Thursday, October 19, 2006

Parachurches

David commented recently about his opinion of parachurch organizations. I was going to write a long post about the distinctives that make a parachurch organization Biblical or not, but then I ran into a problem.

To wit, there is only one thing that distinguishes a Biblical ministry from an unBiblical one; is it under the authority of the Church? Is it under the headship of Biblically chosen elders and deacons, or does it run independently?

And like I've noted before, churches really ought to be careful about delegating tasks to parachurch ministries. For example, there really is no good reason to delegate tasks like edifying parents to those who are not speaking to their daughters and have left three churches under an ethical cloud. Not to name any names, of course.

2 comments:

Mercy Now said...

Para orgs are like any other orgs and that is they are run by board. The board may be elders but they are not under any authority.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link! I agree. And I'd add that many Churches do run very good and biblical ministries over and above their normal tasks. For example, if a Church started a small seminary to equip men for the pastorate, and the seminary acted as a function of the church, then I wouldn't see anything wrong with this. This type of structure tends to have better oversight and comes under genuine biblical authority.