Paul Vieira in his book Jesus has Left the Building looks at the institutional church and the organic church — the structure and the actual life it contains. On p. 22-23 he writes,
What we traditionally call “church” is often two entities, a blend of mechanical and biological elements held together by a form of fusion. There are two churches, the institutional church and the organic church. The picture I see is a living plant intertwined with a lifeless silk plant. The silk plant looks real, but it is not alive and doesn’t produce fruit. It is the inorganic, fake plant that is falsely called the church. It may be an organization of the church, but not the church itself. The question arises, “Is this organization perfectly suited to fulfill the basic mandate of Christ’s ministry on earth?” All too often we see that the mechanical parts inevitably only restrict and repress the genuine life of the organic members.
I found this to be a helpful picture, as it doesn’t present an either-or view of institutional versus organic church, but shows how the organic church can grow up in and around the structure. It’s appropriate in that at a glance you can’t tell the difference between the two, and in that the structure isn’t integral to the organic life.
To strip off the metaphor, we could say that what we often see as integral to the church really isn’t, it’s just structure. One of the tasks I’m about is separating the structure from the organic matter. That done, the organic matter can be better understood to see what kind of structure (if any) can best support it. An attempt can then be made to place a new kind of structure in such a way that it can be distinct from the actual organic matter supporting it without overpowering it, without starting to masquerade as the life itself, and without overpowering the life it supports.
Interesting analogy here. I like that Viera resists simple dismissal of anything that isn’t organic, because that’s an oversimplified view. I wonder if any further exploration of how the inorganic is necessary for the right growth of the plant would be helpful? For instance, vines need a trellis to reach their full potential. But still, the purpose of the trellis is the vine, not vice versa.
I disagree – I don’t think they’re separate. I tihnk it’s more like coral. I’m no expert on coral, but my understanding is that the hard stuff, the inorganic calcium carbonate stuff, is essentially the backbone, the skeleton, for the thin layer of living tissue itself. We keep producing structure, can’t avoid it, we create institutions, even when our goal is to deconstruct, deinstituionalize. I think if Paul’s idea was right, it would be a whole lot easier to extricate the two, pull them apart. Often enough I hate, despise, throb with anger about the institutional church – but its demons are mine. As humans we rely on repetitive patterns to help us operate in the world. I end up just focusing on mission – what is the mission that God has placed in front of us at this moment, and what do we need to hold on to / get rid of to be as agile as possible in responding. Next mission will require some different combination of holding/releasing of structural stuff.
I’m sorry, but I’ve re-read the quoted passage over and over, and I don’t see how it’s not a slam on church structure. Calling it “lifeless” can be a recognition that it’s only structure, it’s not the Spirit, but the last line of the paragraph seems to be heading towards the dictum that structure & institutional churches are the problem.
Maybe I need to get more context on the quote?
I wonder if this is a case of us choosing an interpretive metaphor that illustrates what we already believe rather than letting a metaphor actually speak to us…
I guess I like the metaphor then because I agree with it. Personally I think it’s high time we examine our structures to determine what supports life and what is a hindrance to life. Maybe we just need to be careful not to apply our own ideas of structure to everyone else.
S’pose I should chime in….
First, I think I may not be interpeting the metaphor as harshly as Paul meant it, so Rob is correct. I like it, but am probably reading it just a little different, it was a bit of a slam which I tried to tone down.
Of course, as Matt observes, a trellis can help a vine by giving it structure, but imo it’s a mistake to think that every vine needs a trellis to grow at all… and I don’t want to make an assumption yet as to which kind of vine the church would be in this picture. Or branches on the vine, whatever. Suffice to say that the trellis, the structure is genuinely trying to help here — and maybe it really is, in ways we don’t see right off… after all, if the vine is healthy, the trellis disappears into the background.
Aha. In the church, the structure is rarely that subtle, it’s more often quite visible to the naked eye. This doesn’t mean automatically that it’s harming the vine, but to make a thinly-veiled comment, if the structure is seen as extremely important, sometimes the vine gets pruned back until the structure can be “properly” seen and admired.
The thing that I found significant in the analogy Paul drew is that we aren’t really talking about a trellis, but a fake plant… so the structure is masquerading as the organic life. It isn’t. I think the most helpful structure will be clearly distinguishable from the organic life as it serves. In Paul’s picture with the silk plant, the structure can be easily confused with the organic life itself. Bad news.
Have we broken the metaphor yet?
THeOldBill’s comments are more difficult for me. I’m intrigued with the notion that the demons of church structure are our (my) own. Can’t argue with that one, really. Leonard Sweet prefers to speak of the “inherited” church rather than the institutional church. This is the way we received it… now what can we do to improve it, make it a more clear reflection of Jesus? I think we’re in a season where we’re taking a very hard look at all aspects of the church as we’ve inherited it, and we’re tinkering. I don’t know how it’s going to come out, but in my mind it looks like there may/will always be a place for the institutional church, but other forms are springing up around it. If the institutional church enjoys a very large trellis, I want to be careful not to stamp around on the vines that are growing up at its base, shooting out (dare I say emerging?) in all directions. Multiplying.
p.24