Having served tiny fellowships for the entirety of my ministry, of the most strikingly consistent features of small congregations is that they aren't organizations, not really. Some of the structure of institutional life filters through, but they're networks of human relationship first and foremost, with all of the idiosyncrasy and organic complexity that this entails. Those relationships are...if healthy...a great source of congregational strength, as members of a community share life together in all of its joys and sorrows.
The character of those relationships is shaped by the core purpose of the community, which is...church being church and all...following Jesus and living as he would have us live. That shared purpose is the common goal around which any church forms, and the closeness of fellowship in an intimate community is one of the collateral benefits of journeying along that Way with others.
Meditating on this recently while puttering about in my garden, I found myself thinking about what happens when we make the category error of seeking one of those collateral benefits instead of the thing itself.
Like, say if your stated motive is "growth." Growth is a collateral benefit of faithful labor and mutual discipleship, some of the time. When and if it arrives, it is a blessing, albeit one orders of magnitude less important than deep and sustained human relationship. But if growth becomes the emphasis rather than viewed as a side benefit, that focus skews how we view our purpose, and tends to become something less than Good News. We all know what that looks like. It looks like business models, marketing, and manipulation. It looks like you've confused Mammon with Jesus, and I'm talkin' to you, Kenneth Max Copeland.
But focusing on numerical growth isn't the only way we can wander astray, because big churches and churches that strive for the gold ring aren't the only ones that wander astray. What about relationships, then, that great strength of intimate community? Can that become a blight?
Of course.
Let's talk about a soul we've all known (or been) who had "being in a relationship" as their goal. Whether from the clawing void of loneliness, fitting in, hungering for intimacy both physical and personal, or any one of the many reptiles of our minds that whisper our inadequacy to us in our isolation, all that matters is being with someone. Anyone. The actual person doesn't matter, and Lord, does that never, ever, end well. It's something that fails over and over again, as that benighted soul makes terrible choice after terrible choice, just so they won't have to be alone.
What about relationships that give a sense of power? Where you enter a relationship because it can satisfy your need for dominance and control, where you can be in charge, where those around you are dependent on and submissive to your every whim? Where everyone loves you and despairs? I've seen what that looks like in large churches and small. The little congregations with a patriarch or matriarch who has discovered the sweet taste of power, reigning unchallenged and unquestioned? These are the farthest thing from a blessing.
Pursued for its own sake or as an ulterior motive, then, "relationship" is theologically and morally meaningless. So is "growth." And "community." And "political power." All manner of things. All of them are not why church is church.
When we gather as disciples, there is a greater purpose that defines us.
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