Family.

Several of you have asked the question: “what is an institutional church?”  I suspect a quick “google” would give you a more accurate answer then I can give you because I am just learning myself. 

But here is my answer:  An institutional church is one that emphasises program over relationships and has a strong top-down leadership style.  You know what kind of leadership a structure has when the predominate decisions are made by others and you find them frustrating.

Other distinctive marks of an institutional church are an emphasis on meetings, strategy meetings, vision meetings, budget meetings, leadership meetings, business meetings, planning meetings and on and on.

Often institutional churches try to promote small groups as a way of changing their culture but they often struggle to gain acceptance of the small group idea because the church culture is institutional, structural and so even a small group ministry requires leadership, meetings, planning and a program.

As I have said before, institutional churches are not evil.  I was an institutional pastor for a long time.  I tried to change personally and I tried to change the culture but I was unsuccessful at the latter and it took getting out of the culture I had been in my whole life to see the difference and begin to make changes in my own life.

So what defines a more relational church culture.  This definition is probably simplistic, but (simplistic is a mark of a relational church) a relational church is about Family.  Read any of the Biblical letters and the language is all familial.  When Jesus taught His disciples He used relational words and Family words.  There were no top-down leaders but relationships.  He never asked them to come to a meeting or conform to a group, it was always an invitation to relationship.  There was never a regimentation to some kind of well-intentioned program but an invitation to join Him on a journey.

A simple study of the phrase “one another” in the New Testament will tell you the kind of system Jesus and the Apostles had in mind was nothing like what we see in most churches today.

Life in a family has an entirely different set of values.  In a healthy family the goal is not some program or institutional hierarchy but simply learning to relate to each other in love.  A family thrives on diversity, acknowledging that every child is unique and special.  There is an attempt to discover who that child is and who they are meant to be.  While there may be lines of authority in a family, a good family works off the unique strengths of the individual.

Families don’t press for conformity but encourage each person to come along at their own pace.  In a healthy family, disagreements do not cause separation they enhance the families ability to get along with people where ever they go.  No matter what a family member might go through, good or bad, the rest of the family unites behind them to support and applaud their failures and successes.

It will not be hard for you to take these dynamics of a healthy family I have sited, add more you can think of, and begin to apply them to what Jesus and the Apostles were thinking when they invited people into a family relationship and not to join an institutional structure.  It will not take you long to know if what you are part of is institutional or relational.  Then you have a choice to make.

I will never forget an encounter I had in December of 2005, not long after my humiliating exit from the church I had led for more than 16 years.  Linda and I had travelled with friends to the home of Todd and Leslie Pierce in Shelley, Idaho.  One of the first things Todd said to us this: “we are family now and nothing you can do or say will stop us from being family”. “What I have is yours, anything you need, anytime, any where, I will do whatever I can to make it happen for you.” From that time on they, along with many others in their Family have been our Family.

That attitude is the predominate attitude of the relational church.  We are Family and we will never stop being Family no matter what you do or say or how much trouble you might cause us.  We are Family. 

The beauty of Family is the potential of having a natural family, like Linda and I share with our own children and their families, but there is the wonderful priviledge of a super-natural Family as well.  What an amazing Father we have.

Where do you go to find relationships like this, to find a Family like this?  To Jesus. of course.  When we enter in to a deep and confident relationship with Jesus and sink ourselves deep into His love, His acceptance and His forgiveness, we will get free to live without fear of discovery or fear of failure.  Why?  We are His Family and there is nothing we can do to break that Family relationship and there is nothing we can do to cause Jesus to break the relationship either. 

Don’t force anything, just start developing relationships with people out of your own freedom and acceptance.  Treat people as you would like to be treated, not as an institution treats you, but as a loving Father treats you.  Enjoy your relationship with Jesus and you will begin to notice there are all kinds of people out there enjoying their relationship with Jesus.  Those are the people in your Family.  Start enjoying them and you will begin to see and experience something very special.

Along the road, wherever we have gone, these last 19 months we have found Family.  I have even found Family here in Redding, at Bethel, where I don’t know anyone and no one knows me, but we know we are Family, so we have common ground on which to enjoy whatever time we have together.

Wouldn’t you like that in your “church”?