The Church's Future...
Hello to All, I trust you are enjoying the season of Epiphany. I hope that God is revealing Himself to you in a variety of ways, as we journey towards Lent.
I just finished a book that spoke of re-imagining/re-thinking the structures of the church. Written by an Anglican who lives in Britain, this book outlined what the author saw as an imminent problem emerging in Anglicanism. He observes the current Christian climate in the UK and says that the Christian population is dwindling, and the attendance at public worship is becoming smaller and smaller. Looking at the statistics, this is true, particularly regarding the Church of England. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11080
As a result, this author suggests that the church needs to re-think its conception of the ministry. Fewer and fewer people are entering the quest for holy orders, which may be reflective of the church population receding on the whole. The lack of ministers, he thinks, will ultimately dwindle down to nothing and the church as we know it (meaning in structure; his case being episcopal) will not be able to continue.
His proposal to remedy this is quite radical. He basically suggests that the proposition of the 'priesthood of all believers' must be taking to its extreme end: every member of the church is as if he/she was a priest, holding the same calling, privileges, and office. To be fair, he does suggest that the 're-thought' church would continue to have those with the labels of priests, bishops, and deacons, but the authority of the ordained would not be any different than the authority of the lay-person. Everyone would be on an equal level with each other regarding all things required of the gathered community.
His dream is that all the members of the body of Christ would participate equally in the life of the church. An ambitious proposal, a radical proposal, but a viable proposal?
Some questions:
What do we think about the meaning of the term: 'The priesthood of all believers'?
What does this proposal say about the ministerial office?
What does this say about the sacramental aspects of the worshiping community?
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, trying to work through some decisions being made about a church that I am connected to. It is in need of some change (think small congregation, not enough money to support, but definitely needs to continue being a light to its community), we are just not sure what that change needs to be.
Joseph
I just finished a book that spoke of re-imagining/re-thinking the structures of the church. Written by an Anglican who lives in Britain, this book outlined what the author saw as an imminent problem emerging in Anglicanism. He observes the current Christian climate in the UK and says that the Christian population is dwindling, and the attendance at public worship is becoming smaller and smaller. Looking at the statistics, this is true, particularly regarding the Church of England. http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/11080
As a result, this author suggests that the church needs to re-think its conception of the ministry. Fewer and fewer people are entering the quest for holy orders, which may be reflective of the church population receding on the whole. The lack of ministers, he thinks, will ultimately dwindle down to nothing and the church as we know it (meaning in structure; his case being episcopal) will not be able to continue.
His proposal to remedy this is quite radical. He basically suggests that the proposition of the 'priesthood of all believers' must be taking to its extreme end: every member of the church is as if he/she was a priest, holding the same calling, privileges, and office. To be fair, he does suggest that the 're-thought' church would continue to have those with the labels of priests, bishops, and deacons, but the authority of the ordained would not be any different than the authority of the lay-person. Everyone would be on an equal level with each other regarding all things required of the gathered community.
His dream is that all the members of the body of Christ would participate equally in the life of the church. An ambitious proposal, a radical proposal, but a viable proposal?
Some questions:
What do we think about the meaning of the term: 'The priesthood of all believers'?
What does this proposal say about the ministerial office?
What does this say about the sacramental aspects of the worshiping community?
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, trying to work through some decisions being made about a church that I am connected to. It is in need of some change (think small congregation, not enough money to support, but definitely needs to continue being a light to its community), we are just not sure what that change needs to be.
Joseph
posted by Joseph | 9:59 AM
5 Comments:
Personally, I see nothing viable in such a proposal. Nor do I think it is something desirable. I would absolutely affirm the priesthood of all believers, but I don't think Paul is arguing for a democracy. We have all been called to serve the function of the priest, namely bringing others into the presence of God, but in rejecting the authoritative position of an actual bishop/priest/pastor, I think, we lose the shepard/sheep, teacher/disciple model that seems to be fairly important throughout the New Testament, i.e. Jesus/disciples and Paul/Timothy. I think there is something very healthy, and certainly very Christian, about taking on a submissive/learning role. In other words, in this proposed model are we to have sheep leading sheep? And who is to teach us the faith?
Finally, speaking from personal experience, the notion of everyone having an equal "vote" in the life of the church is not viable, and DEFINITELY not desirable. Anyone who has ever sat in a church can attest to that. Simply put, nothing would ever be accomplished because we would find very little that would ever agree on. (and in trying to push through an agenda, would we not begin to form groups, splitting apart from each other, and causing more division in the body?)
In my humble opinion, the church isn't a democracy, nor should it be. If we are to be like Christ then we must learn to be servants, even of each other.
All that said, is the church is need of reform? Absolutely and always.
Great post, though, Joseph. Any conversation about improving the church is certainly worth having. VERY relevant, not only in the British/Anglican context, but also throughout any tradition in the States.
In the anglican traditions, his proposal would certainly be a major paradigm shift in terms of orders and sacraments; I'm not sure the sacramental dynamic would matter much in the church of the nazarene, since we're not terribly sacramental and we're already a church wherein laity can administer our (2) sacraments with the permission of a pastor, and probably in reality could do so without permission without causing any real stir for themselves or their pastor.
Honestly, I don't see how his proposal wouldn't be much of a solution. There are already dozens (if not hundreds) of churches and denominations that have the kind of polity and vision of ministry that he proposes, and it doesn't necessarily lead to a more "engaged" or participatory laity. The Church of the Nazarene believes in the priesthood of all believers, but we still have a strong sense amongst most of our people in most of our churches that the "paid" ministers are the ones who do the ministry.
I wonder if the only way to move us on from this is actually not simply encourage the priesthood of all believers, or to do away with holy orders, but to do away with "paid/professional" ministers. Have ordained folk who lead the church but who work in the public/secular arena who are still our preachers, pastors, sacramental officiants, etc, but who do not rely on the church for their livelihood - and in that very fundamental sense, are no different from the laity, except in the role they play within the life of the community.
I can see how his is a "radical" proposal coming from a British thinker addressing the anglican context, but really I don't think it's radical at all, and if anything isn't nearly radical enough to stave off the ecclesiastical erosion that has taken place over decades in the C of E. And to my mind, that erosion has as much to do with wavering about orthodoxy and doctrinal integrity as it is about shifting cultural dynamics and social mores. It's not simply that people have decided not to go to church or enter the priesthood: it's that when they look, they don't see a church that's worth going to or a ministerial vocation worth entering into. So they've found other things to give themselves to instead.
While I lived in Scotland, I loathed the idea of using words like "relevance" when talking about church - I of course had been enlightened to the fact that the essentials of Christian orthodoxy and liturgy weren't concerned with such things as relevance because they were timeless and transcendent. And while I think there is an element of this that is TRUE, absolutely, I realize now, having served a local church for the past 2+ years, how misguided I was. Our essentials should be timeless and transcendent and non-negotiable, but the church is always located within a culture, and is both influenced by and charged with influencing that culture. And so we cannot get away from the notion that relevance matters. And what we see in the UK and throughout much of Europe is a church that is more interested in conserving the past - but only certain traditions of the past, like liturgy and ecclesiastical authority - than being relevant to the present and into the future. And this is why those churches are dying.
To be clear, I am NOT saying, "abandon the liturgy" or "abandon orthodoxy" - that's the ironic thing, that some of these churches that cling most staunchly to tradition as it relates to liturgy and authority have been the ones to most quickly abandon orthodox doctrine in many ways. And I'm not talking about the hot-topic issues related to gender and sexuality - I'm talking about the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the Truth and authority of the Bible, the in-dwelling power of the Holy Spirit, etc.
If I were outside the church, I'd have no interest in or time for a church that wavered on such basic, foundational precepts as these – say what you believe, and believe what you say - period. So yes, I'm talking about cultural relevance (not in terms of ridiculous things like musical style, but in terms of community and global impact - service, mission, evangelism, peacemaking, etc), but I also think that there's a doctrinal relevance issue here, one that has kind of backfired for some churches. In their efforts to be intellectually credible to the modern and now postmodern mind, they have abandoned basic Christian orthodoxy, and the result has NOT been winning over the opposing/secular viewpoints by showing them how enlightened Christians can be, but rather, it appears to me they (okay, WE) have LOST the respect of those we were trying to accommodate by "loosening up" on those logically-absurd but essential Christian beliefs that we have no choice but to profess purely by faith.
Zack - great thoughts. And I agree. The church is not and never should be a democracy. It is a monarchy, where Christ is King.
I think this author's concerns are valid. I like his idea except that a democracy is not necessarily going to execute the will of God. often God's will & ours clash. The word should be the final authority.
He says the church attendance is dwindling, but I'm curious how many people might have left churches but are meeting in homes. A few yrs ago, I might not have asked that question, but it seems today that more & more people are leaving the traditional church in exchange for something more personal...something that better resembles Acts.
If we look back at church history-not only in the Bible, but in the History books, we see the Elders were originally the overseers of the home churches & everyone shared in the responsibilities of the church & the sharing of the message.
There were no paid pastors-there were paid EVANGELISTS (Peter Timothy etc). Paul tells the churches to pay them because they can't exactly get a job in each city b/c they aren't there for long enough to establish a trade/business.
The elders were chosen for their Godly example as fathers & husbands. They had to be older too.
Due to Roman persecution of the Elders people started to see these elders as martyrs & cling to their relics, just like the Pagans before them & because of that & the almost worship of the elders, elders started appointing themselves as heads of a clergy (called of God) & Laity (the people) systems in the church. That wasn't Biblical according to The first NT churches. We were suppose to be getting free of it-not going right back to it!
(Remember 1 Peter 1:5)
Then this new Clergy started establishing themselves over other clergy & so this all became a hierarchical system. Soon they were making rules over the church like who could participate in baptism & communion.
IMO-the establishment of clergy & buildings have ruined the intention of the NT Church & what God had planned for us.
If we got back to basics-home churches, to say that this will cause division in the church might be true, but it would only be division of numbers; who cares?
My final point: part of the reason I think many modern churches are falling by the wayside is that a person can attend for years & contribute nothing & not feel bad. we have paid staff to do all the "real" work so why wouldn't they leave?
When you attend a church that's so big people can lay low & do nothing, your church is too big. We are ALL called by God, not just people with degrees from seminaries. That means nothing to God.
We want big churches because it costs a lot of money to maintain a staff, building, utilities, programs etc. But that was never the intent of the disciples or Jesus. God doesn't care how big our buildings are or what services we offer unless they directly address things from the Bible-i.e. helping the poor, ministering to the lost, baptizing new believers, but we can do that from a home church as well.
I don't attend a home church. I attend a church w/ 3 services but some friends of mine have a home church & I must admit I am a bit jealous. They have a/b 30 people in this home twice a month-they spend all day together eating, praying, breaking bread, communion, leading prayer, worship, preaching, prophesying, lifting each others burdens & they also go into the community & help the poor & needy & I know they're living out Acts.
My church is concerned with selling blended coffee at $4 a cup, raising enough money to pay for new light fixtures so our church stays beautiful for new visitors, having state of the art everything, & paying our huge staff a decent wage & it's all starting to look like a big show to me & less like the original intent of the church. Of course, I have a teenager so that is part of the big draw-the awesome youth group, (so I'm a bit of a hypocrite if the truth be told)We will stay but when my kids graduate, we'll move to a home church.
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