Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Christ's Continuing Voice in the Church

the imposition of this ecclesiastical restriction and oversight. Why did institutional form conflict with charismatic freedom? Or, phrased differ ently, why have ecclesiastical authority and spiritual power clashed over and over throughout Church history? Let's look at the pattern of change that occurs when a religious group institutionalizes. I define institutionalization as the process whereby the Church of Jesus Christ becomes an established, recognized organization, a structured and highly formalized institution, often at the expense of cer tain spiritual factors originally thought to be important. Let me add Derek Tidball's definition: "It is the process by which the activities, values, experiences and relationships of the [religious] group become formalised and stabilised so that relatively predictable behaviour and more rigid organisational structures emerge. It is the name for the way in which free spontaneous and living [Church] movements become structured and inflexible." 3 Although we will focus mainly on the Church of the first three cen turies, this process tends to happen in all religious bodies-and it sends warning signals to us today. The basic answer we seek: Must the Church be a non-prophet organization? The year was 1984 and I was talking with Marvin Rickard, a fellow pastor in San Jose. We were discussing a principle we had known in con cept but now found to be active in our churches. Each of us was then in his twenty-fifth year of ministry in the area. Marvin had started with an existing church of about 120 people; I had started with just my family. After 25 years he had six thousand people, the largest church in town, and I had six hundred. We both pastored nondenominational congrega tions. Our traditions and beliefs in regard to denominationalism were similar: The local church, like those in New Testament times, was to be sovereign and self-governing, free from control by a religious organiza tion. Both of our churches were thus proudly independent. Yet we shared the same dilemma. Each of our two churches was succumbing to the insidious force of institutionalism. The sheer weight of structure maintenance and devel opment seemed to be stifling the vitality that once had been the driving force of each congregation. Although we were dedicated, long-term pas tors, we found it harder and harder to maintain our churches' love and devotion-although we had thought only the denominational churches experienced such things! • 244 The 25-Year Principle