BLUE SKY THOUGHTS & IDEAS

It seems to me that we live in a time of Institutional Failure.  The political institution, educational institution, and religious institutions are all in a state of failure.  This is nothing new; it’s a continuous pattern.  But at some point we need to stop and examine the pattern as a whole and question why this keeps happening again and again.

I sit and wonder about these things as I watch the world replace faulty systems with faulty systems and then wonder why things didn’t get better.

I have experienced this in the church realm so I can speak to that realm as I “blue sky” some ideas and thoughts.

Things get too big, too many, too scattered.  Rather than self control we default to external control which never works.  It either falls into the wrong hands or things get top heavy, causing the institution itself to become the focus rather than what it was created to do.  The power go to a few, leaving a majority of folks uninvested and uninvolved, which usually leads to discontentment, grumbling, and eventually desertion or revolution.

A close second to that is we become accustomed to being told what others have learned rather than learning how to learn for ourselves.  The true treasure of teaching is the work involved in digging and discovering the facts and information and then assimilating them into a lesson, not just the lesson itself.   It’s where the brain is worked out and grows stronger.  Listening to the lesson someone else has all figured out may be temporarily interesting but probably won’t be internalized and assimilated into one’s life.  But how much preaching and teaching is just that…hearing what someone else has learned?

The teachings from Paul’s letters about the church are used a lot in church matters.  Some of his writings are about that but I find a majority of his writings are more about Jesus and his relationship with Him.  I am drawn to those writings because they make me hungry and thirsty for God and they act as a spring board to find and feed that relationship in my life. Maybe if the church focused more on those teachings our churches would not be in crisis and forever stuck in organizational forms.  I believe Paul was more focused on Jesus than church affairs.  He didn’t credit the church for who he was.  He credits Jesus directly. (Galatians 1:1,10-12, 15-24; 2:1,6)

Paul clearly was taught by Jesus.  The disciples were clearly taught by Jesus.  They were commissioned to tell others how to be taught by Jesus.

My posture as a believer is to be a disciple, an apprentice of Jesus:

          through the witness of those he taught

          through his teachings

          through being in relationship with him myself

The result of that is to encourage and invite others to accept that posture for themselves.

Jesus didn’t look at numbers.  He kept it small so the time spent could be meaningful, focused, and not scattered.  Jesus kept his focus on loving God and loving one another.  He also wanted people to follow Him, not his disciples.  Paul was clear about that as well.  Those in the church are to be One with Jesus Christ and follow him alone.  No man is to say “follow me, learn from me, yoke yourself to me, and build a church around me.”  That is how institutions develop and that is why they fail.

My solution for institutional failure is to do away with the institution and get back to the people themselves.

To the church:  Preachers, make folks thirsty for God

                         Teachers, show folks where to go and how to quench that

                                          thirst.  Don’t just give them a glass of water.

To schools:  Teachers, inspire kids to want to learn.  Give them the tools to

                                    dig and discover for themselves.  Teach them how to

                                    think for themselves.

To politics:  Go back to the beginning of “Of the people…By the people.

                   Our only involvement should not be choosing who to do the work

                   of creating a better world to live in.  We all need to be involved

                   and invested in living well together.  Decentralize the institution

                   and let people be involved and invested in the work to be done.

Leaders shouldn’t be external extremities.  They should be in the middle of the crowd inspiring and including all people in the conversation and the work.

Those are my “blue sky” thoughts and ideas.  Who knows…It could work!