You would say a cautious “yes” to the call of Jesus to decentralize throughout the book of Acts. But it is a cautious “yes”, rather than a wholehearted one. Why do you think that is?

For many of us, especially those of us who were born into Christian families, old habits die hard. We can fail to recognize how much our beloved church traditions centralize the authority and power of Jesus into the hands of a privileged few.

We would love to ask you:

Where are your justifications in Scripture for making such restrictions? What specific verses can you point to which defend your current practice of restricting much of the church’s ministry to a class of clergy? (note that some church traditions use other words for clergy, such as pastors or the eldership team)

For most of human history, power has flowed from the top down. Kings built palaces in their capital cities from which to rule over their kingdoms. Bishops built cathedrals from which to rule over their dioceses. Note how this mimics the wisdom of the world: keep power and truth at the center in order to make everybody’s money and obedience flow inward toward you.

But Jesus did something shocking. He refused to build a physical temple. He refused to create a new priestly elite. Instead, he empowered his followers and then he left them. He poured out his Spirit into ordinary people, in ordinary houses, in ordinary cities, and he commissioned every one of them to go out and partner with his Spirit in the world.

The church we read about in the book of Acts is not a slightly improved version of the old system. It has a completely different operating system: many thousands of small gatherings, led by unpaid local elders, spread across cities and nations, all under one invisible Head in heaven. When we drag the worldly wisdom of centralization and control into the church, and when we build systems that only work if people come to a building and consume what is produced by a few professionals, we are not just being “traditional”. We are quietly undoing the revolution Jesus unleashed.

As you read the rest of The Growing Gathering of Jesus, we would encourage you to lay your church traditions at the feet of Jesus and to heed the simple instruction of Mary to the servants at the wedding feast in Cana. “Just do whatever Jesus tells you.” (John 2:5)