Out of the Matrix, Part I

More than two years ago, I wrote this blog post called The Red Pill:

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth."

"what truth?"

"That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."
So states Morpheus in a famous scene from The Matrix. After opening a small silver box and pulling two pills from it, Morpheus continues.

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

and Neo takes the red pill.

But before the pills decision, Neo faced another choice. Kidnapped, Neo is offered the chance to leave, but Trinity asks him to trust. Neo asks why he should. Looking down a street being pounded by rain, Trinity says "Because you have been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be".

slowly Neo gets back in the car.

Looking down the road of conventional church in America, you are looking down a soggy street. How compelling is it, really? More vision statements, shows called worship, building and capital fund raisers. Is this really what Jesus died for?

You read the New Testament, the account of Acts especially, and wonder why the conventional church pales so in comparison. You hear stories of the church in China, India, and underground in Muslim nations, and wonder at the power. Why not here, where you are?

to adapt what Morpheus says at one point in the movie "Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. There is something wrong with the church. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind"

Lately, I’ve thought on how I can relate to those who accuse me of being “wounded” when I discuss with them the many ideas I’ve expressed in this blog. They are quick to dismiss those who take these stances. I thought the way to do it is to tell my story, to tell how the splinter rose in my mind, while at the same time, refuting this “wounded” talk.

In the beginning

Ok, a bit pretentious, but to start …

My family was the “Sunday” only church types only. Typically went, but only for “service” on Sunday AM. My dad had been raised among the Southern Baptists, my mom with “church of Christ”. Around 1977, shortly after moving to a small town in Florida, that switched. We were befriended by a church of Christ minister, who doubled as a Red Cross water instructor, as well as volunteering as a Boy Scout Scoutmaster. In short order, we were the “every time the doors were open” types.

For those not familiar with coC, it is one of the most heavily “bible study” bible only types of churches you will find. I remember in college at Florida State going to a leadership luncheon for denominational college outreach ministries, and our table of coCers had all but one raise their hand when asked “who’s read the entire Bible?”. The only other hands up in the place belonged to the “professionals” and one other. And the bible may be a two edged sword, but in the hands of the coC, it can be a club as well. And I wielded that club myself at times.

The coC would pound you with biblical reasons for everything it does. But thanks to a coC preacher who was a bit more open minded taught me to challenge the “party line” to verify it. The more I read (I’ve read the bible cover to cover probably more than 25 times in a dozen translations, and the NT more than 40 times), the “splinters” arose. This is the roots of much of my challenging you’ve read in this blog. I am in part a creation of the form of corporate church referred to as the “church of Christ”. At first this lead to a more ecumenical approach to spiritual life. Other than some questions about the whole “Sunday service” thing, it was all challenging of the coC. But I did stay with the CoC, just less judgmental and with more grace.


“Model” citizen of the corporate church

In a lot of ways, I was the model corporate disciple. Once a settled married man with a permanent job, I threw myself in being a good “Christian”, in that corporate sense. Substitute Sunday school teach for adults (did it for high schoolers for the summer while in college), benevolence committee, small group leader, on my way to being a deacon. That church suffered one of those “grow our church” v. “grow the kingdom” “splits”, and we left to be a part of a church start. I was soon on the leadership board of that church (this time a non-affiliated church).

Northeast was a great church (may still be, but since I can't testify first hand of the current state …). The attitude was in growing disciples, including freeing them to serve as God made them. My role there was very much as a coach. I had oversight in benevolence, and if someone wanted to do something in those areas, I had the role of equipping and encouraging. We saw tremendous growth in disciples by freeing them to be who God called them to be, rather than being cogs in the machinery of another’s vision.

North Carolina

A job change led to a move, and in North Carolina, ended up with a non-denom church type of place, about a year and half old place meeting in a movie theatre. Attitude on serving was everyone was to serve in the way God gave them vision for first, but also in a way that helped corporately (no one is envisioned with the mission of “sweeping” – but it has got to be done). I was given the room to gather some men and cast a vision for men’s ministry. Great attitude by the pastors in the whole thing. It was really the first sort of large ministry not started by the pastors, so it was a learning curve for the church as we lived out the value of letting people serve as God led, not as pastors envision.

Maryland

Little did I know that this was a pair of rare experiences. Unemployment led to a move to where jobs were (Maryland). Tried a large non-denom with three services first. Seemed promising, but there were a lot of growing pains being experienced by that church, and other issues, so after six months we tried again elsewhere. Stayed at the second church for three years. It seemed open at first to those with their own visions, but that turned out to be in words. We saw that church grow more and more bureaucratic, more and more ministry controlled by the staff instead of freeing the people to live out how God plants vision in the lives of his people.

For reasons other than churches, we decided not to stay in MD long term. Just wasn’t “us” to be there. But while we left for Colorado, we would have left that church anyway. Partly I had bucked hard against the shackles for long enough, partly all our closest friends there were “deserting ship” as a new pastor came in and cast a new “vision” for the church. Kind of sad, as the church had an incredible mix of slightly conservative (politically and in “faith” values/beliefs) to quite liberal; this allowed for quite invigorating discussions in a “safe” manner. But in the “new vision” process, there was quite the shift toward liberal, and the openness kind of died. It became more of a toe the line sort of place. Despite the lack of freedom to serve, it was a time of growth.


The start in Colorado

So we ended up in Colorado. And we were checking out churches again. Must have visited a dozen or more. Talked to others about theirs. It seemed each one I visited the entire conversation with anyone was about a marketing survey. You know, ‘is this your first time?’ and then when you answered yes, it was ‘how did you hear about us?’ (that is, what of our advertising/marketing worked). That’s if anyone talked to you.

Then there was the church that had you doing the typical staring at the back of heads, with the irony of the sermon being on how we are a family. Understand, this was a church of about 25 people, in a room with folding chairs. We could have turned this into a circle easily, but got to have those rows of chairs. Finally gave up looking at corporate churches, aka institutional churches.

Part of the reason for giving up was a growing of one of those initial splinters of the mind. I alluded to before in mentioning the whole "Sunday service" thing. In "verifying" what the coC was trying to teach, I looked hard at what New Testament church worship services looked like. And couldn't validate it from scripture. You have to look Old Testament to find anything resembling it. The first century seemed to gather to "encourage and spur one another to love and good deeds". The gatherings, other than when a (visiting) apostle was in town, seemed more like a family gathering. Yet modern churches center around a scripted praise service. As Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost observed, it seems centered around making Jesus admirers, not Jesus followers. And another aspect is this feeding of a corporate (aka pastor) vision rather than the equipping of the saints for the work they find.

In part two (assuming only two parts), I’ll talk of the “detox” from the church culture, the false alternative of many “organic” churches (not all – there is much good there), discussions with those of like mind and experiences, detail some of the most disturbing "splinters", etc.

Originally posted at http://restoringheart.blogspot.com/2010/07/out-of-matrix-part-i.html

Sowing seed and church emergence

Was Paul a church planter?

I don't think so.

Heresy? No. If we look at the pattern in scripture, Paul preached Christ. He went to a new city, and he and any partner taught and discussed Jesus. There is no scriptural proof to any claim that he started churches. He taught about Jesus, then left town after leaving that foundation. ONLY on return trips did he do anything with structure - and an open honest reading of the scripture would seem to say he recognized the structure that emerged, not set it up.

So he taught Jesus, left the disciples to their own, then returned to see how they were doing and recognize the structure that grow up.

And speaking of that ...

The Structure

What was the structure of the early church?

Does it matter?

If Jesus builds his church, is it our concern? If the early pattern was to simply be disciples in community, what emerges would be what He wants, wouldn't it?

This thought, and the growing ramifications of it, have been on my mind more and more. The conflict with it was all the thoughts of what we see in Paul's letters of structure, and a background in the descendants of the Restoration Movement (a frontier faith movement from the time when the frontier of the U.S. was Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, etc.)

But reading yet another church's website on trying to be "culturally relevant" made me pause: what if what Paul (and to some extent, Peter) was what would be expected of the church where and when they saw the seed of Jesus was planted. Some quick research and recollection of studies of the synagogues of Jesus time confirmed my suspicions.

The synagogues were overseen by councils of elders, much like the elders oversaw the communities Paul and Peter ministered to. Since the early churches emerged initially alongside Jewish synagogues, it would make sense that the church reflected (in a neutral way) the culture the seed of Jesus was planted in.

Where the church has in the past broken free from the restrictions of "doing it like them over there" or "them back then", we see similar patterns emerge. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, resembles the Roman Empire a lot, right or wrong (the way it sets up a hierarchy between Jesus and "the royal priesthood of believers" is an issue, for example). Instead of an emperor, one has a pope; instead of regional governors, cardinals; instead of local heads, bishops; etc. This pattern of reflecting predominant cultural elements continues to the modern day "non-denominational" churches reflecting modern business - the CEO is the senior pastor, any associate pastors are the vice presidents, there is a board of directors (sometimes called the board of elders for churches), etc.

So this concept is not new to even institutional churches, though I would argue (and have) that their implementation has strayed from some fundamental principles of following Christ with the dichotomy of "professional class" Christians and the laity.

So if we were to accept that what we see in the epistles is a reflection of what the church emerges as from the seed of Jesus in the first century, what does it look like today?

I think there are literally hundreds if not thousands of answers to that, one for each culture in the world. The key is freeing ourselves of being like what we've seen in the past in order to be free for what Jesus wants to build among our community.

I think it begins by not "rushing" to form "something" because we feel "disobedient" for not having "church". Church, in the truest sense, is community. It is community that encourages and equips one another. We all have contributions to that. It doesn't have to be formal gatherings, though it may include that. It doesn't need to rush to find leaders (as Jesus is the head anyway). Just as Paul didn't anoint leaders on his first trip anywhere he went. It doesn't require a formal staff, a building or the trappings that require balancing budgets or capital campaigns.

We've lost something in our rush to "plant" churches. We've discovered churchianity when we rush to form a church, rather than finding Jesus Christ.

Community

Think free of church as you've known it. What has your circle of friends, your communities, looked like? Maybe that's what the seed of Jesus planted in your arena looks like as church.

Ready, Set, Go

(link) This entry at Free Believers Network awhile back got me thinking a bit about why I haven't blogged much lately. I think it is in part due to how in part I've moved on, but I also kind of focused this blog in another direction than I moved.

Like the author of that piece who got branded on relationships and wasn't allowed to speak elsewhere, I've let myself self-brand this blog in a direction, but my thoughts have been in another. Yet that's no reason to limit it. I let the idea of "restoring heart" be limited to trying to break the bonds that the institutionalism that crept into expression of church brought with it. That's limiting. It doesn't cast a view of alternatives, of hope, of what freedom means.

I also note that I slowed down in blogging drastically around the end of October. Interestingly, that coincides with a few events in November. One was returning to a Gary Barkalow event on finding one's calling. I did this as a refresher; I originally did one in December of 2006. Great freedom in these (for more on Gary's ministry, visit http://www.thenobleheart.com). At this event, I met some who've found freedom from the bonds so often imposed by institutional forms of church, some despite still being involved in institutional forms, as well as others who've walked away from it. There was one younger man who was a former associate pastor who had found his freedom from institutionalism. Others intrigued by the concept of freedom we experienced, but didn't quite get what the alternative looks like. They felt interested, but couldn't see what they were walking toward.

Then in early December, I had some couples over to my house. Couple of couples actually. One pair were intrigued by the concepts of freedom we discussed. Another was simply trapped. This other couple was actually accusative, claiming that without offering people a "church", one doesn't love people. They just couldn't see this is about offering God without the intermediary.

All this is to say, it set me to thinking about how do you get men and women to see church as something God builds, not something we "plant", not something we strategize about on God's behalf. I find it refreshing that the younger generation, and those who work closely with 20 somethings, see this so easily, but the older generations don't. The younger who remain faithful can take or leave the institutional trappings so easily. Yet there are fewer and fewer of that generation who remain faithful, or who ever become faithful, burned by institutionalistic trappings. How can we ever simply present Jesus, without imposing what church looks like?

It is interesting that really, if we look at the first century church in a more chronological fashion, they presented Jesus, crucified, buried and resurrected, first. They presented to non-religious folks a Jesus who accepted before he called for repentence. Jesus came first. We see the churches that arose, and speak of Paul and his like as church planters. But they were no such thing. They preached Jesus. They fostered community among those who accepted the offer and promises of Jesus. And Paul - on return trips - recognized what was already present. No appointment of "pastors" upfront. If one examines the "qualifications" of elders and deacons in context, Paul was speaking of recognizing the leaders and servants already there. They didn't step into the role; Paul recognized the role they were already performing. Community/church arose organically - the apostles merely identified and recognized what God had done.

This is the challenge we need. To step back, simply love and disciple, and let community arise. We need no grand plan. Jesus presented none. Peter, Paul, and the rest didn't either. They merely loved, accepted, and preached Jesus. They recognized and identified the work God did from there.

So, I think I want to speak more of a vision of God. An old one. The true one. Not a God that one gets to through a professional class, or through an institution, but rather a God one relates to directly, and a church that forms when walking in the footsteps of Jesus. That's not to say I won't ever speak against the trappings of institutionalism. Sometimes, some need to be riled up. As Michael Douglas recently said, a man needs to be able "to see the absurdity of [a] situation, which ultimately allows you to solve it" (Men's Journal, May 2010 issue). In order for me to fully comprehend it myself, I've given some thought of writing these words in a book form, to organize it. If I do this, much if not all will find its way into the pages of this blog.

This blog "reposts" to my facebook page. If you read this there, I invite you to come comment at the original posting at http://restoringheart.blogspot.com/. Links, pictures, formatting etc often get lost when they get reposted on facebook.

What is the church to be?

For regular blog readers, I feel like I almost should be apologetic with the stuck themes here. It's just something that is stuck like a bad song in my mind.

It's hard to argue with what people say the church should be, but I do anyway. It is amazing how little is said in scripture about the purpose of the church, but so many do impose a belief on it. Some common ones:

A vehicle for spreading the gospel. Absolutely no scriptural basis for this. The early church commonly hid its gatherings, and carefully screened those who came before they came, due to the persecution common the first few centuries of the existence of the movement of Christ. The whole "seeker friendly" modern concepts would be foreign to the first century Christian. One did not bring them to church to convert them; one introduced the new disciple to the church.

When Paul and Barnabas were sent by the Antioch church - they weren't funded by them, the church in Antioch did not set up the tour, etc. They laid hands and sent them out. They had before hand perhaps did some training, then just sent them. No program, no infrastructure. They equipped them, encouraged them, and sent them on their way. Paul wrote of accepting no money - he was a tentmaker where he went.

The result of such thought makes Amway representatives. Not well rounded disciples. Such an approach results in a church which is considered a failure if it is not growing numerically, or seeing numeric growth in some way if the focus is in making "disciples" over there, where ever over there is.

The church is a place of healing - a hospital for sinners. Very common thought. Also no basis in scripture. It is another case of how examples or commands in scripture to disciples get cast off to the "church", which then makes a "program" to handle the issue/concern/command.

The result of such thought makes a place that doesn't expect or at least not welcome the "healthy". If healing happens, suddenly there is no point for a person to be there. It is as if we do not expect healing to occur if this is how we define church.

The church is a place of worship. Scripture never mentions that the church ever gathered for worship. I'm not counting those "headers" injected into most translations around I Corinthians 14. No, the church is said to have gathered for "encouraging and exhorting one another" or "to spur one another on to love and good deeds". Worship produces Jesus admirers, not Jesus disciples.

The church is a gathering for us to learn about God.
A variation on the church as an evangelical tool. Interesting history on this one - it is a perception of the church that emerged about the time the Bible became readily available for the masses due to the printing press. Knowledge replaced discipleship. Knowing replaced doing.


The church is a humanitarian organization. (or a place to impact the world, or that sort of thing). Closer I think, but still not too well grounded in scripture. The result is a place of goody-goody people at best. A reaction in the wrong direction from the knowledge emphasis crowd so dominate in Christian society.

What is it that the church should be, then? Scripturally, we see the church gathering as a community, not a sit down and shut up and follow the clergy. We see Paul instructing on the gatherings being centered on being a community and equipping one another. It's not about a vision for the church - the church had its vision and lost it. It's vision is to be a community of believers seeking to be Christs - the original meaning of "Christian" was "little Christ". Christ listened to the Father for his mission, not a pastor, not a church board. The early church, from what we could tell, commissioned the called to the work they were called to, not recruited its members to those programs the leaders were called to "lead". The leaders were servants, they were ones called to equip.

A church following its commission is one that equips its members for what they are called to. Not letting a clergy class define what the church is called to and recruiting to those programs.

Someone explain to me this ...

I have a hard time understanding denominationalism as it is traditionally practiced.

Maybe it is because I grew up with and as an adult always attended independent churches - ones where the line of earth bound authority ended locally, within the congregation ... though I did attend a church plant once were there was a oversight board consisting of several about the country. But once a local board of elders was established, that oversight board was abolished.

If "our method is the message", then traditional denomination practice is sending a message contradictory to the Bible. Clearly, with the temple curtain torn with the cross, the barrier of a priesthood between God and the common man is gone. Hebrews explains as much. Peter expresses it as "the priesthood of all believers". We approach Jesus directly, and his Holy Spirit is our guide and counselor. The New Testament is clear - there is no mediator between God and the common man anymore other than Jesus. The priesthood as being separate from all believers is dead.

But the method of denominationalism seems to contradict. Decisions locally are limited, and direction is typically from another city, another state, or even another continent. There are layers of hierarchies and intermediates. The message is that the common man is not to be trusted to hear God - and for that matter, neither is the local pastor in "important matters".

The message of this method seems to so contradict the work of Christ. What am I missing in this equation?

An Open Letter to the Institutional Church

Dear I.C.,

We had a great run, didn't we? For most of some 30 years, I was there with you most Sundays (yea, there was that time I was in Sweden for a few months I didn't show up). And you were good to me for most that time.

Through you, I met some great people. Ronnie who taught me about relationships. Bill, who lived service. Marie, dedicated to prayer. Dan, Chris, Dave, Mark, Steve, so many. And Bruce, who taught me to challenge my beliefs. Especially ones that are commonly accepted. Hmmm.

And through you, accomplished some good. What a run you and I had. Officer in Christian clubs, starting a college ministry, starting a benevolence ministry, even starting a men's ministry. Leader's team for a church plant. Planning about four retreats.

I know that inside your doors, many have come to know Christ, or at least met some people who knew him, or maybe some people who knew people who knew him. I came to love the word of God with you.

But along the way, I saw too often others who made you the focus, and too often I have made you the focus. We measured accomplishment in terms of the way institutions do, through "objective" numbers. And when I moved to Maryland, I saw how so many thought in terms of your maintenance and preservation, not in following Jesus. Four years later, I see this even more, with every "church" visited greeting me with the marketing survey (is this your first time? how did you found out about us?).

And discipleship within your walls -- it came as increasing and measuring knowledge. Knowing about God replaces knowing God. Thanks to God himself, that has been redirected in my own life by some so called "parachurch" organizations and the individuals I met due to them, but that learning to know God and to walk with him for so long made it even more distasteful to be in your walls.

At first, this just created anger within me. How could you masquerade as the bride of Christ? I thought of what a more appropriate form of church could be, discussed that with others. Anger probably wasn't the wrong emotion, but it led to the wrong conclusions. The answer isn't in your reform, but in how I viewed church.

Jesus said he would build his church. Luke records in Acts that God added daily to the church. The church is the body. Anyone who professes Jesus and becomes his disciple is in the church. One does not go to church anymore than one goes to themselves. The manifestation of the church in my presence is the other disciples around me that I interact with. No more, no less. No membership in a club or institution that calls itself "church" changes that, and no lack of membership means I'm not a part of the church.

Now, I know I used to blame you for limiting me. I was not a "professional" minister or the like, so you wouldn't let me do certain things. Yes that hurt. And seeking your "endorsement" and support of activities that God was leading me too and getting rejected hurt as well. But realizing that I share in the blame. You are caught in systems to maintain who you are, and I accepted that, and submitted to that. I thought I needed to get your support to build my numbers -- and yet concern of numbers is just another manifestation of your system, isn't it?

If Jesus is the head of the church, and if my mediator and high priest is Jesus, and if I am a part of a royal priesthood, then my acceptance and support should come from Him. Not you. So I forgive you, I.C., for expecting something from you that should come from God.

Well, where do we go from here, I.C.? Well, true church is community, of disciples who mutually support and edify one another. So from time to time, I may grace your doors in order to interact with other disciples as a part of that. Or I may not, finding my community elsewhere.

Anyway, I'll see you around.

Mark

Stumble-It
Technocriti

Reimagining Church

About six months ago, I reviewed Pagan Christianity in this blog (see Red Pill Redux). Pagan Christianity reviewed the origins of church practices, revealing many very common ones as arising from society and adapted from the culture.

Frank Viola has written a constructive sequel and excellent companion to that book, Reimagining Church. This time, Viola (sans George Barna) has written a volume that examines a bit more what church should be rather than what it has become by outside influences. There is a bit of counterargument in the book, anticipating the objections, but for the most part Viola has written a positive, constructive approach to complement Pagan Christianity's more deconstructive subtext.

Viola paints a picture of church as community, where it is truly every member ministry and there is nothing resembling the modern church hierarchy's that put layers in God's people between God and man. He reexamines what the functions are in the church, taking us back beyond our preconceived Western mindset that reads our culture into the words. He makes his case well, without anger.

I would encourage the readers of this blog to get a copy and post your comments and thoughts as you read it. Like Pagan Christianity, you are unlikely to find this in stores, but it is available online through Amazon, CBD (cbd.com), and Frank Viola's ministry (best price when I ordered it)

A new view of "church"

Those who know me know that I believe there is something fundamentally off about church as it is practiced in America. There are really too many points to make about what is wrong to summarize here, but you can find many a thing looking through the history of this blog.

I've come to realize through a transition in thinking that the alternatives I was advocating were wrong, at least in the details. This was really climaxed in thought in May. If there was one spark in this shift, it was sitting around the fireplace at Ransomed Heart's "Advanced Boot Camp" with a group that included a couple of my regular readers of this blog, and Craig McConnell. Craig and I have had off and on conversations around this topic and some others, but it had been one on one. I don't know if Craig's thinking had shifted, or he brought out a nuance of it in a group, or I had never noticed his use of some words, or just what, but something he said struck me. It was the way he used the word "church", talking of it breaking out at times when disciples are gathered. Now, the way he used it and means it may differ from the reaction and resulting developing conclusions I've come to, so please don't treat my words and thoughts as his. His contextual use of the word "church" and the way I took it (he could have meant something entirely different) is the topic here.

So just what does it mean, "church". There's an analogy I read in the preface or intro to Frank Viola's new book Reimaging Church that describes beautifully the kind of shift in thinking. Early scientists trying to study our solar system were baffled in trying to compute orbits and the like. Until Galileo. The problem was that early astronomers were trying to make their computations geocentric, that is, centered around the earth. Galileo proposed that they should be heliocentric, that is, centered around the sun. Galileo was treated as a heretic for his thinking, due to a false belief that the Bible taught that the earth was central.

In many ways, I think I've been trapped by some remaining "geocentric" thinking. So I've proposed or sided with new ways of structuring church, new hierarchies, etc. I've advocated some great concepts, like organic church, but treating it as a different way of structuring things. That misses the point, I now think.

Now, after that discussion around a fireplace, I picked up a copy of Jake Colsen's So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore I had owned but not read yet, followed by reading The Shack by William P. Young. Both are novels, but they expose a different way of thinking. Looking at church as much more relational, much more embedded in life, rather than a separate entity shoved to a building on a street corner that one visits occasionally, or even a separate structured time in a home.

What is this new view of church? It is really hard to put into a few words. The words one would like to use are often loaded with alternate meaning that will throw off the reader. Other words are entirely biblical, but in practice their meanings have been twisted. But let me attempt it anyway, and I invited conversation to help express this better.

In some ways, the church as the body of Christ is an extension of the Trinity. When we look at the scriptural descriptions of the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we don't see a hierarchy, but rather a community which complements each other. As we read through something like I Cor 11-14, we see a community about the mutual edification of one another. Paul in his Corinthian letters doesn't address a hierarchy, but charges each member to be about what he describes to do.

And while we see regular meetings, I don't think the regular meetings are central. Jesus is. It is about relationships, to one another and to God. If meetings are central, relationships aren't. The meetings feed the relationships. They help maintain them. Interesting, there isn't a single description or instruction about the gatherings being worship, but there are plenty about edification, encouragement, spurring on one another to love and good deeds ...

When it comes to hierarchy, it is every member ministry. Some do have roles, but Paul described them as for the equipping of the saints, not lording over them. Jesus even described that we shouldn't be like those who lord it over one another (Matthew 20:25, see also I Peter 5:3).

What it really comes down to is this: if we are following Jesus, our communities will arise as they should in our contexts. That, I believe, is what happened in the first century. Looking at what happened then should be limited to seeing how they contextualized to their society being the body of Christ.

The problem is, many of us have such an embedded thoughts influenced by the way things have become rather than what was intended. I still struggle with this, and at times, struggle with being "anti" the way things have become.

Community

This past weekend, I went camping with six other guys and six boys. Thirteen of us all together, all the adult men disciples. We shot guns and rifles on a makeshift rifle range, had campfires, a couple of us went white water rafting et al.

In many ways, it was more of a church than what happens on a Sunday.

If church is a community that is centered on Christ, then what was experienced was more of a church than what is typically labeled as such. We challenged each other, we had some deep theological discussion (including a rousing one on if it is 1% law and 99% grace, it's 100% legalism), we encouraged each other, we spurred one another on to doing good afterward, we sympathized and comforted one in our crowd who's facing having to get a legal separation early this week, etc. And I believe God was more glorified in it than if we had stared at the back of each others' heads singing with one of us giving a talk somewhere along the way.

That, my friends, is what I'm learning a church to really be, as intended. We glorified God in our interaction, we had fellowship, we had times of discipling one another, we ministered one another, and we were sounding boards for one another in how we will be about the God given missions of our lives. Moreso, I believe, than the churches of four walls and a pulpit.

Is business discovering the right model?

Ever notice that the church has been following predominant secular models since about the fourth century? Oh, we find a way to justify it through a selective reading of scripture, but still, would you believe it coincidence?

We see it in recent years as churches go for "visions statements" "missions", values, etc. This was, still is to an extent, a model borrowed from business. Rick Warren perfected it and tailored it for a church with his "Purpose Driven Model".

We see it in churches where the Sr Pastor and "elders" or what ever a particular church calls it operating awfully similar to a CEO and a board of directors. Hmm.

Looking at older churches, we can see denominations founded in earlier centuries follow predominant models of their time. The Roman Catholic church has its Pope, Cardinals, etc, which if you study the Roman government of the time, you see parallels in the way the Romans ran the politics of the time and the way the Roman Catholic church operates now, with a pope instead of a Caesar, etc.

But I wonder if a new business trend is possibly a very biblical model, and this is a great time for the church to copy again.

In the natural world, there is a beautiful sense of design and order, but no apparent "authority". Social architectures have noted this, and are proposing new social orders that some businesses are starting to adopt. As Dee Hock, founder of VISA notes, "Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs".

This is a business management theory, but it comes from a careful study of the order of God's universe. God's universe is both out of control and ordered. There is order in chaos and structure without control. Is this the next model for the church to follow? Was it the one it should have been following all along?

Is this a part of the model of redemptive communities?

To me, from what I read of the underground churches of China, India, and those in Muslim countries, this sounds like what is occurring there.