Each baptized member participates in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly ministry of Jesus Christ. We have been called to creation stewardship, Kingdom service, and employment of gifts. Our primary focus and locus of work are as the diaspora, the Church in dispersion throughout the community. While we are all directly connected to Christ as individuals, we are also called to be a Kingdom community. That at least implies layers of connections beyond our immediate circle of believers. What are these connections to look like, and what is their purpose?
What I have to say here may be controversial to some, but my reading of Scripture is that it gives no transcendent structure to the Church. I have read and heard people make passionate cases for this or that form of church government from the New Testament. I find many beneficial aspects to various forms of church government, but I am thoroughly un-persuaded of an ordained transcendent structure in the New Testament.
Please do not interpret what I have written as saying there is no need for structure or that one structure is as good as another. I am not. I think Scripture gives us some important instructions. Here are a few thoughts.
The single biggest mistake we make about Church structure is in what we assume to be the most elemental institution of the Kingdom of God: the congregation. The family is the elemental institution of the Kingdom of God, not the congregation. Marriage, and implicitly family, is the only institution established by God before humanity’s fall from grace. Thinking in terms of subsidiarity, the family is the default institution for every type of creation, stewardship, and Kingdom service. Any institutions that exist just beyond the family level exist only to do those things that families cannot do for themselves. The next layer of institutions beyond that exist only to what families and the more localized institutions below them are not able to do. The central institution of the Church is the family.
Marriage is the institution established by God to create the ultimate intimate human community. We are drawn into other-centered relationship between intrinsically different (male and female) but complementary people. Just as humanity was born out of the three-in-one complimentary community of the Trinity, so is human life born out of a two-in-one union of male and female in an enduring community. Even in a fallen world, it is to be assumed until proven otherwise that parents are the two individuals most likely to have the best interest of their children at heart and have the greatest devotion to their welfare.
The family is not a creation of the state. It precedes the state. It is an enviable institution. The state may solemnize a marriage to give it legal standing in the eyes of the community for civil purposes, but marriage and family do not exist at the state's pleasure. Family is the institution that ensures the best nurture and socialization of new generations. They also serve as a check on the totalitarian impulses of both the state and the Church. It should be instructive that whether we are talking about Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, or Kim Jong-il, the universal necessity of totalitarians is to dissolve the institution of the family so that the state has unfettered access to control and socialization of individuals.
As a side note, having a same-sex marriage is impossible. It is an oxymoron. I am saying nothing here about the morality of same-sex relations. I am saying that joining two people of the same sex is a grouping or a pairing, but it is not a marriage. A same-sex union may involve acts of mutual sexual stimulation and emotional bonding, but it does not provide for a union of two complementary beings uniting as one with the potentiality of birthing life. Society may choose to create alternate institutions, and the state can call this institution whatever it wants to, but a marriage is only between a man and a woman. The only question for the state is whether or not it chooses to use language that has correspondence to an external reality or whether it chooses to officially confound differing realities and thereby undermine the institution of the family.
Let me be clear about something here. About 40% of adults over fifteen in the United States have never married, are divorced, or widowed. I am aware of these circumstances, and I do not intend to demean single people in any way. What I am talking about is institutions and individuals are not institutions. The Church and state need to nurture intermediary associations and institutions of people, not in families. But the alternatives will not be literal families.
As I read the New Testament, most “gatherings” probably had no more than two or three dozen people. This is smaller than many of our modern congregations. From a subsidiarity viewpoint, the modern congregation should often be considered two or more steps away from the family. Just above the family might be something similar to a small group, cell group, or house group in current ecclesiastical lingo. (These groups might be the alternative associations or institutions created to incorporate people not in families.) The congregation may exist above the cell groups, linking and nurturing them, doing what cells or families cannot do for themselves. Cells would exist to do what families can not do for themselves. Any level above the congregation would exist to do what congregations, cells, or families cannot do for themselves. I think you get the picture.
The problem is that congregations tend to bypass the family as an institution. They segment the congregation by any number of demographics and seek to provide comprehensive programming that speaks to individuals at each stage of life. This is not entirely bad unless it is done in the absence of a larger vision to equip and empower families. The tendency is to become personal religiosity marketers instead of family equippers. In so doing, they are undermining the most effective institution that God has established for raising generations of priests, prophets, and kings in the world.
Now clearly, we live in a fallen world. While we are all eikons, we are all broken eikons. We have to be formed and transformed more fully into the image of God. Where does this formation come from, and what is the structure's and leaders' role in nurturing it?
Michael,
Thanks. I think I track with you here.
I can see families as the elemental human institution created by God. But I can't see families as the elemental human institution for God's work of the kingdom in Christ. Surely it is the church that is in that role. Families having an important place in that. But those families and people united together as being Christ's building and temple in this world.
Posted by: Ted Gossard | Jul 27, 2006 at 07:13 AM
Paul calls fellow believers "brothers" (implying, of course, sisters). This speaks to the centrality of familial relationships. I believe everything possible should be done to help families be stable in every way; because I'm adopted, I also think more is involved than blood ties alone. What if the "creation institution" God set in place was meant to point to something "bigger"? What if the creation thing was pointing to, defining, the New Creation thing? You allude to this to some extent in your parallel between the trinity and marriage in terms of intimacy. I guess I'm not so much disagreeing as appealing for more nuance.
I get subsidiarity; I'm with you on totalitarians destroying the family, and on your point about gay "marriage".
Dana
Posted by: Dana Ames | Jul 27, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Ted, we may be dealing with semantics here but maybe not. I will elaborate more.
I recently heard what was purported to be a true story about a small town pastor who had an elderly woman in his congregation. Her son lived in another town a not too far away. He would periodically come and visit his mother. On one visit he found out his mother had some problems with a leaky roof. She was on a fixed income and uncertain of how to proceed to take care of her problem.
After leaving his mother’s place, the son went to see her pastor and expressed is indignation at what a terrible job the Church was doing. He felt they should have been checking up on her helping her with her needs. In the course of the conversation the pastor asked the son what he did for a living. He told the pastor he was a roofer! The son failed to see any disconnect.
In the son’s mind, the church is an institution that helps people and the pastor is its prime representative. (Isn’t that what we “pay him for?”) The idea that the son himself WAS the church and should respond was totally foreign to him.
Also, pastors frequently have congregants come to them and say “I think the church ought to be doing so-and-so.” In my Presbyterian circles, that idea goes to the session (board.) They hash over whether or not it is a good idea. If approved, they then recruit an individual or a committee implement their plan for doing so-and-so. It then becomes yet another agenda item that has to be reviewed and reported on at each session meeting.
I have friend that has trained his leadership to respond differently. When someone comes up to him or the leadership and says “I think the church ought to do so-and-so,” their response is “That is great! How can we help you do that?” Our assumption is that it isn’t “ministry” unless it has been processed through an ecclesiastical sausage grinder and rendered as an official program of the institution.
One imperfect analogy would be a big city police department. The department (denomination) is divided into divisions (congregations). The division force “gathers” at the beginning of each shift to discuss common concerns and mission. Throughout the year, individual officers are equipped by their division and departments to improve each officers personal well-being and effectiveness. They also exercise discipline. However, departments and divisions do not provide police protection. Officers in squads of twos or ones (families/individuals) disperse throughout the community being the police protection (Kingdom of God) in the particular circumstances they find themselves.
Depending on the nature of a particular event, squads may request assistance and team up on an ad hoc basis to address a problem. In the other cases, like a long funeral procession, the may team up in advance to address the problem. They may even have a detail that comes to specialize in such multiple squad activities. However, the elemental “institution” of the department is the squad (family/individual) not the division (congregation). That is where the overwhelming amount of police work is done.
Does this frame things any differently?
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 27, 2006 at 01:53 PM
Excellent points Dana! Adoption is a major metaphor for our new life in Christ. One thing we should not forget is that in this sense both our parents and our children are our adopted brothers and sisters in Christ.
What I am working toward is that while we are all brothers and sisters, some of us are infants and others are quite mature. All of us are fallen. So what are the institutions God gives us, and what are the institutions we need to form, in order to bring people to maturity and restrain wayward siblings?
God intends for us to be stewards of the material world through private property that is held in trust for him. We have a sense of communal responsibility but we also have private ownership of property because when each of is focusing on stewardship of a small portion of resources we are more effective stewards than when all of us try to be stewards of all the property.
In a similar way, I think marriage and family makes us stewards of those God has entrusted to us as spouses, parents, siblings, and children. There is a level of intimacy and commitment that we have as stewards of family that we do not have for others. The body of believers has a responsibility to care for and nurture of my children. But as a parent, I have a more focused responsibility. I am the frontlines, reinforced and aided by others in the community. The best way the Church helps in the spiritual formation of my children is to help me be a spiritual guide and example as a father or mother not by trying to transfer my nurturing to a communal setting. Again, this is not to say that there are not critical communal responsibilities and roles, but the elemental locus of our spiritual formation is in families through daily life.
Regrettably, we often “outsource” to ecclesial institutions spiritual formation (including our own) that should be happening in the family. Too many of our institutions are all to happy to oblige and even make it their mission.
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 27, 2006 at 02:27 PM
Michael,
Yes. I agree that as far as what the church is all about is to prepare God's people to do the work of service in the world. And the heart of the Church is family (brothers and sisters in Jesus, as Dana says). Jesus our Brother. God our Father.
And your point is well taken, that the majority of kingdom work will be done at home. In our families, and out from our families into this world.
I guess I would see the Church as having a unique place from God in all of this. But the families that are part of the Church also have their unique part. And that is with reference to the outworking of the Church in the world, as a missional community. And that as sisters and brothers in Jesus, we are all together, as well, as "family", and really family (adopted and by nature in regeneration) in this. So that nuts and bolts get done in our work together.
Do I track with you better, now?
Posted by: Ted Gossard | Jul 27, 2006 at 03:58 PM
Thanks Ted. This helps a lot!
"I guess I would see the Church as having a unique place from God in all of this."
I find I am still struggling to find the right language and metaphors to articulate what I am getting at. The sentence I quoted above, if I am reading it right, distinguishes “the Church” from what people and families do in day to day living. Here is my concern. I fear that we conceive of the Church as an institution or large body and that what people do in daily living is something other than being the Church and is an adjunct.
I am making the case that being the church dispersed throughout the community is the essential focus of ministry while the church gathered is the primarily a time of corporate worship, equipping, and uniting in mission that is beyond the resources of one or a few people. It is not my intention to pit one against the other. I have asked the question before, “Which is more important to breathing? Inhaling or exhaling?” The body of Christ is inhaled into corporate worship, equipping and broad ministry but it must be exhaled into creation stewardship, Kingdom service and employment of gifts in the world as priest, prophet and king to the world. It is an endless cycle of gathering and dispersal. If either is neglected the body dies. I am going out my way to emphasize the church dispersed because I think that is the half of the breathing dynamic that has all but atrophied.
Some day I am going to figure out how to say this right. I remember trying to express something at McKnight’s blog and it took me four paragraphs to say it. He said back to me what I had written in two sentences! Arrrgh! Oh to be able to develop the skills people like him have at articulating this stuff. *grin*
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 27, 2006 at 05:00 PM
Thanks Michael, and Ted- clearer now. Wholeness, integration, big-picture stuff is what speaks to me.
Well, reading Scot's explanation of how he acquired his writing skills is reassuring, to me anyway- they didn't "spring fully formed from his head"!
Dana
Posted by: Dana Ames | Jul 27, 2006 at 08:07 PM
Michael,
I'm getting behind on your blog but will catch up! (I'm on a major indoor painting project right now). Very helpful comment. I see clearly your point now. Excellent point. And I couldn't agree more fully. (Sorry I didn't pick that up to begin with!)
Ted
Posted by: Ted Gossard | Jul 29, 2006 at 03:27 PM
What??? You have a life apart from reading my blog. Unthinkable! *grin*
Seriously, I appreciate your input. Whatever (and whenever) you chose to share will be welcomed.
And good look on the painting. We have been looking at paint colors but with temps above 100 it is hard to get motivated to work outdoor or indoor.
Posted by: Michael Kruse | Jul 29, 2006 at 06:26 PM