Don’t start meeting as an organic church
Jason at “Messy Spirituality” (great blog name, don’t you think?) has a written a very good article called “Five Great Reasons to Plant Organic Churches (and five really bad ones).”
His five reasons to “plant” organic churches is good… although I’d probably say it like this: Five great reasons to start meeting with other believers in a more organic fashion.
But, the beauty of Jason’s post lies in his five “really bad” reasons:
1. You left your last church bitter…
2. You think you can “do church” better than anyone else…
3. You think all the other churches in town have the wrong priorities, bad doctrine, and/or (insert your favorite pet peeve here)…
4. Your last church wouldn’t let you be “in chargeâ” of anything…
5. You’re more of a “lone ranger” type church leader and want to do things your own way…
Jason’s right. These are “really bad” reasons, but I’ve heard them before. How about you?
So it’s okay if those things are true about us… as long as they’re not our REASONS. Riiiiight? 😉
seems that each of the bad reasons sets you up to begin meeting like the institutional church that you just left, you as head versus Christ as Head of His church, perpetuating institutionalism.
Bill, no. 🙂
John, I completely agree. Great point!
Yeah…hearing students on seminary campus say stuff like that makes me want to throw up.
Bill,
If some of those things are true about us (generically speaking), then I think we should deal with those problems. 🙂
John,
I agree.
Adam,
ditto
Geoff,
Try not to throw up on them.
-Alan
Alan,
I can’t thank you enough for your kind words and encouragement. Thanks also for posting a link to the blog. I completely agree with your rephrasing of the title. The last thing that we need to do is promote “organic church” (or any of the aliases) as just a new, hip way to “do church”.
Thanks again.
Jason
One thing that has stuck with me was Frank Viola stating (I think in his book Rethinking the Wineskin) that our foundation as an assembly must be Jesus Christ, not hobbies, past church splits, pet doctrines, etc. If it is any of these other things, the assembly will eventually fail. Many organic/home/etc. church meetings do.
I later understood 1 Cor. 3:9-11 much better in this light as Paul pile-drives the name of Christ so many times in that letter (esp. ch.1).
Those are good “bad” reasons
There is really only one good reason: to follow, obey, and glorify Jesus Christ.
Those are pretty bad reasons. I totally agree.
Unfortunately ‘organic’ churches always have some (or a lot) of people of whom ‘these things are true’ or have some or all of these as reasons. Fortunately the Lord builds His Church with whom He wants
Samuel and Qikdude,
Thanks for the continuing this discussion. I think this list (and others similar) is great for getting people to examine their own motives and reasons.
-Alan
I would have to agree. We meet as an organic church because we can’t imagine going back to the status quo. Let me toss out something related . We find that many who gather around us have been wounded in other churches. We dress their wounds as well as we can, and encourage them to release those who have wounded them. Meanwhile we bless them and encourage them till they can stand on their own again. I’m wondering how this might apply in the context of the above? Thoughts?
Kevin,
I think you’re right: there are many reasons that cause people to start meeting together. Hopefully, as soon as possible, and regardless of the reasons we started, we can begin helping each other to begin gathering in order to share our life in Christ together and to encourage one another toward maturity in Jesus Christ.
-Alan