Here is an interesting snippet from Pete Rollins. I think he is on to something here. What do you think?
Indeed often the most destructive element in the development of a community arises from the very statement that one is attempting to build a community. For what can so often happen is that those who need the most help join up in the hope that they will find support and encouragement. The result is that, for many fledgling groups, this places too high an emotional demand too early and leads to burnout.
To develop a healthy community, the best approach can actually involve being clear that one is not starting a community at all and that there will be no pastoral support, that no one will be charged with the job of taking in money and distributing it on people’s behalf, and that no one will be responsible for calling you up if you stop attending events. In short, it must be clear that the group does not care about people’s needs in the slightest. While this may sound deeply uncaring, the reason for stating this is precisely in order to help provide a healthy soil for real pastoral and financial support to grow.
Providing a space with no welcoming team or pastoral support group means that individuals need to take responsibility for welcoming and caring for others themselves. Here the role of those setting up the group is not to create a new priest/laity divide but rather to refuse to act in the role of a priest precisely so as to encourage a priesthood of all believers, offering relational, mutually dependent, pastoral support. This does not mean there is no place for leadership, for here the leader is the one who attempts to prevent any one person, including the leader, from taking over the space and taking on the role of some high priest. In such a space there is a radical refusal, by those who organize the gathering, to take on pastoral responsibility. For by refusing the place of power, the “pastors” equip everyone to be a pastor, simultaneously discouraging an unhealthy dependency in those who attend.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
Everybody writes out of their own experience and study so I guess that what Rollins has seen is a shirking of responsibility by the community when the responsibility is “assigned” to someone in particular. I know that kind of thing happens.
I don’t think his idea withdrawing the assignment so that the community will step up to their role is the solution. The Jerusalem church didn’t fulfill their responsibility to the Hellenistic widows, so the responsibility to see that proper distribution took place was given to seven. I don’t think they did it all, I think they saw that it was done.
I do believe that we often give responsiblity to people who are able to do something effectively without expecting that they will lead others to do the same ministry. People gifted with greeting (and we all know that some are better than others) should not do all the greeting. They should lead in the welcoming of others and lead the community to welcoming.
You can learn to swim by being thrown in the pool, but there is a way to learn that is much less traumatic – both for the learner and for the others in the pool.
Wade,
Wonderful thoughts.
Thank you for sharing them with us.
Keep up the great work you do.
I agree. We’ve lived out “community” as something weak and coddling rather than involving and participatory. Maybe this is an important part of the battle to remove consumerism from our church culture.