I want to reflect the “stages in the journey of simple church life” that I outlined in a previous post by looking at each stage one at a time.
The first stage is: Letting Go of Old Paradigms of Church Life.
Frankly, this first stage is much of what I have been blogging about right here for nearly six years.
So… I thought this would be a good excuse to go back over past resources and posts and list those that still seem particularly relevant to the basics of letting go of old ways of thinking.
What Is Church Part 1-A and Part 1-B still seem insightful to me (if I have to say so myself):
Our first challenge in grasping what God intends church to be, is to stop looking at it through the lens of our background and through the lens of 2,000 years of “church” as a formal institution. Dee Hock says: "The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out…" So our first challenge is to de-program old definitions and wrestle with some accurate new ones. Continue reading here.
The second chapter of my book, The Simple/House Church Revolution, is entitled “Defining Church (Webster Has It Wrong).” This is also a good, brief attempt to re-think our paradigms of church.
Perhaps the best way to describe the church of the New Testament is as small, vibrant, caring families of believers who are loving others and reproducing themselves into every corner of the world. You can download this chapter only here if you wish: Download SCRevChapter2
A Way to Do Life—Not a Way to Co Church is an old post that I re-posted recently (upon request), but I think it deserves a mention in this list. Also, Planting the Kingdom Not Churches is in a similar vein.
I think that John Eldredge has contributed much to the process of re-thinking church. I blogged on him here and here:
Church is not a building. Church is not an event that takes place on Sundays. I know, it's how we've come to think of it. “I go to First Baptist.” “We are members of St. Luke's.” “Is it time to go to church?” Much to our surprise, that is not how the Bible uses the term. Not at all.
There are obviously other key voices that have added much to the shift in paradigm of church-life including Wolfgang Simson, George Barna, Neil Cole, Frank Viola, Tony & Felicity Dale, and John White.
Also, don’t miss Wolfgang Simson’s diagram of the transition from institutional to organic.
I believe the issue of letting go of old paradigms does not just involve church life, but also entire systems of religiosity that we have often encumbered ourselves with. Wayne Jacobsen’s “The Jake Book” does a good job of breaking religiosity off of our spirits. Also, I wrote a post on Reflections on the American Church Culture as well as one entitled, I Don’t Like Christians:
There are, truthfully, many, many Christians that I really like… But we can also be miserably religious, ridiculously petty, unbelievably shaming of others, and embarrassingly judgmental. My passion for "counter-cultural" church is not just a desire to "do church different" nor even an attempt to "do it better." It's really just a passion, in any way I can, to stand up as a contrary voice to the spirit of religion that destroys true spiritual life, leaves wounded people wherever it goes, and yet is so often touted as Christianity despite the un-Christlike nature of it.
The subject of “leadership” is an important part of this paradigm shift. Two posts to note are Hierarchies Create Dependencies and What About Leadership:
The number one issue (in my thinking) is simply this: New Testament leadership had nothing to do with c-o-n-t-r-o-l. When this is fully digested then, and only then, can we begin to grasp what leadership is meant to be.
I think that’s probably more than enough for one post. But I will offer one last link to a fairly recent post called A Tale of Two Voices:
It feels like there are two paths to go down. One path is called church and it makes you want to have a meeting, set up structures and a church name and define who is in and who is out…
Today I feel encouraged again because I genuinely think that Jesus would be doing what we are doing. And that is all we seek – not a big church – just to be doing what we see the Father is doing every day…
Comments
10 responses to “Stage 1: Letting Go of Old Church Paradigms”
Good stuff Roger! I re-posted this on my blog at http://theway247.blogspot.com. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I did. Jesus bless ya!
Wow! Lots to read and digest. One simple (I hope) question:
How do the un/under-churched find a gathering if they do not know any christians in a simple church?
I found an “unaffiliated bible study,” but it was only after I joined a mainline denomination and followed those on the fringes. How will simple churches more efficiently and effectively be able to connect with lone seekers?
Good question, Chuck. Here are a couple of places to start:
http://www.simplechurch.com/
http://www.cmaresources.org/networks/churches
interesting
So I’m still trying to work through two basic questions:
1. Do brick & mortar churches add any value to the Bidy of Christ?, and
2. Would it be a benefit to the Body of Christ if those involved in simple churches remained a part of brick & mortar churches?
I’m leaning to “yes” and “yes” answers, but I’m wavering.
I’m not convinced that the simple church movement has perfected an effiient and effective way of reaching those with a propensity to accept Jesus as their Savior. If it has, what’s new? After all, the concept of the simple church goes back to Jesus but the brick & mortar model seems to have held the day for the past 1800 years (give or take).
And if the brick & mortar model is at least a little more efficient at attracting potential believers, why wouldn’t proponents of simple churches want to retain some basic connection to this model in order to take believers out to household gaterings?
Hi Chuck
More and more I am coming to realize that as soon as we decide to meet (house church) it is very difficult to re-focus on mission because now everything becomes focussed on the meeting. To me, the meeting stands as the greatest hindrance to mission in the west. For some reason it seems that all we ever wanted was a meeting.
It is well documented that churches in the west have been declining so to say that traditional (brick and mortar) churches are doing a better job is not right. The question is though is house church doing a better job?
Recently, I came across something that really made me think about my own life. Neil Cole is quoting Alan Hirsch.
My friend Alan Hirsch likes to use the following example to make the point. If all the Christians in the world were suddenly killed off or abducted by aliens, and only one little Christian girl was left behind, all that is necessary to repopulate the planet with the Kingdom of God is found in her. The power of the kingdom of God is in Christ present within us. It is that simple and yet that profound. We mess things up by making it all complex. (on Neil Coles blog)
What if I was the only one left. Would the kingdom of God die. Now every analogy breaks down at some point (even Jesus’) but there is a central point to be made. For me it is; what do I need to do to become someone who re populates the earth with Jesus and his Kingdom? This question is HUGE. The starting point for me is again what Neil says; Embrace death as if your life depended on it. I am beginning to learn that lesson.
So if we are starting meetings to attract others to that meeting then count me out. We have got to find a way to disciple others to mission. It is that simple.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t meet but it must be very clear why we are meeting or you will never swing it back to mission.
Frank,
Very interesting. This is a new way of looking at being Christian for me. To follow your thought out, I’m now wondering what exactly the mission is. I clearly believe it is evangelism, but is this “re-population” through telling the Word and baptism or is it through love of God and fellow man. I believe it is the latter – being a light, the body of Christ. But I see so many Christians following the verbal form of evangelism – “Let’s TELL everyone about the Good News.” I believe telling without showing does more harm than good, but that seems to be where modern Christianity in the west is at.
Having spent nearly 20 years in the corporate world I have to admit that all this talk sounds 100% recreated from corporate America. I have no affiliations with any church or religion, I merely stumbled upon this blog by chance. I wasn’t aware that “church” had made such huge strides towards joining the professional world. The lingo is identical: “Paradigm shifts,” “Leadership,” “Looking through the lens,” etc. I’ve heard this exact same jingoism countless times in board rooms within dozens of metropolitan areas around the world. Reworked, regurgitated, over and over again. It became sickening because it was entirely meaningless. Corporate world “leadership” is merely a top-down form of cronyism. A few very powerful and well-placed individuals have a “vision.” They are surrounded by a handful of nearly as powerful and influential people. Then those select few have their own yes men, on down to the company leadership and employees. Things never change, but they surely do come up with amazing mind-tricks to fool the working masses into re-accepting the same old crap: “Shut up, do what you’re told, NEVER think outside of what we tell you, take you rewards and come back tomorrow. If you decide to quit, feel free to go to work for one of our competitors, they work for us too.”
I’m not saying religion is crap. I’m saying this push towards utilizing and emulating corporate nonsense is crap. Christians had best stick to what’s worked for thousands of years: their Bible, their Cross, their personal relationship with the Christ. If you walk with Man and the ways of Man, you walk with the devil. Only the devil would encourage churches to “change their paradigm.”
Hey Gregg, So glad that you stumbled in here and shared your thoughts. I couldn’t agree with you more that the church has adopted corporate lingo and attitudes. I imagine that I am equally guilty of using such lingo and ways of thinking even though it is exactly what I seek to move away from.
Most of all, I am completely in agreement with you when you say: “Christians had best stick to what’s worked for thousands of years: their Bible, their Cross, their personal relationship with the Christ.” This is, indeed, the heart of the amazingly wonderful news that Jesus proclaimed when he walked the earth. We can know Christ, and walk with him personally and eternally, because of his incredible work on the cross where he died for us.
Your grasp of this makes me think that you are possibly being drawn to this reality—the reality of who Christ really is—as one who died for you, as one who wants to be personally involved in loving you and living in and through you.
Keep me posted on your faith journey.
Jesus Himself said:
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:2-4
The operative word….change 🙂
In 1 Corinthians chapter 13 Paul says:
1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
I now truly believe we have to keep is simple, I hold onto all this scripture and with regards to His church (body)Jesus said:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35