DECONSTRUCTING THE CHURCH

I want to share with you what we are doing in our little community, and why the scenario of deciding who should teach from the pulpit would never come up for us. I don't present this as a "better way" nor as more biblical. I don't have an agenda to get good solid churches like yours to change in our direction. I just want to make the point of how these gender issues are affected by our church structure and recent traditions.

What we have been attempting to do for about four years I will call "deconstructing" the church.... not sure if it is consistent with the postmodern use of the term deconstructing... but basically we have been attempting to digitize the church...that is, reduce it down to its most basic and irreducible form, where, if we remove one more thing, it will no longer be the church. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that the replication of DNA takes place at the cellular level, rather than the most developed, complex level... another is that I am too tired to do the big church thing.... another was the influence of a book by Lamar Boshman on "Future Worship” that traced the locus of emphasis in church life from the sacraments in the middle ages.... to the pulpit in the reformation to the platform in the electronic church.... and he predicted that in the digital age the locus of God's presence would be "in the midst of his people"....

From a missional point of view, I have wanted to develop a model of church life that can easily be replicated in any social group or context with minimal scaffolding...Like catching or uploading a virus. My specific motivation was that I was starting to lose my kids out of church life about 6 or 7 years ago...particularly the two younger ones.... in additional to a lot of their friends in the youth group of our congregation-size church.

So, we started “deconstructing” layers of church life. The building was the first to go…then Sunday School, worship team…centralized giving and a joint financial account, then the leadership structure: the senior pastor, elders and staff. Not surprisingly, one of the hardest things to get rid of was a weekly “meeting” for structured worship (worship meaning music and singing). There is still some rumbling and grumbling about that among the older members of our community. We now allow the smaller committed groups (house churches? Discipleship or accountability groups? Triads? We don’t know what to call them) to decide for themselves how often, when and where to meet. We suggest Acts 2:42 as a guideline for their gathering.

I am more interested in “learning” than teaching and came to the conclusion a long time ago, that my pulpit expositions were rather ineffective tools for learning for the saints. The people that really did listen were the ones who did not need to…the ones that I was aiming at, were the ones who tuned me out. I found that one-on-one conversations with probing questions and challenging exhortations were far more powerful for changing behavior and character and for sparking spiritual growth. Basically, the method Jesus (and Socrates) used. Several years ago, I remember hearing Dr. Dow Robinson trace the modern church ‘meeting’ back to Greek Theater. That scared me.

So… we developed a model in our community where a small group of peers meet for prayer, fellowship and discussion (Acts 2:42). The “apostle’s teaching” for us, is reading a portion of scripture and then discussing it. The facilitator function is usually rotated among the various participants with the facilitator asking questions for discussion (like one might do in a blog) rather than giving opinions. Occasionally, someone will be inspired to give a more lengthy exhortation, or “teaching.” Sometimes someone will prophesy. These teachings, exhortations and prophesies are just as likely to come from a woman as a man. We encourage everyone to give, but we do not ‘direct’ their giving.

Behind the scenes…the heads of household are meeting once or twice a month to discuss issues in the community, such as the frequency and format of the meetings, pastoral needs, possible problems, financial needs, conflicts, etc. They operate as a team, with minimal interference from me or the other older guys, although they know that we are here for them if they need us.

Deb and I meet with the older group. I try to stay as absent as possible (at the university campus) to keep them from developing a dependence on my initiative or leadership gifts, and I leave the functioning of the group up to them and their initiative. Our basic meeting format is the same as I outlined above. There is no agenda or even necessarily a program for discussion. We get together, eat a meal…hang out and talk…and occasionally someone has a question or a scripture, or a song, or even a teaching. Often it is my wife. I have no doubt that she has as much or more influence with the group than me. When she talks, people listen. There is no pulpit. Everyone has a seat at the table. We operate very much on 1Cor. 14:26:

“What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.”

Notice it says each one has a teaching…the only way it is possible to have every member contributions is to keep the group small, and to not program or choreograph it.

In such a scenario…the issue of whether to exclude women from teaching or to cautiously invite a few of the mature women to teach is never an issue. Of course, you could still have wounded women trying to dominate or hijack a meeting just as you might have dysfunctional men doing that. That is where the “bottom-up, ‘unordered’ servant leaders” come in to gently steer things away from one or two people dominating.

I’m not holding this up as a superior model…and it is nothing new. Basically, it is the same approach that the Quakers used, and later the Plymouth Brethren. It is not too far away from Wesley’s class method.

But the point that I am obsessively trying to make is that the more institutional layers with offices and leadership functions there are in the church…the more obligated the church will be to include women in these offices or be seen as excluding them. Those who continue to hold to the church ‘as an institution’ of society will have a rocky road ahead…and as many conservative Christians are fond of saying… “sound the battle cry”. I personally hate to spill blood or fight over institutional accretions that are not even part of the New Testament church.

However, if we continue to “deconstruct” the church institutions back to the most basic forms (family-cell) as many started to in the mid-70s, we can eliminate or avoid most of the head-on conflict (be wise as serpents) and keep the focus on marriage relationships and family structure itself, rather than on church offices. I don’t believe women should be bishops… neither do I believe men should be bishops. I am not in favor of men or women being senior pastors, because I don’t see the role in scripture. I am not really in favor of men or women preaching in the pulpit… mostly because I see it as ineffective.

I hope this sheds some light on the vital connection I see between gender issues and church structure. Feel free to critique my argument.