Questions about authority
posted by Little Mo | Permalink |
Ok, so at least in my small circle of UK evangelicalism there seems to be an endless and rather frutrating discussion about the connection between CUs and local churches.
No doubt as Bish says , this is related to another very healthy trend amongst a lot of conservative evangelicals and restorationist charismatic churches to work on developing a proper Biblical ecclesiology. (although Anglicans will always be a bit limited in this exercise;)) Bish chats about how that has helped develop a healthier attitude to local churches amongst CU members here.
However, a corollary of this has been, in my experience church leaders seeking to throw around theier "authority" - that is saying to students (and others) -church is important, therefore respect your local church leaders, that is us, therefore you need our permission before you do anything, and where you don't know what to do,you should do what I say.
As a church leader myself, I struggle with this, because there is a real significant move away from the great principle of the Reformation that it is God's word that has authority, and all people sit under that authority together, rather than authority being mediated through a church leader. In some places it has even meant church leaders "warning" their congregations against studying the Bible or doing evangelism outside of their formal church sturctures. I mean, has anyone heard of Tyndale?
What's more, it doesn't seem to me that this sort of heavy "leading" authority is what the Bible envisages for church leaders anyway - it seems that leaders in God's kingdom are supposed to serve humbly rather than enforce their opinions powerfully.
Recently I sat in on a group discussion where someone was seriously suggesting that they needed to ask a church's permission (permission I tell you!) before doing evangelism somewhere! Surely,what has started in an attempt to recover what perhaps had been lacking, a thought through ecclesiology, is beginning to mean adopting quite an unhelpful model of almost Roman Catholic leadership along with it.
The reason we think the church is important is because the Bible says it is. Because we all sit under its perfect guiding rule. Church leaders like myself would do well to heed what it says about what leadership means and be careful not to sinfully subvert and undermine its perfect authority over us.
No doubt as Bish says , this is related to another very healthy trend amongst a lot of conservative evangelicals and restorationist charismatic churches to work on developing a proper Biblical ecclesiology. (although Anglicans will always be a bit limited in this exercise;)) Bish chats about how that has helped develop a healthier attitude to local churches amongst CU members here.
However, a corollary of this has been, in my experience church leaders seeking to throw around theier "authority" - that is saying to students (and others) -church is important, therefore respect your local church leaders, that is us, therefore you need our permission before you do anything, and where you don't know what to do,you should do what I say.
As a church leader myself, I struggle with this, because there is a real significant move away from the great principle of the Reformation that it is God's word that has authority, and all people sit under that authority together, rather than authority being mediated through a church leader. In some places it has even meant church leaders "warning" their congregations against studying the Bible or doing evangelism outside of their formal church sturctures. I mean, has anyone heard of Tyndale?
What's more, it doesn't seem to me that this sort of heavy "leading" authority is what the Bible envisages for church leaders anyway - it seems that leaders in God's kingdom are supposed to serve humbly rather than enforce their opinions powerfully.
Recently I sat in on a group discussion where someone was seriously suggesting that they needed to ask a church's permission (permission I tell you!) before doing evangelism somewhere! Surely,what has started in an attempt to recover what perhaps had been lacking, a thought through ecclesiology, is beginning to mean adopting quite an unhelpful model of almost Roman Catholic leadership along with it.
The reason we think the church is important is because the Bible says it is. Because we all sit under its perfect guiding rule. Church leaders like myself would do well to heed what it says about what leadership means and be careful not to sinfully subvert and undermine its perfect authority over us.
posted by Little Mo at 4:43 AM
1 Comments:
I was really encouraged last week meeting with one church leader who was being honest about the temptation to sinfully try to control students in his church. Rarely do we seem to talk about this.
I suppose UCCF is helpfully partly shielded in this by the stated principle of student leadership, but we're just as prone to try and control and manipulate - and no doubt we generate way of doing it ourselves.
Biblical authority is always service isn't it! I'll lead by laying myself down for people rather than by making them do what I want. Let Christ be my example... as in marriage, so in other ministries.
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