Vocation

Recently, as the Church is trying to adapt to a new way of being, there have been many prescriptions for what is necessary, and often these prescriptions involve the sacrifice of certain institutional elements.  Here is a compilation of various suggestions that I have heard arguments for:

1. Dissolution of large denominational structures. the rational being that we really don't need formal structures in order to stay connected.  This would mean that we no longer hold national assemblies and that local churches would be more or less on their own to connect with whatever other parts of the Body of Christ, they so chose.  This is attractive because it's rather hard to agree with each other in most cases and any institutional system is going to require a good amount of investment in staff and facilities, not to mention being ponderous and resistant to change.
2. Give up the buildings: It is a reality that having a big, fancy church building is expensive.  There is constant maintenance to be done, and often the "settled" feeling leads to stagnation that seems less likely, if you're out there in a rented space or better yet in public places.  How much more could we give if we didn't have to pay a mortgage?
3. Ditch the professional Clergy: the logic here is that people can have gifts to preach and teach but they don't necessarily have to be a salaried employee.  After the building, the minister or the priest is usually the biggest expense on the church's budget.  Getting rid of his or her would enable the church to be more focused on "what really matters" (that changes depending on the particular angle the proposal is taking).  It also would challenge the congregation to really take up the ball and run for themselves.

Admittedly, I have a bias, but all of these ideas are bad ideas.  In the short run, they may actually work, and there is certainly some hard evaluation that can be done in all three arenas.  In the long run though, the institution (no that's not a dirty word) of the church, would dissolve.  I hear the arguments that we're too tied down, that we've been pulled away from a vital life together by the mundane requirements of institutional maintenance, but we need institutions, and thus we should not abandon their maintenance so blithely.

I think a better idea is to be creative with what you maintain and how you maintain it.  I'm going to focus here on the role of clergy in the church, because it's near and dear to my heart, and my livelihood.

A long time ago, the Apostle Paul worked as a tent maker in order that he might not be too much of a financial burden to the churches he was trying to plant around Asia Minor.  However, he makes sure to let people know that he is an exception rather than a rule.  He makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 9 that his sort of service cannot and should not be considered normative in the life of the church.  When Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim the Gospel, he expressly told them not to take provisions, and to rely on the hospitality of the people in the places where they were going.
This was not a crazy notion.  It was, and still is in fact, something that travelers have a right to expect in Semitic culture.  Paul, had to support himself more because he was entering a Greek world, where the laws of hospitality were different.  Jesus never seemed to have that problem, despite his reputation for being a bit of a troublemaker, he always seemed to be invited to the table, sometimes to the table of a tax collector and sometimes to the table of a prominent leader, but always there is a table to be found.
George MacDonald wrote a novel called Thomas Wingfold, Curate about an Anglican parson who was just slogging through a career as a Vicar.  Wingfold had been gifted with several volumes of pre-written sermons, by his uncle, who was a gifted preacher.  He was now fraudulently recycling those works as he made his living.  The premise of the book is that, even though his vocation as a preacher may be a little shaky, his vocation as a Priest is actually not.
The peculiar thing about being a member of the clergy is that, if God would actually allow you to  do anything else, you probably would.  Wingfold's travails illustrate that there is much more to being a Priest than simply being able to preach a decent sermon.  It's not easy, and it is made more difficult by the fact that most people have very little idea what you do.
In the interest of not trying to sound too defensive, let me say that the critique of clergy as expensive and over-functioning is actually valid, but let's be honest, at least in most cases it's not a super-high paying job, nor does it even come with the social status and perks that it used to.  Nowadays, most clergy are doing this job because they have to.  They don't have to because they can't make a living some other way, they have to because God will not let them do anything else in peace.  They have a vocation, a calling, that can be frightfully narrow.  Only once they make peace with that narrow gate, can they possibly experience the open-ness and grace that lies beyond
You want someone who is in touch with God's open-ness and grace to lead your congregation, you really do.  You don't want someone who has other priorities.  Indeed you don't want someone who is too busy to pray for you and with you, you don't want someone who is so bogged down with institutional "stuff" that they can't see what God is doing right in front of them.
I realize that I just described a highly idealized version of what pastoral ministry is actually like, but that's the point.  If churches want a pastor like that, they need to give them the space to follow that vocation.  You need to know that your pastor is prone to over-function, don't try to make it worse.  You need to understand that spiritual growth and leadership is not a nine to five occupation, and it's certainly not a part time gig.
Church is a living thing, and it requires tending.  It requires a place and a time, and a purpose, and those things don't come automatically or by accident.  Institutions are a way that we have of passing on what we do and what we know.  Through them we continue to evolve as a species.  Think of the things we know now that are a result of cumulative knowledge.  Would we be able to make an iPhone if we had not collected the technological know-how of thousands of years, so that we weren't starting from ground zero, learning to make fire?  Our collective spiritual life is like that too, it's just not as simple as an iPhone.
Let's not hurl ourselves off of a deconstructionist cliff just yet.