Organic
One of our primary metaphors that governs our activities is an organic one, say of the garden. We are wanting to see life and growth in the church. The job of leaders is to create the right environment for things to grow, for people to become more of who God is wanting them to be.
Sometimes, things grow for a season and then die. Rather than trying to artificially sustain things, we recognise that activities in the church do have a life-span, and so we don’t see ‘death’ as failure, but as an opportunity for other things to grow.
We do need structures in church, rather like some plants need canes or trellis to grow. The structures are only there to promote healthy growth, and not an end in themselves, and therefore will change and evolve as the needs of the ‘garden’ change.
In practice this means we are not the kind of church that says: “we don’t do that”. We are determined not to control people, but create a healthy environment for people, projects and vision to grow, and then find the best ways of supporting that. Of course there are boundaries to that, and not everything can grow in one garden, but if God is causing something to grow, we will try to support that.
