What if you just have no time to spend with other people?
My friend Eric at “A Pilgrim’s Progress” is in an interesting situation. He’s written about it before, but he explains more in his post “No Time for Organic Church.”
You see, Eric quit his job as a full-time, vocational pastor for a local church organization several months ago. He prayed for employment for a long time (at least, a long time being unemployed), and God provided a job. However, he has to work long hours at this job – often working many overtime hours each week.
As he explains:
Because of this, our Sunday gatherings are extremely special to me. This is about the only time I get to see my friends. This is not by choice. It is a consequence of schedule. When we get together on Sundays, I find the time to be a wonderful, refreshing time of fellowship. I wish this could happen throughout the week, but right now that is not a possibility…
You may be in some sort of life situation that is keeping you from what you hope for as far as church is concerned. I want to encourage you. God’s grace is immense. He knows our hearts. He will also provide for fellowship in ways we don’t often expect or understand. However, as I’m learning, God’s timing is often far different from ours.
Someone could understand my posts last week about “organic church life” as a condemnation or admonishment of Eric and his situation. They are not intended that way at all.
Eric desires to share his life with others, but, in his wisdom, God has not provided that time. As Eric says, this is a time to trust God and rely on his grace.
My posts are meant as an encouragement to those of us who have time, but choose to spend that time on ourselves instead of sharing our lives with others.
So, if you find yourself in Eric’s situation… trust God and be patient. He knows what you need and when you need it… even if you think you need it now. 🙂
By the way, what do you think other brothers and sisters can do to help Eric during this time?
Guest Blogger: What is Authentic Church Experience?
I’ve invited several people to write “guest blog posts” for this blog. There are several reasons for this: 1) To offer different perspectives. 2) To generate even more discussion and conversation between blogs. 3) To introduce other bloggers to my readers.
(If you are interested in writing a guest blog post, please contact me at aknox[at]sebts[dot]com.)
Today’s post was written by Robert. You can follow Robert at his blog “A Bally Mennonite Blogger” or on Twitter (@tristaanogre).
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My first attempt at defining an Authentic church experience was 1100+ words long. This is not too surprising, actually. I mean, we’re talking about something that is the body of Christ and all that goes along with it. How many thousands of words are in the New Testament of the Bible that attempt to describe who Christ is and what the community of faith looks like? And I’m trying to squeeze it into just a couple of hundred words. Let me see if I can sum up.
First of all, what church is not: it is not a business, an institution, an organization, a formalized religion, or anything like this. Now, there are times when a church needs to do stuff like one of these other things, but church is not that. As I said above, church is the body of Christ and this means that there are three characteristics that are part of the church.
1. Not Native – Jesus was/is God come down here to this little ball of rock, water, and dirt. He was extraterrestrial, alien, weird, bizarre, strange, and deviant. What this world is, Jesus is not. He stands out as different in the way he does things, the kinds of words he uses, and the way, generally he understands life. As the body of Christ, this is also what the church is supposed to be. We are to think, act, talk, and do things radically different than anything that seems “natural” to humans. When it comes to the rest of the world, to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite songs, we’re “Jesus Freaks”.
2. Native – “Now hold on,” you say. “Didn’t you just get done saying how Jesus is NOT native?” Yeah, I did. But that’s the really cool thing about Jesus. He isn’t native to this world and he spent a lot of time showing people this strange, weird, bizarre way of looking at and doing things that is completely out of this world. But in order to show people that it is possible for them to do it, too, he needed to become one of them. He became like people, experiencing everything they experienced, and showed that, in spite of all the stupidity that is our world, it is possible to do things differently and, in fact, it’s actually BETTER to be that way. And he proved it, even to the point of dying and coming back to life. “See?” he says. “You can be weird and look at the amazing stuff that happens when you are.” As the body of Christ, the church is called to be native as well. There will be laughter and tears, births and deaths, joy and pain, and all the messiness that comes from being human beings. Like Christ, we need to be incarnations of that holy other. We need to be show that there is flesh there, too, and that we are this weird blending of this “other” way and human beings. This means that there will be people with purple hair and piercings and people with head-coverings and plain clothes. There will be all manner of different interests, perceptions, and preferences all mixed together in a chaotic mess. And that’s a GOOD thing because it means we are actually native enough that, in the midst of our mess, we act weird… you know, like loving each other in our disagreements when everyone else says we should split… and that weirdness gets the attention of the world around us so they say, “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?”
3. Sent – All this Native/Non-Native stuff means nothing if we keep it to ourselves. Lock it up in a church building on Sunday morning, make it only visible for a couple of hours in an obscure location, and don’t let on that you exist, and no one will ever know. Again, look at Jesus. He could have stuck around the temple in Jerusalem and expected folks to come to him. But people didn’t really pay attention to him because he was some holy guy up on a hill somewhere. They sat up and paid attention because he ate with them, sat with them, cried with them, laughed with them, walked with them, and talked with them. Now, Jesus did go off on his own on occasion to pray and commune with God. He needed time to re-center himself, to reconnect with God so he didn’t lose track. But the real work was done when he was sitting at a well, walking down a street, going through the city gates, etc. The church, as the body of Christ, should take note of this. We do a pretty good job of getting together regularly to focus on God and on who he is and what he has in mind for us. But we’re pretty lousy, generally, about getting out there and doing the real work. There are folks who do stuff, but think about how much energy, money, time, and resource is spent on a few hours of one morning on one day of the week. What if we spent the same amount of resource, proportionally, on the other 6 and a half days of the week? Think about it. As the body, we’re not supposed to be stuck behind walls. What were Jesus last words? “Go, into all the world.”
So, what is the authentic church experience? It is a bunch of weirdos and freaks who break every mold of the world but are still very much human. And this bizarre bunch of people interact daily, moment by moment, with that world, as an intimate demonstration that life can be different, that what we experience is not all there is, and that there is something better in store.
Scripture… As We Live It #193
This is the 193rd passage in “Scripture… As We Live It.”
Let the elders who rule well who work full time for the church be considered worthy of double honor a good salary, especially those who labor in your teaching elder or senior pastor who is responsible for preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer He is a laborer who deserves his wages.” (1 Timothy 5:17-18 re-mix)
(Please read the first post for an explanation of this series.)
Replay: Teaching in the context of living
Three years ago, I wrote a post called “Teaching in the context of living.” The post was inspired by a conversation that I had with a young man who I had recently met. The young man loved to listen to his pastor teach/preach, but also recognized that something very important was missing. Since he did not actually know his pastor, he had no context for what was being said. The “teaching” was in word only.
I thought this post would also go along well with the “teaching workshop” that we’re currently going through on Sunday mornings.
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Teaching in the context of living
Several days ago, I had the opportunity to have lunch with a young, single guy who has been meeting with us on Sundays for a few weeks. In the course of the conversation, he said that he wanted to talk about ecclesiology. Even though I’m not really interested in that subject (ahem), I was cordial to his request.
He began to talk about the church that he had been part of. He was not talking negatively about the church – in fact, he praised the church for what it was trying to do, and he praised the pastors and leadership. He said that he really appreciated the main pastor’s preaching, and he usually agreed with him.
Then he said something that I’ve been thinking and writing about for some time, but it was encouraging hearing it from someone else. This young man said that while he enjoyed the pastor’s sermon, he did not have a context in which to understand what the man was trying to teach.
I asked my new friend what he meant. He said, “My only relationship with this pastor is through a 30 minute sermon on Sunday morning. I don’t know anything about his life, or his family, or the way he treats his neighbors, or anything else. I only know what he tells me during his sermons. There is no relational context for learning what he is trying to teach.”
As I continued to talk to this young man, and to hear his heart for learning through relationships as well as through the spoken message, I couldn’t help but think of the examples that we have in Scripture.
Notice, for example, what Paul tells the elders from Ephesus:
And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia…” (Acts 20:18 ESV)
Also, this is what Paul reminds the believers in Thessalonika:
For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:9-10 ESV)
He tells the Philippians:
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:9 ESV)
The obvious exception to this pattern seems to be that when Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he had not been to Rome, although he seemed to know many of the believers there. However, even in this case, Paul later lived among the Roman believers for at least two years (Acts 28:30).
In other words, Paul did not intend for his words alone (neither his spoken words nor his written words) to make up the extent of his service to the people of God. He recognized the importance of living with the people as part of his work. He shared his life with them, and they shared their lives with him. Paul had much, much more than a “speaking ministry” among the people.
His words then often pointed back to his example of living and working among the people.
Today, too often, teachers spend very little time with the people they are attempting to teach. As my young friend said, there is no context for their teaching. This is not discipleship or teaching in the biblical sense, or in the sense that either Jesus or Paul modeled for us.
Instead, we need to live with the people that we hope to teach. Our teaching must be in the context of our living if we hope to see transformation – both our own transformation and transformation in the lives of others.
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)