The SIAFU Guidebook

Part I I : Making the Case

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Objection 4: Chapters may come to actually interfere with our church’s direction and leadership.

The Argument: “Setting up a SIAFU Chapter in our church may easily lead to conflict among our leaders. How do we give oversight to the Chapter and make it conform to our understanding of church government and leadership? Whenever you have new groups you run the risk of sowing seeds of division and conflict of interest. It’s hard to trust folk you don’t know. How can we protect ourselves from weird leaders who come in and try to take over things relevant to our church?”

The Answer: The goal of a SIAFU Chapter is to cultivate spiritual formation under the oversight of the church’s/organization’s leadership.

It is important to note that no SIAFU Chapter is legitimate that refuses to acknowledge and obey the oversight of the leaders in the church. The SIAFU Network recognizes and boldly affirms the local assembly as the locus and agent of the Kingdom of God in a given locale. SIAFU is not meant to be viewed as a substitute church, nor an alternative to membership in a Christian local assembly. No SIAFU Chapter is legitimate if the pastors and/or leaders forbid its gathering in their church or organization. You will only run the risk of division if you shortchange the importance of the local church, of membership and connection to the local assembly, and submission to pastoral authority. No one and no organization should intrude in the governance of a local assembly; the Holy Spirit, acting and moving those leaders he has made overseers, is how the church must be run, for Jesus’ sake. The end game of SIAFU Chapter activity is evangelizing and equipping men and women to be disciples of Christ, fleshing that discipleship out in the context of the local assembly under pastoral authority. It must