Church

The word church conjures up different meanings and different emotions for all of us. In the Bible it had a very simple meaning- an assembly of people (that believed in Jesus). Today, we have confused and added so much to this word. As Christians we are expected to go to a church every Sunday. So the first question that we must ask ourselves is what church should we go to? If we are supposed to be a part of a local church, what is the local church? Is it the closest church building to us or the one we feel most comfortable in? There are so many 'churches' how do we decide which one or does it not matter?

When we look at the Bible it all seemed so simple at least on the surface (though as we know from Paul's letters they had their issues). There seemed to be one church per city (the church of Philippi, the church of Corinth, etc) and they probably held several different meetings at various homes across the city. They had elders over the city that were naturally appointed (by apostles or other elders) based on their maturity and they oversaw the work and ministry of the church. To be an elder was a life long commitment and I presume that elders were added as the church grew. They invested themselves to know what was going on in each meeting and in each family. They shepherded the flock (I Peter 5). Biblical elders are kind of like our modern day pastoral staff, but I doubt all of them received a salary as some had other jobs to sustain them which allowed them to be active in the community. Today many churches elect elders to 2 or 3 year terms and put them in roles similar to a board of directors-President, VP, secretary, treasurer, etc. In some cases our elders probably fulfill the role more of biblical deacons as they make decisions, many of them financial, on behalf of the church. Now this is not true for every church, but many that I have come across.

Our current church structure also puts much of the burden on one pastor or a pastoral staff depending on the size of the church. To begin with, I don't see our position of pastor as a biblical one. The only positions listed in the Bible are elders and deacons. Currently, the pastoral staff is expected to carry the burden of all the ministries but this isn't how it is meant to be. This results in burned out pastors and the average believer not being utilized for ministry purposes. Instead they are used as a parking lot attendant or usher. I believe every believer is given gifts and a ministry to offer and to be used in the body. The five primary ministries being apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher (Ephesians 4). Instead of utilizing every believer we have adopted a strategy in the church that just pays people to do everything. For example, instead of people volunteering to work with youth and offering their teaching or evangelistic ministry, a church is expected to hire a youth pastor. We have created a 'pastor' position for everything-administrative pastor, worship pastor, teaching pastor, discipleship pastor, etc. to meet the needs of the church. And each of these 'pastors' must have a seminary degree in order to be hired. The church has become like the world in that these positions must be filled by well-educated, experienced church professionals. This is seems to be against the model that Jesus set before us.

Since we are paying our ministers, we expect them to do all the work and we can sit back and just show up. This means that the paid ministers are the ones that we primarily see 'up-front' doing ministry and there isn't the time or space for others to be involved in ministry. Bethany and I have experienced that opportunities to minister and encourage people has to either take place quickly before the service or afterwards when everyone is trying to leave. Recently, Bethany had an opportunity to pray for a woman only because they were both in the infant feeding/crying room during the service. There just isn't the time and space in our current church meetings for people to be encouraged and equipped to minister to others in the body. The biggest thing lacking in the church is discipleship and it is because of how we have structured things. We think that only educated, paid pastors are equipped to disciple so it is only being done by a few. This causes many in the church to slip through the cracks. It also results in the average church goer not being equipped to disciple others. The end result is a bunch of undiscipled believers showing up to church to listen to stretched and burdened pastors.

Beyond the structure of the church, another question I have is why have we focused so much time, attention and money to making one meeting a week happen, the Sunday morning service? Is it worth it? We can probably assume the early city churches did not all meet at one time, in one place together every week. They probably had what we call small groups or house churches that met often and maybe they gathered every once in awhile as larger groups when time and space allowed. Most of us would agree that deeper discipleship, prayer and study happens in small groups as we can participate and ask questions. While God uses sermons and corporate worship can be powerful, I challenge the use of our resources to pour so much into our Sunday mornings. Maybe we should use the resources more for smaller group meetings, for outreach and evangelism and for helping those in need. And maybe think about meeting less often as a large body (monthly or quarterly). So instead of owning a building that eats up a lot of money, a church could rent a large space once every couple months when they want to have a large gathering.

The solution seems to be a simpler way of doing and being the church. Do away with buildings and large staffs by developing a house church network in each city led by elders. Allow people in each house church to develop their gifts of teaching, prophecy, shepherding and evangelism. I don't have a solution for how to get there from where we are as the church now. Churches and leaders would have to lay aside their names, titles and pulpits to make it work. There would obviously still be disagreements but they would be handled and dealt with rather than just leaving for another church. To be clear, I am not against the institutionalized church and do not plan on "leaving" the church but would love to see the church adopt a vision that uses people and resources more effectively. A friend showed me a video by Francis Chan and he articulates a vision for this very well. Look up Francis Chan-Rethinking Church on YouTube to have a listen and let me know what you think.