As with any life form, organic churches pass through various stages of growth. In my experience, those stages follow a common pattern.
The first stage is “the honeymoon period.” This is where everything is beautiful. At least it looks that way at first blush. The members experience an uncommon freedom. Their fellowship is sweet and rich. They are enjoying a new found joy, life, and liberty in Christ. They even think they’re falling in love with one another. It’s a wonderful experience, indeed.
Not every church has a honeymoon period. I’ve watched some that were born straight into fire. But most will experience a honeymoon. And as surely as the sun will go down tonight, the honeymoon will end. It will destruct. I’ve never seen a church enjoy a honeymoon perpetually. It will come to an end. And it will lead to stage two—”crisis.”
Something is going to happen that will throw the group into a panic. In his classic book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer uses the word “crisis” to refer to an intense trial that a Christian community faces. I can’t think of a better word to describe it.
I’ve watched so many church crises that I’ve lost count. Some are mild. Others are bloody. It’s at this point that the group faces a fork in the road. It will either self-destruct or it will survive the crisis and move on to stage three.
Stage three is the experience of the cross. Every crisis is designed to lead us straight to the cross of Christ. It’s designed to force us on the horns of this dilemma: Will you die? Will you lose? Will you surrender?
That doesn’t mean leaving the group. Nor does it mean fighting for what you feel is the right course of action. It means laying your life down in the midst of the church and handing the situation completely over to the Lord.
For some people (usually those who are more passive), dying may mean boldly expressing what you believe to be the will of the Lord. For others (usually the strong-willed), it may mean taking your hands off the situation and surrendering to the mind of the group.
If some aren’t willing to die to everything—their opinions, their agendas, their gifts, their ministries, their ideas, their natural temperaments—the church will not survive the crisis.
Herein lies an unchanging truth: If you focus on the church, you will get the cross. But if you experience the cross, you will get the church.
If a church successfully bears the cross through the crisis, she will enter into stage four—”tested Body life.” Here’s what it looks like: The love the brothers and sisters have for one another has passed through fire. It has grown whiskers. The saints realize that they never really fell in love with one other; they climbed to it. Body life is now deeper and richer than it was during the honeymoon stage. The members will fall on a grenade for one another. They begin to experience the words of Jesus, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:13.
Yet the process doesn’t stop there. A church will cycle through stages two, three, and four as the years roll by. Each stage is very much like a season. The end in view is the growth of the church into the full image of Christ. Or what Paul called “coming unto full stature.” Ephesians 4:13