Organic Church Movement

I believe the organic church movement, at least in part, has the potential of being quite dangerous.  It’s so clear in scripture that God calls certain men or woman to lead others in dynamic and strategic ways.  In fact, story after story from Genesis to Revelation highlight God’s chosen leaders who have unique giftings, important responsibilities and necessary anointings to fulfill specific missions.

The recent ‘organic church’ movement is seemingly calling for the abandonment of ‘clergy’ and the advance of democratic community.  Instead of being outwardly mission driven, it’s mission seems to be inwardly focused. 

As I’ve previously stated, not everything is wrong or alarming with the organic church movement, but the core of it is very concerning and is threatening the advance of key missions in the cities of the earth.

The following comments come from a document by Frank Viola that can be downloaded here: http://www.ptmin.org/findingchurch.pdf 

My notes are in red:

• …“church” is a gathered community that’s having an ongoing encounter and experience of Jesus Christ together. This, though incomplete, is a good start for a definition of the function of the church.
• This community gathers often, not just once a week. Yes!  The 24/7 church is emerging!
• And when the members gather, no human being is leading or facilitating. In other words, there is no pastor, no reverend, and no minister—whether titled or untitled. Instead, the members are gathering under Christ’s Headship alone.  Absolutely not.  Apostolic leadership is critical.  God’s leaders have always received God’s mission critical revelation and has held the responsibility of leading others into that “Promised Land.”  Acts 2:42-43 (NKJV) And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. ⁴³ Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
• …the church makes decisions by consensus. They have no pastor or elite group of men who rule over or control them. Direction comes from the entire Body together. The members have learned to function in a coordinated way. Again, no.  (except for the comment on control- leaders should not control) We have seen a form of this in congregationally governed churches, and it’s a failed system.  Yes, God does talk to everybody, but he doesn’t say the same things to everybody.  Gideon was chosen to receive directives nobody else did.  So did Paul.  So did Peter.  So did Moses.  The list goes on.  These people then led others.  In Amos 3:3 we see that we must be agreed.  In Amos 3:7 we see that God reveals secrets to a select group of people at times.  The prophets declare the Word of the Lord and the people, who are agreed, respond.
• According to the Biblical record, God has called, equipped, and gifted certain members of the Body of Christ to raise up—and help sustain—this kind of church life. So, the author does agree with apostolic leadership, but he and I differ a bit on function.  I don’t see the apostles role primarily being help strengthen local community, but rather the local community must be organized as a military who proceed in unity toward a very specific goal of Kingdom advance.
• …planting such a church on your own is not only monumentally difficult, if you’re not called and equipped to do it, the end result could be quite disastrous. I’m very glad the author included this.  This is an important point.  In fact, he focuses on apostolic ministry, which is very good too.  God does call people to specific missions, and we can’t simply start a church (house church, institutional church or otherwise) simply because we may want to.  This point in itself does give some credibility to the author’s point of view, in my opinion.

The final point I’d like to make is this: the primary purpose of the church is not community.  It’s prayer for the nations.  We see places like the International House of Prayer in Kansas City or a myriad of other prayer ministries leading the way in this paradigm.  My book 20 Elements of Revival (Revival Nation Publishing) discusses this in length.  There is a serious difference between unity and relationship.  Relationships are incredibly vulnerable to gossip, division, etc.  Unity however is strong enough to survive it all.  As we agree to come together and pray and to advance the mission with the expectation of city-transformation we will see revival on a remarkable scale.

Share your thoughts!