System or Ecosystem

The System or The Ecosystem is a new book by author Michael H. Peters. It contains great words of wisdom, seasoned with over forty years of practical experience, presented in concise, easy-to-digest segments. I highly recommend this book. It’s free to download or you can request to receive a free hard copy. You can check it our here along with some excellent resource materials.

AS AN ENGINEER and “Expert in Residence” at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, home of the #1 ranked School of Architecture in the world, I can tell you: architecture and design determine outcome.

You cannot build the 500,000-ton, 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa (the Mission-Impossible-Tom-Cruise-climbing, “world’s tallest building” in Dubai, a Harvard Architect product) on a foundation designed for a three-foot doghouse.

You cannot modify a bicycle into an F-16 no matter how many parts you replace.

You cannot optimize a failing system into success if the system itself is wrong for the task.

Would you try to fix Alaska to grow an orange tree? Perhaps optimizing Alaska weather isn’t the right solution. If Orange Tree Habitat Life is the goal, why not try to grow any Lifeform in the place it grows naturally?

It is the same with “Growing a Christian.” Why not use the Ecosystem God Designed for JesusLife in humans, that they might grow as mightily as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time, to harvest the best fruit? And that CANNOT be the System of Sunday attendance, programs, missions and clergy.

Similarly, learning how to dribble an American football is a really dumb thing to try to optimize. Why not just do it right in the first place? Trying to optimize the wrong system versus allowing the Ecosystem to flow.

But that is Precisely what Christianity has tried for centuries:

Optimizing a thing Jesus never designed. Jesus designed a“walk along with Me daily real-life apprenticeship,” and the apostles then of course did the
 same with those they encountered and shared life with: the priesthood of
 ALL believers.

Just to demonstrate further why “The Master Teacher” chose to bring an Ecosystem of Life from Heaven, a daily hand-to-hand apprenticeship
 (the Greek word for “disciple” is well-translated apprentice), rather than
 a classroom or “study” or speech, is convincingly portrayed in the book
 On Combat, by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.

Colonel Grossman tells of the necessity of “high fidelity” training, true
 life training rather than classroom or theoretical incomplete practice.
 Everything is different when life is authentic, rather than theatrical
 or an academic exercise or information dump.

Here’s how it went. A police officer in training practiced disarming an intruder or criminal who was pointing a gun at him. Literally, hundreds and
 hundreds of times he had friends and family members surprise him with
 a replica dummy gun pointed at him. The policeman understudy would
 practice responding instantly, by snatching the gun out of the hand of the
 bad guy. Again and again. He became very, very proficient at snatching the
 gun in a smooth, lightning-fast move. He would then hand the “gun” back,
 and they would soon sneak up on him again-training, training, training.

Then, finally and predictably, came the moment of truth. As the rookie 
police officer was in a convenience store bodega with a partner, he stepped
 around an aisle and a criminal pointed a gun, close range, at the officer.
 They were both shocked at how fast he disarmed the thief.
 Good on you!

And both the officer and the criminal were also equally
 shocked when the officer, having magically stripped the 
gun right out of the gangster’s hand, proceeded to hand
 the gun back to the criminal. Just as he had practiced 1,000 
times with his friends and family members. True story.

Hall of Shame Police Academy Training story. And that truth matters to us.



People do not rise in real “combat” to the level of their information,
 aspirations, and hopes, or the great discussions and classes and studies
 they’ve had. They sink to the level of their training, hopefully a 
high-fidelity
 apprenticeship.

But if instead, in a religious attendance-based System, we practice,
 practice, practice words and emotions and information, even if all true-
we will never have one-tenth of the Transformation that we might have had
 if we were living in an apprenticeship of the DAILY priesthood of 
believers,
 each “considering how to spur one another on to love and good works.”

Ritual, attendance, and clergy are not bugs, but FEATURES 
of the System that is not the Bible. But if we are serious
 about “the full measure of the stature of Christ” then
 “I am in the pains of childbirth until Christ, Anointing,
 is formed in you.”

General Jack Keane mentioned in an interview that there is
 no such thing as Abrams Tank training on weekdays for a few hours, with
 summers off. Paraphrased, “If you want to learn how to fly an F-16 or drive
 an Abrams tank or operate a Patriot Missile battery system, there’s no such
 thing as a school week. Seven days a week, 14 or 15 hours per day, is the
 way to learn anything meaningful. Immersion.”

Why did the American school system fail? There’s your answer. Why does
 American religion fail to help their teens and their marriages? There’s your 
answer. A System is not how God Designed us. Both the Scriptures and
 the Fruit support that we should direct our energy towards the 59 “one
 another” daily verses and thereby discover the overflow Ecosystem of Life
 He came and suffered unspeakably to bring us from Heaven.

And yet, here are the most common “fixes” leaders pour their energy into:

-better sermons, better “pastors,”“preachers,”“reverends”
-better worship leader, better organist, better worship band
-better branding, better marketing
-better programs
-better discipleship or mentoring curriculum
-better leadership training to make the little people feel more involved and give them a job
-better facilities, better location
-better small groups, better curriculum
-better outreach strategies

But no amount of optimization or programming can transform the System
 into the Ecosystem.

Imagine trying to fix the Titanic by:

-upgrading the silverware

-repainting the decks

-polishing the brass

-adjusting the weekly schedule

None of that fixes the fundamental flaw-the architecture and path are wrong.

The Systems Architecture Produces:

-spectators
-spiritual passivity
-shallow roots
-leadership burnout
-inability to really know or walk with God in His steps
-consumer Christianity
-moral collapse
-teens who walk away
-adults who give up and pretend
-unsaved people who think they’re saved, so they don’t try to find the Real Jesus to wash their sins and fill them with His Spirit
-leaders who control and pose
-the wax museum effect

The Ecosystems Architecture 
Produces:

–priests of all true believers, as He equipped us to be and do

-daily transformation

-unexplainable joy

-supernatural unity

-courage under pressure

-impossible forgiveness

-evangelism by overflow

-deep repentance

-miracles of character

-surprise wisdom

-multi-generational strength


The problem is not the people.

It’s a faulty blueprint.

The System Fails,
 Not Because Christians Are Weak…

…it fails because the architecture cannot produce strength out of the
 inevitable starting places of weakness for all of us.






Don’t miss a post. Sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter below.