Blogotional

CT's Out of Ur blog recently published a two part series by Skye Jethani that I feel like I could have and should have written. From the first post:

What I don’t love is the 501c3 tax-exempt institution we incorrectly refer to as “the church.” For decades we’ve heard the old adage, “the church isn’t a building, it’s the people.” We’ve come to recognize that the brick and mortar structure isn’t the church, but somehow we haven’t had the same epiphany about the intangible structures of the institution. In many peoples’ imaginations the church remains a bundle of programs, committees, policies, teams, ministries, initiatives, budgets, and events. Most people speak of “the church” the same way they refer to “the government”—it’s a hierarchy of leaders managing an organization that they engage but remain apart from.

[...]

I am not anti-institution. I am not one of those rabid fluid-organic-anti-linear-pomo-loosy goosey-anti-establishment church people. I believe structure is necessary. Structure is good and even God-ordained. We see organization and structure from the very foundation of the church in Acts. But these structures always existed to serve God’s people in the fulfillment of their mission. Today, it seems like God’s people exist to serve the institution in the fulfillment of its mission (which is usually to become a bigger institution). Most of the curricula available to pastors on spiritual gifts and service focus on getting people to serve within their institution. Rarely does a church recruit, equip, and release saints to serve the mission outside its own immediate structure.

From the second:

But what we often fail to see is that the Spirit was not unleashed in the leader’s life because he or she had the right values or employed the right strategy. The “fire of God,” as Dallas Willard calls it, was in their soul because of their intense love of Jesus Christ. Rather than focusing on reproducing a leader’s methodology by constructing an institution, we ought to focus on reproducing his or her devotion to God—but that is a far more challenging task. As Willard writes, “One cannot write a recipe for this, for it is a highly personal matter, permitting of much individual variation and freedom. It also is dependent upon grace—that is, upon God acting in our lives to accomplish what we cannot accomplish on our own.”

This is what highly institutional consumer Christianity fails to grasp. It reduces ministry to a predictable machine where the right input results in the desired output, and then invites religious consumers to engage the test-engineered institution for their spiritual nourishment. It is also the assumption behind a good number of the ministry books, conferences, and resources we produce every year. But I don’t believe the Spirit of God is laying dormant waiting for the institutional church to compose the right BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) so he can be unleashed the way a pagan god is conjured by an incantation. God is a person, not a force. And his Spirit does not empower programs or inhabit institutions but people who were created in God’s image to be the vessels of his glory.

This is so well done that I really is little to add to it. I recommend you read it and that you ponder it - deeply. There is one small bone I want to pick, however.

Jethani presents a model in the second post where good and excellent ministry arise from a good an excellent leader, and I agree that such often happens. But a caution and an addition. For the caution if one abandons the institutionalization model he presents, what often results is near deification of the leader. An idolatry of the individual, as opposed to the institution. So warned, this should be easily avoidable.

The addition, and I think the ideal; however, is that such good an excellent ministry can arise not from the blessing of an individual, but from the blessings of a group. I have experienced this but once in my life, but it is, I believe, true church. Like with an individual leader, it is temporary it ends. It can not be bottled or institutionalized.

What I am talking about is when the Holy Spirit moves in a group in such a way that ministry seems spontaneous. This is not "anti-institution." I have had many discussion where people have attempted to tell me that the accouterments (boards, by-laws, etc.) of institution stand in the way of such spontaneity, but to the contrary, the Holy Spirit simple puts them into perspective, and people interact with them with joy and enthusiasm.

Which brings us back to Jethani's point that this stuff cannot be bottled. Whether in a leader, or a group, this stuff happens because the people are open to the workings of the Holy Spirit, and whatever they do, they approach as people transformed by their faith, interested in doing God's work.

The real problem that underlies all of this is that it is easy and mechanical to operate an institution - put near impossible to change a person. But changing people is what we are called to do. The great thing is, we do not have to produce the change. All we have to do is get out of God's way.

The best place to start is by allowing God to change you. Have you?

Technorati Tags:church, institution, transformation
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator