Organic Church

I had another great lunch conversation with a good friend, Rob, last week. We talked for an hour about finding common ground on “emerging Christianity,” and the continuing discussion from our August meeting on “How we do church”.

From my perspective (and I won’t speak for Rob but I believe this was true of his) we found we agree on the centrality of Christ, but have different perspectives…different lenses... through which we see experiences, expressions and framing stories of the Gospel.

Take church authority for instance. First, we agreed on the need for Christians to look to authoritative sources in their life’s journey: Scripture, pastors, church tradition, the Holy Spirit, that “still small voice.” But we clarified the distinction between our sources being “authoritative,” meaning we yield respect because of the inherent qualities we trust and admire in the authority, versus “authoritarian” power which demands and coerces obedience regardless of the quality of leadership or the respect of those yielding.

Then we also discussed the “relationships” of church authority in our lives (Here I also include some references that another good friend, Robin M., sent me after the lunch). “Institutional churches,” according to author Frank Viola http://www.housechurchresource.org/ are characterized by a top-down hierarchical organization. For some, there may be a fear that unless this type of top-down control is in place, chaos ensues. For me, having no authority allows us to stray, but relying too much on hierarchical authority dismisses the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, which is here to teach us, and it can dismiss our uniqueness and freedom in Christ, along with many other legitimate ways that God speaks to each one of us. Viola proposes an alternative he calls “organic church.” He says, “By ‘organic church,’ I mean a non-traditional church that is born out of spiritual life instead of constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grass roots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (opposed to pastor-to-pew services), non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering.” Viola goes on to use different types of plants as an analogy for different types of organic churches.

I compare organic church to a grapevine. Jesus said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” Grapevines, as we know, are disorganized tangles of trunks and leaves and stems and grapes. They are not straight, tall trees with neat radial branches. My “church authority” might include all of the sources mentioned above, and I might add to that, my friend who the Lord led to start a men’s fellowship in his home. At another time, it might include a different friend who recently graduated from seminary and has demonstrated his pastoral care for me… and then he might yield authority to me in other areas where I have matured more. At other times, my church authority might extend to trusted authors or bloggers who have sewn into my life. I've quoted or gleaned from many of these different sources in this post. So here, church authority is not “linear” but “distributed.” Much like the grapevine.

Speaking of plants, this also makes me wonder about fig trees and the incident in Mark 11:12-14 and other Gospels where Jesus curses the barren fig tree and it withers. Some have said this could symbolize the barrenness of the teachings and authority of the Temple priests due to their lack of true faith, and being cut off from the true vine... Jesus.

Grapevine relationships then become not just vertical (me and God) or even additionally horizontal (me and others in God’s house) but now includes personal wholeness and relationship with the world and all others around me. Or, as Scot McKnight puts it in his book A Community Called Atonement, redemption goes in four directions, “…resolving sin and bringing humans back home in their relationship with God, with self, with others and with the world.”

Rob is faithful to remind me that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) when he hears certain “emerging church” expressions about things like "organic church," "simple church," "house church," etc. (I'm reminded here of David Bowie's line, "...same old thing in brand new drag"). But while God is steadfast in his love, there are again new perceptions, lenses, experiences and framing stories that I believe help us to grow closer to God, and keep reforming, in each generation. There were even “new covenants” and “new commands” throughout the thousands of years of the Bible. And there will be “a new heavens and a new earth…and a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.” Ultimately, if we simply dismiss new conventions, we discount the value of any religious writing, art, thought, or practice after the last words in Revelation (or even the four Gospels).

What then do we do with church tradition, including its modern “institutional” paradigms? The fear of change on the one hand is of, “throwing the baby (Jesus in this case) out with the bath water” vs. pointing to the baby (the church, the “body of Christ” in this case) and saying, “the baby’s sick, we need to change the bath water and take the baby to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment." Baptist author Reggie McNeal says in his book Present Future, “The current church culture in North America is on life support. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out or when the remaining three-fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die-off, or both….The church established by Jesus will survive until he returns…[but] the church culture in North America is a vestige of the original movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, worldview and lifestyle match theirs.” Powerful words these (and this is but a sample from McNeal) but words that are resonating with an increasing number of Christians and that is probably one reason you are reading this post.

But what of the many good church traditions through the past two millennia? Want to drive a Catholic-basher crazy? Tell them there were Christians, real saved going-to-heaven Christians, around a thousand years before the Reformation began. And that they were Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox). The church has always had rich and wonderful spiritual meat for its members. And still does. But which denominational "doctrine" do we follow?

In Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, he extols some of the best of nearly every major Christian movement since the church began. McLaren “celebrates orthodox doctrine-in-practice,” and “while not burying doctrinal distinctives, puts them in their marginal place.” This has been my approach, and it has made it impossible for me to rationally choose to adhere to one denomination over all others. It used to be that “full Gospel” referred to the charismatic movement. Perhaps now this term could apply to a non-denominational, emerging church movement that embraces every expression, perception, lens, experience and framing story of Biblical narrative - focused on the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Balance again is the key. In some ways we can minister to, or with, institutional churches. In some ways we must work around them, as the Lord leads us, to…the “full Gospel," and to the true vine.

Deriving the benefits of church authority in our lives, using a distributed authority model, naturally requires conversation. Such conversation can often be hampered by strict denominational constraints, and when “church” is limited to a lecture format (pastor-to-pew services). Again, what McKnight says about atonement is useful here, “Our grasp of atonement is partial; the God we are grasping for is complete and whole. In God there is absolute truth; in our articulations there is always something lacking, something partial, and something still yearning for yet more. A proper confidence in God who atones reminds us of this and keeps us humble – and in conversation as we work this atonement thing out in each generation.”

Steve