Emerging authority

I doubt that there’s a simple solution to this problem. Part of the answer, though, certainly has to do with how we derive our models of leadership. I would be inclined to say that we need to look not at biblical forms of leadership and authority but at the process or principles underlying the forms that appear in the New Testament texts. So, for example, if we suppose that the pattern of leadership that we see in the early churches was borrowed from analogous non-Christian institutions (synagogue, civic councils, etc.), we might want to say that the most effective way to maintain the purpose and identity of a postmodern church would be to consider how analogous secular communities manage themselves today.

I suppose a second issue has to do with the nature of the leader’s role. If the actual experience of church is organized around a dominant individual (as preacher or worship leader or whatever), we are always going to have these problems. Some people will handle it very well, others will sooner or later turn it into an egotrip.

This is a good question and one that I have seen many people wrestle with. I have seen some try to handle this by having joint leaders of a church or a team of leaders. The problem this creates is people still have a tendency to look for a king so you sometimes end up with the “I am from Paul/I am from Apollos” syndrome. I think Andrew is right that it is not a simple formula and does have to do with the personality of the leader. I think a leader should lead within an accountable environment. I think some leaders try to allow the body to make all the decisions and it does become chaotic. I think collaboration with the body is important because each member is a part of the body and has a part to play, but I think instead of asking the body to collaborate about the beach, a leader should set the overall parameters of the sandbox and let the body collaborate within that sandbox. Too many leaders make the mistake of not giving this level of guidance about what their church is about or what their focus is and therefore struggle with moving ahead as a unified body. The people need to know the vision and the leader needs to articulate that based on what he/she feels God is calling that church to and then they can step aside or join in the process of seeing that vision fulfilled through God’s Spirit. That’s just my two cents worth. I have seen this break down before due to a fear of asserting authority or asserting authority to build my own kingdom (on the extremes) and I think a leader needs to come to the middle.

What is authentic christian leadership? is our leadership management and leadership theory with a thin veneer of reglion over it? We worship that kind of success today. Also we need to ask how can I become the kind of person who gives their lives to others, without fear that our models get screwed up. How can I become the kind of person who would and does naturally that?

Leadership is already in place and we don’t have to multiply it. If we rethink church, leaders are already there. If big is not better, then leadership is creating and facilitating potential leadership in everyone. Also we need to rethink the technological approaches to leadership and management. (Read Max Du Pree for relational open handed leadership approaches.)

Does it help at all to think of ‘leadership’, if we need to retain that label, in terms of ‘influence’ rather than ‘authority’? This shifts the emphasis away from the external or formal status of the leader towards effectiveness and character. It is also difficult to separate the idea of authority from hierarchy or organizational structure. To the extent that this ‘solid’ aspect of church life (to use Pete Ward’s metaphor) becomes less important in emerging church, ‘influence’, both within the body of Christ and as an expression of mission, may seem a much more appropriate way of thinking about that role or function which has traditionally been understood as leadership. It certainly seems a good idea to me to blur the distinction between leaders and followers, push the responsibility for being effectively Christ-like back out into the believing community, and develop a unified category of influencers, catalysts, agents of change within the kingdom of God. This sort of activity will still need organizing, but that organization will be secondary and supportive, not the be-all-and-end-all of Christian ministry.

If the word leadership is so loaded with perjorative connotations, then we can easily use other words in it’s place. However, leadership still exists (as in influence), and so does authority. We are making transactions of authority all the time in relationships with self, others, state, church, groups…

Also structure, and hierachy still exist too, even if we don’t like them and don’t use the words.

Perhaps then it is primarily a matter of getting the balance right between structured [i]leadership[/i] and unstructured, decentred, deregulated [i]influence[/i]. My suggestion was that currently it would benefit the church to ensure that leadership, which should be the embodiment of servanthood, is recognized as a supportive function for the ministry of the body. I guess there’s nothing very revolutionary about that!

this is such a great question to me mainly because it is so relevent and practical to the “now” church. Proverbs 6 says,”consider the ant o sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which having no chief, officer, or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest” I know that this passage mainly refers to the laziness of the “sluggard”, and i wouldnt suggest that we go on without leadership in any way. rather, i would suggest that we challenge eachother to disassociate leadership and authority from position and heirarchy. like you said andrew; true leadership is the embodiment of servanthood.

I think that the ant thing speaks to this a bit. no individual ant has a global or colony vantage point where she could authoritatively make decisions for the colony, however ant colonies are organized and controlled by rules to an amazing degree. it seems that their definition of leadership is “the sum of the parts”. I think that if we explored a new paradigm of leadership and authority we too might see a more bottom-up expression.

actually, as i understand it, “emergence” is what happens when an interconnected system comprised of relatively simple parts begins to self-organize and display a higher level of intelligence or behavior. in systems like this, top-down “classic” leadership isn’t even there. i wonder if we were to look at leadership and authority more from the standpoint of obedience to gods request, we might find a natural way to circumduct the modern paradigm. In my circle of close freinds there is no authoritative leader. I suppose that each of us, when duty calls, fills the position in a non-platform or non-positional way. not that there is a lack of leadership among my freinds, but that it is more “the sum of the parts” when each of us are willing and obedient to hear from and god and act accordingly. we lead, but it feels like obedience; we support, but it feels like obedience.

part of the problem is that we have so few varieties of leadership expressed in the modern church. the system in place demands a top-down leadership expression. an emergent model seems to attack this notion head-on. at least if we are calling it “emergent” (which i do believe is the right word)

i wonder if unified in purpose or at least in good freindships , individual believers simply obeying god, began to self-organize or naturally express their faith, what would happen. If that cluster perceived leadership and authority not as an elevated platform, but as a mere contribution to the overall behaviour of the cluster, would the modern church even call it church? Obviously it wouldnt look like leadership or authority to moderns or even post-mods for that matter.

when i think of “the emerging church” i have a feeling that it will come not from out of the modern or post-modern circles, but from off the streets, and lots of people wont even know its there because it “bubbled up” and its expressions are an infinite array of possibilities that are defined only by the cluster itself.

of course i could be wrong too…

Eric,

Thanks for reviving this topic! I like what you say at the end:

i wonder if unified in purpose or at least in good freindships , individual believers simply obeying god, began to self-organize or naturally express their faith, what would happen. If that cluster perceived leadership and authority not as an elevated platform, but as a mere contribution to the overall behaviour of the cluster, would the modern church even call it church? Obviously it wouldnt look like leadership or authority to moderns or even post-mods for that matter.

I have been wrestling with this personally in my own service in ministry. What I have found is that each person plays a role based on how they are gifted. Too often in a hierarchical model, we expect the person to fit the role instead of allowing who the person is to determine the role. In any church there are tasks or minstries that are happening (not all formal of course). What I have found helpful is to break down the task and then see who is gifted or enjoys doing that particular task. They in turn break the ministry down and find others in the body who are gifted and passionate about the task. Pretty soon it is a group of people doing unique ministry with no real ability to determine who is “in charge” except as that person is effected by a particular aspect of ministry. I think this gets at your cluster analogy. There may be a stariing place to get ministry going but eventually you cannot tell where it started because it becomes clustered. This makes it more organic and frees people up to dream and serve in the way God created them to. IN this way leadership is shared and the goal is to include, serve, and develop eachother not rise up in status or position. It is a kind of organized chaos of sorts I guess

Great thoughts so far. It seems to me that, in any group setting, everyone will naturally look to one person to be in charge. If no one is appointed, someone will start leading, and everyone will accept it for the most part. This organic leadership, I think, is one of the best kinds, where the authority of the leader is inherent in his/her character - unquestioned not because of the new leader’s position, but because of the character already known to the group.

It makes sense to me to have someone in charge of leading any given gathering. Call them a facilitator if you will. If the person’s character is worthy of authority and respect, it will be there, naturally. There is no trial, no search committee, no report, just a common understanding that a person is worthy to lead (and this can include people with bad backgrounds who have experienced a visible transformation of character).

To whatever extent possible, we need to withdraw external leadership and allow it to emerge from those who are not presently leading. In education this is known as scaffolding - giving only as much support as needed, and withdrawing it as ability develops to avoid hindering growth.

question: in what ever manner a leader is identified, do we run the risk of setting up a system that inherently overly rewards and relies on that leader, therefore creating a heirarchy?

I just wonder if we are far enough out of the box to think that we wont fall back in. The original post asked about authority in the emerging context. Have we made a mistake by assuming that authority means leadership means leader? Is there room for a corporate authority/leadership line of thinking in the emerging context?

[quote=”TheologyOnTap”]Considering the millenial (read:postmodern) aversion to hierarchy, authority, etc. How do we consider and shape a Biblical practice of authority in the emerging context? [/quote] I should point out that the aversion to authority is primarily a GenX phenomenon. Millennials show a surprising respect for authority, and this is reflected in the recent surge of interest in Catholic spirituality and ancient church practices among evangelicals (for example, see Robert Webber’s [i]Ancient-Future Faith[/i]). I agree, though, that hierarchy is not popular these days, and the role of the leader in the church community is changing.

[quote=”eric”]Is there room for a corporate authority/leadership line of thinking in the emerging context?[/quote]

I don’t think there is, despite the millennial respect for tradition and authority. We are finding more and more that the role of leader is becoming the role of servant, as it was according to Jesus’ example.

I think the authority respected in the emergent church will increasingly be centered around tradition rather than individuals invested with power. After decades of televangelist scandals and megachurch CEOs, the em-church is tired of personality-centered church and ready for something more lasting and proven. We find this in the tradition of the church - not something we are bound to accept and follow blindly, like a manual, but more like an unearthed library, full of a wealth that we’re only beginning to rediscover.

The individuals who are given authority in the community will be those who offer the most reliable wisdom that is consistent with the tradition and witness of the church, as well as discerning for the present day. We will increasingly find leaders who are respected for their character, rather than their skill or training.

These are my predictions for the way we will view leadership as such in the church. What forms will leaders take, and what will they do? How well have the original questions in this thread been addressed? Very good discussion going on - let’s keep it up. Grace and peace, Jusitn

I appreciate the discussion given to the leadership/authority paradigm for the postmodern/emerging church. It is something I am struggling with at this very moment as we select a church.

[quote] After decades of televangelist scandals and megachurch CEOs, the em-church is tired of personality-centered church and ready for something more lasting and proven [/quote]

The emerging church we attended in CA seemed very much dominated by a single personality. A sister church in Southern CA also was that way. The church we attended did great and the leader did a good job. The sister church’s leader stepped down in disgrace…

It seems that if leaders are to be develop by sheer force of personality and character, then we are not going to rid ourselves of the egocentric self-serving leaders. But in a paradox, these are the same people who are most effective in setting a vision upon which others are able to execute.

So what part do traditional and seemingly mandated church offices play - such as Elders and Deacons? The Bible seems to give these individual responsibilities for some type of leadership within the body (i.e. church). I personally am of a convictions that I am to submit to a God given authority of an Edler. As far as I can ascertain, the office of elder has requirements to it. Were these requirements culturally based or were they and actual mandate? Who selects an Elder? Are these even part of the leaderhip paradign on which the discussion is centered?

My first post and all I have is questions…

-Jeremy

All this is very interesting stuff. Having been both a member of & in leadership in several types of christian community/church over my long long life (!) i have always had an interest in this issue.

Fundamentally, however, I am someone who feels profoundly and deeply within my soul that no man or woman can ever reach the levels of humility and objectivity required to remain spiritually undamaged by the ego trip of holding long term a position of christian leadership. Perhaps there is a need to consider the notion of “term of office” with time limitations should the notion of leadership remain as requisite within faith communities.

Or perhaps “situational leadership” ought to be explored. eg - when we are considering taking a stand on issues of third world debt and jubliee our leader is the member who understands these issues the most profoundly, whilst when we are exploring the liturgy of eucharist it is the poet amongst us who takes the lead….

Or maybe we ought to differentiate between the very nature of individual faith communities - perhaps a community that seeks to be an oasis in the desert for the spiritually burned needs to allow for much more fluid, laid back and hands off leadership than does a faith community seeking to provide a base for family worship services….

as we re-examine the very nature of “church” and the emerging church (which, incidentally I’m not sure is exclusively for GenXers - I think that many baby boomers need something new to emerge also) begins to take shape and we see dialogue replacing diatribe, and a la carte worship menus replacing set meal formats….maybe a new leadership will emerge…..

or maybe we will all revert to the bob dylan proverb od circa 1963 - “don’t follow leaders, watch parking metres”….

first of all let me re-ask this question (i dont think i asked it right before) [quote=”eric originally”]Is there room for a corporate authority/leadership line of thinking in the emerging context?[/quote] [quote=”justinbaeder”]I don’t think there is, despite the millennial respect for tradition and authority. We are finding more and more that the role of leader is becoming the role of servant, as it was according to Jesus’ example.[/quote] so if we are all serving, then are we all leading? this is more what i meant by the question. In this case, we would embrace leadership but not an indivual or positional leader per say. I also like what ian said about situational leadership, and how within different scenerios someone “takes the lead”. I like the way that this changes the perception of leadership and authority. It’s kinda like a flock of geese migrating; the function of leadership is there while the position is less important. [quote=”theology originally”]Considering the millenial (read:postmodern) aversion to hierarchy, authority, etc. How do we consider and shape a Biblical practice of authority in the emerging context?[/quote] I keep coming back to emergent systems that dont seem to have “pacemakers” as much as each organism functions in its appropriate capacity, thereby coauthoring and sharing leadership. im missing something for sure…but i still think that somehow “WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE” is just a bad question.

This is good stuff it will be interesting to see how it might work in practice. I think that initially you do have some kind of leadership helping to start the community. But it’s goal is not to shape every detail and secure themselves as THE leader. Rather that may be someone’s gifting to get it started. The goal then is to help people to function in their giftedness and continually create spaces where people can exercise those gifts. Over time the community would grow organically in that it moves based on the entire set of gifts in the community so that no one person is inexpendable for every aspect of the communty yet all the community is interdependent on one another. You look back and ask, who is it exactly who started this thing? And this is because the intitial starters refused to be cannonized as the king or CEO of the community and kept encouraging people to fuction within their gifting.

I think the issue is, whoever starts this kind of thing does have to put some kind of structure to it intially to get it started even if it is loose structure to help get the process going because people will intially not give their lives to something cold turkey without any intial momentum to their inertia. But once it gets started it could take off.

As I am thinking here I wonder how something like this could get started not only brand new but in an existing church since that’s were I live right now. What things could help prepare a church? How does the community handle dissention? What would need to be present to get a community like this started? I am experimenting with this at a basic level in my church and I can see what happens when people move from a positional role that encompasses many tasks to a role based on gifting that takes the tasks and spreads them out to the people who have passion and gifting. The energy and ideas start to flow yet the group knows they can’t accomplish it all by themselves because each is dependent on the other so they will need to stack hands on things based on who is the one who is guiding the task at that point (situaltional leadership of sorts). Those people then quickly learn that they cannot hold a task by themselves and they further spread out the task to others who are gifted in that area, etc. Ok enough rambling. It’s late. What do you think? How do we move this forward?

This is a wonderful discussion. It is so good to hear that there are people asking these questions. I actually have a little of experience in this area, so I though I would jump in. But please excuse my inability to completely articulate my thoughts on the subject.

Several years ago I was part of a church plant. The church took on the feel of a house church. There were usually 25 to 40 people in attendance on Sundays with about 10 people per house group. An ex-youth pastor started the church. He was looking for what all of us are, a genuine community of believers with the freedom or absence of structure to allow the Holy Spirit to have full reign.

After about a year, the church starting mulling over the theoretical idea of a leaderless church. God would be the head, the leader while everyone did what they were gifted at and how the Spirit lead.

Six months after this discussion began the guy who started the church went oversees on mission and thus we began a leaderless church. The church lasted for a year. During the last six months of existence, there were six of us.

What went wrong? I think when we talk about leadership there are some questions that need to be asked. Do people need human leadership? In my experience the answer is yes. Once the pastor had gone, vision and direction decreased, cohesiveness stopped, and the sense of community died. Maybe because that group of people had only known community with a leader. Maybe if the church had been started on with the concept of a leaderless community it would have worked.

It is my passion to see a community of true believers using their gifts, experiencing God and walking their journey’s together without the pastor dictating it all.

I’ve been in similar situations, and it seems to me that things go sour because its so difficult to unlearn our dependence on a personality. Thats probably over simplifing, but it has to be a huge part, especially within the churched community. I dont think it would be as much of an issue in a secullarly based community.

I think that the most challenging obstacle is going to be overcoming the assumptions and preconceived perceptions of ‘leadership’. Most people are going to gravitate toward the old paradigm like being sucked into a black hole. Decades of “leadership training” and all the positional ranking systems that so many leaders have over-protected to ensure a way of life finally collapse; along with them, most Christians understanding of spiritual leadership. Not many people have another model to learn from. Leading is a job for the leader, not the Christian (or at least, that what seems to have subtly been taught for a long, long, long time).

The other thing that i wonder is if its good to think that an emerging church expression should neccessarily run or gather or whatever indefinitely. It might be a mistake to assume that once its started it will just continue and grow. My circle of relationships seems to change over time, maybe that flux is right in our church communities too :?:. In some of the more “leaderless” things that I’ve been involved in there seems to be a natural life cycle. [quote=”khilmerson”]What went wrong? I think when we talk about leadership there are some questions that need to be asked. Do people need human leadership? In my experience the answer is yes.[/quote] maybe not as much went wrong as is thought. i agree w/ you about human leadership, i just still question that leadership means leader. :?

Another question to consider (and forgive me if I’ve just scanned what’s been said so far and have missed the point…) Doesn’t leadership go with vision?

What I mean is this: There are so many different types of church, so many different people in our communities who we are trying to meet, so many different people who want to join churches - and have their own ideas about what the church they join should be like and what it should do. Rick Warren (I think) says that we need all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. The point is that at some stage, someone (or some group) needs to decide what kind of church each church is going to be - what sort of music will it use, what pattern of meeting-times and -places will it have, what priorities for mission and ministry will it have, which people it is most aiming to reach and so on. And the person (or people) who decide this will (presumably. Hopefully!) be doing so from a position of closeness with God and a feeling of being called to lead that particular type of church in that particular way.

Now, this doesn’t have to look like traditional leadership … but at some point someone has to decide that a particular good idea (say for instance to hold a traditional harvest festival and invite the elderly from the community and then distribute donated food to them) is not appropriate, is not going to further the vision of the church (in our example, if the whole thrust of the church’s ministry and mission has been to become a credible presence in the local heavy-metal scene.)

Forgive the ramblings of a tired night-owl… but this is to a certain extent where my church has been - we have a visionary leader who has quite a clear picture of where he believes God is taking our church and he is quite willing to evaluate good ideas with reference to that vision.

(This is my first post in the forums, though I’ve “lurked” for quite a while…)

“Emerging ecclesiology”, particluarly the leadership aspect of it, is much on my mind of late. From my perspective, Christian theology is like a beam of light, with the Bible as the source and culture as a lens through which Biblical truth is focused so that it exerts its energy on society. (Is that perspective welcomed here?) That being said, I think the Biblical principles of leadership within the body of Christ are the best starting points.

It seems to me that these princples fall into two categories. Some are attitudinal and apply to leadership at all levels. An example here might be, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all,” from Jesus’ lesson to the Twelve in Mark 10:35-45; other examples might be found in Matthew 23:1-12 and Jonh 12:1-17. Other principles are structural. Teachings about apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (in Ephesians 4, for example) and deacons and overseers (in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1) relate to the structure within the body of Christ. It’s informative to note that there are far more attitudinal principles than structural ones!

While few (I think) would question whether the attitudinal principles are normative for the Church, I doubt there would be such a concensus about the structural principles. (Were these principles normative, there are so few of them and they are so vaguely stated as to allow significant freedom within the Church as to forms of leadership.) To me, one thing is certain: some form of human leadership is necessary in local bodies of Christ. Perhaps, for that reason, the question should be one of boundaries; are there any boundaries in the area of leadership that would be sin for a church, emerging or otherwise, to cross?

What I like about this question is that you have effectively separated the issue of leadership from the issue of authority. I think that helps a lot :)

What I observe outside the walls of the institutional church.. and to a lesser extent inside it.. is that we tend to give authority to people in two ways.. 1. formal and positional, and 2. informal and relational. In the first instance we recognize that someone operating with a certain title has authority. He or she already has the backing of a community to accomplish some kind of task, and real power goes with that position.

In the second case, we give authority to people who are functioning with a gift or anointing .. it may be pastoral, evangelistic, teaching.. whatever. These people just naturally serve from their gifting, and those around them naturally recognize taht service.

The interesting part is what develops around these different cases.. positional or relational/practical (and sometimes charismatic in the theological sense) authority. Around formal authority I generally observe followers.. around informal and relational authority I observe communities.

Granted, these are not really polar opposites but more of a continuum. I observe the result of a natural service and gifting in my own life. My wife and I seem to naturally gather people.. some of whom are mature believers, often visionary like ourselves.. others of whom are needy.. the poor, single moms, emotionally wounded. We have a fairly large network of both of these groups, and for a long time on every second Sunday we hosted a potluck meal to bring them together and to encourage one another. You could say that a church was born in this way.

I’ve written all this to get to your question.. “Who is in charge here?” In the first case above its pretty obvious, right? The guy with the title and the salary is in charge. He is also usually the voice heard 90% of the time. In the highly organized system everyone knows who is in charge because of the system itself.

In the second case, when we have new people come to our home on a Sunday, they may not know who is in charge.. In fact, we don’t think in those terms so it’s no surprise. They might assume the hosts are in charge.. but then when it comes time to gather to pray or share some Scripture, one of our friends may have something burning in their hearts.. and my wife and I might not contribute a word. They might leave thinking Nick is in charge, or Joan, or Kevin. And for that day, they would be almost right. In reality, we believe the Holy Spirit was in charge :)

This is a facinating thread - incredibly exciting to read the profound tension of theological and practical wrestling in almost every post. I just wanted to add my two pennies worth…

I think when andrew suggests ‘that we need to look not at biblical forms of leadership and authority but at the process or principles underlying the forms that appear in the New Testament texts’ that he’s pointed us at some of the keys. In particular, Neotheologue’s comments on [i]attitudinal[/i] and [i]structural[/i] principles arising from the Gospels and other parts of the Second Testament are helpful, developed usefully by andrew.

I was reading a section from Walter Wink’s [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/080062646X/qid=1101476108/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/202-2578220-3174259][i]Engaging the Powers[/i][/url] on ‘God’s Domination-Free Order: Jesus and God’s Reign’ (pg109ff) last night and struck by the frequency with which Jesus talks to his disciples about their [i]attitudinal[/i] paradigm from which their appropriate [i]structural[/i] paradigms ought to flow. With regard to leadership, their are a surprising number of times that Jesus talks about ‘servanthood’ as the mindset for them. I’m sure you know them well - regarding positions in the coming kingdom, of which Luke’s rendition is beautiful (Luke 22: 25-27 (cf. Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45); the one Neotheologue highlighted above in the ‘Seven Woes’ passage in Matthew 23:1-12; Students and masters, when sending out the 12, in Matthew 10:24-25; First last and last first (Matthew 19:30; 20:16; Mark 9:35; 10:31; Luke 13:30); places of honour at the table in Luke 14:7-11; and of course more besides. The main thrust, as Wink sees things, is that the disciples are to maintain domination-free relationships. The point of using inverted domination language when talking to the people who were inevitably going to be taking on his mantle was to illuminate Jesus’ repudiation and hence the disciples rejection of the way the religious leaders around them operated - namely domination, power and authority. Jesus’ table-fellowship was a direct confrontation to the temple cult/religious sects in this aspect because it was characterised by equity rather than hierachy.

Jesus’ actions embody his words. To paraphrase Wink, we all know that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet as an illustration of servant-leadership - but knowing also that footwashing was so degrading a task that not even Jewish slaves could be ordered to do it brings a whole new persepctive. And I’ve often overlooked that Jesus’ prearranges the Last Supper by having his disciples meet a man carrying a water picher on his head - a task only fit for women, in those times. Jesus enters Jerusalem farcically on the back of a donkey - the man who had nothing, not even a place to lay his head, was also the ‘king’ who rode into Jerusalem, not on a horse but on a [i]borrowed[/i] ass! This is the king of the order of Melchizedek and of the line of David, who was born in the stable of an inn, whose cot was an animal feeding trough, and whose sole witnesses to the birth were shepherds - unclean, dishonest and outcast by the righteous, and so unworthy to be witnesses.

The questions about leadership and authority seem to me to result from the urge of the church in the centuries afterwards to place Jesus back into their hierachical and pigeon-holed ‘world of domination’, the very thing that he’d so soundly rejected.

Leadership would seem to me to be about being the [i]servant-enabler[/i] - the servant of the basin and towel who encouraged his disciples that they would do greater things than he had done.

But the passage that struck me most was from John 15:15 - ‘I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends…’ It’s a saying that i’ve thought about a lot over the years. The Quakers were given that (nick)name by ther detractors, but they called themselves the Society of Friends. That strikes me as the perfect description of a local church or faith community, and leads so naturaly to an understanding of leadership and authority born from the upside-down paradigm above. As with friendship so with the community of faith. Everyone is a leader and no one is a leader. Everyone has authority and no one has authority.

I do really like the word ‘conspiracy’. It literally means ‘to breathe together’, It has for me connotations of the [i]nephesh[/i] that was breathed into Adam, and into the bodies in the Valley of Dry Bones. And I see in my mind’s eye the gunpowder plotters scheming and hatching their plans in a darkened basement, literally breathing the same air, being one in mind and heart. It seems like an appropriate description of church life. The Kingdom of God is like a secret plan to saturate the world with the restoration, wholeness, liberty and justice of God, and we are the subversives plotting and conspiring how to bring about this shalom revolution.

Maybe those two ideas are helpful in thinking about the dynamics of faith community life - a society of friends, and church as conspiracy!

Hi Chris,

I really enjoyed your comments. I have been part of something similar to the “new church.”  My experience was similar but slightly different. Along with a few close friends and ministry associates, we have managed to stick together while on a journey away from the “priestly” authority or professional clergy dynamic that you described so well. The upside is that after 30 years we are still friends. The downside is that we have either been leading diminishing churches (in most cases) or some of us have completely exited out of “full-time” ministry into secular careers that allow us the flexibility to relate to people and have a redeeming influence without “lording it over them.”

I left pastoring and church planting after trying for 25 years to be a “servant-leader” and to get the body to function as empowered members. I finally decided there was some genetic flaw that was putting me in a position of constantly sabatoging my own efforts.  Perhaps there are others who have found the way to do this, or are more gifted than me….I am now pursuing a PhD on a U. campus and hanging out with grad students at an Irish pub on Thurs. nights… still hoping to have some spiritual influence. I feel like U2…although I would climb the highest mountain to be with Him, “I still have not found what I am looking for”

joseph

We are not leading! To answer the question of who is in charge – God. And to follow His leading is to submit ourselves to the authority He has provided us in His own “Spirit of Truth” (John 14:17), His own word (John 17:17), and the person and work of Jesus Christ (John 14:16). Our leading must flow out of our being lead. Consequently, our leading must follow in line with what the Holy Spirit and Scripture reveal to us about God, and in particular, Jesus Christ, God incarnate. Keeping in the Gospel of John, I am reminded of chapter 10 where Jesus paints Himself as the Good Shepard. Jesus declares Himself as the only one who has the authority to lead the sheep, and in verse 10 He cautions that to come and take the responsibility of leading His sheep one must be following hard after Him. To lead men anywhere else is to steal, kill, and destroy them. To lead men is serious business, and to lead them anywhere but deeper into God’s faithful character displayed in Christ, is to partake in the devil’s work. As a leader, are you yourself being lead? Ultimately weather or not we have been following will be exposed. For if our plans and work is of men, it will come to nothing, but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – least you be found to be fighting against God (phrased from Acts 5:38, 39). I find freedom in the midst of Jesus’ stern warning in John’s Gospel as the sheep that are His will follow Him. They will respond to Him. This truth Jesus speaks with certainty, so those that are His will be His regardless.

I, admittedly, did not read all of the comments but I guess my understanding is the authority is the community. I realize that communities can be fickle so it is difficult to treat one as authoritative. Doug Pagitt says that scripture is a living, breathing and authoritative member of the church community and should be treated as one. Some were given to be pastors, some to be apostles, some to be the living breathing Word of God.