It is 2020 and very exciting! I am looking forward to using my abilities and gifting in a new way this year that will bless many. May you find wonder and inspiration in every day to fully live out your purpose wherever you are.
With this new season I look around at what is happening spiritually and physically and connect the trends to find meaning. Many times you don’t have to be too spiritual to find the significant bread crumbs or become aware of the changing tide. On a daily basis I read about the business world and interact with leaders and entrepreneurs.
Key Trends
A great part of my passion is to see organisations that help individuals flourish because of healthy leadership and the culture they create. It is unfortunately rare as the world is still governed by material awareness primarily. I.e. leaders tend to focus on results, things, targets and money as the primary measurement. Here I still find inspiration in Ricardo Semler from Semco that said that:
“If we have to choose between the well being of every person involved in the business and higher profits, we choose the former.”
…Simple, powerful and trend-setting. But why are so few following this example? It is early days within a much larger shift away from self-centered, money oriented leadership culture globally. People are becoming more aware of relationships, actualising their potential through the gig economy, synergising with nature and connecting with the Divine. There are however also divisional leadership as seen with Trump in the US as well as the rise of nationalism in many parts of Europe. In other words their is polarisation and inequality throughout the world. Many good things are happening and many bad things simultaneously.
Bringing Back Spirit
A similar trend is happening in the institutional church. In many places churches are getting bigger and bigger (primarily in developing countries) but in many advanced economies (US especially) the institutional church is on the decline. You can just visit Unchurching on Facebook and have a look at how many churches are closing weekly.
On the other hand many people feel that even though the old model of connecting with fellow believers is outdated, they still desire spiritual growth.
In the business world models focused on self-management and holocratic organisation is seeing the light of day. I think the institutional church is actually falling behind in terms of this. If you look at nature you find interdependent ecosystems where individual actors focus on their self-interest that also benefits the ecosystem. It is a bit of a paradox where their is organisation without central control on a physical level (I won’t get into the spiritual side right now).
Many people in business are therefore getting in touch with their awareness of their presence here on earth and the gifts they have received. They desire to use these gifts to bless many. In short, it is spiritual awareness from connection with the Divine and discovering your voice to contributing with meaning. In many ways people are being the church during business hours, more than church people are being spiritual during ‘church hours’.
Bringing it Together
I recently spoke with a friend who help me see that I look at the world differently. Yes, I kind of know that, but we all get stuck in our own world and many times I forget that my thinking can be quite dramatic and unsettling. The point is that I have a vision where people realise their spirituality themselves and are not primarily dependent on a centralised authority for their spiritual growth. I am not suggesting that guidance and community is not important – on the contrary. It is vital.
The how is just much more important than the what. The trend of self-organisation or self-management is on the rise. It is time. It can be applied in multiple spheres of society – especially for followers of the Way. We will still need ‘leaders’ that don’t want to build their own little empires so that the journey of faith can be expressed seamlessly in all spheres of life. Their is a bottleneck where spiritual leaders with good intentions are holding fellow spiritual sojourners ransom to their desire to build something ‘big’. It is time to let go. It is time to go from survive to alive.