Chaordic is one of my new favorite words. It’s a perfect description of NCC. The word “chaordic” refers to a “self-governing organism which harmoniously blends order and chaos.” That’s how NCC feels. In his book, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock says, “Why do we strive to structure institutions as though they were predictable, controllable machines.” The church is not an organization. It’s an organism. And organisms always have an element of unpredictability and uncertainty. That’s why one of our core values is expect the unexpected.
Part of us wants certainty and predictablity, but as Dee Hock says, “It would be death. Absolute, perfect prediction and control is in the coffin.”
Hock says, “The past is ever less predictive, the future ever less predictable, and the present scarely exists at all.” What a great description of life in 2003. Such is life. Such is church.