The Playground Problem: Why Hierarchy Keeps Emerging in Church

Throw kids on a playground and watch what happens. Within minutes, a social order emerges. Someone becomes the leader. Someone gets picked on. Alliances form. Dominance hierarchies appear as naturally as breathing.

Psychologist Jordan Peterson calls this "lobster brain"—the primitive neurological wiring that compels us to sort ourselves into hierarchies, just like lobsters do when they meet each other for the first time.

But here's the question that should haunt us: We're supposed to be better than lobsters, aren't we?

The Natural Pull Toward Dominance

The uncomfortable truth is that you don't have to create hierarchies. They emerge on their own, rising up from our primal instincts like water finding its level.

Fear drives much of this. When we're afraid—afraid of scarcity, afraid of rejection, afraid of insignificance—we reach for control. We try to secure our position. We dominate or we submit, but either way, we're operating from a place of brokenness.

And here's where it gets really important: what happens at home doesn't stay at home.

Think about that kid on the playground who's a bully. Where did he learn that? Often, he's watching dominance played out every single day in his home. Dad controls Mom through intimidation or manipulation. Mom, frustrated and disempowered, takes it out on the kids. And now that kid is on the playground, and guess what happens? He reproduces exactly what he's experienced.

He's not evil. He's broken. And broken people create broken systems.

The system of dominance-based hierarchy—where power flows in one direction, where authority means control, where leadership equals being in charge—this is the world's system. It's empire thinking. It's Babylon's way. And we keep reproducing it because we keep experiencing it.

How Institutional Christianity Got It Wrong

The early church didn't start with hierarchy. Read through Acts and the early epistles, and you find a loosely knit, vibrant, self-replicating community of believers. They met in homes. They met in public spaces like Solomon's Porch. They shared resources. They operated in mutual submission under the headship of Christ.

But by the second century, all the apostles were dead. John, the last one standing, probably died around 96 AD. And suddenly, the church faced a crisis: How do we organize? How do we maintain order? How do we recognize true teachers versus false ones?

As the apostle Peter warned, "Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were" (2 Peter 3:4, NKJV). Without the living apostolic presence, the church began to drift toward institutionalism.

Here's how it happened: The early church was plagued with false apostles, false prophets, false teachers. People showing up claiming authority, taking people's money, gathering followers unto themselves. The Didache—an early church document from around 125-150 AD—spends significant time helping believers discern true teachers from false ones. John deals with it in his letters. Paul constantly addressed it.

So out of a genuine desire to protect the flock, the church began to develop institutional structures. Bishops emerged as prominent leaders over cities. The office of apostle was essentially replaced by the office of bishop. A hierarchy formed: bishops, elders, deacons.

And while this structure brought some stability, it also brought something deadly: the world's dominance-based hierarchy infiltrated the church.

Instead of maintaining the revolutionary model Jesus demonstrated—where the greatest is the servant, where power flows through love rather than force, where mutual submission reflects the very nature of the Trinity—the church adopted Rome's pyramid structure.

We became Babylon wearing a cross.

The Cycle We Keep Repeating

Here's the pattern we've repeated throughout church history:

Stage 1: A fresh move of God's Spirit. People experience genuine transformation. Communities form around authentic relationship with God and each other.

Stage 2: The founders die or move on. The second and third generations don't have the same direct connection to the original revelation.

Stage 3: Fear enters. How do we maintain what we have? How do we protect ourselves from false teachers? How do we keep order?

Stage 4: Structure replaces Spirit. Hierarchy replaces relationship. Control replaces trust.

Stage 5: We end up with exactly what we were trying to avoid: a system that wounds people, suppresses gifts, and distorts God's nature.

We need to learn from this history. Because if we don't, we'll repeat it. Again. And again.

The Kingdom Alternative

But what if there's another way?

What if, instead of trying to manage our fear through control, we actually dealt with the fear itself? What if we got so healed, so whole, so secure in God's love that the pull toward dominance lost its power over us?

Imagine a child growing up in a home where both parents operate in mutual submission. Where Dad doesn't control Mom. Where Mom doesn't manipulate Dad. Where power isn't a scarce resource to be hoarded but a shared gift to be stewarded.

Where decisions are made together through prayer and conversation—not through one person wielding "final authority" but through both seeking God's wisdom until they find unity.

Where serving each other isn't about inferior status but about reflecting the very nature of God, who is eternally three Persons in perfect mutual submission and honor.

What happens when that child goes to the playground?

He's so secure in his identity, so confident that his needs will be met, so anchored in love that he doesn't need to dominate anyone to feel significant. He doesn't need to control anyone to feel safe.

Instead, he looks at the other kids and thinks: How can I lift them up? How can I help them? How can I use my strength to serve rather than to dominate?

That child has been discipled in Kingdom reality. And Kingdom reality breaks the cycle.

The Ecclesia Jesus Builds

This is why the restoration of ecclesia—the assembly of King Jesus operating in governmental, priestly, and prophetic authority—must begin with inner healing.

We cannot give what we don't have. We cannot establish Kingdom reality in our communities if we haven't first experienced it in our own hearts and homes.

The ecclesia Jesus builds doesn't need dominance-based hierarchy because it's rooted in His nature: mutual honor, mutual submission, mutual empowerment.

In God's Kingdom:

• Power flows in all directions; it's circular, not top-down

• Authority means responsibility to serve, not permission to control

• Leadership equals lifting others up, not rising above them

• Submission means mutual support, not inferior status

• Success means bringing everyone up together, not climbing over others

This isn't naive idealism. This is the actual operating system of the Kingdom of God. And it works—when we're healed enough to live it out.

Getting It Right at Home

I really do believe we can change the world. But we have to start at home.

If children automatically emulate the hierarchies they experience, then we'll never change the system by focusing on institutions or politics or even church structures. We have to get it right in the family.

When families operate in mutual submission—when husbands and wives both submit to each other out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21, NIV)—they produce children who are whole. And whole children produce whole communities.

This is how Kingdom reality advances. Not through implementing better hierarchies. Through healing people so deeply that hierarchy loses its appeal.

Not through organizing better control structures. Through releasing people into such security and love that control becomes unnecessary.

Not through creating new institutions. Through forming new kinds of people who no longer need institutions to manage their brokenness because they're actually being made whole.

Real Revival Begins With Repentance

Here's what revival actually requires: repentance.

Not the shallow kind where we feel bad about our personal sins. The deep kind where we acknowledge the systemic sins of Christendom—where those who claimed Christ's name did horrific things in His name.

The Crusades. The Inquisition. The blessing of slavery. The subjugation of women. The abuse of power in countless forms.

We must repent for how the church has chosen hierarchy over love, control over mutual submission, worldly power over Kingdom reality.

We must acknowledge that we've wounded people—suppressing women's gifts, tolerating abuse, protecting institutions over individuals, teaching a version of God's design that looks suspiciously like the world's dominance-based systems rather than Christ's revolutionary model.

And then we must choose differently.

The Invitation Forward

The good news is that God is awakening His people. All over the world, believers are recognizing that there's a better way. Communities are forming around mutual honor, mutual submission, mutual empowerment.

Families are breaking generational cycles of dominance and control, choosing instead to reflect the Trinity's eternal dance of mutual love.

The ecclesia Jesus promised to build is emerging—not as another institution, but as a movement of healed people who know their King personally and expect Him to transform the real world through them.

Hierarchy will keep emerging naturally as long as we remain broken. But Kingdom reality breaks the cycle.

The question is: Will we do the hard work of getting healed? Will we face our fear instead of managing it through control? Will we let God transform our families so thoroughly that we produce children who don't need dominance to feel secure?

This is how the Kingdom comes. Not through better structures. Through better people.

Not through improved hierarchies. Through healed hearts.

Not through institutional reform. Through personal and family transformation that ripples outward until it changes everything.

The ecclesia Jesus builds starts with you. In your heart. In your home. In your daily choices to operate in Kingdom reality rather than worldly patterns.

The cycle can be broken. The Kingdom can advance. The world can actually change.

But it starts with you choosing healing over hierarchy, love over control, mutual submission over dominance.

Will you be part of breaking the cycle?

Blessings,
Susan 😊