Adapting in order to Survive

I usually take a morning a week and read through blogs of people I think have something to say about the missional church, connecting with people and just life in general. This morning was the morning I chose to catch up on some blog reading. Here is where it led me:

I started with Vince Antonucci's blog . I love his blog because he really has a way of looking at scripture and has a heart for reaching lost people. Vince is currently starting a church on the Vegas strip. I can't wait for the stories that emerge from that journey. Anyway he posted a map of the number of people who go to church on a given weekend from 2000 (view map).

What I learned from this map is there is a lot of work to do. I Ohio there are only 20.3% of the population that attend church on a given weekend. Two things: 1) As a church we need to see the need for us to become more missional and 2) We need to continue to be involved in church planting (the most effective way of reaching lost people).

Next I read Alan Hirsch's blog. Alan Hirsch has a real grasp on the church and the decline it is in world wide. He is committed to helping churches find their way again. Two of his books, "The Forgotten Ways" and "ReJesus" should be read by every church leader. This morning two of his blog posts made me think about the role of a leader in the church. It is a four part post summarizing his thoughts on a book called "Surfing the Edge of Chaos." It is about adaptive leadership and how adaptive leadership can create a church with "spiritual energy."

He quotes a law of cybernetics (I had to look this one up) called the "Law of Requisite Variety." This law states, ". . . that the survival of any organism depends on its capacity to cultivate (not just tolerate) variety in its internal structure. Failure to do so results in the inability to cope successfully with 'variety' when it is introduced from an external source."

It simply means there are external factors that effect an organization or organism. The ability to adapt to the external factors will determine the rate of survival. The role of an adaptive leader is to disturb the organization enough so that it has to adapt to it's surroundings.

Combine this thought with the chart from Vince Antonucci and we see the need for the church to adapt in order for it to survive. There is a problem that we need to address and as church leaders we need to cultivate variety into our internal structure. This is when we begin to become a missional church.

Any thoughts?

(to be continued)