Starfish & Spider I

One of the books we're reading is "Starfish & Spider: the power of leaderless organizations." It's fascinating and I think that many of principles will aplly to you and your movements.

“If you cut off a Spider’s head it dies; but if you cut off a Starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of the world.”

What better example of a Starfish organization than Christianity? A quick glance at the beginnings of the church starts with a Starfish organization dramatically losing its core and central figure, Christ. At this point the centralized power of the faith shifts from Jesus Christ to the remaining 11 disciples. Jerusalem remains the primary location for the disciples and for Christianity as the number of Christ-followers grows.

Fast forward about 20 years.

Saul has a miraculous conversation with Jesus and a few years later becomes a missionary to the gentiles. From this point Paul spends the days of his life moving from one strategic location to the next setting up small churches-circles of believers who come together to worship and follow the teachings of Jesus. Once a church had been established Paul moved on.

Port cities, significant trading routes, and cross sections of culture – these are the places that Paul established faith communities. Corinth, in fact, is a small isthmus (only a few miles wide) where sailors would take cargo and ships from one body of water over the land to another body of water. It’s easy to see how Christianity spread so rapidly when you begin to understand the significance of the early church locale.

If you were to draw the conclusion that real estate were the only reason for this expansion you’d be mistaken. While the location of these early circles of believers certainly contributed to the growth of the Church, just as important is the fact that the faith of these early Christians was decentralized. Just as Paul didn’t need to get permission (Gal. 1) before embarking on his missionary journeys, the churches that he established didn’t need to get permission, sign a document, or pay dues in order to be a church. When they had the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ teachings, and a few other like minded believers they had a church!

Combine this decentralized organizational structure with tremendous real estate for proliferation, the power of God himself, and compassionate support from Paul and his boys…and you get a tidal wave of faith. Christianity spread like wildfire; or like starfish… A church would sprout up, grow, and when people tried to stop it by cutting off an arm, or killing a leader, they would only end up multiplying the number of leaders and overall believers.

As leaders on your campus you have the honor and privilege of being a part of this incredible, decentralized heritage. As you pray over the campus and ask God to direct your action you can relate to our forefather in the faith Paul as he prayed for direction. As he set out to launch spiritual movements from town to town he relied on the Holy Spirit to direct him and then he worked hard and labored to launch a movement despite persecution and hardship. 2000 years later you are doing the same thing, following the Spirit and seeking to launch spiritual movments everywhere.

-Ethan