Whether we want to admit it or not, people are hearing what we are REALLY proclaiming
Earlier, Gibby – a Facebook friend – posted a quote by George Carlin. Now, if you’re not familiar with George Carlin, he was a stand-up comedian who was famous for his criticism of American society and culture.
(No, he’s not the sledgehammer guy… that’s Gallagher.)
Anyway, one of the cultural icons that Carlin often lampooned was American religion and American Christianity in particular.
For example, consider this quote (the quote that prompted this post):
Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
Now, granted, as a comedian Carlin is taking “religion” to the extreme to be funny. And, granted, no one thinks they are proclaiming this message.
But, apparently this is the message that Carlin – and probably many other people – are receiving. If this is the message that people are receiving, then perhaps it is the message that many are actually proclaiming – whether they intend to proclaim this message or not.
Why do you think so many think this (or something similar) about Christianity? How can we make sure that this is not the “gospel” that we are proclaiming?
Why is it so difficult to find organic church life?
In my post “People want real examples of organic church life,” I linked to a post by Dan at “Cerulean Sanctum” called “Is organic house church a myth?” In that post, Dan expressed his frustration at not being able to find “organic house church” in his city like he sees described in Frank Viola’s books.
In this post, I’m going to try to answer the question, “Why is it so difficult to find organic church life?” I need to point out a few things before I start. First, this post is not directly related to Dan’s post. That is, I am not responding to Dan’s search for organic house church. I do not know how he looked or who he talked with. So, this post will not be specifically about his search.
Second, I’m using the phrase “organic church life” instead of the phrases “organic church,” “house church,” or “simple church” or any combination. And, I’m using the phrase “organic church life” for a very specific reason. When I write about “organic church life,” I’m not talking about a certain church gathering, or a certain type of meeting, or a certain group of believers, or a certain method of organizing (or not organizing). Instead, I’m talking about believers sharing their lives with one another as they also share life in Jesus Christ.
As we think about my second point, we can also begin to understand why this “organic church life” may be difficult to find. It is not a place, or an event, or even a group that we can point to. It is a way of life. There are people who meet together only in homes who share organic church life in Jesus Christ. There are also people who meet together only in homes who do not share organic church life. In the same way, people can meet in church buildings and share organic church life (or not).
A group may have a specific weekly meeting (or more than one) and share this kind of life in Christ. Or, they may not have a regular weekly meeting. Then again, a group may have a weekly meeting (or even meet together more often) and yet not share their lives with one another in Jesus Christ.
When these groups do get together, it is relational not structural. Thus, as the relationships change or the people involved change, then the group will change as well. It is fluid and dynamic.
The group that meets together today may be completely different than the group that met together last year (or month) and may be completely different than the group that will meet together next year (or month). This does not mean that the group collapsed or fizzled out or ended or anything else that we might use to describe the end of a more organized or structured group.
Also, even when a group such as this is sharing life together in our own neighborhood, we may never notice it. It can be hard to point to and even to distinguish from overlapping or tangential groups. There may not be a sign, a website, a corporation, a yellow pages entry, or any other traditional identifying marker.
These groups (if they are sharing life in Christ) will also be serving others, but that service may not be directed toward the person looking for a group such as this. So, while we can often recognize organic church life because the people are serving others together, their service may not always be readily apparent.
So, what do we do? We want to find organic church life, but it’s difficult to find (for the reasons listed above as well as many other reasons). Do we just give up? No.
We begin sharing our own lives (in Christ) with the people that God has already brought into our life. Some will push us away. Fine. We cannot control how other people respond to us. Others, however, will also be longing for this kind of fellowship in the Spirit. And, as we find these people, we begin to grow and serve and disciple and encourage and share and give and teach and eat and learn and admonish and pray and hope together.
This is organic church life. It is within us. And, we can share it with others.
What hinders the church in the West?
Roger at “SimpleChurch Journal” recently asked a question and, in a post called “Organizing Your Thoughts on What Hinders the Western Church,” reports on the fascinating responses that he received.
Two weeks ago, Roger asked his readers to “help in identifying the key hindrances in the Western church.” Somehow, I missed his post, but I did not miss his current post, in which he summarizes the responses that he received.
This is what he reports:
Key Hindrances:
1. Our relationship with God
- Lack of intimacy with God
- Not listening
- We don’t know Him as He is
- We don’t know His word and/or we are lackadaisical about it
2. Our involvement in religious traditions and legalism
- Religious attitudes
- Man-made traditions
- Religion and pride
- Comfort-seeking in our church life
- Me-centered in our church life
- Consumer mentality as a Christian
3. Our followership (our walk as disciples)
- Lack of obedience to Jesus alone
- Lack of obedience to all of Jesus’ commands
- Not making disciples
- Not surrendered wholly
- No passion for the lost
- Compromise
Interestingly, while Roger writes about “simple church,” I do not think the things listed are limited to either simple (or non-simple) church structures and organization.
What do you think? Are these the “key hindrances”? Have you recognized these hindrances in your own life or in the life of the Christians around you?
People want real examples of organic church life
A few months ago, I was reading a blog post from someone on the “cutting edge” of the organic church movement – if it’s a movement. The person asked what his readers would like him to write about, and I said, “Right about real life example of what it means to be part of an ‘organic church’ and how it affects things like gathering together, discipleship, giving, evangelism, teaching, etc.” (paraphrase)
Earlier this week, Dan at “Cerulean Sanctum” asked “Is Organic House Church a Myth?” Why would Dan ask that question? Because he sees so few real life examples in his city. He has been reading through some of Frank Viola’s book, and he loves the descriptions that he finds there. But, why can’t he find them in real life?
Dan writes:
I say this because the more I attempt to locate the type of organic/house church that Viola says has been blessing his life for the last few decades, the more it seems like the fabled destination of another famous musical, Brigadoon…
I live just outside a metropolitan area of 2.2 million people that is heavily churched. When Christian pollsters and church resource magazines publish info about influential institutional churches, this area contains a disproportionately large number of them. Which is why I continue to scratch my head at the utter lack in such an area of anything resembling Viola’s ethereal organic church. Hasn’t anyone burned out of those institutional megachurches and fled to the supposed refuge of an organic church?
Reading the testimonials of organic church members included in Viola’s books makes my heart ache. But like so many tales one hears in the American Church today, it seems like those beautiful stories are happening in some hazy, distant place, almost like Narnia, except even harder to find.
I understand much of Dan’s frustration, and many of my readers have shared the same frustrations and difficulties in finding the kind of shared life in Christ that “organic church” books describe.
Now, I know that the type of shared life that Viola (and others) describe exist, because I experience it every day. I also know that this kind of church life can be found among the members of more traditional or institutional churches. However, that doesn’t help others who are seeking fellowship with others in this way. It still seems elusive.
As you can probably tell from my previous paragraph, I’m not interested in some new model of church that is labeled “organic church” as opposed to some other brand or model of church. Instead, I’m interested in brothers and sisters in Christ sharing their lives together in Jesus Christ in such a way that he is able to work through them as he desires – often unorchestrated, unplanned, unrehearsed, and unscripted.
Unfortunately, this kind of life cannot happen (only) in a church gathering… even an “organic church” gathering with open participation. This kind of life happens day in and day out when people spend time together, care about one another, give and help one another, and serve others together.
To be honest, I’ve found this kind of “church” more difficult to locate than “organic church.” There are several websites that list local “organic churches” or “house churches” in your area. However, tacking the label “organic church” or “house church” onto a group – or even meeting in a house or having an open participatory meeting – does not indicate that the people involved actually share their lives with one another.
However, these groups do exist. I’ve communicated with many people who live like this day in and day out with other Christians. I’ve even had a few opportunities to get together with representatives of different groups who gather around our area.
But… I still agree with Dan. This type of church life is difficult to find, and extremely elusive – even where it does exist.
Why do you think it is so difficult to find “organic church life”?
(By the way, I will offer some of my own answers to that question in tomorrow morning’s blog post.)
Community in Christ: It’s still not about perfection
Yesterday, I published a post called “Do we want community? Really?” In that posts, I quoted some questions that Arthur asked about community and our own selfish desires.
In response, I had a very good discussion with Bob over on Facebook. (Follow this link to view the discussion.)
Bob made some very good points. For example, he said:
I think that it is tempting to read the early chapters of Acts and imagine what community really looks like. Yet I imagine that all present did not experience community in the ways that we think. Sometimes community comes in strange places as we get to know the people that we work with and live close to. And sometimes we are able to share our lives and our souls with kindred spirits.
This is a great point! While Luke gives us a good description of the community that the early church shared, we should not misread what Luke says. Obviously, even that early community in Christ was not perfect. While Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10) were probably extreme examples, we can know that there were problems among this early group of believers. Why? Because they were human. They were not perfect; therefore, the community that they shared with one another was not perfect.
Of course, as Bonhoeffer said (and as I quoted in my recent post “The Church: Not an ideal but a divine reality“), it is in this imperfect community that we discover God’s grace and that we learn what true sharing is all about.
We share our lives with one another – in spite of our imperfection and in spite of the imperfect way that we relate to one another because of those imperfections. Then, we help one another – mutually – to grow together in maturity in Jesus Christ. He is our goal as well as the only way to reach that goal.
In Acts 2, Luke provides a good example of what Jesus Christ did among one group of believers as they submitted themselves to him. Was it perfect? No.
In the same way, the Holy Spirit will mold us into a community in Jesus Christ as we submit ourselves to him, in spite of our imperfections – individually and corporately.
We never wait for perfection (from ourselves or others or our group) before we share our lives with one another.
Teaching Workshop: Teaching When the Church Gathers
A few weeks ago, I started a “Teaching Workshop” for the church on Sunday mornings. We worked through a few passages of Scripture and discussed together what those passages say about teaching and teachers.
This is not a workshop about how to put together a teaching outline or how to study commentaries or other reference materials. Instead, we will discuss a broad and general view of teaching through Scripture. I hope that this workshop will be helpful for people teaching in any context.
This is the general outline that I used for this workshop:
Part 1: Who Teaches?
Part 2: The Motivations for Teaching
Part 3: The Essence of Teaching
Part 4: Teaching When the Church Gathers
For each week’s workshop, I put together a short worksheet to guide our discussion. This is the worksheet for the last week’s session. This lesson will be called “Part 4: Teaching When the Church Gathers.” What does Scripture say specifically about teaching when we gather together with other believers?
Feel free to discuss or ask questions in the comments.
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Teaching Workshop
Part 4: Teaching When the Church Gathers
For this session of the workshop on teaching in Scripture, we’ll consider the following question: What does Scripture say about teaching when the church gathers? Believe it or not, despite the fact that so much emphasis is placed on church gatherings or worship services today, the authors of Scripture said very little about them.
I recommend reading the following passages so that you will know the context and background of the specific parts that we will discuss together. As you read, pay attention to the context as well as what the author says teaching: Acts 15:30-35; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 20:7-12; 1 Corinthians 14; Philippians 2:1-4; Colossians 3:12-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:11-14; 1 Timothy 5:17; Hebrews 10:19-25
I. The Passage that Focuses Most on Church Gatherings
At the end of Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts in his letter to the Corinthians, he focuses specifically on times when the church gathers. He mentions teaching a couple of times in that chapter. (1 Corinthians 14)
II. A Passage that is often Used to Exhort Attendance at Church Meetings
The author of the Book of Hebrews included exhortations concerning gathering together. While teaching is not mentioned specifically, we can learn about teaching from this passage. (Hebrews 10:19-25)
III. Some of the Examples of Teaching and Speaking with the Church
There are a few examples of people speaking with or teaching the church. These are found in the Book of Acts. They do not all mention teaching, but again we can learn many things about teaching from these passages. (Acts 15:30-35; Acts 19:8-10; Acts 20:7-12)
IV. How Do General “One Another” Principles Relate to Teaching
There are many exhortations in Scripture about how we relate to “one another.” How do these affect teaching when we gather with other believers? (Philippians 2:1-4; Colossians 3:12-17)
V. What About Leaders and Teaching?
Often, among the church today, teaching is associated with lecturing (sermons), providing information about Scripture, and especially with leaders (pastors, preachers, elders). (1 Thessalonians 5:11-14; 1 Timothy 5:17)
Do we want community? Really?
Arthur at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia” raises some great questions about community in Christ in his post “Book Review: Why We Live In Community.”
The post begins as a review of an e-book by Eberhard Arnold called Why We Live In Community. But, reading the book and thinking about the topic leads Arthur to ask some very important questions.
For example, consider this part of his post:
Most importantly, why don’t we live in community? Could it be that we love our autonomy, our freedom, our wealth and possessions more than each other? Is the idea of that sort of closeness and openness in this life scary to people who affirm in theory that sort of relationship in eternity? Perhaps most troubling, could it be that we fear living community in whatever shape it takes because we don’t really believe what we read in the Bible, just as we don’t seem to believe so much of what Jesus taught or how He lived or what He commanded? Is it just easier to live lives of religious observance and to find ways to nitpick and divide from one another so that we can justify our disunity? These are troubling questions but they are hammering me.
I agree with Arthur: these are troubling questions. I’ve wrestled with many of these questions, and continue to do so from time to time.
Why do you do when you find that you really don’t want to live in community in Christ with others?
Mutual Participation: Dip your toes into the waters or dive into the deep end?
For the last two days, I’ve been trying to decide what to do with Art’s latest comment on my post “Replay: How do we edify others?”
First, I think the comment is a well-articulated comment and a necessary component of our discussion of edifying one another when we gather with the church.
Second, Art’s comment is another indicator that he should be writing this stuff for his own blog… but then I need to keep my mouth shut so that he continues to leave the comments here.
I thought about copying Art’s entire comment, but I decided to continue the discussion by asking a question… which I’ll get to by the end of this post.
In the comment, Art is talking about participatory meetings. Now, for most Christians, church gatherings are not a time of real participation. They primarily gather to hear from others, and usually they hear from the same person week in and week out.
Some churches move toward more participatory meetings by having different people speak from week to week, or by encouraging comments or questions after the speaker is finished.
Other groups of believers move along the spectrum toward mutual participation by having a discussion about a specific topic or passage of Scripture.
Finally, some groups come together without a preplanned topic or passage.
Now, if a group of believers recognizes that mutual participation is beneficial for the church, and if that same group of believers recognizes that they do not all participate when they gather together, what should they do? Should they take steps toward mutual participation (perhaps along the spectrum that I described above), or should they jump in with both feet directly into all participating without a preplanned topic or passage?
This is the question that Art poses in his comment:
Doesn’t our best attempts to move past the pastor controlled meeting space still deny committing one another to the care and capability of the Spirit in contributing to one another when assembled? Wasn’t this something Paul was very quick to do with pagans only recently converted, leaving them on their own after a few weeks or months without “leadership?” Do the saints, in fact, need us and not the Spirit, to help them begin to “participate” so narrowly? I suppose I’m advocating “throwing the meeting in the deep end of the pool to learn to swim together,” but this seems to be the biblical pattern.
As you can see, I borrowed Art’s swimming analogy for this post.
So, what do you say? If a group desires mutual participation for the sake of helping one another grow in Christ, is it better to take small, incremental steps by adding more and more participation? Or is it better to scrap all facilitators and plans in order to provide opportunities for mutual participation immediately? Why?
When every part of the body of Christ functions together
Josh at “Called to Rebuild” has written another excellent post. This one is called “Missing the church.”
He begins by explaining that many close friends have been transitioning out of his life lately. Josh feels the loss… and that along is an amazing thought. In a time when “church” has become just another activity, it is a real family for Josh.
Next, he describes a time when God began to show him what could happen when the whole body of Christ worked together. He writes:
Anyway, as I sat there listening something just came over me. Tears welled up in my eyes. Nothing being said was at all specific to my trial at the time, but that didn’t matter. In a way I can’t adequately explain with words, I saw Christ being revealed as I listened to the brothers and sisters sharing. It was powerful. All the pressure from the burden in my heart was like a great big logjam, but as I beheld Christ through the functioning of His Body it was like a mighty river came bursting through the channels of my heart, forcing it all to the surface and clearing it away.
Josh refers to 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. While Paul writes about an unbeliever recognizing the presence of God among the church because everyone is prophesying, I can see how it would apply to Josh’s situation too.
As I read Josh’s post, I love this statement: “[A]s I beheld Christ through the functioning of His Body it was like a mighty river came bursting through the channels of my heart, forcing it all to the surface and clearing it away.”
Reading that, it’s easy to understand why Josh would say that he misses his brothers and sisters in Christ.
Some Simple Thoughts about our Church Gatherings
My friend Chris blogs over at “Simple Thoughts“… and thus the title of this post. I want to point you to a post he recently wrote called “Normal.”
Chris shares some of the things his family has been going through recently – specifically related to wife’s ongoing health issues. However, he also gives a brief description of our church gatherings.
You see, a few weeks ago, Chris and his family starting gathering with us on Sunday mornings.
This is the way that he describes those times of meeting together:
Now they conduct church different than the norm. There is no loud bands or video presentations, or people talking and carrying on hundreds of different conversations. This is a small community, of faithful God fearing people wanting to learn more about the Scriptures than what is preached at the pulpit, or discussed in the 1 hour (really 30 or 45 min) Sunday school class. They set out folding chairs in a small room. There is no pulpit. They have hymnals spaced about on about every other chair. They use their hymnal and select songs that have been on their heart. There is not one person selecting songs, it is a community choosing songs. Either before or after each song selected, the person that chose the song, expresses why they chose that song. Usually it is due to being their favorite, or it is because sometime during the week or lately, that song has touched their heart during a situation in their life. They pray, and then they discuss scripture. Yes, there is someone who is leading the discussion. But he is not there to state how it applies to him but all understand there is one meaning and many applications. So we get to hear the different applications that pertain to that different part of scripture. There is no time limit on the discussion. Then they pray over prayer requests that are shared and eat together afterwards. Keep in mind, there is no nursery, or children’s church. These are families, gathering as families, to share life and scripture.
I was really concerned more about what my teen children were thinking about the whole gathering. Come to find out they enjoyed it. They stated that they do not walk away confused but understand the scripture better, because they here different perspectives to the application of scripture. This allows them to hear from different people, mainly adults, on how they have applied scripture to their lives in order to glorify God.
I appreciate Chris writing about us. I had a chance to talk with him about the last part of his description – mainly, the benefit of several people speaking, teaching, encouraging, etc. when we gather together. Hopefully, I’ll have time to write more about that soon.
Like I’ve said before, I describe us a “hybrid” – somewhere between the more traditional, institutional side of the church and the more organic, simple side. Of course, that just means that our gatherings tend to frustrate people from both sides. That also means that our gatherings give us constant opportunities to not only edify one another, but also to give up our own preferences for the sake of our brothers and sisters – whether those preferences lean toward the organic side or the institutional side.
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I am a PhD student in biblical theology and a web developer. My interests include PHP and ecclesiology. My dissertation topic is the purpose of the gathering of the church in the New Testament. By God's grace, I try to live what I am learning about the church. Read more...