rich’s blog

Not a full manuscript, but a fairly thorough outline.

 

Prayer:

Lord bless your people.  Use me as you do it.  Shape & form us into little Christs, Christians, ones who bear your glory no matter what we do, no matter who we are, no matter how we organize ourselves to do your work.

 

Guard & Guide my mouth & my mind.

 

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

 

Introduction:

• Continuing in Talk Among Yourselves
  • Insider Conversation
• I need you all this morning to interact with me.  Because I need help.  I need pep.
  • preaching in a way I don’t usually preach: with some of the least thorough notes I’ve ever had.  We’ll give the stool a break, from my bottom.
• Ordering, Governing, Structuring a church.
  • I’ll use these terms interchangeably
• Not how we “order” our worship Service.
  • Paul Talks about this
  • Corinth was really dysfunctional.
• Talking about how we structure ourselves to get our business done, right?
  • Business=Typical Things:
    • building God’s Kingdom through word & deed, growing the church in number & maturity, helping one another become like Jesus, glorifying & experiencing God; the traditional “what does a church do” things
• There’s a powerful biblical–if not mandate, then precedent–to govern ourselves well.  Take care of our business well.  We’ll look at passages that talk about how we do this.
• But first let’s do a survey.

 

Order & Chaos:  

• Let’s pretend that there’s a “chaos-orderliness” spectrum.  I just want to see.
  • “Hang loose, see what happens, follow the Spirit in the moment, let’s leave things open & roll with what happens”
  • “Fill out ministry proposal document A in triplicate, if there are 10 steps you follow all 10 steps”
  • How about us wishy-washy “it all depends” people.  Sometimes it doesn’t “all depend.”
  • I just wanted to see where we were at this morning.  We’ll come back to this.
  • But let’s pretend–pretend–that someone on the other side of the spectrum isn’t, say, morally inferior to us.  Cool?
• Remember Creation?
  • Not personally, probably, but remember it?
  • God ordered chaos, right? Crashing waves & Bare Earth that God first Made; it was ordered. Day & Night, filled day by day with things, even people, who themselves–us–had a role in naming–which is an ordering thing–what God made.  We’re still naming stuff.
  • But there were still oceans of a bajillion fish, fields of a bunch of animals, plants of all sorts, and they weren’t growing in straight lines, right?  There was a little bit of chaos.
• Remember Revelation?
  • all sorts of imagery: some of it really ordered: 12  of these, and 12 of those, seven of these & seven of those.
  • Some of it a mess: “great throngs larger than the eyes could see, every type of person represented.” a little bit of chaos is in the imagery mix.
• We’ll look at some concrete examples, but I want to suggest that the Bible is framed with pictures of a God who orders things, structures things…but not exhaustively.  There’s a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of manageable chaos in the mix.
  • Especially when the Holy Spirit shows up, when God really gets active in the midst of his people.

 

“Governing” 

• And if we’re going to talk about God’s People, how they order or organize themselves, structure themselves to do God’s work, a word we tend to use at least around here for this stuff is “governance,” right? How do God’s people govern themselves.
• Because, of course, they do. They have to.  We have to, “govern,” “organize” ourselves well.

 

Old Testament: 

• We can see God’s people being organized, governed in the Old Testament
• Moses is a perfect example.
  • Numbers 11
    • Israelites started longing for Egypt, because they had meat there & loved their protein.  They didn’t want the food God was supernaturally giving them every day; not good enough. And they bug Moses about it.
    • Moses takes his frustration to the Lord.  You Know.  He’s like “These aren’t my babies! But they’re acting like babies!”
    • “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.” “The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.”
    • This is governance, this is organization.  How to take care of the needs of these people.
  • This is the second time Moses has set some sort of structure in place to help deal with the needs of God’s People. Happened Early On their way out of Egypt.
    • Moses is taking care of everything.  He is the Israelites organizational structure.  And it’s killing him; eating up his entire day, sunrise to sunset, it’s a mess.
    • And his father-in-law comes along, Jethro; who I think is the patron saint of church consultants, and gives him some advice.
    • Exodus 18:17-23
• And if we had nowhere to go, we could read Leviticus this morning. Or Deuteronomy; because these are entire books that basically order the entire lives of God’s people, every aspect.  Governance in every single area.  We call it “the Law,” right?

New Testament: 

• And there are all sorts of New Testament passages & examples that relate to church governance, relate to the way we should organize ourselves to do the business that God wants us to do.
• We can learn from each of them
  • Galatians 5:16-26: 
    • Paul is speaking into what happens now that the Law has served its purpose & we Christians don’t have governing rules for every single actions of our lives.
    • Now that the Law has passed away, we live under the power & in the presence of the Spirit of God that Jesus has sent to counsel & guide us
    • And he basically outlines virtues that will naturally be part of our lives if we keep in step with the Holy Spirit, if we cultivate inside ourselves room for the Spirit to bear fruit in our lives.
    • Read the passage:
    • We could mine this for all sorts of things: but what we can take from this is that whenever we are together, doing our business as the church, there are certain virtues that are supposed to mark us & the way we order ourselves, govern our church.
  • Ephesians 4:11-16
    • We could look at the other passage from Paul that was read to us this morning:
    • “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
      • Although we talked about Spiritual Gifts just a couple of weeks ago, and we noted again that the Holy Spirit gives each of us gifts that are to be used for the building up of the church, this passage highlights and emphasizes a few of these gifts as particular “roles” that people have in the church, Jesus’ body on earth.
      • And these roles or functions: these “Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors & teachers” have an organizational role, right?
      • they’re to help equip the church for works of service so that the church can be built up, so that
      • We learn from this passage that organization, governance within the church should have a purpose; it should be to help those in the church be equipped, help us reach “unity in the faith and in our understanding of Jesus,” help us become “mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  That’s a high calling, right? But these gifted individuals are given by God to the church so we can organize ourselves with these goals in mind.
      • And we could note what this passage doesn’t say: “Hire among thee a Senior Pastor who shall act as apostle, evangelist, prophet, teacher, pastor, and someday an associate pastor who shall work with youth & small groups in order that thy sunday morning attendance count shall increase”
        • I think it’s not an accident that God didn’t want one person to have all these gifted functions in the life of the church.
      • We learn instead that organization serves a higher purpose, which is to help the church get its business done. And we learn it’s business is maturity & good works & an exact replica of Christ’s life among us.  We learn that governance is people; and churches are salted with people with particular gifts who are there to help equip the church.
      • Good stuff to remember, right?
  • Acts 6:1-7: 
    • Bob mentioned last week
    • What we can learn?
    • organization & order: church governance: can come out of conflict. Insofar as conflict is a little chaotic sometimes, this makes sense, right?  This is an echo of Genesis.  Chaos gives way to order.
    • So the passage that Bob preached to us last week, the passage from acts: it’s a passage that highlights the way conflict can give rise to order.
    • And it also highlights the fact that order, governance, can be situational.  In many way, the way we figure out how to order ourselves relates to our situation.  A structure that is put into place–which again, is filled with people, is a person thing–needs to work? If the apostles in Acts had said, “You know what, we’ll form a committee & get back with you in six months, it would have been a mess.  Even though that’s standard practice in a lot of churches.”
    • How we order & structure & govern ourselves is largely dependent on the situation we find ourselves in.
    • We also see here and in the next place we look a representative organization; the people put in place to care for the needs of the church are for the people & represent the needs of the people they are trying to help, instead of looking out for their own interests, they look out for the interests of one another. This may seem small, but we live in a country that is all about “Representative Government”–that’s an idea that was inside the church way before it was outside it.
  • Acts 15:
    • Turn there if you want. Similar situation where conflict gives rise to organizational decisions, and the existing governance structure has to figure out how work with what God is doing among the church.
    • I won’t go into it but it’s a great example of existing leadership facilitating a group decision based on good testimony of God’s work, and no one abusing power.
    • It ends with the primary person of influence in the church at the time, James, helping summarize a conclusion that everyone agrees is from the Lord
    • And, whether we realize it or not, most of our church decisions at Smoky Row are modeled after this give & take & discussion & summarization & forward movement all bathed in the Spirit.  Very cool.
    • We learn a lot from this passage, not least of which is that one way to discover the will of God for the church, is to check with God’s people, and listen & talk & allow the governance structure–the people who are a part of it–to lead and act with the gifts that they’ve been given for the church’s sake.
  • Other Passages:
    • We could look at other passages.  Paul’s letters to Timothy & Titus where he charges Timothy & Titus, people he has apprentices in organizing & leading God’s church, he charges them with “appointing” “deacons,” “overseers” & “elders.”
    • And we realize from these passages that Paul models a leadership training style that is in step with jesus’ own, which is that we teach by doing.  This is super important in our own governance structure at Smoky Row, right? Where we’re expected if we’re leading something to find an apprentice who is gifted in the same areas we are, and invite them to walk with us as we help organize ourselves.
    • We also realize that Paul believes in governing the church.  He highlights these three “offices” these “positions”: deacon, overseer, elder.  By the time Paul wrote these letters it was already assumed that local churches would have some sort of organizational structure in place.  We don’t know how these people interacted, what they actually did with themselves on a day-to-day basis; but we know that they played an important leadership & organizational role in the church.
    • And Paul calls for the highest level of Christ-like Character for these people.  Let me read just a bit of Paul’s I’ll read just a sampling of the “overseer” passage.  This is from the NRSV, 1 Timothy 3; the Titus passage is a near copy of the Timothy one, so.
      • • The saying is sure: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way— for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and the snare of the devil.
        • Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well; for those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
        • What We See: 
• Now what we see when we gather together the Acts passages & the Paul passages & we could look at other things: the situation of the churches mentioned in Revelation, the way Paul fights against the Cult of Personality that springs up around him & Apollos, another early church leader, shout-outs that are at the end of various New Testament letters:
• What we see is that while it’s universal in the New Testament that God’s People order themselves well, organize & govern themselves well–we’re talking about the church, right?–while it’s universal that this should be done, the details of how that happens simply are not spelled out.
• Portions of them are:
  • We had better organize ourselves around the Holy Spirit’s work among us,
  • had better acknowledge the people God has given us to help equip us,
  • we must note carefully the character of those people who help govern our churches, and they should act with the highest Christian character
  • Governance is to be in service to something; which is that we can become like Jesus, to put it familiarly, or “attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” to put it like Paul does
• But what we see that New Testament governance is largely contextual.  Arising out of situations of conflict or need.
• And this is good.  Because the Church at Jerusalem was way bigger than lonely Titus on the island of Crete.  And if we try to structure a 10 person church the same way we try to structure a 50 person church, and the 50 person church the same way we try to organize a 2,000 person church there will be problems, right?
• Church structures aren’t always scalable; but they do position the church for the harvest of people that God brings it.  When Paul told Titus to ordain elders on Crete, he was telling him to go to every town on the island and ordain elder; in spite of the fact that there probably wasn’t a church in every town.  In some ways he was charging Titus to prepare for the growth of the church by organizing for the growth that he knew God would bring.

 

SRBC: 

• Was Going To: I was going to highlight Smoky Row’s Governance Structure, and really explain it; but honestly, there are handouts, and I’ve done it a few times in the not so recent past. So let me just say this.
• Biased: I think our Governance Structure, how we order ourselves, is completely from the Lord.  And I confess before you that I am completely biased in this: but don’t you want me to be, really?  Don’t you want me to believe in the governance structure of our church?
• Representative: & Deacons: It’s representative in nature; with the Ministry Team Representatives acting as advocates of the needs of the ministry areas they represent. And insofar as these Ministry Team Representatives are servants, serving the church in very practical ways, the tightly align with the “deacons” Paul talks about–which simply mean “servants,” and were servants set apart for the particular needs that the church has.
• Contextual: It’s very contextual, based on our needs as Smoky Row, the core values we hold as a community,
• Gifted: It’s filled with, and will be filled with, people who are gifted by the Spirit in the areas they are representing; I hope that we can continue to explore what it means to be a church of “Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers & Pastors” who help equip us as we move forward in the future.
• Character Qualities: Our Governance structure, this Team of people, have been and will be in conversation with each other, all of us, the Lord, about the standards, the character qualities that those involved in the “works of service” of Smoky Row should exhibit.
• Consensus: And I mentioned this before, but we are a church built around the idea that we who have joined with Jesus have the Holy Spirit, and thus, a voice in the decisions we make–and yet, at the same time, we respect those among us whom we ourselves have especially set apart for ministry.  This is a lot like Acts 15.
• Chaos: And honestly, our Governance Structure–it has arisen out of a little bit of chaos.  And we’re really only like 5th, 6th day creation ordered.  We’re still a little chaotic in here, you know; figuring out what it means to order ourselves well.
  • Is that a problem?
  • It totally is if we were on the “triplicate” side of the spectrum, right?
  • But there will come a day, and it might not be all that far off, as we firm up our governance structure even more, our lines of organization & communication, when some of us will feel like we are just inflexible.  Someone may come to me and say, “Rich can you do x, y, or z.” And I’ll say, “You know what, Can you talk to So and SO about that because they’ve really been put here at Smoky Row to help take care of just that sort of thing.” And someone on the “hang loose” side of things will say, “Man, can’t you just take care of it.”  So triplicates, your day will come.
  • But not completely: because if we organize ourselves well, there will always be a little room for manageable chaos, and as Bob pointed out last week, since we’re people seeking unity there will always be room for a little bit of conflict–out of which, new organizing may develop.
• But the reality is that for us in this room: we are still ordering ourselves, still shaping up as Smoky Row.
• And that gives me a lot of hope.  Because it means that God is nowhere near done with us, done with shaping us into the church that he wants us to be. We will always be mostly ordered, and a little bit chaotic, and wide open to the Holy Spirit.

 

Conclusion:

So: today’s message may not be the most interesting. My guess is it’s not crazy relevant to what’s happening, you know, with your checkbook or your calendar.  But it could be.

 

Because it relates to big areas of our lives.  Whenever each of us, on different places on this spectrum of chaos and order, find ourselves trying to attain to the full measure of Christ–which cannot be done outside of the church–we have got to figure out a way to work effectively to do it.

 

And at that point, we’re talking about organizational, governance things.  We’re talking about Smoky Row Brethren Church & how ministry gets done here.

 

God’s given us some things: Gifts that empower us, people who have been gifted in particular ways to help us.  The Holy Spirit, and all sorts of real life examples that we can learn from and incorporate into our Smoky Row life.

 

I think we’ve done a great job so far grasping hold of these things and using them to organize ourselves well.  We’ll never be free of this topic as a church; never.  But I think someday we’ll have a lot of wisdom to give to other churches that will be in the same places we are right now.

 

In the meantime, of course, we need to be faithful with what we’ve been given.

 

I hope that each of us can ask the Lord, someone else, or at least ourselves how we can be faithful with the opportunities Smoky Row has for us, and the way we can help organize this church we help form.