Mother Church * Church of the Mother
.Organization
Mother Worship is a network of local communities centered around Home Meetings (see previous page). The local group is its fundamental unit, consisting of individuals and families, usually not exceeding some 20 members. There is no permanent structure apart from the local network. That means that our Worship is entirely decentralized without any authority from outside. The structure is corresponding to the "web of life", in which Self-sovereignty, subsidiarity and "symbiosis" are the main ingredients *. In practice members and affiliates see each other in the weekly Home Meetings.
Everything is based on "To be your Self connected": you do what you can do. What you cannot do is being done by the family. The family is Self-sovereign and does what it can do. What it cannot do is being done by the your local community. Every local community is Self-sovereign and does what it can do. What it cannot do is being done by the larger community. Every unit is choosing a leader - man or women - who is their representative in the "higher" unit. So the smaller community is consisting of representatives of the families, while the larger community is made of the members of the smaller ones. Crucial is that the larger community is non-permanent.
It consists of ad-hoc meetings concerned with problems of the moment. Representatives therefore don't possess permanent status or duties. In order to prevent a "superstructure" to evolve there will be a continuous change of representatives. The dynamics of decision making is always bottom-up. Decisions can never be imposed from above - representatives may only make proposals - they are exclusively made by consensus of the local community.
The spiritual principles of our global Mother Worship are based on the Universal Message*, the Seven Pillars as elaborated in The Integral Way* and the Symbols* like Cosmic Womb Mandala and the Black Mother Image, while the social foundation - the Living Community - consists of the Home Meetings*. They are part of a worldwide effort - The Great Learning - which includes A New Spirituality, A New Health Care and A New Community.
Its "organization" is non-hierarchical, with no "church" e.g. umbrella structure whatsoever, it is worldwide without national identities (f.i. no "US, Indian, German, Mexican, Italian or Dutch" branch), exclusively based on horizontal networks e.g. local autonomous groups** (like the AA groups), initiated by local people themselves, with free (cross-border) affiliations, cooperation between men and women with women often having a leading role, active participation of every member, community democracy and consensus. These principles are not negociable, it means that only those who wholeheartedly embrace them, may call themselves members.
*See: www.originaltrad.faithweb.com chapter A. "MatriCommunity"
** This dynamic structure has been designed according the work of Johannes Althusius (1557-1638), an independent Calvinist thinker. See: http://uni-trier.de/~ievr/konferenz/papers/vanvyver.pdf
Virtual Church
Although we strongly advocate concrete participation in real communities, we also offer a Virtual Website to those who (still) prefer an individual approach to its ideas and practice. For them our four websites: that of Mother Worship/The Original Great Mother Tradition, Great Mother Buddhism, MatriTalks and The Great Learning can be freely frequented. Because of this service we have put quite some information in the sites, which would otherwise be available as printed matter only.
Read:
* Johannes Althusius "Politica", 1995 Liberty Fund
* Th.O.Hueglin "Early Modern Concepts for a Late Modern World", 1999 Wilfrid Laurier University Press