The Organic Church: Where is it?

God has designed us all for a spiritual purpose in life (Ep 2:10). He has built spiritual gifts into our design so that as we grow into that design our gifted-ness permeates through the whole body of Christ. Thus as purpose emerges from our maturing spiritual design so do we grow together into the common purpose for which God has ordained the church.  This “growing together” is what I call the organic church. St. Paul expresses the very heart of the organic church in Ephesians 4:12-13 (NRS) in three stages. Our growing and maturing giftedness is: 1.      “…to equip the saints for the work of ministry,…” 2.    Which gifts work “…for building up the body of Christ, …” 3.    With the result that “…all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Eph 4:13 NRS)” You see how beautifully this works? As God matures the gifts that He has built into us as individuals these work to bring out and nurture the gifts that are present in the members of the body as a whole. These in turn work to further nurture and mature our individual giftedness which feeds into the growth of the whole body into the full stature of Christ. But I think we get it backwards. We concentrate on reaching outward in much service work. This indeed produces some satisfaction in that we feel that we are doing something for someone. But so often this is not really “showing Christ.” It is more like proving what good Christians we are. Our real witness, that which truly shows forth Christ into the world, is actually counterintuitive. Our outreach depends on our in-reach. Our witness should be the fruit which grows out of the work that we do to cultivate our inner spiritual ground. Dallas Willard in his book The Great Omission calls this “discipleship.” This, he says, the church has neglected. But it is just what is needed for the church to fulfill the Great Commission. We should be focusing more on the work of making place for the Spirit of Christ to work within us; to bring to maturity the person that He created us to be. If we do this through cultivating spiritual exercises which work to create ever-widening space for the Spirit to work within us then our “evangelistic” fruits will grow out from this ground. Beginning thus the organic church will grow from its roots upward into the full stature of Christ. It is not that we try to show Christ to the world, but that lifting up Christ in our midst will draw people to Him.

Ephesians 4 presents a beautiful picture of the church as an organic, holistic body of believers with gifts differing and functioning together. But where do we see such a body? I’d have to say that in my forty years of being a Christian I have never seen it. Oh, I’ve probably seen some of the principles at work, but never have I seen it in anything close to its full bloom. The reason, I think, is because such a body is not formed in the usual way that we do things. It is not planned by committees. It does not take shape according to some standard model. Rather it grows organically from the spiritual maturing of its individual members.

Vines on a Trellis

The organic church need not, indeed cannot, replace the structural church. In the analogy of the body, just as the body needs its life-giving organs so it needs its skeletal structure. If without its vital organs the church becomes a lifeless skeleton, so without the skeletal structure the church becomes a shapeless mass. Theologian Stanley Grenz expresses this duality:

“The church as Christ’s institution confronts us as a historical reality. The Spirit’s constitution of the church as a community however, involves us.” (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God. Eerdman’s: Grand Rapids, 1994, p. 481.)

Just as a vine grows on a trellis the church as an institution provides the scaffolding upon which the organic body can grow as an expression of the Holy Spirit working within each of us.

But does it? Does the one accommodate the other? I think it is often the case that the two are at odds with each other. So often we hear those who desire a more organic church denigrate “institutional religion.” While those “free spirits” are often seen as amorphous iconoclasts by those needing the scaffolding of the institutional church. As long as we make these distinctions we are not the church of the New Testament.

I think we tend to get off into our own little spheres. We either want to protect the corporate structure from being weakened by individualism or we want to bring down the structure because it stifles our individualism. Why not see the structure as supporting and nurturing the coming into being of the person that God created each of us to be. As we grow together organically, that is, from the inside out, this then should form the church into a living organism. The living church is not a rigid framework of pre-fabricated slots for people to fit into. It is rather a supple body yielding to and taking shape from the emerging image of Christ which the Spirit is enlivening within each of us.

Are we there? Do we dare to be?

Growing Together: The Organic Church

Now doesn’t that sound a bit Boulder-ish. I think if we publicized the church as “organically grown” we’d really attract the “green” segment of the population. But that’s exactly how Scripture describes the church.  In 1 Cor 12 Paul compares the church to an organic body.  Theologian Thomas Oden uses the metaphor of a vine to describe the biblical model of the church:

“The church is like a vine sending forth fresh shoots, pushing down roots, reaching for sunlight, hungering for righteousness, thirsting for refreshment, being fed from above.” {Thomas Oden, Systematic Theology: Life in the Spirit, vol 3, (Massachusettes: Hendickson Publishers, 2008) p. 287.}

Grape growers in vineyards tend to the roots of the vine more than anything else. If the roots are well-tended and planted in healthy soil the fruit will take care of itself. I think we often struggle more with trying to produce good fruits in our lives than nurturing our spiritual roots.

But as our roots deepen we grow together into the body of Christ. The church will then take its shape from the organic growing together of its individual members. This is different from the organizations that we find out in the general society which are structured by committees or planning groups or by tradition. They then go looking for people to plug into their pre-formed slots. In this scenario it is largely the organization that forms the people.

Scripture does not so describe the body of Christ; for the image of Christ is not fundamentally expressed by an organization but by the living souls which form the body. We grow toward the fullness of Christ through a gradual process of transformation; through afflictions, through dark nights and through our surrender to the work of the Spirit within us. But it is not just for ourselves that we grow. God designed us to grow together into a community rooted in Christ. This is the church. It is how Scripture says the community of Christ takes shape. It is not so much a mechanical structure artificially contrived by planning committees but a living organism growing into the very divine nature of Christ. More than anything else this is how the church will reach out to a lost world.

Are we there? No, but we can work at it.