Re-Thinking 'Church'

What is the church?

We first see the word church in our Bibles after Peter said “you are the Christ the Son of the living God” and Jesus replies “on this rock I will build my church”.  

I wonder what the disciples thought when they heard that?  Was “church” a new word to them?  Did they have a concept of big buildings where people would gather for a few hours a week to sing and hear a sermon?

The word Jesus used that we translate “church” meant “a gathering of people”, and would have been familiar to the disciples.  Geek Note: the modern word “church”, comes from a German word that means “a place of gathering”.  I think the word reveals something about the shift in theology that took place sometime between the first century gathering of people who believed that Jesus was Lord, and the hay day of the Roman Catholic Church where religion and political power were synonymous.  (Andy Stanley talks about this idea in his book "Deep and Wide" and I would highly recommend the book)

Somewhere along the line our collective church culture's thinking changed from, “My church is the group of people who help me live out the mission of Christ”, to “My church is the place I go to meet with people who agree with me about God”. 

I know ‘traditional church’ works.  I wouldn’t be who I am today without it.  That said, since I was 15 years old, I have been involved in full or part time church ministry, both vocationally and as a volunteer.  During almost 2 decades of trying to operate within the institution of the church, I have often felt like I imagine David felt when he tried on Saul’s armor before his big battle with Goliath.  David was offered armor fit for a king, yet he decided “I’m better off without this.”  It wasn’t an insult to the armor, it was excellent armor. (and it is not at all my intention to insult traditional church or anyone who finds it to be the most effective way to make disciples) But God had a specific way he wanted the battle to go, a way that would bring the most Glory to God, so David eschewed the conventional wisdom of battle and stepped out with the tools of shepherd to do something that seemed impossible to those with the most formal training, the most experience, and best equipment.

While I have chafed in the armor of traditional church, I have continued to wear the armor because I didn’t know any other way to carry out the command to make disciples or the command to 'forsake not the assembling of yourselves together'.  I didn’t want to simply run away from a certain way of doing things, I wanted to run toward something.  After years of searching, I think I finally know what to run toward.

So if you are fighting to make disciples, but just feel like the traditional armor doesn't quite fit the way God is calling you to live, if you have ever wondered if their could be another way to make disciples, and to grow as a disciple,  if you have ever wondered how to make living out your faith look just a little more like what we see in Acts, then take a minute to imagine with me...

It begins when you and one or two others commit to reading the same scripture each week.  Once a week you meet to discuss it, to confess sin to each other, to pray for each other and to pray for the people in your lives that do not yet know Jesus.  Jesus said that “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there with them”. Throughout the week other Christians are meeting in the same way.  

The early church made meeting regularly in their homes a high priority, so every week or two, those little groups get together for a meal with other little groups and for some quality time in the Word.  But here’s the catch, you choose your community group not on a basis of geography or your schedule, your age, marital status or demographic, but on common mission.  For example, if you feel that God’s desire is for you to help your co-workers come to know Jesus, you meet with others who also see work as their mission field.  Together you discuss how to best reach your coworkers.  Together you re-arrange your lives so that you can minister to your co-workers.  You become a community of missionaries to that pocket of people in your community.  Maybe you have a favorite hobby, and you meet with those who share that hobby and discuss how to use your common interest to reach people who have the same interest, but don’t know Jesus.  Maybe you have a love for kids, or the elderly, or the hungry or the homeless.  So you live your life with people who want to make disciples of the same people that you feel called to be a missionary to.

Just because you don’t share a common pocket of people in your community that you want to reach doesn’t mean you can’t fellowship.  So these missional communities gather with other missional communities for fellowship, communion, mutual encouragement, baptisms, testimonies about what God is doing, and to worship the God that inspires us to reorient our lives, our schedules and our finances around the sick, instead of the healthy, the sinners instead of the righteous.  Now you are united to the body of Christ by common mission. Instead of a church having a mission statement, the mission of God has a church.

This is a thumbnail view, and I could spend hours sharing the scriptures, authors, blogs, and sermons that have inspired me, and maybe I will in future posts or in conversations around my kitchen table (if you are interested).  For now it is sufficient to say that this is what I am running toward.  And the coolest part is that it doesn’t require running away from anything.  Making this vision work doesn’t require gathering at a certain time, nor does it matter if members of this missional community are in different places for a few hours on a Sunday morning.  Each one is still free, even encouraged to go wherever they find practical teaching or great worship music, because he church isn’t a place you go to hear sermons and sing songs, the church is the people that help you carry out the command to make disciples. 

My hope is to start with one or two people that I can meet with regularly, while helping others connect to people who are looking for this kind of accountability.  As a network of these “two or three” gatherings start to meet my hope is that we will get together to share a meal, share some time in the word, and discuss who we can reach and how.  My hope is that our missional ideas will inspire others to either join us in making disciples and that as we focus on the mission Jesus gave us, those who have never known Jesus will join the family of believers.  I am not looking for anyone to leave a church or join a church.  Instead I am hoping to come along side believers from many churches to help people live out the call to make disciples to be missionaries where they live, work and play.  I am hoping that together we can “live such good lives among the pagans that they may see our good deeds and glorify our father who is in heaven” 

If you have any questions, or if you are interested in being a part of something like this please contact me. 

To My Church Family

To my Church Family,

Most of us have only ever entered into two covenant relationships, marriage and church membership.  The emotions we will experience as we process our pastor’s resignation is akin to the trauma of divorce, and we will be hurting deeply for some time to come because of it.  But the same bond that makes this separation hurt so much, is also, by the grace of God, what can help us to overcome.  These pivotal circumstances have the potential to strengthen our faith, or to crush it, and I pray that we will come through this with a greater determination to live the lives Christ died for us to live.

As we travel this road, we will experience a wide range of emotion.  Some will feel relieved, some confused, others hurt, some will no doubt be angry, some of us will want to try to fix it, some of us will just withdraw, preferring not to deal with it, and some of us will try to pretend like it doesn't much matter...  As the stages of grief unfold, we may find ourselves frustrated with others whose responses to this difficulty are dramatically different than our own.  We must be careful to let every conversation we have be “full of grace, and seasoned with salt”.  In other words, we must make every effort to love each other through this, and to make sure that we focus on building each other up, not tearing each other down.

As we navigate these waters, let us remember the fundamental things that make faith grow:

• Practical Teaching:  We are losing a great teacher, and we will all need to find ways to fill the void.  Practical teaching don’t have to come from a stage on a Sunday Morning, grab a good book by Francis Chan, Andy Stanley, David Platt or some other Christian author who gives you practical advice on how to live the truth of the scripture and read, read, read.
• Private Disciplines: Faith grows when we commit ourselves to reading the word, to prayer, and to giving sacrificially.  This may be a good time to try fasting, even just skipping a meal to pray a few times a week, could have an amazing impact on your life and the life of our church.
• Personal Ministry:  The loss of a pastor means that there are big shoes to fill!  Many of us turn to him for advice, for counseling, and rely on his comfort when we are sick.  As a body we will have to fill the void by each of us digging deep and doing what we can to love and support each other. Remember that the normal means of communication may be down for a while, so when you have a need, find someone you trust and ask for help.
• Providential Relationships: The scripture is clear that the body grows as each part does its work, and it tells us that we need each other.  Now more than ever, invite people into your home, change your schedule to make time for fellowship, and let us encourage one another daily.  Use social media to check up on people, to ask how they are doing, and share the things from good books or scripture that are encouraging you.
• Pivotal Circumstances are the 5th thing on Andy Stanley’s list of what makes faith grow.  And this one is a double edged sword.  Pivotal circumstances and cripple our faith or make it stronger.  The key is how we deal with them. Deal with them by focusing on the things that make faith grow rather than on the the things that hurt or the things that divide.

Find just one or two people to meet with each week.  Commit to reading the same scripture, to praying for each other, to confessing sin to each other and to praying for people you love, who have not yet confessed Jesus as Lord. Keep the group extremely small, so that you don’t have to juggle schedules or worry about what someone will think.

The church is not a place we gather on Sundays. Biblically, we don’t find the concept that Christians “go to church”, instead we find as we read the Word that, “we are the church”.  We are not a body because we sing the same songs and hear the same sermons. We are a body only when we share the same mission, and the same strategy for carrying out that mission.  We don’t meet together to get a good encouraging feeling that will help us through the week, we meet together to spur each other on toward love and good deeds.  The good feelings will be different for a while, maybe even absent, but we can still spur each other on to run the race as if to win the prize.