And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. | Ephesians 4:11–16
A few weeks ago, the pastors of Communion Church spent some time away with the elders from all of the 3strand churches. Part of this weekend was spent in prayer and planning for Communion church specifically. One of the topics that was discussed was how our church was organized and the culture that we hope to produce.
When it comes to the governance and order of the local church, the Bible does not say as much as we want it to. Instead, it gives us fruit to cultivate and characteristics to instill. There are a great number of imperatives for how we should act toward one another: love one another, care for one another, exhort one another, forgive one another…(there are 20+ one another commands in the NT). How these are accomplished is not explicitly laid out.
We live in a capitalistic culture that tends to view all relationships through a consumerist lens. This is true of personal relationships (we weigh the cost/benefit of others), but it is also true of our relationship to institutions. Many churches have chosen to meet this expectation and do their best to provide for the people what they want. I am not just talking about watered down sermons and Easter giveaways (though both of those are examples of this trend), but the general idea that the church is an organization where the pastors give and the people receive (and the members pay the pastors for doing the work). This is not the picture of the church that we see in the NT.
Instead, we see a vibrant body, where people are using their varied gifts to serve one another. The leaders of the church are responsible to equip and build up the body so that it can effectively operate in this way. The main task of the pastors is to make sure the church is set up so that the members can minister to one another and grow in their faith.
A good metaphor of this comes from the book The Trellis and the Vine. The title of this book describes the two things that must grow for a church to mature: trellis and vine. The trellis is the structure of the church – the building, the schedules, the governance, and the events. The vine is the organic, spiritual development of the people. The trellis serves to help the vine grow. Without a good trellis, the vine will be stunted; but a trellis with no vine (the church model I described above) is missing the point entirely. The leaders of the church must be thinking about what sort of trellis is necessary to equip the people for the work of ministry – recognizing that sometimes the way to stimulate growth is to downsize the structure to give room. Before I lay out any details, I thought it was important to know that this is where we start, to quote the book mentioned:
We are training people to be contributors and servants, not spectators and consumers. | The Trellis and the Vine
With this in mind, we put together a plan for how our church is built to encourage people to move from being consumers to being contributors:
What this describes is the part that we believe the structures of the church play in equipping. The church events (all of the ministries we run) unify the people of God around His truth, as people practice the ‘one another’ commands. We bring this unity into the Sunday gathering, where we are equipped by the Word, strengthened through His sacraments, and are built up through worshiping in one voice. This gives us the motivation and strength to take His Word out to our community as individuals on mission.
Let me get into a bit more detail of the organized and organic aspect of each of these, because it may help in understanding why we do things the way that we do AND it may help people in the church find their place.
CHURCH EVENTS
There is probably a better term for this, but I was having a hard time coming up with it. As a church, we have all of these regularly scheduled groups and Bible studies so that there is both an organized place for our people to engage, but also because they are the catalyst for organic opportunities. People come to a community group that is a church function, but beyond the benefit of the time spent together, an organic, relational trust is formed. People make plans to get coffee; childcare is offered; accountability is formed. None of the things mentioned are structurally planned by the leaders, but they are the organic growth that comes from sharing intentionally time together.
We want every one of these to intentionally feed our Sunday gatherings, not replace or take from them. A perfect example of this is Youth Group, which is sometimes seen as an alternative to ‘big church’ for the kids. At Communion Church, the Youth Group unifies the kids to one another, and to the body as a whole. The kids have taken on some of the family chores, including: trash, coffee, and we have youth preparing communion for the church. In all of this, it is reinforcing that they are part of the church family. An organic result of this is that some members of our congregation have chosen to mentor some of the older kids as they prepare for adulthood. When kids attend our Youth Group, they are developing relationships with numerous mature believers as they make friends and deepen their understanding of the gospel which unifies us as a church.
SUNDAY SERVICE
There are things that happen in our Sunday gatherings that are unique. The people of God meeting to pray, sing, read the Word, receive the sacraments, give our tithes, and fellowship is trusting in God’s ordinary means of grace to grow and strengthen His church. By ‘ordinary,’ I mean that God has told us to regularly meet and follow this simple liturgy; through it, He will do the organic work of sanctification. The church has, from the beginning, done just this. These are not elements to be ‘reverse engineered’ or replicated; God tells us to worship Him in Spirit and truth and to trust Him for the results. This is why we prioritize Sunday and see it as such an integral part of the Christian life. This is how God has chosen to build up His people. While there are other things we can do, they all flow from here.
OUTREACH
As a church we are connected to a number of ministries and support a number of missionaries. This is the church modeling outreach, not the extent of it. Instead, we see all of life as worship and ministry. As you are equipped and strengthened through the church, you are sent out to live a life worthy of the calling. The opportunities to share the gospel and to act as ministers of reconciliation are all around. Rather than putting on numerous outreach programs at the church, we expect the members to apply their lives to outreach. It would be foolish for us to try to gather people at a physical location when God has already scattered His people in various neighborhoods, families, and jobs.
In order for the people of the church to take on these opportunities, we try to keep the number of events at church to a minimum. We don’t want people to spend all of their time at the church, when we are to be salt and light to the world around us. Your pastors have tried to model this by being involved in personal ministry throughout the community. We volunteer and serve outside of the church, because we believe that this is the proper outworking of God’s grace to us.
This is the vision that we have for the people of God at Communion Church: a people who love and sacrifice for one another as a community, who gather to receive grace from God, to go out and bring the truth of the gospel to the unique places that God has placed them.