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By Root 1520 0

and so on. They have been described as ecclesiolae in ecclesia, “little churches in the big church.” By not challenging the existing structure, but rather creating a parallel structure to contain and convey their new ways and practices, these ecclesiolae allow the ecclesia to tolerate their presence long enough for their influence to spread widely.8 The Methodist movement began this way in the Anglican Church, as a parallel structure sustaining and supporting new ways and practices (or methods) of Christian faith.9 Parachurch organizations have had a similar effect in Evangelical churches in the mid-twentieth century. More recently, the New Monasticism, Partnership for Missional Church clusters, and emergent cohorts, along with other interrelated and promising new ecclesiolae, are already having profound effects wherever their communities are welcomed.10

C. Expect to bring in a new day with new people. I read these words from sage church consultant Lyle Schaller many years ago, and I’ve seen them prove true again and again. Schaller was echoing an observation of Thomas Kuhn: “Almost always the [ people] who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change.” This is why “spiritual immigrants” are so important in churches and denominations. It’s the Mennonite-born pastor who can help a Pentecostal church change in ways a lifetime Pentecostal can’t. It’s the person who grew up with no religious background who can help an Episcopal church change in ways that lifelong Episcopalians can’t. It’s the young leaders, often without formal credentials, who can help established denominations change in ways the “properly trained” can’t. And it’s the seekers who are welcomed into a faith community that often transform that community, just as a new infant or adopted child can transform a family.11

D. Add. Don’t subtract. For example, imagine that a historic denomination begins to realize that its creeds and books of order, perhaps written in the sixteenth or nineteenth centuries, encode ways of thinking that were appropriate in those centuries, but are unhelpful in our own. Then imagine the uproar if those foundational documents were put up for amendment or replacement. Then imagine an alternative approach in which some new creeds are written to supplement rather than replace the old or a new “track” with a new book of order (albeit a very short one!) is developed for new churches to experiment with. That process would, no doubt, engender some opposition, but considerably less.12

E. Develop a theology of institutions. When we dream of bringing change to institutions, we need to do so with appropriate wisdom and reflection. Thankfully, increasing numbers of theologians and scholars are helping us do so.13 Without the help of these thinkers, a lot of us have foolishly identified institutions as the problem, as something to be eradicated, not realizing that our anti-institutionalism only serves to create new institutions by accident. The accidental institutions we create are all the more unhealthy for being reactive and invisible (to their founders, at least) rather than reflective and visible. From my perspective, institutions exist in a dynamic relationship with social movements: simply put, institutions preserve the gains of past social movements. And with amazing consistency, they also oppose the gains proposed by current social movements. But with equal consistency, if a social movement survives being ignored, opposed, or co-opted by the institution it seeks to change, that movement’s gains will enrich the legacy of the institution, and the institution will conserve those gains.

So the civil rights movement was opposed by the institution of the U.S. government, but through the Civil Rights Act and other legislation, the U.S. government slowly but surely began turning the movement’s social dreams into social realities. Similarly in the Bible, the prophets voiced the concerns of social movements, the priests were guardians of religious institutions,