https://www.chrismorton.info/2014/03/27/worldvision-and-the-subtle-limitations-of-the-parachurch/ Growth and Mission Mon, 24 Oct 2016 18:04:09 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.32 https://www.chrismorton.info/2014/03/27/worldvision-and-the-subtle-limitations-of-the-parachurch/#comment-9734 Mon, 31 Mar 2014 16:36:33 +0000 http://www.chrismorton.info/?p=5494#comment-9734 I really appreciate the things this post made me think through, and I have to agree with your main point. Church folk probably depend on parachurch institutions too heavily for ministry opportunity, and it really does limit how relational they can be about it. It reminds me of a quote from Shane Claiborne’s _Irrisistable Revolution_ a few years ago, which struck me enough I can still paraphrase it: “When Jesus comes back, he’s going to separate the sheep and the goats, and I’m just not sure he’s going to say, ‘I was naked and you gave to the Salvation army and they clothed me…'” The “hands clean” mentality hinders both the average pew sitter in their relational outworking of the Gospel, and the resulting apathy hinders organizations from having the resources they need to make a bigger impact.
At the same time, it seems like this Church vs. Parachurch discussion comes up generationally. On one side of the coin, parachurch organizations tend to fill the gaps in the intended activity of the Church. One could argue that many only exist because the local church people / institution / organizations aren’t collectively doing what the Church is called to do (i.e. The Navigators focusing on discipleship: “making disciplemakers of disciplemakers” is something The Church should be doing). By that definition, I don’t think “Christian U” counts, but that brings me to the other side of the coin: As long as the Church is functioning as a community seeking to obey Christ, there will be individuals whose passions (as you touched on) drive them to start organizations to meet the needs that they see in the world around them. Even if they are only being entrepreneurial, all humans will take their character and values into the ventures that they start (including Christians building Universities).
Related to that I think many of the pitfalls you describe with your Christian U example stem from the religious character of the denomination that began/ran our alma mater (law over grace problems aplenty, but that’s another discussion), not the fact that it was Christian U, per se. All the more reason to make sure churches are teaching The Gospel and not just Religion.
An underlying question is: Is the local church an organization that meets needs first, or an organism/community? I’m pretty sure we’d answer that question the same way. Even given a vibrant gospel community, there will always be some problems that are best tackled by some kind of organizational force, even if it’s as transient as a team to organize volunteers for a weekend. These can always be more specialized than, “The Church.” I think I would like to see churches spending less time/energy/resources building up local 501c3 “church” organizations, (which are often functionally event-centers), and more energy being communities that drive/fund other organizations that have the tools to do specialized kinds of good in the world, like World Vision, Teen Challenge, or Wycliffe Bible Translators.

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