attractors
Unpacking this, complexity theorists often use the term ‘attractor’ when describing self-organization.13 Put simply, an attractor can be understood as something that attracts support. Systems are organized around an attractor, which are ways of doing things that over time have gained support. Emergence occurs when a new attractor, a new way of organizing, gathers enough support to challenge successfully the existing pattern of organization, an old attractor.
Before the new one replaces the old one, the two attractors compete for a while. During this period, the system is no longer stable, dominated by one attractor, one pattern of behaviour. It has been destabilized by the early appearance of an alternative approach, the new attractor. The landscape looks confusing and individuals are uncertain about the future.
Three outcomes are possible. The old attractor wins, or the new one does or the system slides into chaos. In the first and second, once one of the attractors has prevailed, the system in theory returns to stability. In practice, in our fast-changing world another attractor is likely to be on the horizon, offering a new challenge, so that the system never feels completely at rest. In the third outcome, the system slips into chaos because the rival attractors tear the organization apart – perhaps (hypothetically) fresh expressions exit a denomination en masse, leaving it seriously weakened.
Theorists describe how one attractor replaces an existing one in various ways.14 A common notion is the ‘edge of chaos’. This is a situation where the old and new attractors are in competition with each other – the system is unstable. The outcome of the rivalry is unclear. The system could lapse into chaos, or one of the attractors could predominate and the organization head toward stability. A system is on the edge of chaos because it is on the stable side of the boundary between stability and chaos.
Parts of the UK church could be described as approaching an edge of chaos state. Fresh expressions of church are beginning to challenge the status quo, but whether and how the denominations will reorganize is unclear. Will the structures accommodate new types of church?
The strength of the old attractor
Despite the amplifying actions just described, many in the wider church are trapped in a ‘narrative’ of decline. It is a story of shrinking attendance, clergy numbers and finance. Churches are increasingly focused on managing this decline. Diminishing financial and managerial resources are spread ever more thinly over existing congregations, with little left for innovation. Observation suggests that in most discussions about strategy, coping with the effects of decline is higher on the agenda than starting new types of church.
Where decline has become normal, some find innovation threatening. A new church may be accused of drawing people away from struggling neighbours. Shifting resources from existing to new churches is seen as a risk: what will happen if the new gatherings are unfruitful? Will the church as a whole be weakened? Institutions have an instinct for self-preservation. Spending on a new initiative puts resources into something that does not yet exist. No one misses the money if it is not spent. But withdrawing funds from an existing activity evokes howls of anguish (Mannoia, 2005, p. 115).
Amid these head winds are signs that an alternative attractor is starting to take shape. Given complexity theory’s stress on unpredictability, it would be rash to anticipate what this attractor will look like, if it prevails. But there are five pointers.
The mixed economy
One is the idea of the mixed economy, which the Church of England diocese of Liverpool has couched in terms of rivers and lakes. Rivers of fresh expressions flow in and out of the lake of existing church, renewing the waters in the process. Rowan Williams has expressed his hope that over time existing and new forms of church will grow closer together, mutually enriching each other (Podcast, July 2010 extra, www.freshexpressions.org.uk). Crucially, this frames the new attractor not as fresh expressions standing against inherited forms of church, but as a more diverse church in contrast to a narrower version. A mixed-economy attractor is challenging a single-economy church, the old attractor.
Margaret Wheatley notes that ‘systems achieve order from clear centres rather than imposed restraints’ (2006, p. 132). She suggests that a new centre, a new attractor, should be built on meaning – such as: what does this new way of doing things mean to us in our organization? How does it fit it into the ongoing story of the organization? How does it enable the organization to achieve its goals more effectively? The mixed economy is an example of such meaning. If it is theologically well grounded, weaved into the denomination’s values and expressed appropriately, the idea has the potential to help churches interpret positively their journeys to greater diversity.
Corridors
Second, it seems that semi-autonomous ‘corridors’ are starting to be cleared within the inherited church for new contextual communities. In the Church of England, BMOs (Bishops’ Mission Orders) could enable local churches to develop and lead networks of new congregations that jump local-church boundaries. A church in Bristol, for instance, has been given a BMO that allows it to initiate gatherings broadly anywhere in the north of the city. It is not hard to imagine such a church growing new congregations, networking them to provide mutual support, producing its own leaders whom it trains and employs to establish further gatherings, and in time becoming a substantial presence within the diocese.
The CMS (Church Mission Society) has been recognized as an ‘acknowledged community’, which is a religious order. This allows it to form missional communities within the Church of England that are more independent of dioceses than the typical Anglican church. As an acknowledged community, CMS has a bishop (currently the Bishop of Coventry) who exercises oversight and is entitled to ordain ministers to serve within the community. In 2010, CMS launched a training course for lay (and now ordained) pioneers, and is likely to deploy them in collaboration with local churches and to offer them continuing support.
The Church Army, too, is in the process of becoming an acknowledged community. It currently trains and deploys Church of England evangelists, many of whom are pioneering contextual churches. Given its heritage of supporting lay evangelists, it would not be a large step for the Church Army to host an ecumenical third order of lay church planters, who would have an allegiance to their denomination but receive training and ongoing support under its auspices.
Other dispersed missional orders are emerging as part of the renewed interest in monasticism. They include The Order of Mission (TOM), which grew to over 350 members worldwide between 2003 and 2010 (Kershaw, 2010, p. 80), the 24–7 ecumenical global prayer movement among young people that has expanded to 90 nations in ten years (Freeman, 2010, p. 50) and the Northumbria community, which has been longer established.
Church founders may find it more attractive to bring communities to birth under these BMO or religious-order umbrellas, where the ethos is favourable, than to struggle on their own within the existing structures of the church, where contextual church is often misunderstood and support inadequate. These networks would provide various kinds of support, such as negotiating with the wider church on founders’ behalf to clear away misunderstandings and obstacles.
The Methodist Church also has a tradition of religious orders, such as the Methodist Diaconal Order, which uses the language of pioneering to describe its role. Might this Order eventually become a focus
