Winning the World

80 Wi nn i ng the Wor l d: Fac i l i tat i ng Urban Chur ch P l ant i ng Movement s

bishops in the churches, and the succession of these men to our own times. . . . For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries . . . they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men. ~ Irenaeus (circa 180, E/W), 1.415.

You should know that the bishop is in the church, and the church is in the bishop. If anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the church.

~ Cyprian (circa 250, W), 5.374, 375.

When we had met together, being bishops of the province of Africa and of Numidia and numbering seventy-one, we established this same matter once more. ~ Cyprian (circa 250, W), 5.379.

All of the preceding excerpts were taken from David W. Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, pp. 70-73.

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Heb. 13.17 (ESV) Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

I. The View of Structure and Religious Authority from Barna and Garrison

Structure and religious authority = those positions, systems, processes, and rules whereby the affairs of the churches are identified, decided upon, and carried out.

A. Structure and religious authority as the outworking of significant changes that occur in revolutionaries as a result of their investment in the revolution , Barna, pp. 85-99.

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Will there be a macro-model, similar in magnitude to the congrega tional format of the local church, to replace that dominant but declining model? It does not seem likely. In fact, some extensions of the congregational model, such as the “emergent” or “postmodern” congregations, really are not new models but simply minor