the Good Question

What is the Central Formative Principle of the gatherings of the people in your organization (i.e. church)? The Central Formative Principle of an organization is that principle that, above all others, is the most influential in its model, format, program, schedule, and practical values.

For example, if your Central Formative Principle is education, then you might meet like a typical institutional church, wherein the central-most thing is the teaching, and so the people sit facing forward, the way the schedule is oriented shows that education is primary, the service or meeting is programmed in such a way that perhaps almost all attention is given toward education, and the people are by-and-large passive recipients of educational learning. The immediate goal, organizationally speaking, is learning. The problem with this is that authentic community is not a function of education. So, you can be a part of such an organization and have all kinds of great teaching and never function in genuine community—never have any real depth in your relationships. The weekly calendar is filled mostly with opportunities that are educational, but very few opportunities for the community to flourish and function in honesty and grace as a whole, and therefore, if people are going to nourish the community, they have to do so outside of the weekly schedule and structure, rather than through them. And let’s face it: that rarely happens.

[Two more examples² of common Central Formative Principles of Western-styled churches come immediately to mind. See footnote two for those.]

When the CFP is education, the organization becomes shaky when the teaching is repetitive or has poor style, and the people are prone to dry intellectualism, "always learning but never able to come to an intimate knowledge of the Truth"—what T.S. Eliot once said becomes true of them: "We know too much, and are convinced of too little."

But, if the Central Formative Principle is authentic, vibrant, and holistic community, then the people will get education. Why? Because community is not a function of education, but education is a function of community. Education is not the centroid—community is—but education is in orbit. Education is present, but so is confession, accountability, fellowship, discipling, encouragement, prayer, social grace, the mission, personal experience with God, and all the other things necessary for a lively New Testament fellowship of Jesus-followers (and as an added bonus, the people aren't likely to be bored—but that's not the point). Of course, you can find all kinds of groups wherein the CFP is just "community for the sake of community" and not find education or many of the other important qualities, but if this is the case, then it is a crippled community (and effectively a social club), and not an authentic and holistic community focused on Jesus and His mission in the world.

The reason I bring this up is three-fold: 1) to show that it is possible, though difficult, to reform an institutional church into an organic church by recovering a Biblical Central Formative Principle, 2) to show that it is impossible to reform an institutional church into an organic church unless the Central Formative Principle changes (please withhold judgment for just a moment, I’ll qualify this below), and 3) to cause anyone reading this to reflect upon how the church or community of believers they are a part of is organized and whether it results in the maximum potential for a Bible community to glorify God through the transformation of lives.

As to point 2, when an institutional church realigns its CFP with community in the place of education or entertainment, it is not absolutely necessary for it to give up meeting in a church building with pews or to give up a lectural sermon. What is absolutely necessary is for the church to drastically change how it otherwise stimulates and elevates the other functions of community to nurture a more wholesome, unified, intentional, grace-oriented, prayer-saturated, and obedient body of believers.

Again, I’ll quote two of my favorite sayings: "Your systems are perfectly designed to produce the results they are getting." (Frederick Taylor) and "Radical changes require radical choices." (Or, for those of you who may be uncomfortable with my choice of words: "Drastic changes require drastic choices.")³

Your thoughts, in continuing this discussion, are greatly valued.

-dave

¹  The basic concept I picked up from somewhere in the first half of Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity. The term "Central Formative Principle," used in this way, is original to me so far as I have been able to determine. [RETURN]

²  If your Central Formative Principle is entertainment, then the main idea is to get together to feel good and not be bored. So, again, your organization is liable to meet in a face-forward style of architecture and seating, with a passive audience and individualistic bent, the calendar emphasizes entertainment, and the people get restless without constant preoccupation. One of the several problems with this is that community is not a function of entertainment either. And you can be an active part in this sort of organization and have no effective level of community.

If your Central Formative Principle is personal experience, then individualistic spiritual or emotional highs will be the ultimate goal, as can be the case in some loose charismatic gatherings. The problem, again, is that community is not a function of personal experience, but personal experience can certainly be a function of community. Individual experiences with God can take place outside of the context of community, but there are experiences with God that can only take place in the context of authentic community.

When the CFP is entertainment, the whole organization quickly erodes when the programs that are provided fail to give them something fresh, exciting, and polished.

When the CFP is personal experience, the organization can become self-obsessed or complacently introverted, overly high on individual expression, and low on confession and social grace. [RETURN]

³  To challenge whoever may be reading, what follows is a short list of quotations that I thought might be appropriate after reading this discussion:

• "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different result." (Albert Einstein)
• "The good is the enemy of the best."
• "You might have a vision for your life, but a vision without a plan is just wishful thinking." (Graham Cooke)
• "Let me beg you, not to rest contented with the commonplace religion that is now so prevalent." (Adoniram Judson)
• "I have been thirty years forming my own views; and, in the course of this time, some of my hills have sunk, and some of my valleys have risen: but, how unreasonable within me to expect all this should take place in another person; and that, in the course of a year or two." (John Newton)
• "God assumes full responsibility for your obedience to Him.... That eliminates all reasons to be afraid." (Charles Stanley)

These verses imply a number of things about the purpose [of] Christian community. Here are a few, I see:

• To draw near to God
• To experience forgiveness
• To help each other hold fast and to not waver in our faith
• To spur each other on to love and good deeds
• To encourage each other

....I began to view "church" differently. Sometimes, I would be really tired on Sunday mornings, and would not feel up for going. I would feel the old indoctrination pulling at me saying: you really should go....

Anyway, when the "should" came into my mind, a simple question would come each time in response: "Have you forsaken gathering together with other people of faith?" Each time I heard this question, I realized I had, in fact, not forsaken Christian community (usually I was so tired because I had been to numerous gatherings with other believers all week). Further the question itself revealed to me that it wasn’t the joy of community that was drawing me to the Sunday morning service, but a sense of religious obligation.

Please understand, I am not "anti-Sunday-morning". I am only saying that whatever day we meet together our purpose should be to encourage and strengthen each other, and if we are doing something that doesn’t do that, then we’re not really doing "church" (which means "gathering") according to Hebrews 10:25. I’m also saying there really is nothing sacred about meeting on Sunday morning per se, unless it’s sacred to you.

Later in the discussion, Jeff commented:

This particular article caught my attention because it so closely resembles so many stories I have heard over the last few years and that of my own. Sometimes these stories are told with fists clinched and teeth grinding. Sometimes they are recounted with tears and great humility. Often, they are told with great pain and disillusionment. No matter, I think we should all listen to these cries. There is a prophetic voice ringing loud that something in our Americanized Christianity has gone awry. We have, over the course of time, drifted from the Center, which is Jesus. We have become comfortable with attending meetings, planning programs, arguing about music and clothing, tearing particular traditions apart, emerging, missionalizing, forgetting the masses who are not concerned with our petty arguments, and pretty much ignoring how to do life with one another.

As a result, much of what we do as Christians has become quite irreverant and irrelevant to those who do not yet know the God we claim to love. They see more hate and bitterness than the love that Jesus said would show people that we know Him.

Please understand, I do not mean to imply that "house" or "organic" churches are THE answer to all of our problems. I am not saying that everyone should leave and forsake the institutional church. In fact, I haven’t really heard anyone saying that. The point of this growing conversation is to cause us to really think about what we do and why we do it.

When I came across this discussion on Jeff's blog, I had been thinking about Hebrews 10:25 for two or three months. I think I was talking with someone about the principle of organic church when it dawned on me, much like it did with Mudsy, that the spirit of 10:25 isn’t that we make sure that we just so happen to be in the same place as a bunch of other Christians, nor even that we just so happen to listen to the same sermon at the same time in the same place as other Christians. The point is that we make sure that we actively involve ourselves in authentic Christian community.

We can attend all kinds of meetings and services if we want and never be involved in authentic community. Most church people do.

So, what often happens is that people think, consciously or emotionally, "If I don’t go to church today, I will get dukie points with God, because I’ll be disobeying that verse the preacher quoted the other week." And so, they go, maybe chat a little, leave, and maybe, just maybe, even go out to eat with someone, and never experience any depth of community. So, despite their intent, they totally miss the point of Heb. 10:25 anyway. Friendship is not the same as community. Having Christian friends does not necessarily mean that you are involved in authentic Christian community with your friends.

Furthermore, it's not enough that Jesus is the subject of conversation. Being actively engaged in genuine Gospel community with fellow followers of Jesus means, yes, that we discuss Jesus and His kingdom, but also that we confess our sins, receive accountability (much more active, effective, and relational than mere "church discipline"), provoke each other "to love and to do good deeds" (to embody the Gospel, to be "on mission"), encourage each other and draw each other closer to God with joy and passion for His glory, and act as a functional part of the Body in all the various ways that the Body functions (think APEST).

And if you aren’t a part of this kind of community, then you aren’t living out the fullness of Jesus’ ecclesia and global strategy. You must endeavor to pray and seek out or start a community of this kind.

It is only an empowered, grace-oriented, intentional, missional, organic, relational, de-centralized, simple, humble, radically obedient, and passionate community with mountain-moving faith in the power, wisdom, character, providence, and supremacy of God that can change the world and finish the Great Commission as Jesus intended.

There is no room for pride because there is no perfection in human community (prior to the coming of the Kingdom in its fullness), but God forgive us if we aren’t actively striving for these things to be true in our lives and within our influence!

It is possible to be "missional, organic, relational, de-centralized, simple" and meet in a "church building." But if so, then such a church is not institutional, even though it is also not a house church. It is, however, my opinion that this is a very difficult thing to pull off in our Western church-culture. I have not often seen it.

Radical changes require radical choices. The problem is, every American Christian seems to admit "something needs to change," but then a large majority of them also say "but we don’t want to change anything."

My initial suggestion: substantial prayer with other believers. If you aren’t comfortable switching to a more house-church or cell-church model. That’s fine. But whatever you do, you have to enact some changes to see some spiritual change. The business maxim is true: "Your systems are perfectly designed to produce the results they are getting." So, if you want to see different fruit in your life and in your church, you can’t just expect business-as-usual to produce them. Pray a LOT with other followers of Jesus (hours every week), read whole books of the Bible in community (Colossians, for example, usually takes less than 15 minutes), then obey what you read as if Jesus were returning next week, and see if things don’t begin to change.