So far in this series on churches and parachurches we have defined our terms, discussed the origins of the current form of parachurches, described some of the tensions between the two types of organizations, and I have given a personal anecdotal narrative on my observations of their relationships. Now let us turnin this final post of the series to a vision of how churches and parachurches can better work together.

I would like to offer some corrections and suggestions for reconciliation and partnership between modalities and sodalities, or churches and parachurches, respectively. These suggestions are theological and pragmatic. Please do not take my suggestions as sequential—that is, there is not a necessarily logical progression through these suggestions and one can start in any place.

Theological Suggestions

As I have stated throughout this series, the dichotomy between churches and parachurches is a false one to a certain extent. Congregations, or churches, and parachurches are components of the Church. I want to refer back to a quote from the Blind Beggar, which I think is excellent.

The biblical ekklesia [the word we translate as “church”] always describes a people and never a building, place, denomination or specific group of Christians to the exclusion of other Christians. It doesn’t matter where people are gathered together for minister or what corporate structure they take on, they are still “the church,” God’s called out people ministering in the name of Jesus.

When people participate in the mission of God, they are participating in the Church. Through our confession of God’s grace as well as our baptism, we are members of that universal and historical people of God, the Church. Parachurches and churches are important organizations of the people of God. Both are called to mission. As I have said before, we often conflate churches with the Church, but that is not biblically supportable. Congregations are a part of the Church, but are not entirely the Church.

Theologically, then, it does not hold to distinguish between churches and parachurches. God’s presence can be found in both types of organizations. God’s calling is on both to fulfill the particular mission that the Spirit has set before them. One group is not by its nature subordinate to the other. Rather, if I can borrow Paul’s image of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, churches and parachurches are interdependent groups of people who partner together to be who God has called us to be, just like hands and feet need each other and work together. Both types of organizations are called to serve God, each other, the world since all communities of Christians as well as individual Christians have this calling (see: Phil 2.1-12).

The focus of these groups should be in participating in God’s grand mission. Churches and parachurches can only do so in part. No one organization can fully encompass God’s movement through creation. Not that we have to stake our territory, but I believe that it is far more likely that God will call certain groups to specific ministries within their contexts and that neither churches nor parachurches will be called to fulfill every concrete missional activity. Different churches often find their vocation in different areas of their contexts. Some may be called to care for the elderly whereas others may find God leading them in making the public school system better. The same goes for parachurches, which is why there are a large variety of them. Bread for the World has a different mission than Habitat for Humanity, which has a different ministry than Wycliffe Bible Translators.

We can, however, maintain the distinctions between churches and parachurches on the pragmatic level. Churches are traditionally bodies of people living in a specific area who gather for worship and participate together in God’s mission in their context. Parachurches’ purposes are often far more limited.

Pragmatic Suggestions

Let us now turn to the pragmatic corrections I believe are needed for greater partnership between parachurches and churches. First, I would like to say that on the whole, I believe parachurches and churches work together well, but there is room for improvement. Most of the tension I have found comes between churches and those parachurch organizations that function much like churches, such as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) or Campus Crusade for Christ.

For those congregations who believe that churches should carry the entire weight of God’s mission, they need to look at the breadth of ministry that parachurches do. For churches to take over just the ministries listed in this post, they would need to train Bible translators in linguistics, foreign languages, as well as Koine Greek and ancient Hebrew; they would have to become experts in hunger and poverty issues as well as learn to lobby government officials effeciently and ethically; they would have to have an infrastructure and work with city planners across the US and the world in order to build homes for those who need them; and they would have to mobilize congregational members to go to college campuses in order to share the gospel and disciple students. The work that the various parachurches do is far too much for any single congregation. I gave a presentation with a classmate in a course I took while in seminary about how congregations could help in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. We suggested that churches connect and work with organizations such as World Vision. Some other classmates responded that they thought we should have depended more on church initiatives rather than partnering with existing networks. While my group appreciated their input, we decided that to go down such a road would set the churches’ response to HIV/AIDS back several more years. We thought that it is both unnecessary and unhelpful to ignore the hard work others have done so that we can re-invent the wheel.
stead of elbowing each other for space in a ministry turf war, I would prefer to see modalities and sodalities work together.

The other side of the matter is that there is likely already a great amount of overlap between members of churches and workers or volunteers in parachurches. Most who work in the parachurch organizations are members of or are at least regular attendees of local congregations. Churches don’t need to always start a new ministry, but find those in the congregation already doing that ministry. Why would a church with IVCF staff workers as members want to start a whole new college ministry that overlaps with the work done by people in the congregation? The overhead for many parachurch organizations is less than it would be for congregations, I would imagine. Why not support the staff workers with prayer and funding and find new ways to create stronger partnerships with them?

For parachurch organizations, it is imperative that they are working beside or in concert with churches, not in their place. It is a temptation for any Christian to believe his or her passions and ministry are the pinaccle of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Just because a person is called to a specific ministry does not mean that ministry is the most important one in God’s kingdom. There are other vital ministries that need to occur. Evangelistic ministries are wonderful and needed, but limited in scope. If all the whole Church were to only conversions, we would be terribly limited in our maturity as the body of Christ. If, however, evangelistic ministries worked together with churches who can support those ministries with infrastructure, finance, and workers, as well as supply a setting where the converts can come and develop further in their faith, then we begin to see a beautiful scene in which the body of Christ truly needs one another. Hands and feet begin to work together and not compete with one another.

Final Questions

For churches:

How do we see ourselves in the body of Christ? Are we the whole Church embodied, or a necessary member of the Church?
What are the parachurches in our local setting? Do we know who they are and what they do? Do they know who we are and what we do?
Who in our congregation work for or with parachurch organizations? What can we learn from them?
What is it that God is calling us to do? Are there parachurches or other churches in our context already doing something similar? How can we partner with them?
How can we support existing ministries further?

For parachurches:

How do we see ourselves in the body of Christ? Are we the whole Church embodied, or a necessary member of the Church?
What are the churches in our local setting? Do we know who they are and what they do? Do they know who we are and what we do?
What are our relationships like with local congregations? Are they strong partnerships, apathetic, antagonistic, or something else?
To what churches do people in our organization belong? Can we use those existing relationships and partner with those congregations?
How can we support existing ministries further?