Get a Life: The Church as a Living System
How does this grand cosmology relate to our experience of the local church? One of the reflections arising out of my 15 years experience at SMRC is that 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 increasingly being drawn away from the natural rhythms of life, from direct ministry, and our roles seemed to become more managerial than ever before. But this 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. Given my broader ministry, I know that this experience is endemic to many contemporary expressions of church. All this led to a personal quest to find a more life-oriented approach to mission, ministry and community, and eventually led to the discovery of what has been called the living systems approach (see addendum ‘a crash course in chaos’.)
A living systems approach seeks to structure the common life of an organization around the rhythms and structures that mirror life itself. In this approach we seek to probe the nature of life, we seek to observe how living things tend to organize themselves, and then try to emulate as closely as possible this innate capacity of living systems to develop higher levels of organization, to adapt to different conditions, and to activate latent intelligence when needed (emergence.) This quest for a more sustainable way of life is not just limited to the church. Leading proponents of this view explicitly propose ‘a science of sustainable living’ based on the study of, and respect for, life (Fritjof Capra, Margaret Wheatley, Richard Pascale, et.al.) In these books I have found new metaphors and perspectives that have profoundly inspired me in my search for more life-oriented, organic, less programmatical, approach to our task. Some of these include…
- That all living things seem to have innate intelligence. Living systems, whether they be organic in form (e.g. a virus, a human being) or systemic organizations (e.g., the stock market, a bee-hive, a city, or a commercial enterprise, even crystal formations), seem to have a life of their own and possess an inbuilt intelligence which involves a aptitude for survival, adaptation, and reproduction. This capacity for developing higher life forms life has been linked with what is called ‘distributed intelligence’ by theorists in the field. When applied to organizational theory the task of leadership is to unleash, harness, and direct distributed intelligence by creating environments where it can manifest.
- Life seems to be profoundly inter-connected. The primary operative idea is that of relationships arranged in a dynamic network—a web of life and meaning. Living systems theory recognizes that we are always part of a larger system; we belong to an ecology comprised of internal and external systems with which we are constantly relating. Disturbances in one part of the system set a chain reaction which affects all the elements in a system. Capra calls this ‘the web of life’ and some of the implications are as follows: (1) Small things can have system wide consequences, sometimes called ‘the butterfly effect’ (The idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can cause a hurricane in another continent.) We should never underestimate the power of seemingly insignificant things to affect a system even if they seem unrelated at first. (2) That a system is functional or dysfunctional to the extent that all of its parts are healthy and relating to each other in an organic way. (3) That the way to develop a healthy learning/adaptive system is to bring disparate elements into meaningful communication with each other.
- Information brings change: All living systems respond to information. In fact they seem to be able to sort out information based on what is meaningful or useful to it. Information is therefore critical to intelligence, adaptivity, and growth. The free flow of information in the system is vital to growth and adaptation.
- Adaptive challenges and emergence: That by constantly interacting with its environment, the living system will catalyze its inbuilt capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Failure to do so results in decline and death. Emergence (new forms of organization) happens when a living system is in adaptive (and therefore learning) mode, all the elements in the system are relating functionally, and distributed intelligence is cultivated and focused through information.
While all this might seem to be a little esoteric and conceptual, just stop for a moment and consider a living system approach as it relates to Christian community. Following this approach we firstly need to assume that any particular group of God’s people, if they are truly his people, have everything in themselves (latent mDNA) to be able to adapt and thrive in any setting. We must assume that given the right conditions, the community can discover latent resources and capacities that it never thought it possessed. The task of missional leadership here is simply to unleash the mDNA that is dormant in the system and help guide it to its God intended purpose. .
Secondly, the task of missional leadership here is to bring the various elements in the system into meaningful inter-relationship. This will require that the leader focuses on developing a relationally networked, as opposed to an institutional, structure for the church. We must become an effective expression of the ‘body of Christ’ (1 Cor.12:12-27 is not just a metaphor after all—it’s a description of the church in its inter-relationship with each part to its Head.) It is critical to share information and ideas and to cross pollinate in terms of gifts and callings around common tasks (Eph.4:1ff.) We must bring all necessary parts of the body into the missional equation if we want to truly function as a body. In non-ecclesial settings, this would mean getting the various departments and specialists to relate meaningfully and share information functionally around common tasks thereby bringing diversity into a functioning unity. It seems that in living systems, the real answer is always found in the grander perspective—when diverse gifts and knowledge rub up against one another new forms of knowledge and possibilities will arise.
Thirdly, we need to move the system towards 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. Burying the head in the sand never did help the ostrich when there is a predator in the area. We need to disturb the system that is in equilibrium in order to activate a learning journey and missional mode. The community needs to become responsive and response-able. Aligning elements in a system into a healthy network will inevitably involve dealing with dysfunctions that, due to the falleness of all things, are inevitably in the system. Failure to deal with dysfunction will always undermine the organization or community’s health. Here conflict will arise (I promise) and the task of good leadership in this situation is to manage it and creatively translate it into a significant learning experience.
Fourthly, 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 and predetermine the outcome, but rather to supply accurate and meaningful information into the system so that it can in-form itself in response to it. This aspect has sometimes been called the management of meaning because it is through the engagement with meaning-ful information that systems will respond, change, and thrive. Missional leaders must know how to handle meaning in order to motivate a group of people from the inside out. Focusing the flow of information requires a good handle on theology, psychology, as well as sociology because it will involve focusing information based on the Church’s primary narratives (the Scriptures, and particularly the Gospels), information about the core tasks of the church, and essential data about our cultural and social contexts, etc. If we get all these elements right, the whole church is activated, motivated, responsive, and informed, and the mission of God will flow naturally through and out of the mix.
What is most exciting about this approach is that things seem to flow effortlessly because one is not going against the grain of the universe. The resultant ambience in the Jesus community is one that feels natural and therefore closer to the actual rhythms of life itself—in fact it is based squarely on these rhythms and relationships—they are its starting point as well as its ongoing sub-structure. When we look at networks, which are an essential aspect of organic structures, we will see that church must structure itself around the natural ebb and flow of the believer’s life. Existing relationships with believer’s and non-believers alike become the very fabric of the church. There ought to be nothing artificial about it. Planting a new church, or remissionalizing an existing one, in this approach isn’t primarily about buildings, worship services, size of congregations, and pastoral care, but rather about gearing the whole community around natural discipling friendships, worship as lifestyle, and mission in the context of everyday life. As a living network ‘in Christ‘ it can meet anywhere, anytime and still be a viable expression of church. This as a much more organic way to plant a church or to revitalize it.
. See bibliography for details.
. For a highly stimulating articulation of the theology and structures of a networked church, see Peter Ward, Liquid Church (Peabody: Henrickson: 2003).
Comments
7 Responses to “Get a Life: The Church as a Living System”
Leave a Reply
The Books
Affiliates
Recent Blog Entries
Recent Comments
-
we are explorers
- Alan Hirsch said: Shades of U2's song "I... shapevine v.2
- Penney Winiarski said: Great resource Alan....
- Andrew said: Have been into the...
- Frank Viola said: Looks great, Alan. Lance... fundamentalism: a true expression of Christianity or not?
- Janet said: Well, at the risk of...
- Matt Stone said: I think its more than...
- Andrew said: Thanks Matt for that...
- Andrew said: A reason I find US...
- Matt Stone said: Andrew, see http://en...
- Matt Stone said: See http://en.wikipedia...
Another great post Alan.
One reflection is that this requires significant re-thinking not only of “church” but of Christian lifestyle more generally. Very few professional people work 9am - 5pm any more (in Australia at least)… and unless Christians choose to become a bit counter-cultural in their lifestyle choices there’s a significant impetus toward the “one hour on Sunday” approach to church…. for many people are exhausted. Some of this stress and exhaustion is tipping into runaway rates of depression and anxiety disorders. Many people’s lives actually are dominated by institutions… the institutions that employ them.
I’m not entirely sure about “particularly the gospels”… I personally think there is some wisdom in those church traditions that have a weekly old testament reading, a gospel reading, and a reading from the epistles (well I think they do… I’m not Catholic so I might be wrong!) Would you like to clarify this?
Alan,
Terrific post! Another good image that applies to CovenantClusters.
and Janet,
I think reading from OT, Gospel and Epistles is a great idea. The Celtic Christians (as at the Northumbria website) put together a terrific reading schedule. It is important, however, for the Gospels to be the foundation — just as Christ is the foundation. We are called to be like Christ, and in order to do that we must be intimately acquainted with the life of Christ.
I remember sitting in the first class of my semester of Anatomy and Physiology in college and the professor telling us that there was only one principle we needed to understand the human body and all living systems: structure determines function.
The human body is many body parts that are structured and connected in such a way that they look and operate like one body. I Cor. 12:12
says “So it is with Christ.” So, Christ is many Christians that are structured and connected in such a way that they look and operate like one Christian. If you change the structure in any way, you change the function. You want to know why you get the results you get? Look at the structure.
Corporations operate under a worldly structure, one that finds its roots in the kingdom of the world; and therefore reap it’s results. So why do churches imitate them? They become nothing more than a worldly system with a Christian theme.
To try and accomplish the mission of God with a worldly system is like scooping milk with a fork, hammering nails with your hand, cutting steak with a butter knife, or taking the steering wheel out of your car and going for a drive.
Thanks Alan for starting to take us down a road to finding and operating with the right structure!
(taken from “The Anatomy of the Church” podcast at http://www.2ndmanunited.com)
Thanks Peggy… I guess this question was flagged for me at a Forge conference where a speaker shared how… thanks to another emerging church leader… 90 % of his preaching is now from the gospels.
Without questionning that Christ is the centre of Christianity, I believe the Way of Christ is also revealed in the Old Testament and in the Epistles (both of which pre-date the gospels). Perhaps this emerges as a conscious attempt to counter the fact streams of Protestantism have over-emphasised the epistles… but I personally think a “90%” focus is an over-correction. I like to think the whole narrative of the scriptures informs our theology and our practice.
Great post Alan. I am using these very same thoughts as I develop our new church plant in Central Texas. Have you read much of Stu Kaufman, like “At Home in the Universe?” I think a couple of comments I would make are that
1) Connectedness does not always mean cooperation or symbiosis. Sometimes, systems like ecologies, have predator-prey, or even parasitic levels of connectedness. And all those connections make for a healthy ecology. But everything is connected finally. I am struggling most right now with how do you make connectedness with non-believer networks really mean something to a group.
2) On that note the part you mention about information is revealing, and has promise for my own questions. Every living system has so much built in resiliency and redundancy. (I personally believe nature on it’s own sometimes even overdoes this, but hey, it has worked for a long, long time.) I believe we have not been good about creating that in our structures. When there are “perturbations” in this system, and dealing with people there will be, many small group-cluster models collapse.
3) One of the hardest things about adopting this viewpoint however is letting go of progressive change. In living systems it is never “always improving.” Of all the mechanistic paradigm ideas this one dies so slowly in people’s minds. Sometimes there is even regression. We have to change models of success here to live in an organic system. I love gardening, but sometimes, after being so beautiful, a flower dies.
4) Following this pattern, we never know what the final “product” will look like. My wife realized that yesterday as we sat chatting about our new church start. She came to the realization that “we won’t be able to control what goes on ‘out there’.” I agreed and said then we will know if we are successful.
A wonderful post.
Please bear with me on this little story… I trust my point will become clear…
I’ve just returned to “the land of the comparatively boring” after a long weekend with a bunch of very talented, very passionate and very good-hearted professional-level Christian dancers from around the world, around the country of Australia and around Sydney… sigh! Each one paid financially to participate on top of any relevant travel fares, meals and accommodation costs. Most of the Project Dance registration fee covered the hiring of a stage and equipment to “take the message of Jesus to the streets” via a free-to-the-public all-day outdoor concert at Circular Quay in Sydney on World Youth Day. I felt very humbled and privileged to co-work with a diverse group of creative Christians, preaching the Gospel ‘without words’ in a public space to the hundreds of passers-by… pilgrims of the Catholic expression of the Christian faith, and the general public a-stroll in the sunshine.
The Project Dance people came away with a sense that their great sacrifice of time, effort, money, and sundry other personal offerings (only to be guessed at), was indeed worth it. Testimonials the next day included stories of engaging with members of the public who ‘were sick of the whole religious thing’ that had been going on all week (WYD mania across the city of Sydney) but who were ‘moved’ to think deeper by the way the dancers portrayed various nuances of the Gospel message. One professional dancer from the Peruvian Ballet who had just recently migrated to Sydney wandered past and was drawn by the high standard of presentation enough to want to inquire further as to how he could connect in with the group as a dancer in the future; a Nigerian wharf worker stood mesmerised for hours, grateful that his on-call cell phone didn’t ring to drag him back to work. He later brought his wife and son to be introduced to me even after the concert was over, as he had been blessed by the conversation, the dances, and the invitation to drop by and visit at a local Aboriginal church! Turns out he was a Jehovah’s Witness! A young European-looking woman tapped me on the shoulder asking me what the concert was all about because she wanted to start her own dance company. My response probed a little into her spirituality which turned out to be of the “All of the faiths are good and the spiritual realm is real” type, so I explained that all of the dancers involved with this project believed in the one true common denominator God and directed her to conversation with the Christian Aboriginal Elder sitting next to me, after which she asked for my contact details so I gave her my card about the ICDF Network for Creative Arts and Social Concern (www.icdf.com). An Australian family passing by ended up staying for hours because their little 8 year old daughter couldn’t stop dancing, copying the dancers on the stage, making up her own moves etc. They had never seen her dance like that before! A young Asian man at the nearby coffee place was due to meet his girlfriend, but she didn’t show up and instead, he met Jesus through the stories in the dances and the gentle conversation had with a husband of one of the dancers. There it was in action, a communitas of Christ visible through incarnational mission activity with creative arts flavour.
So Alan if you are going to get out your spandex tights and glitter up your old flags, NOW is the time!!!
Well, that’s not really my salient point, but it was a good one
My point is that there are a lot of people, a lot of eminent erudite exceptionally eloquent and explorationally ecclesial people talking and writing a lot of epiphanic stuff, and there are a lot of people that are intellectually stimulated and ‘revelated’ by it, but the proof is in the incarnational missional pudding. Alan, you and some of your respected colleagues are contemporising the ancient recipe for Kingdom culinary success. I read the most recent post on the ‘emergent’ battle royal regarding recent books published, and was quite saddened by the adversarial tone of the repartee. I am truly glad that such eminent writers, leaders and influencers respect you and your writings, because they might actually take your living systems ‘model’ to heart as well as to head and communicate less scathingly at times when scathing is not particularly appropriate in conversation amongst Jesus’ disciples. Stick with it, because you are doing that “bringing disparate elements into meaningful communication’ stuff, amongst other essential things, for emergence to occur. Then people won’t be so worried about whether they identify themselves with an imperfect ‘emergent’ movement, but will be moving on with Jesus in creative emergence! Personally, I find it quite amazing how closely your posts reflect the journey that several of my colleagues and I are living right now. We felt that we were living step by step, moment by moment, revealed Scripture by revealed Scripture, feeling that nothing was happening and yet everything is happening, and then we read of the living systems model of the functional body of Christ and literally LOL in recognition… on Saturday, someone asked me what I was cooking up with my friends… now I can tell them that yeast is one of the most important ingredients in the recipe for Proof Pudding a la Kingdom!
What an inspiring story Lucy… thanks for sharing this.