Why church bureaucracies have to go
What's going on when a religious movement becomes a religious bureaucracy? David Mills paints a terrifying picture of the damage they inflict.
Any revival in these (mainline) churches will require not the reform but the abandonment of the many layers of bureaucracy they have built up over the last few decades, giving the local bodies the authority to act as they think best and forcing the center to be as close as possible to the local bodies, in particular guiding, aiding, and inspiring them far less by lawgiving requirements, for example than by personal authority, and to rely for its support on the voluntary giving of the flocks it serves.
The resources and energy these bureaucracies consume (not only from those who work in them but from those who must spend time and money to oppose them) and the ends to which they direct their work make it harder for the churches to bring the gospel to the people who need to hear it, and make it much harder for the churches to say the clear word the culture needs to hear from it.
Even at their best, they devour resources and energy that could be better put to local uses, and set the churches' corporate witness and public agenda to reflect the bureaucratic consensus, which means a general and minimalist statement too indefinite to inspire and guide action. At their worst, they actively distort the churches' witness and work by demanding too much of their resources and proclaiming an alien gospel.
