Is The Church An Organization? An Institution?
By: Trinda Rose Sings
Tags: Christianity

Is The Church An Organization? An Institution?

In my last blog, I talked about small groups in the church, and how they are beneficial to the congregation as a whole. Now I’m going to be talking about organizations. Is the church an organization? Do some people view their church as an organization? What about as an institution? Well, first, let’s define the meaning of an organization.

An organization is a group whose activities are coordinated for the achievement of specific goals or purposes. There are formal and informal organizations. A formal organization usually has rules defining each person’s duties, organizational charts or a known hierarchy, and a system of rewards and punishments. Informal structures most often develop to accommodate a short-term or acute need, and they seldom formalize. A bureaucracy is the most common type of formal organization, and defining it is not easy because everyone tends to see it from a slightly different perspective. From the point of view of Hobbs and Blank, a bureaucracy is seen as “an administrative system within the social structure of modern, mass society,” Some other definitions for a bureaucracy are “a hierarchical arrangement between the parts of an organization in which the pyramiding order is based on division of function and authority” (defined by Vander Zanden), “a power-wielding organization with a hierarchy of ranks, the statuses and functions of which are planned in advance and in which the official activities of personnel are supervised by the next higher rank, up to the apex of control” (defined by Green), and “a large-scale formal organization that is designed to coordinate the activities of many individuals in the pursuit of administrative tasks. Bureaucracies are highly differentiated and efficiently organized by means of formal rules and a hierarchical chain of command” (Hobbs and Blank). The structure of a bureaucracy has the following characteristics, according to Max Weber’s bureaucratic model: Division of labor, Hierarchy of authority, Rules governing behavior, Impersonality, Technical competence, and Careers (1).

A common problem in bureaucracies is the Peter Principle, named after Laurence J, Peter in a book called The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. A brief statement of the Peter Principal is as follow: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence” (Peter and Hull). In practice, according to the principle, people are promoted up the hierarchy as long as they are competent in the level to which they have attained. The eventual result is that they reach a position for which they are incompetent. Since it is rare for individuals to be demoted in a hierarchy, they will remain in their levels of incompetence (1).

Over the years, alternative organizational models have been studied. Most of these alternative theories of organization emphasize the roles of individuals and their particular skills, characteristics, and values they bring to the group. An example of such an alternative is the democratic collectivist organization. Joyce Rothschild-Whitt contrasts this organization with a traditional bureaucratic model, showing that the bureaucracy is not only inappropriate but it is opposed to the furtherance of certain types of objectives. Specifically, most types of social action are inconsistent with the notion of depersonalization and, as Rothschild-Whitt points out, Weber did not even describe a type of organization for the implementation of social action. He did, however, recognize that “value-rational” authority would require a type of organization with different characteristics from the instrumentally rational organization characterized by formal bureaucracy. Quoting Weber, Rothschild-Whitt notes, “A value-rational orientation to social action is marked by a ‘belief in the value for its own sake, independent of its prospects of success.’ It is evidenced by actions that put into practice people’s convictions.” She further suggests that certain kinds of church organizations might fall within the sphere of the collective organization, but the biblically patterned local church seems to be neither the bureaucracy nor the collective (1).

In organizational leadership, people are seen as human cogs, meaning that if they were the right size and shape, they could be freely interchanged without consequence. People asserted their humanity and individuality, resulting in human relations, which was an attempt to recognize that people have needs and ideas as well as brains and muscles. The individuality of employees is recognized, but it is seen as a set of characteristics that has to be accommodated in order to gain the use of its “cogs” (1). People are far more than intelligent and emotional parts that must be related to; they are resources for production, and, when properly motivated and utilized, the individuality that has often been viewed as a liability can be an organization’s greatest asset (1).

In sociology the term power refers to “the capacity of an individual or group to control or influence the behavior of others, even in the absence of their consent” (Vander Zanden). In discussing organizational power, we must consider the power of the individual within an organization, along with the organization itself within the larger society. Power is legitimate when those who are having power exercised over them have given consent to it. Those who are exerting power have authority. Weber characterizes authority in four different ways: Traditional authority, Legal-rational authority, Charismatic authority, and Competency-based authority. Robert L. Peabody groups the first two together into formal authority and the second two together into functional authority (1).

Now let’s define an institution. An institution is an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like, devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, especially one of a public, educational, or charitable character (2). According to an expanded definition, to institutionalize is “to infuse with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand. Whenever individuals become attached to an organization or a way of doing things as persons rather than as technicians, the result is a prizing of the device for its own sake” (Selznick). In other words, an institution is an organization that represents more than its products and services. This goodness derives from some value that has been infused into it, and it would be good to have it around even if it had no product or provided no service (citation). To understand this, I’ll provide an example. Let’s say there’s a company, organization, institution, etc. that gives back to the community. But they end up having to relocate. No one cares about the specific products they sold. The community loved that people because the people loved and cared for them. An institution recognizes its own value beyond its products and services and it desires to retain those values. The primary duty of the institutional leader is to ensure the continuance of the institution and the preservation of its values. Although these characterizations come from the secular world, they overlap with the Lord’s distinctive purity in the world (1).

So is the church an organization? An institution? Well, I’m not sure if I think the church is either one, but between the two, the church would be better viewed as an institution over an organization. Christ himself intended that the body be present, at the very least. His command was to “occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13) that His followers should be present in the world until He returns. We Christians are also called to carry out Jesus’ work here on earth, just like he did while he was here, until he returns. He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church (Matthew 16:18). This is divine reassurance that as long as the church remains faithfully on its foundation stone, survival is the worst thing that can happen to it. These are the characteristics of an institution (1).

Churches, however, are more than a technical institution. Churches differ from a technical institution in that they are not in a state of qualitative change; their values are permanent. As previously mentioned, the body of Christ, the church, will remain until He physically returns. The church’s eternal values were immediately and immutably infused when God gave birth to the church. The values of a society change and are reflected by slow changes in the values of its institutions over a period of time, but those basic to the church never change (1).

It is very important for churches to preserve their values, which come from the truth, the word of God, the Bible. The function of the church is to serve its constituency not only by responding to what it asks for, but by seeking to preserve the values that have been established in God’s word, and church tradition. As an institution with eternal and absolute values, the church necessarily must lead its constituency, not follow it as does a technical organization (1).

In ways, the church is organized, meaning they aren’t chaotic, all over the place, or disorderly. When thinking of organizations like formally organized structures and bureaucracies, however, the church is not like that (2). The church is the body of Christ; a family. The church should provide for their people, but not at the expense of their values and the Christian truth. Christ is the one who truly helps and saves people, so to take that away and let it be changed would be disastrous.

References:

(1.) Grunlan, Stephen A., and Milton Reimer. Christian Perspectives on Sociology. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001.

(2.) Rehearsal, Creed. “Is The Church An Institution?” CreedRehearsal.com, www.creedrehearsal.com/index.php/creed-busters/church/is-the-church-an-institution.