A Christ-Centered (or Radically Decentralized) Community Network, part I
This is an ecclesial ideal/model that I developed a while back after being first a grad student in Economics and then a seminary student. It took the concept of a house church where relatively few people meet and it is possible to be radically decentralized in decision-making about how we manifest our lives before others and sought to extend that to a wider network of both local house churches and local para churches, with far more scope for cooperation on a large number of matters that often are currently facilitated by denominations or mega churches.
Now, Local House Churches are small (30* or less) gatherings of members with no set or specialized place of worship and with rotating leaders/facilitators. Their purpose is first and foremost to build up the community within themselves. They do this through a sharing of their lives, including regular meals together, worship, ministry and the study of Scripture, Theology, Church history, all with an eye to how they develop their Local Rules of Faith (more later on this).
By contrast, Local Para Churches would be less regular gatherings of (30* or less) stewards who would typically be from different Local House Churches. Local Para Churches would otherwise be in the image of Local House Churches. As such, they would tend to differ somewhat from self-propagating "church offices", as found in denominations or megachurches. All Local Para Churches would be provisional and yet all Local House Churches would be expected to help form (and reform) various Local Para Churches together for a variety of specific tasks. The specific sorts of Local Para Churches would be determined by the Local House Churches. Their purpose would be to provide for cooperation among Local House Churches in areas of (external and internal) ministry. Like Local House Churches, Local Para Churches would share a meal together and have rotating leaders/facilitators. They also would derive all of their power from Local House Churches and have no independent sources of funds.
When more extensive cooperation on specific issues is needed, less Local Para Churches of different degrees of removal from Local House Churches (not Kevin Bacon) would be formed. A Local Para Church of degree n, with n>1, would consist of 30* or less stewards, typically from distinct Local Para Churches of degree n-1. In this way, through the cooperation of a host of Local House and Para Churches, it would be feasible, as the occasion arose, for followers of Christ to manifest as much unity through a relatively Local Para Church as possible, all without sacrificing the principle of radical decentralization implied by a commitment to be centered around Christ alone.
These two sorts of bodies of believers, Local House and Para Churches, would comprise, along with their Local Rules of Faith, a Christ-Centered Community Network. Their relations would bear an isometry with Jesus' relations with the Father, as described towards the end of the book of John. The Community Network would be Christ-Centered because it would have no other center. There would be no center, apart from the ability of its members, all rooted in their Local House Churches, to recognize each other's sincere commitments to following Christ through their ongoing dialogues in their Local Para Churches about their respective Local Rules of Faith.
So that's a taste/draft, more to come...
dlw
Note: 30* above denotes a flexibility on the upper-limits of local house or parachurch members/stewards that would be determined on the basis of experience, perhaps mediated by the development of local rules, not wholly unlike "robert's rules of order" for certain decision-making times.
Now, Local House Churches are small (30* or less) gatherings of members with no set or specialized place of worship and with rotating leaders/facilitators. Their purpose is first and foremost to build up the community within themselves. They do this through a sharing of their lives, including regular meals together, worship, ministry and the study of Scripture, Theology, Church history, all with an eye to how they develop their Local Rules of Faith (more later on this).
By contrast, Local Para Churches would be less regular gatherings of (30* or less) stewards who would typically be from different Local House Churches. Local Para Churches would otherwise be in the image of Local House Churches. As such, they would tend to differ somewhat from self-propagating "church offices", as found in denominations or megachurches. All Local Para Churches would be provisional and yet all Local House Churches would be expected to help form (and reform) various Local Para Churches together for a variety of specific tasks. The specific sorts of Local Para Churches would be determined by the Local House Churches. Their purpose would be to provide for cooperation among Local House Churches in areas of (external and internal) ministry. Like Local House Churches, Local Para Churches would share a meal together and have rotating leaders/facilitators. They also would derive all of their power from Local House Churches and have no independent sources of funds.
When more extensive cooperation on specific issues is needed, less Local Para Churches of different degrees of removal from Local House Churches (not Kevin Bacon) would be formed. A Local Para Church of degree n, with n>1, would consist of 30* or less stewards, typically from distinct Local Para Churches of degree n-1. In this way, through the cooperation of a host of Local House and Para Churches, it would be feasible, as the occasion arose, for followers of Christ to manifest as much unity through a relatively Local Para Church as possible, all without sacrificing the principle of radical decentralization implied by a commitment to be centered around Christ alone.
These two sorts of bodies of believers, Local House and Para Churches, would comprise, along with their Local Rules of Faith, a Christ-Centered Community Network. Their relations would bear an isometry with Jesus' relations with the Father, as described towards the end of the book of John. The Community Network would be Christ-Centered because it would have no other center. There would be no center, apart from the ability of its members, all rooted in their Local House Churches, to recognize each other's sincere commitments to following Christ through their ongoing dialogues in their Local Para Churches about their respective Local Rules of Faith.
So that's a taste/draft, more to come...
dlw
Note: 30* above denotes a flexibility on the upper-limits of local house or parachurch members/stewards that would be determined on the basis of experience, perhaps mediated by the development of local rules, not wholly unlike "robert's rules of order" for certain decision-making times.
Tags: community network, house church, radical decentralization
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by dlw on
-
At my HC, we're thinking of setting up, as part of our "de facto" local rules of faith, an elder board that would rotate the calling for three (or four) of us to discern the right direction for us. It's not settled, but we could have someone serve on the board for three months and every month have someone enter and exit the board.
It'd be kind of a HC within a HC.
There's also a sense that we'd like to be more connected w. the wider Christian community, though we'll see how that happens. We don't want to be a cult, but that term can be loosely used by some. What I think is true is that we want to be able to ensure our family/friends not engaged with the HC movement that we are simply incarnating the faith we share in a somewhat different manner.
dlw
© 2009 Created by Mark Van Steenwyk
