"The church is like a drunken horseman"
December 1, 2014
December 1, 2014
The church is like a drunken horseman. Prop him up on one side and he falls off on the other. –
Martin Luther This is one of my favorite (and probably one of the most
accurate) quotes from church history. The church, like a pendulum,
seems to swing from one extreme to the other. Last week, I saw a post
on Facebook that illustrates this principle. The title of the article
was “Why Churches Don’t Need Senior Pastors” and
it was addressing this question: “Without a Senior Pastor, who makes
the decisions in an organic church?” The post includes a short video
that explains that Jesus is the Head of the church and He “sets the
direction for the church”. He “speaks directly to every member of the
church”. Therefore, “every member has an equal say in important church matters”. (See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNVO-4bCP8k&feature=youtu.be ) While there is important truth in this video, it also misses a key biblical leadership principle that can determine the health of any house church.
One side of the horse: Humans (Senior Pastor, Elder Board, etc.) lead. The other side of the horse: No humans lead. “Every member has an equal say in important church matters.”
What I’ve found is that truth often involves a both/and instead of an either/or. Here’s my response to that Facebook post…
Sounds good, doesn’t it. “The church is a Body. Jesus is the Head. Therefore, we don’t need a Senior Pastor.” In fact, we don’t need any human leaders at all.
That’s the concept we started with in house church 16 years ago. There were only two problems. The first problem was that it generally didn’t work. In most cases, we ended up with unhealthy, chaotic churches. The second problem, which we discovered sometime later, was that it isn’t biblical.
We were living out that famous quote from Martin Luther: “The church is like a drunken horseman – prop him up on one side and he falls off on the other.” We had gone from the top-down leadership of a Senior Pastor to the opposite extreme of no human leadership at all.
The reality that our churches were floundering drove us to reread our New Testament. What we found was that there is another important metaphor for church besides that it is a Body. That second metaphor is that the church is a family (or household). “…God’s household, which is the church of the living God…” 1 Tim 3:15.
Joseph Hellerman says it this way, “Jesus intentionally adopted “family” as the key relational image for the social organization of the group he was gathering around Himself.” p. 31, “When the Church Was a Family”. (See also “House Church and Mission” by Roger Gehring and “Our Father Abraham” by Marvin Wilson.)
While God is clearly the Father of this family, Paul understood that human spiritual moms and dads were also needed. “…we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children… we dealt with you as a father deals with his own children…” 1 Thes 2:7,11″
There are a great many implications for these two simple “equations”: “church = family” and “leaders = parents”(parents in the best sense of the word!) One implication is that we never start a new house church without at least one grown up (mature) spiritual parent as the leader. (We believe this is what Jesus was talking about when he directed His church planters to find a “man (or woman) of peace” in Lk 10:6.)
That’s the concept we started with in house church 16 years ago. There were only two problems. The first problem was that it generally didn’t work. In most cases, we ended up with unhealthy, chaotic churches. The second problem, which we discovered sometime later, was that it isn’t biblical.
We were living out that famous quote from Martin Luther: “The church is like a drunken horseman – prop him up on one side and he falls off on the other.” We had gone from the top-down leadership of a Senior Pastor to the opposite extreme of no human leadership at all.
The reality that our churches were floundering drove us to reread our New Testament. What we found was that there is another important metaphor for church besides that it is a Body. That second metaphor is that the church is a family (or household). “…God’s household, which is the church of the living God…” 1 Tim 3:15.
Joseph Hellerman says it this way, “Jesus intentionally adopted “family” as the key relational image for the social organization of the group he was gathering around Himself.” p. 31, “When the Church Was a Family”. (See also “House Church and Mission” by Roger Gehring and “Our Father Abraham” by Marvin Wilson.)
While God is clearly the Father of this family, Paul understood that human spiritual moms and dads were also needed. “…we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children… we dealt with you as a father deals with his own children…” 1 Thes 2:7,11″
There are a great many implications for these two simple “equations”: “church = family” and “leaders = parents”(parents in the best sense of the word!) One implication is that we never start a new house church without at least one grown up (mature) spiritual parent as the leader. (We believe this is what Jesus was talking about when he directed His church planters to find a “man (or woman) of peace” in Lk 10:6.)
New spiritual families (house churches) are formed around these spiritual parents and, as with human families, these parents determine the values and practices of their families. As with human families, each member “has a say” in important family matters to only to a degree that is appropriate to their level of maturity.
Three year olds do not “have a say” in what car to buy! The same is
true in spiritual families. This principle has been a huge factor in
being able to plant many healthy house churches.
In the video below, I develop this critical concept of leaders as parents. Click on the picture below which takes you to our blog. Then, scroll down and click on the video.
- Exciting changes coming for LK10 in the new year! Including a redesigned website and new training resources like the Leader 101 Course. Stay tuned!
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