“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me…” — Jesus, John 14:1
“TRUST” is the main issue on Jesus’ heart as he gives his disciples a “farewell” speech. There is such deep Trinitarian theology in these few chapters, I’m really looking forward to dwelling in the reality of the Godhead over the next few days. But truly, Jesus does not begin his final talk with his disciples by reinforcing their doctrinal beliefs, or by pop-quizzing them on their Trinitarian orthodoxy…no, to Jesus there is something far more important than anything else.
Deeper than theology, deeper than doctrine…is TRUST. It is the first developmental task a human must achieve.
Fully-formed adults all around us are still waiting for someone to teach them how to trust, and thus still function as scared, insecure little infants. The cynicism and skepticism of this age is profound, and I believe it is partly because we put our trust in things that will inevitably fail us. Politicians, love-relationships, money, our health…
But Jesus promotes an attitude of TRUST. Trust in him. He is worthy of your trust…quite possibly your most precious asset. Not only is it the avenue by which Christ can enter our hearts and we enter his, but it transforms our approach to life! If you have an ATTITUDE of TRUST, then your APPROACH to every relationship will grow out of faith, not fearfulness. Jesus, no matter what happens in this election, or relationship, or job, or doctor’s appointment…JESUS will always be trustworthy – he will never fail us.
In what, specifically, is Jesus asking us to trust him? From his words, it seems he wants us to trust that he is both the WAY and the DESTINATION.
Speaking with his disciples, Jesus begins admitting to them that he is leaving and preparing a place for them with the Father. He tells them that they “know the way,” and will come after him to get there. Thomas, thankfully, asks a clarifying question – “How will we know the way if we’ve never been there before?”
Jesus then turns the metaphor of “way” on its head and says that they know the Way because they know him – Jesus IS the Way! But he goes on to say that he is in the Father and the Father is in him. Also, he says that the place that God dwells is in Christ – the new Temple.
If we see Jesus as both destination and way, we will develop a sense of spiritual satisfaction, and continued development in our maturity as disciples. We aren’t left hungering and craving something new all the time (new ideas about God, a new church or community to meet my needs, etc) – we already have complete “arrival” in the person of Jesus – but we don’t see the Way of Jesus as a once-and-for-all list of propositions to be defended…we are always on a journey with him – he our “trailblazer” (Heb 6:20) and we are his followers! In following Jesus, we live in humility – realizing that we haven’t “arrived” yet – we are still “the Wandering People of God,” hoping and longing for the complete rest waiting for us when we know and can see with our own eyes the answers to all our questions.
When I think about church leadership, I like the concept of parents. It remains very relational and organic…and it reminds me of the language in the New Testament (God = Father) (Paul describes himself as a “mother” to his churches).
However, I’ve been wondering about power and leadership and how it becomes consolidated over time. We all know parents who abuse their power, (hopefully not as many as there are parents who love and nurture their kids).
Lately, I’ve been thinking about rotating leadership. Much like a V-Formation (sometimes called “skein”) in migratory birds – the front bird gets assaulted with major turbulence, and must rotate out with another bird every so often to fly faster and longer than they could alone!
What I love about this image is that EVERY bird knows which direction they need to go.
There is leadership…but no permanent leader…except the “instinct” in all of them to fly north. When one gets tired, the others know exactly what to do and where to go, and help him out of the most dangerous position to find a place of rest in the back of the flock.
My own push-backs on the metaphor…
Is this irresponsible to the “youngest” in the family? How can a family “rotate” parenthood? …and wouldn’t we as a church have to be GOING somewhere? (as in, some churches are sitting on their duffs!)
The V formation greatly boosts the efficiency and range of flying birds, particularly over long migratory routes. All the birds except the first fly in the upwash from the wingtip vortices of the bird ahead. The upwash assists each bird in supporting its own weight in flight, in the same way a glider can climb or maintain height indefinitely in rising air. In a V formation of 25 members, each bird can achieve a reduction of induced drag by up to 65% and as a result increase their range by 71%. The birds flying at the tips and at the front are rotated in a timely cyclical fashion to spread flight fatigue equally among the flock members. The formation also makes communication easier and allows the birds to maintain visual contact with each other.
I think this metaphor misses it in many ways. We are not a flock of birds, alone in our journey, with only our instinct to guide us. Instinct, I think, has little to do with church leadership. We have almost 2k years of the Church, thousands (tens, hundreds of thousands?) of saints, the writings of the church, and of course the Scriptures to guide us. Instinct, if we indeed have anything like it, usually takes us away from God. When we do see “instinct” in someone that leads them towards God, it is a finely honed, disciplined, practiced walk with God, rather than something we all as Christians possess.
Another way this misses the mark is that not all of us want to be leaders, at least not in the perhaps worldly way that we tend to think of leadership. I have some experience with that: in our church in Seattle we attempted a very democratic way of organizing our Sunday liturgy -EVERYBODY was expected to take a turn at planning it. Unfortunately, not everyone was good at it and some that were were not interested in doing it. It just didn’t work out.
Where this metaphor is valid though is when we put leadership in its proper context: the “leader” as we tend to think of him/her should be perhaps the least important person in the church. In this way everyone “gets their turn”: the children lead, the humble lead, the weak lead, the skilled lead, the “leader” leads, but everyone serves. Everyone must submit to each other. The church is not just a spiritual body – it is also a physical body and even worldly, in a way of thinking. However, we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that this worldly face is worth anything, that “leadership” is worth anything, or that it is actually the whole of the church. If we ignore the leadership of the humble the church will be an empty shell, no matter if it looks like it is going somewhere or not.
It took a few days for me to get back to this comment, just because I think it raises an important point.
Yes, birds fly with instinct, but the metaphor translates to the church when “instinct” becomes the Holy Spirit – filtered through the whole counsel of God. I agree that history, hagiography, theology, philosophy… “communities of informed judgment” as I’ve called them elsewhere in this blog – are brought to bear their very best wisdom and gifts to the community.
Much like 1 Cor 14:26 – “When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell a special revelation… etc” this is what I’m thinking of when I say “shared” leadership.
And not just leadership in our gathering for worship – I think our church VISION should come from a collaboration of folks in the community.
This is not the same as a “democracy” we are in a theocracy – a King who is God is our leader – the rest of us are just a few steps behind…and no one is ever the sole-proprietor of God’s voice or instructions for where to go next.
Keep pushing on this with me if ya like – I love this kind of learning…
Mark, I like this a lot. The idea that there is a rotation works really well if leadership is understood to be among peers. Leadership in the home is different because its symbiotic. I and my wife were part of the birthing process for God to bring our child into the world and are responsible thus to provide an environment that treats parenting as a stewardship of our relationship to our child, not a leadership position. Parenting requires leadership like a house requires walls. So parenting isn’t leadership, it just requires leadership to be done and there is no use comparing or separating them. What parenting doesn’t require but actually should be – is stewardship. Parents don’t have to think like or be stewards to be parent their children but they do have to be leaders, its inherent to the process. So stewardship is the challenge.
The connection for me is that new birth requires leadership. The kind of leadership that you are talking about is leadership shared among peers who, generally speaking, are at very similar levels of competence, maturity and communicated investment. I love the idea of a 12 year old leading a Bible study, as long as they understand that they are doing so with encouragement and “leadership” from a group of people who represent the flock of birds responsible for rotating the front lead. Over exposure to leadership responsibilities for those not ready or seasoned can lead to immense damage or debilitating pride.
So it seems that it is better to have a group of leaders sharing the front who represent different ilks of influence, gifting and personality. They all can provide an environment where those that are birthed and/or are maturing can grow in praxis and conviction. At the end of the day it does take a group of people to determine who is growing, how they can help them grow and at what stage of growth or need for birth they are at. Whoever ends up doing this will be by default – the leaders. They should represent a variety of influences and giftings and experiences as much as possible. Regardless, whomever ends up evaluating those that are growing and providing the environment for growth and maturity to take place – they are the leaders and the others aren’t.
The point though for leaders is to not be leaders from a desire for power but from a desire to ultimately empower others through their self designed disempowerment as they transfer power and decision making to increasingly competent and maturing individual and communities. (This is all very ideal – but that is the nature of theory)
I think what you’re getting at, is that at whatever point a community is at in that process different members of the leading community need to be the “point person” and take the helm. After they’ve taken the helm for whatever project or period of time that they were needed, they then give up the “point person” positioning as a reflection of how they need to be growing in health and encouraging the community to grow in health. this is done by leaders making space for other leaders to lead and by “making sheep into shepherds” as they mature. The leaders are ultimately supposed to work themselves out of a job continuously in order to reflect health, accountability,.proper pedagogy and continual community transformation. Leadership is then a paradox – Leaders are people who work themselves out of leadership continuously in order to empower others, thereby solidly establishing their identity as leaders and hence their leadership.
I like your idea as well, because the birds are from Canada.
You know Nathan, this reminds me of a parent helping a child learn how to tie his shoe. The truth is, if the parent wanted complete control of the child, the parent would never teach the kid how to tie the shoe, thus keeping the child dependent on the parent forever. And truth be told, its easier just to tie the dang shoe, than to take the time to stop, take about two weeks of intense training, laying one lace over the other making a bow, etc…
But any parent will tell you that a chunk of time invested in teaching a child to tie his own shoe will save the parent many countless hours later on in life. The control must be passed from the parent to the child. If leadership remains in the hands of one leader, then the shoe metaphor says that the family will never walk farther than the leader will let them go. Control and power must be passed around – because one day, when the parent is weak and paralyzed with old age, the child will be tying the shoes of the parent.
Cool continuation Mark! Teaching a man how to fish starts when he’s a child. What would you say to the idea empowering leaders who are in the same age bracket and life experience as you but because of circumstances or historical hardships have been held back in their ability to mature in certain areas of life, practice or propriety?
I’m thinking of post-colonialism – the leadership (albeit that it sucked and was imperialistic) of the colonial era was static until it was removed. The removal was so swift and many times so pervasive that the leadership vacuum in many of these countries was more like a leadership black hole that swallowed them up. Only now are some of these countries pulling themselves out of the ruin, civil unrest and tragedy of post colonial vacancies and tragedies. Many were expected to operate within systems created by the Western imperialists immediately upon the exiting of the Western colonialists which left them in a state of shock. The same thing was true after slavery was outlawed here in the US. Those transitions were so upending that they essentially forced a global “revolution” upon each of the countries that they left behind. We bemoan other “revolutions” that took place but colonialism created violent “revolutions” all over the world in less than 20 years by just leaving countries behind to figure things out on their own without little to no transition time.
Just wondered what your thoughts were on that stuff. In your opinion, how should leaders be empowered who are in this frame of mind? The reason I ask, is that when an older individual finds Christ, though they are a new birth spiritually, their age allows them to perceive their faith from a somewhat “spiritual post-colonialism” especially if they are the same age as us or older. The organic process is much more straight forward when the spiritual growth can somewhat match the natural humanistic growth of the individual. I’ve often wondered how to work with those who are older when they come to faith and it seems that their process mirrors more of the post-colonial mind-scape. Thoughts?
The flying v may be better metaphor (instinct, etc), but your reflection also made me think of drafting in cycling, sharing the burden, increasing overall speed, etc. The peleton has many interesting dynamics…I’ll leave thAt for another time when not on a cell phone. Fly on. Blessings
“Let there be light…” God’s first words created an explosion of relationship – Light is essentially frequencies connecting particles that link together in pure, blinding energy.
When God created the world, he chose to be in relationship with that world, God’s light reaching and connecting and networking every thing he created to the farthest reaches of the cosmos. This is God’s “Great Connection.” Each connection in God’s creation to this day is another explosion of energy – the more links you live in, the more you live in light.
Unfortunately, it is stereotypical for the average house church (the Meso Layer) to stop at the Meso Layer. It’s a wonderful thing for a simple church to experience God’s family life, but asserting their autonomy effectively keeps them in the dark, away from the links of light. Isolation brings death, whereas inter-connectivity brings life.
This blog post is an exploration of the resilience of an interconnected family of faith in a city or region – the Macro Layer.
Something to ponder: There is no example of a “house church” in the New Testament – but there are plenty of church networks! (Romans 16, Acts 16:25-40, Revelation 1:4, just to name a few…) Beyond the household gatherings, the earliest church also clearly enjoyed worship, fellowship and mission with an extended network of believers.
Teaching, prayer and shared meals at the Meso Layer was the daily experience of First Century disciples – but it was also common for Christians to gather for prayers in the temple courts, to proclaim Christ in the Hall of Solomon, receive teaching from church leaders, and share in Communion at regional gatherings! (Acts 2:42-46)
This “gather-scatter” concept grew mainly out of the “prayer houses” and synagogues of the Jews during their exile from Israel several hundred years before Jesus. The Jews of course, hoped their Messiah would reestablish an earthly home for Jews, to call them home from exile and create a centralized place of worship and government (like in “the good ole’ days” of King David). However, Jesus called (and calls) his followers to venture out as “voluntary exiles,” seeking citizenship of no earthly nation, but of a heavenly Kingdom – yet connected like illegal immigrants here on earth. That’s gotta be a downer for your average Zionist!
Liquid Church
The Macro Layer takes seriously the liquid form of Christian Community – it does not have physical structures or an exoskeleton holding its size back – like water, it is contained only by its dynamic, inter-dependent correlation of relationships. The Macro Layer is the engagement of relationships beyond the family level – it is the local “extended family” that reaches from “eternity to here.”
In our paradigm of the Onion, the church takes on a “living system,” organic nature. Systems Theory seems to say that every organism is part of a larger, interconnected network. And even my very notion of self is not determined by myself alone, but by the web in which I’ve been woven. In this way, the church is more like an afghan than a building – it is knitted together, fully flexible, not easily broken.
Yeah, but what does it look like???
Of course, liquid is best enjoyed in a glass, not spilling all over the table – and similarly, liquid church at the Macro Layer contains internal structures to give focus to the regional church – funneling into infinite nodes of connectivity:
The important piece is not necessarily HOW you connect, or the structure of the nodes, but the process going on between them (the WINE is more important than the WINESKIN).
Fractals Rock
Fractals are everywhere. From the largest of galaxies to the smallest snowflake, fractals are the code of the universe.
Every living thing or dynamic system takes a fractal form. Fractals are based on simple mathematical equations that contain unending diversity. The patterns are determined by a simple rule in a series of repetitions that feed back on itself new information. Starting with a simple building block (a human cell, a coordinates in a computer) these repetitions unleash a creative potential for infinite complexity.
The genetic code of a seed gives the crucial information needed for the fractal equation found in cell multiplication to help catalyze the growth of a tree. The DNA of this seed will grow an oak tree, and not a dogwood or a squirrel. There are boundaries for fractals, and yet, when watching the process, it can only be described as beautifully chaotic.
The Church is built on the trillion cells of local churches and Christians scattered throughout time and space. The Church then, is the Fractal of Jesus Christ in the world. Self-similar, yet wildly diverse – each point of light on a fractal is connected to every other point of light throughout the system.
This is a blog series on the Layers of Christian Community – the Onion of the Church. The onion is a beautiful example of a fractal – layers upon layers of “similar difference.”
A Tribe to Belong To
It is interesting that as we explore the levels of the Onion, we are learning that each of these layers are also core desires of all humanity. Everyone desires a personal connection with the Divine; everyone desires one or two others who get them through thick and thin; those who have come from broken families still desire an expression of family — and we all desire to be a part of a dynamic tribe.
A tribe is a group of people, connected to one another, and to a shared story. This postmodern age has brought an explosion of tribes, covens, meetups, making each of us part of multiple tribes. Our embrace of the tribe is our rejection of the factory — the place of passive production and impersonal sausage-making.
JESUS’ TRIBE:::>> So far in this series, we’ve explored Jesus’ community – here’s what we’ve found: (Mono) Jesus was “one with the Father,” (Micro) and his heart-to-hearts were with his core team of Peter, James, and John. (Meso) Jesus’ 12 disciples were his daily community – his family-on-a-mission. But who was Jesus’ “Macro Layer of Church?”
Jesus taught and fed the crowds, that much is sure – but beyond the masses, Jesus specifically cast vision and trained 72 disciples. (Luke 10) This was Jesus’ TRIBE. The people who were following “the Way,” sent into every town and village in the area to declare the Good News of the Kingdom. Through this Kingdom Tribe, Jesus was forging a sneeze of relationships right across the Empire that remained connected to each other through Love and through a dangerous Story – that God’s Kingdom was near!
Tribal development comes through a linking through a common story, and living into that story together to make dramatic change. From the contemporary Tea Party Movement or Obama’s Grassroots Campaign, from Geronimo’s Apache Tribe harassing and impeding the Spanish conquistadors, to the First Century Church decrying Cesar as a mere man, and a murdered, resurrected Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords… the tribe is consistently the social layer for monumental change.
The Tribe you choose to join is of utmost importance.
The social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube make a veritable Youniverse that puts you right at the center of your own “social-black-hole.” You can now be the leader of your own private Tribe. Recent studies have even said that Facebook and mobile computing has brought about the demise of the church. Now that we have our own network – we no longer need to be a part of God’s local Tribes.
From the beginning, humans have had to choose between being king of their own dark kingdom, or a citizen in God’s Kingdom of Light. It is either “My Kingdom Come” or “Thy Kingdom Come.” And choosing God’s Kingdom means we choose to be connected to God’s Tribe – a inter-connected network that is glocal in influence.
A Family Reunion
These network gatherings and other nodes of connectivity will feel more like a family reunion than a United Nations Summit. It is essential for Christians to remember that they are primarily citizens of the same universal Kingdom of God, rather than constituents of individual house churches.
Certainly, there is leadership, but unlike a hierarchy (static leading from the top down) and more like a v-formation flock of birds – sharing and rotating the front position to go farther together. Maybe each month the Macro Layer (say, 10 house churches) meet together for worship, and each month, a different community organizes the event and leads worship in their way. This promotes diversity in the Body of Christ, and a reminder that God is creating a Family from every tongue, tribe, and nation. (Rev 7:9)
A bohemian, post-modern group might choose to fill a rented club with ambient music and allow God’s presence to surround the worshippers as they pray or participate with God in apophatic practices and incense. Another group might bring a recent convert to give his/her testimony to the rest of the network. The important principle to be communicated at every monthly network gathering is a theme of unity in diversity. Each church that plans worship should put the needs and interests of other groups they are in relationship with above their own desires to control the experience.
Home-brewed Leadership
Regular local leadership gatherings allow those involved to pass along insights and resources to other organic church leaders in the network. It serves as a bridge between leaders and a limitless array of links to resources and fresh connections. A “home-brewed seminary,” of sorts. This never ending journey of learning and serving other communities is an “opt-in” learning community of practitioners – no one in the church network Macro Layer is excluded from leadership gatherings, but only those who are interested in developing Meso Layers seem to stick around!
Monthly leadership gatherings bring cohesion and training to each house church leader – part book club, part coaching session, part training in various pastoral tools (like conflict management, or church multiplication…etc).
—-
As best as I can, I’ve tried to describe the “congregation” as a Macro Layer – not as a building or institution, but as an organism or movement. Through a lifestyle of worship and fellowship with a dozen or so house churches, the Macro Layer can offer Christians a sense that “they are not alone” in this family of God. Through God’s grace, these communities will slowly transform into an ecumenical Body of Christ in your city. The underground church network is one such Macro Layer beginning to emerge in our context here in Chicago. Much like a Fractal, it displays the DNA of Jesus, and yet the possibilities in the fractal of Christ are limitless!
Chad, 
Jesse Cox 1:57 pm on April 10, 2010 Permalink
I think this metaphor misses it in many ways. We are not a flock of birds, alone in our journey, with only our instinct to guide us. Instinct, I think, has little to do with church leadership. We have almost 2k years of the Church, thousands (tens, hundreds of thousands?) of saints, the writings of the church, and of course the Scriptures to guide us. Instinct, if we indeed have anything like it, usually takes us away from God. When we do see “instinct” in someone that leads them towards God, it is a finely honed, disciplined, practiced walk with God, rather than something we all as Christians possess.
Another way this misses the mark is that not all of us want to be leaders, at least not in the perhaps worldly way that we tend to think of leadership. I have some experience with that: in our church in Seattle we attempted a very democratic way of organizing our Sunday liturgy -EVERYBODY was expected to take a turn at planning it. Unfortunately, not everyone was good at it and some that were were not interested in doing it. It just didn’t work out.
Where this metaphor is valid though is when we put leadership in its proper context: the “leader” as we tend to think of him/her should be perhaps the least important person in the church. In this way everyone “gets their turn”: the children lead, the humble lead, the weak lead, the skilled lead, the “leader” leads, but everyone serves. Everyone must submit to each other. The church is not just a spiritual body – it is also a physical body and even worldly, in a way of thinking. However, we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that this worldly face is worth anything, that “leadership” is worth anything, or that it is actually the whole of the church. If we ignore the leadership of the humble the church will be an empty shell, no matter if it looks like it is going somewhere or not.
Mark 9:26 am on April 14, 2010 Permalink
Jesse,
It took a few days for me to get back to this comment, just because I think it raises an important point.
Yes, birds fly with instinct, but the metaphor translates to the church when “instinct” becomes the Holy Spirit – filtered through the whole counsel of God. I agree that history, hagiography, theology, philosophy… “communities of informed judgment” as I’ve called them elsewhere in this blog – are brought to bear their very best wisdom and gifts to the community.
Much like 1 Cor 14:26 – “When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell a special revelation… etc” this is what I’m thinking of when I say “shared” leadership.
And not just leadership in our gathering for worship – I think our church VISION should come from a collaboration of folks in the community.
This is not the same as a “democracy” we are in a theocracy – a King who is God is our leader – the rest of us are just a few steps behind…and no one is ever the sole-proprietor of God’s voice or instructions for where to go next.
Keep pushing on this with me if ya like – I love this kind of learning…
Nathan 7:15 pm on April 17, 2010 Permalink
Mark, I like this a lot. The idea that there is a rotation works really well if leadership is understood to be among peers. Leadership in the home is different because its symbiotic. I and my wife were part of the birthing process for God to bring our child into the world and are responsible thus to provide an environment that treats parenting as a stewardship of our relationship to our child, not a leadership position. Parenting requires leadership like a house requires walls. So parenting isn’t leadership, it just requires leadership to be done and there is no use comparing or separating them. What parenting doesn’t require but actually should be – is stewardship. Parents don’t have to think like or be stewards to be parent their children but they do have to be leaders, its inherent to the process. So stewardship is the challenge.
The connection for me is that new birth requires leadership. The kind of leadership that you are talking about is leadership shared among peers who, generally speaking, are at very similar levels of competence, maturity and communicated investment. I love the idea of a 12 year old leading a Bible study, as long as they understand that they are doing so with encouragement and “leadership” from a group of people who represent the flock of birds responsible for rotating the front lead. Over exposure to leadership responsibilities for those not ready or seasoned can lead to immense damage or debilitating pride.
So it seems that it is better to have a group of leaders sharing the front who represent different ilks of influence, gifting and personality. They all can provide an environment where those that are birthed and/or are maturing can grow in praxis and conviction. At the end of the day it does take a group of people to determine who is growing, how they can help them grow and at what stage of growth or need for birth they are at. Whoever ends up doing this will be by default – the leaders. They should represent a variety of influences and giftings and experiences as much as possible. Regardless, whomever ends up evaluating those that are growing and providing the environment for growth and maturity to take place – they are the leaders and the others aren’t.
The point though for leaders is to not be leaders from a desire for power but from a desire to ultimately empower others through their self designed disempowerment as they transfer power and decision making to increasingly competent and maturing individual and communities. (This is all very ideal – but that is the nature of theory)
I think what you’re getting at, is that at whatever point a community is at in that process different members of the leading community need to be the “point person” and take the helm. After they’ve taken the helm for whatever project or period of time that they were needed, they then give up the “point person” positioning as a reflection of how they need to be growing in health and encouraging the community to grow in health. this is done by leaders making space for other leaders to lead and by “making sheep into shepherds” as they mature. The leaders are ultimately supposed to work themselves out of a job continuously in order to reflect health, accountability,.proper pedagogy and continual community transformation. Leadership is then a paradox – Leaders are people who work themselves out of leadership continuously in order to empower others, thereby solidly establishing their identity as leaders and hence their leadership.
I like your idea as well, because the birds are from Canada.
Mark 10:23 am on April 18, 2010 Permalink
You know Nathan, this reminds me of a parent helping a child learn how to tie his shoe. The truth is, if the parent wanted complete control of the child, the parent would never teach the kid how to tie the shoe, thus keeping the child dependent on the parent forever. And truth be told, its easier just to tie the dang shoe, than to take the time to stop, take about two weeks of intense training, laying one lace over the other making a bow, etc…
But any parent will tell you that a chunk of time invested in teaching a child to tie his own shoe will save the parent many countless hours later on in life. The control must be passed from the parent to the child. If leadership remains in the hands of one leader, then the shoe metaphor says that the family will never walk farther than the leader will let them go. Control and power must be passed around – because one day, when the parent is weak and paralyzed with old age, the child will be tying the shoes of the parent.
Nathan Smith 1:21 am on April 19, 2010 Permalink
Cool continuation Mark! Teaching a man how to fish starts when he’s a child. What would you say to the idea empowering leaders who are in the same age bracket and life experience as you but because of circumstances or historical hardships have been held back in their ability to mature in certain areas of life, practice or propriety?
I’m thinking of post-colonialism – the leadership (albeit that it sucked and was imperialistic) of the colonial era was static until it was removed. The removal was so swift and many times so pervasive that the leadership vacuum in many of these countries was more like a leadership black hole that swallowed them up. Only now are some of these countries pulling themselves out of the ruin, civil unrest and tragedy of post colonial vacancies and tragedies. Many were expected to operate within systems created by the Western imperialists immediately upon the exiting of the Western colonialists which left them in a state of shock. The same thing was true after slavery was outlawed here in the US. Those transitions were so upending that they essentially forced a global “revolution” upon each of the countries that they left behind. We bemoan other “revolutions” that took place but colonialism created violent “revolutions” all over the world in less than 20 years by just leaving countries behind to figure things out on their own without little to no transition time.
Just wondered what your thoughts were on that stuff. In your opinion, how should leaders be empowered who are in this frame of mind? The reason I ask, is that when an older individual finds Christ, though they are a new birth spiritually, their age allows them to perceive their faith from a somewhat “spiritual post-colonialism” especially if they are the same age as us or older. The organic process is much more straight forward when the spiritual growth can somewhat match the natural humanistic growth of the individual. I’ve often wondered how to work with those who are older when they come to faith and it seems that their process mirrors more of the post-colonial mind-scape. Thoughts?
Chad 12:28 am on May 6, 2010 Permalink
The flying v may be better metaphor (instinct, etc), but your reflection also made me think of drafting in cycling, sharing the burden, increasing overall speed, etc. The peleton has many interesting dynamics…I’ll leave thAt for another time when not on a cell phone. Fly on. Blessings
Mark 7:31 am on May 6, 2010 Permalink
Fly on yourself Chad! Hope things are going well for you brother! What’s the latest? Send me an email when you’re not on your cell phone.