In 1981 at the end of year 12, I began to play basketball with Scarborough Baptist in the church league. I felt pretty special because it was ‘A grade’ and I was one of the youngest guys playing in that time.

I went to church there a few times… and a few more… and before long I was part of the youth group.

I diverged to Wembley Church of Christ for a few months because of a girl I was after who went there, but the minister of the time was strong on the whole idea of baptismal regeneration and I couldn’t buy it. He was an inspiring and very listenable preacher so I liked that, as most preaching I had heard up to this point had been pretty dull and dreary. I remember his tirade one evening on the evils of alcohol, dancing and pentecostalism, which was even a little convincing… I never did like dancing. But it was the baptism stuff that finally brought me undone.  I was beginning to form some more solid theological convictions and this one felt real dodgy. I met with him one day to thrash it out. He was 40 and I was 17 – what did a kid know? I left convinced that he was wrong and headed back to Scarborough. It was a big judgement for a 17 year old to make, but I’d stand by that one.

Scarborough became home very quickly and without my parents around I was a little freer to find my own way in faith. I began to make better sense of Sundays, as guys like John Thornhill and Bob Plum did their bit with the teaching and actually seemed somewhat interesting and relevant. I stopped counting stuff and I also entered what I would call my zealot years, where I got passionate about all sorts of stuff – some of it good and some of it just weird…

Punctuality was a big one. Talk to me about a theology of punctuality one day and I will help you see that punctuality is above love in the Christian virtues. At least that’s how it seemed back then… (And you know why?… Because I was good at punctuality…) Discipleship was another one – a bit healthier… I read David Watson’s book on Discipleship around 1982 and was inspired by it. He was arguing that many western Christians weren’t actually ‘disciples’ and that we needed to do a whole lot more self denial and cross carrying to cut it. This kind of reading material and music by Keith Green was influential in taking me to a place of zealotry. I wish I could call it discipleship, but with my fundamentalist upbringing and immature faith I simply veered into legalism and did a lot of dumb things in the name of Jesus. But then I don’t think I was alone… It seemed to be a bit of a mark of the time and the people I hung around.

I still remember a conversation with the pastor of that era – John Thornhill – who asked me to come and see him one day. He affirmed me greatly for being a passionate young man – spoke to me directly about what a knob I was being and then finished our conversation with great encouragement so I left feeling 10 feet tall rather than chastised. Nice job John. I heard all of it and I learnt from it. What a guy!

Scarborough went thru a lot of changes in the time I was there and possibly the biggest was around 1982 when Churchlands Christian Fellowship began and a large number of our crew drifted across there. Many of our ‘best’ people went and I felt the loss. I went too – to have a look and see what the fuss was about – and while I liked the more relaxed atmosphere and the sense of God’s spirit tangibly at work I just couldn’t make the shift. Two things kept me at Scarborough.

The first was that I kept hearing people in my church speaking disparagingly of the charismatic movement and being still theologically conservative I didn’t want to disagree. Who knows… these people may have been demonic… Yeah, that was the language that was being used and I didn’t feel confident arguing against it, even if it seemed bizarre. Best to play it safe and stay a Baptist.

The second was simply a belief that you didn’t just bale on your community if a more attractive proposition came along. I’m old enough now to know that wasn’t what people did – not without real angst and pain – but at that time it was how I felt. I was sad to see many of my older mentors and friends leave, but I took some time to really chew it thru and made my decision to stay. It was a formative experience as I made a ‘not about me’ decision and felt both the value of it and the pain of it in the years to come.

Scarborough could be a scary place at times though. I remember a members meeting c1982 where we were discussing whether people who drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes could be members. The old guard were vehemently opposing this possibility, while the middle aged folks who were becoming mentors to me were making coherent arguments for freedom and grace. I felt I should align with the firey fundies because they seemed so passionate about their position, but by now I was beginning to think theologically and I was realising that the ‘next gen’ were making sense – the kind of sense that was freaking out those who had gone before them. With grudging reluctance drinkers and smokers were allowed into membership. I was also beginning to notice shades of grey and cracks started to emerge in my fundy framework.

As well as arguing over alcohol and tobacco, the worship wars were in full flight and the issue of which songs ought to be sung in church somehow became a subject to die for. There was much bloodshed in this bizarre time and I can only look back in horror.

But times were changing.

My friend and mentor Peter Birt led us with us his wife Jill for a short period and I imagine many would remember this as a significant time for the church. Peter related across ages and led in a genial but creative way and brought some new energy to the community that was slowly recovering from the seepage to Churchlands. We held our evening services in the church hall rather than the main building and tried to get a bit more relaxed in style. These all seem like funny things to comment on now, but at the time they were significant steps in a new direction.

In hanging around I found myself digging in a bit more and willing to put my shoulder to the plough where I could. The trick was not to go over the top with with whatever idea caught my attention at the time.

I left in that time in 1986 to take up my first teaching post at Wagin and so began my first extended experience of a non-Baptist church.

In 1986 as a graduate teacher, I packed up my (very small) life and headed down to Wagin. I knew little of this town. I had hoped to be posted to Margaret River… like every other surfer I knew.

But Wagin it was! Woohoo…

I had heard it was hoped that this young teacher would lend his energy to the local Baptist church at the time, but my first evening in the Uniting church saw me stopped in my tracks. A 32 year old farmer called Gavin was preaching that night to about 15 of us and he was calling a spade a spade. I don’t remember what he said but I remember thinking ‘we’re gonna  be mates!’ And so we were – and still are. I never made it to the Baptist church once in that year.

The Uniting church had a fairly stock (for the time) liberal minister who dottered around and preached some pretty insipid stuff, but I found I was able to look beyond this because of the wonderful people I met there who welcomed me into their lives and their homes. Gav & his wife Helen were my lifeline in that year where I got engaged and then ‘unengaged’ again all in the space of a few months. Its as dark a place as I have been in life. That said, the girl who dumped me made a very good call. I was in no state to be marrying anyone.

I have wonderful memories of an atheist dude called Rod who loved to fire up an argument with anyone silly enough to take the bait. I don’t think I was much of a threat to him so he was quite kind to me, and his wife Sylvia was a godly woman who was part of the church and always very hospitable. I joined the Pederick’s home group and again found myself in a community of people who were willing to welcome me in, even if I was a prickly, arrogant knowitall city kid. I’m sure they knew that, but they never said it or made me feel it.

The church let me preach – first time ever – and I thought I did ok, but another young Christian teacher in town tried to rip my sermon apart right there after the gathering. I didn’t really know how to respond. It was all a bit devastating. Fortunately my ego was so inflated during those years of my life that I was able to dismiss him. Who knows – he may have had something useful to say… but then ‘how you say it’ matters far more if you want to be heard.

The Wagin year was my one significant departure from the baptist mob I had been associated with for the years before and ever since. But it was valuable for getting perspective on God being much, much bigger than my small denominational world, for learning to be part of a community where there weren’t many other singles – if any – and for hearing some different theological perspectives on things yet again. I saw the dedication of the country folks to their small church that was not at all sexy, but that oozed soul and heart and that left an impression.

I spent a year in Wagin but after the engagement bust up in May it was all uphill. I had left UWA with a Phys Ed degree and a Dip ed with just 4 weeks of practical teaching experience and it showed in my classroom management. I was young, over confident and badly prepared for any kind of teaching. Add to that emotional devastation, and to get a fresh start after just one year of teaching was an undeserved bonus.

I headed back to the city – where I belonged – to teach at Kingsway Christian College and rejoin Scarborough Baptist, grateful for some country folks who loved me and cared for me when I was raw and ragged. While I wasn’t all that enamoured with what happened on Sundays, the experience of a loving community sustained me during some dark days and I still have good friends to this day from that time.

When we left Northern Ireland in 1974 and sailed for Australia on a 28 day all expenses paid cruise, courtesy of the Australian government we finished up at Scarborough Baptist, the same church as our Irish friends who had gone before us. We didn’t spend any time looking around, we just followed them as they knew us and figured they would probably lead us in the right direction.

I think we lasted a year at Scarborough before the church hit a bump and split. I had no idea at the time what was happening – simply that one week we were meeting with these people and the next we were going to a new church. I knew there had been a bit of a kerfuffle over the interim minister whose call was not renewed and some folks were pretty dark that he had been tossed out.

Later I learned that he was a ‘hypercalvinist’ (which would have been very scary – modern day calvinists can be frightening enough!) and this theological issue was enough to break the deal. I’m not sure if this was the real issue, or just the one that got a public airing. I’ve been around long enough now to know that theological differences are often a mask for the fact that we just don’t like someone.

Either way, it seems we sided with the ‘hyper-calvinist’ – or we didn’t like the way he was treated – so we left. I say ‘we’, but as a kid I had no say in the matter. I just hopped in the car when asked and finished up at the church of my parents choice.

In those days Scarborough was a large church, with a big Sunday School and I even recall sitting Sunday School exams (and yes they felt like exams). I have fond memories of our church camp and the odd picnic but church itself was fairly forgettable yet again for a 10 year old.

Maylands Baptist Church

From Scarborough we moved to Maylands Baptist, after a short period meeting in the family room of our home where it seems we tried to start our own church – but that fizzled pretty quick.

At Maylands  the pastor was an Irish bloke by the name of George Blayney. Our friends came too and we settled in here for the next 6 years. Maylands was an energetic church in the 70’s and always seemed packed full of people.

At Maylands I learnt to play basketball courtesy of an older guy called Steve who picked me up in his mini each week and took me to training. He was my first basketball coach and a bloke who showed some interest in a young kid who didn’t enjoy church much but was willing to suck it up to play basketball and hang with the girls who went there. I liked Steve and am grateful for his influence at that time.

On Sunday mornings I discovered Maylands had a similar boarded ceiling to my old church in Ireland so I went back to counting boards until I could leave. In those days I dreaded communion because that always meant that after the service there was another ‘service’, because communion was always at the end (to allow the ‘unworthy’ to leave quietly). I wished I was more unworthy, but instead found myself blocked in my pew by my parents. I didn’t start taking communion myself until my early teens, Unlike the practice today where kids are often invited to participate early, we were of the era that saw taking communion inappropriately as ‘eating and drinking condemnation’ to ourselves… Whatever we thought that meant I wasn’t sure, but it felt bad and just not worth the risk.

Another quirky memory of the time was of the odd person who smoked outside the church – usually during communion (because they were unworthy) and how we viewed them. I’m surprised they stuck with church as it must have been a harsh space to try and survive in.

We went to church religiously every Sunday morning and evening and then there was the Wednesday night prayer meeting which the oldies went to. When Sunday church was over I got to hang with friends and that made it worth it, especially Sunday nights which always ended with a youth after church supper before someone went out of their way to drop me back home.  I made some great friendships in that time and the youth group of the time was significant in shaping me and helping me see a more engaging aspect to faith. On reflection I would say the willingness of those young adults to give me a ride wherever was needed – at the expense of their time and fuel – was a key in me hanging around and becoming part of the church rather than attending resentfully with my parents.

The church service was still a place where I experienced little connection or meaning, but the people around me gave me cause to return. In those days church occupied much of our life and was in many ways a little sub-culture and community of its own, so we saw a lot of each other and I know that was valuable. Church camps, Country / city exchange weekends and BYF camp and rallies were all significant experiences for a young Christian whose faith was shady at best.

Maylands had the whole ‘Christian Endeavour’ thing going on and again in the absence of knowing about chubby bunnies, nerf wars and iceblocking we spent Friday nights leading one another in Bible studies. I still remember my first attempt at 12 years old of leading a Bible study in 1 Corinthians. The dread I felt at having to teach people older than me was palpable, but it was what we did… so I did it… I hate to think how I must have bored those who were there.

In that period I became a Christian at one of the Serpentine Baptist camps. Ironically it was also the most rebellious part of my teenage years. I no longer have most of my high school reports from years 8 & 9 as I burnt them when I was 20 years old. But this one slipped thru the cracks and I still have it somewhere. The grades were great… the attitude not so much…

There were some pretty girls at Maylands too and I guess I made it thru the teenage years still in faith partly because of sport, girls, and older youth who made me feel valuable. The church experience itself still held little appeal but it was all I knew so I just accepted that this was as good as things got and kept on counting.

I didn’t have much capacity for theological reflection in those days, but I do know we were a deeply and proudly conservative church and we ‘stood against’ things that were worldly. I was in that faith stage where I adopted the faith of the community I was part of and as a result I became deeply conservative theologically, probably closer to fundamentalism, a position I was to hold for many years to follow. It was very important to be right.

While the Maylands of the 70’s isn’t a church I could sit in theologically or culturally these days, I still remember it very fondly. We ‘only know what we know’, so even if church was a 3 hymn sandwich with a fair smattering of fire and brimstone and exegetical preaching, it was still a period that was really valuable in my own spiritual development and I’m grateful for the folks who were a little older than me who were willing to invite me into the life of the church and nurture my fragile faith.

Maylands was the last time we attended church as a family for several years. At 17 I got my license and began to wonder why we were driving half way across town to be part of a church in Maylands when there was a perfectly good church just a km down the road back in Scarborough. A car meant I was now mobile and able to make some of my own decisions about church.

Why did we leave Scarborough again?…

And was there any reason we couldn’t go back?…

As our Baptist Pastor’s conference ended recently and we were singing together  I looked across the room and saw a face that took me back to my early church days as a young teenager in Maylands Baptist. It began a cascade of memories… and then other faces I landed on reminded me of the various other churches I have been part of over the years and the various ways they have shaped me.

52 years of churching is a long time. And as I pondered the memories I found myself smiling. Some memories are fond, some are kinda quirky and others are just steps along the way, neither good or bad, but all of it has been formative in different ways…

As the music rolled on I found myself revisiting in my head the various experiences of church that have shaped me and brought me to where I am today. I have had friends who have grown up ‘pentecostal’ and finished ‘high anglican’, or taken the opposite direction (not that those two are the ends of a spectrum) but my own journey has been less dramatic. Its been a very ‘Baptist’ experience, but within that there has been significant variance and diversity.

So theses posts are as much for me and my own reflection as they are for anyone who may read them…

My introduction to ‘church’ began in a Baptist church back in Belfast – Grove Baptist. I don’t have many solid memories of this time but I do remember faking sickness at times in the hope of being allowed to stay home. It never worked – in the 60’s unless you were dying from typhoid and coughing up blood, you went to church morning and night without fail.

It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like church, but more that I didn’t like all of the stuff that went with the ‘Lord’s day’ experience, as it was called.

I remember ties… and not with fondness. The female corollary was the hat and many in that culture still wear them. A few years ago my aunt from Belfast came to Perth and in chatting I asked her what the major issue was for the church in Nth Ireland at this time. She said ‘hats’ and I just remember thinking that this was a conversation that wasn’t going to go any further. We were clearly in different culture and dealing with very different issues.

I remember Sunday as a day when I couldn’t kick a soccer ball. Nor could we go to shops, watch TV or do anything else that might be seen as worldly, or (as I perceived it) fun… That left a definite mark – the link between church and solemnity, or the absence of enjoyment. The distinct impression of God as being generally unhappy with the world and looking sternly on us if we seemed to be enjoying life. I would never once have seen church as a fun place to be, although I’m guessing there must have been some enjoyable experiences along the way.

I remember Bible memorisation in Sunday School. I once learnt Psalm 23 and recited it the following week. The Sunday school teacher told me it was ‘excellent’, but I was 6 years old and had no idea if I had done well because I didn’t know what excellent meant. True… I had to wait until I got home to ask mum. I can still remember the Psalm. That was useful.

I do know that in those first 10 years I at some point realised I wasn’t a Christian, because our pastor asked me directly one day ‘Are you a Christian Andrew?’ and I said ‘Yes’ and instantly knew I had lied.

I knew… and I felt embarrassed. Like I should have been, but wasn’t. I’m sure he knew. It wasn’t a case of growing up in a church going family and feeling like I could call myself a Christian because of them. I knew from a young age I needed to make it personal.

I remember the Sunday church experience as a silent, ‘reverent’ gathering where you sat still and quiet… verrry quiet… as it was ‘God’s house’ (and clearly he didn’t like noise). It was in this church building that I first took to counting the timber boards in the ceiling as a way of passing time. I’d count them each week during the sermon and then check them the next week. I don’t think I ever thought they would change, but in the absence of paint to watch drying this was the next best thing.

As I said, that was the 60’s and was probably par for the course for any church in Belfast, so my reflections are less a critique than simply observations. The church I grew up in was a product of the culture of the time and the broader church culture that we found ourselves in. I just assumed this was ‘church’ and it was what I was going to be doing until I had some opportunity to have a say in the matter.

That time came when I got my license but in between I went wherever my family went…

To be continued

Its 9.30am and 15 of us stand around looking at each other wondering if maybe there’s been a secret ‘church boycott’ and other than the music team and paid staff everyone else is staying home today.

‘Church’ starts at 9.30, or so it says on our website.

When you lead a smaller church in 21st C Perth where attendances are now more sporadic than ever, you never quite know what to expect at that time of day. Some Sundays there is a ‘quorum’ – a sense of ‘enough people present to kick off’ and then other days, the sparsely filled room leaves you wondering if you actually should be doing something else too.

I was updating our database today and discovered that we have 90 adults who would call QBC home as well as 76 kids. I had no idea we had that many people in the community. ‘Calling a place home’ is my own way of determining who’s ‘in’ and who’s not – its basically self selecting in that it allows people to make their own declarations of allegiance.

But even then, what does it mean to call a place ‘home’?

Does it mean ‘Even though I’m only there every 2 months, its the only church I am part of so in that sense its home?…’ Or, does it mean ‘I belong here and I am committed to being with the family, to becoming like Christ with these people?’ I have used the normal curve to answer this question in the past, because it is about the only way I can come to grips with the anomaly of home being a place some ‘visit’ occasionally while others see it as a central point of life.

Of the 90 adults in our church, 31 would be considered ‘members’, (a Baptist way of defining who is allowed to vote on bigger decisions). Theoretically members are more committed to the community – they agree to give their hearts, time and cash to making the church community healthy, and generally that is the case. But not always… What do you do when ‘members’ don’t do what they have committed to?…

We don’t push membership, but we invite people into it when they show that they are ready and willing. The number ’31’ reflects the higher expectations and the diminishing number willing to take that route. Some would say we don’t ‘push’ membership hard enough, but seriously – if people need pushing to join up then we are getting off on the wrong foot and we should expect that to show up in trouble down the track.

Perhaps what is most perplexing to me in this scheme of things is the question of how we make disciples. Today I ran the numbers – for the first time in 6 years – yes really – I never count how many turn up as I really don’t care about that stat.

But I do care about the type of people we are becoming.  A more significant question would be ‘of the 166 people involved with QBC how many are on an intentional trajectory of faith development?’ How many would be pursuing the leading of God in their lives and seeking to align their lives with his kingdom?

The problem comes in that this is very difficult to measure. I guess its why we revert to bums on seats as our metric. Seth Godin has an excellent post on the topic of measurement here where he says:

Measurement is fabulous. Unless you’re busy measuring what’s easy to measure as opposed to what’s important.

So true.

We can count bums on seats every week and that will tell us one thing precisely. That one thing is exactly how many people were in the building that week. It does not say anything of the state of their lives, their reasons for being there or their reasons for not being there the following week. It is simply a ‘raw’ stat that we interpret through a familiar and common grid and in doing so we draw some conclusions which may or may not be accurate.

It leads me to seriously question the expression of church we run with. Are we hoping that somehow by attending, that those who have a ‘recreational’ faith will move to a stronger more substantial place of discipleship?

I’ve learnt over the years that church is a remarkably inconvenient form of community. Its probably more accurate to simply say that community itself is inconvenient. In the surf club or the sea rescue group, the expectations are also high, but unlike the surf club, footy club or other more rigorous groups, we rarely call our members to account when they fail to perform, because that would be considered ‘ungracious’ or ‘judgemental’. We just ‘understand’ them… life is indeed ‘very busy’… and people do have ‘good hearts’ after all…

I think at this point Jesus might just call ‘bullshit’. He might just point back to some angular and tactless comments about crosses and dying to self. He might ask ‘what was complicated about the sermon on the mount?’ Which part of ‘follow me’ still needs explaining?

So, are we wasting our time running Sunday services?

Maybe we are.

If the Sunday gathering is an end in itself – if it is considered ‘church’ – then its time to slice it up a thousand ways and say ‘NO!’ If Sundays genuinely contribute to our discipleship rather consumer-ship then we are travelling well. But too often I sense the distinction is tenuous and we may even be losing the battle.

The difficulty with writing a post like this is some folks will read it and feel guilty (maybe even appropriately guilty) and will decide to attend church more often… which would of course be missing the point entirely.  Its ironic that people will feel guilt over missing church, but can live in a state of continuous miss-cipleship for years on end with no qualms. What does it say of our spiritual formation processes and our primary message that people will see absence from church as more of a problem than absence of discipleship?

Feels like its time to rock the boat a little.

About a year ago we bought some new couches – our first new lounges in over 20 years of marriage and we decided to go for electric recliners. They were on special at Freedom who were having a two for one sale, otherwise I doubt we would have ever considered them.

We’ve loved the new couches – nothing quite like putting the feet up at the end of a hard day – but over the last year as we have held our church leadership meetings in our home I’ve found myself feeling uncomfortable about how they have reshaped the tone of our meetings.

So we’ve held our last few meetings around the kitchen table, and it has shifted the vibe back in a direction I would see as more healthy. Prior to the ‘recliner meetings’ we already had a very relaxed and relational approach to meetings. With the recliners we actually didn’t seem to ‘lose’ a lot by way of interaction and decision making, but I sensed we were working against ourselves and ultimately would begin to accomplish less. We hadn’t got to that place yet, but something was sitting badly in my gut.

The kitchen table is less comfortable – no question – but it brings us close together – it is ‘intimate’ almost and as a result we function a little differently again – a bit like a family… funny that…

I don’t think a lounge room is a bad environment for a church meeting. I’m certainly not up for a ‘board room’, but the kitchen table kinda gives the best of both worlds – an attentive posture, an intimate tone and a sense of connection that comes when you sit closer and ‘lean in’ rather than ‘lean out’.

I realise none of this is rocket science, but its only when you mess around with the physical dynamics of a meeting space that you actually begin to notice how it impacts on actual performance.

Over the last few weeks at QBC we have been teaching and leading the crew in a congregational discernment process, seeking to help people listen to God and hear his voice on a particular issue we are processing as a church. The issue is one where its important that we get people’s contribution, but also their considered, prayerful input, rather than their ‘best gut feel’ when they have a spare moment. Its been good to re-visit this subject and attempt to put in place some thoughts for how we can do this as a church in future decisions.

As I began teaching on this stuff I came to the topic with the view that ‘we need to get the people in the game’, more when it comes to discerning. But the more I have delved into this biblically the more I seen and felt the need for leaders to step up to the plate and offer some clear spirit led direction.

Last week as we looked at decisions in the book of Acts we saw that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to this. We go from the replacement of Judas in Acts 1 with what is in effect a ‘coin toss’, through to the more rigorous and nuanced discernment process in Acts 15 where the discussion revolves around whether Gentiles need to be circumcised.

But what is common to virtually every decision made is significant leadership involvement and guidance. In Acts 6 where they choose a 7 men to serve, the apostles tell the people to do it, but they are then brought back to them for commissioning. In Acts 10 when Cornelius comes to faith and the Holy Spirit zaps him Peter makes a ‘captain’s call’ and declares them ‘in the game’ because of what happened. He acts alone, but not without accountability as in Acts 11 he gets grilled by the rest of the crew.

Clearly when we are leading people we need to meet them where they are at and lead from there – which can be tricky because people are in different places. But one of the challenges in involving others is paying too much attention to those who don’t have enough to say – or who don’t have ‘considered input’.

Its difficult not to be somewhat blunt in saying this, but truth is that some people don’t pray much, think much or take the time to really contribute. That’s how it is… Some folks attend church and that’s as much as they do… Others take the communal responsibility seriously and offer some great insights.

But leaders by necessity as well as by desire, will engage in the processes in depth and as a result their thoughts should be highly regarded. In a culture that has become increasingly skeptical of leadership and of agendas that can be difficult. But my read of Acts suggests that leaders have a prime role in discerning God’s direction and hopes for the church.

What does that mean for the people in the church community?

I don’t believe we ever get to a place where leaders just make calls and people go with it or suck it up. But I do get the sense that if people are going to participate in discernment processes then they need to do so with some rigor, otherwise it can actually undermine the work others will have done. We can’t have people turning up to a congregational meeting, opening the ‘church file’ in their brain and saying ‘right… where were we?…Oh yes that’s right…’

In issues requiring discernment I believe we need leaders to lead and also to listen to those who have taken the time to listen to God themselves. But primarily we need leaders to lead.

Lately I’ve been considering how we make decisions as churches. We would all agree that Jesus is the head of the church, but how this works out in practice can vary and sometimes the idea is little more than just that – an idea…

For some churches the orders get handed down from a person in a position of authority and no correspondence can be entered into. In my own suburb the Anglican church ‘discovered’ they were moving premises… 10 minutes further south to the location of a new denominational school, but this decision was not one that the people were able to participate in so its resulted in some ill feeling.

Some churches are known for being ‘leadership driven’ as if this were a commendable characteristic. The leaders make the key decisions and let the people know what’s happening. Sometimes this happens in our community, but its generally related to small administrative decisions which people wouldn’t want to waste time discussing anyway. In other churches staff may be appointed, or other major decisions made without the ok from the community. Then its either ‘get on board’, ‘suck it up’ or go somewhere else. I don’t like that model much as it puts a lot of power in the hands of a few. While the ‘few’ rule wisely it can be pretty innocuous, but when the few manage their power badly, or foolishly it can be devastating. It also means that the largest share of people are being told that their participation is neither required or desired.

The other end of the spectrum where everyone participates does have some appeal, but the practicalities of life and limited time available to be involved means this can be a burdensome and unrealistic solution for a larger group. I think a smaller home based fellowship can operate in this way, but once a church moves into a more traditional mode it becomes difficult.

The ‘Baptist’ way is that of ‘congregational government’, a term that I think is often misunderstood and seen as a synonym for democracy. That’s not what is intended at all and when congregational government (CG) morphs into democracy we lose all of its power and beauty. At its best – and how it was originally intended – CG is the body listening to God together and making decisions based on what is discerned through prayer and conversation. Its not unlike the smaller group option, but it comes with the complications of the larger forum.

Given no system is perfect this would the one I would choose every time. It allows leaders to exercise a gift of leadership, to recommend ideas or initiatives, but also allows people to use discernment in the process. Its a delicate balance for leaders to propose initiatives and to then allow conversation, questioning and disagreement.

One significant challenge of this mode is that a congregation can often abdicate their responsibility to participate (i.e. by prayer, gathering and conversation) so it can end up being an exercise in futility, or a default reversion to old modes where a ‘vote’ is the deciding factor. When the process of genuine discernment isn’t entered into then people run with their opinions, lobby groups form and those with the numbers get the result while the rest are considered to have ‘lost’. Jesus must watch and shake his head in dismay.

The role of leadership in this community is to help and encourage people to look to God for his leading – to guide people into discernment rather than seeking their approval for what has already been decided.

Having said that, in congregational government every person is allowed a voice, but part of making good decisions is recognising that not all voices are equal. Some folks bring wisdom, experience and perhaps even a gift of discernment to a decision and ought to be listened to carefully. Others bring fear or foolishness to their decisions. Some operate from selfishness and their contributions need to be heard in this light.

At QBC we have been trying to move away from the ‘democracy’ concept and towards the ‘discernment’ process, allowing space for God to speak and space for us to listen. But old habits die hard and busy lives are often consumed with other immediate pressing decisions, so what the community needs can easily be relegated to the ‘meeting’.

I don’t have any easy answers, but I have enjoyed the principles and ideas Ruth Haley Barton shares in her book Pursuing God’s Will Together, where she articulates a process for making decisions and actually seeking to hear God rather than the loudest voice or the strongest lobby group.

We’re in the process of some discernment at the moment so you may hear some more reflections on the topic as we go.