May 26, 2009 by Alan Hirsch
Comments (7)
It is remarkable to me that the theologically most fertile parts of the Bible are all, yes all, set in the context of the people of God facing significant danger and chaos. This features strongly in the stuff I did on communitas, but whether it is an Abraham called to leave home and journey, or in the harrowing experiences Exodus and Exile. Whether it is David’s adventures, Jeremiah’s struggles, Jesus’ ministry, or the book of Acts, none of these were stable situations. They were dynamic and even life-threatening.
But communitas, or at least the questing adventure that is contained therein, is not limited to the Bible or human situation; it is part of the very structure of life itself. The study of living systems teaches us that…
[N]ature is at its innovative best near the edge of chaos. The edge of chaos is a condition, not a location. It is a permeable, intermediate state through which order and disorder flow, not a finite line of demarcation. Moving to the edge of chaos creates upheaval but not dissolution; that's why being on the edge is so important. The edge is not the abyss. It's the sweet spot for productive change. And when productive agitation runs high, innovation often thrives and startling breakthroughs can come about. This elusive, much sought after, sweet spot is sometimes called ‘a burning platform.’ The living sciences call it the edge of chaos.”
The role of leaders in the equation? Well, once again this goes back to Heifetz’s understanding about the nature of adaptive leadership. Adaptive leadership moves the system to the edge of chaos, not over, but to the edge of it. As was said before, the leader’s role is to ensure that the system is directly facing up to the issues that confront it. Issues that if left unattended, will eventually destroy it Because if people in the organization never seriously face the problem, and stay with it for a reasonable time, they will never feel the need to move to find a genuine and more lasting solution—hence the idea of a burning platform. We teach the Forge interns this simple formula. It is the role of transformative leadership to ‘sell the problem before you try evoking a solution’ because it is this being at this ‘edge of chaos’ where real innovation takes place.
When I reflect back to the early days of SMRC and I can see all the signs of livings systems as proposed here. It was chaotic, fluid, dynamic, and highly missional. And in my time there the church went through at least three adaptive leaps as described in the first chapter. The point is, that we were at our very best when we were on the fringes. It is when we settled down, and moved away from the edge of chaos, that things went awry.
By and large churches are very conservative organizations and after they have been around just a few years can quickly become institutional, largely because of the Christendom mode and assumptions underlying it, but largely because the leadership style and influence. On the whole churches seek to conserve the past, and particularly in the historical denominations (e.g. Anglicanism and Presbyterianism) their primary orientation is often backward to an idealized past rather than forward to a new vision of the future. As such they are classic, often inflexible, institutions that enshrine and inherited tradition. Hence, the historical churches are leading the decline of the Church in the West. For instance, in some areas, the Uniting Church of Australia is losing members at 20% exponentially per annum! This would be similar for many liberal mainline denominations, and is due almost entirely to the fact that they are closed systems built squarely on institutional systems story with a liberal theological base—a classic sign of institutionalism (see the chapter on Organic Systems.).
Theological liberalism is an indicator of institutional decline not only because it tries to minimize the necessary tension between Gospel and culture by eliminating the culturally offending bits, but because it is basically a parasitical ideology. I don’t mean this to be offensive to my liberal bothers and sisters but merely to point out that theological liberalism rarely creates new forms of church or extends Christianity in any significant way: but rather exists and ‘feeds off’ what the more orthodox missional movements started in the first place. Theological liberalism always comes later in the history of a movement and it is normally associated with its decline. It is therefore a highly institutional manifestation of Christendom. As such it is deadly to apostolic forms of missional movement. But most established denominations, including the more Evangelical ones, are also built squarely on Christendom assumptions of church and therefore, like all institutions are facing significant threat and need to be led to the edge of chaos because it is there, by living in the tension that it brings, they will find more authentic and missional ways of being God’s people. So leaders, turn the heat up, but manage it.
(Andrew not Lucy writing)
Might add something from Eugene H Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation In Following Jesus P.74 because it speaks about this topic:
"Community is intricate and complex. Living in community as a people of God is inherently messy. A congregation consists of many people of various moods, ideas, needs, experiences, gifts and injuries, desires and disappointments, blessings and losses, intelligence and stupidity, living in proximity and in respect for one another, and believeingly in worship of God. It is not easy and it is not simple. Not every situation can be anticipated. Novel combinations of circumstances take us by surprise. No community worth its salt has ever existed verfy long without attending painstakingly to particular conditions".
Another quote from the same book puts this within a relational context:
"We want to make up our own stories. But we don't live our lives by information; we live lifre in relationships, family-of-faith relationships in the context of a community of men and women, each one an intricate bundle of experience and motive and desire, and in the presence of a personal God who has designs on us for justice and salvation".(p73).
Andrew Park 462 days ago
Church, which is prone toward perfectionism, does not tolerate messyness and chaos very easily.
As Peterson (The Jesus Way, 2007. Hodder/Stoughton, London) says: "Perfectionism is a disorder that occurs frequently in the Christian community" (p.78).
Perfectionism actually becomes a measure of how Church measures (discriminates) between who is deemed "carnal" or "spiritual", between the "gray and ordinary, or conspicuously resplendent in an aura of light", between the common plebians and the religious-cultural elite.
Peterson says this which I think is very true: "Inevitably the rigorist [perfectionist] comes to look on the relaxed with considerable condescension".
Perfectionism is one of the most harmful factors "responsible for disabling countless sincere and devout Christians for common usefulness in the company of their neighbours on pilgrimage to Jerusalem" (p.79).
"The attempt to impose perfection on either oneself or another... is decidedly not the way of Jesus" (ibid).
Perfectionism results in an attempt to unnaturally control, judge and prevent the innovation and challenges of change that occur within chaotic, but necessary realities of relationships being worked out and developed progressively under so many influences and exigencies of process over time.
[Andrew not Lucy]
Andrew Park 462 days ago
Alan, in reference to your comments on liberalism, I tend to agree.
However, I mindful of something which Martin Luther King Jr said in his essay, "Pilgrimage to Non-violence" that "the truth about man is found neither in liberalism nor in neo-orthodoxy. Each represents partial truth".
King said that "liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin... [It also] failed to see that reason itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason devoid of purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations".
But King also said that he was disatisfied as well with neo-orthodoxy because of its tendency toward dogmatic fundamentalism and because "If liberalism was too optimistic concerning human nature, neo-orthodoxy was too pessimistic".
King argued that liberalism and neo-orthodoxy each represented a partial truth. "A large segment of Protestant liberalism defined man only in terms of his essential nature, his capacity for good" [overly positivistic which is indicative of its humanist philosophical ]. He then states that "Neo-orthodoxy tended to define man only in terms of his existential nature, his capacity for evil [overly pessimistic view. Whereas] An adequate understanding of man is found neither in the thesis of liberalism nor in the antithesis of neo-orthodoxy, but in a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both"
King later argues that, when it comes down to the bottom line of things, a vibrant, prayerful, and profoundly personal relationship with God is a key factor - "the reality of a personal God...a living reality" who is more than just "a metaphysical category".
My point in saying this is that Church still needs both aspects of critique, but there is a higher form of critique in that if Church mission is not helping people find the reality of God through Christ in a personal relationship that is also hewn and nurtured through proper disciple-making processes and enabling them to function fully and practically as emering royal priests of Christ in communitas with others, there is something wrong with our church growth processes wheteher we are liberals or neo-orthodox evengelical conservatives. [I use the `church growth' term more in respect to pastoral care and nurture here}.
Again, Andrew not Lucy writing. Just did an essay on MLK. So if I go on so, it is because I saw the movement he led as quite chaotic and challenging. But nonetheless highly effective in terms of its goals for promoting social justice, as well as highly missional and evangelistic in many effective ways.
Book I am quoting from is Washington, James & King (Editor). (1992). Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have A Dream: Writings & Speeches That Changed the World. Harper One, New York. pp. 56-61.
Andrew Park 462 days ago
Hey, dudes, I did it! I logged in under my own "avatar"!
Quoting Alan again:
"institutions are facing significant threat and need to be led to the edge of chaos because it is there, by living in the tension that it brings, they will find more authentic and missional ways of being God’s people. So leaders, turn the heat up, but manage it. "
One interesting aspect of the Theory U that I mentioned in my earlier post was the aspect of "prototyping" i.e. getting cracking on some action very soon after the new ideas emerge. So when the more authentic and missional ways of being God's people are mooted, get boots on and start scooting ASAP. According to Theory U, we are advised to explore "the future by doing rather than analysing"... "to fail often to succeed sooner or to fail early to learn quickly" (http:/ www.theoryu.com/documents/TU-ch21.pdf p. 417) which is a practise designed more to maximise learning than to be instantly successful. I LIKE THAT!
Although I am a dancer, in which "doing" is obviously a large part of the experience, as a "head" person it took me a long to time embrace the beauty of improvisation... to go with the flow without being unduly bound by thinking too much first. Finally, I found a way to engage my intellect as I moved to creative places "in the moment" where this girl had not moved before... and actually discovered a whole new dimension. Sometimes it works better than others, but what an enjoyable way to learn and to try something new!
I think that the liberalism and neo-orthodoxy that Andrew discusses in relation to MLK's critique, both suffer from the pitfalls of paralysis and petrification once their original newness wore off over time.
"vibrant, prayerful, and profoundly personal relationship with God" as Andrew has pointed out is an important factor in being "real" and I think also in avoiding fundamentalism, petrification, paralysis, and the deathly equilibrium of becoming stuck in the past. Familiarity is comforting, but can also lead to preconceived notions and inability to deal with the reality of new challenges of a nature heretofore not experienced. Apparently, some chaotic new-way precipitating boot-scooting keeps the life-blood circulating in the church. (By the way, boot-scooting or line-dancing, is not my preferred dance-style!)
Lucy J 462 days ago
You guys amaze me! It is a thrill to meet a couple that are such learners! And so bright, and yet so involved in their worlds. We gotta have din-dins sometime Andrew and Lucy!
Alan Hirsch 461 days ago
Aw, shucks!
It's hard to know what to say, sometimes, isn't it?
We'd love to do dins sometime, but I really think we'll all have to try a bit harder than we are this year, with you being in Australia when we are in the USA in July and generally vice versa lately.
I'm all better after a bedridden week and a half due to a sneaky virus AND I have also finished my final essay for the subject Andrew and I have now completed i.e. The Emergence of Modern Thought.
SO, I will now have more time to devote to Shapevine stuff, and get to cyber-know some of the people through it. :)
Lucy J 460 days ago
Andrew Park
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This is Lucy J. Hafta use Andrew's login coz it seems only my computer at work will take my login details and I have been home from work sick for a week!
I feel like I am living this "edge of chaos" thing at The Block in Sydney with the Aboriginal Christian community. We don't need to turn up the heat, it's happening all by itself. The only way to "manage it" has been through prayer and keeping up the real friendships in true Christ-discipled communitas. But, there are precious few of us left now.
The particular institutional churches involved (which shall remain nameless, but which range from historical evangelical to neo-pentecostal) have been absolutely useless, except for aiding an abetting the destruction that is now about to hit, in the sense that their old ways have been totally ineffective in terms of building community or standing against the occult practices and organised crime rumbling just under the surface of the visible fragementation and poverty amongst the locals.
Our tiny prayer and share-life together group has been buffeted by these challenges, but as we are rocked on Christ, we still have hope for the transformation of this people and place. We have just learned that the place of our meeting is going to be demolished in a fortnight. It is a massively symbolic community building (the Mundine gym) from the 1970's and has the Aboriginal flag painted on the entire south wall... a local icon. Once it goes, it will be another visible blow to an already broken and disempowered community. However, we are confident that somehow, this situation will be an upheaval but not dissolution, and not a finite line of demarcation, but here, there are very few people to sell the problem and evoke a solution to! God and the angels will have to do!
Meanwhile, I have been reading Robert Webber's Who Gets to Narrate the World and re-reading Otto Sharmer's Theory U, finding resonance in what we are facing... we, (the pray-ers) want to re-establish God's narrative and "lead from the future as it emerges"! If it doesn't turn out to be a story of complete resolution and palpable victory, we don't mind. We have learned some incredible lessons and will never give up the incarnational missional WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE! We will try a multi-lateral approach: continue to bang on the doors in the halls of institutional power and BE the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail by beginning a simple labour of love project to work with whatever men want to come on board, and very importantly, the women and the children of the next generation, the future leaders and decision makers. Please pray for us...
Andrew Park 463 days ago