When the planners of Project Reconnect
recognised the principle that "The
People Are the Church" we were
already not far away from realising the importance of self-determination. Small
churches are often subdued to the point of thinking they are powerless. The
larger congregation to whom they are attached determine their life. The larger
centres typically determine when they have worship and how often they have
worship, who will be preaching on any given Sunday, and if they should even
continue to exist. The small congregations are often made to feel like a drag on
the resources of the larger church. To add injury to insult representatives of
the small congregations are required to attend parish meetings where the agenda
is almost exclusively about the issues of the larger centre.
It is a slow path to help a small
congregation who has had that sort of experience to begin to realise they are
indeed powerful, that the future of their congregation is in their own hands,
and their future is independent of the matters of property or the capacity of
larger congregations to support them.
The task of Project Reconnect was to
help small congregations recognise their strength. Firstly it was to help them
create worship for themselves using external resources they could
afford. Congregations were encouraged to recognise that traditional forms of
worship limited the strength of who they are - a “small group”. If they acted
more as a “small group” then they were then working in their strength.
All this was leading toward
self-determination. Gradually small congregations were deciding to loosen their
ties with the larger centres. They started deciding for themselves when they
were going to have worship, as now they were no longer dependent on being
provided a worship leader. They started deciding for themselves what worship
resources they wanted to use. One memorable occasion in the MLMA was when a
minister was to perform a baptism in one of the village churches. He was
informed that the congregation was going to run the service and he was only
required to perform the baptism. This was not meant to be an affront to the
minister but simply recognition that if the baptismal family were going to come
to worship the following Sunday they needed to know what "normal" worship was
like - the outcome was self-determination.
Now when congregations ask the
ministers questions like, "Do we always have to use the DVD? Can we sometimes
get a preacher that we would like to have?" the reply is, "That is not my
decision. You are in charge of your own life. If you would like to invite a
person to come along for a special occasion that is entirely up to you!" Of
course, they would get all the support they needed, but it is up to them to make
the decisions! Their future is in their hands and it is only then they can ever
be sure what their future will actually be!
Recognising the need for self-determination by congregations doesn’t remove the connection with the wider church. The opposite of dependence is not independence but inter-dependence. The local congregation can then enjoy the guidance, interaction, nurturing, gifts and graces of the wider church. Equally the wider church benefits from the dynamic of a self-determined local congregation who give practical expression to the teachings of Jesus, and the church, into the context of the local community. Also the local congregation contributes to the life and leadership of wider church.
October 10, 2007 - December 2009