question that I asked myself a lot when
I was a child you see like millions of
other people in this country growing up
I lived below the poverty line my
parents were really hard workers they
would work any job any place that would
require them to that would help keep a
roof over our heads and put food on the
table but the problem with poverty is
that a lot of times it’s just not enough
I think that’s why I was attracted to
church in the first place
you see Church when I was a kid it was
our salvation now I don’t mean the
spiritual or a metaphorical sense it
really literally was the church provided
food when we needed it it gave us money
to pay our bills to keep the lights on
it created a sense of community that
helps me feel like I had a place to grow
up I think that’s that’s why I decided
to commit my life to working in churches
I realized that a lot of my colleagues
they go into church work because they’re
attached to a specific denomination or
theology or idea that wasn’t the case
for me so I had the freedom to jump from
one job to the other from one church to
another and yes for a little while I was
confused but I started to see in each
and every one of these churches they
would come to me they would say you know
we really want to be relevant we want to
be engaging we want to be impactful in
our community and so I would lay out a
series of ideas and plans that they
could use and every single one of these
churches they would take a couple of
those ideas and then they’d stop
something about their system prevented
them from from moving forward to create
actual change I was really frustrated I
didn’t know what that was and so like
anybody else when you get frustrated I
call the colleague and asked them if
they would if they would want to go to
lunch with me and I sat there and I was
explaining everything to her and and she
said well do you know
she need to do and that was a thought
that never crossed my mind
you see I I I actually just wanted to
sit and complain I didn’t actually want
to have to do anything to fix the
problem she said the problem is that you
you haven’t considered the Platypus I
said okay what does that mean
she said well back in the 80s and 90s
there was a common conception among
neurobiologists in psychologists that
that the human brain was the most
evolved brain and the reason that they
thought this was because there was a
great groove between the left and the
right hemisphere and it was believed
that that groove was greater than any
other animal or mammal well in the 90s
new article came out that said that that
was not true that a number of other
mammals including the platypus had a
greater difference between the left
hemisphere and the right hemisphere in
fact the platypus is able to shut down
one side of its brain and still use
another it can be asleep and awake I
said okay well that’s interesting but
what does that mean she said the thing
that’s interesting about that more than
anything else is that the people who
were researching this had to challenge a
fundamental pillar of their field I
thought about that how many of us are
willing to make those challenges how
many of us are willing to challenge what
it is that we believe and so for me it
was beginning to study evolution as I
read through and study a number of
evolutionary books I I came upon one
person
Pierre take heart de sardine a Jesuit
philosopher and priest who came from
France into America in the early 1900’s
he was a PhD in theology but also a PhD
in anthropology
he loved religion and science and so
when Darwin’s origin of the species came
out he said it was the greatest book of
his generation
he took the principles that Darwin said
about evolution and survival and the
process of growing and he said this
could be applied not just to animals or
humans but to ideologies for dejardine
it could be applied to religion and for
him God itself would go through a
process of survival
even evolution that we exist through a
series of time but that ideologies and
people are either surviving or
challenged to change and evolve it was
an interesting concept for me at least
because as I read it I started to wonder
how the Catholic Church responded well
the church responded as well as they
could with anybody that’s challenging
the major systems they have they told
them to stop writing they refused to
publish any of his books and they told
him to stop teaching what’s interesting
though is that over the course of the
next 50 to 60 years the church reversed
its decisions it came out and said that
actually they are Dean’s ideas of
survival and evolution progressing
through time have shaped so much of how
we can understand ideology religion
science and all of humanity I thought it
was really interesting because the
initial point that the Catholic Church
engaged de chardin they were doing the
exact same thing that he was critical of
they were more concerned with the
doctrines and the dogmas of their
survival that they wouldn’t be
challenged and pushed to evolve they
wouldn’t take that next step until
something forced them to and I realized
that this was true in each and every
Church that I worked at they would be
comfortable only going so far unless
something really pushed them to have to
evolve and the more I started talking
about this with more people the more
many of them started to say to me you
know what it’s not just the church it’s
it’s any organization it’s any
institution it’s any business it’s any
relationship and as we’ve seen recently
it’s any political party we either stay
in a mindset and a place where we think
that survival is key the reality is that
survivals not even that hard all that
you have to do to survive is keep doing
today what you did yesterday if the
resources are available to you you’ll
keep going but evolution is something
greater evolution forces us to to move
beyond that I noticed
at least a couple characteristics of
surviving systems and evolving systems
surviving systems love to talk about the
past if you’ve ever been an organization
or a place where somebody introduces
themselves to you and the next thing
they say is how long they’ve been there
you know you’re in a surviving system
surviving systems love to look at the
things that used to work and believe
that they can work again they ignore the
idea that these these ideas and these
sisters situations don’t happen in a
vacuum they have this notion that
perhaps because this was successful
yesterday if we do it again today it
will yield the same results but it
doesn’t
finally surviving systems love to purge
outside and critical voices and this is
probably the most common thing that we
see anytime a new individual or somebody
with innovative thought comes into an
organization or a system a church a
business and they have all these great
ideas what happens either within a
couple weeks or months or even a year
they become frustrated and they either
adapt to the system or they leave but we
started to see that there are places
there are organizations and systems and
businesses and yes even political
systems and parties that are moving to
an evolve state that are evolving
themselves and the state of evolution
for them means to challenge those past
assumptions evolving systems are willing
to challenge even the major pillars of
what they have of what their
organization has always known take a
look at Amazon and borders you have an
institution organization that said
people are never going to stop reading
books on paper and went bankrupt and you
had another organization that said we
have a different way that people can see
how they’re going to read in the future
evolving means being willing to
challenge what that pillar is in your
organization and your relationships in
your systems evolving institutions also
have very simple goals the kind that
could fit on a baseball cap that
everyone can understand
and know and see and apply and buy into
more than that
evolving systems are willing to listen
to critical voices the critical voices
that are willing to challenge them that
are willing to push against them that
are willing to say that the things that
worked yesterday are not the things that
are going to help you work tomorrow so
what are you gonna do which system do
you belong in which system are you
working in will you change and challenge
will you evolve perhaps the question
that I asked at the beginning isn’t the
fair one maybe the question shouldn’t be
what would you do to survive but what
would you do to evolve because if we
learned one thing this past week when we
woke up on Wednesday morning it is that
it doesn’t matter how much you ignore it
how much you fight against it or how
much you plan for it evolution is here and it’s all around us