One of the seismic changes taking place in our culture is the move from centralization to decentralization of power. With rapidly advancing technology, no longer does the top of the food chain control the flow of information throughout the organization whether it be business, government or even volunteer organizations such as the church.
I will never forget when I first saw this illustrated. It was in the 1989 Tiananmen square tragedy . The powerless students bypassed the traditional Red Chinese channels of communication and used fax machines to plan their strategy. In spite of the horrible events of that day, it was a sign of the democratization of communication. No one foresaw this would be followed up by cell phones, internet, email, texting as well as social networking.
Now, a magazine can be published, where the writers, artists, proof readers, printers can all live in different places of the world and collaborate on putting out the magazine without any of them being in the same room.
This is a problem for those who are use to running a top down style of organization. Those at the grassroots are finding ways of effectively communicating with each other without the permission or blessing of the people at the top of the pyramid.
People are finding large bureaucratic organizations too slow, too insulated and too inflexible to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing marketplace of ideas, products and services. Those unwilling to grant more freedom and authority to those on the grass roots level will find themselves as dinosaurs of the 21st century.
This is true in our government as well. Diverse grassroots groups like the Tea Party movement, the environmental activists are driving bureaucrats crazy. The recent clash between the state of Arizona and the federal government is more about the decentralization of power than about race. People want more freedom to deal with local problems and they are bound and determined to claim that authority. No one wants to go back to the racism of Central high school in the 50’s, but maybe the pendulum has swung too far.
In my own realm, the church has also been impacted by this trend. Itinerancy served the church well, when Bishop’s were like generals, who deployed clergy like troops to new posts on the growing frontier. Now, the itinerancy has turned into a patronage system for those who are loyal to their superiors. I am not suggesting all becoming congregationalists, but I am saying, both more power and authority need to be given to those expected to carry out the mission.
The changing decentralization of power is not all good. There lies the potential for anarchy and chaos, but if we think for a moment we can return to a top down structure to meet our future needs, the only persons we are fooling are ourselves.
Just a thought,
Bob
Bobalou's blog 
My personal opinion is that there needs to be a central authority who is willing to respect local needs based on regional realities such as with sound input from DS’s. But when the hierarchy issues generic marching orders, then I think we create more problems than we solve. In many ways I actually envy the Roman Catholic order because their doctrine and principles are not up for popular vote consideration every 4 years.
We’re not a perfect system, of course, but it’s pretty darned good for what we seek to accomplish. People respond to unity and integrity, but they tend to shy away when the Church goes off in so many different directions that it’s hard to tell exactly what they (we) believe!
Michael,
I appreciate your thoughts. I just fear that what was once a structure for mission has become a structure for power. Have you ever attended a jurisdictional conference? You would think you were at one of political parties convention, except the back rooms might not be filled with smoke. I subscribe to the theory that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If we are asking laity to assume responsibility for making ministry happen and we should, I think we must trust them enough to be more involved in decisions of clergy leadership. Again I am not advocating a congregational system. I just feel our current system no longer fits our mission.
I definitley see this change in attiudes even in my workplace. My staff will have whole conversations about things on facebook or email about something happening in the clinic. I used to be able to hear parts of these conversations in the clinic and head them off or encourage them whichever I felt was necessary. Now they can bypass me completly. By becoming part of social networks such as facebook I can put my ear to whats going on. This is not an attempt to spy. Just an attempt to be part of the lives of those who work for me and with me. I am quite sure my empoyees can find other ways to communicate without me being part of the conversation if they wish and I have no problem with that. I probably need to be sure they don’t take my involvement as an attempt to become a big brother figure in their lives.
As the decentralization of power occurs there can be some scary changes that are part of that. Some for good and some for bad. This can be seen in something as large as a government(church or country) or as small as the inner workings of a small business. If you then throw in personalities into the mix. Oh boy it’s confusing now. The same can be said when you involve the media in “interpreting” what was said or done and what it means.
Carl
I think you have a good read on the situation. I don’t know a business owner could ever control water cooler talk, but Facebook now takes those discussions to a new level. I think your response of not over reacting, but being in tune with the temperature of your people is an appropriate response.
I think these changes can be a bit scary, but they are so seminal that we will never go back to the old paradigm, so we are called to seize the opportunities in the new one.
Bob’s comment have been a focus of the ARK Cabinet for a couple of years, and will continue to be.
A Business Book that is delightful and right on point that Bob is addressing is: The Starfish and the Spider, the unstoppable power of Leadership Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom.
Mike Morey