What Is Congregationalism?

I have been asked many times:  What is Congregationalism? I shall speak here of policy -- I omit the crucial practice of ministry by members. With this in mind, my answer would run something like this: it is a direct democracy under the Word and the Spirit. You start with a Body of people who are Bible-based and Spirit-filled, and all of them are equal in authority. No one has any kind of precedence because of status or wealth or culture or influence or force of personality -- or any of those "human" things. With this in mind, "pure" Congregational Churches hand all decisions to the members -- however, many hand some responsibility (usually not much) to a full leadership -- but never less than the full leadership. That is, you don't have officers or experts, inside or outside the Church, or any person assuming any control, over anything. There is a good summary of this in (click here) Wikipedia. OBSERVATION: Yet this is merely a technical description of Congregational policy. There is the spirit also. In my heart I would say that Congregationalism equals the humble distribution of decisions among all of the members. It is a listening -- a loving listening -- by all of the members -- or where this applies, by all of the leadership -- to one another and above all to the Word and the Spirit. As they do this, all of the members are taken into each other's trust, in every way, and all of the members wait upon each other. Wikipedia comments: "This requires lay people to exercise great charity and patience in debating issues with one another and to seek the glory and service of God as the foremost consideration in all of their decisions."