There's Something Missing

I'm not often moved by a piece at the following blog, but Frank Turk at Pyromaniacs posted a letter he wrote to the Southern Baptist Convention detailing his family's search for a church after having to move for economic reasons.  After searching for several years, and attending dozens of SBC churches, they settled into one outside of the SBC.  His letter calls attention to a few things missing in the churches he tried out: leadership, ministry, seriousness, community, theology and Jesus Christ.

Focusing for a moment on the section of his letter that deals with lack of community, Frank writes:

Which also brings up another important issue: because our view of leadership is a business-based model, and our view of ministry is both pragmatic and simplistic, and we have traded seriousness and sincere forthrightness for anything else that will hold people’s attention, we have no communities. Isn’t it ironic that we have medium- and large-sized social institutions which we can run with competent ability, but all that competence and professionalism really has put us in a place where the people involved don’t even really know each other?

How tragic.  But of course, Frank's not close to being alone in lamenting these sad situations.  The corporate mentality of bureaucracy and programs have neglected and alienated many Christians.  Many are leaving churches and not returning.  Many are trying different forms of church and community.  Maybe the old wineskins are bursting and God is making new wineskins to hold the new wine.  Whatever the case, searching through old wineskins to find something new is a daunting task.  God help us.

Either Doctrine OR Community?

In a recent post, I mentioned two problems we often face.  We're given a choice between two things, and we're given the idea that one of the choices must be right.  Also, in other cases, since we have two choices, we're given the idea that one must be wrong.

An example of the latter, and the point of this post, could be the false dichotomy that has been created in ecclesiology that tells us that church either has doctrine or community.  It's as if both can't be realities.  There has been much tension over the last few decades over the idea of community within a church body.  Many who have left the traditional/institutional church complain about a lack of community.  People go to church every Sunday, sit there, listen to a sermon preached by one person, and go home.  There is relatively little interaction between people concerning the New Testament one-anothers.  As a counter complaint, many within the institutional church claim these newer community groups meet to emote and have social interaction, but forsake doctrine and solid leadership.  Much may be true of each complaint, but why can't both be part of church?

Why can't there be solid doctrine and good teaching while at the same time strong community bonds between the members of the body?  I'm sure there can be.