One of the first things that I was told when it was known that I would become a pastor was to read the church bylaws. Second to scripture (and in some churches more importantly than the Holy Scriptures) the church bylaws provide information as to how a particular community of Faith chooses to organize themselves.
I’ve read the bylaws of the church I pastor multiple times and I figure I’ll read them over and over again until I have them about memorized. In reading them along with the church handbook, however, I stumbled across one thing that really raised a flag of concern. While I found many things that I’ll likely give focus and prayer to over the years, there was one thing that I felt needed to be addressed more immediately and it had to do with how the church organized itself.
Common among many churches of my experience and upbringing, the church bylaws where I’m blessed to serve props up a hierarchical structure in governance that I feel is problematic on a number of fronts. In the shape of a pyramid, the hierarchical arrangement puts God at the top, then the Pastor, then the Joint Board (made up of the Deacons and the Trustees) and then the different ministries falling below in various order. Many traditional churches have something similar to this.
However, this is not a structure that jives well with how God has wired me personally and more importantly (and at the risk of sounding dogmatic), it doesn’t appear to be a structure that’s undergirded by the life and witness of Jesus Christ.
No matter how affable or spiritual the people involved are, the hierarchical arrangement of church organization ranks people and sends messages about power and control. That arrangement implies that the Pastor is most valuable and powerful. He/She is thought to be closest to God and therefore is more important than everyone else under her/him. They also become the person who is viewed as knowing all things concerning God and Faith. While this appears to put the clergywoman/man in a personally favorable position; it’s been my experience that this sets the clergy up for perpetual temptations and potential burnout. It takes a lot of work to stay at the top of that ladder.
Additionally, that structure also tends to tempt those “below” to do all they can to climb the ladder. You’ll sometimes see people jockeying for church office like politicians do for elected office. Or others who are in mid-management church positions enjoy exercising their “power” over others.
Probably most regrettably, this traditional church structure convinces many in the pews that they have no power. No power to connect with God on their own. No power to study and think critically about the Faith. No power to embrace their own spiritual journey and trust God along the way. No power to effectuate what they discern that God is calling them to. Simply put “un-empowered” people don’t grow. The clergy person at the top of the ladder can get wrapped up in themselves, the weekly adulation, and become burned out by pretending to be the “spiritual know-it-all”. The people at the bottom can get wrapped up in depending on their pastor and other church leaders to do the work of ministry and spiritual formation for them while dragging them along for the journey. Both groups end up being enslaved.
This linear arrangement can create pretty quickly a terribly toxic and parasitic church environment.
However, when we read about how Jesus engaged issues of power, I believe it can help give birth to some fruitful conversations related to church organization and structure.
For example, some of you have read or know the familiar biblical story about Jesus miraculously feeding 5,000 men (not counting women and children – there’s a sermon in there!) in the desert. However, a lesser studied and discussed feature of this story involves the aftermath of the miracle and feeding. After more than 5,000 are fed the scripture says that the people were convinced that Jesus had a divine connection and wished to make him king. Knowing this, the text says that instead of embracing what looked like a landslide election to the throne of power, Jesus ran from them to a mountain by himself.
In another fairly well known instance, Jesus was hanging out with the disciples when the text says that James and John put forth an interesting request of Jesus. They wanted him to allow them to sit at his right hand and left when he “comes into his glory.” Jesus confesses that he is unable to grant that request and then he draws a comparison between how the Gentiles are ruled and how those in this “Kingdom of God community” would organize themselves. Jesus says the Gentiles are ruled over…authority is exercised upon them. Jesus says, but with you all whoever is greatest among you shall be your servant.
What might these two passages (and other passages) communicate in regard to Jesus’ take on social organization and arrangement? That’s what I have wrestled with (and will continue to wrestle with) in this still fairly new role as pastor. However, to make sure that this isn’t just theoretical exercise; I’m also re-arranging the power structure within a traditional church context in real time. I don’t have all the answers so this truly is a walk of faith. So far, I’ve gravitated toward a more circular representation of church organization similar to this structure offered up by this international Children’s organization, however, I’m also intrigued by some features of Riverview Church’s Leadership Structure.
I’m excited to take up this challenge of thinking differently about church organization and I look forward to learning from those I serve alongside about how our Faith calls us together in Christian community and witness.
I’d also be interested in hearing your thoughts, experiences, and suggestions for church organization today.
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Pastor, your thought process is wonderful and transparent – a gift of you to others. A wise clergyman [Rev. Joe Ehrmann] did a year long bible study ages ago that has formed many, many folks. In the first book of the bible God shows us what it means to be his… as we believe in a triune God – "we are never more like God than when we live in community [Father, Son, Holy Spirit live in community], work in partnership [certainly a triune God works in partnership - each with their own roles and responsibilities] for His [Her?] cause. Notice, it doesn't simply say live but it also includes work – and to do the first [live in community] requires that we love / be love / act in love – represent God here and if we do represent God through Love – then work is part of the equation. He didn't sit around doing nothing and doesn't sit around doing nothing.
I believe the Jesus we know and see in the New Testament does that as well… he grows up in a community that requires life decisions be made to serve that community. He then uses the strength of that to move out and pick his "worshipping community" – his apostles. He doesn't do things in a vacuum. He shows them love in all the wrong places [according to the society] – the sheep pen, the wrong side of the temple, the sick, etc. He feeds folk and heals folk. Then he goes so far as to bear our sins on the cross.
He didn't create Church structures, he created followers whom he blessed to spread the word. The Holy Spirit [ one of the original partners] helped create some of that "church stuff" ie sacraments – or at least guided the thoughts of men to do that.
Bottom line – top down or bottom up are creations of men. All in it together – a creation of God. Good luck as you sort through this. You and your church community will be blessed by it! I look forward to hearing where you go with it!
Raine
One of my favorite pastors in the Bay Area, some years ago, told her board of Presbyters the following: I will put a bomb under my church before I permit you to dethrone me. The hierarchal structures of church groups today, having been too heavily influenced by Pauline ideas, Calvinisim and Western Euro-Centric ideas and carnality I suspect, have resulted in what we have today, powerful corporate preachers and pastors who have and are simply building their own fiefdoms and enclaves. The church buildings are their monuments, if not their tombstones!
You are a cutting edge preacher and pastor, one who is not afraid to think outside of the box. Your message is timely given all of the negative publicity about church, church and ecclesial structures that have also been noted in American the media of late. America has its own problem with what I have been preaching about for the past decade, ‘American Corporate Church Syndrome’! If we keep doing what we've been doing, we'll simply keep getting what we've been getting.
Rev C. Solomon addenda …The problem that occurred with Reid Temple in your area is pervasive in church hierarchical structures and organizations throughout the land. If we are the salt of the Earth, the corporate church, in this context – who can American corporations look to in order to steer them on the right path, since church the church leadership is following the same course that American corporations are on, i.e., power, control and maximizing profits? It reminds me of Daddy Grace, Father Divine, Reverend Ike …, and let's not forget the white ministries with powerful icons – Jim Jones is a good example of what happens when the Pastor, be she male or female, becaomes 'da man'!
One pastor from Atlanta, out of sorts said the following: My people were driving me so crazy, that one day I thought about going and smoking a joint!