure. In all, I liked his first work a bit better, but the overall thought was good.

    Where I see Myers’ work and yours overlapping is in community formation. You make the case in TFW that community and communitas are byproducts of mission. Myers and you both agree therefore that seeking to artificially create community is rather difficult.

    James

  7. Alan Hirsch on July 5th, 2007 10:17 am

    Thanks guys.

  8. Peggy Brown on July 6th, 2007 1:26 am

    I am particularly happy to hear someone else curb the use of “covenants”…because they confuse and water down the fact that Christians are already part of a binding covenant…they just have forgotten the terms and conditions…. ;)

  9. sonja on July 28th, 2007 11:11 pm

    Hello! I’m just finding you … and found this post. I read this book a couple of weeks ago and loved it. I was particularly struck by Myers contrast between accountability and editability as he took on the current love affair that our whole culture is having with holding others accountable. It was beautiful. I was planning to do a review of it in the next day or so and will link to yours. Thanks …

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