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.

Missional Definition

In all my missional reading, I have yet to come to terms with the definition of the word. In perusing the friend of Missional website, I think the following is short answer is extremely helpful for those of us still struggling a bit with the what it means to be missional.

What is Missional - A Short Answer

"Jesus told us to go into all the world and be his ambassadors, but many churches today have inadvertently changed the "go and be" command to a "come and see" appeal. We have grown attached to buildings, programs, staff and a wide variety of goods and services designed to attract and entertain people.

"Missional is a helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the "come to us" invitations with a "go to them" life. A life where "the way of Jesus" informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower."

---Rick Meigs

Something to Do With God's Help

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 THE MESSAGE)

Weakness as Strength

I think as I age and gain wisdom that I'm learning that my greatest strengths are not what I thought they were. No they are not my leadership or academic achievements, but they are the things I try not to notice and hope others don't see. They are my insecurities, places where I have failed and not achieved to my full potentia; my fears when I'm in the presence of others I consider superior to myself. They seem to be the things that remind me of my own humanity and fallibility. I would really like it the other way around, but the words from Jack Barnard in his book How to Become a Saint: A Beginners Guide really ring true for me:

Our weaknesses really are our greatest assets -- they are not simply strengths held with a bit of modesty. The extent to which we grasp this truth is our own case is the measure of our humility.

Just maybe I'm growing in this area.

Working for Justice

There’s no way to hang onto the Christian faith without taking seriously God’s longing for equality for the total human family. Lots of people have heard of God being just, but they don’t even think about attempting to literally embody that justice. “What does that mean? How much privilege do I have a right to hang onto? How much privilege do I have a right to pass on to my children? Do I have a right to spend all my resources seeing that my children get a university education when other children don’t get any education at all?” That’s privilege. People say, “Well, if I can educate my children, they are then going to use their education to work for compassion and justice.” But that doesn’t normally happen. That education is usually used for self-advancement and perpetuat¬ing the separation.
– Gordon Cosby

I Identfy With These Words

For several years now, my journey has taken me on a much different path (outside the tribal box), which at times has left me feeling alone, but with a new sensitivity in identifying with those who never quite fit in. The problem is that now no longer fitting the denominational mold, I feel like the odd man out, or a square peg in a round hole.

There are two reasons, I mention this. The first is that today began my denomination's annual business sessions of which I will once again participate. For the last few years my anticipation and expectational levels have dropped. The primary reason I participate is quite frankly to maintain some type of tribal relational connection. But I know doing so will require me to once again deal with the awkwardness of not really fitting in.

Secondly, today Len Hjalmarsen posted a comment from Alan Roxburg that I so resonate with regarding my situation.

I spent almost twenty-seven years in a denomination. I thought I ‘belonged’ to the tribe over that time. In recent years I was in situations where I realized that if you didn’t fit the narrative a process of exclusion ensued. None of it was out loud or direct but, nevertheless, it happened… What are the actual, operative theologies at work among such a group? But much more critically, what is the understanding of God and the other that permeates a Christian narrative that can easily put the other outside? .. difference lies at the heart of God’s nature and creation that I have had to rethink not just my theology but my practices and responses to others. Out of this journey I have learned that to welcome the stranger (even the ones in our midst as tribes - and if we can’t do that what can be our basis for Christian witness?) requires a community of men and women shaped around a rule of life ..

For me it was fifteen years. Anyway in the next few days I hoping for more of a tribal welcome this time. There are signs things might be improving.

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.