Organic Essence of the Church

There is no mistaking the fact that “organic” is a current buzzword. In contemporary culture, everything is organic. The reality is that everything has always been organic, but recently the world seems to have awakened to this truth. The dictionary defines organic in the following terms:

1. of or involving the basic makeup of a thing; inherent; inborn; constitutional
2. made up of systematically interrelated parts; organized of, having the characteristics of, or derived from living organisms 3. grown with only animal or vegetable fertilizers, as manure, bone meal, compost, etc.

Organic vegetables have nothing added to them. They are allowed to grow in a ‘natural habitat’ or at least in an artificially created environment that is as natural as possible. My current perspective of the church is organic. Organic in the sense that it discards the additives and preservatives that are current attachments of the institutional church and discovers how the living body of Christ might flourish if allowed to live and grow naturally. Some of these institutional elements (non-organic)are current leadership and administrative structures, programs designed to enhance congregational viability and attractiveness, and resources deemed necessary for churches to function, e.g. buildings, educational materials, financial resources, strategies, long range planning, budgets, etc.

These elements nullify much of the organic nature of the church. The church is best understood in ecological terms. At its core, it is designed by God to be organic both in form and substance. Corresponding to the natural order or eco-system, there is a spiritual order, the body of Christ. To aid in understanding the organic nature the church must consider the ecological sphere.

According to the usual definition, “ecology is the scientific study of the relationship between organisms and their environment in their fullest meaning.” Environment is inclusive of physical, biological, and living components that make up an organism’s surroundings. Relationships include the interactions among the various organisms within the physical world of life forms participating together within a given ecosystem.

The term ecology comes from the Greek words oikos, meaning “the family household,” and logy, meaning “the study of.” Literally, ecology is the study of the household. It has the same root word as “economic,” or “management of the household.” We should consider ecology to be the study of the economics of nature.

The major focus of ecology is the ecosystem. Organisms interact within the context of the ecosystem. The eco part of the word relates to the environment. The system is made up of a collection of related parts that function as a unit. A household is a system consisting of interrelated parts and subparts. Within this household are people who live together, extended family members, and other friends and relationships that are in continual interaction as they recreate, eat, sleep, and work together as interacting parts that support the whole. In this regard, all the parts and components of the Church universal together form an entire eco-system. The organisms of this eco-system are the local congregations, denominations, mission groups, and para-church organizations that are components of the larger Church universal eco-system.

A forest is a natural ecosystem. The physical (abiotic) components are the atmosphere, climate, soil, and water. The biotic components include the different plants and animals that inhabit the forest. The relationships are complex as each organism not only responds to the physical environment but also modifies it and in so doing, becomes part of the environment itself.

Scriptural terminology suggests there are similarities between the Church and an organic eco-system. Organic implies that God grows the church using means that correspond with growth in the natural world. This is illustrated in Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower” as recorded in three of the four gospels, regarding the kingdom of God. From this simple parable, we see that Church begins in the fields, where people are.

Nearly all the New Testament metaphors for the kingdom and the Church use natural organic concepts and identities to describe them. Just as God breathed life into all living creatures (Genesis 2:7), He also breathed life into His Church (John 20:21-23; Acts 2).

As Howard Synder states in LIBERATING THE CHURCH

The church in its most fundamental essence is nothing less than an interdependent, life-pulsating people indwelled by the presence of a resurrected and reigning Christ.

Therefore, the Church is an organic life-form designed by the Spirit to give expression to who Jesus is.

The New Testament employs terms like “household of God,” “the people of God,” “the bride of Christ,” and “fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” Ninety-six word pictures of the church have been identified in the New Testament. “Yet the image that permeates the New Testament understanding of the church and serves as an umbrella for all other metaphors is that of the church as the body of Christ.”

Because these images are so prevalent in Scripture, it is necessary to comprehend the church realistically and correctly in organic terms. Howard Snyder goes on to suggest that the North American Church is in need of a fundamental paradigm shift in its self-understanding, one that would allow us to view the church as part of God’s economy. He states:

Where the model is the institutional-technical-hierarchical of contemporary pop Christianity, a whole set of assumptions follows which make it difficult to really grasp the New Testament picture of the Church. But where the model is that of the body of Christ, the household of God and the community of God’s people, the door is opened to understand the economy and ecology of God and to see the church as charismatic organism….

To be organic is to possess life. And for the church, that life is spiritual, given by the Holy Spirit. The church as the body of Christ is a living social, spiritual, charismatic organism, it is alive. The central biblical images of the church are all organic and ecological: body, bride, family, vine and branches. Even static “building” and “temple” images become organic: “living stones,” “a growing building,” “a temple animated by the Spirit” (see 1 Peter 2:4-6; Ephesians 2:19-22).

The church is a divine organism mystically fused to the living and reigning Christ who continues to reveal himself in a people whom he has drawn to himself. In all dimensions of life and ministry, the church is designed by God to be essentially organic in function and form.

Helping a Pastor Friend

This last Sunday morning I had the privilege of filling the pulpit for a pastor friend of mine who is really going through some deep struggles in his attempt to move his congregation beyond the four walls of their building in order for them to engage their neighborhood incarnationally with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The success of his endeavor so far is best minimal.

Once more I found myself with a group of people who have been conditioned to the idea that the pastor is their hired servant that cares for their every need -- physically, emotionally and spiritually. It's what many within the emergent church are calling the "Pastoral Church."

Mike McNichols has written a wonderful article Abandoning the Pastoral Church.

He begins with a quote from a Jurgen Moltmann lecture:
If Christianity is to become aware of what it is, we must abandon the pastoral church which takes care of people, which is the usual form of the Western church. Instead, we have to call to life a Christian community church. Either we set about this church reform by ourselves, or it will be forced on us by the loss of church members. (The Source of Life, p. 96)

The church I spoke at along with many struggling congregations would do well to heed these words.

This realization came to me as I witnessed this congregation struggle through their prayer time by asking for requests. As I recall there were somewhere between twelve to fifteen requests voiced by the congregants, and all of them focused on someone's physical need; both individuals present and those that were absent. Not one request involved anyone in their sphere of influence who might be in need of salvation. What a tragedy.

Here I was once again in midst of a group of dear Christian people who had forgotten how to get beyond themselves. More concerned with Aunt Martha hangnail than the lostness of their friends and neighbors. Yes, as I spoke, I graciously drew their attention to this deficit. But what is alarming, is the propensity of many of us within the confines of the western church, with the very same mindset. But what the heck, its the pastor's job do that -- isn't it.

In this case, it occurs within a congregation whose primary mission is to keep the building open so they have a place to gather on Sunday mornings. Never mind that they lack the financial resources to pay the pastor adequately or keep the heat on in the winter. Just so long as they have a place to gather in order to focus on their own physical and personal needs, and of course have the pastor take care of them.

I just wonder what would happen (what God would do) if they begin to pray for the lost and engage their community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will probably never know. I left Sunday morning with a fresh impetus to pray for my friend who pastors this difficult congregation and yes, the congregation too.

Organic Qualities of the Church

The metaphors the Apostle Paul employs to describe the church are all life forms -- meaning they are organic (body, bride, family, household, living stones, etc.). This leads me to believe that the essence of the Church is therefore organic. Or at least the physical organic realm of creation has corresponding qualities that hold understanding and insight regarding the church. Maybe for every organic quality in the eco-system of our universe there is possibly a corresponding spiritual quality in the eco-system known as the Church.

Organic qualities such as simplicity, complexity, biotic potential, and self-organization just to name a few. What if like the physical and material realm they overlap, assimilate, and are interdependent in relation to one another in the spiritual realm? Just maybe these spiritual qualities operate within like the physical in the realms of simultaneity and synchronicity.

I'm convinced that within the church’s genetic code, all these qualities are employed for the health and well-being of the Church organism. The organic reality is as Howard Synder states in Decoding the Church “ that the church is a complex ecology of spiritual, physical, social, political, psychological, and economic dimensions.”

Ekklesial Leadership

From Len Hjalmarsen's site

http://nextreformation.com/wp-admin/images/leadership.jpg

An extremely profound description of leadership necessary for the Emerging Church. Thank you so much Len

The Organic Essence of the Church

In looking at the body metaphor, Greg Ogden asks the following questions:

Is Paul’s choice of the human body simply to be a nice analogy for the way the church is to function? Is Paul only saying that just as the body is an organic picture of interdependence, so the church should be? Or is there something deeper than metaphor that Paul has in mind?

Paul seems to be pointing to a deeper reality. Metaphors are often symbols that point to deeper realities, but the symbol is not the same as the reality. An example of this is when Jesus broke the bread at the Passover meal before his disciples and said, “This is my body given for you,” “We Protestants do not believe Jesus was speaking literally. The bread was not in actuality his body, but it was a symbol that pointed to his broken body.” In contrast, when it comes to referencing the church as the body of Christ, Paul intended much more than just a word picture. Reading 1 Corinthians 12:12 numerous times, I have subconsciously understood it in the following way: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with the church.” What is wrong with that? I emphasized (in italics) the way I have understood this verse to be. I have read church into the text because this is what I expected, since the church is Paul’s subject. But this is not Paul’s concluding phrase. He says, “so it is with Christ,” not the church. By interchanging Christ with the church, Paul is making the point, that the church is nothing less than the living extension of Jesus here on earth. The church and the resurrected, reigning, and living Jesus are inseparable. The church is not merely a human organization designated with the task of keeping the memory of their leader alive, but it is a fellowship of those who are members of Christ’s body giving viable expression to who He is. The church is an organism mystically fused to the living and reigning Christ who continues to reveal Himself in and through His people. Ray Stedman puts it this way: “The life of Jesus is still being manifest among people, but now no longer through an individual physical body, limited to one place on earth, but through a complex, corporate body called the church.”
As God’s household (oikos), the church is called to administrate kingdom economics in the process of bringing fulfillment to the larger eco-system, the created order. In order to complete this assignment, it is necessary for the church to perceive itself as a life giving and sustaining entity. In other words, the essence of the church is organic, and maybe for the purpose of completing its mission.

Sometime in the future I would like to delve more deeply into the organic essence of the church.

Missiology precedes Ecclesiology

I was asked by Len Hjalmarsen to write a response to the question; "Do you think missiology precedes ecclesiology, or is it the other way around?

Here is my response.

Len,

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch in The Shaping of Things to Come established for me some real clarity regarding this issue. With their help I came to understand that missiology precedes ecclesiology and our Christology informs our missiology (p.209). I believe John 1:14 and Philippines 2:5-8 affirm this reality.

The supremacy of Christ demands that He is the center of all that the Church is and does -- the shaping influence. For me John 1:14 in THE MESSAGE describes for the Church its correct missiological paradigm:

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

Philippians 2:5-8 describes how Christ fulfilled his mission by becoming "flesh and blood and moving into our human neighborhood" -- on an incarnational mission so to speak. He did this as He "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." (Phil.2:7 NASU) Christ's ecclesiological nature (form) was that of being a human being; inhabiting human form and likeness. Like Christ the church should take what ever form/structure necessary to facilitate the missio Dei (the mission of God); its missiological responsibility.

As further stated in John 1:14 the form (ecclesiology) must reflect Christ's glory in a way that is culturally observable in whatever neighborhood it finds itself. This glory in unlike any other glory -- "one-of-a-kind," as described in the remainder of the verse.

Every time the church manifests another order other than Christology, missiology, ecclesiology, it looses its missional edge and focus; becoming distracted by the forms and structures. Christ determines our mission, and our mission must shape our ecclesiology.