If you want to move forward, is revolution preferable to evolution?
The one is high-risk, often quite painful and costly, but at least has the merits of speed, closure and certainty. The change has been effected and everyone knows where they stand. They may not like it, but at least there's no confusion.
The other is gentler, slower, and more overtly sensitive to need people have for time and space when countenancing change. But it suffers from the danger that the time of transition can often be very confused, and the change may never actually happen.
It's the classic how-do-you-get-into-the-swimming-pool sort of question. Do you take a running jump, or gingerly ease your way in down the steps at the shallow end?
Is change meant to be a gradual thing? Or a sudden and radical turn-around?I guess there's no simple answer. In most places the sun rises slowly and the light of dawn creeps bit by bit across the morning sky. But at the equator both sunrise and sunset are quick. Dark becomes light in an instant almost.
It depends a bit where you are.
Most of the time the change which takes place in God's world is gradual and slow. Spring comes slowly. The flowers take time to grow into blossom and bloom.
But sometimes it's sudden and rapid.
My day's been spent debating such issues in one sort of context and another. How does change happen? How do we bring it about?
Do we go for broke (the spirit of the revolution)? Or do we work away with patient grace and faithfulness, content to seek a merely slow and incremental growth (the way of 'evolution')?
They're not easy questions. And there aren't ever any easy answers.
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3 comments:
Is the question really revolution or evolution?
To stretch your swimming pool analogy - you can blindfold someone, take them to the pool, gradually move them closer and closer to the edge - then slowly and gently move them from shallow water to deeper and deeper water - but there is still a risk that when you take the blindfold off they panic and don't want to be in the water.
Is the question not more about being clear about where you are going? If you state clearly that the destination is the pool - you can help people understand why the pool is such a great place to be and then you can work out how you get people there. In some cases it will be the big splash approach - in others it might be a slow, incremental move towards the edge with big toe dipping and maybe, eventually, full immersion. Some people might decide not to go to the pool - or change their mind on the journey - that's their choice - but at least they won't find themselves somewhere they don't want to be when it's too late…
Badly implemented evolution can cause as much pain and cost as revolution. And badly implemented revolution can create as much confusion and uncertainty as evolution.
Thanks, Michael. There's a need, certainly, for some clarity about direction (where it is you're headed, or wanting to go).
I suppose I was suggesting that sometimes the approach of 'revolution' doesn't give folk time or space to work such issues through: the change takes place and is effectively 'imposed' upon a people. Whereas the approach of 'evolution', at least in theory, seeks to help folk work things and ease them to the point where they 'embrace' the change themselves.
I've sometimes had to ask folk, as they've reached the point of standing at the 'poolside' of commitment to the Lord, how they enter the swimming pool!
Generally, the characteristic way they'll enter the swimming pool, is the way they'll also enter the life of faith. Some 'take the plunge', others kind of 'tip-toe' into the water.
That they actually get into the water is the crucial thing: not how they get there! And, yes, they do need to know that the pool is worth getting into!
In 'big church' terms, I'm not entirely sure that going for broke and starting 'revolutions' really works.
This is very well-written.
Although we see revolutions as sudden and rapid, they require a slow process of evolution to truly work. No true revolution occurs without the vast transformation of the social background. A revolution is really the result of repressing the effects of evolution. It is the desire for change pent up and released all at once. Sometimes in a chaotic and violent matter.
Revolutions occur because we dare not look into the subtle changes happening before us.
The Mental Tome
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