Systems Story - Institution or Movement?
In “The Forgotten Ways,” Hirsch notes that many ministries and churches have a “systems story” or paradigm of operating that tends toward institutionalizing itself rather than free itself to be the movement of God that the church should be. Without recognizing this paradigm, we make changes by reorganizing, restructuring, or changing processes, none of which will truly produce the change required because our systems story has not changed. He writes:
Church consultant Bill Easum is right when he notes that “following jesus into the mission field is either impossible or extremely difficult for the vast majority of congregations in the Western world because of one thing: they have a systems story that will not allow them to take the first step out of the institution into the mission field, even though the mission field is just outside the door of the congregation.
He goes on to note that every organization is built upon “an underlying systems story” He points out that “this is not a belief system. It is the continually repeated life story that determines how an organization feels, thinks, and thus acts. This systems story determines the way an organization behaves, no matter how the organizational chart is drawn. It’s the primary template that shapes all other things. Restructure the organization and leave the systems story in place, and nothing changes within the organization. It’s futuile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.”
This makes so much sense to me. One of the critical paradigm or systems story that is in place within so many churches and organizations like Campus Crusade is the institutional and mechanical worldview, or what Easum calls the “Command and Control, Stifling Story.” Hirsch comments:
This view is particularly marked when you recognize how different the predominant forms of church are from the apostolic modes. The movement that Jesus initiated was an organic people movement; it was never meant to be a religious institution. p. 54
We need to tell a new story. Or, if we are coming from a institution, we need to figure out how to rewrite that systems story, at least the part that organizes and leads by command and control if there is any truth to movements being organic entities. In what ways do we function such that our structures are equally fluid, viral and organic as movement are? I’m not sure, but it will look different. I’m sure of that. I’m also pretty sure it will make me (and others Moderns) anxious.