Triangles and Circles

If you've talked with us for even a minute, you've heard us say that living here on the Africa Mercy is beautifully challenging.  Here are some thoughts that Nick shared with our Community of Faith that helps make some sense of why this place is a wee bit tricky.

Life on a Mercy Ship is part triangle and part circle.

The Triangle represents our Organizational Life.  We are an organization – we are a hospital ship.  And we have a mission.  We have designed programs to fulfill that mission.  The ship is the platform through which we deliver that mission.  And we, the Crew, are the people who organize together in order to enact that mission – we are an organization.

And organizations need structure.  They need workflow.  They need layered leadership.  They need a chain of command.

Without organization, the hospital doesn’t function.  Without organization, no one creates the duty schedules.  Without organization, no one tracks the supply orders; no one prepares the menu for meals; no one recruits & trains the volunteers.

Without the triangle, no one schedules the surgeons, or cleans the ORs, or keeps the financial records, or tests the water for drinkability, or maintains the electrical & plumbing systems.

We need the Triangle!  But can we get real for a minute?  The triangle bothers some people – let’s be honest.  Some people think the triangle comes with too many politics, too many rules & regulations, too many policies & committees.  Some people think the triangle makes the ministry feel too much like a business.

But the Triangle is how we are all here.  We all applied for & were accepted into positions within the Triangle.  And the Triangle is how we deal with medical crises and technical mishaps that arise.

In Guinea, my family lived up on the aft-end of Deck 7, and one night – I believe it was Christmas Eve – one of the local fuel trucks that was parked behind our ship spilled it’s load into the ocean right behind us!  An overhead announcement called for all Deck & Engineering Crew to rush to the dock for hazardous material containment.  It was late at night, on Christmas Eve!, and about 50 men & women from the AFM worked into the early morning hours to contain the massive oil spill.

Without layers of leadership, without emergency-response protocols, and chains of command, and policies and manuals and after-action reviews – in short – without the Triangle – none of this happens.

Three weekends ago, on a Friday night, a patient on the Wards was rushed into the OR with severe bleeding from the neck.  EMT were called.  An OR Team was assembled.  An emergency surgery took place late in the evening.  And, by the grace of God, a patient’s life was saved.

But, would you allow me to challenge your theology there for just a second?  Yes, it was by God’s grace that the patient survived.  And yes, He gets all the glory for doing what only He can do!  He preserved a life that night that by all explainable means should not have survived.  But we played a role in His grace.  His grace worked through us and our systems.  Do you realize the magnitude of that?  We are partners with God, co-laborers with His Spirit. (1 Corinthians 3:9, 2 Corinthians 6:1)  He frequently performs His divine miracles through our earthly hands and efforts.  Isn’t that amazing!?  2 Corinthians 4:7 says that God’s all-surpassing power – His divine glory & grace – dwells within us & works with & through us – we, who are but jars of clay, flimsy earthen vessels.

He is at work in & through the Triangle.

Then there is the Circle.  The Circle represents our Community Life.  And specifically our Community of Faith.  The Circle is how we exist here beyond work.  Beyond the badge.  Beyond the job title.  We are people.  We are individuals, beloved by God, redeemed by Jesus, indwelled by His Spirit, brothers and sisters with a common faith and an eternal destiny with each other through Christ.

The Circle is where we find our spiritual vitality.  There is spiritual equality in the Circle.  We can all pray for each other, all bear one another’s burdens, all encourage one another in our faith, all spur one another on towards love and good deeds.

The Circle is what we look like to outsiders while we accomplish the mission of the Triangle.  That’s what Jesus told His disciples in John 13:35 – it’s not only what you do it, but how you do it that matters – they will know that we belong to Jesus by our love for each other.  The Circle is how we treat the other members of the Triangle: with common dignity.  With common respect, regardless of position.  With common value.  With common honor.

In the Triangle, the Captain and Managing Director lead.  Their word carries the most weight.  They are ultimately responsible for the safety of the Crew and the success of our mission here.  But in the Circle, they are simply men – our brothers in Christ – our equals in our common journey of faith with Father God.  Even our Triangle leaders need a safe place to study God’s Word with others, and search the deep questions of the faith with others – in a Circle setting.

I’ll go even further than that: I am the Senior Chaplain.  In the Triangle, it’s my responsibility to step up and be the spiritual leader of this vessel.  That’s what my position requires of me, and it is my honor & joy to get to do that in this amazing place, among you amazing people!

But I need a Circle, too.  I’m not perfect.  I need a safe place to confess my sins to other believers here.  I don’t have my life all perfectly fit together – I need a Circle of believers who can pray for me and support me in my own faith-journey – and that’s you guys.

The TRIANGLE is our Organizational Life.

The CIRCLE is our Community Life.

• The TRIANGLE is how we all got here.
• The CIRCLE is how we exist together here.
• The TRIANGLE is how we get the job done.
• The CIRCLE is maintaining our spiritual vitality.
• The TRIANGLE has hierarchy – ranked positions.
• The CIRCLE has equality – brothers & sisters.
• The TRIANGLE has formal leadership.
• The CIRCLE has informal leadership.

The TRIANGLE makes up half of our mission: to bring hope & healing to the world’s forgotten poor – through free, world-class medical programs.

The CIRCLE makes up the other half:  to follow the 2000-year-old model of Jesus – through spiritual transformation in Christ-centered community.

The complete mission of the Africa Mercy requires both!  Our mission is incomplete without both halves of our mission statement.

This is hard to do.  Most people don’t live where they work.  Most of us have never shared a communal life with our co-workers, our supervisors, our HR rep, our Bank Clerk, our coffee shop employee, our pastor.

This is unusual.  It’s difficult to hold the tension between organizational life and community life in balance.

Circles & Triangles: these two shapes normally do not fit together.  You cannot put a circular block in a triangular hole.  You cannot put a triangular block in a circular hole.  It doesn’t work in geometry.  But it can work here.

In fact, successful life onboard requires one to manage this tension well.  It is a tension to be managed (a good thing!), not a problem to be solved (a bad thing).

All of us, as members of this organization – as position-holders within the Triangle – we have to be willing to submit ourselves to a Circle onboard, or else our whole life and experience onboard will be in the Triangle.  It really will be like we just live & sleep at our work, and our lives can become very one-dimensional.  When that happens, we tend to reach the end of our service time here exhausted, used-up, burned-out, mad at Mercy Ships, and distant from God.  I don’t want that for you.  Mercy Ships doesn’t want that for you.  And God certainly does not want that for you.

People weren’t meant to live in the Triangle.  Our most healthy lives are lived in the Circle – in community with others who love us, who know our faults and blind-spots, and who graciously support us along in our journeys of faith with Jesus.

We need the Triangle in order for our work to be effective and efficient: we need hierarchy and positional leadership.  We need people to make decisions!  We need people to lead the way for the team!

But we all need each other to thrive in community, and to complete both halves of the mission that we have all been called here for: to provide free, top-notch medical programs that serve the world’s forgotten poor – that’s the Triangle half.  And by following the 2000-year-old model of Jesus, to bring spiritual transformation to lives – through Christ-centered community.

Surely there will be more to come.