What would happen if all of the christian leaders had to step down for a year because of financial, spiritual, moral, or intellectual infidelity or something like that? In what condition would the congregations be? Are we equipping the Body to effectively follow Christ?
Or what would happen to a Sunday worship if electrical power was shut off every Sunday for a year or more? What would drive our worship and what would it look like?
Just some thoughts...
4 comments:
To answer your first questions, I am concerned of a cult-of-personality Christianity in many churches where we are dependent upon the faith and direction of our leaders. It's lazy faith. As a congregation, it's easier to go with whatever our leaders say and as leaders, it's easier for us to dictate what it means to follow Jesus rather than actually wrestle with life alongside our brothers and sisters in our churches.
My answer, however, is not simple. Some congregations are better than others at equipping people for a full discipleship. But I think that if all our leaders had to step down for the various infidelities, then we as congregations need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves some questions. For instance, why did we continually allow or put in place people with such serious moral cracks? How come we didn't know about the sin, or if we did, how come we didn't do anything about it? Going further upstream, how come we didn't surround our leaders with the kind of open, light-bearing community in which these problems would have been dealt with early and wouldn't have been allowed to fester?
Lastly, I also wonder who would step up into leadership if such a scenario happened. Many people in churches aren't "leaders" in the term of an up-front directional person because that's not who God made them to be. Others aren't because of fear. Still others aren't because they are being kept down by the powers that be. I'm rambling now, but my point is that I think that most people in the offices of the church -- or whatever we want to call recognized leadership roles -- are there because of God's call, the people's affirmation of the call, and God's gifting.
I suppose that a power outage wouldn't keep us from singing songs as walk around and carry on our everyday business.
Great thoughts! I often like to remind the people I'm leading not to depend on leaders because there's always change and transition there.
Only God remains constant and unconditional.
Well, we can be thankful that Christ doesn't leave the church (aka decapitation), even with all the temporary mutations of cells within the Body.
One possible outcome would be the events of 1 Samuel chapter 8, where the sons of Samuel perform certain infidelities. Consequentially, Israel asked for a king to judge them – asked to be like everyone else – because they had lost faith in those that they thought to be representatives of the Supreme Judge.
If the description of being within the Body has slimmed from one chosen nation among nations to one truth among fabrications, then what would the modern 'kingly concept' be? Kings delivered their own brands of justice, and in the same way our ideologies influence how we handle truth and offer a way to act "like everyone else".
I think one result you're looking for (but perhaps not eager to find) is the practice of tainting the truth of God to fit the individual rather than seeking a change of heart to reconnect with the Head, similar to how cancer cells have slightly different DNA from the body.
{Note: This reasoning concerns the metaphysical Church – our physical Institution has been wrong on several occasions (i.e. indulgences). I gravely stress the difference between the notions of the Institution and the truths of the Body}
It's crucial to observe the difference between our leaders and the Manual, and I agree that all the disciples of Christ should wrestle with life together. I am not a Christian leader (moreso a peon), so I can't claim to know the life of one. I do know that leaders make it much easier to understand the Manual and make the Manual more accessible to more people, as well as many other things too important to merely list. I think that if the congregation learns to accept these resting leaders and passes the role of judge to Christ, the Body will thrive and never lose its leaders.
As for Sundays, I bet that more people would gather near the front pews (if there are pews) to listen to the speaker; we would sing louder, reinforced by the realization that we're no longer drowned out by amplifiers.
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