The Hsu’s Views

I think this Bounded/Centered set framework is incredibly useful in a discussion of how to bring together wildly different entities of the body of Christ. I studied under Paul Hiebert at Trinity Evangelical Divinity school. I even have notes of him talking about this in class, but it really didn’t make sense until I began seeing it employed in the emerging church conversation. (Dr. Hiebert just passed away of cancer on March 11, 2007. In Memoriam.)

Stated simply, we have different ways of determining who or what “belongs.” Employing set theory, we might describe a bounded set as anything inside a clearly defined set of criteria, a boundary. Based on how one might satisfy the requirements, you are “in” or “out.” A centered set is different in that “members” of the set are not defined by a boundary, but rather by its proximity to a central object.

Frost and Hirsh, in the Shaping of Things to Come, (p.47) do a great job of illustrating the difference by ranching in Texas as opposed to ranching in Australia. In Texas, ranches are defined by barbed wire fences that keep the cattle from roaming too far away and help define which cattle belong to whom. In Australia, it is not necessary to build fences. Instead, you just need to sink a well. Since water is scarce, cattle will not roam far, rendering fences unneccessary.

Perhaps we could say bounded-sets define by containing, centered-sets define by attracting.

Darrell Guder, in Missional Church, has a great chapter (Chapter 7) that applies this organizational principle onto the church. It used to be that the defining sense of “who belonged” was dictated by a denomination (Baptist, Lutheran, or Presbyterian), or a theological framework (Reformed, Dispensational, etc.) Rules of belonging were very clear and had an effect of separating the body of Christ. “I believe this, you believe that.”

Both books suggest that church should be centered set, and I would argue that this should be so both when thinking about church as “local” or “citywide.” Guder writes:

“that the centered set organizaton invites people to enter on a journey toward a set of values and commitments. For example, in the model that we have been developing in this book, the direction toward which people would be invited to move is the gospel’s announcement of God’s reign that is forming a people as God’s new society.”

This is very useful in thinking about a city reaching movement especially when a common denominator such as Jesus’ gospel of the Kingdom of God is the “well” that we do not stray far from. I see how this Kingdom commonality is increasingly the piece that can faciliatate a harmony of the body of Christ in places like San Diego. Harmonizing around Jesus, Kingdom and Mission allows for the different “notes” (churches, organizations, callings, and focii) to sound stronger as a chord. I’m thinking harmonizaton (centered set) is more suitable then homogenization (bounded set) as a metaphor for today.

A great thread can be found at this bulletin board. (I love the little re-mixed Matrix clip at the top.)

Cities, Evangelism, Organizational Theory

OK, so I’m not alone. There are other people that are asking the same sorts of questions that I’ve been wrestling with over the last week or so. So, tonight, I thought I’d do a bit more research. In this post, I’ll link you to the links I’ve been reading and have thought useful. It’s kind of a journey that you can follow along with me.

Apparently the notion of Complex Adaptive systems have their root in chaos theory. So I thought I’d read up on chaos theory over at wikipedia. That was interesting to get the technical math side of the theory, but things really got interesting when following the link at the bottom of the wikipedia entry entitled, “Chaos Theory in Organizational Development.”

That article was useful in pointing out that application of chaos theory to social science matters (like organizational theory and ecclesiology) should be limited to metaphor. It is difficult to apply differences between classic physics and quantum physics directly to areas of study that don’t quite operate with the same rules. Nonetheless, the article identifies three areas of cross over: Self-organization, Bifurcation, and Self-Similarity (though the last area is not addressed).

The Applications and Pitfalls section was very useful, reinforcing some other things that I have been reading. Basically it suggests that you don’t want to suggest totally chaos as an organizing principle because everything will fall apart. Similarly, you don’t want to remain static, or you will ossify as an organization. Instead you want to perch an organization at “The Edge of Chaos” because that is where the need for innovation is most felt and the environment for it is most conducive for the change needed. I couldn’t help and draw the connections with my own ministry and with more attractional models of church.

Then I start wondering about Chaos theory and the church. Has anyone been applying this thinking to the emerging church conversation? So I googled “Chaos theory and the church.”

That led me to a couple of great articles. The first was a great article by Benjamin Sternke entitled, “Church 2.0: Emergence/Chaos Theory. I loved it because while saying and confirming some of the things I’ve been reading and thinking, it also draws a connection with what is being called web 2.0. (Wiki definition) I want to do more reading on web 2.0 and see if that helps the conversation of city reaching… but later. Here is another reference to chaos and web 2.0.

Another article was found at next-wave.org entitled “The God of Chaos Theory.” This was great and is a must read.

Finally, a blog entry entitled, “Constructive Chaos?”

Organizational Theory

I’ll take a moment to blog on Complex Adaptive System (CAS) theory in another place. Suffice to say, with my limited knowledge of such things, CAS seems to be an emerging postmodern approach toward organizational theory. Part of the shift seems to be reflected in an ability to embrace complexity, ambiguity, messiness and loose order. Some entities are better suited to a CAS approach than the tradition “command and control” paradigm.

One recent book that simplifies much of this conversation is The Starfish and the Spider The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. Here is their website and the first chapter of their book. Oh, and let’s not forget the jacket cover at Brafman’s blog.

The central message is the difference between centralized (Spider) and decentralized organizations (Starfish). Using contemporary examples such as the battle between the record labels with peer to peer file sharing networks as well as the United States versus Al Quaeda, the authors suggest it is very important to recognize what approach is best suited to your particular organization or mission.

I believe Modernity has gotten us used to a top down, command and control approach toward managing organizations. We have gotten used to and dependent on patterns of governing/relating and on the traditional metrics of success. However, it is suggested in this book as well as other such as Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, that the way the world operates is changing to be more responsive to a decentralized, flat and horizontal approach to organizational leadership.

It feels to me as though my ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ, has been very dependent on a Spider-like approach to organization despite the fact that we call ourself a movement. Movements, particularly Christian movements throughout the history of the church, seem far more messy (Starfish-esque) than Modern organizational theory would like to tolerate.

This book has many wonderful observations that are applicable to recovering an organizational theory that would release rather than constrain our ministry/movement.

I’ve developed a Powerpoint presentation that captures the essence of the book. Drop me a line and I’ll send it off to you.

Here are some other reviews on the book.
Red Hat Magazine. | Brafman and Beckstrom’s wiki.

Books, Movements, Organizational Theory