Organic life within traditional church structures?
I was greatly encouraged when I read a post by Trey (from “Practical Christianity – Living God’s Way“) called “Non-Comformity within Traditional Church.”
In the post, he writes about a group of believers who meet as part of a traditional church. But, according to Trey, the group demonstrates a living and active community in Christ.
He writes:
Within the context of a largely traditional Southern Baptist church, I witnessed an outside-the-box, passionate ministry of believers that simply did not follow the “script”. No Sunday School quarterlies were passed around. The teacher did not read from the teacher’s guide verbatim. The participants of this class were not grouped according to age. No lesson was taught in the traditional sense. What did happen looked surprisingly like the New Testament. A group of believers ages 20-60, united and changed by the power of Christ in the Gospel, were engaging with one another with the goal of growth and edification. Challenges were made to one another about walking daily with Christ. Prayers were prayed spontaneously. New believers were asking lots of questions. Every member ministers were commissioned for service in other areas within the church. These folks loved this traditional church yet were free to express themselves within the context of their small group community.
Like I said, I’m greatly encouraged to read about this kind of life in Christ within a traditional church. (This is one of the things that I wrote about in my post “Why I’m not a house church proponent.”)
My hope and prayer is that others would see this group living in community in Christ and seek the same kind of fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I also hope that the leaders of the traditional church organization would be willing to make any necessary modifications so that this kind of growth would no longer be seen as “outside-the-box,” but would become normal. Finally, I hope that all brothers and sisters in Christ would welcome and encourage this kind of growth and community, regardless of our thoughts concerning traditional, institutional, organic, simple, or any other adjectival church…
(By the way, don’t miss another great post by Trey called “Contentment is key.”)
“I also hope that the leaders of the traditional church organization would be willing to make any necessary modifications so that this kind of growth would no longer be seen as “outside-the-box,” but would become normal.”
That is very noble and I see your heart in this. Sadly, in most situations the shift to what you’re talking about comes as a conflict of interest to most leaders in traditional churches. Although I hope it would be different as you do, the shift to this kind of “churching” will come from those on the outside that have no kingdoms of their own to build. Your thoughts?