To quote Frank Viola, one of the gurus of Organic Church, in his book, "Finding Organic Church";
"Organic church is a church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructed by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grassroots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-particpatroy meetings (as opposed to pastor-to-pew services), nonhierarchical leadership and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering.
By contrast, whenever we sin-scarred mortals try to create a church the same way we would start a business, we are defying the organic nature of church life. An organic church is one that is naturally produced when a group has encountered Jesus Christ in reality (external ecclesiastical props being unnecessary) and the DNA of the church is free to work without hindrance. Its the difference between standing in front of a fan and standing outdoors on a windy day.
The difference between organic churches and non organic churches is the difference between General Motors and a vegetable garden. One is founded by humans, the other is birthed by God. One is artificial, the other is living."
What Organic Church is not:
- It is not traditional, congregational style church.
- It is not dependent on a fixed premises or building.
- It does not need to happen at a fixed time once a week.
- It does not rely on the leadership of a trained professional "pastor".
- It does not rely on a skilled musician to "lead" the worship.
- It is not defined by a time of singing followed by a sermon.
- It is not something we do - it is something we are.
- It is not rule bound - it is not stuffy and it is definitely never boring.
Organic Church does not refer to a particular "model" of church. (Its doubtful that a perfect model even exists.) Nor is it an attempt to do church like in the New Testament – that would not be possible because we are culturally, sociologically and technologically too far removed from those days. Furthermore, the New Testament does not really give us a church model per se. What we do see from the New Testament, however, is a set of principles that point to the organic nature of the church ie church as a living, breathing, dynamic, mutually participatory, every-member functioning, Christ-centered, communal expression of the body of Christ. Organich church strives to get back to those principles and thus requires that we remove those inorganic things that we have allowed to creep in and which have become obstacles to natural, organic church growth. (In the West we do a lot in the church out of habit and it works for us because its there and we're used to it. When trying to establish new churches in an environment where the dominant worldview is non-Christian, it becomes painfully and abundantly clear that about 80% of what we consider as accepted and normal "church practice" is actually traditional and cultural baggage that we cannot and should not transplant).
The Trinity is the Ultimate Community
Organic Church is founded on the principle of community. The Trinity is the purest form of community and is the perfect community. Thus, for us to truly express, or reflect, Christ and also to truly experience him, we need to be in community with other believers. Its only in true, intimate community that our gifts can be identified, honed and developed and used to build up the Body. Its only in community that we can carry out the "one another" commands of the New Testament and its only when we read the New Testament through the lens of community that it really starts to make any sense (consider that Paul wrote most of his letters to communities).
This heavy emphasis on community does not sit well with those of us who have an over-developed sense of individuality and flies in the face of a strongly individualistic mindset that has developed in the West, especially where independence and self-reliance are goals to be strived for. Many people prefer to go to large churches where they can quietly come and go and remain anonymous. Where they can put on their Sunday faces and hide behind their masks. Its safe. Organic church, on the other hand, if done properly, will strip away the layers and leave us exposed, allowing us to be shaped and molded into the image of Christ.
The team here in Lampang is fired up about Organic Church. We hope to become such an organic expression of Jesus Christ, as a team, and to either draw Thai people into that expression with us, or to form new Thai organic expressions of Jesus Christ.
WHAT ABOUT CHURCH LEADERSHIP?
If Organic Churches don't have pastors, then who leads the church?
Here follows a loose summary of what Frank Viola has to say about it in his book "Reimagining Church"
In the New Testament we see two types of leadership operating – oversight and decision-making.
OVERSIGHT (see Acts 20:17, 28-29, 1 Peter 5:1-4, Titus 1:5-7)
Elders, Shepherds, Overseers – an elder was a seasoned Christian, a senior, with experience and wisdom ( the Greek word used is presbuteros which means an old man). They were called overseers to describe their function of supervising the affairs of the church – also depicted by the metaphor of a “shepherd”. They were caretakers, caring for their fellow believers. All elders were “apt to teach” and had the gift of shepherding, but not all who shepherded and taught were elders (Titus 2:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:2, 24; Heb. 5:12). Teaching could come from any believer who had a word of instruction for the church (1 Cor. 14:24-26).
Simply put, elder refers to their character, overseer to their function and shepherd to their gifting. Eldership was not an office that was filled but was a function that was performed. Their chief responsibility was to instruct and oversee the church during times of personal crisis. (Of note is that the New Testament in no way refers to a type of uber elder, or “first amongst equals” who takes on a lead function or occupies a chief office in the church).
While elders provided oversight, they didn’t monopolise the ministry of the church gatherings. Nor did they make decisions on behalf of the church. They superintended the church as it experienced the rigours of community life (a largely passive role). Their supervision was not a “lording over”. It did not stifle the life of the church nor did it interfere with the ministry of the other believers. Their chief task was to model servanthood in the church; to motivate the believing community towards works of service; and to mold the spiritual development of the younger believers (1 Peter 5:1-3). They dealt with tricky situations in the church (Acts 15:6ff)
A great illustration that Viola uses is that an elder is like the human liver. It works invisibly, filtering out poisons and other toxic substances. It resists infections by producing immune factors and removing bacteria from the bloodstream. It organically detoxifies the human body, causing it to function properly. But it does so in a quiet and hidden way. In the same way, elders detoxify the church behind the scenes so that the body can function without hindrance.
In the New Testament we see that the apostles always established plural oversight within the churches they planted. Eldership was a shared oversight and no church in the first century had a single leader. (As an aside, the word pastor only appears once in the entire New Testament (Eph 4:11) and it is used as a descriptive metaphor, not as an ecclesiastical office. It is also plural, not singular).
Oversight of the church, in addition to being shared, was also indigenous. Elders were local brothers who were spiritually reared within the local community of believers. They also emerged long after a church was born. (It was 14 years from the birth of the Jerusalem church before we first hear about elders [Acts 11:30]. Its a good while after Paula and Barnabas plant the 4 churches in South Galatia before they appoint elders {Acts 14:23]. Five years after Paul plants the church in Ephesus he sends for the elders of the church to meet him in Miletus [Acts 20:17]. When Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, which was 12 years old, he greeted the overseers who were present [Phil. 1:1]) The point is that the church, as a spiritual organism, produces elders naturally, as with all spiritual gifts, but it takes time for them to emerge. (Before the elders emerged, the oversight of the church was in the hands of the apostolic worker who planted it (1 Thess. 2:7-12). Afterwards, the oversight shifted to the hands of the elders.)
Its interesting to see that every time Paul wrote to a church, he addressed the whole church. He never addressed the elders. Its also significant that every church Paul wrote to in the New Testament was in a crisis (except the letter to the Ephesian church), yet Paul never appeals to, or singles out, the elders in any of them. He charges and implores the “brethren” more than 30 times in 1 Corinthians and he writes as if no officers exist. Same with all his other letters to churches in crisis. It would seem to indicate that to Paul’s mind, it is the church’s responsibility to deal with its own issues. Probably the best example of this is found in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul summons the whole church to discipline a fallen member by handing him over to Satan.
Paul uses the word “brethren” (adelphoi), 134 times in his letters – mainly in reference to all the believers in the church - men and women. By contrast, the word “elders” appears only 5 times. “Overseers” appears 4 times and “pastors” only once. The deafening lack of attention that Paul gives to elders demonstrates that he rejected the idea that certain people in the church possessed formal rights over others. It also underscores the fact that Paul did not place a heavy emphasis on church officers.
On the other hand, if one looks at all the “one another” commands in the New Testament (see my Blog on "one anothering") it becomes apparent that there is a corporate responsibility. The entire believing community is called to carry out pastoral functions.
I would argue that we have made, and do make, too big a thing about church leadership. The leadership of the church really boils down to one basic issue – the headship of Christ.
DECISION-MAKING (see Acts 15:22, 25)
What we see in the New Testament are decisions made by consensus. The body metaphor of church is helpful here. Because the church is a body, all the members should agree before it moves forward in obeying the Head (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 4:11-16). For this reason Paul’s letters to the churches are saturated with exhortations to be of one mind (Rom 15:5-6; 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 13;11; Eph. 4:3; Phil. 2:2; 4:2).
The role of the elders is to help the church reach a consensus on a matter. By virtue of their relative spiritual maturity, they are sometimes able to persuade the church into a unified understanding of the Lord’s mind. (Incidentally, the mind of Christ doesn’t belong to an individual. It’s a corporate discovery -1 Cor. 2:9-16).
Consensus means that decisions may have to be delayed until agreement is reached. It may well be possible that members agree with varying degrees of enthusiasm, but consensus is reached when all have come to the place where they have set aside their objections and can support the decision in good faith.
To summarize: The New Testament knows nothing of an authoritative mode of leadership. Nor does it know a “leaderless” egalitarianism. It rejects both hierarchical structures, as well as rugged individualism. Instead, the New Testament envisions leadership as coming from the entire church. The brothers and sisters supply decision-making by consensus. Seasoned brothers supply oversight.