My friend Tobias Valdez suggested I re-post this article from five years ago. (Have I been writing that long?) The original article is here.
A New Way to Do Life–Not a Way to Do Church
I'm concerned that we are trying to re-structure church instead of re-learning what it is to live the Christian life.
House churches, simple churches, organic churches can easily become just the "new way" to do church, the next-wave model of churchianity. It's easy for us, if we have been doing church for years, to want to simply come up with a "better way to do church." But that really misses the whole point.
Instead, we need to be talking about the way to live our Christian life. We are privileged to have been given a whole new life: a lifestyle. We have the privilege of living passionately for God. We have the privilege and calling of living Kingdom lives: we journey with God, walk with Him, experience Him, know Him and express Him wherever we go. We have the joy of having a purpose and mission that comes out of the heart of the eternal Father. We get to live in His love, surrounded by His love, empowered by His love, and motivated by His love. Our life lived with a wondrous God is awesome!
This is vital because the Christian life becomes somehow confused with the concepts of "going to church" and "being involved in church." While those may be very wonderful things to do, they are not, in and of themselves, the equivalent of living life in Christ. Yes, when we live the Christian life full on, we do gather with others. But that's a result, an outcome of living all out for God. The "gathering with Christians" is not "the life"– it's just a part of it. It's one piece of what we do while we are living all out for God.
Let me suggest an analogy.
I love to ski. I am passionate about skiing. I enjoy skiing anywhere there is a slope and some snow. I may be involved in a ski club, I may go to a ski school, I may have skied at many different places. But none of this replaces what it's all about: just skiing. If I tell people that I ski here or there, or that I'm part of this or that club, it's not because I'm enamored with the club, the school, or even the ski resort. These are all peripherals to the real experience that I love, what it's all about: skiing.
In the same way, none of our churches, nor "how we do church", should be equated to living the Christian life. They are peripherals to the Christian life. Church gatherings support us in living the Christian life. But they are not "the life" itself. It's great to gather and be part of, but let's get skiing! It's living for and with God that we are excited about, that we are talking to others about, that grips us with passion and excitement, that we are focused on. Just living full on for God. Just doing it. Going after it. Faithing it. Loving it. Losing ourselves in it and Him.
Aren't churches and gatherings important? Yes, but let me be repetitive, they are peripherals to the Christian life. The church will always gather in a variety of ways. But imagine when the church gatherings are made up of a group of Christians whose primary focus is living full on for God. Imagine what church is like, whether we gather in a home or in a stadium, when all the full-on-passionate-alive-people-for-God gather together. Yeah, that's church!
I admit, I like to gather in a house. I like it simple. I like it participatory. I like house church. It helps me remember that life with God is life with God and not an institution or event. But that's just me. Where we gather is really very, very secondary. The central issue is, let's live the Christian life… full on… with all that we have. Then when we gather… it will be good!
House churches, simple churches, organic churches can easily become just the "new way" to do church, the next-wave model of churchianity. It's easy for us, if we have been doing church for years, to want to simply come up with a "better way to do church." But that really misses the whole point.
Instead, we need to be talking about the way to live our Christian life. We are privileged to have been given a whole new life: a lifestyle. We have the privilege of living passionately for God. We have the privilege and calling of living Kingdom lives: we journey with God, walk with Him, experience Him, know Him and express Him wherever we go. We have the joy of having a purpose and mission that comes out of the heart of the eternal Father. We get to live in His love, surrounded by His love, empowered by His love, and motivated by His love. Our life lived with a wondrous God is awesome!
This is vital because the Christian life becomes somehow confused with the concepts of "going to church" and "being involved in church." While those may be very wonderful things to do, they are not, in and of themselves, the equivalent of living life in Christ. Yes, when we live the Christian life full on, we do gather with others. But that's a result, an outcome of living all out for God. The "gathering with Christians" is not "the life"– it's just a part of it. It's one piece of what we do while we are living all out for God.
Let me suggest an analogy.
I love to ski. I am passionate about skiing. I enjoy skiing anywhere there is a slope and some snow. I may be involved in a ski club, I may go to a ski school, I may have skied at many different places. But none of this replaces what it's all about: just skiing. If I tell people that I ski here or there, or that I'm part of this or that club, it's not because I'm enamored with the club, the school, or even the ski resort. These are all peripherals to the real experience that I love, what it's all about: skiing.
In the same way, none of our churches, nor "how we do church", should be equated to living the Christian life. They are peripherals to the Christian life. Church gatherings support us in living the Christian life. But they are not "the life" itself. It's great to gather and be part of, but let's get skiing! It's living for and with God that we are excited about, that we are talking to others about, that grips us with passion and excitement, that we are focused on. Just living full on for God. Just doing it. Going after it. Faithing it. Loving it. Losing ourselves in it and Him.
Aren't churches and gatherings important? Yes, but let me be repetitive, they are peripherals to the Christian life. The church will always gather in a variety of ways. But imagine when the church gatherings are made up of a group of Christians whose primary focus is living full on for God. Imagine what church is like, whether we gather in a home or in a stadium, when all the full-on-passionate-alive-people-for-God gather together. Yeah, that's church!
I admit, I like to gather in a house. I like it simple. I like it participatory. I like house church. It helps me remember that life with God is life with God and not an institution or event. But that's just me. Where we gather is really very, very secondary. The central issue is, let's live the Christian life… full on… with all that we have. Then when we gather… it will be good!
Comments
4 responses to “A New Way to Do Life–Not a Way to Do Church”
Thomas, this was a good reminder and timely… about the important ‘fine’ line between ‘form’ and ‘function’… this is a daily struggle. I even realized this yesterday as I was ministering to a friend of the institutional church. I had to ask him… “Is Sunday an event that everything at your church revolves around?” and when he said ‘yes’ then we both realized that his frustration was with ‘form’ not ‘function’… I reminded him, that we are still trying to figure that out and the expression is unique for each called body… Thanks for the article… very good, and shared it on FB too!
I love this perspective actually and have been a bit concerned myself that the discussions on house church/simple church/organic church does not just degenerate into another obsession with “church life” and structure. This is one of the points I make with respect to my response to Viola’s “Pagan Christianity?”. While I agree with several of his perspectives I still believe that the church, by whatever term you see it (institutional/organic) is in real danger of being overtly focused on itself as opposed to seeing the world for whom Christ died. We can never get on track with God’s eternal purpose if we trivialize the need for mankind to come into relationship with God through Jesus Christ. While we can never expect to unravel with entirety with our finite minds God’s eternal plan, the Word does mention “Jesus Christ Lamb of God, slayed before the foundations of the world”. This is enough to tell me that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross to redeem lost humanity has been a pivotal focus of the heart of God even before the world was created (remember He is always several steps ahead of us). Living the christian life /”being church” and not just “doing church” has a divine purpose because Christ is very plain in reiterating to His disciples (including us) that we are His witnesses in the earth. We can’t be that if we overtly focus on what we are inside of a traditional church building or even inside of a house for that matter. The church can only become the corporate expression of God’s purpose when individual men and women are challenged by the light of the “good news” (which is affirmed by good deeds and not just by mere talk). I agree that Christianity is first and foremost a pervasive lifestyle that should occupy and pervade every last feature of our lives and should not become overtly focused on how or what we do on Sundays; when this happens we are in danger of missing the point of God’s mission entirely.
it is always a temptation to criticize the way people ‘do church’, which reflects a whole lot more on how that way of ‘doing church’ didn’t work for us. i have to remind myself that it works for some people and that i must stay focused on the lifestyle of faith right along side those who continue to ‘go to church’.
Doing and being church seems to be wrapped up in each other for many christians. But I believe in reality you must separate them. You can only ever do churchy or religious things and you can only ‘be’ church.
A bit like having a family. One day you are a pregnant couple, the next you could be a family. The difference? The addition, the newborn baby. Now you really are a family, a label even.
What we do as a family doesn’t define whether we are one or not, hence what we do doesn’t define if we are church or not. Once we are saved in Christ, once he is our Lord and master, we are church. Full stop.
Once we stop doing and going to church, maybe we might reclaim our identity and actually be happy being church.