The Biblical Mission of Church Struggle

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Introduction: Concerning the Divine Purpose and the Church Structure

Making the church structure completely adequate in relation to its purpose is a very difficult task, which requires a lot of planning, careful interpretation of the Biblical prescriptions concerning the role of church in people’s lives, and even more careful evaluation of the role of every single member in the church.

Despite the fact that there are quite a lot of types of churches, each having its own structure, set of regulations and purpose, not all of these churches align with the Divine Purpose and every single moral dimension, not to mention the Biblical principles.

Although the structure and mission of a church is very hard to arrange, by analyzing the existing types of churches and evaluating their structure and mission, one can possibly come up with a design of a perfect church, the purpose and structure of which are perfectly aligned.

Church Struggle in Motion: Revealing the Biblical Mission

When it comes to defining the specifics of tension between the currently existing types of churches, the two defining features that split the existing churches apart are their mission and purpose. The difference in the two latter elements can be explained in many ways. Some see the reason for the arguments concerning mission and purpose to occur due to the imperfections of the existing translations of Bible.

Others prefer to point out that a number of stories told in the Bible can be interpreted in a number of different ways even in the source language, i.e., Latin, not to mention the transformations that the Book of Books undergoes when being translated into another language.

The fact that the authorship of some Gospels has not been defined yet also gives a number of reasons to suspect that the true purpose of the church needs to be sought harder for. Finally, the interpretation of the translations also allows for a number of misconceptions. As a result, numerous churches with different missions and purposes appear.

Split Apart: Four Types of Churches. A Detailed Close-up

Before going on any further, it is necessary to stress that there are four basic types of church that need to be looked at in order to distill the elements that a perfect church must incorporate.

Hybrid Church: watching the chemistry of different concepts mix

Perhaps, one of the most recent editions of people’s vision of church, the hybrid church offers a compromise between two different church types and, therefore, allows for helping people with a different idea of God and His divine purpose find reconciliation under the same roof¹.

It is quite peculiar that the given church is often compared to the car model of the same name; in fact, in one of the explanations on how the given church works, it is clearly stated that the basic principle of the church organization is very close to the one of a hybrid car.

Structure: when two systems are intertwined

As it has been stressed above, a hybrid church is composed of two basic principles, i.e., attracting new members, which makes it similar to the traditional attractional church, and helping its members enlighten the rest of the population, therefore, increasing the number of parish members.

As a result, the structure of the hybrid church is a little bit more complicated than the ones of the rest of the churches considered below.

Since the two elements of the hybrid church are completely interchangeable, it is possible to switch from the traditional church structure to an organic house church².

While the given approach does seem rather efficient and comfortable for the church members to use, it is important to keep in mind that the given approach requires that the actions of every single member of the parish should be coordinated with the actions of the rest of the members³, which is extremely hard to put into practice. As a result, a number of complexities may arise in the process⁴.

Purpose: come-and-go principle

As it has been stressed, the hybrid church is often compared to a hybrid car in that it encompasses several issues and allows for not only letting its parish come, but also go, as one of the church representatives states.

Therefore, the church works as not only the place where people come to feel a part of the divine plan, but also as the means to enlighten more people about the wonders of Jesus Christ. Thus, in some sense, the purpose of the hybrid church becomes very close to the one of missionaries, who spread God’s word and convert others to Christianity.

Organic Church: when all elements are kept in balances

In contrast to the previously mentioned concept of a church, an organic church does not herald itself as the saving grace of those who have not been converted into Christianity yet; quite on the contrary, organic church does not blow its grandness to the epic proportions – in fact, it does not even presuppose building the church itself⁵.

From what the adepts of the Organic Church say, the given institution represents the pure attempt at contacting God as the Organic Church followers understand this process, be it a monologue with one’s conscience or an attempt to contact the superior spirit.

Revealing the very nature of an organic church is quite complicated, though, since even the Bible does not provide the exact definition of the given institution: “The Bible speaks about the Organic Church on more ways than one”⁶. It is also quite peculiar that the definitions provided by different authors on different time slots concerned various aspects of church organization.

The Apostle Paul, for instance, makes it clear that the collection of churches with their headquarters in Jerusalem is traditionally called an organized church.

To make things even more complicated, there is a definition of an organic church provided by Jesus; according to the latter, an organic church, also named by Him as Laodicea, i.e., the lukewarm church, is a church that is “rich, increased in goods, and has need of nothing”⁷.

At this point, it could be argued whether the traditional Christian values or the state of wealth and prosperity was being mentioned; however, it will be most reasonable to accept Venden’s supposition and assume that Christian values were being talked about.

Structure: omnia mea mecum porto

Though one might have thought that, being that ancient, the organic church must be well-established in the contemporary society and have a well-developed structure, with every single member performing his or her duties and with every single process being coordinated by the person assigned for it.

However, when it comes to analyzing the basic elements of the organic church structure, one is most likely to find that, over centuries, people have not actually figured out how to structure the church that Jesus Himself was said to start. For example, one of the key peculiarities of an organic church model is that there is no pastor in it. Indeed, for a church, it is rather weird to have no leader.

However, the organic church is not about being controlled by a leader; instead, it is about serving God. That being said, in the organic church, the principle of equality and shared responsibility is used among the members of the parish; there is a pastor, who has the same status as the rest of the parish members, and no specific location for meetings. The only leader of the organic church is Jesus Christ.

Purpose: fulfilling God’s eternal purpose

As it has been stressed, the concept of the organic church is rooted deeply in the history of Christianity; hence multiple ideas concerning its purpose stem from. Now that so many years have passed since the principles of the Christian faith were created and expressed, it is practically impossible to track down the true meaning of the organic church and what it was supposed to symbolize, not to mention what it was supposed to accomplish.

However, some interpretations of the existing sources still allow for making the concept of the organic church more or less articulate. For example, there is a suggestion that the organic church is supposed to help people find God, learn about His love and receive His guidance by encouraging people to actually do something.

In other words, the members of the parish do not wait until the Kingdom appears in front of them – quite on the contrary, they blaze their trail to it: “regular Christians are empowered to do the work of the Kingdom and are not waiting for the professionals to do it for them”⁸.

Simple Church: when “simple” does not mean “primitive”

When hearing the word “simple,” most people think of the “primitive” immediately. However, the latter concept is definitely inapplicable to the Simple Church.

Structure: flexibility is the key

Despite its name, a simple church appears to be extremely flexible in that it allows for more options for its parish. When compared to other types of churches, simple church seems especially attracting, since it does not intrude into one’s lifestyle and does not demand that one should make radical changes to his or her course of life for the sake of joining the church.

On the one hand, such flexibility can be considered as a great opportunity to help more people find their way to God. On the other hand, the Simple Church can give people the false notion of being a believer a something that does not give any obligations.

Purpose: meeting people’s needs

However, one still cannot deny the Simple Church its ability to fulfill its purpose as no other church can. Designed to meet people’s needs and guide them to the enlightenment, Simple Church, in fact, is designed to choose the simplest, for the lack of a better word, path that can lead every single member of the parish to become a disciple and be able to speak to God.

With that being said, the mission statement of the Simple church is as simple as it can get; according to what the church leaders say, the mission statement can be literally translated as “Love God, love others, serve the world”⁹.

Attractional Church: getting the priorities straight

Usually referred to as traditional church, attractional church presupposes that the emphasis of recruiting new members.

Structure: driven by gospel

Being different from the rest of the churches only in its basic purpose, which is discussed below, attractional church has the same structure as a traditional Christian church, with the pastor, his assistant and the ministers.

However, one of the key specifics of the attractional church is that its structure is never the key priority – instead, the leaders of the church, as well as its members, are focused on recruiting new members and enlightening people by telling them about Jesus and spreading the Word of God¹⁰.

Purpose: centrality of the gospel

Often defined as a gospel-driven church¹¹, the attritional church pretty much states its purpose with its very title. Even though at present, the idea of missionary work as the key purpose of religious communities has been downplayed greatly, some churches still believe that they must spread the Word of God and convert the rest of the population into their religion, and the attractional church is one of these communities.

However, weirdly enough, the key purpose of the attractional church is not to convert as many people into its realm as possible, but to attract as much people as possible so that they could build their relationship with Jesus and God through the attractional church.

Perhaps, this is not the wisest choice possible, seeing how Hirsch makes it clear that such endeavors only alienate the church from the rest of the world: “I can’t emphasize how deeply affecting this is for most non-Christian people who are generally happy to explore Jesus but don’t particularly want to be ‘churched’ in the process”¹².

Truly, it would be not very wise to assume that one would happily accept church’s intrusion into his or her own life, plans and relationships with other people. Therefore, it can be assumed that the given type of church is the one that causes the least excitement among the rest of the denominations.

Analysis and Interpretation: Where Principles Cross

Considering the aforementioned type of churches, one must note that they can be split into two major categories, i.e., the ones that lay the emphasis on the church as a religious institution, and the ones that consider solving the problems of the community as their key task.

Thus, while the former prefer to focus on recruiting new members, the latter actually do something for their members. However, it must also be mentioned that the former types of churches have an admittedly superior structure.

The Image of an Ideal Church: Food for Thoughts and Spirit

Judging by the analysis above, an ideal church should offer people an opportunity to search for a dialogue with God.

Structure: every detail in its place

Setting the church members in their places and assigning them with the responsibilities that they could acclaim and be able to produce good results is not an easy task, which, in the light of an incredibly complicated Christian hierarchy, makes the process of structuring a church incredibly complicated.

It would be very easy to follow the track of the organic church and decide not to have any person in charge whatsoever, with no particular place to have sermons at, etc. However, the given decision must be made very carefully.

According to the tradition set by the Christian Church, there must be at least seven people to make sure that the church embrace the entire community and helps the parish members in every field possible; these are the pastor, the assistant, the youth minister, the education director, the facilities manager and the men’s ministry¹³.

To arrange these people in the right way and make sure that the needs of each member of the parish are addressed, it is necessary to introduce a very simple structure, which the simple church can offer.

Purpose: for the love of God

As it has been stressed above, an ideal church must not stand in the way of people’s relationships with God. Therefore, making the idea of converting every man possible into a Christian is absolutely unacceptable as the church purpose, like the attractional church did it.

Speaking of the idea that the organic church offers as the basic guiding principle for the church members to follow, one must admit that it also raises a few questions.

For example, the idea of every single member fulfilling God’s eternal purpose sounds rather impressive and inspiring, yet the numerous ways of interpreting the given purpose, not to mention the many conflicting concepts that different scholars read into the given purpose, does sound somewhat complicated. Therefore, the given concept of a church purpose does not seem to be acceptable for a perfect church as well.

As far as the come-and-go principle that the hybrid church suggests goes, it can be assumed that being engaged into two missions simultaneously may possibly bring disorder and disorientation into the church. Hence, the principle introduced by the simple church seems to be the best for an ideal church.

Struggling for providing people with the opportunity to love God, love the people surrounding them and strive for the greater good is the purpose that a perfect church should be driven by.

Principles: humanity at its best

It should also be kept in mind that an ideal church should be guided by the principles established in the Bible.

Since there are many interpretations of the Biblical source material, the traditional interpretation should be accepted as the basis for the new church to be founded on; in other words, the commonly accepted principles of Kant’s ethics, or, more to the point, the Categorical Imperative, i.e., the idea of treating the others as one would like to be treated by the others, must be adopted.

Conclusion: There Is Yet Much to Strive for

Despite the fact that the concept of a perfect church seems rather simple and easy to implement in real life, it goes without saying that bringing the idea if a perfect church to life will take considerable effort. It is important to realize that, first, it will be necessary to deal with the force of habit. Then, to help different denominations reconcile, a long discussion of the divine purpose and the mission of a church must be provided.

Finally, it will be uneasy to figure out whether the Gospel and the Bible should be read in straightforward manner or whether one should read between the lines of the Scripture. However, it can be assumed that, with a single goal of creating a church as a place where all people can find peace and harmony, the representatives of different types of churches will finally reconcile.

Reference List

Browning, Dave. Hybrid Church: The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact. San-Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010.

Cole, Neil. Church 3.0: Updates for the Future of the Church. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Cole, Neil. Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Hirsch, Alan. The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Mission Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006.

Lehman, Edward C. Gender at Work: The Case of Clergy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.

McNeal, Reggie. Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.

Parsley, Ross. Messy Church: A Multigenerational Mission for God’s Family. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2012.

Rainer, Thom S. Simple Church Revisited. 2009. Web.

Stetzer, Ed. Planning Missional Churches. Nashville, TE: Broadman & Holman, 2006.

Venden, Morris L. Why Didn’t They Tell Me? Sharing Jesus Isn’t Something We Do, It’s Who We Are. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2005.

Viola, Frank. Finding Organic Church: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Authentic Christian Communities. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2009.

Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Church: Every Church Is Big in God’s Eyes. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011.

Footnotes

Dave Browning, Hybrid Church: The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact (San-Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 20.
Frank Viola, Finding Organic Church: A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Sustaining Authentic Christian Communities (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2009), 104.
Ross Parsley, Messy Church: A Multigenerational Mission for God’s Family, (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2012), 7.
Neil Cole, Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (San Francisco,CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005), 17.
Ed Stetzer, Planning Missional Churches, (Nashville, TE: Broadman & Holman, 2006), 20.
Morris L. Venden, Why Didn’t They Tell Me? Sharing Jesus Isn’t Something We Do, It’s Who We Are, (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2005), 28.
Ibid.
Neil Cole, Church 3.0: Updates for the Future of the Church, (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 50.
Thom S. Rainer, Simple Church Revisited, 2009, online.
Reggie McNeal, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), 91.
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Every Church Is Big in God’s Eyes, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 48.
Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Mission Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006), 142.
Edward C. Lehman, Gender at Work: The Case of Clergy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), 25.

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