Creating an experimental congregation is a project fraught with perils.
The process from drawing board to formal establishment looms heavy with
pitfalls, each threatening abortion. The blueprint of the designers with
its expression of their ambition, their choice of an organizing pastor
with his own particular vision, talent, and interpretation of goals, and
the charter members' individual expectations of the functioning and
value of such a group offer a wide diversity of potential directions.
Each of these contributors to the creation-the designers, the organizer,
the participants-seminally influences what can or will happen. Early
patterns narrow alternatives and establish a momentum which will dictate
future developments. The character, personality, and mission of the
congregation will be molded by the priorities, skills, and style of its
three parents interacting within the limitations of environment and
happenstance.
What develops through this process of interaction may or may not be as
initially designed. A reality must be defined by those who operate
within it. The social construction of such a reality is a dynamic
process quite antithetical to the analogy of a builder following a
blueprint. The construction of a reality capable of generating both life
purpose for individuals and task-focused mission and meaning for the
collectivity is a far more complex operation.
