Practising chaordic beauty: On embracing strangers in one inner city faith community

In this article I read one inner city faith community – the Tshwane Leadership Foundation (TLF) – through the lenses of literature that reflects on chaordic organisations and chaordic leadership. I explore whether an emphasis on the management of diversity, which is widespread in organisational and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Beer, Stephan de (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2016
In: HTS teologiese studies
Year: 2016, Volume: 72, Issue: 1
Further subjects:B Chaordic Organisations
B Embrace
B Chaordic Spirituality
B Vulnerability
B Chaordic Leadership
B Strangers
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Summary:In this article I read one inner city faith community – the Tshwane Leadership Foundation (TLF) – through the lenses of literature that reflects on chaordic organisations and chaordic leadership. I explore whether an emphasis on the management of diversity, which is widespread in organisational and ecclesial practices and languages, should not be replaced with a spirituality of vulnerable embrace, as I discover it in this specific faith community. It is a spirituality that combines an invitation and radical embrace of diversity, and a dance with chaos, with a posture of vulnerability and a vision of justice. I bring the reflections of community members in TLF on difference and diversity in their organisation, in conversation with scholars contemplating chaordic organisations and chaordic leadership. I then wonder whether their emphasis on embrace instead of management does not open up the possibility of retrieving and affirming the hidden beauties and potentialities mediated by diversity, which is, I suggest, to practise ‘chaordic beauty’.
ISSN:2072-8050
Contains:Enthalten in: HTS teologiese studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.4102/hts.v72i1.3523