Pastoral Flypaper

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     We often believe we are constant under misfortunes when we are only dejected; and we suffer them without daring to look on them, like cowards who allow themselves to be killed through fear of defending themselves--La Rochefoucauld in Maxims (1665).

     A lot of good folk like to point to great scientific advancements to show the tremendous changes which have occurred during the brief span of their lifetime. Undoubtedly they can point in many directions. But while plunking astronauts down on the moon in a space bubble is a good illustration I doubt it is necessary to become all that scientific. There are a lot of simple things which also demonstrate how we have altered. As a kind of everyday down-to-earth example, take our attitude toward flies.

     One little puny insignificant housefly can now throw a dinner party into a tizzy. Not long ago I was the guest of a fairly calm brother who was married to one of the most nervous females I have ever seen. She fluttered around the table while preparing lunch like a sparrow in a chicken house. When we sat down to eat, a lone fly made his appearance and buzzed the scene. You never saw such beating the air. Every time the determined and persistent insect got anywhere near her end of the table, the wife took a swipe at him, missing him as far as the last batter on a girl's softball team. Finally, the husband, who was far more upset by his wife's actions than by the zooming around of the fly volunteered to bat the offender into the wild blue yonder. He politely excused himself to me, arose and got the advertising section of the Sunday paper, rolled it up into an effective weapon, and returned to the scene of action. When the fly headed in his general direction, coming in low to make a three-point landing on the fruit salad, the genial host took a cut at him and hit the dish of apple butter. He scattered pulverized Jonathans all over the wall-to-wall carpet. Mighty Casey had struck out!

     It wasn't that way when I was a lad. In those days flies were expected. They were as much a part of the dinner scene as cooked turnips. Most people could not afford screen doors, and those who did have them found them little protection. Almost every screen door had a hole in it big enough to throw a cat through. This was a convenience because there was always a bedraggled feline with which to practice such shots. That was the day when grown folks ate first and got the pick of things while the kids were expected to run and play until summoned to sort through the remains and gnaw on the necks and backs remaining on the chicken plate. Also the gravy was as cold as a miser's heart.

     Always, however, there was one youngster who did not get to play. His job was to mind the flies. Armed with a peach tree branch with the leaves still on it, he stood behind the guests, gently waving the limb

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back and forth, keeping the swarm of hungry insects at bay, and only occasionally being lucky enough to knock one into the dish of black-eyed peas. No one got butterflies in his stomach because flies fluttered around the place.

     Some of you will remember Tanglefoot, the flypaper with the sticky substance on one side. If you laid a sheet of it on the kitchen table and sprinkled a little granulated sugar around on it, it became a death trap for unwary insects. I shall never forget the time I was setting the table and placed the sticky sheet temporarily on a chair. I was in a hurry to get back outside and play "shinny" with a battered Pet Milk can and I forgot and left the Tanglefoot on the chair. It was the day the "Watkins Man" stayed for lunch and he drew that chair. Mom scraped it off the seat of his pants the best she could, flies and all, but I later heard that when he got up from his wagon seat, the seat decided to get up with him.

     There wasn't much to do when rain poured out of leaden skies, with only the ducks getting a kick out of it while the chickens huddled under the back porch. We would play "Fox-and-Geese" on a homemade board, using grains of corn and beans for counters. Sometimes we would play checkers, and the checkers had been cut from a broomstick with half of them colored with black shoe polish.

     When things like that palled you could always lean on the table and watch flies get caught on the flypaper. When one gingerly approached it in happy anticipation of the sugar, and got one foot caught in the glue he was "in a heap of trouble." He took his other front leg and tried to extricate the first by rubbing it. But he was like Brer Rabbit cuffing the tar baby. Soon he was stuck with all four feet. For awhile he feebly struggled but finally gave up the battle and grimly settled down to face the inevitable. It was not long in coming. A few more twitches and then the final quiver found him hopelessly entangled.

     I think this is what has happened to a lot of us human flies with the reference to the clergy system in the restoration movement. We are all stuck up and bogged down in the semantic tanglefoot. We started out nobly to restore the ancient order to the church. Like plumed knights we rode forth to try our lances against every system which had been devised by man and which prevented the recapture of that marvelous simplicity which was in Christ Jesus. But we were lured by the sugar and the syrupy sweetness of the sectarian system and we have given up the struggle. We are discouraged with ever achieving our goal and now some of us doubt that it ever had any real value to start with.

     Justification for the conclusion that a good many brethren couldn't care less about real restoration--a conclusion which I have been reluctant to reach--stems from several factors which are quite general. Our brethren seldom say anything about the clergy system, and never about the form of it we have adopted. It is not unfair, I think, to say that many of them resent anyone even questioning it, much less examining its claim to scripturality. I receive more bitter letters about my writing on this theme than any other. Some of them accuse me of opposing proclamation of the gospel. Others express deep grievance that I am arrayed against preachers. Our tradition has blinded us. We cannot distinguish between opposition to a borrowed system which has its stranglehold on the whole Christian world, and proclaiming the message of hope and heaven to a world of frightened mankind steeped in sin.

     In some places, particularly in seminaries which are sometimes dedicated to development of a professional clergy caste, my writings are dismissed with a flirt of the hand and with the casual offhand remark, "That's Carl's hangup and hobby, and you just have to overlook it and forget both it and him. At his age he can't last too much longer and we can outlast him if we are careful and he doesn't give us high blood pressure or apoplexy."

     Our restoration fathers had much more to say about what they called "the one-man hired pastor system" than they ever

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did about any other problem which confronted them. They had a fairly clear-cut idea of what the revelation of God taught on what we now label "church polity." They respected that facet of revelation as much as they did any other. So do I. Our washed-out attitude toward certain portions of God's word stems from the fact that a lot of us read it to validate what we already have and not to find out what God wants us to do. We have "restored" the apostolic church, and there's really nothing left to do except to go along for the ride and not to think too much.

     I am quite convinced that the system we now practice and defend has no scriptural basis. This is a grave charge and I make it with reverence for God and respect for the hearts of all my brethren. I think we are not only denying by our actions the priesthood of all believers and the ministry of all the saints, but I also think we have no burning desire or intention to implement them. We have given up the fight and are mired down in the sticky "goo."

     The pastors in the primitive communities of the saints were not the pro-claimers of the word, the preachers or evangelists. They were the bishops or overseers. They were not imported or invited in by a pulpit committee. There were no pulpits in primitive congregations. The pastors were selected from the flock and given their responsibility when they met the qualifications and requirements as specified by the apostle and not until then.

     There is no such thing hinted at as hiring a man from the outside to come in and pastor or shepherd a flock for a fee. Neither is there a suggestion that men were appointed as bishops in order to encourage them to try and qualify or to become more faithful. To ordain men to this sacred office merely to fill a form, meet the requirements of the by-laws, or encourage them to be more diligent is a burlesque upon God's holy arrangement. And to allow oneself to be ordained as an elder or bishop when not qualified is to be thrust into a position where you must give an account before God.

     The word pastors in Ephesians 4:11 is from poimen, a herdsman, shepherd or flock-tender. It is distinguished from evangelists in this very passage. An evangelist was, as the word clearly indicates, a bringer of good news. He was a herald or announcer. He told the world about what God had done for mankind at the cross. The pastors were the feeders and guides of the gathered flock. In the Authorized Version the word poimen is rendered shepherd 17 times. It is the word for the shepherds who came to the stable in Bethlehem after hearing the angelic chorus. It is also the word for the functioning of Jesus and was used by him five times in John 10.

     The term poimaino is rendered by "feed" 6 times and is translated "feed cattle" once. In Acts 20:17, we are told that when the sailing vessel upon which Paul had booked passage anchored in the harbor at Miletus "he sent to Ephesus and called unto him the elders of the church." He recalled to their memory that when he was among them he had taught them publicly and from house to house. He told them he would not see them again. But it is obvious he had trained them until all he needed to do was to commend them unto God and to the word of His grace.

     So he charged them to "take heed unto yourselves and to the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with the blood of his own (Son)." Overseers is the same word elsewhere rendered "bishop." The elders are the bishops of a community of the saints. Thus, when the apostle wrote to the congregation in Philippi, he addressed his letter "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons" (1:1).

     But the word feed is a form of the word rendered pastor in Ephesians 4:11. It means to tend to the flock, to do the work of a shepherd. So the words for elder, bishop and pastor are all applied to the same men. Elder signifies they must be men of age and experience; overseer signifies that they must supervise and guide; pastor that they must lead and feed the

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flock. The first has to do with age, the second with authority, and the third with activity.

     I do not want to be obnoxious to my brethren, and I have no desire to "bug" them, but one thing is ever apparent, and that is the fact that the one "most important" functionary among us is never addressed or mentioned in the apostolic epistles. One can hardly imagine addressing the saints in various places and not doing so through the preacher. It is not an exaggeration to say that in the Churches of Christ (non-instrument) there is no way to write a letter to the saints at all. The preacher reads it first and if it does not pass his censorship the saints never know that it was written. Some of the letters by Paul wouldn't have gotten past the front office.

     What has happened to us, of course, is that we have adopted a new office and created a new officer to fill it. Since we have done so it has to be scriptural, not because it is in the scriptures but because we have it, and it is a part of our "restoration pattern." We did not create this office at all. We borrowed it. It is simply the sectarian pastor system and we like it because it works. We have no real concept of how to make the ideal of God work in our day because the brethren who constitute the churches were not converted to the task of really serving. They have come in to be served.

     It would not do to call the new officer whom we have installed "the pastor" because we know "church polity" too well to do that. (It may be mentioned in passing that some of the congregations, especially in Christian Churches, do use the word "pastor" and it appears as the title on the stationery exactly as it would in the Lutheran Churches, for example.) Generally, we cover up the system by applying another title. Our pastors are evangelists, ministers, preachers, varying in different places according to the term which will provide the best cover-up.

     In 1 Peter 5:2, 3, the apostle instructs "the elders among you" to pastor or tend the flock of God and to take the oversight thereof, that is function as bishops. The work of the pastor is the work of the bishop, and it is the function of elders. The qualifications for bishops are the qualifications for pastors, and there was a plurality of these in every congregation. Before they could serve they had to demonstrate their ability to care for the church of God by ruling and regulating and governing their own family circles.

     "He must manage his own household well, keeping the children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God's church?" (1 Timothy 3:4, 5). Contrast this with the modern practice of teaching beardless youths "pastoral psychology" and graduating them to start out with diploma in hand looking for a church on which to practice the art. We have come a long way, but in the wrong direction.

     God's word would not permit a man to serve even as one of several pastors until he met stringent qualifications. But "the System" creates pastors with machine-like precision and on a production line basis, who single-handedly attempt the task with hardly any of the qualifications but with a portfolio of sermon outlines, some of which have no more relationship to life than if they had been sent down from Mars. A well-modulated speaking voice which can rise and fall in proper cadence is hardly a compensation for the vacuity of some of the messages

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that are delivered, and which send the people away as empty and devoid of spiritual strength as they were when they turned into the parking lot.

     No longer are pastors chosen from among the local saints, upon the basis of the qualifications for bishops. Now they are called in to exhibit their wares. The word sermon isn't even in the Bible and for a very good reason. Preaching to the church, as Alexander Campbell pointed out, was not once mentioned in the sacred scriptures. Nothing that men have devised is more absurd than a "trial sermon" presented as a credential in rivalry for a job. The very idea places the task of proclaiming the good news on a crass commercial basis. It denigrates the gospel, depresses the preacher and secularizes the saints. Imagine one who loves the Lord being forced to compete for the favor of people who want to "size him up" before negotiating with him to see if they can raise enough money to employ him to come and throw down fodder for starving sheep.

     Ponder the selection of such a one for such a spiritual task by the cut of his clothing, the length of his hair, or the shine on his shoes. Do not forget that a candidate may be turned down because of the color of his necktie or because he twitches his eyebrows as nervously as Sam Ervin. Regardless of what else enters into it, candor and truth force us to admit that one's spiritual knowledge may not mean nearly so much as his pulpit mannerisms or his effect upon the congregational image. Ah, that image! How we worship it! A great man of God may stand but little chance if the saints are looking for a "good mixer." If the brethren belong to "the personality cult" a plain man filled with the Spirit but who cannot play softball, had just as well go bark up a persimmon tree as to "try out" for the "opening."

     What can we do about this sad, and even disgraceful state of affairs where strings are often pulled and politics are frequently played? Most places do not realize that they are not selecting a man at all, but he was selected for them from afar. He was picked out of a group of prospects and sometimes the fact that his father is a generous contributor has much to do with the selection. None of us like to think that these things are true, but all of us know they are, and they are true in every segment of the restoration movement.

     So, what can be done? In most places nothing will be done! Nothing can be done if "the System" which we think of as "the Lord's church" has made cowards of us and we tremble for our jobs. I do not hold to the idea that because you cannot do everything you ought to do nothing. But whatever is done in most places will have to be done slowly. We will need to proceed cautiously unless we propose to kill the patient while pretending to cure him. All of us, including myself, are victims of a condition which has crept up and put its tentacles around us and we will disengage ourselves only with patience, if at all. A lot of good folk think we will never do it, so they are resigned and are obeying the first and greatest commandment 'Thou shalt not rock the boat."

     Running from responsibility, or quitting cold-turkey, will not get the job done. Anyone can resign where he is and chase around over the landscape looking for a church more to "his liking" but that only transfers the problem. The chances are he is the problem. The System has weakened congregations until they are helpless to stand alone without receiving artificial respiration on a weekly basis. But the fact that some of them have survived the sermons they have heard indicates a greater strength than one might imagine. A constant diet of noodle soup is not calculated to develop soldiers who can go out and tackle principalities, powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, or low ones either. It takes more than pap or pablum to produce fighters for truth.

     The way in which we have enlisted the saints has started them out as incu-

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bator babies. They have been on milk so long they cannot immediately be force fed with meat, or they will choke to death. Let us candidly admit that we have gotten people into the water without really getting them into Christ. They came out of the baptistery all wet and some of them have been that way ever since. We have brought babies to birth who never intended to grow. We have enlisted soldiers who never intended to fight. We have enrolled runners who never intended to race. They want to sit in the grandstand and watch fencing exhibitions. They prefer to lean on the sword rather than to wield it.

     I think we can keep them coming, if we can keep enough "new ideas" dreamed up, or borrow enough gimmicks from our good sectarian neighbors and "apply them" to the "true church." But the question is if this will get them to heaven or simply delude them into thinking they are safe until it is too late. Can one live a life of peaceful co-existence with the devil and receive the unfading crown at the end of the journey? Can one be called a soldier who never picked up a weapon and wouldn't know which end to swing it by? Can one be called a soldier of the Lamb who cannot find 1 Corinthians without flipping the pages after having enlisted twenty years ago and never missed "Sunday school"? In short, are we simply fooling ourselves and hoodwinking both the brethren and the public about what the faith is all about? You think I'm all worked up about this, don't you? And you could be right about that!

     No one will ever develop into a soldier by listening to repeated lectures on how to enlist. A capable fighting force does not result from recurrent oratorical flights on "The Steps to Salvation." You can assemble a bunch of raw recruits together and have a community sing once per week and top it off with a nice talk, and ten years from now they will be no more capable of warfare than when they enlisted. A Jehovah's Witness can make them dive for a foxhole like a scared rabbit.

     Our problem is we have been preached to death instead of taught how to live. The sermons change only in the titles assigned to them. The church has become a place to entertain the troops, not to train them. We have to pamper them to keep them coming. We actually spend more in building comfortable barracks than in fighting the foe. Brethren have been in the ranks for years who cannot find Galatians in the manual of arms. They become "duck soup" for the enemy. The devil is really not afraid of them. They could not hit him with a spiritual cream puff.

     A boy who is ambitious to become an electronics engineer grows up in a congregation where the brethren have an obsession about the sin of supporting "Herald of Truth." The congregation is given a steady diet of anti-institutionalism. When the young man gets to the university campus he is in a world that never heard of Herald of Truth and might not have heard of the "loyal Church of Christ." He has a head full of arguments and a heart empty of real faith, the rugged faith which will not be eroded away by the materialism, humanism and scientism to which he is exposed. He will probably be washed down the stream in the first flood. His arguments do not fit the problems he faces.

     In view of all this, may I make a few suggestions of a practical nature? If you cannot agree with them, or if you think I am mistaken about the whole mess, I'll love you anyhow! It isn't necessary for you to share my concerns for me to reverence and respect you as my brother or sister. If you think I am off the beam and will miss the runway, praise the Lord anyhow!

     (1) If you are employed by a congregation to minister to them and you have the pastoral concept, change your think-

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ing. Put your mind in reverse and back out. If your name is on the "official letterhead" or the "official signboard" with the title "pastor" following it, remove the title. Point out to the brethren who hired you that you are not their pastor. Tell the congregation that the elders are the pastors. It will surprise them both!

     (2) If possible, change the emphasis from delivering "sermons" to teaching the word. Preaching the gospel is for the world. Its design is to call men out, to enroll them in the school of Christ. The apostolic doctrine is for the saints. They do not continue in hearing the gospel. They respond to it and continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, although, if necessary, they may be reminded of the gospel which was proclaimed unto them. Preaching is proclamation of news, teaching is instruction in a course of discipline. Preaching the gospel summons men from death unto life. Expounding the doctrine shows them how to live that life.

     It is a little bit absurd for men to lay aside the Bible as soon as they finish the Sunday-school class. Insist they bring their Bibles with them into the auditorium. Notice, I did not say "the sanctuary." It would be well to forget the "sermonic" approach, for which there is no scriptural basis, and select an epistle for a series of thirteen lessons. Let us assume that you select the letter of James. You could not choose a better one. Read a paragraph while the whole audience looks on with open Bible. Draw out the message from the paragraph. Explain the words employed and make application of them to life. Suggest that the brethren underline certain key words. Tell them to write down notes on an envelope pulled from purse or pocket. Get them involved in the lesson.

     On Sunday night arrange the meeting so the saints can share their views on the lesson and question your thinking as given in the morning. Let it be a "talk back" session. To kick it off, if they are frightened at the sound of their own voices in a "holy place," ask leading questions. "What did the Spirit say to you in this lesson from James? What idea or thought did you get that could make any change in your life? What promises did you find which might give you hope? What warning was there which will teach you caution? Did I say anything with which you disagree?" Encourage the brethren to express any point of disagreement. Do not argue about it publicly. They did not jump up and start an argument with you in the morning. If you continue this for three months you will have a community of saints which will know more about James than ever before. You will also have some feedback from those who object to your disturbance of their sleep and rest period.

     (3) Elton Trueblood is eminently correct, as he is about many things, when he points out that the preacher should be a coach. But you can never develop a football team by assembling the players once a week to sit on benches in the clubhouse and listen to a lecture on the history of football, and the art and science of playing the game. Nor can you train them by giving them a notebook full of arguments to use to show the superiority of football over baseball. You must get the ball into their hands. You must put them on the field. Certainly the coach can devise a strategy for meeting the opposition but it is the players who must carry it out. In the service of God the coach must stay off the field and on the sideline. It is the elders who should call the signals. They are the backfield men. A good coach trains the whole squad until it can function as a unit.

     I confess I am not too hot on "eldership training sessions" where cram courses are provided for a small select and elite group. Of course I could be as

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wrong about that as I am about a lot of other things, but it seems to me we are making some errors which will eventually destroy us. We select some young man who is ambitious and articulate, perhaps a little too much, and send him away to train for four years "to take over a church." He is taught homiletics, hermeneutics, pastoral psychology, public speaking, and a good deal of Bible and restoration history. If it is in a "Church of Christ" school he is given a good stiff dose of "pattern theology" and it all depends on which school he attends as to which "pattern" he will study.

     All of this may be good, but what about the church he is to take over? It is composed of successful farmers, school administrators, attorneys, postal clerks, assembly-line workers, housewives, and others who are given the impression that when it comes to exercise of the faith they are "laymen," that is unskilled, inept, bumbling, and without religious know-how. Their task on earth is to contribute part of their daily earnings to support a professional who is trained in the art of managing the religious enterprise, and maintaining "worship." In the Catholic Church the professional is called a priest. In the Anglican community he is a canon or rector. In the Lutheran Church he is a pastor. In the Protestant world he is a clergyman. In the Church of Christ he is the minister. Much as it galls a lot of us who have "restored the Lord's church" to have someone say it, the minister among us sustains the same functional relationship as do all of the others. As Lesslie Newbigin pointed out in his speech to the World Convention of Churches in New Delhi, the clergyman wants to be the prima donna, to hold the center of the stage and shine as the director of praise and worship.

     Since "preaching the gospel" has become professionalized and the religious structure which supports it has become institutionalized we are constantly aware that the whole complex is made up of two kinds of seekers. Preachers are seeking churches, and churches are seeking preachers. A lot of those who are not in the market wish they were. A great many congregations endure the preacher they have. They regard him as a part of the cross they must bear because they cannot pay more. And a lot of preachers tolerate the congregation which pays their salary. They regard it as a kind of divine punishment for their youthful indiscretions and their lack of interest while "preparing for the ministry." Secretly, a lot of them are wishing "the Lord would call them" to another field, and if their wives are pregnant they wish the Lord would get on the ball and do something before they have another mouth to feed.

     When you put a young man with high hopes in a congregation with a cloud cover and low visibility, where the brethren have spiritual astigmatism and are blind and cannot see afar off, you have a sad condition. Many a young man has set forth gallantly, clutching his Bible in one hand and his diploma in the other, with the words of the commencement address ringing in his ears, and his attractive young bride carrying the suitcases, ready to restore the faith and reform the world. He soon learns that he is not going to change things a great deal. If he is an "associate minister" he is not going to change them at all. Subtly, and not so subtly, the message gets through to him that the congregation is satisfied as they are. The sign on the door reads "Sleeping! Do Not Disturb!"

     Most young brethren make a noble effort. They remember the glowing reports of "a successful ministry" made by the chapel speakers in school. No chapel speaker ever gets up and confesses that he is a flat flop and a failure and he would be better off selling insurance or

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running a service station. The young man is saturated with the thought that "it will work if you work it!" But that is before he accepts his "first church." He then learns that the brethren who are good folk, don't want to change and they don't want to be changed. They are like the Book says, "rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing."

     Since nothing is what they have need of, that is what they get! The preacher, like the fly, realizes he has become caught in the religious Tanglefoot. He soon ceases to kick against the pricks. The struggle ceases. He resolves that he will visit the sick, comfort the aged and frightened, talk to high school kids who are rebelling, and maybe he can get to heaven when he dies, even if his salary is not raised while he lives. I feel sorry for men whose dreams are shattered by people whom they love. I feel even more sorry for the wives who love these men whose dreams are shattered. Soul hurt is the worst kind!

     What is the solution? It is the same as the solution to any problem involving human beings in a structure which denigrates the individual and destroys personal initiative. It makes no difference whether that structure is an inner city ghetto, a piney-woods turpentine colony, or a church. There is only one solution and it can be expressed in one word. Education! You can go into the inner city with all kinds of brilliant theories and you can put up a soapbox on every corner and lecture until you are blue in the face and white around the gills, but you are not going to change anything. Substitute a pulpit stand for the soapbox and the result will be the same. The most inefficient method of teaching on earth, whether in a big university, or in a "big church," is by the lecture method. It was John Ruskin who wrote in Stones of Venice that education is "a painful, continual and difficult work to be done by kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, by praise, but above all--by example."

     There are only three ways to train people! This is true whether you are developing workers in a shop or workers in a congregation. It is true whether you are training soldiers for the country or soldiers of the cross. Tell them how! Show them how! Let them do it! The best trainer, like the best parent, is the one who works himself out of a job. If your children are as helpless at the age of twenty as they were when born, you have failed as a parent. If you stay with a congregation twenty years and they cannot feed themselves at the end of that time you have slipped somewhere along the line.

     I do not want you to get a wrong idea. When I talk about "working yourself out of a job," I do not mean there will be nothing for you to do. Regardless of how active and efficient you are, there will still be sinners on earth who need to be reached when you die. But there will be fewer of them if you train every saint to be a soul-winner for Jesus. I think a lot of brethren would like to be but they think of themselves as second-class citizens in the kingdom of heaven. They have never gone to a Christian college. They have not had a course in "Techniques of Soul-Winning" or "How to Capture Sinners in Six Easy Lessons." They are not invited to "preacher's breakfasts." They do not think of themselves as priests. They do not regard themselves as ministers. They blush when someone mistakes them for "the minister" and hasten to disclaim they are in that category. But they must be led to see themselves as both ministers and priests.

     It is time for a revolution, a radical revolution in the church. The unfortunate thing is that the word revolution makes shivers run up our spines. And the word "radical" makes us have goose-bumps and causes a cold sweat to break out all over us. That is because we have a mistaken idea of the real meaning of both terms. We have allowed them to

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be ripped off by vandals and used to destroy. But the faith was the most revolutionary idea in the world. There has never been another revolution like Christianity, toppling the Caesars from their thrones, capturing strongholds and bringing thoughts into subjection.

     We also misunderstand the word radical. It conjures up images of people with bushy beards, straggling hair and burning eyes carrying bombs or setting fires in the men's restroom of the Pentagon. But radical is from the word for root. A radish is a root vegetable. And we need to get to the root of our problem and quit snipping away at twigs. The greatest issue facing us today is the institutionalizing of the called-out ones, the creation of a human organization to replace the divine organism. It is in unsanctifying and de-personalizing brethren by making them "members of the church" instead of "members of the body."

     Don't argue that these are the same thing. The called-out ones constitute the body, the church, as God looks at things. But there is a vast difference between the church as we have contrived and manipulated it and the body of God's dear Son. In some areas the difference is the same as that between a plastic dummy in a store window and a living person walking along the street. Regardless of how natural you think the first looks, it is dead, because it has no spirit in it.

     It is the same difference as you will find between a Christmas tree and a fruit tree. You can decorate the first and hang all kinds of ornaments on it. You can make it glitter and glow. But it is dead, and because it is not living, it cannot sustain life. We must change our thinking if we are to survive the shock of a world which looks behind our mask. And that change must come from recapture of the primitive order of things, in which all of God's people were priests and all knew it.

     We differ in talents. We do not all have the same ability. But we do sustain the same relationship to God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The purpose of the fellowship of the saints is to give everyone the opportunity to develop to his fullest potential, to encourage and strengthen him for growth in grace as well as in knowledge of the truth.

     As Kokichi Kurosaki wrote in One Body in Christ, "Our problem lies in the fact that we have come to doubt that the spiritual relationship God has given us to Himself and one another is sufficient as the basis for true fellowship. This doubt exists only because such free and simple fellowship has been so long hindered and hidden by the bonds of institutionalism."