Does diversity in the church work?

Congregational leaders must approach their ministry, decision-making process, and institutional management with the understanding that a congregation is, at heart, more community than organization in nature. The congregation’s primary enterprise is the shaping of the faith of its members and of those whom it reaches out to in witness and ministry; the ways that congregations do that are primarily through communal, not administrative or programmatic, means.

Because members of a congregation center their life together on rituals of meaning and confession, they are not just communities, but communities of faith. As in all communities, practices and values in congregations are negotiated, shared, modified over time, and inculcated into the life structure of the participants. The reasons why individuals join a congregation are varied, but common, having everything to do with meeting the needs—actual or perceived—people believe can be provided only through the shared, grounding religious experiences that a congregation as a faith community offers. Congregations are genuine faith communities because they are places where people come together to participate in and practice their shared religious values that inform both corporate and individual identity.

Although church dynamics may be invisible to most people within a congregation, they are a crucial factor in healthy, effective ministry.  That claim was at the center of the workshop that Israel Galindo, author of The Hidden Life of Congregations: Discerning Church Dynamics, held at the Alban Institute on November 19 2004.  Those dynamics, he explained, often operate beneath the surface of congregations’ day-to-day lives but are at the center of congregational life and play a huge role in determining what congregational experiences will be.