I read your direction from Q&A 0407 -- Church leadership group? I think my congregation is like the second option ("Intermediate church: hybrid between "one-man rule" and eldership). In other words, it is an emerging leadership group. In your opinion, can this kind of leadership be used for a local church, or as a sector of a church, without having to submit to other leaderships, like "regional leaders" as in the past? I'd like to know if we can keep the relationship among the local churches on the same level of authority.
As I imagine you suspect I will say that the New Testament simply does not say. Being open to input from outsiders, even other congregations, is wise. But there is no explicit supra-church structure in the NT. The early Christian movement was -- frustratingly for some! -- amorphous.
