I would love to get some feedback on this passage from Pete’s book.
“To develop a healthy community, the best approach can actually involve being clear that one is not starting a community at all and that there will be no pastoral support, that no one will be charged with the job of taking in money and distributing it on people’s behalf, and that no one will be responsible for calling you up if you stop attending events. In short, it must be clear that the group does not care about people’s needs in the slightest. While this may sound deeply uncaring, the reason for stating this is precisely in order to help provide a healthy soil for real pastoral and financial support to grow.
“Providing a space with no welcoming team or pastoral support group means that individuals need to take responsibility for welcoming and caring for others themselves. Here the role of those setting up the group is not to create a new priest/laity divide but rather to refuse to act in the role of a priest precisely so as to encourage a priesthood of all believers, offering relational, mutually dependent, pastoral support. This does not mean that there is no place for leadership, for here the leader is the one who attempts to prevent any one person, including the leader, from taking over the space and taking on the role of some high priest. In such a space there is a radical refusal, by those who organize the gathering, to take on pastoral responsibility. for by refusing the place of power, the ‘pastors’ equip everyone to be a pastor, simultaneously discouraging an unhealthy dependency in those who attend.” (Rollins, pp. 177-178)
This is where I’m at somewhat in my own thinking. Questions of how it happens practically in our own context naturally surface. I’m not the best at asking the practical questions. I’m much more the dreamer, and luckily I have friends that can come alongside and provide the ground under my feet. I think our small gathering of friends, as unformed as it is, are somewhat heading in this direction already. The question is how to continue it once others join in that may naturally think of the “pioneers” of the group as the leaders. Throw in…