Passivity and the church

Frequent readers of my blog will remember the oft-quoted Alan Hirsch phrase: 'the method is the message'. This past weekend I was at a Ransomed Heart Boot Camp, and the tendency for Christian men to be passive was, as always, brought up in the opening session. This isn't how God intended men to be. But it is the message they get from the typical church model of a worship service with optional small group appendages.

When the church is seen as a worship service, that worship service invariably sends the message to all who attend, men and women. The typical service consists of filing in, staring at the back of heads, and for all but a small handful, sitting down and shutting up. Except when you get to read words off a screen. And even for that handful, for all but one or two of them, they are stuck following a script. Sounds like a formula for teaching passivity, doesn't it?

(bonus point - the other thing it teaches is that we aren't capable enough to engage God on our own. We've got to follow the script with the presence of the pastor/priest intermediary)

This all gets justified as being the way God intended it. Hardly. There are no letters or secret books of the Bible which have a Paul writing a Timothy saying - "in your sermons ... ". The examples in Acts of a dominant figure in meetings are limited to a visiting apostle, not a regular figure. Historically, there is evidence this continued on as such into the late 2nd century before there was a new trend to having a regular preacher, and even then, it wasn't in a majority of churches until the early 4th century (and, interestingly, the trend began and was solidified in part, some speculate, due to a popular form of entertainment - going to listen to an orator).

In fact, the instructions on meeting all lack any mention of worship or sermons - they talk of encouraging one another, equipping one another (not being equipped by a professional), spurring one another on to love and good deeds. All very non-passive activities in their contexts. Our most detailed instruction of what happens in meetings says everyone has something (I Corinthians 14:26ff). EVERYONE. What better way to encourage an active faith, one unique to as the individual, than to have them contribute UNIQUELY to the meetings!!! With an expectaion in the meetings, the expectations of involvement beyond the meetings spills out into life. No Sunday only faith of sitting down and shutting up with what life gives you.

The method is the message. If the message of the method doesn't mesh with the message of the gospel, maybe we need new interpretations of what we think are biblically mandated methods (and typically aren't). If the method we discern from scripture doesn't match the message, maybe we need to stop justifying our methods by reading them into scripture.