Between Institution and Untethered

Jess Bielman

There has been a conversation running beneath the surface of our Phygital Fellows cohort about the ways this work engages institution and the ways it does not. What institution affords in this work? What institution takes away? What autonomy affords? What untethering costs?

I do not believe these categories are equal. And I do not believe one is simply better than the other. But I do believe the tension is real. And I write this as someone who benefits and struggles with institution.

What Institution Affords

One of the gifts of this cohort has been watching colleagues leverage institutional power for good. We’ve watched some navigate denominational structures and build digital tools that extend beauty and belonging beyond the walls of the institution. We’ve watched others use institutional authority and power to protect space for experimentation in tech that serves real people. We’ve seen our friend’s life and work push institution forward again and again.

Institution affords stability. It affords distribution. It affords legitimacy. It can amplify work in ways that autonomy alone cannot. And Sue Phillips is right that denominations have functioned as the “utilities” of religious life. Without it, things break down.

And yet.

Many of us have shared the pressures that come with tethering. The pressure to institutionalize what might need to remain experimental. The frustration of asking creative questions and receiving procedural answers. The ache of wanting understanding and getting policy.

Institution stabilizes. It also standardizes. And sometimes the gauge is set by assumptions that no longer fit the world we inhabit. That dynamic has been in the room from the beginning. We have seen some stay faithful to his message and mission, staying within the institution despite transcending it in his work. Others have been pulled back and forth from institution to untethered and chosen fidelity to the work regardless of institution status. We have seen the brilliance of those who have built congregations tethered to institution in the least institutional way possible.

What Untethered Affords

Autonomy carries its own gifts. Freedom to experiment without climbing a ladder. Freedom to speak honestly without worrying about who might be listening. Freedom to pivot quickly.

I have tasted that freedom that I do not have to run ideas up a chain of command before speaking them into the world. Untethered space can create velocity. It can create imagination. It can create space for courage.

But autonomy has a cost. The hustle. The grind. The instability. Some have wrestle with that reality. No guaranteed salary. No health insurance pipeline. No built-in distribution channel. No inherited infrastructure. Sue Phillips writes about what happens when infrastructure collapses — innovators are left without docking stations, without support systems. Untethered creativity is exhilarating. It is also exhausting.

This has not been a cohort of institutional loyalists or institutional rebels. It has been a cohort of people asking: Where does the soul breathe? Sometimes the answer is inside denominational infrastructure. Sometimes the answer is in digital spaces built without permission. Sometimes the answer is in the hallway between them.

If the old infrastructure is cracking, as Phillips suggests, then perhaps what we are practicing is not escape. Perhaps we are practicing translation. Learning how to deliver ancient water through new pipes. And learning how to rest when either pipe begins to constrict the flow.

Not to abandon institution. Not to romanticize autonomy. But to remember that both need work.

Howard Thurman and the Escalator

I first had a deeper version of this conversation with one of our fellows before we went to Boston. They debated whether to write on this for their Substack project post but ultimately decided not to. They named what I had been feeling and some of the conversations I had on our trips after the first drink had settled into our systems.

Then we went to the Howard Thurman Center.

Standing in that space, I thought about Thurman’s life inside of institution. He worked within structures. He used the technologies of his day of radio, public lectures, university platforms to extend soul beyond institutional walls.

And I thought about the stories of him leaving the grind of institutional life after a day at work, changing his clothes to let his nervous system reset, and going to the mall of all places to watch people on the escalator as a space for renewal.

Institution by day. Soul restoration by choice. Thurman understood both, engaged both, and was called to both. Not all of us have that calling but so many of us can relate to his cycle of engaging institution, escaping, only to reengage.

In so many ways that feels like the metaphor of my Phygital Fellows experience. It has been a privilege to change my clothes by getting on an airplane to come see the group. I often needed the flight to let my nervous system rest. Then, getting to be together watching one another go up and down the escalators of our lives, digital ministries, institution, non-institutions, and work.

Back to the institution. Back to the algorithm. Back to the grind.

But not the same.

Because the question was never whether we would choose institution or autonomy. The question was whether we would remember how to tend our souls, our calling, and the people whose souls we serve - inside either one.

And this cohort has helped me do that.