stop trying to to make our organizations better

I think I was interested again in the value of "weak ties" because of my current stepping outside the circle of the community here. Visiting other churches, which I think will be my continual practice now. And also involvement with other communities because of the retreats we offer, and increased interactions through web communities like Jesus Manifesto and Jesus Radicals. Trying to think of the value of these "weak ties" for community life.

And moves like these might be helpful, in bringing in new ideas and resources to communities that have gotten a little ingrown. But the more I've thought about it, the more I appreciate the way communities that build strong ties also tend to get ingrown, inwardly focused, often to the point of collapsing in on themselves. Maybe this is how it should be, how God wants it. To help us see that these communities are human constructions and not the one Community we long for, that they eventually collapse like anything we build, that they are not worthy of our trust or allegiance. Only the Body of Christ doesn't have the obvious weaknesses of both strong and weak tie communities.

I've got to get out of the mode of thinking how to make our human organizations better and devote more energy to simply living the life of the Body. It's not an organization that we design or maintain or improve. It's the living community that we can only join or reject (in all the various aspects of its life); it's already here and it can never collapse. And we can't improve it, only because it's already the one true community that we all long for.