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Article Hirsch

The Living Art of Networks

(From the book, The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch)

Not surprisingly as we move closer to a network structure, we will not only find ourselves closer to the structures of the NT people of God but also more aligned around the dynamics of Apostolic Genius (the life force surging in and through dynamic Jesus movements). It is therefore critical to explore the nature and forms of networks.  In doing so, we need to realize that this is closer to our truest expression of ecclesia, even though it might at first seem somewhat strange to us at first. In doing this we must realize that we explore things that relate not just to issues of reactivating missional church, but to much of what we experience in God’s world.  Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, the guru of network thinking says it this way

Network thinking is poised to invade all domains of human activity and most fields of human inquiry. It is more than another useful perspective or tool. Networks are by their very nature the fabric of most complex systems, and nodes and links deeply infuse all strategies aimed at approaching our interlocked universe."[1]

In the literature networks come in basically three types[2]:

·         The chain or line network, as in a chain where people, goods, or information move along a line of separated contacts, and where end-to-end communication must travel through the intermediate nodes.

·         The hub, star, or wheel network, as in a franchise or a cartel where the agents are tied to a central (but not hierarchical) node or actor, and must go through that node to communicate and coordinate with each other.

·         The all-channel or full-matrix network, as in a collaborative network of green groups and activists where everybody is independent but connected to everybody else.

According to Arquilla and Ronfeldt,

Each node in the diagrams may refer to either an individual, a group, an organization, part of a group or organization, or even a nation-state. The nodes may be large or small, tightly or loosely coupled, and inclusive or exclusive in membership. They may look alike and engage in similar activities, or they may undertake a division of labor based on specialization. The boundaries of the network, or of any node included in it, may be well-defined, or they may be blurred and porous in relation to the outside environment. Many variations are possible.[3]

 It might be clear to see that of the three network types, why the all-channel form has traditionally been the most difficult to organize and sustain. This is so partly because it requires lots of communication. But it is this precisely this form of network that maximizes potential for collaborative undertakings without centralized organization.[4]  And this all-channel form is gaining new strength and legitimacy from the information revolution—for instance in open source programming and online business and networking. In networks of this kind, the organizational system generally tends to be flat (as opposed to hierarchical.)[5] Also, in its purer form, there is no single, central leadership, command, or headquarters—no precise heart or head that can readily be identified. “The network as a whole (but not necessarily each node) has little or no hierarchy; there may be multiple leaders. Decision-making and operations are decentralized, allowing for local initiative and autonomy. Thus the design may sometimes appear headless and at other times many-headed.”[6] The structure will tend to be comprised of small units or cells. However, the presence of “cells” does not necessarily mean a network exists—a hierarchy can also be made up of cell, as is the case with most churches with an active cell group program.. It is the way in which the cells organize and relate that makes them a network.[7]

 This lines up exactly with what popular writer on networks Manuel Castells[8] describes as the dynamics of a network.  In his view they are made up not only of nodes but also of hubs. The hubs are places where the lines of communication connect.  A node may be just about anything: a media outlet, a website, an organization, or an individual.  Over time some nodes in the network may emerge as being more important than others depending on geographical, political, historical, or personal circumstances.  For example: a company that offers a particular service or product will be connected to various other outlets and customers because it is useful to them.  It serves their purposes to be linked.  With a growing importance in the network, certain sites may become major nodes or hubs where other nodes connect and intersect. This can be diagrammatically represented as follows:

 What is particularly instructive for Christian movements and organization is how networks hold together.  The effective performance of a network over time and distance will depend to a large degree on the cultivation of shared beliefs, principles, interests, and goals— perhaps articulated in an overarching ideology.  This combination of beliefs and principles together form the cultural glue, or reference point, which holds the nodes together and to which the members subscribe in a deep way. “Such a set of principles, shaped through mutual consultation and consensus-building, can enable members to be “all of one mind” even though they are dispersed and devoted to different tasks.”[9] Dee Hock, the brilliant philosopher-businessman who founded Visa Corporation, makes this point well when he notes that…

Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs. [10]

 Remember the reference to ‘fit and split” in the chapter on Apostolic Environment? Well it is these overarching beliefs that provide a central ideological and operational coherence (fit) that allows for wide tactical decentralization (split) This culture or ideology “…also sets the boundaries and provides guidelines for decisions and actions so that the members do not have to resort to a hierarchy because ‘they know what they have to do.’”[11]  This is analogous to what the best military practice refers to as ‘commander’s intent’ and ‘rules of engagement’: these set the guidelines for the scope of individual decision making. Through these, the solider knows what do and what the limitations are, how they do it is up to them.

 It is worth reflecting here on what Hock says are keys to developing networked organization.  He says….

·         The organization must be adaptable and responsive to changing conditions, while preserving overall cohesion and unity of purpose.

·         The trick is to find the delicate balance that allows the system to avoid turf fights and back-stabbing on the one hand, and authoritarian micromanagement on the other.

·         The organization must cultivate equity, autonomy, and individual opportunity.

·         The organization's governing structure must distribute power and function to the lowest level possible.[12]

·         The governing structure must not be a chain of command, but rather a framework for dialogue, deliberation, and coordination among equals.[13]

 But all this organic networking requires significant, or ‘dense’ (Arquilla and Ronfeldt), communications to hold it all together. Arquilla and Ronfeldt note: “The network design may depend on having an infrastructure for the concentrated communication of information. But this does not mean that all nodes must be in constant communication.  But when communication is needed, the network’s members must be able to disseminate information as promptly and broadly as desired within the network as well as to outside audiences.” [14]

 Having described all these characteristics of networks, it is not hard to see this is exactly how the Early Church and the Chinese Church operated. Look at the diagram again.  The hubs would have been places like Antioch, Jerusalem, or Rome or people like Paul. The nodes could be house churches and clumps of people involved in various dimensions of life. Nodes could become hubs depending on their relative importance in the network. Antioch and Jerusalem were certainly hubs in this view. When the New Testament writers articulated the foundational doctrine of ecclesia, this is what is meant, not buildings and institution, but a fluid body of Christ dynamic involved in all there spheres of life.[15] It is within this structure that Apostolic Genius seems to manifest most fully.  And due to the missional situation of our era, the time has come to rediscover the church as a dynamic network beyond the institution and in every arena of life and creation. 

 Stadia is a network based, organic, church multiplication movement in the US.  Its mission is to find, train, deploy, and network church multiplication leaders. In turn these leaders build regional networks of planters, multiplying churches, and support personnel who together build a church multiplication movement that is sustainable and reproducible.  Their goal is to establish 5,500 new churches across the US.[16]   

Another remarkable organic movement that follows these approaches has been evolving in California and around the world called Church Multiplication Associates.  This network is led by Neil Cole, a pioneer in developing organic church planting and someone who has clearly articulated a movement based on movement dynamics, multi-channel networking, and organic reproducibility although the language is somewhat different.   This has been translated into a leadership training system called Greenhouse, which coaches leaders from various contexts in organic methodology.[17]  The movement has grown exponentially as new expressions of incarnational church break out in car parks, cafes, houses, clubs, etc.   The Korean movement associated with Paul Yongi Cho is built on similar principles—Cho always maintained that the real church existed in the cells and the rest was frills.  These are just some examples of many such movements being generated around the world. 

An Australian expression of this is in a new Pentecostal movement called The Junction led by Kim and Maria Hammond.[18]  This network has incarnated deeply into their local area. They meet in the neighborhood school where they have become part of the actual functioning of the school, in the local pubs and cafes and are involved in many of the projects their contextual community is involved in, including walk-against-want, mentoring disadvantaged kids in their area, and feeding the poor.  There is no center and no circumference…it just exists in nodes, hubs, and enriching relationships and is built squarely on the fabric of friendships.[19] Third Place Communities in Tasmania operates on the same principles and looks remarkably like the network diagram above.  All these new missions demonstrate a recovery of a latent potency which bodes well for the future of the church in the West. We do well to give thanks.

Networks and Netwars: What can we learn about ourselves from Al Quaeda

As shocking as it seems at first, it’s not hard to see the striking similarities between the structures of international terrorist networks like Al Quaeda and that of the Early Church, or the Chinese church for that matter.   And while the agenda of each is entirely different, it is partly the structure that makes both so effective and just about impossible to ‘take out.’  How is it that every legitimate government in the world is spending incalculable billions of dollars trying to stamp out a relatively small movement and has largely failed to make even a dent?! The most powerful armies in the world are dedicated to the sole purpose of destroying it and have yet to get close to fulfilling that mission.  Putting aside its political agenda, what is it about this vile movement that makes it so hard to snuff out?

Al Quaeda has all the elements of a movement as defined in this chapter; it also exhibits all the features of an all-channel network, consisting as it does of decentralized nodes and multiple energy centers.  It is made up of small self-contained units, or cells, which can easily recruit and multiply.  Furthermore, the DNA of its message and ideology are embedded in every terrorist cell through the development of a simple ‘sneezable’ message that can be reproduced in any given context.  The geo-political conditions are rife for its message.  And it has a seemingly inbuilt capacity to spread and then swarm around issues and places where its mission potential has the maximum possibility of greatest impact and then seemingly disappear into the air, making it just about impossible to destroy. 

I make this comparison not to be needlessly provocative (I am totally opposed to what Al Quaeda  stands for) but because we can learn so much about the nature of movements from it—at least as far as structures are concerned.  So,  its appears that the church in its most exceptional form (including the Early and Chinese Church) appears to be more like Al Quaeda than it does what we have generally come to know as church.  So much so, that most of us (including the vast majority of church leaders) would simply not recognize these remarkable expressions of church as ‘church’ if we stumbled upon them—they simply don’t fit our criteria of church, influenced as it is by buildings, professional clergy, institutional structures, and so forth. 

But there is more to consider still.  As mentioned above, each Al Quaeda cell has in it the complete DNA of the whole movement.  That is why it can replicate itself and still remain true to its cause.  When we consider Apostolic Genius and the church, this is exactly the same.  Just like a seed or a cutting, each Jesus community has the full and complete quotient of Apostolic Genius embedded into it, and if it is true to its own calling, and given the right conditions, it can become the beginning of a whole new apostolic movement.[20]  In the seed the whole tree lies coiled, and in the tree, there lies the potential for the production of countless other seeds.  In the tree is the full potential or the forest, and so on.

It is interesting to note in passing that in the natural world of organisms similar patterns of networked organization can be observed.  Some species maximize their chances of survival by massive spread; e.g. bacteria or ants.  Others seek survival the concentration of cells into one indivisible unit, but in doing so bear greater risk in terms of extinction.  For example, it is just about impossible to wipe out a bacteria strain because of massive spread and because each bacterium has that darn DNA that can replicate and develop. But we all know what happened to the Dinosaur or Dodo. Likewise, plants, when their system senses that their survival is threatened, use all their energies to produce more seeds to maximize survival.  This is what happens when we prune plants or trees—they produce more flowers which in turn produce more fruit which contain seeds.  I have come to conclude that in times of serious adaptive challenge, the church too will maximize its survival by decentralizing, spreading, and multiplying. This is exactly what happened in the Early Church and in China.  And strangely enough, its beginning to happen in the context of the 21^st Century.

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