When the basic power unit was the horse, we organised accordingly. We had farriers, saddlers, wheelwrights, stables and horse-troughs. Different trades emerged as horses were employed in different roles. The animals themselves changed. Heavy horses, hunters and ponies made an appearance. The horse was king.
That all changed overnight. Grooms and ostlers busied themselves with their curry-combs. Gentry no longer kept horses merely for haulage and personal transport. Their Clydesdales, Suffolk Punches and Thoroughbreds were kept because people appreciated fine animals.
Something similar happened in the Churches. It was not that the fundamental task of the Church gave way to something else. The Church remained a vehicle of the Gospel and a handmaid of its requirements. But the apportioning of tasks as we find it in Ephesians 4 or 1 Corinthians 12 became unsuited to the current needs.
One new requirement was the apologist. The early Church lived in days when belief in deity was widespread. People gave different names to the gods who lived in holy places, wells, trees, mountains but they were united in accepting a spiritual world, contaminated maybe by elves, …. but a world in which gods needed to be placated and honoured. As the generations came and went, it became necessary to defend belief in the existence of a spiritual dimension and a spiritual destiny for humans. That need is still apparent.
Religious orders came to occupy a significant place in the development of Christianity. Monks, friars and nuns had their own establishments with their own customs. The Church acquired its own bureaucracy and staffing procedures. As it settled into its static role and its more or less agreeable alliance with secular power, distinctive characteristics gave way to accepted institutional practice. Eventually incumbents had to become managers and curators. The team of rector, organist, sexton, clerk and verger were joined or replaced by worship leaders, operations managers, strategic fund-raising co-ordinators, ministry support managers. We have not seen the last of team changes.
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