Back on Wednesday, April 23 I wrote a post called This Isn’t Your Parent’s Prayer Chain. The post was about a young woman in our church, Katherine Wolf, who was one of the volunteer leaders in the Young Marrieds ministry, and who went through an unbelievable 13 hour emergency brain surgery at UCLA.
There are a lot of amazing things that are coming out of this story, such as the unwavering faith of family and friends. The huge network of people praying for her and her family. God’s continued grace, presence, support and protection during this very difficult time, etc.
But what has really, really impressed me as well is the way that Katherine Wolf’s circle of friends have self-organized in a powerful way, and created amazing avenues and opportunities for people to be involved.
It’s probably cause I read The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations a few months ago.
And maybe it’s also cause I just finished Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.
And last night I was reading through Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.
What do they all have in common? Basically, people are organizing themselves in powerful ways that thwart the traditional means of organization through leaders in authoritative, hierarchical positions. No longer do people need to go through an institution to achieve their end goal. Many churches already know this, and still, so many other don’t. Those who recognize the shift will be in positions to harness the unbelievable creative power of a church community. Those who don’t will find themselves struggling to carry out the vision for their church community.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:36 am Hi,
I’m Katherine’s mom. I haven’t really been able to get on the computer until last night,just before going to sleep. I was so blown away that I almost woke James up with my crying. This is beyond my wildest imagination. I have ranted about the evils of Facebook for the past several years, and I have seen it used (misused) for great harm. HOWEVER, I am now reminded of Joseph’s situation….what may be meant for evil can be used by God for great good. It is humbling and comforting to see His use of it in this way. Good triumphs! May the cry of my heart go out to the ends of the earth through this vehicle: “Talitha cum!”
Kim Arnold