Disruption is a word that more often than not can strike fear into the hearts of people who are terrified of inconvenience. The map application which I use in my truck as I make my way around regularly warns me of ‘traffic disruption’ and calculates an alternative route to carry me on to my destination with a minium of delay. Sometimes however, on the larger roads, we simply run into the block of traffic with no way out, and no way off; so we sit, and wait.
Disruptor: (noun) a person or thing that prevents something, especially a system, process, or event,from continuing as usual or as expected ( Cambridge Dictionary).
Disruption is a word that has begun to be used regularly in the business world too. ‘Disruptors’ are companies whose ideas and modes of business take over an industry in such a way that the established businesses don’t see it coming. By the time they cotton on to what is happening, the disruption is well underway and it’s too late to fix it. Think about how big the Kodak film company was before digital photography disrupted everything. Or how many of us have an old Blockbuster Video card in a drawer long after the store itself closed. Netflix and streaming movies were something that disrupted the normal business of movie nights at home. Both Kodak and Blockbuster are examples of titans in the business world that could not see the disruption that was coming to their businesses because they did not have a view to how the world was changing around them.
The same can be said to be true for the church in some ways, although in the vision which the scripture casts for the church, the Holy Spirit is meant to be the disruptor. Whether it is the religious establishment, the kingdoms and empires of the world, our sin and shame before God, or even our own understanding of how God is going to deal with us, we have plenty of moments in scripture where God acts as the great disruptor. Either personally in convicting someone of their sin (like Paul on the road to Damascus) or corporately where God interrupts what everyone thought was the plan. Consistently, God reminds us that “my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55. No matter what century, be it synagogue or church, we generally shudder at the prospect of (as the above definition explains) disruption of a system, process, or event, from continuing as usual or as expected.
As people of faith we acknowledge that there are many systems, processes or events that ought to be disrupted. Think of the cycle of poverty and perpetual debt that some find themselves in. Or perhaps the system of bondage and enslavement that seems nearly invisible to us as human beings are trafficked around the planet in general—and up and down Hwy 401 in particular. These are systems and processes that need to be disrupted.
This is why I have been preaching week by week in the parishes about the ways in which the Church is being called to be agents of the disruptive Spirit. In places where human dignity is ignored, stand up for those who are unseen. Where people are oppressed and forgotten by poverty, intervene in their lives in ways which can break the bondage of that gnawing sense of want.
If we think of our churches as communities where people can find hope in the midst of whatever distress, loss or trauma that they have suffered, we will become a hopeful place where we might be agents of disruption to all those forces which brutalize or trouble the children of God. We need not take on the whole structure of injustice or sin around us, but we do have a responsibility to work one life at a time at disrupting the effects of that brokenness. We also have to remember that all our work is “one life at a time”. If we are conscientious about it, our little communities can grow and do to the systems and merchants of misery what the business disruptors did to Blockbuster and Kodak. At the very least, why don’t we equip ourselves to serve and limit the market share of death and misery in our modern day world?
Church as agent of ‘disruptive’ spirit
Disruption is a word that more often than not can strike fear into the hearts of people who are terrified of inconvenience. The map application which I use in my truck as I make my way around regularly warns me of ‘traffic disruption’ and calculates an alternative route to carry me on to my destination with a minium of delay. Sometimes however, on the larger roads, we simply run into the block of traffic with no way out, and no way off; so we sit, and wait.
Disruptor: (noun) a person or thing that prevents something, especially a system, process, or event,from continuing as usual or as expected ( Cambridge Dictionary).
Disruption is a word that has begun to be used regularly in the business world too. ‘Disruptors’ are companies whose ideas and modes of business take over an industry in such a way that the established businesses don’t see it coming. By the time they cotton on to what is happening, the disruption is well underway and it’s too late to fix it. Think about how big the Kodak film company was before digital photography disrupted everything. Or how many of us have an old Blockbuster Video card in a drawer long after the store itself closed. Netflix and streaming movies were something that disrupted the normal business of movie nights at home. Both Kodak and Blockbuster are examples of titans in the business world that could not see the disruption that was coming to their businesses because they did not have a view to how the world was changing around them.
The same can be said to be true for the church in some ways, although in the vision which the scripture casts for the church, the Holy Spirit is meant to be the disruptor. Whether it is the religious establishment, the kingdoms and empires of the world, our sin and shame before God, or even our own understanding of how God is going to deal with us, we have plenty of moments in scripture where God acts as the great disruptor. Either personally in convicting someone of their sin (like Paul on the road to Damascus) or corporately where God interrupts what everyone thought was the plan. Consistently, God reminds us that “my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55. No matter what century, be it synagogue or church, we generally shudder at the prospect of (as the above definition explains) disruption of a system, process, or event, from continuing as usual or as expected.
As people of faith we acknowledge that there are many systems, processes or events that ought to be disrupted. Think of the cycle of poverty and perpetual debt that some find themselves in. Or perhaps the system of bondage and enslavement that seems nearly invisible to us as human beings are trafficked around the planet in general—and up and down Hwy 401 in particular. These are systems and processes that need to be disrupted.
This is why I have been preaching week by week in the parishes about the ways in which the Church is being called to be agents of the disruptive Spirit. In places where human dignity is ignored, stand up for those who are unseen. Where people are oppressed and forgotten by poverty, intervene in their lives in ways which can break the bondage of that gnawing sense of want.
If we think of our churches as communities where people can find hope in the midst of whatever distress, loss or trauma that they have suffered, we will become a hopeful place where we might be agents of disruption to all those forces which brutalize or trouble the children of God. We need not take on the whole structure of injustice or sin around us, but we do have a responsibility to work one life at a time at disrupting the effects of that brokenness. We also have to remember that all our work is “one life at a time”. If we are conscientious about it, our little communities can grow and do to the systems and merchants of misery what the business disruptors did to Blockbuster and Kodak. At the very least, why don’t we equip ourselves to serve and limit the market share of death and misery in our modern day world?
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