A Christ-Centered (or Radically Decentralized) Community Network, part II
This is a follow up to my initial post. In the initial post, I described the ideal of a Christ-Centered Community Network of Local House and Para Churches with Local Rules of Faith. The ideal represents an attempt to embody radical decentralization, while facilitating cooperation among Christ-followers, as is commonly done through denominations and/or mega churches.
So how would one get such a network off the ground? Well, my initial idea was that if you could get a mega church leadership group to sacrificially deconstruct themselves, after paving the way for their parishioners, and merge the resultant larger number of local house churches with a fair number of existing house churches so that the network could have legs to stand on. The reason for wanting to have a larger number of local house churches was to enable cooperation that would make it possible to offer insurance benefits to all of the part-time ministers within the local house churches. Local house churches can't afford to support full-time "staff", but because they don't have to pay for a building and because of their stronger community, they should be able to support part-time ministers. In fact, there would be a much higher ratio of ministry positions per member in a community network of local house churches, relative to mega churches and what-not. But the Achilles' heel of such is the problem of insurance benefits, and so a solution would be to cooperate through local para churches to provide such benefits. Then, the part-time ministers within local house churches could take on outward service-oriented part-time work, where they wouldn't need any benefits, as a critical part of how they manifest their love to their wider communities.
But, to take a step back from that model, you wouldn't need to start with that many local house churches. Even a handful could still cooperate thru local para churches, operating in the image of local house churches, in ways that would help sustain themselves and maintain radical decentralization. And, since smaller sized groups have many in-built advantages, there are reasonable expectations they would grow into more local house churches and that as the number of local house churches grew, they could cooperate in more creative ways.
Also, alternatively, a moderate-sized community network of local house churches could also choose to work with or within a denomination. They would work within a denomination in the same way a mega church does. Albeit, it would probably need to be a denomination that gave its members a fair amount of autonomy, but in doing so, they would likely reduce the understandable antagonism by some against local house churches. And they could support and benefit from missionary networks and youth camping and other stuff. They also could use their role within the denomination to share with others about the advantages of not having to pay for buildings or in taking turns in the facilitation of worship/study or in going deeper in the formation of relationships with each other.
So an ideal is just an ideal, it can and must be modified. Yet, in making modifications, the ideal must be kept ever-present in people's minds, with the modification understood as more transitory. What I like best about the ideal of a community network is that it would strike a balance between the free-church heritage that has emphasized the local church and state-churches that have long cultivated traditions for their cooperation. In a community network, it should be easy to dialogue over our local rules of faith, as there would be less "economics-driven church politics", which should then make our overall witness to others become more vibrant.
dlw
So how would one get such a network off the ground? Well, my initial idea was that if you could get a mega church leadership group to sacrificially deconstruct themselves, after paving the way for their parishioners, and merge the resultant larger number of local house churches with a fair number of existing house churches so that the network could have legs to stand on. The reason for wanting to have a larger number of local house churches was to enable cooperation that would make it possible to offer insurance benefits to all of the part-time ministers within the local house churches. Local house churches can't afford to support full-time "staff", but because they don't have to pay for a building and because of their stronger community, they should be able to support part-time ministers. In fact, there would be a much higher ratio of ministry positions per member in a community network of local house churches, relative to mega churches and what-not. But the Achilles' heel of such is the problem of insurance benefits, and so a solution would be to cooperate through local para churches to provide such benefits. Then, the part-time ministers within local house churches could take on outward service-oriented part-time work, where they wouldn't need any benefits, as a critical part of how they manifest their love to their wider communities.
But, to take a step back from that model, you wouldn't need to start with that many local house churches. Even a handful could still cooperate thru local para churches, operating in the image of local house churches, in ways that would help sustain themselves and maintain radical decentralization. And, since smaller sized groups have many in-built advantages, there are reasonable expectations they would grow into more local house churches and that as the number of local house churches grew, they could cooperate in more creative ways.
Also, alternatively, a moderate-sized community network of local house churches could also choose to work with or within a denomination. They would work within a denomination in the same way a mega church does. Albeit, it would probably need to be a denomination that gave its members a fair amount of autonomy, but in doing so, they would likely reduce the understandable antagonism by some against local house churches. And they could support and benefit from missionary networks and youth camping and other stuff. They also could use their role within the denomination to share with others about the advantages of not having to pay for buildings or in taking turns in the facilitation of worship/study or in going deeper in the formation of relationships with each other.
So an ideal is just an ideal, it can and must be modified. Yet, in making modifications, the ideal must be kept ever-present in people's minds, with the modification understood as more transitory. What I like best about the ideal of a community network is that it would strike a balance between the free-church heritage that has emphasized the local church and state-churches that have long cultivated traditions for their cooperation. In a community network, it should be easy to dialogue over our local rules of faith, as there would be less "economics-driven church politics", which should then make our overall witness to others become more vibrant.
dlw
© 2009 Created by Mark Van Steenwyk
