The Presbyterian Polis - Connecting Churches to Churches

Are Categorical Distinctions Helpful?

Jan Edmiston writes about a presentation Glenn McDonald, pastor of Zionsville Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, gave at her Presbytery's meeting this week.  He spoke about church transformation ...

... that those under the age of 39 are "natives" to the culture and those over 39 (that would include me) are immigrants. We are the foreigners who don't speak the language, share the same worldview, etc.

Jan was not pleased with the distinction.

Would I sound defensive if I said that it's not about age; it's about mentality?

Leonard Sweet wrote "the natives" are from the same "psychographic" instead of the same demographic. They want to be in touch with the culture while also being "in tune with the Spirit." Personally speaking, I love the culture and can only pray that I'm not totally out of tune with the Spirit.

Having said this, I worry about potentially embarrassing myself (not to mention my kids) by "not acting my age."

I find it fascinating how we try to separate people and churches into various types or market segments. Natives-immigrants. Traditional-contemporary. Attractional-missional.  We end of living in the tyranny of categorical distinctives.

Hey, I want to make sense of the landscape too, but these categories are way too minimalistic. It all goes to the old game of who's in and who's out. These descriptions do say something, but they don't say everything.

From my perspective, we are still looking at the church in far too narrow ways. If we threw out all the terminology and all the categories and looked at the church and every other human institution as if we were from Jupiter, what then would we say?

I know that I sound like a crank or at best a contrarian.  I'm not because I do think these categories have meaning. I just don't think that we should endow them with an importance that divides the church into haves and have-nots based on these categorical distinctives. 

I know this will sound odd too, but as an organizational consultant, I think what we have done is essentially dehumanized the church.  We have done so by trying to say the difference between the church and other organizations is how we are organized. We have a different mission, a different governance structure, a different this or that. 

My experience with churches is the same as with non-profits and for-profit organizations.  The problems are human problems and spiritual problems.  Ironically, the solutions are often organizational solutions. 

The church's problems aren't primarily theological. Instead, our problems are often due to knowing more theology than we understand how to live.  From my perspective, that is a spiritual discipline problem that can be solved organizationally as we require practicality and application in our theological discussions. 

The dehumanization of the church has meant that we have become more a socio-political institution that operates by a type of ideological correctness that says "You are in" and "You are out."  This political/social correctness is based on subscribing to specific conceptions of the church and its theology.  Wander too far off the prescribed path, and you are out.  Stay intellectually compliant (ie: lazy or robotic), and you remain in, regardless of your categorical distinctive.

These categorical distinctions have merit as differing ways the church is addressing its place in a particular culture. So, to pit high-church against low-church, connectional against congregational, attractional against missional, traditional against contemporary is to miss the point.  Our distinctives are born in the interpretation of Scripture within a human organizational context. 

Churches are human institutions, no matter what theological rationale we attach to them. They are human institutions just like any other organization.  The distinctive is not in the organization but in the people and their relationships to one another.  What distinguishes the church from all other organizations is the endwelling of the Holy Spirit in the lives and relationships of its members.

What this means to me is that we human beings do not control the organic community of the church. When we confuse the church as a structural organization with the communal nature of a Spirit-bound society, we fall back on our tendency to draw lines in the sand and say who is in and who is out.   

I can't tell you how many churches with whom I've conducted projects over the years whose whole identity was built on not being like another church.   They were "In"  and even in decline, they knew they were the "true" church.  Their categorical distinctive blinded them to the realities of what it "truly" means to be the church.

Ultimately, what we need are criteria that transcend these categorical distinctives, that tell us how we can be a healthy community of God's children.  The answer lies in both an understanding of the church as a spiritual society and as an institution. And the answer lies beyond these categorical distinctives.

Church as Distraction

My blogging buddy Bill Kinnon has a gift for expressing deeply felt things about the church in ways that resonate with many people.  In his posting, To the People formally known as the Congregation, he offers insight that should be read in its entirety. Go read it and come back. I have a couple things to say.

Thanks for returning.

Here's the essential issue that I see in what Bill writes and what I tried to say in a previous posting called Christianity as Abstraction.  It is also what I tried to get at in my comment to Bill on his polemic.

There are plenty of reasons to be critical, even cynical. That's okay as long as it leads to something positive and constructive.

The problem isn't the church, or worship, or music, or sermons or even egotistical pastors. Those are all symptoms of some other thing. In this sense, the church is a distraction from what is really at issue.

At the heart of what Bill is saying, and many others are affirming, is really the loss of our humanity. 

To regain our humanity is to live truthfully as a person whose interior and exterior lives are connected in some meaningful way.  We live in a culture that celebrates the surface of life and denies the issues of human identity, purpose and relationships.  Yet, it will be here that we find a way to be the church that fulfills the hope that lingers in the shadows of Bill's polemic.

The question then is how do I live a whole human life and what place does God and the church have in that quest?

UPDATE: Since I wrote the above, I've read the additional links that Bill has provided.  One additional thought. The church is the way it is because of the people who are there. If you don't like, take a moment or more to reflect on your own contributions to the dysfunction that is the church.  There are no perfect churches.  No perfect people.

It may well be that the problem with serial church shoppers isn't the church but their own inability to commit to the work and sacrifice to make the church what it is supposed to be.  I say something about that at another time.

Community or Institution - A False Dicotomy?

Alan Hirsch points to a book by Howard Snyder written two decades ago on renewal in the church.  One of Snyder's theses is 

"The church is essentially the community of God’s people, not primarily an organization, institution, program, or building. This is a distinction of fundamental importance because it is linked to the basic models of the church which Christians employ."

This is the conventional thinking about the church. The reality is that community and institutionalism are separate realities. One is about how people interact with one another,and the other is about the structure of that interaction.

This dicotomy is not the problem.  Churches are both communities and institutions.  The problem is that being a community requires more initiative by the whole church than do the institutional aspects of programs, operations and facilities management.

The problem is not this dicotomy. The problem is a spiritual one.  Community is a human experience. The work of managing programs, operating programs and caring for the facilities is primarily an intellectual process.  It is analysis, decision-making and follow-through.  The better the relationships (community) are the more likely the work will achieve a higher level of excellence.

These dicotomies are not uncommon. For example, often I find in working with non-profit boards that they will emphasis program over operations or vice versa.  It goes to the talent and interest of the members, the focus of the executive director, and many other reasons. And it is the case that a healthy organization is focused on both program and operations. The same is true of the church.

It does not serve the church to make this distinction. It only serves the church to make a clear distinction between being faithful in community and faithful in the stewardship of the organization of the church.

HT: Bill Kinnon