Compromised Design
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After my previous post a friend of mine had a question about what I meant when I wrote, “…There's something about the way the modern church is structured that sabotages relationships.” Specifically, he wanted to know what exactly it was about the way modern churches are structured that damages relationships in this way. I’m going to try and tackle that here.
So let’s begin with how churches are structured. No matter what denomination you are, no matter whether you attend a conservative or liberal church, no matter whether your church has been around for 200 years or was just planted yesterday, in nearly every case your church looks something like this:
Organizing Vision or Mission
Leadership (Team)
Programs and Activities (including the Weekly Worship Gathering)
Budget
Volunteers
And I’m here to tell you today that this structure (Organizing Vision/Leadership/Programs and Activities) is broken.
Let me explain: the structure I just outlined (Vision/Leadership/Programs - hereafter refered to as “VLP” for brevity) is a great model for a non-profit organization. In fact, if you’re starting a non-profit, you have to organize it into the VLP structure I just outlined to get any funding. And the reason why it’s so great is it helps to show people what the organization’s about, why it does what it does, and why people should contribute their time and money.
In other words, VLP is a great model for an impersonal, professional organization.
But the thing that makes the VLP structure so solid is that it moves trust from individuals and relationships to the soundness of the structure itself. I feel comfortable donating to certain organizations (and not others) because I’ve read their vision statements, I’ve seen how they’re organized, and I know that even if one person fails, the mission will be carried on. In other words, VLP works so well for non-profits because it redirects everyone’s efforts to something bigger than any one person: the organization.
That’s a great model for a non-profit. But how about for a church?
Well, if the goal of the church is sustained organizational “success”, then VLP is the way to go. But the church has never been in existence for its own sake. The health of a church has never been measured by the size of its budget or by how long ago it was founded. As odd and paradoxical as this sounds, a truly healthy church must be ready to put its own existence as an organization to death in order to serve its primary mission, which is to make witnesses and disciple makers of Jesus Christ.
This is a really strange concept: if you start an organization in order to fulfill a mission, no one would blame you if you had a hard time imagining or envisioning achieving that mission by your organization disappearing one day. It’s almost by definition impossible to envision this.
And this is the exact problem with the VLP structure: VLP automatically redirects the effort of everyone involved into the organization itself. When you set up and direct a group into carrying out programs and activities that are created in order to achieve a mission, you make the mission synonymous with organization. This is VLP in action. This is how we get multi-million dollar budgets and modern cathedrals, this is how many of the most “successful” ministries leave a path of burnout and jaded ex-followers. VLP is so effective at focusing the energy and resources of individuals towards the organization’s success, that it gets easier and easier along the way for people within the organization to compromise on the founding vision.
This also answers the original question. Modern church structure (VLP) sabotages relationships because VLP creates room for the relationships to become a means to the greater success of the organization, rather than precious in and of themselves. Think about your small group experiences. Because a small group is organized as a program of the church, you’ve created two facets to a relationship when normally there would be only one: the relationship itself. But in an organized small group, you’re not only in relationship with one another, you’re also there as members of an entity of the larger church organization. And now your relationship with one another also has some bearing on the larger church (i.e. to put it bluntly: healthy small groups are seen as a sign of a successful church).
And this opens the door to small group members being seen more as statistics rather than beloved children of God. Your volunteers start to be seen as resources that allow you to do bigger and better things. And your relationships with fellow church members begin to be evaluated in light of the larger organization, rather than precious friendships in and of themselves. This isn’t an unfortunate accident. This is what VLP is designed to do: focus our efforts towards the larger organization.
So what can we do? How do we form a church if we don’t have a vision statement, leadership, and programs and activities? The good news is that, biblically speaking, the possibilities are wide open when it comes to being the church.
Even so, I’ll be honest with you. I have a hard time imagining what this looks like in practice. But I think I have to try, because I don’t think VLP is going to leave my children or grandchildren with much of a church to speak of.
I’m going to keep searching for what this could look like. And I hope you’ll join me.