Archive for the church category.
Most towns have welcoming signs at the “city gates” posted by civic groups such as Ruritan, Lions, Optimists, or Kawanis. Most of these groups are into service of some sort and that of a voluntary nature.
Many think that without a paid pastor, a local church will fall apart yet these civic clubs do not have paid leaders and they keep on going from one generation to the next. Some even have local chapters in the schools.
The Boy Scouts of America is another example of how community organizations without professional leaders can have local impact. The troop which my sons are a part of often has half a dozen parent-leaders show up.
Oh, and did I mention that, as a rule, these groups do not see a building as essential to their existence or services?
Wondering as I wander…
Ruth Bell Graham, wife of the renowned evangelist, passed on a few days ago. Her coffin, it was reported, was made of plywood by several inmates at a major prison facility in the South.
Billy Graham prayed then kissed a red rose and placed it atop the coffin.
Perhaps making your own simple “box” may appeal to some of you. It does to me. The savings, methinks, would be considerable and such a project might increase one’s humility. At least, it should.
And that is what this movement is full of: High-sounding talk. You see it in Barna’s book “Revolution”. You hear it everywhere you go in the ‘Out-of-church’ movement. Vast claims are being made for those who will simply “come out” - and actually “BE the church without having to GO to church”, etc. One would think that “coming out” was the solution to all that ails us. But as I have seen for 20 years now, nothing could be further from the truth.
The facts are plain and simple: If your thinking and behaviour are basically “anti-Body” and “anti-Leader”, then don’t expect to get anywhere. And don’t expect the Body of Christ to get anywhere either. We are not designed to be an “amorphous blob”. We are designed to be a unified army with leaders and direction and teamwork - taking the kingdom of darkness using “combined force”. United together we are very powerful - for God designed us to be a ‘Body’. Split apart into “individualists”, we are weak and ineffective…
In closing, I need to say this: Because I can no longer condone the ‘Out-of-church’ Revolution that I have endorsed for many years, I needed to take my e-book “The OUT-OF-CHURCH Christians” off the main page of our website - http://www.revivalschool.com. This has now been done.
Link: http://65.108.220.179/leavingbehind.html
So says Andrew Strom at the above mentioned and popular website. Some of his points are indeed valid - others not very. Scripture, in fact, does warn us of the modern manifestation of what are known as “church leaders.” Not all, of course.
In Seattle, the young men are, generally, pathetic. They are unlikely to go to church, get married, have children, or do much of anything else that smacks of being responsible. But they are known to be highly skilled at smoking pot, masturbating, playing video games, playing air guitar, free-loading, and having sex with their significant others. However, the emerging-church massage-parlor antics of labyrinth-walking by candlelight will do little more than increase the pool of extras for television’s Will and Grace. If there is any hope for a kingdom culture to be built in Seattle, getting the young men to undergo a complete cranial-rectal extraction is priority number one.
Mark Driscoll, Radical Reformission, p. 184
And:
The problem in the church today is just a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickafied church boys. 60% of Christians are chicks and the 40% that are dudes are still sort of…chicks. It’s just sad.
We’re looking around going, How come we’re not innovative? Cause all the innovative dudes are home watching football or they’re out making money or climbing a mountain or shooting a gun or working on their truck. They look at the church like that’s a nice thing for women and children. So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get young men? All this nonsense on how to grow the church. One issue: young men. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They’re going to make the culture of the future. If you get the young men you win the war, you get everything. You get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business, you get everything. If you don’t get the young men you get nothing.
Mark Driscoll, speaking at the 2006 National Desiring God Conference
In the New Testament there is not a longer list of grammatical elements than those prescribed to older ones or elders of the church. There are two such long lists (1 Tim 3, Titus 1) and a host of other exhortations. It has to be a serious matter. The apostles “ordained elders” as they went from town to town. Those in view were ordained or appointed to a task - loving oversight of the younger ones - not to an office in the modern sense.
The term “elder” is a comparative one pertaining to age. Thus, the aimless younger men mentioned above are actually older ones in relation to their juniors. Regardless of their age, all Christian men should be preparing themselves for a life of service to the chief Shepherd and to his flock. This is their calling. Unfortunately, most don’t know it because they haven’t been taught it. As a result, this most natural of human relationships has become highly professionalized.
During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. Acts 16:9-15.
Notice that Paul associated “helping” in Macedonia with “preaching” in Macedonia. Nothing here, nor anywhere else, about planting churches or starting something. It was rather the gospel seed which was to be planted. Nothing here about cleaning up the social ills of the city or beginning a never-ending conversation.
Notice that Lydia’s conversion is attributed to God, not to the latest methods. Are we overly dependent upon methods, books, and techniques or are we knocking at heaven’s door?
Where, oh where were the men? No doubt some in our day would have scolded these women: How dare you assemble without men and without elders and deacons?
What do you see or not see in this account?
Nationwide research has yielded more polling numbers for the house church movement and the numbers are, as they say, “all over the page.”
The latest from the Barna Group, as reported by ABC News, is that there are at least 5 million American adults involved in house churches. But less than a year ago, that number was put at 20 million (weekly participants) or 43 million (monthly participants). During an alleged period of “exponential growth” why have the numbers… plummeted?
In January of ‘07 it was heralded in the Barna Update: “The rapid growth in house church activity is evident in the fact that half of the people (54%) currently engaged in an independent home fellowship have been participating for less than three months.” If so, based upon the most recent head-count of 5 million, there would have been way less than 2.5 million participants during the time frame when tens of millions were being reported. That is, unless millions have dropped dead.
Most recently, George Barna revealed that house churchers are much “more satisfied than those in conventional churches.” That’s a strange thing in that Barna previously announced that “70 million adults had experimented with house churches.” 70 million tried house churching but only 5 million are now with it on a regular basis? That’s about one in fourteen, is it not? Exactly what kind of satisfaction are we talking about?
Furthermore, why is the failure rate of house churches so high if house churching is so satisfying? According to my observation, their life span is more likely to be measured in months rather than years. According to a book entitled “The House Church Movement” (Seedsowers Publishing, page 65): “House churches collapse and disappear faster than they are born.”
Another head-scratching statistic from the Barna Group to ponder and to factor in: 80% of house churchers “maintain some connection to a conventional church, having one foot in both camps.” Again, I do have to wonder: If 4 out of 5 house churchers still remain connected with the traditional churches they were relatively unsatisfied with, just how satisfied are they or how unsatisfied were they?
(We know that the phrase “maintain some connection to” actually means to “attend” because In June of 2006, it was published at barna.org: “… one-fifth (of all USA church attenders) ATTEND both a house church and a conventional church” And in December of 2006, the same subset was referred to: “Involvement in a house church is rapidly growing, although the transition is occurring with some trepidation: four out of every five (80%) house church participants MAINTAIN SOME CONNECTION TO a conventional church as well.”)
But wait, the continual theme of Barna’s “Revolution” was that the revolutionaries had left the traditional churches in mass exodus. Their departure was necessary because their intense passion for God rendered them incapable of co-existing with ordinary, less authentic Christians.
It may objected that house churches are practically invisible and that the precise or the approximate numbers cannot be determined. Well, why then does Barna ascribe a tiny margin of “sampling error” and a high “confidence level” to his analysis?
I would be interested in seeing polling data from another source which might corroborate the incredible Barna numbers. This revolution, if it is the real deal, represents an extensive re-draw of the Christian map as never before witnessed on planet earth - it’s existence and magnitude could not possibly be overlooked.
Personally, I have found house churching to be, for the most part, satisfying and highly recommend that every Christian consider the possibility. You, for example.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2781114&page=1
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50802
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=241
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=252
http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=255
An amazing but not an unsuspected trend:
Jan. 16, 2007 (UPI) — A new report says 51 percent of women in the United States are living without a husband.
A New York Times analysis of census results found that in 2001, more than half of U.S. women said they were living without a husband, compared to 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000, the newspaper said.
The newspaper said women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners. Women are also living longer as widows and delaying remarriage after a divorce, the report said.
The Census Bureau said only 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse, compared with 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian women.
source: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20070116-092856-3691r
God meets us where we are, as always. No situation is perfectly ideal. Not having a husband didn’t keep Lydia from hosting the saints in her home. Acts 16:40: After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.
By the way, God has a very keen interest in the fatherless and widows. Do we?
Living Room Liturgy by Steve Grove, Jan. 9, 2007
Every Monday night, Meredith Scott and eight of her friends get together at one of their homes in St. Paul, Minn. They cook a meal, share what’s going on in their lives and pray together.
But Scott and her friends don’t call this a Bible study or a support group — they call it a church. They are part of the growing number of Americans who are shifting from traditional churches toward more informal, intimate settings, dubbed house churches.
….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2781114&page=1
I was thinking today about the number of films and tv shows which had the catholic confessional somewhere in the plot. Several which I’ve viewed over the years used the theme of a priest who had incriminating evidence but could not divulge it, having received it in the confessional stall.
Scripture does encourage us to confess our faults one to another. This invites humility and seems to fit with the closeness which can come by meeting in homes. Yet this very same text is used by modern priests who offer confessionals as part of their services. Have they gone too far in so doing? Yes, they have.
James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Speaking of confessions, have you ever noticed how quickly we are to admit we a sinners *in general* but if and when it comes to admitting a specific sin, some - particularly we of the male gender - would rather die a thousand deaths than just “fess up?”
Here’s a scenario which might appear strange to us but not to those who lived in the earliest days of the church:
A guy my age, as a father, grandfather, and yes, as a great-grandfather might have several dozen of his own kin coming over for a regular meal and a meeting in Jesus name. That’s not to mention all the in-laws of each married child from the other side of their families. Several dozen would certainly qualify as real church according to anyone with whom I’m acquainted including my own relatives which disapprove of house church.
Young teens married then and lost no time in bearing children. There was no birth control being practiced as a rule and the lights went out early.
Yes, it would have been quite possible to host a “family church” in which the teeming crowd overwhelmed the house. We can’t assume that all the family members would have become Christians, nevertheless the numbers could have been surprisingly high.
In round figures, Carolynn and I might have married and had the first of our 6 children at age 15, who each had 6 kids by the time we were 40-something… you get the idea and can have fun with the math. That’s a big bunch, no? It must also be mentioned that the average age of a male in the Roman empire was only 40-something at death. So I’ve been told. Wars, disease, and persecutions took their toll.
I don’t get the idea that “family church” was the norm then but I believe it is perfectly acceptable and not to be apologized for. I do believe that we should invite others, too, whenever possible. Each person brings something. Why would we not welcome them into our fellowship or hesitate to join theirs? If we are practicing hospitality we surely would. That said, I do believe that the meetings were to be intentional and regular but that wouldn’t exclude spontaneous ones. What is ‘regular’ may vary, I freely acknowledge. That’s a topic for another day. I just wanted us to consider the domestic situation of some of the large Christian families in the ancient world. The Bible, btw, mentions several household baptisms. There are also major implications here for the Lord’s Supper and eldership, too.
