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

Christ's Continuing Voice in the Church

Moberg's Five Stages

1. Incipient Organization • Earliest days are a period of emergence. • Structures are relatively formless. • Life centers on strong new leadership. • This stage generates much collective excitement. 2. Formal Organization

• Leadership attempts to impose greater sense of cohesion. • Leadership encourages commitment to the movement. • System of membership evolves. • Distinctives (ethical codes, religious practices) become more important. 3. Maximum Efficiency • There is decreased emotionalism, better response in recruitment, stability. • Leaders act more like statesmen. • Programs and committees are put into place. 4. Institutional Phase • Bureaucracy develops merely to advance its own interests. • Leadership is self-perpetuating. • Little spontaneity is found in worship. • Belief is in a creed merely as a relic of past ages. • Toleration reigns; organization no longer sees itself as distinctive. 5. Disintegration or Decline • The original vision is dead. • A reason for continuing no longer exists. The process of institutionalization should not automatically be consid ered bad.No movement can function without structure, and it is nai:ve and incorrect to think it can.It is beneficial, moreover, to formalize and estab lish the belief system, activities, spiritual experiences and social relation ships so that a reasonable predictability exists.Humans need framework. Derek Tidball puts his finger on the problem: "Institutionalisation refers to structures ...when they have ceased to function in the best interests of the movement they are supposedly serving." 8 In the case of the Church, the problem becomes apparent when the religious system develops and formalizes its structure at the expense of the spiritual factors that Jesus and the founding apostles taught were essential. Prophecy, meant to be a con tinuing part of the Church, is often the casualty of a formalizing religious organization. The issue seems clearly focused: Is the Church really the Church as Jesus meant it to be or is it an evolved institution that merely displays a dazzling outer religious appearance while hiding a Spiritless, lifeless expe- • 246