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.