Functional Structures
By Bill Jacobs
An article is taken from a transcript date September 25, 2008.
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Today we're talking about Functional Structures. That's the fifth quality of healthy churches as defined by the Natural Church Development survey. We keep talking about this topic because the Church of God – especially the independent Church of God – seems to be pretty much dead in the water as far as growth goes. So we're trying to do our part to talk about this and generate some awareness.
As it turns out – and this is really going to be fun today – this quality – Functional Structures – turns out to be the most controversial of all eight topics. It seems that there are opposing fields of thought about this one. On one side, we have people who take a traditionalist view – people who value structure and organization and, sometimes, reject the spontaneity that comes along when you don't have such tight structure. Then, on the other hand, you have people who take a more – we could call it...they call themselves spiritualists sometimes. They see structure as impeding the work of the Holy Spirit – don't need organization. You just need the impulses and the lead of the Holy Spirit to do God's work.
Now, when I learned this – that this was a controversial topic – you could have knocked me over with a feather, because I thought it was just controversial in our church. But, actually, it's pretty much universal. It's not just in Christianity either. There are traditionalist Muslims, and then...I don't know if Buddhists have that – they're pretty laid back – but... But within the church, it's going on worldwide. So, once again, our church is right in the mainstream of the controversy that's going on – with tension between two poles. Once again, I think that we will see that neither side is completely right as we think about this, because, as with all things in nature, and in the spiritual world, and in within the thinking of human beings, it's always a matter of balancing things out. We always want to go to one extreme or the other, so that we don't have to be in the middle at that point of tension and balance, because that creates cognitive dissonance, doesn't it? You have to hold two opposing things in your mind at once to get to the balance point. So it's much easier to be an extremist on either end than it is to be balanced and in the middle.
I'm going to make a difficult statement about this topic. I think it's a difficult topic for many of us to assimilate, because those of us from our traditional church background had it ingrained in us to sit back and let other people do the thinking about how the church ought to be structured. That's kind of not where we're supposed to go. A lot of us think that way. And so this is a very uninteresting topic to a lot of people, because they don't think it applies to their life. And yet, biblically, nothing could be further from the truth.
Now I have to think about the last organized church that I was in and when it was formed. At their first official pastornal conference a sermon was given – one of their keynote speakers at this conference was a gentleman – an older gentleman – a very nice guy...has been very nice to me and my family down through the years and a very kind-hearted person – but he told us that we were like little children and that we just needed to let the ones who knew best do all the thinking. That's, in essence, what he said. All we had to do was follow along and they would take care of us and make everything okay. So it's really hard to become engaged when all our lives we've been instructed to disengage from that part of the church. So, the way I'm looking at this topic, it may be the most important, because it may also be the most skewed quality in our minds in our particular little corner of Christianity.
I know, too, that the structure that we grew up with is not biblically based. It's not balanced. Because of that, eventually the organization failed. That's what happened. When that happens, that creates chaos, and uncertainty, and fear and discouragement among people. And when that happens, the children, most especially, are the ones that get hurt. They tend to lose faith. So we have a sad history of losing so many of our young people because of all the chaos that's been created in the battle between these two extremes – with the traditionalists winning most of the time in our past.
So I want to kind of examine these two extremist positions and try to identify them a little bit. The traditionalists think that order and organization are more important than free flow and organic activity. They like things to be controlled. They like things to be structured. They don't like surprises. Everything needs to be predictable, routine. There needs to be a set heirarchy so everybody knows where they fit in it – a place for everything and everything in its place, and a place for everyone and everyone in his place. They point to the orderly way the Israelites went out of Egypt , and how there were captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of tens. Then the king of Israel – when they had a king – and the authority that they had to order the kingdoms Israel and Judah . They talk about the ministry in the New Testament – with apostles, and pastors and elders – and the authority with which the apostles wrote the New Testament epistles, and Paul's admonition that all things are to be done decently and in order, and that people should obey the elders, etc. Those are biblical examples, right? You can't argue with them. They're all...that's how it should be!
But when we think of the term functional structure, these people are willing to give up function to have structure. They focus on the structure part of that statement. And yet it was discovered, in this survey by Natural Church Development, it isn't structure and it isn't function. It's functional structure. You have to have both of them for a congregation to grow and be healthy.
Now spiritualists – or the opposite extreme – they like function, but not structure. They look at things quite differently than the traditionalist kind of person. They're all about emotion and freedom of thought and movement. That's more important to them than order and predictability. So they function well when things are less structured and more open. What they point to is the theocracy of Israel under the judges. The kind of government that God gave them and set up was more free than our democracy here today. There was less structure and what structure they had worked really well. It was sort of an organic structure that they had. If a problem came up – and several did – people got together and figured out what to do, went and did it, and then they all went home and did what they were doing before. They didn't have a big government heirarchy or an army to take care of problems. They just got together and did what needed to be done.
They point to Paul's calling as such a huge surprise to the church, and how that wasn't in the cards in the beginning when the apostles signed on – you know, as disciples. They thought there was going to be twelve of them and that would be it. And then here comes this guy that was like a total loose cannon, and God calls him and sends him to the Gentiles. That broke down all the structure for awhile...the need for the church to adjust for God's work through the Holy Spirit. You just never knew what was going to happen next, because God was leading things His way and not according to what the disciples were deciding. They were just kind of on the sidelines with everybody else, watching what was going to happen next.
They point to the gifts that lay people were given and how the church was promulgated throughout the world – often by people going against the traditions of Judaism, and even the church, with unordained people talking up Jesus Christ to Gentiles! Not the ministry – just the lay membership! What a shock! How controversial! How unstructured! And how totally functional, because that's how the church grew!
I quoted biblical examples for both positions, right? So the problem is to get us together and try to figure out how to use all of that, instead of being one way or the other. And that's hard, because we don't like to do that. We like to come down on one side of an issue or the other. Really, if you think about it, the history of human civilization, including church history, is one long lesson about the tension between these two issues.
When Martin Luther nailed his Manifesto to the door of the Catholic Church, he was reacting in a spiritualistic way against the tight control of the traditionalist Catholic Church, which it had become. And we relate to that because many of us left where we were for the same reason. I'm sure he was made to feel like a rebel and so were we. But, if you read in the Old Testament where Israel asked for a king, what they were doing was just the opposite. They were reacting to the less structured way of the judges. They wanted more structure.
If you read about the Feast of Nehemiah, we see a people who had gone way off from the structure of the Law, and the priesthood calling people back to a more traditionalistic way of life – to a more structured way of life.
If we read in Corinthians, we see that the members of the congregation were all into the free flow of the Spirit, and Paul – this guy who was a total loose cannon – called them to a structured use of their gifts.
So, it's not that one is right and one is wrong. There is to be structure. Even nature tells us that. Every amoeba is organized. It has parts. They all serve functions. But it's to be a flexible structure that allows for the work of the Holy Spirit, which, to us, can often seem unstructured, and unpredictable, and uncontrollable and scary. But it doesn't seem like any of those things to God, because He's the one who does those things that make us wonder what is going on, and what's going to happen next. We don't understand it until we figure it out later – after the fact. You know, “What in the world is this Paul guy doing? Are you sure he's for real? He might wind up ratting us out! We might have to go to prison or be killed for this.” But they figured out later that Paul was a good guy, didn't they? He changed.
So all these things that happened at the behest of the Holy Spirit frighten some us and delight others. And some of the things that are very structured, please some of us and makes others of us feel oppressed. It's just how it works.
Now, that both sides point to the Bible to prove their point tells us that both structure and function are needed in the church. There are examples of both – all down through it. But I would like to offer a caveat here. I'd like to submit to you that the kind of structure that most of us are used to is not what God had in mind for the church. It's not the type of structure. I'll say on the other side of it, that neither is the disconnected, uncontrolled activity – that we see today in some areas – neither is that what He had in mind. There's a term that comes to my mind when we think about our experience of seeing things really structured, and then things really unstructured. And that term is both and neither.
Let's think about what God has given us to understand how it's supposed to be structured and how it's supposed to function – functional structure. God has provided – that I know of – one inorganic model for the church. And that's a temple. All the rest are organic – you know, the body of Christ. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The Kingdom of God is like growing grain. See the lillies, how they grow. But before we look at those organic models, let's take a look the temple for a minute.
Let's go to Ephesians 2, verse 17. You know, we have a whole young generation coming up that's going to be the church, and I believe that there are just as many people on both sides of this issue among them as there are among the older generation. I think there's always been a lot people that wanted to be free so they could control others. And I think that the younger generation falls into that just as much as the older one does. So this is good material for everybody to think about, no matter what age you are.
Eph. 2:17 – He came and He preached peace to you, who were far away, and peace to those who were near. Well, who would have been far away? Well, that would have been the Gentiles, wouldn't it? And those who were near would have been the Jews, because of their awareness of the Law. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. The family is another metaphor that I didn't mention. A family – also an organic thing. ...built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. In Him the whole buildng is joined together and rises to become a holy temple to the Lord. And in Him, you, too, are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.
We've always heard about heirarchy – you know, top down. The guy at the top, then two guys under him, and then four, and then eight.... That's even been used in our church as an example of the government of God. But you know, when a pyramid is built, the size of the foundation always determines how high it's going to be. So you know the size of it when you start building it. If everything goes up at a forty-five, after awhile you can't go any more unless you just stack them straight up. Then you don't have a pyramid any longer.
But with the temple, you have a building with vertical walls. And the size – the height of it – is only determined by the strength of the foundation. So it tells us that we are all a part of one building. And as we are each added in, we become a part of the structure. One brick is mortared into the wall and it becomes the wall. And who is the foundation? Well, it says Jesus Christ and the apostles are the foundations. He's the chief cornerstone. He's the one who bolsters it all. So how strong is He? He's infinitely strong. So how high can the temple be? Infinitely tall. Isn't that right? See, He's not on top of a pyramid – riding atop a kingdom of undersize. He's underneath it, holding it all up. It's a position of service and support.
There's something else about this building. It's unlike any building that any of us have ever seen. Let's go to Isaiah 9, and verse 6.
Isa. 9:6 – For to us a child is born. To us a Son is given. And the government will be upon His shoulders. Upon His shoulders – not under His feet – upon his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now get this. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. That temple is just going to keep on going up! It's not limited, because the foundation is infinitely strong. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing it, and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
It strikes me that people, who have been heirarchal climbers in the church today, will be trying to get to the bottom of that building. Well, if they want to do that, I guess...I'm just going to be happy to be a brick in the wall myself. Just to get there will be great.
It's such an amazing thing. It's says He's going to uphold it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. And the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. So, because of the strength and its undergirding, it's never going to stop growing. So even the inorganic model of the church is not like any other inorganic thing you ever heard of in your life, because it's never going to stop growing. It's eternal because Jesus is in it. It's very much like a living thing – not like a pyramid, the size of which is always determined by the size of the foundation.
It's so interesting to me that we always talked about top down government, believing that it was the model of the Kingdom, when actually it's the model of the U.S. government, the British government, the French government, the Russian government, the government of wherever – and all businesses, and all agencies within businesses and governments. That's where we got that idea. And because we thought that way, we thought being on top was the best place to be. So a lot of people struggled for position on the heirarchal pyramid of what they thought was church government. And it wasn't just that the ministry was engaged in that struggle. I saw a lot of deacons that would just about do anything to be ordained an elder. And a lot of people would do just about anything to be ordained a deacon. I think that so many people are angry shows that people were disappointed, too.
Now, let's go to Colossians 1, and verse 16, and look at another analogy. This is an organic analogy.
Col. 1:16 – For by Him all things were created – things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or powers, or rulers, or authorities – all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body. See there. It's a body – and a head on top. It's on top, so that means it's top down! Right? Well, let's keep going. All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body – the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. So that sounds pretty authoritarian at first glance, doesn't it?
What does a head do? Well, it makes all the decisions – in charge. It's the man – the boss. The head tells the body what to do. Right? Yeah, until the toe gets hit with the hammer. Then the toe tells the head what it needs really badly. And the head does everything it can do to take care of the toe. But it does more than that! It sends out signals to produce growth hormone. It reacts to pain in the body. It is not indifferent to what's going on in the other parts. The job of the head is to cause the body to flourish and grow. It takes care of the body. It protects it from harm. It makes decisions designed for the benefit of the body. You know, you go out for a jog, and you start running uphill, and you get tired, and your head tells your body that you've got to sit down. That's because the body is screaming at the head, “I need rest!” It protects it from harm. It decides to exercise the body so it won't atrophy. You know, the first Church of God I was in...the body was in great pain because it didn't get enough exercise. When that would happen, the head would just inject another shot of pain killer and anesthetize the body some more, and go on doing what it wanted to do. The body was ignored – right up until the day that it fell apart. In that organization, the head thought the body was just there to carry it around. But that isn't how it works.
Did you notice that one statment there? For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. Jesus Christ is the head because God gave Him His fullness. What does that mean? Well, it means His incredible power, His wisdom, His life, His immortality. And what does the Bible tells us the head does with that? Well, He gives it to us. That's what the scripture calls gifts of the Spirit. He passes that on to us. He passes on to us the ability to accomplish high-level spiritual activity and service. That's passed down to us and we're all expected to use it. And if we don't, we atrophy. The body atrophies.
So the head's job is to cause the body to grow. You know, you have this little gland called the pituitary. If you take too many amphetamines, that will affect your pituitary growth, so that if you...these kids they put on ritalin, which is a mild amphetamine...if they start them young enough, they can wind up being three inches shorter than they would have been, because it inhibits pituitary activity. So the head controls growth. It sends out the signals to produce growth hormone. The head's job of a body – a real physical body – whether it be an animal or a human – is to cause the body to grow – to protect it, take care of it, nurture it, serve it.
Plants. Let's talk about plants now. Let's read my new favorite scripture – new in the last four years – Mark 4:26.
Mk. 4:26 – He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. It's like a man that scatters seed on the ground.” Who would the man be? Well, that would be God, wouldn't it? “Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain – first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. And as soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” So organic things have power to grow all by themselves once planted. They can be left alone for awhile to grow. Don't need constant supervision. Don't have to go out and tug on their little leaves everyday to get them to grow more. You just need to plant them, water them, feed them, and maybe, after they get bigger, prune them once in awhile. But mostly they just do it all by themselves.
So what do the parts of a human body and plants have in common? Every human body and every plant seed contain the DNA of that organism, which is the blueprint of the entire organism. So that's a powerful metaphor to teach us that we can all reproduce spiritually, as well as physically. It's built into us. It's not just the head's job. Plants can replicate themselves from a single seed. Seeds blow in the wind. They fall from branches, are picked up by birds, and carried all over the place. The one who plants the seed doesn't try to control where the seeds are going to go. That's all been planned that way. That's how we have plant life growing all over the earth. Once it was planted, it was just going to take care of itself. It was just going to happen naturally.
We are all like seeds, who have an extremely important job – that of reproduction. And the head is there to protect and cause the body to grow and be healthy. The one who plants the seeds expects them to grow all by themselves and produce more seeds. So both of those analogies have that running through it.
What else to bodies, and plants and temples all have in common? They all have parts, don't they? They have structure. The parts all fit together. Work together. They're all interdependent. Have you ever noticed that? You can't go without structure. You think of an amoeba, “Well, that doesn't have any structure. It just takes all kinds of shapes....” It does have structure. It has all kinds of parts. It's very complicated. You can't make one. Neither can I.
Let's go 1 Corinthinas 12, and verse 18.
1 Cor. 12:18 – But, in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body – every one of them – just as He wanted them to be. And if they were all one part, where would the body be? You just can't have all feet. As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don't need you.” And the head – the head! – cannot say to the feet, “I don't need you.” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensible. So all the parts make up a structure, and each part needs the other. All have roles to play. Even plants are organized. They have roots, and they have one job. They have leaves. And they have stalks. They have flowers. They all grow in stages, just like animals and human beings. Different parts do different things. The head, it says, needs the foot. It's hard to think of Christ needing us, but there it is! Every head needs feet. Right? So, because Jesus is wise, He takes care of His feet. He takes care of His body. It's only the people who are all into structure – completely, and off in that extreme position – that don't realize that the body needs to be taken care of.
So each part is in the body with a different function. Functional structures. That's what we're talking about. In the first church I was in, it fell apart because the members weren't allowed to function. That's what actually happened. It atrophied. It fell apart. In that case, the head was preventing the body from functioning, so it eventually died. It's like putting a rubber band around your finger and leaving it there until it falls off.
Now think about this – an organic structure that promotes the growth of the organism.
Eph. 4:10 – He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe. “In order to fill the whole universe.” That's talking about that temple that is going to keep on going, isn't it? It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers – so that they could get the big head and think that they were better than everyone else? That's not why He is the supreme being in the church. He's trying to pile as many people as He can up on top of Him! So He has more people to take care of and serve. ...some to be pastors and teachers – what for? – to prepare God's people for works of service. See, you can't let the body atrophy. It has to be exercised. ...so that the body of Christ may be built up. When the body's built up, you're lifting weights. Right? You're exercising. ...until we all reach unity in the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. He's trying as hard as He can to give as much as He can of His power and His strength to us. He wants to pass on decision-making ability to us. He wants to pass on wisdom to us. He wants to pass on authority to us. He wants to pass on healings, and miracles and all those things to us.
So the point of the structure is the growth of the organism. When you have a structure that promotes growth, then you have a functional structure. The point of the structure in the church is the training and growth of the members of the church.
So, with that in mind, let's ask, “What is functional structure?” We're going to add another piece here. What is the function of the church? Well, let's read it one more time. Maybe if we read it enough, it'll actually become important to us. It's in Matthew 28:18.
Mt. 28:18 – Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. So there are the marching orders. That's not a prophecy. That is some instruction about what to do just before He left – the last thing He said. The marching orders – the function of the church – just like a body or a plant – is to grow – to reproduce itself. When every structure that we have in our congregations causes growth, then we have a congregation that is made up of functional structure.
What structures do we have that cause growth? See, this is another reason why it's really controversial. It's not just that people have differing ideas about what that means, or what works, but it also, at some point, gets down to pruning – to killing the sacred cow. That means that somebody is going to be left without a responsibility and have to learn another one. So we have to ask those hard questions. Which structures do we have that cause growth? And which ones do not?
Does a ministry that doesn't focus on the fruits of the Spirit within the spiritual organism promote growth or does it stifle it? Does a structure that constricts the various parts of the body promote growth or is it killing it off slowly? That's the functionalist questions. But there's the other side of it? Does a structure that makes no effort to promote cooperative effort and contribution...does that produce function or disfunction? Well, it produces disfunction because there's no structure. Can chaos produce order and the growth that comes from it? No.
I remember once, when I was a little boy, I heard somebody talking about cancer. And I asked my parents what cancer was, because I didn't know. And they told me that cancer was cells in the body that went wild. I was watching CNN news one evening – I'm ashamed to admint – and I saw this guy with a beard. He was something-or-other of Yahweh. And I found out later that he used to go to the church that I first was a part of. I'm not surprised to learn that he was a part of that church, but watching him there on the screen, he looked like a flaming lunatic! And he is a flaming lunatic. And they were inviting him there to talk on the show to show everybody what a flaming lunatic looks and sounds like. He's extreme. He's unbalanced. He's off on the twigs – majoring in the minors, instead of the trunk of the tree. And he's so far out of touch, he doesn't even know why he's been invited to be on the show! You know what? Guys like that bring in millions of dollars a year, because there are a lot of people that have been associated with the church in the past that are just as imbalanced and just as extreme as he is. They hear what he says and it sounds like wisdom. Cells gone wild. So also are all those who have torn apart congregations and relationships over things that don't matter – things that aren't important to God.
I'm all in favor of freedom in Christ. You all know that, but I'm also intent upon unity of the Spirit. NCD tells us that this quality is the most controversial. And when we look closely at what we're doing in our various congregational structures, it becomes quickly obvious that many of them are just resource hogs that aren't contributing to the purpose of the church, which is making disciples.
Now that we've kind of defined that generally – talked about what a functional structure is generally – next time we're going to begin the process of talking specifically about structures to see if they pass the function test – the test of making disciples.
