A Side Note on Authority

Before I move on to the next role in a renewed vision for five-fold ministry, I thought I'd take a slight detour and address something that came up in the comments of the previous two posts. The issue of authority came up, namely if you don't have one dude in charge somewhere along the line, what happens to aspects of these roles such as church discipline, doctrinal faithfulness, and obedience to a particular way of life? It's a good question and one I won't even come close to answering adequately in this post.

First of all, I appreciate the perspective of the person who brought it up who is a Catholic convert (Doug Coombs in the comments below). I certainly understand the argument that authority and obedience in spiritual matters is a tough pill to swallow in our culture. The god of autonomy is not something to be taken lightly. However, I wonder about the necessity of creating hierarchies of power in order for spiritual authority to operate the way God intends. Can spiritual authority operate among a group of people who are first and foremost committed to apprenticeship to Jesus and caring for one another without artificially constructed hierarchies? I believe it can. Abuses most often occur (both in Protestant and Catholic settings) when authority is assumed because of position and title and the Spirit is left out of the equation. This has happened in the church for a very long time.

Here's a example of how spiritual authority and the pastoral gift in a group context might work in the way I've been describing. A few years ago, a man in our church had an affair and was found out by his wife. We all were very close to this family and they were a integral part of our community. Myself and a few others counseled both him and his wife through the first few days and then we had our normal weekly worship gathering. I was quite unsure how the gathering would go or even if we should invite the family to come. Since we were a very small group, this event was devastating to everyone and had the potential to either draw us together or tear us apart. After receiving some counsel from some friends older and wiser than me, we decided to invite the couple to come. At the gathering, the community expressed a wide range of responses - anger, sadness, grief, but also joy that the truth had finally come out. There was great love expressed for the man and his family, but a recognition that his situation was grim if he did not turn away from the patterns he had developed.

In the end, the man did change and their marriage was saved. His choice to turn around his life was impacted greatly by the spiritual authority the group expressed, not by someone holding a title. A tremendous amount of authority resides in a group of people who have agreed to a certain direction or course of life. My research into Alcoholics Anonymous confirms how this is possible.

Hierarchies exist. No one can deny that or even their necessity to make things "go" in life. In the church, people exercise leadership gifts to make things "go". Sometimes they even need to rattle cages a little to stir a sleeping bride. It's easy to recognize these people and generally they are the type who just naturally lead like they eat, sleep, and walk. Within a community of faith, from time to time God needs to use an individual or a few to help the community navigate through a trial or difficult question. But it is my sincere belief that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of coordinating that leadership without our help. Rather, we should focus our attention towards "the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."

Authority expressed by the Spirit through a community committed to maturity in Christ.