The Case for Regionalization - Pt. 5

  Pt. 1: Regionalization acknowledges reality

Pt. 2: Regionalization gives clarity

Pt 3: Regionalization promotes fairness

Pt. 4: Regionalization identifies the essentials

Regionalization Octifies Our Structure

I read a book several years ago called The Starfish and the Spider. In summary, the book stated that in the past most organizations worked like spiders with a centralized processing unit (brain) that told the whole organism how to function. Newer organizations in the era of the internet are like starfish. They may look similar to spiders, but starfish don't have that centralized processing. The processing happens throughout the body. So if you cut a leg off a starfish, a new starfish grows from it. This is how something like Wikipedia works. 

We have a 19th century structure that was adopted in the 20th century and just doesn't work well in the 21st century. I have very little patience for the people today who say the United Methodist Church never worked right. It did work right, for a time. The problem is the time has changed and our structure has not. But I think regionalization is more like a third animal, one especially suited for our times today.

An octopus has nine brains. There is one brain in each of the eight tentacles as well as a central brain in the head. In essence, the central brain sets priorities and the brain in each arm carries out the priorities. Imagine a church that functions like this. At the global level, we can adopt a set of universal priorities like starting new faith communities and feeding the hungry. We can align common resources for those priorities. Then we can allow each region to independently decide how to accomplish the priority without being bogged down by a process that requires a worldwide consensus every four years. That's what regionalization does. Having a worldwide body (a kind of centralized "brain") keeps us united with basic doctrine and direction while regional "tentacles" are largely independent in how those doctrines and directions are lived out. We are both united and diverse, which I think is the future of the 21st century world.