life cycles of congregations?
Continuing our look at mDNA - communitas not comminity and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here
Steve Addison comments on the life cycles of movements:
“The Church is like a garden. New plants are sprouting. Others are growing and reproducing. Others are dying and decaying. Ultimately what matters is the health of the whole eco system rather than any one plant.”
Each component of the organic system is like another plant in the garden. We have the freedom to plant, fertilise and replace. Leadership with this understanding is a fluid way of leading an organisation, one that is chaordic but one that releases teams of people into communitas experiences.
In light of this analysis, it is interesting to reflect on our previous questions for Tangent and Jeebus congregations and ask ourselves whether we should let those congregations die and start again. There is no doubt that the experience of starting something new is powerful in creating that state of communitas but there may also be other ways to engender communitas. The first few years of Northern were incredibly exciting and energising. Hirsch says that communitas involves ‘adventure and movement’ and these elements were present for the four merging churches as they re-formed themselves into something that they hoped would meet new missional challenges.