The Alternative Church and Chaos Theory
Posted by Tom Hackett in Mission and Church Planting at 10:17 am | 
Permanent Link
I am thinking that the church has functioned in an “ordered” paradigm for 1700yrs (since Constantine). In general, we don’t seem to be doing well as it relates to the population of the planet or growing in a way you might expect. If anything it seems that the traditional church model is becoming irrelevant and impotent in many ways (no offense intended). It seems that where the church has not had organization or “systems” because of legal issues or persecution it has grown at its fastest pace. My thinking is that the traditional church has become trapped and controlled by system and organizational dynamics regardless of the intentions of those involved. I propose an alternative approach…let’s let the church go and see what happens. Lets acknowledge, empower, encourage and facilitate the micro church in it’s multitudes of expression and allow them to become what their “tongue, tribe & nation” need them to be. Let’s facilitate the “chaos” of the power of God to express itself without the control that systems and organizations put on them.
The idea is that God and the power of the gospel is chaotic by our standards. I am using the term chaotic to mean “lacking a visible order, unpredictable”. It has to do with the sovereignty and the omnipotence of God. What appears to be chaos to us is very manageable to God.
Our traditional church paradigms are very much a controlled system that we (humans) are comfortable with (hierarchal and lineal) but get in the way of and slow down the dynamics and the power of the gospel. The Alternative Church is an attempt to allow the power of the gospel to take a less “resistant” path (through independent micro churches) to the development of the Macro church.
By allowing the “church” to function without control in a sense we are putting our trust in God and the promises made by Jesus that He would send us the Holy Spirit as a guide, teacher and that He would intercede for us. The Alternative Church is an attempt to put the control of the church back in God’s “chaotic” and powerful hands (micro churches) and take away the controls imposed by human systems and organizations.
Chaos Theory:
A branch of science that deals with systems whose evolution depends very sensitively upon the initial conditions. Chaotic systems are very sensitive to initial conditions; small changes in those conditions can lead to quite different outcomes.
What basic conditions are appropriate when launching a micro church movement?
Doctrine?
Use of web based tool
Doing what a church does
What will training look like? How should you influence a chaotic system?
Chaos theory and social constructs?
* How will the same conditions affect different social constructs (ethic groups, cultures, ages, sexes, subcultures, etc.)?
5th of January, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I like what you are saying. I totally understand the need for an Alternative church. Where it gets fuzzy for me is in the training, like you mentioned and the specifics of what it would look like. How did you start the surfer groups?
5th of January, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I totally agree, and I really see the connection with Constantine and his influence on the future of Christianity. I have had discussions with proffessors about whether the legalization of Christianity was good or bad, and I was 1out of maybe 30 students that said they thought it was negative. Everyone else said “Sure its good, b/c we’re all safe now”. (That’s my simplistic summary.)
But the problem (This is me summarizing Brian McLaren, who you may have been accused of looking like) is that we are trying to operate and lead from a place of power. (Ie. Government, Political Agendas, City Wide monetary influence, etc…) when really Christ taught us to exercise POWER UNDER not POWER OVER. I love the analogy of the chaos theory.
One idea I have is that we be agents of chaos… that we excite the elements (or people) around us so that they in turn birth chaos, because in the midst of the shaking up that we may cause, we can move towards something, something larger.
6th of January, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Tom,
Good work on launching these ideas. It shows some good and thoughtful thinking, but your conversation with Zach reflects my thoughts on systems thinking.
I think putting some time into understanding the foundational concepts of systems thinking would be useful, because you are, in effect, setting up a new system. If it would be helpful, I can get you a bibliography, but the books we talked about when we were together are a good start.
I hope these short comments are helpful.
6th of January, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Hey Tom, I checked out the web sites you suggested. Thank you! What a cool thing God is doing. I loved hearing from those being discipled. Thank you for the encouragement. How is this outreach different in it’s set up? You talked about leadership in the church being heirarchial (? is that a word
) I think that there is always some of that. I get frustrated when people talk about things not being top down , when in fact they are. Do you think that you guys have forgone that?
7th of January, 2007 at 6:47 am
Cindy;
Whoops; I spelled that wrong…hierarchal - classified according to various criteria into successive levels or layers.
Not sure what you mean by your question. Do you think that you guys have forgone that? Whos is “you guys”?
8th of January, 2007 at 8:01 am
Some how a comment or two has been deleted from this post. Sorry; must have been the operator �. Here is a “micro church� (by my definition) that is an example of what I am talking about. Check out: http://www.mosaicsheffield.org
What I foresee is millions of these kinds of expressions that are contextually relevant to the world (tongue, tribe and nation) of each location or interest group. Web based communities can help acknowledge, empower, facilitate, encourage the development of micro churches all over the world and virtual world for that matter.
9th of January, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Tom,
I think this is all so new to me. So instead of asking “too big” questions I will continue reading your posts, which seem to be answering the questions I have. Thanks for the info.
Cindy