I am reading, finally, Joseph Myers book, "Organic Community: Creating a place where people naturally connect". I have been drawn to these ideas for some time and now, with my aforementioned new call, am hoping to explore them in a church that is wondering if there is more than being a "programmatic" church. The answer is yes. I will jot some thoughts as I move through the book and invite, as always, your comments.
I have been in a programmatic congregation for the past eight years. This is not a critique of that congregation but merely my thinking on if that is truly what a church is meant to be... is it the only way... and is it the best way?
Myers is pushing back, as I have been, against the current method of doing church which is to import business practices into church life without asking any deep or thoughtful questions about it. Full is good, busy is good, bottom line means more than the quality of discipleship. People become cogs in someone else's machine rather than sharing a sense of true belonging.
Is there a way to shift the thinking of those who are called to ministry to become environmentalists rather than programmers... in other words, instead of burning time, energy, talent, and good-will by ceaselessly creating more and bigger and faster and on and on programs, how can we begin nurturing environments where community can spontaneously emerge? Myers points out that to do so we must hand over our desire for control, our look for a check-list of "how" and our presumptions that we know best... as a church leader I can tell you that that is a huge task in itself.
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