consider the ways of the ant…
(Click the image to link) A great article on swarm theory and how bees and ants can tach us about organizations. (HT to Mike Jentes)
“Consider the ways of the ant and be wise” Proverbs 6:6
We will eventually get onto organic systems and this stuff will become standard fare. But I thought this useful now. Get the juices flowing. Interestingly, swarming is one of the reasons the US coalition in Iraq is s finding it hard to deal with the insurgents/terrorists. They act like a swarm.
Forgotten Ways, The: Reactivating the Missional Church - Alan Hirsch
Forgotten Ways Handbook, The: A Practical Guide for Developing Missional Churches - Alan Hirsch, Darryn Altclass
ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church - Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch
The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21 Century Church - Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch
Peggy, this might have implications for the CovenantClusters approach.
Absolutely, Alan…I will have to ponder this. It is very much like what I’m hoping to see and gives me encouragement to be more decentralized that I was planning
And while I’m doing that, here’s a heads up from our little swarm over at Wikiklesia: the e-book is scheduled to be released July 23rd.
Maybe you and Neal can cook up a post here, eh?
This one over at Emergent Village is well done. You might want to look at the list of chapters and authors and see who you know from around here!
http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/wikiklesia-book-one-bows-july-23
Things are getting exciting…your name came up over at Jesus Creed in the missional thread. What an amazing time we live in, brother!
Hey Al, I find this sort of thing fascinating, along with The Starfish and the Spider.
Maybe you could post sometime about how you see de-centralised networks working in a church setting.
The article talks about ants and honeybee’s having no leaders, but even in somewhere like China which is de-centralised there are leaders.
Can it work?
I think the more important issue is that there is no one who holds/casts the “big picture” vision–it seems to be hardwired. But each individual ant/bee, whatever, willingly does the task at hand.
We have a leader in Christ…we just tend to want to “have a king like the others.” The Holy Spirit is always out in front leading…but we’re just not passing the scent along to each other.
One of the big problems in top-down leadership is that there tends to be a weakening of the vision (mission, “big picture”) as one descends the ranks and tiers of the the organization. As you rightly said, Peggy, the “swarm” seems to have the vision hardwired so each individual is willing and able to take care of the task at hand.
This is a much better system than the top-down method and, ideally, what every pastor would hope that his congregation would look like. The question is this, though, how do we get to there? Maybe we who are “leaders” need to “simply” trust God, and others with whom we labor, enough to bring them fully into the vision casting as well as the day-to-day decision making.
One model of leadership that I have come to appreciate is the model of the Abbot/Abbess. As I understand it, within the monastery over which they had pastoral responsibility they would, more than anything, incarnate and embody the vision and purpose of that place… serving as a model for the others to see. Each one would be responsible to keep the mission/vision themselves but if they needed a reminder they couyld look at the Abbot/Abbess for a role model.
The answer to the “how to we get there” is something that most leaders–and most followers, I dare say, are unwilling to embrace: ALL of the saints must be equipped and released into ministry, not just those APEST equippers. Until each and every Christian sees themselves as essential to the effectiveness of the mission, we just will not succeed–it is an impossible task for the “clergy” to accomplish–no matter how well they cast vision or include others in the day-to-day decision making.
Ultimately it is not about any local vision or decisions–it is about embracing the vision of God and obeying the decisions that have already been made by Christ and upheld by the Holy Spirit.
And the model of leadership of the Abbot/Abbess is the model of Christ–servant-leadership. As long as we have folks who are willing to tell others what to do without engaging with them equally in the “daily work,” the church will continue to have a majority of its members content to be “observers” from the pew/couch.
What do you think happens to ants or bees who don’t participate? I’m fairly certain it is not good…
So, what’s the problem? FEAR. Fear of failure. Fear of inefficiency. Fear of out-of-control swarming. But fully understood love casts out fear…and our loving God has resides in us through the Power of the Holy Spirit…and if we will constantly “touch antenna” with the Holy Spirit and spread that sticky message to those around us, the Word will be spread and the Work will be accomplished.
Most people in the church believe that there is a specific-to-them vision that the church staff and programs are hoping to effectively accomplish. And that secular management theory has been brought in to make the church “more effective by being more efficient.”
But, I see two problems with this, after observing it work for the past 30 years: the vision of the Kingdom of God on earth has been broken down into pieces and made narrow enough for man to accomplish. Divide and conquer…but in the worst way! Divided in this manner, the society has conquered….
If you have the wrong goal in mind, getting it accomplished efficiently is worthless. Rather than make the church more effective, this focus on efficiency has crippled the work by disengaging the amazing “swarm” that is the Body of Christ. The incarnationall-missional work of the swarm has, in the name of efficienty and effectiveness, been taken away and given to the “professionals.”
What will happen to the job security of all those “professionals” for whom ministry is “employment”? Well, it doesn’t have to be impacted negatively. There certainly is plenty of “scout” work to be done to help identify what needs to be communicated to the “swarm.”
It is a matter of changing the paradigm of what the different tasks are and who does them. And that is certainly a simplex undertaking. Simple to identify…very complex to implement.
But we do not have a choice, friends, if we are to get on with our task, eh?
There is no more vibrant vision than loving God and loving neighbor, making disciples who are dedicated to being conformed to the image of Christ who then make disciples who are dedicated to being conformed to the image of Christ.
It is not rocket science…and that means that each one of us is responible to pick up our cross and follow Jesus on The Way…
Wow…I’ll stop there…got a little caught up
I hope this is not rude. I am looking for help and I think this is the right crowd and even an appropriate topic to post this under. I have been reading the blogs here for quite a while and I think I am asking for help from the right people.
Check out my attempt to let the church freely grow: http://vineage.com
This project is in it’s infancy…we are just getting started but I think you can get the drift of where we are going with what we have up so far. There is more to develop related to the user experience and tools. We have not “launched” VineAge for public use yet but plan to in the next month or so. As you can expect we are working out bugs related to how we are modifying Word Press MU.
I would appreciate your insight, thoughts and prayers for this project. It was birthed as a mission related vision more than a church planting related vision. I believe the future of christianity is related to communities and related groups (local and global) not “church” as we know it today.
Ok; I am going to sneak away…sorry if I have posted in the wrong place but I don’t know where else to go…thanks!
Tom,
No worries about being rude, brother! Jump on in
And I think that you picked just the right post, too.
I was fascinated with your project and am grateful to you for letting us know about it.
Alan — Matt — CS — Brad did you see this? Sounds very interesting, eh?
I certainly prayed my way through your site…and will be pondering this…if you’ve been lurking here at TFW, you’ll know I’m a ponderer
Blessings,
Peggy;
Thanks for the warm reception. I have been thinking about how valueable your imput would be to my project but have not known how to approach you guys. I would love to explain it to you further.
I am stoked about the potential of empowering people around the globe. My hearts desire is to facilitate 500,000 chritian communities before I croak. It’s just a goal.
Anxiously awaiting your input;
Tom,
I went back and looked through the site again and showed it to my husband…this would be a great place for our CovenantClusters to connect, as we are not just “church planting” but “leadership development” and “multiplication/replication” oriented
But I will be pondering…I’m just finishing up with the Wikiklesia Project and am a little brain-dead
Stay tuned…I will share with you the word I got when the vision for CovenantClusters came: don’t wait; be patient. It looks like you’re right on target with that word, too.
Be blessed,
The swarm theory sounds good because we see in it individual initiative. That’s a good thing. But when individual initiative is just individual, then it acts counter to what is best for the colony.
The challenge for leaders isn’t to have ideas, but to hold ideas that are seemingly in conflict with one another and make it work. For example, every member of the church taking individual initiative to fulfill their calling. And a unified vision, big picture, of what the congregation is suppose to be and do as one body. What I’ve learned is that church and people can have a mission that is expressed as a vision for impact. But it is the values of the community that united the people together so that their individual initiative functions in a more coordinated, focused way. Values are the social bond of community. So, to complete the circle. It isn’t enough to have a community that is tight and unified. It is also important that each member of that community see their own participation and contribution as a product of their own calling by God to mission and service. It’s Individual Missional Initiative and Communal Unity that leaders have to stay focused upon. Quite a challenge, I say.
When I first saw Tom’s post and visited vineage it did occur to me that there was much there that might be a “fit” for the Abbess of the Ether; Covenant clusters and it’s beautiful logo could sit well in the vineage.
It may have a fit for me, at some point in the future. The venerable Alan Roxburgh is running a one day seminar in our city next week. Having recently read his book on the Missional Leader, I’m keen to hear from him and have recruited three other colleagues to go along. We’ve agreed to meet again a couple of weeks later to debrief… I have the sense that this could be the start of something…!!
Ed… it has been well said, that the task of a leader is not so much to invest in people, as to bring out of people that which already lies undiscovered within them.
Slainte
A Celtic