If the people who built the railroads in North America were actually interested in transporting people, they would probably now own the airlines. But they don't.Industrial historians tell us that once railroad companies had completed the huge task of running track across the US & Canada, they lost their focus. Though their business vision was the free movement of people and goods, once the task of the railroad had been completed, they lost sight of the key end. Instead they settled in on the one means to that end.
This worked well for about a century - until the world around them changed and a new method to move people around became popular: airplanes. Had the railroad companies still had the free movement of people and goods as their vision, they would have jumped into this new technology. But over time they had allowed their model to replace their vision. No doubt the comfort of profits and the fact they faced little competition for so long developed a climate of corporate complacency.
I believe the church, for all our tweaking at the edges of our current model, may be in the same place as the railroad. Enamored and highly invested in our current model, we are not taking notice of the changes taking place in the air around us. Instead of reminding ourselves of the 'business' we are in, we remain fixated on our model of delivery. As Adam Grant describes in his book "Originals", the more knowledge and experience we gain in particular domain, the more we become a prisoner of our prototypes. In the case of the church, we are trapped by our model. Worse yet, the model in some cases has replaced vision. So to give the appearance of advance, we tweak the models' edges in hopes of gaining relevancy and impact. However in the final analysis we, the church remain a railroad in the age of airplanes.
Born and designed by God to engage the world with the Gospel of Christ, the Church struggles to adjust its mission because it has become too tied to its model. Its functioning and organizational existence has taken first place over the mission. Church is not first. Mission is. Church serves the mission of God and that means it must morph as needed to be faithful to the mission. I hear a lot of rhetoric about revival in the Church, but are we aware that revival also touches the institution and not just the individual heart? What might happen to our church model (which is not sacrosanct) if we worked backward from the mission of God to this world and asked some fresh questions? Here's a sampling:
- What does a church staffing model look like if we were configuring it for reaching our current context? If we started over, what needs to be different?
- To what extent should we continue to foster an institutional model?
- How would we exist if we removed a service-centric focus?
- How could those who have buildings re-envision how they are used to integrate with and serve their surrounding communities?
- Are buildings a necessary element for our mission? If so, how should that building be used in light of our mission to the world (vs. a support for internal activities).
- Staffing implies salaries, which implies a system to collect funds to pay those salaries which requires maintaining group loyalty to the institution. What then does a church on mission look like without dependence on a salary-based system?
- How does a Christian community identify & release all the gifts into culture? How will it exist organizationally when callings, gifts and skills move it far beyond its current programming model or staff capacity for coaching new mission efforts?
- How do we really equip and release the saints for the work of service God called them to do - vs. what positions the church needs filled to advance its particular mission? (I personally believe the gifts God gives to a church community is what drives its agenda, not the corporate leadership).
- If believers were too busy in neighborhoods and vocational pursuits living out the values and ways of the Kingdom of God to attend church activities on a regular, sustained basis, how would we reconfigure 'church'?
- What does community life look like that actually embraces people from any lifestyle, culture, economic situation, habit etc. so they can experience the way of Jesus in community and perhaps come to know Him?
For the Church to keep moving into society, its leaders will need to remind themselves of the business they are in, and be ready to move beyond the current 'technology' to other forms that will accomplish the mission.
Despite the 'missional' rhetoric out there, we are a railroad in an age of airplanes. Yet here is the greater challenge: What's Beyond the Airplane?
Look ahead. Be courageous. Lead towards the ends. Never be satisfied with the means.
