B.D. was our guest in class today, what a cool guy by the way. I mean he is a person I could really look up to, he is really living out a missional initiative, everything he shared with our class is right on par with what we have been talking about. He brought up a good point, that a lot of church plants depend solely on one personality and they end up fizzling out. I see this phenomenon happening in almost every one of the mega churches and I could see why most people depend on having a central figure head to lead the church but I wonder how to create a church body that works outside of this framework, one where the church can continue to operate without a Perry Noble or Mark Driscoll.
Working out of the idea that innovation is better than recycling ideas I would say it would be vital to fight the tendency to revert to what has worked in the past and start asking questions and observing the community you want to impact. I love the idea of crossing boundaries, doing something new and risky while maintaining an incarnational presence in the community. A pastor is often seen in Christian circles as being at an equivalent level as a president or even a king with the power to overrule or veto anything that doesn’t suit him or her. I think an important starting point would be to look into how to affirm the position of a pastor as someone who prophesies to a community of believers while shepherding them without turning into an overlord. I know this is possible, unfortunately churches have been too stuck in the traditional church method to try something new, I don’t know exactly how to do this on a practical scale, possibly keeping power from the guy who speaks to the congregation. I honestly don’t have an answer but it seems to be a prominent problem that can and should be addressed.
The Natural question is, what would a congregation do without a head pasto? without a king? the easy answer is, hopefully we will cast down our pride, turn back to the true king and embrace the Kingdom of Yahweh.
Jeremy