I live with a low-grade, ongoing paradox steeped deeply within my paradigm; the lens through which I interpret life. I am at once a Federalist and Anti-Federalist. My wife further endeared herself to me when she invoked these terms to describe a planning dilemma as it relates to our large congregation in Chicago.
I love team sports. I love being on a team. I am loyal by nature in many ways, and I have always tended to side with "team" agenda over "individual" agenda. I believe this is the method that gets the team furthest fastest and is also the best path to personal development. Sit on the bench and root for the team, even if you're not playing. Let the coach call the plays and then run them perfectly. Be a good soldier.
I have a million allegories to back up these principals- some of the best in my arsenal. There is something moving about knights who pledge themselves to their good king and do his bidding at risk to their own lives without hesitation. Even the unofficial motto of the postal service- "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” -inspires me. There is something that cannot be duplicated in the selfless devotion to a team, creed, or ideal that is greater than the individual. The beautiful and lofty dreams of The Federalist.
And yet...
I often find myself standing on the other side shouting down "the man" as an inefficient and plodding pathfinder toward actual progress because it stifles the creativity, ingenuity and problem solving ability of the individual to find solutions for the whole. And what is the world or our church or our family but the sum of individuals? What was the prophet but a man that most often stood alone "to raise up or tear down the nations" (Jeremiah 1)?
I owe no small part of my successes and victories to minor rebellions, revolutions, and a bit of anarchy that have guided some part of my past decisions. I actually find conflict extremely uncomfortable and yet it brews within me at all times as ideas, plans, and schemes rage within travelling counter to the road on which the "team" walks.
In an effort to synchronize the strengths of the Federalists and the individual the business world has coined the term "flattening". Flatten an organization- Less bosses, more creative freedom, more peer leadership, less hierarchy. Interesting thoughts all, and while perhaps not all wholly practical there is a principal that guides the thinking that I affirm completely. There is great opportunity in corralling individual thinking and initiative. The individual has to have a place to rant, think aloud and be heard, apply personal theory and fail while still holding to the goal and direction of the whole.
Listen, Elijah took his hiatus, Moses negotiated with the Lord, and a myriad of other heroes broke from convention testing impossibly stupid schemes while evoking the name of the Lord in faith. Yet, the "good ones" never broke from God's covenant. In the end they all bent their will to God's and to his blueprint. Who knows what David could have done with the Israel if he had simply usurped Saul as soon as the Lord anointed him the new king instead of waiting a decade for the process to take place? He didn't usurp Saul because it wasn't in the "team" plan. He ranted and cried out in the Psalms, but he submitted in the end.
We all need space to experiment, create and plot- yet in the end we must submit to the greater need, plan, team etc. We expect the same when we lead others so we'd better provide great spaces for the same need to explore and push the boundaries for our own constituencies. The balance between the Federalist and individual is crucial, as God created us each unique and yet required we exist in family. Striking the right balance is the most efficient pathfinder to where God wants us to land as individuals and as a church.
