Unless they are given a traditional family name, every child wonders about their parents’ choice for the word that will seem synonymous with all that they are. With the name, “Perrianne,” I was certainly no exception, especially given my extremely “identity-driven” personality. Because my dad’s middle name was “Perry,” I initially surmised that I was named for him--a happy thought to me. When I presented the findings of my research to him (at age 5, I believe), I was immediately told that this was not the case. It even seemed as if the connection had never occurred to him! Instead, he told me that I was named after a contestant on a game show that he and my mother watched while they were expecting me. This woman signed in on What’s My Line,”, the classic show where celebrities guess the profession of uniquely employed contestants. The woman who was the source of my name was, my dad said, a sports reporter. And that was that: I grew up with that minimally resourced consciousness regarding what seemed to me to be a very impersonal heritage connected to my name.
Having a unique name has drawbacks. I could never get a personalized keychain or bicycle license plate like the other kids—they just don’t make them with “Perrianne”. And, later, when Western pop culture discovered the joy of name-meaning plaques, “Perrianne” was a sure one to stump the band! I remember years ago in the local Walmart, a kiosk was set up to print and sell plaques with name meanings, and when we typed in Perrianne, I noticed that the description it spit out for me was vaguely similar to an example that was hanging there for display—an example which sounded nothing like “Perrianne”! I strained through the adolescent desire for conformity to develop an appreciation for being unique (because believe me, I am), but still there were times, I must admit, I wished for a different name. (At around 14, I must have thrilled my parents when I embarked upon a short-lived campaign to legally change my name to “Donna”—I now am not sure why I picked that one—perhaps because there were plenty of key chains and bike tags pre-printed with that moniker.)
Then came my college days, during which I felt like an unlikely invader into the world of scientific research….I had the skills to thrive academically (having been “diagnosed” with a 170 IQ early on), but I was so different from the typical chemistry major and there was also still a noticeable edge of stigma about being a woman, even in those “liberated” days of the late 70’s and early 80’s. When a new semester would begin, any professor whom I hadn’t had before would call the roll on the first day of class, reading off names and looking up after each one to see which face corresponded. Every time he stopped his rhythm and stared at the page, I knew he had arrived at my name and what would follow would be a halting attempt at pronunciation (really? how hard is it?) or the words, “how do you pronounce this?” at which time I would supply him with the correct pronunciation, still with a tinge of doubted identity in my hesitant voice.
So, being named Perrianne came to symbolize several things for me: First of all, my ambivalent relationship with attention. When I have a speaking gig or when I am just telling a story, I access a part of me that has NO problem being the center of attention—believe me! However, I am convinced that every extrovert has a large corresponding introvert somewhere inside and I have definitely navigated that mysterious artistic balance all my life. I did, in fact, as I matured, realize that this woman for whom I was named must have been a real trail-blazer. Now we see females reporting fairly frequently on sports—and not just women’s! But in the late 50’s and early 60’s, it must have been the case that this woman was a true pioneer! Though the main cause of my life is not gender-related, I do believe with all my heart that barriers made by human ideas with little or no grounding in truth are ALL meant to be broken! However, this only built my curiosity about the original Perrianne.
Then, at age 50, everything about my naming would change. Having written two books, I decided, at the urgings of media-savvy friends, to create an “author page” for myself on Facebook. A dear friend in England who had showered me with encouragement after reading both my books in one weekend had called his little session, “Perrianne-stock” and I loved the comparison it evoked to a “festival” (without all the trash and irresponsible behavior, of course). So at the beginning of this year, Perrianne-stock was launched and I am proud to report that it has rocketed to—wait for it—100 Facebook “likes”! Because the number is so low, I still notice every new addition and two weeks ago, someone named Perrianne “liked” my page to my amazement—spelled just like me and living in New York. Interested, I “friended” her and then fired off a quick message explaining briefly the random origin of my name and asking her the origin of hers. And then I went to the gym—no big deal.
An hour later, workout done, I clicked on my profile and discovered probably the most amazing FB reply in history! Perrianne in New York told me, “I was named after the same person as you were. Her name is Perian Conerly and she was married to Charlie Conerly, the most famous pro quarterback of his day, and…” (and here’s the real mind-blower) “…here is the video of the TV show your parents watched to name you…” In one click of a link to youtube, I saw for the first time ever this woman who was the source of my parents’ choice! I wept as I realized that I had probably—due to the low self-esteem from which we humans so often suffer—misjudged the whole situation. I had made negative judgments about my parents’ choice of a name, assuming that this 1959 TV show just tossed a novel idea into their empty well, rather than realizing this was an amazing woman who probably actually INSPIRED them about what their daughter could be! I am pleased to announce that for about 50 years, I got it a little wrong!
I am a passionate Christian and a truly spiritual one and my afore-mentioned identity-driven personality has found ample fulfillment in the legacy and destiny that I believe was intended in the divine plan. BUT, somehow through this experience, God had managed to fill a big gap in my inner world by restoring to me a missing sense of legacy and destiny that extended even to the farthest circumstances of my life! I already believed that there was purpose for me—and for every human being—but this experience drove it home so uniquely. There is so much purpose that NOTHING is accidental, marginal or useless. I believe more than ever in the orchestration of God.
Perrianne in NY also sent me a biographical article on Perian Conerly (and we found it ironic that both of our dads changed the spelling to the same one we share) and the hope I found only grew. I may share more in the future, especially after I read Perian Conerly’s book, which I have now ordered on Amazon, about exactly what she is coming to represent to me (especially as a writer), but that is not what I am aiming for right now. Right now, I want to shout from the housetops how good it feels to have been wrong! I owe my parents an apology for my judgment of them as uncreative! I owe myself an apology for failing to believe that my uniqueness was anything less than a gift! I experienced a true spiritual “retro-fit” at age 50. It happened to be related to my name, but it set me off wondering how many other subtle little judgments that limited my thinking might be lurking in the shadows…..?
I wish my daddy had sat me on his lap and explained to me, “Honey, we saw a wonderful woman on What’s My Line who captured our imaginations and we felt that you would be a trail-blazer and history-maker like her. Even more than that, we felt that you would be the kind of person who held her head high with dignity and brightened the world of everyone you came in contact with. And, we do even feel that there is some voice for you to have to your generation and we want to launch you on that journey with a name that will remind you of that every moment.” I wish he had said all those things, rather than leaving me to my own darker interpretation, but men of the great generation didn’t effuse emotion, nor did they require it. At the end of the day, maybe I didn’t need him to say it: I’m saying it for myself now quite well! I now feel, through “meeting” Perian Conerly via youtube, this is what my daddy meant to say to me and I am strengthened. He has said it to me now through a thousand Facebook “coincidences” and I am “gobsmacked” as the Brits say—overwhelmed with amazement at the divine orchestration.
Seekers of mere self-esteem cannot begin to understand the exceeding worth one feels when he finds his place in the Plan! What is most amazing is that I have lived so much of the legacy that my mom and dad reached out to, even without knowing it. I have now met a little army of Perrianne’s all over Facebook, some of whom knew of their legacy, some of whom did not and I am beginning to suspect that many of them will say the same! But, whether you are named Perrianne or Donna or Mary Jane, I guarantee you that there is more buzz surrounding your existence than you ever dreamed. And no matter your age, there is something wonderful to discover about who you really are. There are whole new worlds of perception that will completely erase dark clouds that you didn’t even know where there. There are a thousand horizons of meaning and purpose and all of them have your NAME on them.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Religion's NO versus the Father's YES
I have been spending my three snow days here in Texas re-writing our church (The Abbey) membership class and have managed to inspire myself and now have more energy wanting to burst out of this house. Below is an unpolished excerpt that goes with my current Facebook status....I haven't added a FB "note" (or blog entry) in such a long time that I thought I would share the fruits of my labor here in cyberspace! Warning: INTENSE AUTHENTIC OPTIMISM demonstrated below!
Experiencing the Father’s YES:
You will no doubt hear the word “religion” used in a negative context often here at the Abbey. Because religion can also be used in a positive vein, it is good to clarify what we mean by the term. Of course, we do not mean the kind of “pure religion” that James 1:27 commends, where acts of service are the fruit. The religion that actually keeps people from getting to the marvelous realities of God is the same thing that Jesus spent a good portion of his ministry dismissing. Throughout the Gospels, we hear Jesus saying, “The scribes and Pharisees say…., but I tell you instead…..” and his contrasting declaration was always a statement of a loving God, rather than a harsh and legalistic judge. Perhaps it was Bono (yes, the U2 rock star) who recently said it best: “Religion can be the enemy of God. It`s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship.”
Considering that sense of the word religion—what men make up about God when he is not allowed to speak for Himself, for whatever reason—religion does keep people from the real GOD and we have no apologies for pointing out the contrast! Religion is a system based on law, sin, guilt and fear, but Jesus died on the cross to change the system. Our new system is one of SPIRIT which functions BY GRACE! Man has always been seeking his source, but religion hands out “NO” answers (or sometimes, “Yes, but….only if you jump through hoops of conformity” answers). God however, sent from heaven in the form of Jesus, one all-encompassing divine YES!
What is it you desire in your deepest heart? What is the quest at the deepest part of your being? In Christ, the answer is YES—perhaps not a magic, instant yes, or a yes that is an exact fit for your sometimes convoluted expectations, but a broad over-arching YES to your destiny, your prosperity and all God’s best for your life! Can I have…..? (fill in the blank with anything that is a genuine desire in the spirit) YES! It is not just our wish--it IS Scripture: “For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.” II Corinthians 1:20
And that kind of bold confidence makes “religious” people angry. They want you to work for it like they think they have to do! They want to monitor your behavior and use guilt as a motivator. They want to sprinkle caution signs everywhere, just so you keep an element of fear in your relationship with God for protective purposes. But that is the issue at the crux of it all: FEAR! When people have only heard about the Father’s YES, and have not EXPERIENCED it, they still retain an edge of fear in their lives. You cannot mentally assent to the goodness of God—you have to give your heart to the experience. The only way to know the Father’s YES is to experience his goodness spirit to Spirit—to experience the perfect love that absolutely casts out that performance-based fear! (I John 4:18) That is what the spirit of God pours out every time.
When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God answered by allowing his GOODNESS to pass before him! God is the supreme ruler of the universe, the ultimate unchallenged power, but the most amazing thing that we notice when we experience Him (which we sense first in our spirits, but it readily spills out into our emotions and even our physicality) is that His power is never separate from his intense and overwhelming love and desire to share Himself with us! As the best of Fathers, His love is the motivating factor for all he does and He gives Himself away. He IS love—a love that says YES to the deepest desires because He actually is the source of those desires. (And be assured that silly or harmful “desires” are not the deep ones—they actually arise as poor substitutes when the deep ones are unmet).
The word “abbey” comes from the word abba which means “father.” You might remember it from Romans 8:15-16 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba,Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
So, an abbey is meant to be a place of God’s Fatherhood demonstrated. In this world of dysfunction where fatherhood has so often been absent or undependable, God is pouring out a healing grace that affects all aspects of life. We are not just experiencing the meeting of needs, but we are experiencing being “re-Fathered” from above! It is not just a place of YES, but a place of the FATHER’S YES, where all fulfillments are attached to His good heart! His blessing is not just material—it is much more! As God said to Abraham in a vision, so today we hear the same from the heart of the Father God, “I AM your shield and your exceedingly great reward.”
Experiencing the Father’s YES:
You will no doubt hear the word “religion” used in a negative context often here at the Abbey. Because religion can also be used in a positive vein, it is good to clarify what we mean by the term. Of course, we do not mean the kind of “pure religion” that James 1:27 commends, where acts of service are the fruit. The religion that actually keeps people from getting to the marvelous realities of God is the same thing that Jesus spent a good portion of his ministry dismissing. Throughout the Gospels, we hear Jesus saying, “The scribes and Pharisees say…., but I tell you instead…..” and his contrasting declaration was always a statement of a loving God, rather than a harsh and legalistic judge. Perhaps it was Bono (yes, the U2 rock star) who recently said it best: “Religion can be the enemy of God. It`s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. A list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship.”
Considering that sense of the word religion—what men make up about God when he is not allowed to speak for Himself, for whatever reason—religion does keep people from the real GOD and we have no apologies for pointing out the contrast! Religion is a system based on law, sin, guilt and fear, but Jesus died on the cross to change the system. Our new system is one of SPIRIT which functions BY GRACE! Man has always been seeking his source, but religion hands out “NO” answers (or sometimes, “Yes, but….only if you jump through hoops of conformity” answers). God however, sent from heaven in the form of Jesus, one all-encompassing divine YES!
What is it you desire in your deepest heart? What is the quest at the deepest part of your being? In Christ, the answer is YES—perhaps not a magic, instant yes, or a yes that is an exact fit for your sometimes convoluted expectations, but a broad over-arching YES to your destiny, your prosperity and all God’s best for your life! Can I have…..? (fill in the blank with anything that is a genuine desire in the spirit) YES! It is not just our wish--it IS Scripture: “For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.” II Corinthians 1:20
And that kind of bold confidence makes “religious” people angry. They want you to work for it like they think they have to do! They want to monitor your behavior and use guilt as a motivator. They want to sprinkle caution signs everywhere, just so you keep an element of fear in your relationship with God for protective purposes. But that is the issue at the crux of it all: FEAR! When people have only heard about the Father’s YES, and have not EXPERIENCED it, they still retain an edge of fear in their lives. You cannot mentally assent to the goodness of God—you have to give your heart to the experience. The only way to know the Father’s YES is to experience his goodness spirit to Spirit—to experience the perfect love that absolutely casts out that performance-based fear! (I John 4:18) That is what the spirit of God pours out every time.
When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God answered by allowing his GOODNESS to pass before him! God is the supreme ruler of the universe, the ultimate unchallenged power, but the most amazing thing that we notice when we experience Him (which we sense first in our spirits, but it readily spills out into our emotions and even our physicality) is that His power is never separate from his intense and overwhelming love and desire to share Himself with us! As the best of Fathers, His love is the motivating factor for all he does and He gives Himself away. He IS love—a love that says YES to the deepest desires because He actually is the source of those desires. (And be assured that silly or harmful “desires” are not the deep ones—they actually arise as poor substitutes when the deep ones are unmet).
The word “abbey” comes from the word abba which means “father.” You might remember it from Romans 8:15-16 “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba,Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
So, an abbey is meant to be a place of God’s Fatherhood demonstrated. In this world of dysfunction where fatherhood has so often been absent or undependable, God is pouring out a healing grace that affects all aspects of life. We are not just experiencing the meeting of needs, but we are experiencing being “re-Fathered” from above! It is not just a place of YES, but a place of the FATHER’S YES, where all fulfillments are attached to His good heart! His blessing is not just material—it is much more! As God said to Abraham in a vision, so today we hear the same from the heart of the Father God, “I AM your shield and your exceedingly great reward.”
Monday, July 19, 2010
Structures versus Systems (Ode to a Drummer)
I write books about chaos, freedom and right-brain bursts, so it is probably no surprise that the church worship group I lead is not exactly run like a “tight ship”. Our team is full of young musicians who passionately love God and his Kingdom but also refuse to be confined to the oppressive prevailing winds of polished church perfection. While it’s a no-brainer to want excellence and skill, we get off the boat when anyone tries to guide us into becoming more produced or slick, fearing that the end of that road is something utterly sterile and unreal. Each Sunday morning as we leaf through our pages of Chris Tomlin, Tim Hughes, Delirious and now Jesus Culture songs, we are clearly far more intent on following our hearts than we are the current version of the rules of engagement between worship teams and audiences. The only requirement we universally honor is that of having our hearts on board to serve the people by helping them rise up on wings of fresh, raw, real worship each week.
And, may I say that it is working? Each one of us almost every Sunday stand amazed at the synergistic thing that comes forth from our platform. Musical bridges regularly become prophetic moments in which an instrument or a voice brings out something unplanned bearing the now word from heaven for the morning. We all seem to be discovering the Holy Spirit as the primary member of our team and we honestly (and I don’t say this proudly, but rather full of humble gratitude…) seem to have left the days of dry worship so far behind that we honestly can’t even remember them. No one gives big speeches or pep talks and we hardly ever even pray together before the service (I know I just severely shocked some readers), but we have created a culture in which God is primary and both freedom and servanthood are balanced in support of each other. Something is just going quite right. People are finding a safe harbor in our worship and lives are being effected—both Christian and pre-Christian! Our ground rule has been: always, like God, look at the heart of every person or situation.
Because of this momentum, we are generating a buzz and now many people who are new to our team are coming on board this loosely run ship of freedom. And so, we are facing for the first time a new challenge: defining who we are and what we are doing to people new to our worship team culture so as to make room for them and yet preserve the precious thing that has emerged among us. And that need is what landed a few leaders around my dining room table late last evening for a discussion we have never needed to have before. One leader in particular had particularly been asking himself the important questions before he came to the discussion. He had been thinking back over his formative years as a musician, especially remembering the years he suffered through endless requirements for conformity and tense interpretations of “submitting to worship team authority” (it was another era then). He realized that he had no desire to return to such a performance-oriented and creativity-squelching culture, but he also feared a future that looked like a free-for-all. If you truly say, “Come one, come all…be free and worship…” and there is no cohesive vision AND no hearts wrapped around it through relational connections, then disintegration could quickly ensue. This leader stood at the crossroads that all honest leaders eventually discover: the desire for freedom balanced by the honest—and holy—fear of anarchy.
As we talked, even though we are all intelligent people and I especially have volumes of words to say about the subject of leadership and culture (emergence as a scientific reality always informs me in every issue), words didn’t come easy and there was a sense that we were dealing with one of those age-old paradoxes. Without verbalizing it, we all agreed that “only in God is the coincidence of opposites.” Every time we are faced with a paradox, we are driven back to the Spirit realm and the need for a God who can actually lean into two “opposing” truths at once. Freedom and conservatism….acceptance of each other just as we are but acknowledging we are being summoned to a higher level….complete openness to people but complete impenetrability to their “extra” ideas…constant change coexisting with the eternal unchanging absolutes….all of these things that I can’t reconcile especially when I try with my limited mind….all of these things are at peace in Him. All I really need is a look at God in the real-time moment to know how to proceed, trusting Him that in the next moment if the situation changes, he will communicate then, too.
The word “structure” had been thrown around throughout the discussion, as if the most notable characteristic of our worship team had been the lack thereof. So, it was an obvious thought that perhaps the missing element was just some structure--a loose one, but still a structure—rules, guidelines and procedures—anything on paper that would protect the DNA as we grew. Suddenly, the same leader I described above said, “The word structure is not really right…” And when he said it, I heard myself answer: “No—we need SYSTEMS! What we need are workable SYSTEMS for helping new people fit into the flow.” The corporate air seemed to clear as we together realized that the times of greatest success in our history were not when we followed what little rules we do have to a “t”, but rather when we succeeded relationally at connecting with new people and imparting to them who we are. We didn’t need to create a structure when none existed. We needed instead to define the SYSTEMS that were already working, often unconsciously.
This may sound like semantics to some, but I assure you the implications of it are very real. Structure is scaffolding in the hopes of life-flow while systems are the paths that life-flow has already taken. Our structures can exist without God while systems are the very tracings of where He has walked among us. Structures give us confidence in the flesh (I am the leader—you obey the rules) while systems give us confidence in the unseen realm and the incredible orchestration employed by a God who owns it all. Structures hope for effectiveness while systems generate it. It’s a big deal. What are the rules and requirements for being on a worship team? If those are heart issues more than outward conformity, how can those be anything but systems?
In a structure, I can demand that your physical body be at a certain number of practices but I have no jurisdiction over your heart. In a system, I can expect you to be in relationship with a team leader throughout the week, communicating your status, good or bad and being loved no matter what. If you don’t show up for practice, you will be contacted by someone who wants to call you back to worship rather than someone who wants to exclude you because you didn’t follow the rules. For a living organism—like the church—systems are a higher level of function than structure. A child needs structure—an adult needs systems. Children can only comply with a simple command, but an adult can hear the subtleties of intention and give a whole-life response.
So, our mission is clear. It is not to put a structure on an amazing dynamic life-flow of worship and by doing so risk lessening its energy. Our mission is instead to learn to articulate and communicate the systems of God’s hidden order that lie just underneath the surface of our successful function. We know some of the hallmarks of those systems already: relationship; authenticity; being more impressed with heart than natural abilities; being completely unimpressed with position or political clout; humility; honesty; preferring one another; whole-life worship; finding God in the unexpected moments; being open always to His prophetic whisperings; treating every meeting like a clean slate….In the end, I think we now realize that SYSTEMS of life will both demand more trust AS WELL AS provide more rewards than comforting structures that generate immediate data and direction and give us the illusion we’ve got it all figured out.
So, I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s an emergent phenomenon. As Michael Buble sings like Frank Sinatra before him, “The best is yet to come….” We are simply participating with what wants to manifest and it’s great to be along for the ride.
And, may I say that it is working? Each one of us almost every Sunday stand amazed at the synergistic thing that comes forth from our platform. Musical bridges regularly become prophetic moments in which an instrument or a voice brings out something unplanned bearing the now word from heaven for the morning. We all seem to be discovering the Holy Spirit as the primary member of our team and we honestly (and I don’t say this proudly, but rather full of humble gratitude…) seem to have left the days of dry worship so far behind that we honestly can’t even remember them. No one gives big speeches or pep talks and we hardly ever even pray together before the service (I know I just severely shocked some readers), but we have created a culture in which God is primary and both freedom and servanthood are balanced in support of each other. Something is just going quite right. People are finding a safe harbor in our worship and lives are being effected—both Christian and pre-Christian! Our ground rule has been: always, like God, look at the heart of every person or situation.
Because of this momentum, we are generating a buzz and now many people who are new to our team are coming on board this loosely run ship of freedom. And so, we are facing for the first time a new challenge: defining who we are and what we are doing to people new to our worship team culture so as to make room for them and yet preserve the precious thing that has emerged among us. And that need is what landed a few leaders around my dining room table late last evening for a discussion we have never needed to have before. One leader in particular had particularly been asking himself the important questions before he came to the discussion. He had been thinking back over his formative years as a musician, especially remembering the years he suffered through endless requirements for conformity and tense interpretations of “submitting to worship team authority” (it was another era then). He realized that he had no desire to return to such a performance-oriented and creativity-squelching culture, but he also feared a future that looked like a free-for-all. If you truly say, “Come one, come all…be free and worship…” and there is no cohesive vision AND no hearts wrapped around it through relational connections, then disintegration could quickly ensue. This leader stood at the crossroads that all honest leaders eventually discover: the desire for freedom balanced by the honest—and holy—fear of anarchy.
As we talked, even though we are all intelligent people and I especially have volumes of words to say about the subject of leadership and culture (emergence as a scientific reality always informs me in every issue), words didn’t come easy and there was a sense that we were dealing with one of those age-old paradoxes. Without verbalizing it, we all agreed that “only in God is the coincidence of opposites.” Every time we are faced with a paradox, we are driven back to the Spirit realm and the need for a God who can actually lean into two “opposing” truths at once. Freedom and conservatism….acceptance of each other just as we are but acknowledging we are being summoned to a higher level….complete openness to people but complete impenetrability to their “extra” ideas…constant change coexisting with the eternal unchanging absolutes….all of these things that I can’t reconcile especially when I try with my limited mind….all of these things are at peace in Him. All I really need is a look at God in the real-time moment to know how to proceed, trusting Him that in the next moment if the situation changes, he will communicate then, too.
The word “structure” had been thrown around throughout the discussion, as if the most notable characteristic of our worship team had been the lack thereof. So, it was an obvious thought that perhaps the missing element was just some structure--a loose one, but still a structure—rules, guidelines and procedures—anything on paper that would protect the DNA as we grew. Suddenly, the same leader I described above said, “The word structure is not really right…” And when he said it, I heard myself answer: “No—we need SYSTEMS! What we need are workable SYSTEMS for helping new people fit into the flow.” The corporate air seemed to clear as we together realized that the times of greatest success in our history were not when we followed what little rules we do have to a “t”, but rather when we succeeded relationally at connecting with new people and imparting to them who we are. We didn’t need to create a structure when none existed. We needed instead to define the SYSTEMS that were already working, often unconsciously.
This may sound like semantics to some, but I assure you the implications of it are very real. Structure is scaffolding in the hopes of life-flow while systems are the paths that life-flow has already taken. Our structures can exist without God while systems are the very tracings of where He has walked among us. Structures give us confidence in the flesh (I am the leader—you obey the rules) while systems give us confidence in the unseen realm and the incredible orchestration employed by a God who owns it all. Structures hope for effectiveness while systems generate it. It’s a big deal. What are the rules and requirements for being on a worship team? If those are heart issues more than outward conformity, how can those be anything but systems?
In a structure, I can demand that your physical body be at a certain number of practices but I have no jurisdiction over your heart. In a system, I can expect you to be in relationship with a team leader throughout the week, communicating your status, good or bad and being loved no matter what. If you don’t show up for practice, you will be contacted by someone who wants to call you back to worship rather than someone who wants to exclude you because you didn’t follow the rules. For a living organism—like the church—systems are a higher level of function than structure. A child needs structure—an adult needs systems. Children can only comply with a simple command, but an adult can hear the subtleties of intention and give a whole-life response.
So, our mission is clear. It is not to put a structure on an amazing dynamic life-flow of worship and by doing so risk lessening its energy. Our mission is instead to learn to articulate and communicate the systems of God’s hidden order that lie just underneath the surface of our successful function. We know some of the hallmarks of those systems already: relationship; authenticity; being more impressed with heart than natural abilities; being completely unimpressed with position or political clout; humility; honesty; preferring one another; whole-life worship; finding God in the unexpected moments; being open always to His prophetic whisperings; treating every meeting like a clean slate….In the end, I think we now realize that SYSTEMS of life will both demand more trust AS WELL AS provide more rewards than comforting structures that generate immediate data and direction and give us the illusion we’ve got it all figured out.
So, I’ll let you know how it goes. It’s an emergent phenomenon. As Michael Buble sings like Frank Sinatra before him, “The best is yet to come….” We are simply participating with what wants to manifest and it’s great to be along for the ride.
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