1. Contemporary Evangelism
and Expressions of Church:
Leadership and Mission
The Light Project
Session 16
clintheacock@yahoo.com

2. Learning Outcomes
• To explore the concept of ‘the church as
an organic unity’ based largely upon
Frank Viola’s Reimagining Church.
• To compare and contrast the
‘institutional church’ with the ‘organic
church.’
3. To understand the impact of healthy and
functional church leadership upon church
structure and mission.

3. “…something deep within me longed for an
experience of church that mapped to what
I read about in my New Testament. And I
couldn’t seem to find it in any traditional
church I attended.
In fact, the more I read the Bible, the more I
became convinced that the contemporary
church had departed far from its traditional
roots.”
Viola, Reimagining Church, 11.

4. “A revolution in both the theology and practice of
the church is upon us. Countless Christians,
including theologians, ministers, and scholars,
are seeking new ways to renew and reform the
church. Others have given up on the traditional
concept of the church altogether.
They have come to the conviction that the
institutional church as we know it today is not
only ineffective, but it’s also without biblical
merit. For this reason, they feel that it would be a
mistake to reform or renew the present church
structure. Because the structure is the root
problem.”
Viola, Reimagining Church,15.

5. Why might the structure of the present church be
the ‘root problem’?
These names are associated with churches in the
West:
• ‘the institutional church’
• ‘the traditional church’
• ‘basilica churches’
• ‘auditorium churches’
• ‘spectator churches’
• ‘audience churches’
• ‘programme-based churches’

6. The term ‘institutional church’ does not refer
to God’s people.
It refers instead to a system or a way of
‘doing church.’

7. How can we characterize ‘institutional churches’?
• Exist above, beyond and independent of their
members
• Constructed upon programmes and rituals rather
than upon relationships
• Often keep members from exercising their gifts
• Priorities determine structure (hierarchical and non-
relational)
• Highly structured, building-centred organizations
• Regulated by set-apart professionals (‘clergy’)
aided by volunteers (‘laity’)
• Congregants watch a religious performance once
or twice a week and retreat home to live out their
individual Christian lives during the week

8. Leadership: Traditional Churches
POSITIONAL
CLERGY
MINDSET:
LAITY
Hierarchical
Leadership

9. Traditional Church: Leadership on a Pedestal

10. The major problem with institutional and
hierarchical churches is that they keep
members in a state of ‘spiritual infancy.’
How did this situation come to be?

11. • The Body of Christ has lapsed into an
audience due to its reliance on single
leaders
• Christians come weekly to watch
‘professionals’ perform
• ‘Professional pulpiteerism’ supported
financially by lay-spectators
• Usurps the Christian’s right to minister
spiritually during corporate gatherings
• Keeps Christians weak and insecure
• Disempowers and pacifies the believing
priesthood

12. • The majority of the church becomes
passive, lazy, self-seeking and arrested in
their spiritual development
• Hierarchical leadership suppresses both
authentic community and natural, organic
ministry (although not necessarily
intentionally)
• Congregations become passive and
dependent
• Warps many who occupy clerical positions
since they struggle to shoulder the
burdens of ministry alone—and were
never intended to in the first place.

13. Bottom Line: Christians have come to
prefer the convenience of paying
someone else to shoulder the burden of
oversight, ministry and shepherding.

14. Leadership: ‘New Testament Churches’
PRIESTHOOOD
OF BELIEVERS
FUNCTIONAL
SPIRIT
GIFTS
MINDSET:
OF
Organic and
mutual ministry

15. How can the ‘organic church’ be
characterized?
• Churches that operate according to the
same spiritual principles as NT churches
• ‘People out for a walk’ rather than ‘people
riding on a train’ (traditional churches)
• Seek to give life rather than laying on yet
more rules and regulations
• Helps believers to grow in Christ rather
than filling people with shame, fear, guilt
and a sense of spiritual inadequacy

16. • Authentic (biblical) community
• Easy for people to function and contribute
• Non-hierarchical and relational
• Spirit free to move and change church’s
direction
• Organic and spontaneous outreach to
unbelievers
• Church becomes ‘all of life’ 24/7 rather
than Sundays alone
• No artificial division between the ‘sacred’
and the ‘secular’

17. Key Words to
Describe the Church:
•Organic
•Natural growth
•Bearing fruit
•Healthy
•Growing
•Good for you!
•Compelling

18. Should the church grow organically out of its association with the Scriptures?

19. Given what we have learned so far about how Paul
and the early Christians conceived of the church,
church leadership and evangelism…
• How do current models of church and
evangelism fit those concepts?
• Why do you think so little has come of
programme-driven ‘church growth’ and
evangelism strategies?
• What, if anything, needs to change currently so
that our churches and our evangelism are more
organic, natural and spontaneous?

20. What do you think Paul would say today if
he saw the state of the institutional
churches in the West?
Do you think that his response would fit the
images we saw in his writings of the
church as a body or a living organism
where each body part does its part to help
the entire organism experience natural
and organic growth?

21. For resources related to preaching that
addresses the challenges of emerging
church and postmodernism see:
www.preachersforum.org
For blog posts on spirituality, life and religion
see:
www.propheticrhetoric.blogspot.com