Reboot, Revise or Restart: Part II

The Church is always local.  That's not original to me, by the way.  People have been saying "politics is always local" for a long time, and that concept applies to the global Church as well, I think.  Regardless of what the Church is doing in our culture, it all stems from what local congregations are doing in their neighborhoods.

That said, it's still useful to talk trends, so long as we keep in mind that our conclusions are meaningless until we apply them to our church.  And that may lead us in different directions from the larger Church trends.

I guess this is just a short note, but I think it's a key one in terms of what I’m processing theologically right now. 

When we consider revision vs. rebooting vs. recreating, I disagree with some of the authors I'm reading.  I think they overstate the scale of the change needed.  I get it:  they have to sell books.  Books are easier to sell when there is a colossal sweeping change we simple must get ahead of in order to save the _[insert threatened ministry here]_. 

But the church is local.  Some need revision, some re-creation.   As a systems thinker the focus is on discovering what kind of change will bring us to the kind of operation we're called to.  How do we fulfill our local DNA as a church?

So, next time:  what ministry should consider revision?

Revise, Reboot, or Recreate? Part I...

I've just finished a massive syllabus rewrite.  Trust me, it's just as much fun as it sounds.  Parts of it are great fun; others, not so much.  The whole process has been dominated by a single question:  Do I revise this, reboot this, or recreate this?

These are three different approaches for me. 

• Revision is simply changing a few things to make them flow better with the overall course, which stays the same.  Revision isn't very deep.

• Rebooting is going back to a much simpler course structure and reworking a few things from scratch.  It means ditching a part of the course (several major assignments, or the schedule).  This is a step deeper, and often results in a course with significant differences.

• Recreating is a much larger process, starting from a clean slate and beginning anew (core concepts, objectives, texts...the works.)  The resulting course will likely look nothing like the original.

This is a perennial question for me.  I always have a list of things I liked for the course, stuff I would tweak, and things I want to change dramatically.  Sometimes the question is simple.  Sometimes  a majority of the stuff is good and there are a few things I would like to tweak.  Other times the course is such a disaster that I want to start all over again.

Most of the time, however, this is not so simple.  When do tweaks and revisions pile up enough a reboot is in order?  When is rebooting simply pushing the inevitable failure of the course structure back another semester? 

Part of what has driven this question to preoccupy me is the nature of the material.  Specifically the Perspectives text (I don’t' have the full title here with me...it's somewhere on this blog, I'm sure.)

 for our Family Life Ministry course .  Should the local church revise, beboot, or recreate the current approach to ministry in the family?