Antifragile Christianity
Growing Stronger through Disruption and Failure
Most of you will recall my reference to the Chinese Underground Church in The Forgotten Ways. This remarkable movement emerged amidst severe persecution, defying expectations that it would be destroyed like the church in the communist USSR. Instead of crumbling, they adapted, becoming more resourceful and united by shared hardship. Today, the Underground Church in China continues to flourish. The persecution forged a stronger, more resilient movement from a highly institutional expression of Christianity. In The Forgotten Ways, I attributed this to the activation of a recombination of the six mDNA (the six missional DNA elements Alan Hirsch identifies in The Forgotten Ways) in the power of the Spirit, but persecution as the trigger to movemental activation is best understood through the mDNA of ‘liminality and communitas.’
To deepen our understanding of liminality, I have found Nassim Taleb’s concept of antifragility from his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder very helpful. Nassim coins the term Antifragility to describe organizational systems that not only withstand shocks but that actually benefit from them. Unlike fragile systems that break under pressure or robust systems that simply resist change, antifragile entities thrive in the face of volatility. Antifragile systems do this by learning and adapting to challenges, growing stronger with each test. Movements by nature require agility and the capacity to pivot quickly in response to challenges and opportunities. Movement leaders will encourage the kind of continuous learning and experimentation where small failures lead to greater innovation and growth.
A key aspect of an antifragile organization is maintaining multiple options or strategies. Organizations that develop this optionality are better equipped to adapt to new stressors and disruptions. During the Covid pandemic, for instance, some visionary, apostolic leaders managed to innovate new forms of ministry such as digital church, micro-church, and distributed networking. These are promising signs of antifragility in the system, even though the vast majority of churches opted for familiar but now fragile methods. In my opinion, they have merely dodged the opportunity to adapt and delayed addressing the deeply systemic issues of the legacy church.
Another useful aspect of an antifragile organization is using small errors or failures to benefit the system by preventing larger failures and facilitating continual learning. People are encouraged to fail often and learn from each failure. I believe that Western Christianity must foster a culture of experimentation by learning from mistakes. Instead of fearing failure, we should view it as essential for growth. By seeing small setbacks as learning opportunities, we can become more resilient.
If we face challenging times like the Chinese church faced serious liminality, then Christianity in the West stands to experience significant and positive transformation. By adopting antifragility and incorporating movemental thinking, faith communities can convert challenges into avenues for growth and renewal. Thriving under stress, embracing flexibility, redundancy, and viewing small errors as learning opportunities, churches can prosper amidst adversity and become more movemental. If we navigate these transitional periods faithfully and according to our deepest design as Jesus movements, we can become stronger, more adaptable, and better able to faithfully fulfill our mission.
