Adventures in Organization
Adventures in Organization
I just returned from a meeting about how to deal with 22 evacuees from N.O. who have come our way. I was somewhat frustrated by the whole deal. We had about 19 church members present and it was a chaotic meeting about how to handle the logistics. I caught myself thinking, “It sure would work more efficiently if there was one person in charge who told everyone what to do.” This comes after reading and whole-heartedly agreeing with Greg’s article An Unorganized Church. My thinking betrayed me because I was thinking efficiency, something that, in my mind, cannot have a large place in Kingdom thinking.
I thought about the other alternative – group of leaders goes into a board room, makes the decisions, and tells everyone what to do. I hate that way of leadership! I know that simpler structures and more communication is messy, but I believe it is the best way. I believe that because we need to struggle with what it means to be like Christ together, as a body. That means we have to have dialogue, disagree, get upset, be frustrated. But that’s OK as long as we keep the lines of communication open. Only in this way can we discern as God’s people what he by his Spirit is leading us to do.
I just returned from a meeting about how to deal with 22 evacuees from N.O. who have come our way. I was somewhat frustrated by the whole deal. We had about 19 church members present and it was a chaotic meeting about how to handle the logistics. I caught myself thinking, “It sure would work more efficiently if there was one person in charge who told everyone what to do.” This comes after reading and whole-heartedly agreeing with Greg’s article An Unorganized Church. My thinking betrayed me because I was thinking efficiency, something that, in my mind, cannot have a large place in Kingdom thinking.
I thought about the other alternative – group of leaders goes into a board room, makes the decisions, and tells everyone what to do. I hate that way of leadership! I know that simpler structures and more communication is messy, but I believe it is the best way. I believe that because we need to struggle with what it means to be like Christ together, as a body. That means we have to have dialogue, disagree, get upset, be frustrated. But that’s OK as long as we keep the lines of communication open. Only in this way can we discern as God’s people what he by his Spirit is leading us to do.
posted by allencoker at
9:30 AM
1 Comments:
The other part to this simple and messy organizational idea, is that we have to be humble enough to let others run with it, and whoever runs with it will do well to be humble enough to ask advice.
Not using the board of directors also means not de facto putting everyone on a board of directors. We have to avoid the urge to mettle in someone else's idea.
It takes a while for a community to learn how to not mind everyone else's business.
By
Greg, at 11:02 AM
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