Cult Pattern: Malestrom

The Maelstrom comes first, because it's the one usually foremost on my mind. I tend to trigger on it fairly hard. And, frankly, it's a pattern that I'm currently rather concerned with because at the moment, I see elements of it seeping into the ADF.

This is a pattern I named myself, and I named it for maelstrom in their original sense as whirlpools. In fact, the word maelstrom actually means grinding stream in Dutch. The word play darkly amused me because as a pattern it's avoidable but nearly inescapable, and it has a tendency to grind people down.

In a Maelstrom pattern, the phrase to look out for is "the real work happens behind the next door."

That's not to say that doors or graduated work are bad, in fact they aren't. A healthy group will often have a "getting to know each other" group and/or a "learning to be a functioning member" group, a "functioning member" group, and an "organizing the functioning members" group. Which is normal and healthy. And not the Maelstrom.

The Maelstrom happens when the definition of the "functioning member" group keeps changing. Most worrisome is if what is described as a "functioning member" changes at the time you arrive at what you were previously told was the level of "functioning member." In a fully-developed Maelstrom, this happens at *every* level.

Again, that's not to say that levels are bad. One of the *healthiest* models I've seen involved grouping people into "consumers," "producers," and "organizers." with a lot of shifting between the groups based on what contributions that individual was capable of making at the time.

Humans are primates (you'll hear that from me a lot.) We like levels. We like attaining things. We like identifying people to emulate and learn from. Those are, frankly, awesome. I've been in the dynamic I call "mess of porridge" and it's no fun either. We *should* recognize the people who have learned the path, the organizers, the volunteers. An organization with a clear map into those roles is *ahead* of the game.

But it shouldn't turn into a "march over the next hill" repeating endlessly. The first time you're told that the level you just obtained is "really" just the free sample for the level after it, think about running. Because, like a maelstrom, the more invested you get, the more you'll be invited to invest to get to the rapidly moving "good parts."

And, in an organizational sense, the Maelstrom is no less seductive, and no less likely to capsize you. Your newest members are going to need training wheels. The people who organize things are going to end up being The People who Organize Things. That's okay. That's healthy. That's, frankly, needful.

But everybody should have the same map. If you tell people that Confirmation makes them a "real" member before confirmation, don't tell them Bible College makes them a "real" member after. Of course "there" has more benefits than "here," or people wouldn't go "there." But be honest about where they're at now, and what "there" really is. Otherwise, you just end up with bitter people on treadmills, and the world has enough gyms.

Sermon over. Gods bless.