What is Church Anyways? - Part 2
Ξ March 14th, 2006 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Theology |
It is clear we are meant to be meeting together. Not just meeting as humans, but we are to be meeting as believers. I’m even going to go so far as saying that there needs to be time set aside to meet intentionally as believers. Not that non-believers would not be welcome, but that without a doubt, the meeting is designed and taylored to the needs of the believers. By needs I mean that the gathering has to provide sufficient opportunity for the people to respond to God and have God respond back. Rather than the service being about trying to present God to someone who doesn’t know him, have it tweaked for those who know him well.
One problem I see with what churches seem to be doing is that they are trying to be all things to all people. They hope for one service to take care of everyone in one go. A one-stop-shop. God gets worshiped, new poeple get wooed, and the regulars get encouraged to do something new. Sounds ok, but inevitably the services that do this don’t do more than any one (and MAYBE two) of these things particularly well. I just feel that any Christian community needs to regularly devote time to God. Time thats not about us and the new people, but time that’s about God and who He is. There is a time for doing the work of the Kingdom (truthfully I think this work should be done Monday - Saturday and not really not on Sunday except the odd time a new person joins a friend to see how church is), but there is also a time for not working and instead focussing on other things like who God is and why we should worship him. Then we should set time aside to respond to God through prayer and worship. The danger is that while one church might be doing alter calls for newcomers every week, they run the risk of having thier regular members hearing the same message every week. Everything becomes so elementary that no one seems to be leading the regulars any deeper.
Our gatherings should address this issue. When is our seeker sesitivity going to be worked in? Is that process making it so our regulars are not getting the “believers” time they need with their community and God? Can these two purposes be put together? Would they be more effective if they were seperated?
Why else is meeting important? I think it is important that God keep us together so that we know who our support is. Our Christian community is supposed to be the thing that helps us in our faith walk. The Bible encourages us to meet too…
Hebrews 10:25
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
By this verse, it would seem a big part of out meeting is supposed to be about encouraging one another and I’m sure we can infer in regards to church that it is a way to be encouraged by God as well.
I think that we are not only encouraged by being lifted up, but we are also encouraged by God and one another in regards to righteousness and general spiritual wellness. What I mean is that if we were alone, we would have no one to correct us.
I have a friend whose dad is one of those Christians that is convinced that he doesn’t need a church, but rather just his family. He feels that his family can serve as being the church he attends. Everyone is Christian and so everyone will simply behave Christian together. This will fulfill all the needs one typically fulfills through a Christian community. Well this might sound reasonable at first, it is very flawed. This man believes there are more ways to the father than through Jesus Christ. He has nurtured this belief for many years without anyone or anything to challenge him on it. After some time it simple passed from a thought to being a part of his personal doctrine. Instead of thinking about it and keeping his thoughts in check, it just becomes true to him.
One purpose of a Christian community (especially those with pastors and trained and even ordained ministers) is to keep one another in check. When someone comes along and says that there is more than one way to the Father, the rest of community (especially the teachers and leaders) can come back and point out that the Bible says this is false (John 14:16).
So meeting is more than just providing a time and place for the stuff that is typically done in our services. It’s also about just being there. It’s about being around other people of integrity who will help you just get it all figured out. The truth is that we never figure it all out, but being on that journey is what’s important.
Now that we can agree that we are in fact meant to meet together we can move on in the next session to talk about a structure that would work. Again, I plan on spending a lot of time exploring small groups. The fact is, small group ministry is something that works. It grows churches. It serves to satisfy The Great Commission. Anything that does that deserves our attention – especially when Sundays are lacking so much of what our meetings could have in them according to Corinthians.
Revised (edited for grammar) March 21, 2006