Tim Clark’s Blog

People define the local church in many ways. Even in the New Testament, though there are some ecclesiological imperatives, there also seems to be much room for unique structures and creative styles from city to city, and from church to church. Here are a few pictures that help express how as a pastor I see the local church functioning when it is at its best…

A body, not a building or a business: It’s not that we don’t gather in buildings (most of us do) or that we don’t provide good stewardship over the resources that we share (not doing so would lack integrity), but a building is only clothing for the body, and we don’t share the same ultimate goals (profit, year-to-year growth, etc.) as a business.

Organic, not synthetic: Synthetic plants can look good and are a lot less mess, but there is no life in them. Real ministry will be messy because it is real and not fake. If a local church is always polished, smooth, and “perfect” with no sign anywhere of messy people or processes, you’d better look to see if there is any real life happening.

A family, not a factory: I’ve heard it said that a church should create systems that take the inputs (new people) and put them through a discipleship process until they are outputs (sent people) who are equipped to do Kingdom stuff. I agree with the equipping part (Eph 4) but we are much more like a family; we all move at our own pace and nobody gets ‘voted off the island’ even if they are not growing very quickly; or growing at all! Factory language dehumanizes and despiritualizes us—we are not cogs or widgets, we are children of a loving and unfathomably creative God who cares for us in as many unique ways as there are individuals in our congregation.

A movie, not a monologue: I love watching the credits at the end of movies. Good films can’t be made by a single producer, actor or director, as talented as each of those people may be; It takes hundreds of capable people to make it happen. The local church should be like this—everyone is needed! It takes more than the “sage on the stage” or those who are perceived as leaders, but a whole team of uniquely gifted individuals each adds their life to make up this beautiful community called the local church.

Prophetic, not professional: “Professional” ministry requires people who have had specialized schooling or extensive training. Education and training can be valuable, but we know that the professional religious leaders in the time of Acts stood in stark opposition to the disciples who “were uneducated, ordinary men who had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). The difference is the disciples carried the heart and words of the Lord (the definition of prophetic) and the religious professionals didn’t.

A doorway, not a destination: The local church is not all about attracting people to a destination every week, but it is to be a portal through which people can be propelled into the world. We come together SO THAT we can be sent out. Church gatherings should never be the goal of ministry, but only the starting line.

About big people, not big churches: The size of a local church is largely irrelevant when it comes to health. Micro-church is valid; so is mega-church. The measure of health can never be discovered simply in attendance numbers or income, but in multiplied life, equipped individuals, impact on a neighborhood or in a city, healed people, submitted disciples, sent leaders, and countless other indicators that often defy our attempts at quantifiable assessment.