Keeping Mobile

Episode 49:  The General Flipped At Dawn

General:       We’re gonna have to move your unit closer to the 

               front Colonel

Colonel Blake: You mean where the guys are fighting Sir?

General:       “You do your best business on Main Street.” -   

               General Cornwallis

Trapper:       It’s not all that pleasant being on the 50-yard 

               line, General.

Colonel Blake: It’s very dangerous.

General:       Danger is our business.  Get your second in command 

               and we’ll find a new location.  MASH means Mobile 

               Army Surgical Hospital, and mobile you shall be.

The camp is tuned into chaos when General Steele arrives to inspect the 4077 and demonstrates some bizarre behaviour that makes him appear to be insane.  His order to relocate the 4077 closer to the front line convinces the officers that he is crazy.

In a constantly changing world the ability for organisations to remain mobile is critical to keep up with their particular market and client needs.  Organisations and leaders who refuse to adjust their position in response to their environment will not only miss opportunities for growth, but risk declining and slipping into irrelevance.  As a church leader, I am all too aware of the importance of keeping the church mobile to be a dynamic movement in the present instead of a static monument to the past.  In his book Where the Rivers Flow, Peter Kaldor identifies the challenge for the church to reach the moving masses:  “Traditional models of ministry tend to be based on a local area.  Greater mobility therefore presents considerable challenges to church ministries.”  Every context of leadership faces the same challenges in keeping their core business mobile to effectively reach beyond their local context.