Thanks Maggi the link to these timely insights:
_____________________________________________
Unlike passive components, such as water molecules, human beings presumably can direct their own interactions. Thus the connectivity of “the church” itself is a dynamic process and not a static map. How we interact with one another becomes one of the defining features in an emergent systems view of the church. If we isolate ourselves, then the church will tend toward a static or fixed attractor; if we interact with everything around us, then the church will tend to become chaotic and overextended to the point of failure. Maintaining an optimum autopoietic state requires an adaptive form of connectivity, sufficiently self-contained to maintain stability and individuality, yet sufficiently responsive to the world to benefit from the synergy of working together. In the jargon of complexity theory, the church must exist at “the edge of chaos.”
________________________________________________