Four Thousand Shalls

In today's reading of Bishop Schnase's book Remember the Future, he talks about the book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie.  This book explains how organizations create a giant hairball by creating so many procedures and policies that no one is really able to accomplish anything because of all the rules, standards, guidelines and accepted models of established patterns of behavior.

Orbiting then is the creative ways that persons who are pulled towards the hairball are able to interact with the organization without being deadened by the hairball nor going so far out that they are left out in empty space alone.  The Bishop writes, "Hairball is policy, procedure, imperative, rigidity, and regimented similarity in how we do our work, while Orbiting is originality, initiative, experimentation, flexibility, agility, risk, and adaption."

With this in mind we begin to think of our own systems of shalls and shall nots.  Our own Book of Discipline has 4,835 "shalls."  There are thousands of paragraphs explaining what committees, boards, councils, congregations and pastors can and cannot do.  And this does not include the number of dos and don'ts of our own Missouri Conference Journal. 

Bishop Schnase illustrates the hairball within congregations in the following way.  A young woman is inspired to help rebuild homes in a community hit with a tornado.  She asks her pastor if she can do something, the pastor tells her that the missions committee has to approve it, they meet quarterly, and they just met last night.  She waits three months.  She meets with the missions committee who is a group of people who agreed to meet 4 times a year not to travel places working on roofs and what not.  They say that in order for this to happen the Council will have to approve it, they meet quarterly and they met last week.  This type of system only hinders the mission of the church.

Now imagine this young woman who feels called to respond to a disaster in a neighboring state, but this time the pastor encourages her to invite others who are wanting to respond to this disaster to a meeting the next Tuesday.  At church Sunday the pastor invites anyone else who feels God is calling them to help to also come to the meeting.  Imagine the energy in the room as this group gathers.  They figure that the project will cost $2,000 and they figure out how to raise the money.  They plan to meet with the Church Council propose their plan and report that the money is pledged, their are volunteers ready, and ask for the blessing of the congregation. This is a very different system, but the second is a permission giving system.  The Bishop asks, "How can we foster systems that help us soar spiritually, and how can we develop practices that are conducive to our mission rather than restraining our mission?

• How does MacKenzie's notion of an organizational Hairball help you understand some of your experiences in church leadership?  How have your decisions contributed to the Hairball?
• Can you think of a time when you navigated organizational restraints to offer fresh and innovative ministry? How did you do it
• For deeper consideration, read John 3:1-17.