reede, märts 11, 2005
Field of Dreams? by Captain Steve Court
Proverbs 24:26 First plant your fields; then build your barn.
Ironically, one of the leadership areas that often fails to observe this proverb is the Christian Church. You'd think that the keepers of the Bible would follow its instructions! The specific aspect of failure that I've observed is in that of pioneering congregations. While the sage of the Scriptures instructs us to plant first and then build the barn, some organizations adopt the exact opposite approach....
This faulty approach sees a "leader" ... appointed, a name chosen, and a building acquired. I call this the "Field of Dreams" fallacy.
The Field of Dreams Fallacy believes that if you build it, they will come (from the popular movie). And so, precious resources are poured into the barn with the expectation that people will show up when the doors are opened. And it does not work. After a couple of tries with the Field of Dreams Fallacy I would probably move on to something else. But some people figure it was not what they did, but how they did it, that was wrong. The barn was not fancy enough or the name was not relevant enough and so they fine-tune their names and add a gymnasium or a nursery, and build away. And it does not work.
You can't succeed if you build your barns before you plant your crops. These leaders failed for a lack of understanding at what the Church is. They understood that the Church is a building, or at best, a congregation gathered on a Sunday morning. And so they built the building, thinking that they were building the Church, or, at best, they built a hall for nice Sunday meetings. The Church is not a building. The Church is not only the gathering of a congregation once a week. The Church is made up of saints living in community. It seems that the "leaders" misunderstood what they were trying to pioneer, and in missing the opportunity to plant the crops of relationships with people who would become saints living in community, they ended up building barns that were literally just empty rooms.
How many times do we build the barn first because we misunderstand the very nature of our initiative or project?
from Proverbial Leadership: Ancient Wisdom for Tomorrow's Endeavors
by Wesley Harris & Stephen Court
Ironically, one of the leadership areas that often fails to observe this proverb is the Christian Church. You'd think that the keepers of the Bible would follow its instructions! The specific aspect of failure that I've observed is in that of pioneering congregations. While the sage of the Scriptures instructs us to plant first and then build the barn, some organizations adopt the exact opposite approach....
This faulty approach sees a "leader" ... appointed, a name chosen, and a building acquired. I call this the "Field of Dreams" fallacy.
The Field of Dreams Fallacy believes that if you build it, they will come (from the popular movie). And so, precious resources are poured into the barn with the expectation that people will show up when the doors are opened. And it does not work. After a couple of tries with the Field of Dreams Fallacy I would probably move on to something else. But some people figure it was not what they did, but how they did it, that was wrong. The barn was not fancy enough or the name was not relevant enough and so they fine-tune their names and add a gymnasium or a nursery, and build away. And it does not work.
You can't succeed if you build your barns before you plant your crops. These leaders failed for a lack of understanding at what the Church is. They understood that the Church is a building, or at best, a congregation gathered on a Sunday morning. And so they built the building, thinking that they were building the Church, or, at best, they built a hall for nice Sunday meetings. The Church is not a building. The Church is not only the gathering of a congregation once a week. The Church is made up of saints living in community. It seems that the "leaders" misunderstood what they were trying to pioneer, and in missing the opportunity to plant the crops of relationships with people who would become saints living in community, they ended up building barns that were literally just empty rooms.
How many times do we build the barn first because we misunderstand the very nature of our initiative or project?
from Proverbial Leadership: Ancient Wisdom for Tomorrow's Endeavors
by Wesley Harris & Stephen Court
