IS YOUR CHURCH OR MINISTRY A FERRARI WITH NO BRAKES?

IS YOUR CHURCH OR MINISTRY A FERRARI WITH NO BRAKES?

THREE HISTORIC METHODS OF CHURCH GOVERNANCE

Historically, the debate over church government has been over how to divide
authority in the church between three categories of authorities: leaders
outside the local church, local church elders, and the local church
congregation as a whole. There are numerous different systems but they are
divided into three main categories: The Episcopal system gives most
authority to leaders outside the local church; The Presbyterian system gives
most authority to local church elders; while the Congregational system gives
most authority to the ordinary members of the local church as a whole.

But this article does not debate which of these is best. All of them were
developed over the centuries to include many checks and balances in response
to the problems faced by the churches - and in particular the problem of
sinfulness of human church leadership. The Episcopal systems tended to
develop detailed regulations which tried to protect the rights of members.
The Presbyterian system developed a system of appeal courts in which errors
could be corrected. The Congregational system focused on local church
constitutions which allowed all members a voice and the right to question
administrative actions.

THE 'NEW SYSTEM' OF CHURCH GOVERNANCE

Nevertheless, in the last 30 years a new system of church governance has
arisen which has been adopted by most of the younger denominations and many
other ministries. This new system as explained by its proponents is based
not on rules, but on relationships. It allows freedom for the Holy Spirit
to move, without being bound by the traditions of men. It allows anointed
men of God the freedom to pursue the vision that God has given them, without
being slowed down by church committees. It is much more efficient than any
of the olds systems. The success and superiority of the new system is
demonstrated by the rapid growth of the ministries which use it. And
furthermore, its proponents claim, it is more biblical. Where in the Bible
they ask, do you see the church taking a vote on anything? So surely then
voting is unbiblical? Surely, rather, the anointed man of God who can hear
God better than anyone else in the church, should just do whatever God has
told him to do. Anyone who disagrees with the anointed leader must be
opposing God and sowing division and rebellion. Sometimes he might call
himself an apostle or a prophet - which sounds very Biblical.

These younger denominations are mostly the fastest growing. In the 1980s,
they were a novelty. Today, they have grown big enough to be taking the
lead and draw a much larger percentage of young adults than the older
denominations. In the not too distant future they will probably outgrow the
older denominations, which are governed by the old systems of Episcopal,
Presbyterian or Congregational governance.

SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

How does the new system fit into the old grid of Episcopal, Presbyterian and
Congregational? It is closest to the Episcopal system, but trans-local
authority is not restricted by geographical boundaries but rather follow
relational networks. Furthermore, the senior leaders have often founded the
networks themselves and are not appointed by anyone else - and their
authority is not counterbalanced by other parallel senior leaders. So what
is the problem? The big problem is that there is generally no way to hold
these great anointed leaders accountable or to protect the rest of the
church from their errors. In many cases these are godly men whose lives
seem to be authenticated by the blessing of God on their ministry. The
problem is that human nature tends to be corrupted by power - and anyone
given too much power for too long, tends to abuse it - often abuse of power,
money and even sex. But even godly men make mistakes and those mistakes
gone uncorrected can do great harm to the church and to people's lives.

The 'new system' does not allow for correction of mistakes. Thus mistakes
tend to compound. While in the beginning such ministries showed rapid
growth and excitement, after a while mistakes start to accumulate thus
undermining the ministry spiritually from the inside. While initially,
being part of a rapid growing ministry was like taking a ride in a Ferrari,
later on the passengers discover that the Ferrari has no brakes - and they
end up bruised, beaten up and bleeding from the crash that will inevitably
come. The same story is playing itself out over and over with this 'new
system' of church governance. Sometimes the crashes make spectacular news
headlines in the secular press, but this is really the tip of the iceberg.
Insider leaders of such ministries know the multiplication of problems which
occur over time.

'NEW SYSTEM' CHURCH GOVERNANCE VS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC MODEL

Protestants have historically criticized the Roman Catholic System of
governance (an Episcopal form) as being autocratic. Nevertheless, most of
these 'new system' denominations are much more autocratic than the Roman
Catholic Church. Within the Roman Catholic system, for example, Canon law
protects members who respectfully criticize the actions of the hierarchy,
including the Vatican. There are rights of fair trial for accused persons
and excommunication is only used for a narrow set of serious offences. In
the new system of governance, there is seldom recognition of the right to
freedom of speech, freedom of conscience or the right to a fair trial. Each
senior leader has within his own domain, considerably more power than the
Pope has within the Roman Catholic Church. They are generally governed by
the arbitrary dictatorial rule of powerful personalities. Protestants
commonly criticize the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope.
Nevertheless, within the Roman Catholic system, this infallibility is
restricted to the public pronouncements he makes on matters of doctrine,
which is usually just confirmation of a consensus of belief and traditions,
which have existed for a long time. Within the 'new system' of church
governance, the leaders are generally treated by their lieutenants as if
infallible in whatever they do and say or decide on an ad-hoc basis. Within
the Roman Catholic system, the Pope may be petitioned to answer questions.
Within the 'new system' churches, the leaders are protected from answering
tough questions. Thus the 'new system' Protestant church governance is much
much more autocratic than that of the Roman Catholic church.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO CHRISTIAN ACTIVISM?

It is important because Christian activism is based on the moral authority
of the church and the Christian community, which practices as well as
preaches the Word of God. In the 'new system', the senior leadership cannot
be held accountable to the Word of God, because they alone interpret the
Bible and cannot be held accountable to even consistently obey their own
interpretation. Thus as much as they preach the Bible, it is these
'super-apostles' who become personally the ultimate authority and not the
Bible.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, such ministries were the strongest in
speaking up on social issues from a Christian perspective. No longer. Most
of the time they now have nothing to say about the moral issues facing the
nation. We have lost our strongest supporters.

Why? In many cases, moral authority is lost because internal institutional
sin not properly dealt with. When a senior leader sins or starts to abuse
his power and he is too powerful for anyone to remove him, then he tends to
take the whole ministry downhill with him. Once sin is tolerated in senior
leadership, it becomes very difficult to motivate church discipline against
anyone else. The decline can be as spectacularly rapid as the growth.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS?

This 'new system' of church governance is proved itself a disaster in one
ministry after another. Most of the time, such ministries have many other
features that are really good - and that is what draws people to them.
Often the preaching of the Word of God is strong; they are culturally
relevant to the younger generation, they often have a great range of
activities and social and evangelistic outreach - but governance problems
over time often cause them to unravel and go sour.

To stop more ministries going dysfunctional, we need a reformation of church
governance among the younger denominations and ministries. There are three
historically proven successful systems of church governance to choose from.
Numerous books and manuals have been written on church governance and
discipline to prevent these problems. The new denominations don't need to
reinvent the wheel. They can just go copy the constitutions and procedures
of the older established denominations and local churches.

Some younger denominations, realizing these problems have already started to
walk the path of governance reform back to historic proven systems of church
governance. Usually, the reform is initiated by the second generation of
leadership. Older denominations have shown themselves more than willing to
help and advise the reform process.

If you are in a 'Ferrari with no brakes' church or ministry, don't wait for
it to crash. If you are a senior leader, institute governance reform
yourself. If junior leader or ordinary member, do some research on your
church's accountability systems and compare it with older churches - and
urge your leaders to institute more checks and balances before things go
badly wrong.

Philip Rosenthal