BLOG 2/16/14. CONCEIVING LEADERSHIP FOR NEW CREATION COMMUNITIES.

Pursuing this quest for an alternative narrative for tomorrow’s church, one quickly runs head-on into a major obstacle, which is that there are so many filters that hinder us in our consideration of the kind of form and leadership for tomorrow’s church. One of these is the filter that conceives of the church as a spiritually uplifting, aesthetically pleasing, and socially congenial religious community, and so creates a leadership to promulgate this misunderstanding, which has created such a subversion in so much of the church. Face it: the Christian faith is not safe. It is transformational. The church, as it is being created by Jesus Christ, has got to have as its dynamic purpose what I choose to call the communal demonstration of God’s New Creation, his New Humanity. It has got to got to have as its foundation that for which Jesus came—his life, death on the cross, and resurrection in order to reconcile the world to himself, and to reconcile individuals to one another. Having said that, however, when one looks for some kind of handbook as to how that happens, and what kind of leadership is required, what you find is not some kind of algorithm, but something more like a montage.

A subtle, yet critical key to the relationships that are to exist within the church, and out of which relationships this New Creation community is to be formed, would be the concept of one another, which is one Greek word (allelon). There is an intimacy envisioned here. We are to love one another, confess our sins to one another, bear one another’s burdens, etc. There is a mutuality of responsibility and accountability.

And, please note: such mutuality and intimacy is not possible in a large impersonal church society in which one can easily exist as a stranger. (As far back as Deuteronomy, God wanted his people in communities of accountability and mutual caring groups, and provided leaders for groups of 10, of 50, 100, etc. No one was to get lost in a crowd.)

So we come to the New Testament, and the creation of the church. First off, there is no clergy. It seems uniquely egalitarian. There were the apostles, of course, but they almost never invoked apostolic authority. There was not domination by the leadership. Peter will describe himself, to the elders of the church, as a fellow elder. Paul will speak of himself as a co-worker. Yes, you do find that there was the provision of leaders: elders, bishops, deacons, but even they are not precisely defined except that the elders were the most mature in their understanding of the Word of Christ, they were the proven practitioners, and the were the shepherds of God’s flock, and the models/examples to the flock (cf. I Peter 5). The word bishop has to do with overseeing, and may be almost identical to the elder. Whatever, it is made clear that they were accountable to God for each of those persons under their charge.

Their goal was to present each person “mature in Christ.” Somehow, they were responsible to see that those four gifts (in recent Blog) were implemented. They seem to have been the teachers, the models, and the mentors to create New Creation persons, who in turn would become reproductive, and become part of the mission of God, and become, perhaps, themselves elders. They would be able to say with Paul: “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ.”

Again, “get real”—this cannot happen in a large impersonal configuration. Paul, himself, speaks of teaching in public (large gathering for teaching?), but also from house to house—ah! (Acts: 20). If I can invoke my own experience here, I have noted that whenever a smaller group of a dozen or so believers commit themselves in mutual discipleship and love, that inevitably leadership emerges obviously and spontaneously. Then as such a group grows; it divides and multiplies with a new generation of proven mentor/practitioner/example leaders recognized by the others. A final word: The Christian faith, when practiced according to scripture, is disruptive and may involve suffering. We need those intimate communities in such a pilgrimage