When I consider the issues of leadership and governance in general but for the church in particular at heart I am a bit of an anarchist.  I want the church to be a movement that is organic and fluid as much as possible.  I don’t like notions of control and hierarchy. 

However the reality is I still believe as followers of Jesus it is important for our spiritual journey to be in community and not in isolation.  The trouble is as soon as you have any community of people you will have people exerting power whether given or taken.  Let’s be honest for a community to function well there needs to be a degree of organisation and that needs to fall on someone. 

For example I fairly regularly attend a group intended for people who would describe themselves ‘on the edge of church’.  That is defined in different ways by the different members of the group.  The couple who organise are keen to point out the group has no leader, they just host the group.  However they choose the material we study which has steered the journey of the group, they set the rules in terms of how the meeting flows and the rules in terms of how we share our thoughts.  There is no accountability over your life outside the group and no expectations placed on anyone.  However neither is there any obvious pastoral care.

The couple who run the group are a lovely and sincere couple.  My reflection is though that when we try and run a group or organisation without any planned leadership or governance we are putting the power in the hands of one or two and we dis-empower the rest of the group.

I guess that is why I am a Baptist and believe in the whole church discerning together the will of God.  This is not meant to be the democracy practiced by some Baptist churches but a theocracy with the whole body recognised as the priesthood and therefore able to discern the will of God.

If you follow this line of thought and you might not! I have some questions.

• ·         Formal membership can feel exclusive and sectarian, is there another way?
• ·         Is it right in a missional church to include everyone in the decision making process and if not how do we decide who to include? Is it possible for those who have not yet confessed belief in God or a commitment to follow Jesus to take part in discerning the will of God?
• ·         Can we allow people to feel fully part of our church community without including them in the decision making process?  Does everyone want to be included in the decision making process?
• ·         How do we recognise children as full members of the church community?

What do you think?