19 I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against
you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now
choose life—so that you and your descendants will live
— Deuteronomy 30:19
Here the people of Israel have a clear choice placed in
front of them. They can either strive to
live as God’s chosen people, as a people of covenant, or they can choose
something else. The path splits before
them toward either life or death. I have
always fought hard against black and white, yes or no, either/or
scenarios. Most often this type of
thinking does not lend itself to finding creative ways through challenges.
But is there a time that it is either choosing life or
choosing death? The second law of
thermodynamics states that, unless work is done to the contrary, systems move
toward entropy – they lose energy. The
same is true for organizations and for individuals. We are constantly being renewed or we are
moving slowly toward death. I have often
thought, especially in the church, that people would always choose life. Christ came so that we might have life and
have it abundantly (John 10:10).
Wouldn’t the people who are leaders within Christ’s Body
want to move toward life as well? We start
with the best intentions and on a beautiful journey toward richness and
fullness of life. We find ways in which
the Holy Spirit works and moves and breathes, and we pattern our worship, our
meetings, and even our structure to be receptive.
And then things change.
They always have. It is one of the constants of human existence. The
world changes, but all too often we don’t.
Instead of changing in response to the world in which God is constantly
transforming, the church changes goals: “to serve the needs of others in the
[church] rather than those of [the world]. (Quinn, DCFG 35)” We are silent because our “self-interest is
best served by not antagonizing” the higher-ups. We remain silent. Instead we become accomplices in the process
of slow death within the local church.
Robert
Quinn describes it in this way in his book, Deep Change,
In choosing
slow death, the decision makers may fully recognize the pressures for change.
Instead of initiating the change, however, they choose to do other things. In
this sense, the phenomenon of choosing slow death is not the same phenomenon as
the often-told boiled frog story.
The boiled
frog story is based on a laboratory experiment. A live frog is placed in a
container of water that is gradually heated. Eventually the water boils, and
the frog dies. In contrast, if a frog is taken from cold water and placed in a
container of hot water, it immediately jumps out and thus manages to survive.
Organizations are said to be like the frogs in the experiment. They are likely
to be unconscious of slowly evolving changes.
The boiled
frog metaphor does not capture an important aspect of the deep change or slow
death phenomenon. When an executive admits that a change is needed but opts not
to make it, the executive is making a conscious choice. The water is slowly
heating up, and the executive knows that a leap to safety is possible, the
strategic thought being, "If I can hang on just a couple of more years,
this problem will belong to someone else." However, when the executive
leaps to safety, the rest of the workforce is left with the problem. In this
sense, the choice of slow death might be referred to as the "dead tadpole
story." The frog leaps to safety, and the tadpoles are left to boil. In
this scenario, self-interest triumphs over collective responsibility. (Deep Change, Quinn)
God help us if we as pastors hold on from one church to the
next waiting for the problem to belong to someone else! The same goes true for parents with children
in a dysfunctional school system, workers in a business that is killing itself,
or even trying to outlast the latest “stinker” of a politician recently
elected.
The way to
address the need for a deep and abiding change in a system comes from an
unexpected place. We must begin with
ourselves. We be active in real-time
learning, establishing new ways of thinking and behaving, and forming new
assumptions. (DCFG, p39) Why do we do all of this? Because God so loved the
world, and so should we…Our love for people, for specific individual people can
drive our passion and ignite our fire.
We do this not for climbing the ladder or for obtaining status, but that
the world might move from death to life as they get to know the one who is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life. We have to
lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and run
with endurance this race for life that is set before us (Hebrews 12:31).
It time to
be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) so that we can figure out what
God’s will is.
And, yes, heaven help us!
Grace and Peace,
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