A few days ago I posed this question on facebook. "What does the infrastructure of a starfish look like. Neil Cole was one of those who replied. His comment: "Self-building and self-replicating, internal and
decentralized."
If we apply these principles to anything we try to put in place in terms of infrastructure, we won't go far wrong!
What would this look like when applied, for example, to training? Or to resources? Any thoughts?
6 replies on “Starfish Infrastructure Again”
The DNA of the movement must be the Bible, especially the New Testament. If, for any reason, the new house church did not have access to the Bible, she should obey all that she has received from those who instructed her. She will seek to find a Bible and thus repair her DNA. Then she can fulfil the DNA by reproducing the instructions of the New Tesatment. On doing this, she will put out roots into God Himself, and grow as He intends. It is Christ who is building her up. His Spirit is guiding and empowering. With the care of the ministries which God raises up to care for her, she will grow and reproduce, passing on the same DNA of the Bible.
Self-building- as I read this I was reminded of ‘the Body builds itself up in love as each part does it’s work’-Eph 4:11-16
What else is meant by self-building?
Self-Replicating- Does this refer to 2 Tim 2:2? and to disciples multiplying disciples, leaders multiplying leaders, churches reproducing churches each after their own kind?
How do we get to this point where we self-replicate (espeacially after being drenched in a sit-and-soak church culture where babies are fed as opposed to young adults reproducing!)
Internal: What is meant by this? (something that is not seen?)
Decentralized: I think I understand this one, but would love to hear some practical examples
All this is leading me to asking more questions!
We use a “participative Bible Study” approach. In other words, we read a text of the Bible and we have a conversation about it. We stick with one text in order to understand it. Most people, in the beginning, want to run to lots of other texts to bring in ideas, but we limit that. We want people to understand one text to the point that they can have a conversation with another person about it without having to try to remember “all those other texts we talked about.” In this way, folks begin to have the ability to reproduce what they have studied as they talk to other people.
Internal, in this sense, says to me what Paul told Titus – go to Crete and appoint elders in the cities there. The idea is that leadership came from within the groups of believers and was not imported from outside.
To me, the idea of decentralized goes hand-in-hand with the doctrine of the priesthood of every believer. We do not need a heirarchical structure with a centralized authority person or “committee”. That does not mean that we do not have leadership. We certainly have leadership, but it is not leadership as the institutional church has given us through the centuries.
And, self-building is stated very well by the previous poster.
Love starfish organizations! Glad you do, too!
I just returned from India teaching at a young college with abut 80 ‘hungry’ students ,,, i would say equipping the saints academically and practically for the work of the ministry- emphasis teamwork an & in our case, principals of Luke 10 and reaching our community via house holds and house churches.
We went door-to-door to Muslim and Hindu homes
Awesome!