During our most recent conference, frequent conversations focused on how we relate to our larger church institutions. Do we take on the role of prophet, calling institutions to new ways of thinking? Or do we work within the systems in place to make small but meaningful steps in reconciliation? Can we do both?
A recent post, found at the Interchurch Relations page of the Mennonite Church USA offers some reflection:
Movements and institutions need each other.
This summer and early fall I met people who are part of movement Christianity.
In August I attended a Jesus Radicals gathering hosted at Portland (Ore.) Mennonite Church.
In September I attended a gathering of community networkers convened by Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Ill., a Mennonite Church USA congregation, to discuss how to support newer discipleship communities.
Later I flew to Southern California and participated in a west coast Catholic Worker retreat. These Catholics live together in houses of hospitality, emphasizing the importance of Christian peace witness.
I also spent time with Urban Village, an intentional community birthed out of a Sunday school class at Pasadena (Calif.) Mennonite Church.
At the Abundant Table Farm Project in Oxnard, Calif., I was inspired by the integration of work, church and life as an organic farm, intentional community and worshiping community all use the same land.
In each case these groups are alternative communities interacting with the institutional church in a variety of ways.
After these visits I landed in Pittsburgh for MC USA’s Leaders Forum, a gathering of conference representatives, agency board members and denominational staff. I was there in my staff role with MC USA, feeling the tensions of working within the institutional church while also being in relationship with movements on the margins. I thought of how different we look today from the “leaders forum” that met in a barn, secretly, to draft the Schleitheim Confession in 1527.
Given our Anabaptist origins, I wondered, how are our institutions accountable to movements at the margins? Have we given increasing power to institutions while limiting movements in our midst? How have movements, at times, refused to engage with institutional structures?
Have we become either cynical about institutions or dismissive of movements? What could it look like for there to be mutual accountability between movements and institutions, recognizing that institutions often carry disproportionate amounts of power?
Let’s be open to the Spirit’s creativity and wisdom, wherever it is found.
Joanna Shenk, of Elkhart, Ind., is associate for interchurch relations and communications with Mennonite Church USA.
While written from a specifically Mennonite perspective, this post has some things to say about the broader issues at work here. As we continue to discern and move forward in this second decade of Bridgefolk, what are your thoughts?
I completely agree that movements and institutions need each other. This is something I’ve thought about quite a bit on my Mennonite-Catholic pilgrimage. I have become convinced that any counter-institutional movement must inevitably either become institutional itself or die out, yet I am no longer convinced as I might once have been that this is necessarily a bad thing. I do, however, believe that institutions need dissenting movements from within to keep them accountable, and perhaps the internal dissonance they create is part of the vital difference between an organic Body and a mechanical corporation.
And yet again, the postmodern assumption (which often seems to resonate with Anabaptism) that the Spirit of God can NEVER work within institutional structures imposes just as much of an artificial limit as the opposite assumption that the Spirit can never work outside of them. Both institutions and movements have the potential to make room for the movement of the Spirit, and both have the potential to get in its way.
“Mutual accountability” is surely what’s needed. “Let’s be open to the Spirit’s creativity and wisdom, wherever it is found.” To this I say amen.
Looking at it somewhat from a Catholic perspective (though I confess to being a mutt who has moved in Mennonite, mainline and evangelical Protestant circles a lot), one of the challenges is a semantic one. Simply put: “movement” =”radical” for most Catholics. Thus it’s a movement away from the tradition they’re trying to uphold, or maybe reform, but certainly not leave or destroy.
Traditional Catholics are used to thinking of their church as by definition an institution, if not THE institution. Ancient, not bowing to fads, hierarchical. Though many are open to critique from within and (to a lesser extent) without, the concept of ecumenism and/or movements can at minimum seem confusing, and at worst be seen as threatening. The only “movement” they can conceive of is out — either toward accessible Protestant efforts like the “seeker” churches (Chicago’s Willow Creek being a classic example, which I think is thick with ex-Catholics), or just voting with their feet by not showing up except on holidays (if that).
In terms of movements, three examples come to mind:
1) Call To Action (specifically Catholic, probably perceived as an ultra-liberal movement). It’s an interesting organization, but does not have a foothold in mainstream Catholicism, even with all the disillusioned Catholics out there.
2) Promise Keepers.
Though clearly it’s lost steam in the past decade, even at its height the Catholic and Mennonite participation I noticed was nominal at best. And this movement also points to the challenge of integrating or separating political positions from religious movements (or responsiveness to the Spirit).
3) The Emergent Church movement. Even though parts of it are incorporating or reclaiming classic Catholic practices and ideas, I suspect it’s still seen as Protestant and peripheral– and thus alien– for rank-and-file Catholics. If they’re even aware of it…
I guess my point is that life on the fringe (I.e. at the center of a movement) is mainly for that motivated minority. And as they (we) build community amongst other fringe-dwellers, the tension is not just between us and the center… It’s also between those in the movement and those entirely on the outside of the institutions, who refuse to move (or to be moved …by the Spirit OR the institution).
The current issue of The Mennonite includes a “news analysis” by veteran church administrator Edgar Stoesz entitled “Institutions are returning to the church.” It acknowledges historic Mennonite anti-institutionalism, but offers a positive take on the role of institutions in carrying out the work of the church.
See http://www.themennonite.org/issues/14-3/articles/Institutions_are_returning_to_the_church
Thanks for sharing your vurioas and diverse photos with us. They are great. I have been seriously especially interested in intentional Christian communal living since I was a teenager, and now I am 75 years old. My wife, our family, and I have had some very real communal experiences over the years, in the Gospel Mission Corps here in Central New Jersey and also in the Pillar of Fire Church, which unfortunately is not as communal as it had been over past generations. We were taught this lifestyle as coming from that of the early Christan church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles folllowing Pentecost. In fact, in Bishop Alma White’s book entitled THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH, there is a chapter on the subject of Pentecostal Giving from which the emphasis was made through which many of us sensed.this vocational call. The more recent book entitled LIVING TOGETHER IN A WORLD THAT IS FALLING APART by Dave and Neta Jackson is a tremendously helpful presentation of how this can be done with Jesus Christ being at the center. What are called religious orders of sisters and brothers, or deaconry ministries, that have been a longtime practice in certain churches, have been the means through which God has accomplished so much and fulfilled His divine purposes that could not have been reached otherwise. . . doing together what we could never do separately. As long as the participants are regenerated believers who are yielded to the Holy Spirit, this way of life can bear true and faithful witness for the Gospel. However, if or when the self-seeking individuals are in charge, it can become dreadfully corrupt and fail to realize the will of God for His people. Where there are counterfeit communities, and this turns folk against such lifestyle, this only goes to prove that there are the genuine some where. Men only counterfeit that which is real and has great value, and the devil pulls the same technique, particularly in the ways that Christians and churches too often malfunction. May God give us the genuine, the real thing, and may we be sensitive to receive it on the basis of the Word of God and not human distortions and perversions. Blessings on you, Kelly. If there is a Grange in your area, why not look into it. Here in New Jersey, our Granges have anjual photography contests. Perhaps the Granges where you live may do the same. Your beautiful photos may possibly win a prize. The love, joy, and peace of Christ be with you.Sincerely, Pastor Bob and Sandy Turton, E-mail: GOSPEL MISSION CORPS, P O BOX 175, HIGHTSTOWN, NJ 08520 0175