In terms of organizations, a spider and a starfish might look the same (at least each has eight legs), but their organization are worlds apart. A spider that loses a leg might well be able to function. It might even be able to operate minus three legs, although its survival would be endangered if it lost four. However, it will die if it loses its head, because its central nervous system is located there. The starfish is a different animal altogether. Cut a leg off a starfish, and it grows back, and the leg that was cut off will actually grow into another starfish. Cut the starfish into ten pieces, and you end up with ten starfish. In other words, every element in its system has the full capacity to reproduce itself. If one observes what is going on in the book of Acts, one can easily discern that New Testament ecclesiology is more like the starfish than the spider.
Alan Hirsch
From the book “The Permanent Revolution”