Toolbox For Faith

I am working my way through a wonderful new book entitled, The Open Source Church by Landon Whitsitt. When I ordered the book, I assumed it would be a call for congregations to share their resources and ideas with the world - a call to post everything online and freely give it away for the building up of the body of Christ. What I discovered as I read was much more valuable. Whitsitt applies the principles of Open Source Software to the Gospel and the church. He uses these principles to highlight the freedom of the God’s love in Christ Jesus and to lift up an organizational paradigm for churches that encourages drawing on the wisdom of the community in place of experts. Here are a couple of experts that touch on his ideas and writing style.

“I believe that as the people of God, we have an opportunity to proclaim a timeless truth: To proclaim Jesus Christ is to proclaim freedom, and to proclaim freedom is to proclaim Jesus Christ. . . . The church in many places has changed from an institution that teaches postures, approaches, and behaviors that lead to freedom to an institution that teaches postures, approaches, and behaviors that will maintain itself. . . . But the gospel is not concerned with maintaining structures or preserving doctrine. The gospel is concerned with freedom.” (pg. 10-11)

“Congregations should quit trusting and expecting that pastors know everything about how to conduct the business of the church. A pastor’s area of expertise is actually quite narrow. If we continue insisting that pastors be our resident church experts, we will find that our expectation causes more problems than it solves. If we continue trusting one person to expertly address all areas of church life, things will begin to fall apart. A better (and I would argue, more faithful) plan of action is to begin tapping into the wisdom of the priesthood of all believers.” (pg. 81)

I am still processing all of what Whitsitt has to say and trying to figure out what it can mean for me and my congregation, but I’d highly recommend the book to anyone looking to explore alternative leadership models.