“The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.” Acts 15:6
“Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brethren, but he was quite unwilling to come at this time; however, he will come when he has a convenient time.” 1Cor. 16:12
“I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has a good testimony from all, and from the truth itself. And we also bear witness, and you know that our testimony is true.” (3John 9-12)
How are local churches, and specifically local church leaders, intended by God to relate to one another? We can see from the passages above that they do relate, but not so much in a wide hierarchical authority structure as in a structure of mutual humility, respect, and affection. Apollos would come at Paul’s bidding in due time, but only on his own schedule, not Paul’s. Diotrephes goes down in history as the poster child for tyrannical authoritarianism.
The details are important, as they point to an issue that has plagued Christ’s church throughout its history. From the vertical structure of the Roman Catholic Church to the horizontal structure of the Southern Baptist Convention, “How should we relate to one another?” continues to be a hard question.
The Doctrine of Subsidiarity teaches us that most social problems can most effectively be resolved with the authority that God has established in the institution closest to them. For example, children can best be raised by their own parents, rather than by the civil government. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as “the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level.” Denominational headquarters are not well suited to address the intimate issues of a local church, but they are well suited to hosting national conferences and publishing and distributing the works of denominational authors.
In a similar way, some structures work well on a small scale, but not so well on a large scale. Communism (i.e. “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,”) is a wonderful way to organize and manage a family household, but it has proven to be a disaster on a national level. In the same way, the denominational structure is very effective for a city-wide church, such as ours, but is not so effective on the national or global scale.
The Network of Neighborhood Churches in Portland, Oregon is one large church gathering in many neighborhoods within one Metro Area, rather than one large church gathering in many services in just one neighborhood. In one sense we are a house-church association. In another sense, we are a small, local denomination with authority over the Neighborhood Churches in our network. Our church, as a whole, is autonomous from all other churches. But at the same time, all of our neighborhood locations are still just one local church.
We also believe that each metropolitan area would be wise to organize itself into its own separate, autonomous but similar, Network of Neighborhood Churches for its area. If it agrees with our reforms, it is welcome to adopt them and even to use our name. This is what we mean by being consociational as opposed to denominational in the wider, national sense. It is walking together in mutual respect and affection, rather than by legal organizational authority.
But though we believe in the autonomy of the local church, rather than national denominational governance, we still endeavor to joider n with like-minded, Elders & Deacons from various churches, movements and denominations, in order to encourage and support one another in the Great Commission. This is accomplished through shared ministry activities rooted in mutual affection, rather than by entering into organizational obligations rooted in denominational or other centralized authority.
Ministries such as Together for the Gospel, the Gospel Coalition, Household of Faith Fellowship of Churches, the Northwest Association of Conservative Baptists and etc, are greatly appreciated and recommended by our Network of Neighborhood Churches.