Where's the love?

I keep hearing references to simple or organic church. Much of the motive behind this movement and passion seems to be quite refreshing. It is interesting, however, that many seem to be mixing up a model with a set of values. Far too often, I'm hearing simple/organic along with all sorts of wonderful adjectives in one sentence, and words like institutional with all sorts of negative adjectives in the next sentence. I'm concerned that we are tying the wonderful adjectives too closely to a particular model of doing church and the negative adjectives too closely with another model of doing church.

The language we use has an effect, intended or not. The word, institutional, is used for the church model that has dominated the Church for the past 1600 years or so. It is the model most of us are familiar with... the dominating characteristics of the model are a service, a sermon, some form of musical accompaniment, prayer, maybe communion, maybe an offering. In the Orthodox and Roman Catholic church, it takes place in the form of a Mass. In the Protestant church, it is a service. 

Back to this word institutional. What does this word bring to mind?

To me, I think about an old insane asylum...back in the days when shock therapy was vogue. Or, I think about rows and rows of office cubicles filled with hundreds of mindless lemmings (as depicted in the movie, The Matrix). Or, I think of old school government bureaucracy...with loads of red tape and frustrating, anti-progressive policies/procedures.

So, I guess it's only natural that when I hear all these folks espousing their model with all sorts of wonderful adjectives, then, with a thin veil of humility and brotherhood, referring to a more traditional model as "institutional," I cringe. I cringe because I've been in those institutional churches before and met some amazing people. I cringe because the term is, quite frankly, abusive to the millions of Jesus followers throughout history who have encountered, fallen in love with and dedicated their lives to God in the "institutional" church. I cringe because I know the leaders of some of those institutional churches and their relationship with Jesus is more alive and dynamic than most people I know.

It seems the conversation on simple/organic church has a lot of potential. But, the people behind the dialogue have to make some choices. Go the route of post-modernism, which seems to define everything by what it rejects (e.g. institutional) and as a result, often boils down to a cesspool of despair. Or, go the route of modernism, give up the dialogue (or just make it academic) and return to the traditional church. Or, find a higher way...recognize that a model is just a value-neutral tool that can be associated with wonderful or negative adjectives. Instead of splintering the Church further, make an honest attempt at lovingly, tactfully, thoughtfully and carefully revitalizing those values that have guided Christian thinking for centuries (defined by God and handed to us from Jesus through his earliest disciples and our Christian ancestors), within the context of the current Church.

Maybe we should ask a simple question. Did Jesus try to start a new church or did he attempt to revolutionize the current church?