Interdependency: The Biblical Model for Church-to-Church Relationships
We tend to have a good concept of the “global church” and a good concept of the “local church,” but we don’t tend to give much thought to how churches ought to relate with each other. Does the Bible even teach about that?
This is a question that Dave Guiles has been pondering for some time now. As the executive director of a global missions agency, God has given him the unique perspective of witnessing how churches all around the world interact—and fail to interact—with each other.
As he sought the scriptures for answers, he realized that the Apostle Paul provided us with a model for church-to-church relationships. During his Third Missionary Journey, Paul was concerned about two crises:
The church in Judea was chronically poor, and
There was a division between Jewish churches and Gentile churches.
Paul spent six years of his ministry addressing these problems by constantly leading Gentile churches to raise money for the Jewish church. This shows that churches may operate autonomously, but that they have a certain level of responsibility for each other. Romans 15:27 says, “If the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.” The Jewish church shared their spiritual blessings while the Gentile church shared their financial blessings! Paul says that the Gentiles “owe[d] it to the Jews,” implying that churches have an obligation to each other.
This model is referred to as “interdependency,” and Dave proposes that we define it as “voluntarily and proactively meeting the spiritual and physical needs of others while allowing them to meet yours.” Isn’t that a beautiful thing? Local churches are autonomous, yet they are incomplete without each other. That’s how God designed it to be!
As believers, we can put aside our differences and sacrificially cooperate with each other because we are all equals in Christ. Scripture teaches that in Christ there is no male or female, slave or free, Jew or gentile, rich or poor, young or old—but we are all saints, which is an equalizing term.
God has blessed everyone with a unique set of gifts, so let’s look for ways we can synergize those gifts to advance God’s kingdom. Do you know of fellow believers whose lives would be enriched by your gifts? Try practicing interdependency with them. You could enrich their lives while they enrich yours.
If you want to learn more on interdependence, stay tuned, because Dave Guiles is currently authoring a book on the topic.