Perspective on How Church Should Be Modeled

The context from which I bear the most knowledge is a congregational setting that would argue that it is a mystical community, but in its history it was viscerally the model was one of the Church as Institution. At the time of this independent church’s founding it was a part of a Pentecostal denomination which attempted to provide institutional means of governance for the individual churches it represented. Since it is a fairly young denomination, it might be fair to note that it gathered its model from the institutionality of the Catholic Church as a means of governance. The denomination had a head bishop who was elected from a pool of other bishops; these would be the equivalent of the Cardinals in the Vatican. Beneath the bishops were superintendents who managed and trained pastors as they planted congregations. As this particular congregation grew the founding pastor recognized the need to dissociate from the main denomination and enter into ministry as a non-denominational church. In essence this gave more autonomy to the congregation and ultimately to the pastor. This particular minister was often considered a benevolent dictator, which would be the type of leader needed for that time as everyone looked to him for spiritual answers. Historically in the denomination, since many of the congregants were poor and uneducated, the senior pastor was often the most educated person in the church. In those cases theological training often came after placement if it were available. Currently the church has a pastor that has roots in the Pentecostal denomination, but is ordained as an Anglican priest. The autonomy is still present, but there have been many desires to focus the church in more of a model of the church as sacram...

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...ms cause humans to naturally segregate. Call it hate, call it nature, call it evil, but for some reason rational adults seem to congregate in spaces that make them comfortable with people that seem to fit their acceptable style of people. If unification is not a strong emphasis of this mode of Church during the explanation of the sacraments, then not only will the sacraments be misrepresented, but the work of the Church would be nullified. This model strives on unity through diversity. Liberation, then, is offered to all who need it by the perpetual mutual laying down of self for others.

Works Cited

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/02/17/religion-among-the-millennials/ https://www.barna.org/barna-update/millennials/147-most-twentysomethings-put-christianity-on-the-shelf-following-spiritually-active-teen-years#.Uyu3O4U2q3M Models of the Church, Avery Dulles