Today the Church is undergoing another paradigm shift in a succession of culturally-dominated shifts that have dated its life on earth. The shift itself is a reaction from the Enlightenment which proclaimed that 'man could do it', that 'man was constantly getting better', and that 'religion was a hangover from man's rational infancy.' Today these thoughts have an increasingly hollow ring: Science and technology have taken away our time, devalued our currency, and reduced our self-esteem into something that is intensely shallow and meaningless. Structure is being seen as a product of the Enlightenment while ironically it has been the Enlightenment that has set the individual free of structure.
The emphasis now is extremely self-motivated and self-oriented. Without the church, there is an intergenerational movement to be attached to something meaningful, a phenomenon which may be highly significant to today's expression of pluralism. We are seeing children of the faithful reject the beliefs of their fathers to embrace literally anything that is well-marketed. Within the church, we are seeing a self-acknowledgement that 'it is not the pastor, but the individual', or rather a network of individuals, that represents the Church. The structural dimension of Church is being reduced [1] in importance to the message of the Kingdom and individuals serving Christ in God's Mission, whether this is cross-cultural, in essence, or not.[2]
Whereas organization and planning have traditionally been taken by the clergy, as in the World Council of Churches for instance - now there is teaching and desire for laity to rise up as the body of Christ and respond to God's call independent of the clergy. It is, in a sense, 'the people's movement' within the faith. In Bosch's cryptic heading, it is the "Church-with-others".
Bosch sees the church in the new Ecumenical paradigm as being church-in-mission, or the Local Church everywhere in the world. This, along with the supposition that no local church is seen as superior to another (the converse of which is the key outworking of 'Denominationalism') is held to be fundamental to the teaching of our New Testament. Bosch cross-references Acts 13:1-3, and the Pauline letters in general, to make this point.[3]
Strangely, it is as though we are arriving back at the beginning, only now more aware because of our past. The idea of the church-with-others is growing as Christians - rather than their denominations - reach out to other Christians in the spirit of mutual cooperation, love and coexistence, and this directly within the recognized context of God's love for us (the church / believer).
There is no wish here to imply that there exists an "us-them" scenario between clergy and laity (although this did exist on more than one occasion in the past). In reality, much of the encouragement that has come for laity to stand has come from the clergy, and it is very difficult to fairly assess who, within this relationship, is the initiator. Standing well apart from such a perspective, this encouragement is more importantly recognized as the outworking of our God in history over His beloved Bride. In God's perspective clergy and laity are merged as one entity, and the supposed dichotomy is artificial.
One example of this new laity is cited by Thomas [4] in the 1981 Catholic Korean campaign whose "approach was direct person-to-person, family-to-family contact in a small community." I would suggest manifestations along this line are being seen all over the world, although only as laity awakens to its calling to serve rather than to be served. This model may appear new to us but it is not new to the early life of the church. Roland Allen calls us to a return "to the Pauline model of mission.. with the full authority of local churches empowered by the Holy Spirit and shared leadership among clergy and laity (emphasis mine)."[5]
If we identify the coming paradigm as an equivalent to the Apostolic then we have not arrived in it yet. There is still a significant adjustment needed, at least in North American thought, before we match the Apostle Paul's church-planting methods - which were direct and temporary in nature. In Paul's day, a church was created after five or six months of preaching and though still in need of guidance was nevertheless free to grow and expand on its own. Allen suggests this practice in his day (and I believe our own) would bring accusations of madness down upon the practitioners.[6] But, would it be madness?
Allen claims that spontaneous expansion within the church is hindered by our very patterns of worship. New church plants have been tied to mission centers, by missionaries fearing lapses into heresy by untrained laity. This same control intended to protect the new church instead suffocates it. The tendency of missionaries to send paid agents in their stead is interpreted by new groups of Christians to mean that evangelism is the job of trained professionals. It also teaches them to be dependent on clergy rather than working for God's Kingdom themselves.
In contrast, Allen points to Paul's ordaining of mature lay-workers (elders) in the churches he planted. Paul set several elders over each church - in this way he was able to foster quicker growth and encourage mutual responsibility.[7]
Masao Takenaka calls for the church to move away from "a static, building-centered religion" to "a people's movement, a company of new humanity making a joyful pilgrimage on earth." In Japan, the most Western nation in the far-east, the church has maintained its rigid structure to the point where it appears to be saying "that unless you have a church building and a full-time professional minister you will not have the Church of Jesus Christ." Meanwhile, the Buddhist sect of Soka Gakkai is rapidly advancing through "nonprofessional leaders and the establishment of a nucleus fellowship in the milieu of ordinary people."[8]
