Church Polity and Leadership

Last week I begun a 5 week course up at Concordia University on Church Polity and Leadership. While you would think this topic would be a tad dry and not as sexy as something like...Systematic Theology, I am finding it extremly interesting and valuable. It probably helps that the professor, Pr. Greg Seltz (who is also the program director), is a dynamic speaker who brings a lot of practical experience and wisdom to the topic from years pastoring and church planting.

There are several books required for the course as well as journal articles, and all seem to be pretty good, but my favorite of the bunch has to be Models of the Church by Avery Cardinal Dulles. I don't read Catholic theologians very often (it's sort of in our Lutheran blood I guess). But this treatment looks at the church from the various ecclesiological models that have sprung up through the history of the church and find some level of connection to the scriptures. Thus, he looks at the church from the standpoint of: institution, mysterious body, sacramental presence, servanthood, etc. What I really appreciate is Dulles' honesty to critique his own community, while also seeking to reform her. While I'm only a couple chapters in, what I believe he is trying to show is that you cannot force one single ecclesiology upon the church, because it is like lifting one section of scripture up as more authoritative than the rest, and doesn't appreciate the diversity and continuity of the Biblical expressions for the church. She is an institution, but she need not be institutionalized. She is a sacramental presence, she is a servant, she is the herald, she is the mysterious body of Christ. These all fit together to make up the communion of saints.

I'm also learning the value of Lutheran simplicity. Where is the church? Wherever Christ says he will be. Where does he say he will be? In his Word and Sacraments. Thus, wherever the Word is preached and the sacraments administered, you know objectively, that Christ is present and that his church is gathered. More to follow on this as I realize this last paragraph is painted with a very broad stroke of the brush...er...keyboard.