Principles for Church Life and Structure
An ecosystem is the most complex level of orginazation in nature. It's made up of communities and their physical environments. In the same way the church as the body of Christ is the most complex social organization. Its complexity includes both spiritual and physical dimensions and potentially incorporates everyone from the least to the greatest.
Here are some reasons for viewing the structure of the church ecologically...
Ecology is more in tune with the way God created the world than are commonly accepted organizaional and institutional models. The key insight of ecology is that all creation is made up of complex, highly interdependent realtionships.The emerging church has three key sources (the first two you're familiar with...maybe the third not so much)to help her overcome the deadends and limitations of modernism's mouments (megachurches and business models).
The ecological model is more consistent with systems theory than are other models. System theories studies patterns in complex interrelationships. We can learn more about the church from studying family dynamics and other social systems than from studying business models.
1) Scripture
2) renewal movements
3) ecology
Using these sources, spiritual leaders can more easily identify principles for church life and structure.
posted by Fred Peatross @ 9:25 PM
2 Comments:
I like the sound of it - as long as we don't dwell too long on growth by predation and the survival of the right-est!
When we want our faith to be a growth medium; when we offer light for photosynthesis and salt for blood chemistry balance; when we plant and someone else waters and we all look forward to the harvest ...
Well, it just sounds scriptural to me.
When viewed as a system, the church in context can be seen as something good in the body of all creation, like a white blood cell. However, when they run amuck, it's cancer.
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