Smart Zombie: WWZD... What Would Zombies Drive?

One of the big issues surrounding how churches, businesses, NGO's and governments interact is the role of each. Everyone is working toward the same goal of transformation for marginalized communities, but collaboration between the various entities seems to be ineffective in most instances because none of us can figure out where we really "fit" within the goal. So i've started to think of collaboration in terms of your average car.

Here's what i mean. In order for a car to run safely on a given road to a specific destination, it needs some critical components: wheels & chassis, engine and drivetrain, components (like steering wheels, chairs, airbags, etc), and a well paved, safely governed roadway from starting point to finish. The same is true for the integration of relevant agencies. Here is what it looks like in my mind.

Churches/Faith Communities - Faith communities are the most "grass roots", prolific organization on the planet. They are embedded deeply in communities as a central "hub" around which activity is generated, and the pastors and leaders have the most intrinsic and vested interest in the health and transformation of their relative environments. They are therefore like the wheels and chassis of a car. They are the part of the car that is closest to the ground, and without which, you can't really go anywhere. By themselves, however, they are little more than "Flintstone" mobiles (run fast, push, and then hop on board for 20 feet... not exactly an ideal way to travel).

Business - Businesses are excellent at being driven by efficiency, focus and an absolute committment to producing a bottom line of profitability and power. They are excellent "engines", providing massive doses of drive, focus, efficiency and revenue to provide the power for any collaborative venture, but their transformative power is limited to its connection to a wheel/chassis organization like a faith community. Without that connection, the engine is "up on blocks", so to speak, cranking out tons of power, but not really "going anywhere".

NGO's/Non-Profs/Parachurch - For the last 100 years, "external" organizations have had to pick up all the slack on short-falls from both churches and governments. They've had to try to deliver the kinds of things that both have historically tried to do (healthcare, housing, education, etc.) and have had, as a result, become exceedingly efficient at it in targeted respects. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, is the world's largest housing provider. World Relief has the premiere HIV/AIDS curriculum. World Vision has unparalleled disaster response. But they are not the complete picture. Their dedication to a particular area of focus makes them ideal "components" to the car, but not the car itself. A steering wheel manufacturer, for instance, does not go to Ford and say, "your job is to make a car that will adequately support and showcase our steering wheel!". Rather, the job of the steering wheel manufacturer is to provide a good, service or component that helps the car get where it needs to go. NGO's, Non-profs and Parachurch organizations are similar. The job of the "car" is not to support them, and unfortunately, many organizations have forgotten that. Rather, it is their job to provide with excellence a particular point of hard-fought expertise to enable the rest of the car to succeed in a given environment.

Government -It's not really the responsibility of government at any level to actually implement transformation. It can't. It's not close enough to the people, and doesn't have, foster or facilitate the kinds of relationships necessary to provide for that kind of change. But what it DOES have is immense system-building capacity. It creates pathways and services, provides leadership, legislation and enforcement. In short, it's much like the roads and signs that are necessary for travel. The road makes transformational movement easier, more fluid, and better marked so that people know where they're going and how to get there. But it isn't the "car". It can't be.

Combined together, you get what i like to call a "Zoombie" (that's a Smart Zombie car... get it? Heheh!). It's a partnership where no one "trips over themselves" because they misunderstand their relative roles and responsibilities. It's a partnership where all the pieces fit where they are supposed to fit, and together, go farther than any one piece or system can go on its own. It's the kind of thing that Smart Zombies are trying to figure out... and that's the ONLY way to travel, baby!