Orthoparadoxy....hold it, hold it, hold it......!

We may be familiar with the Judeo-Christian emphasis of orthodoxy (right thinking) and orthopraxy (right doing) as vital expressions of our faith, but Pastor and writer Dwight Friesen highlights a third category, orthoparadoxy.

In his book, Intuitive Leadership, Tim Keel describes this as.... "living rightly in the tension and mystery of the mysterious and revealed God of the Scriptures. Doing so requires and invites a radical dependence on the Spirit of God living in and working through his people in creation."

With an ability to hold and contain mounting tension (and a no quick fix approach) we encourage creativity and the limitless possibilities that emerge organically from an adaptive posture. He reminds us that uncomfortable tension is a dominant product of the creative process and necessitates us having an ability to "hold seemingly opposing forces in dynamic relationship without privileging one at the expense of the other or too quickly resolving it."

Too often we simply want to reanimate that which has come before us. Instead of embracing new life (which is often messy) and forming flexible organic structures to support this growth, we rely on traditional command and control formats of stability that seek to resolve our anxiety and tension with all too familiar solutions.

This results in historic organizations with rigid inherited structures trying ever harder and harder to find new life and then squeeze it into hierarchical management chains that merely uphold the status quo.

Creative communities and organizations are now tapping into informal networks and decentralized environments where dialogue and mutual discovery are more highly valued than so called expertise.

Instead of chasing the 'specialization experts' and pigeonholing solutions and staff into linear programing where one size fits all, they tap the collective wisdom of the distributed tribe to promote unique frameworks, encouraging these emerging expressions of new life.

One size does not fit all.......Amen.

O'

Intuitive Leadership - Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor & Chaos by Tim Keel