Its popular in church pioneer efforts and emergent churches to really want to" stick it to the man"... maybe a better way to say it is, a deep desire to let go of the institutional way church has settled into western society.
as churches perfect the "business of church" pastors become CEO's, elders become "board members", and the church community becomes "members" or "consumers".
so how do new church expressions break away from this cycle?
that has been the topic of conversation at my local church "Scum of the Earth". For those of you who don't know, Scum of the Earth Seattle is a church plant from the Scum of the Earth Denver church that was started by the punk band Five Iron Frenzy.
I don't really know much more about the church history, other then there is deep recoil from systems, structures, and the idea of an organize or institutionalized religion. Sounds good doesn't it? Especially if you find yourself a post-modern baby that has grown to love the art of "hating" or put more PC "the art of deconstruction".
But really where does this leave the development of the church? Over the last 6(ish) months I have been very honored to sit in on some meetings as my loyal, passionate, and young church leaders started wrestling with developing the growth of their church.
As hour meetings turned into two hour long, and then 3 hour long meetings...As planning sessions were labeled "to be continued".... I began to wonder about this new way of being...
in the long of it all... you know what we came to find? we hate "titles" and "labels"...
so you know what we did... we labeled titles "non-title" labels and now we hold our breath and wonder if it will make a difference...
Instead of a Lead Pastor, or Assistant Pastor, or a Music Director... we opted more to refer to our leaders by their names and then a "talk to me if you are interested in worship, prayer, etc" describing what they knew or did through the chrurch. (Scum of the Earth Denver).
I'll go with it if it going to make a difference, but i hesitate a bit.... the only reason for my hesitation is I don't get "pretending" to be something different... when really the same structure as before is being used, just different clothes are being put on?
Then I wonder if my attitude is more shaped by the culture I live in or am I letting the culture I live in shape me? I don't know. Trying to be a church and trying to be different is hard... just as hard as it was back when the first churches were being born. Our struggles are the same (we just blog about them now instead of staying up all night throwing ashes on our head in prayer and lamenting).
All this is to ask? is there a good structure for church? should leaders be known in that structure? does putting people "in charge" only herald the days of institution and the heresy of empty religion?
As my church leaders wrapped another meeting and put the dot dot dot out until our next gathering I just tried to stay centered on our one connecting point that churches should model Family and that each family is an intentional community.
I also ran into a church that had organized "small groups" or "discipleship groups" that referred to themselves as being a part of a sonships and daughterships (playing off Jesus call for us to following him as disciples and sons and daughters).... I like the sounds of these and will bring them to my next church meeting as we try and find title for our "leaders" and small groups that represent family and also give everyone in our church community a sense of belonging and involvement...
what types of title are in your church? what is your church model?
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