The church often bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the dysfunctional family. There is the authoritarian presence of the minister - the professional who knows all of the answers and calls most of the shots - whom few ever challenge either because they don't dare to or because they feel it would do no good if they did.
There is the outward camaraderie and inward loneliness of the congregation.
There are the unspoken rules and hidden agendas, the doubts and disagreements that for propriety's sake are kept more or less under cover.
There are people with all sorts of enthusiasms and creativities which are not often enough made use of or even recognized because the tendency is not to rock the boat but to keep on doing things the way they have always been done. ~Frederick Buechner
When the church is functioning properly as a loving household, a living organism, the corporate expression of Jesus Christ, and the community of the KIng, if offers
- interdependence instead of independence
- wholeness instead of fragmentation
- participation instead of spectatorship
- connectedness instead of isolation
- solidarity instead of individualism
- spontaneity instead of institutionalization
- relationship instead of programs
- servitude instead of dominance
- enrichment instead of insecurity
- freedom instead of bondage
- community instead of corporation
- bonding instead of detachment
~ Frank Viola; Reimagining Church
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