Grid and Group
Two weeks ago I was graduating with my masters. One week ago I was back in the classroom. Yeah, I’m asking the very same question you are! “WHY!?!?”
ACU was “nice enough” to let me graduate 3 hours short of my degree, so long as I took and passed a summer one-week intensive course. I naturally picked a class right after my regular semester ended, to get the course completed as quickly as possible. I chose “Emerging Culture & Emerging Churches” with Dr. Chris Flanders. Flanders got his Phd from Fuller Seminary, and before that was a missionary and church planter in Thailand. Since he’s been in Abilene, he’s joined the chorus of professors describing the postmodern shift, but he alone seems to think that such shifts might at all change how and what church looks like.
The class was very engaging, and also very affirming. It helped me think through some of the principles of thought in postmodernity (reading philosophers like Derrida, Foucault, Caputo, etc) and then talking about what that might mean for communities of faith. We looked at churches trying to explore a post-foundationalist theology…all very heady, but also very interesting stuff.
One big take away was an axis continuum Flanders showed us from Mary Douglas. It looked something like this:
Grid and Group Theory:
|
authoritarian (+) court room Group (-) |
hierarchy
(+) |
|
individualism
Hippie commune Grid(-) |
egalitarianism |
The two axes, Group, and Grid, show the progress of institutions (which was defined as a coordinating group of any kind) as growing inevitably and increasingly higher in “Grid”. The higher you go in Grid, the more structure and levels of authority there are. The rules and roles are more clearly defined. The other axis, Group describes the degree to which the collective controls the individual and degree to which people are bonded to particular social units - the sense of “family” the group feels.
Church examples of each: Hierarchy (Catholic Church), Authoritarian (Roman Religion; Emperor is God), Individualism (consumerist mega-church Christianity), and Egalitarianism (Quakers).
At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about this chart. Hearing that communities, the longer they are together, always move “up grid” and wake up one day a huge franchised corporation did not settle well with me. But is it possible to be meaningful, to make a difference that matters, while not selling your soul? Where do you find the balance so that lives can be changed, while remaining as structurally flat as possible to keep remain centered on mission and people rather than on preserving the institution.
What if instead of a chain of command (a la Roman Catholic Church), there was a web of relationships. Individuals networked together for the common good. Organic, family-style churches networked together as a coalition in a local context. Servant leaders of these church networks that network together to work as a resource to one another and provide training for new leaders that focus on a region. As church networks grow, is this a potential way to go “up grid” without having to distribute power to individuals, but rather power to communities? What am I missing here? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Last 5 posts by Mark
- God is Wholly - October 2nd, 2008
- The Great Moderation - September 30th, 2008
June 13th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Hey mark,
I love this question and dillema. I tend to think that size is a big leverage on the whole process. The larger you get as an entity or organization, the more the process of institutionalization takes place. However, this is not to say that a small sized group can not go through the process of inst. I tend to think we are all in an institutional vacuum to some degree. Institutionalization happens whenever any kind of pattern emerges in behavior. Paasing out roles to people helps facilitate this. The question to me is “To what degree do we want to be institutional?” Whenever we get in the business of guarding things, wether it be people or theology, we are confronted with roles and patterns. We will always be flirting with being institutional. I think the comforting thing in themoidst of this dilemma is that size helps to hold some the full blown institutionalization at bay. Networks of family type communities is the only way to avoid becoming a ful blown institution to me. Just my thoughts.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Thanks for your thoughts Tim. I think you’re right on in a lot of ways. I agree that we are always institutional - it just depends on what degree we’re talking about. Anytime a group decides on something together (whether its deciding which movie to go to, or who to elect as Pope) an institution is established.
Let’s say that a network starts out with 20 people. They all commit to always remaining grassroots, and avoid the vices of institutionalism. Is it possible for this group to remain committed to their values when they reach 200? 2000? 200,000? This is not just hypothetical. China house church networks of hundreds of thousands are traceable back to one person/team of people.
Keep pushing here Tim…what are your thoughts?