The tension between local expression and large-scale identity
I saw this article in a tweet last week from my friend James. It's an article about how Starbucks is trying to deal with the tension of being a global brand that still needs to have local expression in each store. In reading through it, I couldn't help but thinking, "this is exactly the same kind of tension that I think our church body feels".
Now, we in LCC are not a global mega-corporation. But I think the same tension exists between our group identity - our national presence - and the local expressions of the church in each city and congregation. This has many implications - for corporate worship, ministries, language, dress, all kinds of things.
For those involved in either a church denomination like LCC or another organization, how do you deal with and engage this tension?
Comments
This is a perceptive
This is a perceptive connection! Here are a few thoughts on it.
Technically, we in Lutheran Church-Canada actually have a sense of priority worked out between these two levels, I think. The larger church exists only because individual congregations and churchworkers join it. There is no such thing as "synod" in the sense of an independent, bigger entity that has legitimacy or even reality on its own. It only comes into being, and finds expression, as groups of Christians on the local level find themselves believing, teaching, and confessing the same things as other local groups elsewhere. This is obviously quite a "bottom-up" model of the church, in the sense that it arises from-- and finds its strength at-- the local level, rather than from the "top-down" as a more centralized, hierarchical model would have it. (Pastors and deacons are similar, though of course the nuance is a little different.)
At the same time, though, as soon as local churches and church-workers agree to join the larger body, they do end up creating "church" on that broader level too! They agree that they really will seek to believe, teach, and confess the same things as the others in that group. By entering into that voluntary agreement, they bind themselves together into a partnership-- to which they then can and should be held accountable. Nobody forced them to join this larger group, but they did it freely. Thus, they need to honour their commitment to "walk" according to the framework that all group members agree on.
So maybe the final result does feel, a lot of the time, as you describe it. We often do feel like there's some tension between the two "levels" of church, because we see them as completely parallel. What I'm suggesting, though, is that there's actually a chronological factor to consider here too, which changes the relationship between these levels in a significant way. The first reality is the one that comes into being on the local level - the local church, and those who serve it. The second (and secondary) reality is the larger entity which that local group then becomes part of.
Lutheran Church-Canada has always upheld, and formalized in its constitution, this "congregational principle." The constitution of all of its member congregations express it this way too. I'm not sure that everybody understands or even agrees with this principle! But formally, and also in my view ideally, this is how we ought to look at it.
Thanks for asking the question-- it's good to think about this together.
Some great thoughts, Prof.
Some great thoughts, Prof. Chambers, thanks.
I fully agree that this is the way we ought (and have agreed) to work. I think that where the tension exists is when we ask, "what does that look like?" There is no question that LCC is much different from Starbucks in its organization - as you say, "bottom-up" vs. top-down. Functionally, though, I think there are some similarities. Whether decided by a convention or corporate management, the question of local expression within the large group's indentity can still be a big question.
A concrete example: ordering drinks and worship...(just to pick a topic out of the air, not because it's something we recently talked about a lot! ;) )
At Starbucks, anyone can walk in to any of their stores and expect to be able to order a Grande non-fat Chai (no comment on the "Tea Latte" part of that drink being redundant :) ). No matter which local franchise one is in, that drink will be served in a 16oz. white cup with black and green text on it, and taste pretty much the same from store-to-store. The decor, menu, dress of the baristas,etc. will all essentially be the same across the chain.
However, as the article points out, though this has its advantages, this fact is becoming a bit of liability to the chain, and is likely a factor in its recent declines. The pushback is against the whole "feel" of the mega-chain, and is certainly not limited to Starbucks. People are feeling like it's not "them" enough - it's now just another corporate conglomerate. So they're trying different things locally - giving individual stores more individual identity while still being "Starbucks".
So now in our churches, we believe, teach, and confess the same thing across our synod. One should expect to walk into any LCC church and hear good Law/Gospel preaching and a sacramental understanding of the...sacraments. :)
Yet we also experience tension in this. How much freedom is there in using different liturgical orders, instrumentation, hymnody, etc.? On paper, there is much freedom. And in many churches we see that freedom expressed (even within one congregation, like in ours, where we have different styles of worship services).
Yet on the flip side, we also hear the argument that everything should be essentially the same in worship in every church - the simplest suggestion is that all congregations just use hymnal liturgies and hymns. So the argument there is that our unity is really expressed best through national uniformity. Not that it's necessarily "wrong" to have wide variety; it's just not something to pursue.
And of course, therein lies the tension: do we pursue local expression as "good thing"? If so, how far can/should that local expression go before it's no longer "walking together"? How do we best deal with national/group vs. local/individual identity when the two are both important?
You'll note I'm ending up in the same place I began - with the questions before us. :) Thanks for reflecting on this with me.
I probably should contribute
I probably should contribute something theological in nature to this, but I can't get past the fact that you ordered your "cup of affordable luxury" without specifying "no water"....barbarian...
:) I've had it sans water,
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