ALL ABOUT CHURCH
My intention is to post some articles about Church, and particularly to focus on ways in which Church might change to come back into line with the biblical model. Over time, I will add to these articles.
The various topics will include …..
- What church is for
- Discipleship
- Leadership
- Returning women to leadership
- The place of 5 fold ministries
- Growth
- Tithing – or not
- Exponential growth
- Church as Family
At the outset, I would like to make two points.
1) There are general principles in the New Testament about what Church is like, and there are inferences, but not every specific detail is mandated.
2) I have been around church all my life, I have been a Christian and fully involved in Institutional Church since I was 28, just under 40 years. I have been in church leadership in the UK and also in the Middle East. I have worked with Churches and Leaders in several countries in teams, and on my own. Consequently I have experience of life in church that I may well draw upon in these articles. Over the years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with institutional church, and I readily accept that in my 40 years I have at times been part of the problem. I don’t want anything I say to be taken as a direct criticism of the Church I belonged to for the major part of my life as a Christian. I am far more interested in exploring what the future for church should look like – and in doing so it is inevitable that I will draw some comparisons with current church life in the UK generally.
IS THIS IT, OR IS THERE MORE?
In the early ‘80’s I returned to live in the UK from the Middle East, where I had been in an Anglican Church and had a leadership role there. Apart from the obvious cultural restrictions on sharing faith in a Muslim context, life in church was restricting too. When I arrived back in UK, I joined a small Fellowship which titled itself as a Community Church founded by people who had grown dissatisfied with institutional church and wanted more. It was a small group, probably no more than 25, and very intimate. We all knew each other well. Everything was open, we had no secrets, we loved Jesus and we wanted to change the world. I was excited to be there and enjoying the new freedom and enjoying being among a group, a family, who were likeminded.
As time went on, we grew, we appointed Elders (I was one) , we gained a full time leader and eventually bought our own building right in the middle of town. This is a story common to many of the ‘New Churches’ in the UK. Over time, my perception is that we gradually became institutionalised. We lost our radical edge to some extent and we became quite respectable. We grew more by gathering existing believers than by seeing new people become Christians. We recognised this was an issue and tried many strategies to change, but not with any outstanding success.
There are two points to be made here:
1) We were just like many other churches in this country, and by some measures were quite successful. We just were not having the impact on our town that church in the New Testament might have had.
2) I was one of the leaders, so I carry some of the responsibility for that inability to measure up to the New Testament standard.
Simply adding a relatively small number of people to your church over time is not the answer. To give you an idea of the magnitude of the task facing us look at this graph showing world population growth:
What this graph shows us at a glance is that world population is growing at an incredible rate now. It bumped along increasing at a slight rate until about 1850 when it searched the 1 billion mark. It then started to climb at an accelerating rate and now we are past the 7 billion mark. There are more people alive on the earth now than the sum total of all those who have ever lived previously. The task is to reach an exponentially growing population with the gospel, and addition doesn’t begin to cut it. Whatever we do needs to be able to grow exponentially too. But more of that later. It is enough to say that the Church needs to change somehow in order to meet this enormous challenge.
So what is the answer? Break away and start a new church? Look for a building, repeat the cycle all over again and evaluate the result after another 40 years? Actually I’m not sure that we have another 40 years to play with, or experiment in. Something needs to happen though, and maybe, just maybe the answer might be in the New Testament .
As you read this, you may fit into one of the following categories..
- You are currently disillusioned with institutional church – and I would suggest to you that that is a Godly dissatisfaction. Don’t let that turn into criticism, but look for the way forward that God wants to show you
- You may be in an institutional church and be unaware of any real need for change. Can I ask you to,read this with an open mind and ask Jesus what He is saying to the Church
- You may be in some form of Leadership already. Again, please approach this with an open mind. Resist the temptation to be defensive. Equally, if you feel inspired to make change, do it carefully with wisdom. Turning an existing functioning church round is no mean feat.
Chicken or Egg? Church or Kingdom?
Before we even start this discussion we need to establish one point very clearly. Our job is to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, live in the Kingdom, manifest the power of the Kingdom and pray for the Kingdom to be manifested on earth in the same way that it is in heaven, Jesus will then build the Church. Building the Church is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to extend the Kingdom into all nations (Matthew 24v14), and to see disciples made and baptised. By disciples I mean people who love and obey Jesus’ commands – including the command to make disciples. (Mt 28 v 19). Out of that process, the Church is formed. Out of that process, Jesus builds His Church, His future bride.
Why is this Important?
Because our focus and energy needs to be directed in the right place. Jesus told us to preach and demonstrate the Kingdom, and He said He would build His Church. Too often, our focus has been on building church rather than demonstrating the Kingdom to the people we live among. We focus on buildings, finances, policies, staffing issues, projects, technology, publicity, meetings etc and all this sucks up time and money, leaving little left for being Kingdom people in the community that we live in. This has for many, been the pattern of what we do for years, and we have accepted almost without question that this is the way to reach the world. Whilst some churches have been phenomenally successful in reaching the lost and transforming society where they are, most have not. Hence the need to consider a different way of doing things.
By demonstrating the kingdom I mean more than just being nice people who live by different values. I mean being people who, like Paul, come with not simply persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power. (Note: Paul came with persuasive words as well, and his words were persuasive precisely because they were accompanied by a demonstration of the Spirit’s power).
Healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the leper and driving out demons was the way that Jesus defined demonstrating the Kingdom (Mt 10 v 8). As we do this, the kingdom grows, lives are transformed and out of those lives Jesus builds His Church.
Jesus talked about His Kingdom, about what it was like, and about how it would grow and spread on earth. His Kingdom is the place where He has absolute authority. He didn’t just talk about the kingdom, He demonstrated it everywhere He went in everything He did. The Kingdom of God is powerful, it grows unstoppably (if that’s a word!). The Kingdom of God is more powerful than Satan’s kingdom (by far), it transforms lives and villages – read the story of the woman at the well. It changes Nations and Empires – see what it did to the Roman Empire. The Kingdom of God challenges men and women to repent – to change the way they think and live and to submit themselves to its King. We are told to preach the gospel (good news) of this amazing Kingdom. We are also called to demonstrate its power.
Church is out there 