Disruptions

www.innovativedisruption.com

I begin by acknowledging an article by Carey Nieuwhof sparked my thinking and I recommend it to you.
http://careynieuwhof.com/2016/01/5-disruptive-church-trends-will-rule-2016/

What do we mean when we speak of something or someone as being disruptive? The first thoughts in my mind picture a swirling, creating negative chaos, or an interruption. Most of us have created our space and activities in a fairly fixed pattern with which we are somewhat comfortable. In family systems language and in physics it is referred to homeostasis. Things are in an accepted balance.

Yesterday as I was doing some reading a large military helicopter swooped low over our neighborhood. It was loud. It shook the house with the beating of the rotor blades against the air. The incandescent bulb in the ceiling lamp responded with a dancing of the light on my desk. It was truly disruptive. Part of the disruption came as a result of my ages long fascination with whirly birds regardless of size.

In seconds I sprang from my chair, ran outside, standing on the cold paving stones of our patio and stood mesmerized watching this giant flying machine. Oh, did I forget to mention that I had no shoes on? The ‘copter had created a disturbance to by placid reading. For me it was a pleasant disruption, but a disruption none the less.

El Nino is creating massive disruptions to weather patterns across the globe. Some areas are experiencing unusual warmth while others are deluged with a chain of Pacific storms hammering the west coast. We are told the El Nino of this year is one of, if not the most, disturbing in recorded history. In one day a fifty-degree warming of the temperature was recorded at the North Pole. We are warned that some areas of the earth will be experiencing drought which will drastically affect food supplies. El Nino is disruptive.

Were it not for disruptions everything would continue to hang in its homeostasis. That seems to be the way many people want things in the Church. We know it cannot stay that way. We live in an ever changing, disturbed, world. Populations shift, economies ride a precarious roller coaster threatening to fly off the rails any second. All heads are bowed in silent meditation, all is still, when suddenly a baby wails. Some would find that disruption harsh and others would receive it as a sign of life and promise.

The answer to question 101 of the Larger Westminster Catechism refers to God as immutable, unchanging. Yet, there are instances in Scripture which reflect God as having a change of mind, most notably in the Exodus account. The Spirit of God is spoken of as a wind which blows where it will. In Acts the Spirit is a disruptive animation of frightened and cowering disciples into evangelists.

The precious balance we wish we could experience in the Church is a balance which would freeze the Church in time and space. Nothing would change. Nothing would grow and produce new fruit. Life itself is dynamic. The life of the Church is dynamic. Thanks be to God for the disruptions.