Bureaucracy in the Church

Now members of a body do not hold offices; they have functions... Thus, what we call church offices are in reality functions of the body of Christ in this world. This fact is very important. Offices lead to a bureaucracy and a ruling class, whereas functions keep a body alive. In the early church also, we have no evidence of what is commonplace today, regualr, stated bureaucratic meetings of presbyteries, synods, councils, bishops, etc. Instead, beginning with the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, the meetings were called to resolve a problem or meet a need. They were functional meetings, not organizational; they were aspects of the life of a body, not of a bureaucratic organization. Roussas John Rushdooney, Chalcedon Position Paper 97 pp404 The Roots of Reconstruction May 1988.