Church Structures

A tip of the hat to Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC with some good thoughts from their people.

"We have never expected to hit upon that final stable structure.  This is important for a church to understand, for when it starts to be the church it will constantly be adventuring out into places where there are no tried and tested ways.  If the church in our day has few prophetic voices to sound above the noises of the street, perhaps in large part it is because the pioneering spirit has become foreign to it.  It shows little willingness to explore new ways.  Where it does it has often been called an experiment.  We would say that the church of Christ is never an experiment, but wherever that church is true to its mission it will be experimenting, pioneering, blazing new paths, seeking how to speak the reconciling word of God to its own age.  It cannot do this if it is held captive by the structures of another day or is slave to its own structures." 

(Elizabeth O'Connor, Call to Commitment)

"To be in the flow of God's ever evolving movement, we will transcend all traditional and institutional loyalties, including loyalties to the very institutions we ourselves brought into being.  We will adventure out into places where there are no tried and tested ways and be ready to experiment and pioneer and blaze new paths in order to make the news of our extravagantly loving, liberating, reconciling God real to this age."  -Gordon Cosby, Becoming the Authentic Church