by Russ Doebler.
Our church wandered a wilderness for 40 years. It was a wilderness of internal strife and disunity, with one painful pastoral transition after another. During our wanderings, pastors were voted out, shouted down at business meetings, accused of not managing their families well, suspected of deviant behavior, questioned about doctrinal error…the list goes on. Maybe some pastors needed correction, but it would appear that the most common scenario was a pastor inappropriately accused or viciously attacked. All our pastors during that 40-year period left under some sort of duress, and the church was divided on its opinion of the pastor each time.
When I arrived at Valley Christian Assembly in western Minnesota in 1999, the church was still reeling in the aftermath of the last pastoral exodus. Some felt the previous pastor needed to go; others felt he had been treated unfairly. I felt like a wishbone, caught in the middle of a board divided on whether the previous pastor should have left and whether I should be here. Half of the board members would have died for me. The other half wanted to kill me. And the division went beyond the board through the whole church, with disagreements and wounds dating back 30 years or more.
Now, after more than seven years, I can testify that we have a united church board, and there is an attitude of unity throughout the church. Of course, we are still working on things. We may not be bursting at the seams yet, but we are seeing miracles happen on a regular basis. The factors that contributed to our turnaround are too many to document here, but I’d like to share one thing we did that pertains to the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies (FCA).
We added a bylaws requirement to establish a board of “Outside Ministry Advisors.” Some might call them apostles, bishops or overseers. We chose a non-threatening description that wouldn’t alarm people who are leery about threats to local-church autonomy.
Our policy calls for at least two Outside Ministry Advisors, but to date we have just one, another FCA pastor from Minnesota. We intend to expand our board of “OMAs” to two or three down the road. I can tell you that our existing Outside Ministry Advisor helped guide us through the last stops on our wilderness journey. He developed a relationship with the people of our church. He visits us regularly, meeting with our board and preaching to our congregation. He doesn’t come to solve problems but to help us hone our vision and mission. He and his elders serve as a covering for us. His intercessors pray for us.
So now, if a crisis were to spring up, there wouldn’t be any questioning or wondering about whom to call. Our church is now a safer place. I’m less likely to be accused falsely, and I’m less likely to get away with abusive practices or incorrect doctrine, because there is another person of authority to answer to.
I know what I’m talking about doesn’t sound very FCA. But I believe it’s biblical. When I joined the FCA, I felt freed from the politics of denominationalism. I read my Bible with anti-denominational lenses, and all I saw was local-church structures. What I missed was outside influence-no, outside authority-that helped direct the affairs of a local church. For example,
1. Acts 8:14-25 – The Jerusalem church sent Peter and John to assist Philip in his revival meetings. It appears that the Jerusalem church invited themselves to do this ministry.
2. Acts 11:19-24 – Unnamed disciples traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch and started a church. When the Jerusalem church heard about it, they sent Barnabas up to Antioch to encourage the new disciples. Again, it appears that Jerusalem invited themselves.
3. Acts 14:21b-23 – Paul and Barnabas returned to churches they had started, strengthening and encouraging the disciples. Then they appointed elders in each church, rather than letting the local churches vote in their leadership.
4. Acts 15:1-35 – The church in Antioch asked Jerusalem for help with settling a doctrinal dispute. Jerusalem sent a letter that settled the matter.
5. Titus 1:5 – Paul instructed Titus that he should appoint elders in every town.
6. Paul’s epistles – These are words of instruction to churches he had started. He spoke with authority, even though he was “out of the picture” on a day-to-day basis. He also wrote a bold theological work to the church in Rome, though he had never ministered in Rome. And his letters to Timothy and Titus were words of instruction to men that had authority over other churches.
Many FCA churches face the same internal squabbles we faced and suffer subsequent leadership vacuums as we did. Is there anything we can do about it? The FCA can’t, because it’s made an irrevocable vow to not interfere with local-church autonomy, no matter how far a church may degenerate into dysfunction and treachery. After all, it’s our independence that keeps us together!
This commitment to independence has some wonderful benefits and is a very freeing thing. But there are liabilities to an independent spirit, creating serious weaknesses or deficiencies in the FCA. Related to these deficiencies, here are three things I’d like to address:
The idol of local-church autonomy
The inability of the FCA to help a church in times of crisis
The value of submitting to outside help, and the inconsistency of not doing so
The idol of local-church autonomy
We say we are “interdependent,” not “independent,” but I wonder if we’re just kidding ourselves in an attempt to justify our unwillingness to answer to anybody. We value local-church autonomy so much, I wonder if we have made an idol out of it. We enjoy our independence because we can avoid the evil politics of denominationalism and we are free to hear from God directly without having to get approval of an out-of-touch overseer.
But during times of crisis, with no official authority outside the local church, the FCA can’t help (or intervene by choice) when a church begins to devour itself. Because we are independent in times of blessing, we remain independent in times of crisis.
The inability of the FCA to help a church in times of crisis
My complaint with the FCA is not that there are no willing and capable people to help a troubled church. Our church, in retrospect, felt abandoned by the FCA during our wilderness wanderings. But it’s not the people or pastors of the FCA who abandoned us. We felt abandoned by the system. Or lack of a system.
So it’s left up to the freedom of our independent churches to choose whether they want help. In our case, our church couldn’t agree on whether we needed help or who that help should be. During the last debacle, another pastor was called in to mediate, without complete board agreement, and that infuriated those who didn’t want help. The attempt to mediate caused even more contention!
I love the FCA. I love the people of the FCA. But let’s face it: We’re primarily a bunch of good friends. When it comes to a church in crisis, the FCA is a powerless group of pals, unable to help a church unless so invited by the local church. Our insistence on local-church autonomy requires that the organization “stay out of it,” and so a church is forced to chew its leg off to get out of the trap, which is what sort of happened here. Unity came at a tremendous price: Several families left the church overnight.
It’s not that we don’t have apostolic leaders in the FCA; we just don’t have a way of officially recognizing and providing for that type of leadership. We do that on purpose, so the FCA cannot interfere with the Holy Spirit’s leading of a local church. But the downside of that freedom is another type of bondage: We can’t interfere when the devil is manipulating a local church!
The value of submitting to outside help, and the inconsistency of not doing so
As pastors, we expect our people to submit to us, but when it comes to us submitting to someone else (besides the “mutual submission to elders” to whom we preach every Sunday), we scream, “What about local-church autonomy?!” That’s a bit convenient, isn’t it?
Rather, I believe our people feel safer submitting to our leadership when we demonstrate submission ourselves. I think it’s healthy for pastors to submit themselves to an “overseer’s” direction, just like we pastors expect our people to submit to our counsel. It’s the “being under authority to have authority” concept. I know that Warren Heckman, as USA Fellowship Coordinator, is always willing to help. But he can’t possibly have this level of relational involvement with every church. We need numerous pastors providing this counsel.
Recommendations
So here are my recommendations to prevent or alleviate power struggles. These are things local churches can do to connect more intentionally with the FCA in order to protect and strengthen the leadership of our local churches. I recommend that your church do what we did. We entered into an official, publicly sealed covenant (like an installation service) with another pastor, appointing him as an Outside Ministry Advisor. We did this during a time of “peace,” not in a response to crisis. We are now in the process of moving toward the appointment of one or two more. We believe this will not only help us avoid future crises, but these recognized authorities will aid us through a crisis that might pop up.
You may say, “Why can’t it be informal-the way we’ve always done it?” Because making it formal, official, and public carries much more weight. No one can question the validity of an Outside Ministry Advisor’s role in our church without changing the bylaws.
As I have studied the history of our church, I discovered that E.C. Erickson once had something of an informal role of covering over our church. The influence of Duluth Gospel Tabernacle can be seen in our early efforts to incorporate in the 1940s. However, when E. C. retired and then passed away, that role was not passed on to anyone else. What’s interesting about this is that the end of his role of informal covering for our church coincides almost exactly with the turmoil that we began to experience. In fact, within 10 years of E. C.’s retirement, our church split.
The informal relationship is much too dependent on the personalities of the “overseers” and the churches, and there is no guarantee that the practice will continue.
Now, as far as the FCA is concerned, I’m not suggesting we vote in apostles, presbyters, overseers, or district superintendents and become the Assemblies of God. Instead, I recommend for every church what we’ve done here. Note that this covenant was initiated by the local church and we voluntarily submit to an OMA’s counsel. It was not an edict passed down from on high.
The FCA can’t mandate this, since we are a fellowship of independent, autonomous churches. But we can recommend and promote it and encourage other churches to autonomously enter into the apostolic reformation by formally engaging in relationships with other churches and pastors as we have done. FCA values are left intact, while we grow in our understanding of biblical ecclesiology and authority.
It doesn’t infringe on the autonomy of the local church when the local church decides to submit, right?
Russ Doebler is now senior pastor of Hope Community Church in Howard Lake, Minnesota.
