The phenomenon seems to have begun on university campuses. Planners and designers were frustrated to see that despite their carefully laid pattern of campus sidewalks connecting buildings, the students invariably walked across the lawns and made more direct paths — called desire paths — all over the campus. A few schools, taking note of this, actually built classroom buildings and dorms with no sidewalks at all. They simply waited a full year and laid the concrete along the desire paths made by students seeking the straightest or most logical way to get from point A to point B.
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The church can learn something from observing this.
What we typically do is look at the churches around us in our community to ascertain what ministries we need to create and maintain. They have a youth group, so we must need one. They have small groups, so we should do that, too. I have come to believe that is backward, and a bad strategy.
What we are attempting to do at Reunion seems counter-intuitive at first; instead of creating ministries and recruiting people to fill predetermined roles, we began to look around at the people God has assembled in our church and listing what their giftings are. We built ministries around the unique way our people are gifted instead of trying to fit them into tasks for which they might be an awkward fit.
We have in effect built the campus with no sidewalks, waited to see what desire paths emerged, and then poured the leadership cement along those paths.