The Destiny of All Churches?

Ok, yet another click-baity title. I couldn’t resist!

In all seriousness though, I’d like to pick up where I left off with my previous post: is there something about the structure of church as we know it (at least in the Western world) that not only allows toxic leadership to inhabit our communities of faith, but actually encourages it?

First, what do I mean by “structure of church as we know it”? Without going too deep into the weeds, by “structure of church” I’m talking about the organization of a group of Christian believers around a set of a so-called “professional Christians” (pastors and staff) and volunteer leaders, usually with some kind of governance structure and membership requirements (which can range from very formally stated to low key and possibly even unwritten).

Why do I think there’s something in this structure itself that may encourage the growth of toxic leadership, such as we hear about so regularly in the modern Christian news cycle? Well I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the idea of membership or formally organizing as Christians per se. In and of itself membership requirements and by laws are just tools that humans use when trying to be something together. And while I do have some questions about what paying our pastoral staff does to the typical Christian community, I don’t think that that in and of itself is the root cause of any problems. That is to say: a professional pastoral staff can work just fine, and in fact brings with it some key advantages.

My main misgiving is that this kind of church structure by its nature has a very dangerous Achilles heel, one that gives out time and time again, in church after church after church. And that Achilles heel is this: this kind of church structure makes it far too easy for Christian disciples to become individualistic in their faith, and leave too much of the communal aspect of their discipleship to the professionals. And when this happens, the church body, which should be made up of actively engaged followers of Christ investing into the lives of their neighbors, striving to love one another and follow Christ into and discover Christ in their communities, too often becomes just a mass of spiritual consumers hoping to have an uplifting enough experience on Sunday to help them last another week.

Toxic leadership thrives in such soil.

I love great teaching and inspired worship leading as much as anyone. The problem is that not only are those things are not enough, they can actually mask a core structural problem. Nobody asks any questions when the teaching is on fire every week, and the faithful walk out every Sunday humming the latest and greatest worship hit, excited to come back the next week. But shouldn’t we be asking questions every week, or at least often? Isn’t that what being in community and relationship looks like?

In my core relationships, I treasure the times when no questions need to be asked, and we are in wonderment as we journey through this amazing thing called life together. But how do we get to those moments? Through the hard work of building trust with one another, ironing out misunderstandings, and maturing as people who can forgive and reconcile with one another. This is the work of community, the communal aspect of Christian discipleship. Unfortunately in the typical church structure the communal aspects of discipleship are too easy to just slide over to the desks of the professionals, and instead of focusing on growing communally through conflict, reconciliation, and a deepening sense of love, we Christian professionals take the wide and easy road of just making sure that the preaching/music/childcare are all good.

Usually when we say that there are too many cooks in the kitchen, we mean that what’s needed is unity and obedience. Those of course aren’t bad things in and of themselves. But community, especially Christian community, takes all of us. How will anyone know that forgiveness is needed unless someone raises their voice, either for themselves or on behalf of a sister or brother? How will reconciliation happen unless we take time to listen not just to those behind the mic, but to one another?

It took thousands of years, but we’ve perfected the art of handing over the communal aspects of our discipleship to religious professionals. That hasn’t gone so well. It’s time to imagine and cultivate new structures for our churches, ones that call disciples to grow not only personally, but communally.