2nd man united

Is Your Church a Hierarchy?

Power is more verb than noun.  It is action, not object.  It is easier to describe how it is used than what it is.  It is like love.  Something defined more by its expression than by its form. 

Prior posts in this series:

Is Your Church an Object?

Is Your Church a Clone?

Is Your Church a Body?

Is Your Church a Scoreboard?

Is Your Church a Factory?

 

Mechanical order tries to deliver power through position.  In it, positions are permanent.  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 a mechanical plan.  Then, the position encourages them to concentrate on what it is that will best manufacture the mechanical plan.  So, each person jockeys for positional power in order to command the resources needed to accomplish his or her specific part of the plan.  They are so absorbed by their position that they lose sight of the whole.  They see their role as disconnected from any other – except for those which may help them achieve their goal.  Participants concentrate all of their efforts on the success of their particular position.  But, position shouldn’t be where power lies.  Positions encourage seeing people as more and less significant.  Power should be in the person, not the position. 

 

In organic order, power is revolving.  It understands that the value of each part makes the whole. (I Corinthians 12:17-20)  At any point in time you will find different individuals leading and operating with power as individuals take on different roles depending on what is being demanded by the life of the organism.  Within this framework, there is no dominant member.  This encourages you to know when the community is inviting you to steward the power and when it is asking you to cede the power. 

 

For example, in a mechanical order marriage, decisions are made solely on the basis of position (“I am the husband” or “I am the wife”).  In an organic order (healthy) marriage, there are certain roles that need to be fulfilled.  These roles are carried out based upon who has the competencies and can best fulfill that role at that moment in time.  The power goes to this individual. 

 

It’s the same with any other healthy form of organic order.  Leadership and power is taken by whoever is “asked” to by the life of the organism.  It will “tell” you what parts should steward the power as time goes on.  It will be whichever parts will best serve the whole entity.  Thus, power is shared in a revolving manner – now John, now Tim, now Brent, now Dedra, now me, back to John.  Once power is cemented into a position; that position, along with that human, becomes the Head.  But, the Church is a Body operating with a non-human, invisible Head that can only be heard and understood fully when it is free to use the parts of the body in a revolving manner. (Ephesians 1:22)  By creating positions, the Head is being told what part it’s going to use for whatever it’s trying to do at any particular time.

 

This does not mean that everyone has the same amount of power at the same time.  The life of the community is always inviting people to step forward and steward the power.  People figure out what they’re good at, and that shapes what their roles are.  There’s not just one leader.  Different people lead during different parts of the process and it is understood that the value of each part is what makes the whole.   We are to live in a way that maximizes individual and communal sources of power. (I Corinthians 12:12-26)

 

Within mechanical order, positions feel the need to influence every aspect of the organization’s life, decide on its every movement, judge every action, and make all the rules.  Within organic order, your “position” is YOU.  Isn’t this the type of environment you want to live in?  It’s time to be done with top-down approaches.  The day of organic order has come.

Myers, Joseph R. "Organic Community"

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Is Your Church a Factory?

“Our culture has taught us that growth is an expectation.  Businesses are expected to deliver double-digit returns every year in order to satisfy shareholders.  Individuals are instructed to maximize their potential.  Over and over the message is: grow or die.” -Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers

Other posts in this series:

Is Your Church an Object?

Is Your Church a Clone?

Is Your Church a Body?

Is Your Church a Scoreboard?

 

Humans will tend to choose a mechanical plan for growth because it tends to provide outward evidence of growth sooner.  The enormous building, the number of active small groups, and the increased attendance in services – all demonstrate that growth has occurred.  In an odd way, it is a quick fix.  Once the plan is made, most or all of the resources at the community’s expense tend to be allocated to the realization of the plan.  Once the plan is realized, the resources are often so depleted that bankruptcy results. 

 

Organic growth occurs when the community uses present resources to take small steps forward at the community’s own pace.  It doesn’t allocate resources toward manufacturing a plan that may or may not happen.  It uses its resources for what is happening right now in ways that will allow for quantum leaps forward in the future when the community reaches those points, whatever they are. 

 

There is a sense of mystery that surrounds organic growth.  You just plant the seed in the ground and then up pops a plant.  Organic growth is not something we can take control over.  If you are dealing with a living organism; sometimes they lie dormant.  A seed might appear to be lifeless, but there is in fact an embryo within it, one that is waiting to be activated.  And wouldn’t you know it; we are told in I John 3:9 that God’s seed is in us (Christians).  It’s the life of God which we should be looking for to grow us as individuals and the community.  But, when we try to take control over it, we deprive it of the elements necessary to activate its growth.

 

Mechanical order growth leads to bankruptcy.  Organic order growth leads to sustainability.  

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Is Your Church a Scoreboard?

“If we only concentrate on the numbers, we’ll miss what is really happening.” -Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers

 

Prior Posts in this Series:

Is Your Church an Object?

Is Your Church a Clone?

Is Your Church a Body?

Many of us have been raised on an unhealthy dose of results-oriented, bottom-line measurement.  The mechanical order approach to measurement is developing a program with a proposal that has a mission statement, a vision, values, and goals.  It explains where we are headed and how to get there.  This approach to measurement ushers all the attention to an end point.  That end point acts as an invitation to do whatever it takes to reach it.  Then, along the journey when the inevitable highs and lows related to the end point takes place, we think too highly of the highs and fall into panic and depression during the lows; both of which affect our decision-making.  Decisions are then made out of these emotions rather than the life of the community in the present. 

 

For example, Chris was placed in a position called “pastor of small groups.”  His goal was to put everyone into a small group.  His measurements for success were: number of active groups, number of people meeting per month, number of new groups birthed, how many leaders attended leader meetings, etc.  He even drafted criteria to determine if a group was considered “active” or not.  As the journey progressed, there were times where the reports weren’t looking so promising in relation to the plan.  So, what did Chris do?  He experimented with anything that had the promise of bringing up the numbers.  His decisions weren’t based upon the life inside of the community; they were based upon his plan.  Then, when he couldn’t steer the community into his master plan, he got fired by his superiors in favor of finding someone that could “take the small group program to the next level.”  Of course, by “level” they meant attendance. 

 

Because Chris and those around him used mechanical measurement, his effectiveness was not measured by what happened in the life of the people he was involved with.  Rather, it was measured by how many people participated.  They measured what they perceived to be important and this held dynamic power over the journey and the results of the life of the community. 

 

This happens all over the place.  So, don’t be fooled by numbers, catchy slogans and good intentions.  Numbers can measure inanimate objects, but they cannot measure life and relationship.  You can put a numerical value on the inanimate materials of a house, but you cannot put a numerical value on the life that was experienced inside of the house.  That can only be measured by a story.  Stories are what emerge from life, not numbers.  How many times have you watched a sporting event where the final score doesn’t really tell the story of the game?  It happens all the time.  Try looking at the final score of a game you didn’t watch and telling someone the details of what happened in the game.  You can't do it.

 

Story is the universal measurement of life.  Numbers can be manipulated to say almost anything.  A true story cannot.  They measure the journey to explain the end.  They measure the life of a community.  They show us whether what we are hoping for is taking place.  

Myers, Joseph R. "Organic Community"

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Is Your Church a Body?

“Many church leaders have spent too much time on the art of getting people to participate and too little time trying to understand how people participate.” -Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers

Prior posts in this series:

Is Your Church an Object?

Is Your Church a Clone?

Churches that fall into the trap of manufacturing their environment engineer positions to be filled and then look to fill them.  Those that have the gifts and abilities to fill the spots do and those that don’t . . . don’t fit in.  This may be one reason why most churches are at about 20% participation and 80% consumption on average.  In the mechanical model of church, the church leaders spend their time trying to get people to participate in the positions they’ve manufactured rather than creating an environment where they observe how people position themselves in participation.  The way in which people participate is another example of the dichotomy between the church that is an object and the church that is a living organism. 

When a mechanical plan is engineered, leaders then ask people to participate in the way that will serve the plan.  The people are turned into commodities to accomplish a goal.  In this environment, the health of the organization is put above the health of the individual.  People are seen for what they can do for the master plan rather than for who they are.  But, the church environment should be one where the individual feels free and is responsible to act uniquely as themselves for the good of the group as a whole. Organic order holds that what comes out of the group is what the individuals collectively bring to it. (I Corinthians 12:7, 18; Ephesians 4:15-16)   

With this may come a feeling of being “out of control,” but this is exactly the environment you are supposed to be in as a Christian.  It’s an environment where man gives up control and lets the life of God and the Head take it.  “FROM HIM, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Eph. 4:16)  No man can be the Head; he is only a part of the Body that is controlled by the Head.  Would God place a man to be the head of a church?  Why would Jesus need someone to do His job?  As soon as man takes control, he places himself in the position of the Head.  This is what mechanical plans do.  This doesn’t mean that we should fall into extreme thinking and suggest that there should be no leadership or control.  But, it’s a matter of the Person (Jesus) doing the controlling.

Leaders can put their faith in mechanical plans because they have greater faith in mechanical plans than they do in Jesus Christ working in and through people.  Plans are more predictable and easier to control.  An environment where the life of God is animating the movements of the Church under the direction of the Head, Jesus Christ, is where healthy participation naturally emerges.

Myers, Joseph P. "Organic Community"

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Is Your Church a Clone?

"We see or experience a pattern that "works," and then we assume that if we repeat the pattern exactly, we can manufacture the same result.  This works almost well enough often enough to convince us that it could work all the time."  - Organic Community by Joseph R. Myers

We're taking a look at nine organizational tools will help you discover whether you are a part of a mechanical order approach or an organic order approach.  Then, hopefully you will start to shift to an organic order approach to create environments where people naturally connect and become an organic community. 

Prior posts in this series:

Is Your Church an Object?

The first organizational tool is patterns.  They can be prescriptive or descriptive.  Prescriptive patterns are “prescribed.”  They are specific, rigid and regular.  Prescriptive patterns are good and necessary when used within the confines of the mechanical order of inanimate objects and systems, like traffic patterns and assembly lines.  But, when dealing with life systems, prescriptive patterns are deadly.  Forcing connections between people is awkward and uncomfortable. 

 

Organic order is strengthened by descriptive patterns.  Descriptive patterns describe reality.  They don’t force it.  A good parent will observe the patterns and behaviors of each child separately and relate to them based upon the uniqueness of each individual.  But, we frequently reverse the process and force prescriptive patterns of living onto them. 

 

We get into trouble when we take a descriptive pattern that worked and turn it into a prescriptive pattern.  We treat the second child the same way we treated the first child because we think that since it worked the first time, it will work the second.  Then children (or members, participants, etc.) start to feel like they are nameless soldiers marching in lockstep, turning right or left at the command of the officer. 

 

Every person’s face follows a similar pattern, but none are exactly the same.  Descriptive (organic) patterns do not produce clones.  But, we see this happen all the time with churches.  This is where movements (megachurch, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, house church) come from.  People see “results” somewhere and they think it will work somewhere else.  Well, this is true for mechanical systems, but not for life (organic) systems. 

 

Churches will install programs in their prescriptive (mechanical) attempt to make the Christian life happen.  They come up with a mechanical plan of what it will take to grow as an organization and for people to grow spiritually intimate with God and others.  Then, with good intentions, they attempt to force that plan to happen.  Then, if it doesn’t happen, it’s marked as a failure.  There is a powerful word that is used to describe the forcing of an intimate connection.  That word is rape.  Now does it make sense why so many people are angry, bitter and rejecting our churches?

Myers, Joseph R. "Organic Community"

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