Thursday, January 31, 2008

Wine and Wineskins

What should church look like?
How should it be structured?
In what ways and to what extent should it be organized?
Of course, those are questions that Christians and Christian institutions have been wrestling with for centuries. But what are the answers, and where can they be found?
I dare say that Scripture is the first place we should look. But as someone who has searched Scripture on this topic, I've found the New Testament curiously lacking when it comes to an exact, detailed blueprint on how church should be structured.
Now, I know that last comment would raise some furor among those who believe their particular way of doing church comes straight out of God's Word. Nevertheless, I challenge anyone to show me where this clear blueprint is found.
Admittedly, the New Testament does contain some structural tidbits here and there - the appointment of deacons in Acts to deal with a food distribution problem, Paul's mention of various offices or functions in his letters - but if you're wanting a clear-cut, complete, and fully functional set of instructions on how to set up, run, and maintenance a church institution or organization, the New Testament leaves more blank spaces than answered questions.
And if there is a precise, God-appointed way of doing and structuring church, then I have to say that the New Testament writers failed miserably in passing that information along. Jesus Himself, the head and founding father of the church, was practically silent regarding matters of form and structure, at least as far as the Gospel writers recorded.
So, what is the reason for this obvious lack of Scriptural information on how to order church?
Could it be that the New Testament writers didn't regard this issue of organization as all that important? If that's the case, then how can modern institutional church justify its obsession with matters of organization and proper order?
Could it be that the early church founders were pretty much playing it by ear, organizing and structuring as stuctural needs arose? There seems to be some evidence for that in Scripture, particularly in the book of Acts. And if that's the case, should the structural solutions they came up with be regarded as sacred law 2,000 years later? Should organizational and institutional constructs established in the centuries since the time of the early church be viewed as sacred? Or to state it another way, does the fact that people do something in a certain way for a long period of time make that practice or organizational structure sacred?
For me, the question boils down to whether or not God regards our sacred cows as sacred? If so, then fine - but, out of the thousands of different governmental structures and liturgies out there in the Christian world, whose particular arrangement of cows is in line with God's will and how can we know that way of doing things is right? But if our sacred cows are just ordinary cows to God, then a whole lot of people have been tortured, burned at the stake, excommunicated, ostricized, or given the left foot of fellowship for no good reason.
While I believe there is no single Scripturally-ordained way of structuring the church, Scripture is abundant and very detailed when it comes to how we are to relate to each other and to God. The vast majority of Christ's teachings center on those two kinds of relationship. And, maybe, Jesus didn't give a detailed, structural blueprint for church because these ties of relationship between man and man and man and God are the sum total of what His church is - whether it's happening in a cathedral, a living room, or up on a hillside.
I think Jesus gave a big clue to this structural question in His parable of the wineskins. I believe the wine represents our relationships with each other and Him, and the wineskins represent the structural forms within which these relationships exist. The problem throughout history has been that when wineskins have been in place too long, they become unable to take on new wine without bursting. And Christian history has demonstrated this problem a thousand times over. New revelation and fresh spiritual infusion almost always meet with resistance from the old forms and institutions, and, inevitably, new forms and institutions have to be established in order to hold the new wine.
But wineskins always get old eventually, and the wine of relationships they contain begin to stagnate or go sour. In such cases the wineskins themselves often become the central focus, and the matter of relationship is downplayed as a mere component of the bigger institutional machine.
With all that said, I think that one of the challenges that Christ has set before His bride is to learn how to have structure and form without turning those forms into idols of worship. Our Bridegroom wants us to learn to love Him and each other more than whatever house we happen to be living in. And if we can learn to employ organizations and institutions without becoming slaves to our own creations, we might be able to break this centuries old cycle and move forward with advancing Christ's kingdom on this planet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great blog. (Actually, I read them all - loved them!) Thanks for the comment on "God is not a Book" (WarriorInk / Wordpress). Couldn't agree with you more! Are you familiar with http://www.jakecolsen.com (fictional book asks questions relating to institutionalized Christianity vs. relationship with the Father - free ebook online). Keep the blogs coming!