Brian McLaren: Denominations do invaluable things
3 Feb 2010
With the post and discussion about what the future of the Vineyard Church movement might hold, these resources from Faith & Leadership on the future of denominations might prove useful.
In particular I found Brian McLaren’s contribution both supportive of what denominations can do, as well visionary with regards to challenges, changes and possibilities.
Tagged: denominations, Resources
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Comment by steven hamilton
1.51 pm on 3 Feb 2010
i very much appreciate brian’s comments and perspective…i love the ‘we’re in the music business’ analogy.
i haven’t come to any conclusion on the denomination-izing, except to agree that we need flexible structures and need to glean the wisdom from previous denominations successes and failures…(and the radical in me wants to do somethin not called ‘denomination-izing’, but i admitedly don’t know what that would be to give some flexible structure to the movement without ‘denominatinalizing’, which would be a whole other discussion)
possibly i’m over-simplifying or overly optimistic, but i think globally the Vineyard has tended to have that ‘we’re on a mission from God’ kind of baseline, which has served us well; the challenges for us were identity in successive generations and flexible national and international structures (that worked when they became relational?) to help what is our ethos express itself through our primary grassroots nature.
in past conversations, i have pointed out that Greenpeace organizationally (at local/regional/national/international levels) has done a really good job of keeping ‘on-mission’ while broader levels understand their mission of empowering and envisioning the grassroots, where the stuff really happens.
in one of the conversations at jason coker’s blog, i observed and asked: if we are to be discerning – both of the present moment but also with a glance at the near and longer-term future – what are the structures we need to be working on in this season…
and i would add: what are the basis of these hopefully flexible and empowering structures? i think the structures set up in the 80s and 90s need a serious new consideration.
one of the issues i think we in the Vineyard need to tackle from brian list right away is the protection and preservation of ‘human assets’…we have a large amount of burned out pastors, leaders and people, and so pastoral care at various levels becomes a higher priority: from areas to regions to national and even intertnationally…how do we do this, because we have quite a few problems from some neglect of this (that said, i do i know many are working and have been working on this issue for a while in the vineyard and see the same issue…and its messy and an on-going issue…)
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Comment by Jason Clark
5.42 pm on 4 Feb 2010
Hi Steve, a serious review by our movement of itself, and using stuff like Brian’s and Calebs, would be very exciting and itself a catalyst for growth, at least I think it could be.
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