The Reverse Flow of Missions – Doing Church

I was reading an article in the January/February 2010 issue of Relevant Magazine titled Bringing 2020 Into Focus. The article looks back on the past decade and several contributors write about what could happen in the next decade. In a portion titled The Reverse Flow of Missions (pg. 60), Jaeson Ma dissects the differences between the church in Eastern Asia with the Western church, primarily in America. He focuses on four areas of difference:

Doing Church

Denominationalism

Perspective On Money

Sacrifice

Jaeson’s article doesn’t appear to be critical at first glance, but when you take into account the fact that the American church is in decline, while the church in Asia is experiencing unprecedented growth, it makes one think. It makes one ask some tough questions.

What is the church in Asia doing that the Western church is not?

What is the church in Asia NOT doing that us Westerners are?

Are these cultural issues, or are they universal?

So, I figured why not address each area that Ma listed? Today I begin with Doing Church. Keep in mind, I won’t be republishing the entire article here so you should really check out the article yourself in the current issue of Relevant (the link is in the first paragraph, but you have to scroll to pg. 60).

Anyways, Jaeson points out the key difference in how “church” is done in the East and West. The West is based on a system of individualistic leadership while in the East churches are elder driven. Meaning that Western churches, even those with elders and/or deacons, are primarily pastor-driven.

While the traditional Western Church is focused on individualistic leadership, there are churches that are breaking from that. One example is Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. While Mark Driscoll founded the church, he is now only listed as a teaching pastor and elder. Not that he has sacrificed any influence, but if the other elders of Mars Hill overrule Driscoll on something, that’s it. He’s vetoed, overruled, whatever you want to call it. Another similar situation is North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. While Andy Stanley has a title that is familiar to most American Christians (Senior Pastor), he has made it known that when it comes to major decisions that affect the entire church he must go to the elders for approval. He has even come out and said in sermons that the elders have the power to fire him, should they deem him unfit as a pastor. And in my time at Four Points Church one of our pastor’s goals was to install elders as soon as suitable men were chosen and could be trained to take on the role of elder – not just for teaching and leadership roles, but also for accountability. Pastoral accountability was high on Brent’s (lead pastor at Four Points) list of priorities.

Now, I didn’t write all that to convince you that pluralistic leadership is better than individualistic. Like the cliche says, “Too many cooks spoils the broth.” If you take pluralistic leadership too far, you end up with the local church being pulled in so many directions it eventually wears thin. I simply wanted to give a few examples of American churches that have found a healthy balance between individualistic and pluralistic leadership models.

Coming tomorrow: The Reverse Flow of Missions – Denominationalism