I happen to be crazy about church planting, especially when it's in it's early stages. We've had the privilege to be closely connected with quite a few church plants. The depth of fellowship and commitment to one another and to the Lord is something really special. As in most expressions of mission, being outward looking but nourishing the inner functioning makes for some very special group dynamics. These are where I have seen the gifts and fruit of the spirit most freely expressed. Where I have seen people mature and grow as they take on new responsibilities. I just love the sense of hearing God speak, of the expectation that he will, and the flexibility to be willing to act on what he says.
I do have problems when these groups are victims of their own success. They get too big and too noticeable to be able to take risks or let new people have a go. People believe that it was the leaders who did it and sometimes the leaders themselves end up believing that too. It wasn't, it's always a group dynamic even if there is a particularly inspiring leader at the heart of it.
I loved what David Pawson spoke about some years ago in the early days of the new churches movement. He said that as far as he can see from the bible it's healthy for each christian to have contact at several different levels. He called it Cell, Congregation and Celebration.
* Cell : That everyone should have a place they can share personally and intimately.
* Congregation :That they should be able to be part of a group that is big enough to have a public identity but small enough for everyone to still know each other, and
* Celebration : to be big enough for folks to be able to be aware of being part of something much bigger than their parochial interests.
I can relate to that, I can relate it to my own human social needs. I need to function and have an identity at several different levels. Just as much in my faith as in any other area of life. I need networks, and I need them on different levels.
Although I like Cell and Celebration I know that my happiest area of functioning is Congregation. I just love getting together to worship God and learn together. I have been privileged to have been involved in worship bands in one way or another for nearly 30 years. In a smaller groups a band is not needed, it would be overwhelming, in bigger groups no one would have asked me to lead, or even be involved. There, I'm pretty selfish why I like congregations! I love the dynamic of leading worship in a group that is big enough to have a good number of people who will pray out loud but not so big that new or not so confident people can't join in; where there are several people who prophecy - not that they all do it all the time, but there will be a body of experience that can test prophecy and again can support those who are new or lacking confidence.
For children I think it's good to have a social grouping that means that it's not just a tiny group of children thrown on each other but the dynamic of a group that can do more age appropriate things. I think it's good for kids to relate to a reasonable number of adults, not that they know them all to talk to, but they watch, they see how they treat each other and the simple familiarity makes for stability and trust to be able to be built up. They do notice especially how their parents relate to the group and how they take responsibility and how they get enjoyment. Of course if these groups become rigid, self sufficient, self centered they can no longer have the dynamic dynamics that make them both stimulating but safe. They become prisons.That doesn't make the groups wrong, just one particular group becomes unhealthily self obsessed. On the other hand groups equally become so task orientated that they don't meet the needs of their members.
I know it became an unbalanced teaching for a while, but I really do think that a happy and relatively stable church is a brilliant way to reach out to people. That's how I function. I make friends and share my faith and bring them into the body of people who will nurture them and lead them on. I feel like i'm living with a limp not having that.
I have had to live with very little fellowship for a number of years. It's not a normal or healthy way of being, but that's how it was. I still can't "go to church". God has given me his grace to live with that. I couldn't even read the bible or pray for a while I was so unwell and having to care for our sick kids. God reached out to me and carried me through those years. He stuck by me all the way. But that's not a normal situation. I can understand that there are a number of people who for their own different reasons need to walk a more solitary christian walk for a while. I think I have actually benefited from being able to sit back and think about what I believe and what I want in my corporate expression of that. But in other ways I have seriously lacked help, support, understanding that should have been there if I had been able to be part of a healthy christian grouping at that time. I'm very grateful for 3 friends who I had not necessarily been that close to before, I knew them through church or christian union links, but who have reached out to me in a particular way at a particular time to help me cope with something. These things don't just "happen". I hope that in some ways I have been able to set in motion christian actions to make things happen, and to support others who have been able to make much bigger initiatives than I could. That is part of what "church" is about for me. The thing about congregation is that we can make them happen for everyone, not just for the popular or accessible people. People who are naturally reserved under the surface like I was need these communities of faith especially both to be able to receive and to be able to give.
Yes, some models of "church" do not seem to be best adapted to meet some people's needs. Yes, I can see that there are serious areas of dysfunction in some types of church grouping that can cause damage and cause alienation or oppression or leave people open to manipulative or domination behaviours. But I still believe the "church" in some form or other is the best default setting for most of us most of the time. We are social beings. We benefit from some social structures and rituals and obligations. I am not so cynical as to believe that anarchy will always lead to a "Lord of the Flies" situation, but I do feel that without some social structures we are not automatically nice. Whilst I'm very wary of the concept of heresy I do think that there needs to be recognition that there can be what the NT calls false teaching, people do get led into error, and there is a need for some form of ways of dealing with that. Error is not bad just cos it's wrong, it's because it leads to unhealthy practices and deprives people of the truth.
Also I think some sort of structure of some sort is needed to protect the weak and to promote their interests. If Paul had to point out to a lovely excited and exciting church in Corinth that they were being pretty mean by not making sure there was food for those who were poor at their communal meals, how can we think that we don't need someone keeping a weather eye on our practices or lack of them sometimes.
For those who need to walk the less communal walk at the moment, I do understand what it is and have walked it too. I throw no stones at you. I hope you find it refreshing and fulfilling. I think it is very significant that a remarkable number of those who no longer feel able to be part of four walls church have had leadership roles of one sort or another. They're not stupid. They know their bibles. There seem to me especially to be rather a number of disappointed idealists and creative thinkers. For all that I believe that church can be wonderful and I think it's the best human default setting for expressing and growing our faith in the long run, there are issues that need to be addressed. I highly respect Jeff Lucas who has been confronting some of these things in his CWR daily bible reading notes recently, and in other of his writings for a few years now. May we grow in learning how the ligaments in Ephesians grow and build each other up.
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