After all the jadedness I have accumulated over the years due to churches turning out to be complete man-centered disappointments, I have a friend who was rather surprised by my last blog post announcing Sovereign Joy. He said he didn't think I'd ever get back inside the box. Meaning church as a thing with four walls, which is, of course, not the biblical model for church life. What follows is based on my reply to him.
I hope I have never said anything or lived in such a way to communicate other than that the desire of my heart is for church to be done biblically, the way it was meant to be in the first century. I don't hate "church": I hate what it has become in modern America--all about "felt" needs rather than real needs, about entertainment via music, lights, and motivational speaking rather than "worship in spirit and in truth" and preaching biblically; about staring at the back of someone's head for an hour and a half before walking out the door and not having made any personal connection with anyone; about taking lots of money from people to build their earthly kingdoms with expensive facilities and then browbeating their congregants when they can't make the monthly payments, all the while neglecting the needs of the poor and unemployed, while the pastors drive luxury cars and wear silk slacks and patent-leather shoes and take luxury vacations to the Bellagio in Vegas. That is what I hate.
Bible studies, home fellowships, house churches, whatever you want to call them, are the biblical model. And it doesn't matter where you meet, because church is not about a building. It's about the people of Jesus. As long as the community is small enough where everyone knows everybody and can keep each other accountable. That's why the church is spoken of as one body with many members in passages like Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. There are no dead parts allowed (which is leprosy). All the members have a function (Rom. 12:4). And they all care for each other (1 Cor 12:25-26).
This is the biblical way to do church, whether you meet in a house, a barn, a school lunch room, or a Gothic cathedral.
I have a friend in L.A. who has led a thing we called "group" for many, many years. Not only did we have regular Bible studies, but we were always hanging out, whether to surf or watch movies or eat Johnny's Pizza complete with "shakey cheese" (a.k.a. Parmesan in the little sprinkle jar). I was more than a little annoyed when our shepherd/elder-type started his new church with Sunday morning services in the local community center, whether other churches had gone before. The reason I was annoyed is that I hold the community (which he already had) in high regard. I felt like by moving into this building, it was like he was saying that home/community way of living the body life wasn't good enough, like it wasn't a valid expression of "church". Perhaps that was an unfair judgment. But I did the same thing to my friend Patrick a couple years ago when he moved his home fellowship into the building. Admittedly, it wasn't entirely up to him. But it didn't go very well. At that point I separated from them, because I knew it was wrong. He now tells me he wishes he would have listened to me, because it turned out to be a disaster. But I've told him, if we don't continue to have these home gatherings, I will be very, very sad.
This is our heart: to do things the biblical way, and the rule of thumb being this: if there is anything biblical or beneficial that would naturally disappear when a certain size is reached, then we should split into two smaller communities, and each of those will split when the time comes as well. Personally, I believe this is the biblical model. And I'm going to go ahead and say it: I hate megachurches. There is no biblical justification for their existence.
"If we ever get so big that ___" (fill in the blank).
You could fill that blank in with things like:
- we have to have 2 services on a Sunday, or
- potlucks where everyone turns out can't happen anymore because we can't all fit in the same space, or
- it becomes possible for people to come into a gathering unnoticed and leave without making a connection with anyone.
The list could go on and on.
Comments (1)
I was involved in a church in the working stages of becoming Mega. They tried to keep the small, intimate feel by having small groups; they set them up by *life stage*: young married adults (before kids), married adults with kids, older aduts with grown up kids--that kind of ageist, genderist, anyone-different-ist kind of thing.
My husband and I joined the young married adults, simply because it was the closest thing to us--we didn't have kids and neither did they (when the group started, though that changed quickly and frequently). Looking back, it was a pretty painful experience being reminded frequently (nonverbally) of how we didn't fit in.
Today, we don't go to a formal church. In fact, I feel more spirituality in an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting. Jesus meets me there--and accepts me for who I am and is caring for my will and live, helping me to be the human he desires me to be.
This sounds like a great Jesus wagon train you're jumping on. His parties are the most fun when you let Him take you where you need to be.
Godspeed on the new trail,
Lori
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July 9, 2007 3:45 PM
Posted on July 9, 2007 15:45