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Edge Organizations and God’s Dream May 20, 2009 Texas Methodist Foundation

Edge Organizations and God’s Dream May 20, 2009 Texas Methodist Foundation. Outline. 1) God’s Dream 2) Edge/Boundary efforts defined and explained 3) Diagnosis of circumstances 4) Convictions about organizations and change 5) Implications for leaders.

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Edge Organizations and God’s Dream May 20, 2009 Texas Methodist Foundation

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  1. Edge Organizations and God’s DreamMay 20, 2009Texas Methodist Foundation

  2. Outline 1) God’s Dream 2) Edge/Boundary efforts defined and explained 3) Diagnosis of circumstances 4) Convictions about organizations and change 5) Implications for leaders

  3. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10b God’s Dream These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:31 I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,  I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 1) Life abundant!

  4. God in Christ promises abundant life for all creation. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the church receives this promise through faith and takes up a way of life that embodies Christ’s abundant life in and for the world. The church’s ministers are called to embrace this way of life and also lead particular communities of faith to live it in their own situations. To do this, pastors and other ecclesial ministers must be educated and formed in ways of knowing, perceiving, relating, and acting that enable such leadership. -- Dorothy Bass and Craig Dykstra, For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education and Christian Ministry (Eerdmans, 2008), p. 1.

  5. God’s Dream 2) Leading Causes of Life 1) Life abundant!

  6. The Leading Causes of Life 1) Connection -- An intimate web of relationships 2) Coherence – The sense that life makes sense 3) Agency – The capacity to ‘do’ in the world 4) Blessing – The way we are strongly animated by the blessing by those to whom we are most deeply connected • Hope – The final cause of life is hope…. [Death– A precondition for new life: Cross and Resurrection, Suffering and Redemption] Gary Gunderson, with Larry Pray, The Leading Causes of Life. Abingdon, 2009. WWW.LeadingCausesofLife.org

  7. God’s Dream 2) Leading Causes of Life 1) Life abundant! • Holy entrepreneurs think and act institutionally • See: Hugh Heclo, On Thinking Institutionally (Paradigm, 2008). • On Monasticism see and compare: David Knowles, Christian Monasticism (1969) and • Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism: What it has to say to today’s Church (Brazos, 2008). • See also: Charles W. Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil: Methodists and • the Making of America(Doubleday, 1971)

  8. 1) An edge/boundary is of but not in its parent system or institution. Edge/Boundary Efforts • It is (or began as) an innovation – an organization, program, project, and/or set of activities – that grows organically out of an institution’s mission. (Kirschner & Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life – “Facilitated Variation” conserves core processes of evolving organisms) • This effort not only springs into life, it gives new life to its parent institution by forming fresh interpersonal and organizational connections that give value to itself and its parent. • New energy generated from this edge also gives greater life to those in its new set of connections. • New connections other edge/boundary efforts begin to intersect/interweave, and a new ecology of organizations – and possibly even a new institution – is born.

  9. 6) An edge/boundary effort both conserves and innovates the core mission of its parent institution/organization by: Edge/Boundary Efforts – Reclaiming a core value in the mission gone astray or dormant – Adapting a core value to a changed or changing environment – Experimenting with new methods or means to the same ends as the parent’s mission – Loving the institution at which its works on the edge • Established edge organizations are indispensable keystones from which new edge efforts can be launched and grow, or through which new connections make new edge efforts possible. • Organizations that were established on the edge themselves must encourage and nurture new edge efforts on their own boundaries or else they will cease to give new life – or • will even begin to damage the ecologies that have nurtured and sustained them.

  10. Diagnosis 1) Ours is a time (not unprecedented) of institutional renegotiation and organizational innovation – Denomination – Role of supporting organizations – Forms of congregating – Relationship of clergy and lay leadership – Relationship between individual and institution – Inversion of initiative

  11. Diagnosis 2) Such a time brings forth both hope and fear (malheur, “affliction” – Simone Weil) – Hope fosters innovation & experimentation – Resistance flows from both memory and fear, both can be justified and unjustified 1) Ours is a time (not unprecedented) of institutional renegotiation and organizational innovation – Failure to discern sources of resistance keeps many institutions and organizations “stuck,” unable to exercise agency

  12. Diagnosis 2) Such a time brings forth both hope and fear (malheur) experimentation & resistance 3) Experimentation & resistance will lead to a great sorting out – experiments will live or die 1) Ours is a time (not unprecedented) of institutional renegotiation and organizational innovation – some of these will become “keystones” that are foundations of new organizational ecologies (Iansiti & Levien, The Keystone Advantage)

  13. Diagnosis 2) Such a time brings forth both hope and fear (malheur) experimentation & resistance 3) Experimentation & resistance will lead to a great sorting out – experiments will live or die 1) Ours is a time (not unprecedented) of institutional renegotiation and organizational innovation • A new ecology of organizations and institutions (new forms or configurations of denomination, supporting organization, congregation, clergy • & laity, etc.) will emerge and bring new life

  14. 2) Leaders must facilitate continuity andchange in an environment of hope & fear, innovation and memory (ecclesial amnesia and anamnesis) Convictions • Fear of change & resistance must be managed, not disregarded or driven underground 1) God’s dream is Life Abundant! • Resistance & fear are best addressed by positive, indirect methods of leadership –invert the initiative • Edge or boundary efforts have always been, • and remain, an excellent strategy for • leading continuity and change

  15. Implications for leaders These conditions include: – Strong affinity with and support from the parent institution (connection) – Self-organizing rather than imposed structure (coherence) 1) Leaders of parent organizations must foster conditions necessary for edge/boundary efforts to be launched, live, and thrive. – Relative autonomy for leadership & activities (agency) – Freedom to succeed or fail (blessing) – Flexibility and adaptability to effect the change it seeks (hope) – Willingness to let programs/organizations die so that new efforts may live and give new life (death)

  16. Implications for leaders 2) Leaders of parent organizations must protect edge efforts from resistances within the system that thwart strategic innovation. 3) Edge/boundary leaders must guard the innovative character of their efforts, lest they lose their edge. 1) Leaders of parent organizations must foster conditions necessary for edge/boundary efforts to be launched, live, and thrive. • Edge/boundary and Parent leaders alike must constantly strive to • articulate and demonstrate the continuity of edge efforts with parent institution, lest they fail to conserve/preserve mission. 5) Edge/boundary and Parent leaders alikemust always be making new connections that tap into and grow new, life-giving organizational and interpersonal ecologies.

  17. Implications for leaders Special implication for United Methodist Leaders Problem of the too big, and the too small.

  18. Thank You!!

  19. Edge Organizations and God’s DreamMay 20, 2009Texas Methodist Foundation

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