Photo taken @ Paragon 19/5/2013 : Ikebana ExhibitionRev 22 " Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great city"
I was viewing through this TED video today - Published on Sep 27, 2012
What can governments learn from the open-data revolution? In this stirring talk, Beth Noveck, the former deputy CTO at the White House, shares a vision of practical openness -- connecting bureaucracies to citizens, sharing data, creating a truly participatory democracy. Imagine the "writable society"
This set me thinking through the meaning of "OPEN SOURCE" . Originally this youtube was recently tagged to the Aimgate saga here in this red dot - by another blogger who tried to propose a pretty interesting solution to the MIS of the town councils here.
What exactly is "OPEN SOURCE"?
In production and development, open source as a philosophy promotes a) universal access via free license to a product's design or blueprint, and b) universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone. Generally, open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community. Open source sprouted in the technological community as a response to proprietary software owned by corporations.
What is API? An application programming interface (API) is a protocol intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other.
Open Source Government?
Beth shared on the opportunities of having an open source government. Quoted "Flow is a fundamental "Law of physics and not just of biology" - Adrian Bejan - Design in Nature. It is a revolutionary thought in innovation. How to redesign the institution that is quite recent? The world is complex. The opportunity of Networks. (Liken to a tree) Think about the 3000 employees of Facebook affecting 900mio people (liken to as "citizens") The study of the success of Twitter in social media -why? Because it opened up its API. So we need to open up the API of government - the maintaining of hierachy of institutions and yet allowing the diversity & pulsating and chaotic exciting life of networks . The next great super-power. Pockets of revolution up and coming through the power of such dynamic interaction of networks- engagement of delivering better services.
How about an "Open Source CHURCH"?
Hearing this video set me thinking. If there is such a movement towards Open Source Government - then is there such a thing called "Open Source Church"?
Today as we looked around us, we see pockets of different denominations and various churches with physical walls of membership of believers within the different "sheep pens" Each running its own set of 'church programs" - regulations, legislations ....Fragmented and self preservation. Did we combine transparency with collaboration and participation? Did we connect the family believers to the right Source in the first place?
Have we arrived yet? No.
Our minds are still closed.
The church is supposed to be on Open Source Church!
The gospel of Jesus Christ is one that is never copyrighted in the first place! It is supposed to have the universal access and free license!
Yet, today we see the sale of the bibles, pastors' sermons & books , worship CDs etc - restricted with proprietory rights of the authors and song writers etc. Permission from authors for reproduction had to be granted permit .
We need to reinvent or open up our API for the church.
Reflection
"Flow is a fundamental law of physics and not just of biology"
1. Interesting we see such a flow in the first book Genesis and the last in Revelation. In Gen 2:13 " A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into 4 headwaters.
- River Pishon - means Increase
- River Gihon - means Bursting
- River Tigris - means Rapids
- River Euphartes - means Fruitfulness
- And in Rev 22;1 - we see this "river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God
2. Interestingly, we also see that on each side of the river in Rev 22 - stood the tree of life...And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. (bear the 12 crops of fruit and yeidling its fruite every month!)
- Back to Gen 2 - we see that in the middle of the garden of Eden were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
- God commanded only to eat from the tree of life and not the other.
- Unfortunately, Eve disobeyed and there cut the flow of life from generations downstream.
Jesus said " I am the vine and we are the branches" Apart from Him we can do nothing.
He is the Source of life. He is our Open Source Code. He is our API.
It is on this platform that we - the church at large has to build upon. So that lives can be transformed. Firewalls had to come down so that all of us can become one (John 17) .
We pray that the church will be an open source church indeed.
That we will look up to the One and Only Source - Jesus and that He will allow us to be the various channels of distribution of the love and healing to the hurting and lost out there. May this be the pattern application of our lives.
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