Precision and Chaos

Over the past week I have been in Southern California gathered with a group of leaders in the US Campus Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. The question on the table? How do we effectively move forward to launch movements in 2000 new locations and ethnic pockets – and develop the leadership to make it happen.

I came of the time encouraged and hopeful. Not because we have some easy solutions, but because of the godly leaders who are tackling the opportunities. When Godly people radically pursue the vision God has laid upon their hearts, amazing things take place. None of which is crisp, clean and organized, but most of which honors God pushing the gospel into previously dark places. As we step out, we see God arrive among us and honor our faith more than our strategy.

For us (Campus Crusade for Christ) this means an embracing of God in the mess as we rapidly advance the kingdom. As an organization, we are often overly comfortable with precision and too easily wearied by kingdom chaos. The larger we become as organization, the more tempted we will be to codify & manage (even more so than we do now). The more we feel like we HAVE to control (for various reasons), the more we rob the organic nature of the gospel. The more we function as a corporation, the less we are able to recognize, champion and catalyze that which is beyond our structure.

And this may play itself out is subtle ways. Take for instance what we measure and how it moves us toward certain practices. By measuring Involved New Believers (instead of decisions for instance) we may a subtle but powerful statement that the highest end result is someone who not only trusts Christ, but gets involved with US. We would never argue that someone coming to Christ is not awesome, but we attach “involved” it actually effects the “how” of going about getting new believers. If we simply measured decisions (thereby losing a level of control because we simply measure what a person decides and have no gauge of their involvement), we become less concerned with US and more active in generating kingdom results among the lost. We move more toward kingdom activity because “involved” is simply a nice by product, not the full measure of our success. Measuring “involved new believers” moves us toward poorer evangelism because we are only concentrating on those that get involved. Great intention, but in many ways making us actually LESS evangelistic that we would hope to be.

There are numerous things like this in any larger organization. As we increase in size and complexity, we can easily lose the creative apostolic edge that got us here in the first place.