Chapter 4: Failing Well, or What the Church Can Learn from Silicon Valley

Ellen Bruckner

By Ellen Bruckner, Cedar Rapids

In Chapter 4 of The Agile Church, Zscheile offers several concepts and insights from organizations that have found themselves in much the same place mainline churches find themselves today. We are wondering why what has worked so well in the past is not working for us now; we are wondering why younger generations are not too interested in our life; and we are wondering what is the best way to move to places where all will be well again.

I am particularly interested in exploring some of the concepts presented by Zscheile and in applying those concepts to life in the organization called “the Church.” It probably will help to ponder some terms being used in the organizational worlds today, some more frequently than others.   

Technical and adaptive change: Technical problems are those for which a solution already exists and all that is needed is an application in order for the problem to be fixed. Adaptive change, however, is a bit more complicated. There are many situations for which a solution is not apparent and there really is no “fix it” known. It is up to the persons involved in such a situation to try various changes or ideas in order to determine if any of the actions help the situation or provide a solution or a part of a solution. This may involve some “trial and error” type behavior—not very acceptable behavior in today’s culture, which is often not very forgiving. Sometimes, solutions don’t emerge until several failures have forced a direction not apparent at the beginning.

Agile Project Management: Paying much greater attention to what is going on outside the organization, and engaging in lots of small experiments (most of which will fail) in close conversations with the people involved and offering them opportunities to provide feedback. These small experiments often lead to points of reflection or pivots that encourage shifts without incurring too much loss of resource. The key is the connections with people outside the process.

Design thinking: This is about joining with people where they are in their lives, listening carefully to their challenges, and working with them to create solutions to these challenges. The key is inviting people into the creation of their own solutions not just providing something for them to consume. 

Disruptive innovation: The established organizations, for various reasons, begin to crumble because they cannot or will not compete with the disruptive innovators that generally offer a simpler or cheaper solution to challenges. Disruptive innovation requires divesting oneself of the elaborate, often expensive, ways of operating that characterize the status quo in order to accept and respond to new ideas that may provide necessary solutions.

Positive Deviance: This is a favorite of mine. It is recognizing that, most likely, solutions to challenges already exist within the community. There is no need to import a magical solution from the outside. The key is to find the ways to assess and call out the skills, strengths, ideas, commitment from within the local community. It means each community will find the ways to solve its challenges and these ways may not look just like a neighboring community’s ways, but it is about the future emerging from God’s people in each place. 

It seems to me there are reoccurring themes in these concepts: 

• We need to recognize that solutions to challenges come from the people who are facing the challenges, not necessarily from outside or from another place. Just because another place faced a similar challenge does not mean that the solution for that other place will be the same solution for the current place. It is about the people together in a particular place facing their challenges and finding their solutions, not relying on being told what to do by an outsider. 
• An organization will have to loosen its hold on some of its “ways of always doing something” in order to respond to its current challenges. 
• An organization will need to become “nimble,” able to reflect and shift easily when trying new ideas. 
• This work of responding to challenges is about relationships. Community is based on the relationship built within it. We, as the Church, may have the responsibility of encouraging all people to deepen their relationships within their communities. We can begin to grow the culture of discernment—that deep listening to God and each other.

As a Church, we probably need to look at a few things:

• How do we grow that discerning culture that recognizes the current strengths, skills, compassion, etc already available and happening, and then support these organic happenings? 
• How do we create the safe places for people to innovate?  How do we invite the creative ideas and open ourselves to the ideas we may not have thought of ourselves, but are worth trying for the good of the community?
• What would a more nimble, responsive faith community look like and act like?
• How do we maintain an identity that has served God well without getting bogged down in serving ourselves?

There are many questions that arise for me as we look at living more fully into a culture that is not afraid to take risks or to try something new which will probably fail several times before it works. We will need to call upon all the faith we have in our God who has promised to always be with us and to guide us. We will need to turn to each other and recognize the Spirit at work in each other so that we can together respond to God’s vision for God’s people on earth.

Chapter Four seems to issue these challenges to me.