God works through systems

Here is our staff (sans Brian) at the Drive Conference. What you see is pastors, men, sons, husbands, dads and one grandfather. What you also see is a network of relationships and a conglomeration of systems. Systems was the focus of session #2 at the Drive Conference. I guess I would describe systems as the intangible influencer's within an organization.

Andy Stanley suggested that not only does God work through systems but systems create behavior. I like this string of phrases that he tossed out...

Your church is a conglomeration of systems. Those systems determine how your church functions. You can't pray, fast, preach or inspire that away! This is as spiritual as anything we'll talk about.

These systems can impede ministry and obstruct leaders or propel ministry and launch leaders. Systems affect hiring, firing, decision making, starting new programs, stopping old programs and what we will and will not do in our services. Sometimes we are frustrated by the systems that slow down our ability to lead and sometimes we frustrate others by the system that we allow to slow down their ability to lead. It seems rather unspiritual to talk in such a way about church, but quite honestly it does put words to things that all church leaders feel and attempt to navigate. These are difficult waters to navigate that is why most churches simply don't or won't address them. Systems are the elephant in the church office.

Our church, has a burden to see people in our community come to Christ and grow up in the gospel. If systems create behavior, it begs the question are our systems getting in the way or clearing the way? We will often talk about dates and programs but do we ever push deeper to address the systems that affect such decisions? These are challenging thoughts for me.

Here are some diagnostic questions to ask:
In light of this, is there anything that we need to stop doing?
Is there anything we need to continue doing?
Is there anything we need to start doing?