Models of the church?

Community based model of church
Relationship is the key to success. Each member is encouraged to have a shared vision of a multiplicity of competing visions as each member grows to love and accommodate the burdens and understandings of the other. Difference is embraced and encouraged and the pastor/leader/leaders/elders (male & female) is (are) a member(s) of the body and not the head. All visions ministries are openly taught from the scriptures and each has to engage with the other at the coalface of real life.
Since ‘community’ is not a program based but a relational based model of Christianity to leave you have to break relationship- there is no other way out- (laying on of hands or a coffin ( CP Schmitt)).

Program based model of church
Most ‘churches’ have such a low level of committment to real relational concepts and there is a continuous flow of people coming and going and no one really considers this as wrong-as long as the church keeps moving on ( relationships are elsewhere) . In this model the church is a gathering to enhance the vision or goals of the Pastors/Leaders and not the goals and visions of the various members ( there are of course some wonderful pastors/ leaders / men & women of God out there and I am not AGAINST them personally).
In a world of NT scholarship and genuine advancements in our understanding of the scriptures can we live in a program based church and be committed to the teachings of the NT?
Someone somewhere has to say STOP to this and encourage real relationships where covenant committment is accepted as the norm for relationship. ( Check out Frank Viola’s books on pagan Christianity.)

Find a community based church for a chance of real fellowship
If all comes to all keep an open heart and expect some major flack….

Faithful are the wounds of a friend BUT many are the kisses of an enemy- your friends will then be still your friends ( if you have friends) Do we have any friends???

· There is a place for every member of the body-kidz to oldies.

· Leaders are seen as example givers not lords- and are male & female-just another member of the body

· Community is messy because people are messy- but we learn to clean up together

· Worship is central to all that we are- its allabout HIM not us

· Giving is always as the Lord directs us in whatever mission

· goals are current events we are striving for as He moves us forward in His will

· People are free to have their own ministry within or without the body

· We do mission to women in crisis pregnancy- www.life.ie

· we do mission to the poor in Tanzania - www.tep.ie

· we do mission in prayer- www.247prayer.ie
 

We are a small committed community but have over the years sought to obey what we believe as a community is the 'word of the Lord'.  Each community has to find and obey the voice of God.  Sometimes people in the community do not fully agree and difference is always encouraged and allowed as a valid expression.  Being unified is not a doctrinal matter but a matter of the heart and of relationship.

It is not th place of the leader to generate some vision that all must follow BUT to allow each member DO what God is asking them to do and to bring a coherence to the various competing visions in the body. We are a fellowship of peers who are striving to be fully human in a corrupt society. The pastor led churches are the biggest hindrance to the ministry of the body that exists these days and they subvert the will of God for the members and subjegate them to the vision of the leader/leaders/man of God.  The NT states clearly that we can all know God and that we should know Him in community.

Do a search on Google for articles by Jon Zens and Frank Viola and NT Wright and expose yourself to something different