As Bill Easum has said, “it’s futile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.” So what might a new paradigm or “systems story” look like for the church today that would reverse decades of its decline in the West?
As we’ve discussed, the dominant model of church today is the same that has been in use for thousands of years previous; church as event-driven place, or a Sunday morning service. But perhaps a more Biblical paradigm of the church is one of an organic, living organism rather than a static, calcified institution. Never in Scripture is the church reduced to an attractional once-a-week service; rather, it is constantly described as an organic, subversive movement.
Examples of this organic paradigm abound in Scripture. For instance, in contrast to the cold edifice of the ancient Jewish temple, the temple of Jesus is made of “living stones”, I Peter tells us (2:5). We see Jesus repeatedly using organic and agricultural imagery in describing the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 13, for instance, Jesus uses metaphors of leaven, wheat, and seed to describe His church. We’re told in this passage that “the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed” (13:31). The mustard plant was the “smallest of all seeds” that was known for its invasive nature, most akin to a wild weed or crabgrass today that spreads rapidly with very little effort. In fact, it was against Jewish law to plant mustard in one’s garden as it would quickly spread and take over the entire garden due to its invasive nature. Jesus is telling us in this passage that His church is not an attractional institution, but a wild, invasive weed; “a subtle contagion” that spreads one life at a time. The church of God, Christ teaches us, should be a subversive movement that is able to readily disassemble itself and seep into the cracks and crevices of society, as difficult to stop as a mustard plant or crabgrass invading one’s garden. This stands in stark contrast to a static institution that is unable to reproduce itself without the aid of an attractional Sunday morning service.
Similarly, in Mark 4:26-29, Christ compares the kingdom to growing seed that grows “all by itself”, irrespective of the sower’s efforts. In this parable of growing seed, we see a man who sows seed, sleeps at night, and wakes in the morning completely unaware of how the seed grows. As Neil Cole says, this parable describes a farmer who is “clueless and sleeping on the job”, yet the work grows greater than in his wildest dreams. The message is clear: the work of Christ’s church grows independent of our strategies. The kingdom of God does not grow by carefully crafted ministries, state of the art buildings, or professional Sunday morning productions, but rather it spreads as an undercover people movement that spreads subversively from one life to another. The Jesus revolution is truly a living people movement; like ordinary leaven in ordinary bread (Matt. 13:13), it spreads in an organic fashion, all by itself, one life at a time.
Building on this idea of the church of God as an organic people movement, we’ll continue to explore what a new paradigm of the church might look like in our next post.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
A Call For A New Paradigm
In our last post, we proposed the idea that the dominant Sunday morning service model of the church is neither Biblical nor unbiblical, but rather abiblical. If “church as we know it” is just one of many viable models of “doing church,” what might new, alternative models look like?
Historically, radical innovation on the existing framework of the Sunday morning church model has been largely absent. To be sure, tremendous strides have been made in the last few decades in shedding the unnecessary traditions of the past as the “seeker sensitive” revolution has taken hold. However, even these advancements have left the existing Sunday morning service paradigm of the church intact. Though the surrounding culture has undergone dramatic change over two thousand years since the current model of church was instituted, the basic framework of the church’s meetings, such as the “worship set”, the sermon, and even the order of service, has been largely unaltered since.
Even the most progressive attempts at change in the church today focus on tweaking the existing structure: more cutting edge music, more relevant messages, and more attractive outreach events, to name a few. However, nearly all these attempts leave the underlying assumptions of the nature of church intact. Namely, this main underlying assumption is that church is not an organic people movement, but an institution, consisting of a weekly attractional Sunday morning service in a specially dedicated building conducted by paid religious professionals lasting 70-90 minutes. This institutional paradigm is almost completely fixed in most churches today, even in those that would consider themselves the most progressive.
This underlying assumption that church is an attractional institution is why true, lasting change is so hard to come by in today’s church. Unless this underlying belief is exchanged for a new one, a very limited amount of change will be possible. Though initially a church may attempt to change its way of doing business, these efforts generally produce only temporary change. After the novelty of these measures wear off, however, inertia takes over and the church tends to fall back into its previous state. This is true for any organization, church or business: lasting change cannot occur if the underlying assumptions and paradigm stay the same. More than any other, this institutional paradigm in the minds of many observers is the chief reason that the vast majority of Christian institutions throughout history are nearly incapable of significant growth and change. As Bill Easum says, “it’s futile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.”
But what might a new paradigm for the church, a new “systems story”, look like for today’s church? We’ll continue this discussion in our next post.
Historically, radical innovation on the existing framework of the Sunday morning church model has been largely absent. To be sure, tremendous strides have been made in the last few decades in shedding the unnecessary traditions of the past as the “seeker sensitive” revolution has taken hold. However, even these advancements have left the existing Sunday morning service paradigm of the church intact. Though the surrounding culture has undergone dramatic change over two thousand years since the current model of church was instituted, the basic framework of the church’s meetings, such as the “worship set”, the sermon, and even the order of service, has been largely unaltered since.
Even the most progressive attempts at change in the church today focus on tweaking the existing structure: more cutting edge music, more relevant messages, and more attractive outreach events, to name a few. However, nearly all these attempts leave the underlying assumptions of the nature of church intact. Namely, this main underlying assumption is that church is not an organic people movement, but an institution, consisting of a weekly attractional Sunday morning service in a specially dedicated building conducted by paid religious professionals lasting 70-90 minutes. This institutional paradigm is almost completely fixed in most churches today, even in those that would consider themselves the most progressive.
This underlying assumption that church is an attractional institution is why true, lasting change is so hard to come by in today’s church. Unless this underlying belief is exchanged for a new one, a very limited amount of change will be possible. Though initially a church may attempt to change its way of doing business, these efforts generally produce only temporary change. After the novelty of these measures wear off, however, inertia takes over and the church tends to fall back into its previous state. This is true for any organization, church or business: lasting change cannot occur if the underlying assumptions and paradigm stay the same. More than any other, this institutional paradigm in the minds of many observers is the chief reason that the vast majority of Christian institutions throughout history are nearly incapable of significant growth and change. As Bill Easum says, “it’s futile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.”
But what might a new paradigm for the church, a new “systems story”, look like for today’s church? We’ll continue this discussion in our next post.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Church As We Know It
It is said that “old habits die hard.” Nowhere is this old adage more true than in that strange Sunday morning subculture known as “church”. To this day, centuries old traditions dominate our churches, and to suggest any changes to these long standing paradigms remains anathema in the minds of many. Yet it is these longstanding traditions, or “church as we know it”, that pose the greatest obstacles to the church realizing its call of “making disciples of all nations” as Christ has called it to do.
What is a church? Line up ten believers and ask them this question, and chances are, you’ll get the patent theologically correct answer: “a church is any body of believers meeting in the name of Christ.” This answer is doubtless the correct one and the Biblical one, to which almost all of us would be in agreement. However, a completely different definition of church would be closer to our actual practice today: “church is an attractional event that meets once a week in a specially dedicated building, run by paid religious professionals, lasting 70-90 minutes in duration.” Perhaps that answer would be more in harmony with the attitudes and underlying paradigms at work in the vast majority of churches today.
Clearly, all of us realize that church is much more than a service once a week. Yet suggest any other template for a new church plant, and expect some confused looks from listeners. “How can a church be a church without a building? How can it be a viable community without a paid pastor? Certainly there must be a sermon of 30-40 minutes duration.” These are the objections, if not spoken, that would be common in the minds of many. It’s exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for Christians today to conceive of church without the traditional Sunday morning service. Remove these dominant features of the Sunday morning service, take away the minister, remove the three-song worship set, and subtract the thimble and wafer known as communion, and many would cease to define the remains as church any longer.
The efforts of today’s church, in distinction to the New Testament model, revolve completely around the Sunday morning service. Think of the effort, time, and resources that is poured into a single hour service once a week. Given the tremendous importance that we place on this one weekly event, you would expect that Scripture would be chock full of references that guide us in how this event should be done. But curiously, there are none. When one looks at Scripture, one will search in vain for commands on how to pull off the important weekly event we commonly know as “church,” but hundreds on how we should live in community and honor God with our lives together. To quote William Law, a mentor of John Wesley: “it is very observable that there is not one command in all the Gospel for public worship; and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture of any other. The frequent attendance at it is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament, whereas that religion or devotion which is to govern the ordinary actions of our life is be found in almost every verse of Scripture.” The focus of the New Testament church is not on a Sunday morning service, but in honoring God as we live in community with one another. To the early church, church was not a service meeting once a week, but an organic movement of “called out ones” demonstrating their faith in everyday, yet radical ways. The focus of the early church was on living together in community rather than Sunday morning processes.
It is clear that the Bible neither prescribes nor promotes the traditional model of the local church as we know it today. The current Sunday morning service of church so prevalent in the Western world is neither Biblical nor unbiblical, but rather abiblical. “Church as we know it” is just one interpretation that human beings have devised on how to live a godly life in community, and nowhere are we commanded that the dominant Sunday morning service paradigm is the only viable model for being the church together. As priests of the Lord, the church has freedom and latitude to use whatever means necessary, including modifying the basic blueprint of its meetings and structure if it means greater missional impact and greater growth in its members.
But would a new paradigm look like for today’s church? We will continue to explore this in our next post.
What is a church? Line up ten believers and ask them this question, and chances are, you’ll get the patent theologically correct answer: “a church is any body of believers meeting in the name of Christ.” This answer is doubtless the correct one and the Biblical one, to which almost all of us would be in agreement. However, a completely different definition of church would be closer to our actual practice today: “church is an attractional event that meets once a week in a specially dedicated building, run by paid religious professionals, lasting 70-90 minutes in duration.” Perhaps that answer would be more in harmony with the attitudes and underlying paradigms at work in the vast majority of churches today.
Clearly, all of us realize that church is much more than a service once a week. Yet suggest any other template for a new church plant, and expect some confused looks from listeners. “How can a church be a church without a building? How can it be a viable community without a paid pastor? Certainly there must be a sermon of 30-40 minutes duration.” These are the objections, if not spoken, that would be common in the minds of many. It’s exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for Christians today to conceive of church without the traditional Sunday morning service. Remove these dominant features of the Sunday morning service, take away the minister, remove the three-song worship set, and subtract the thimble and wafer known as communion, and many would cease to define the remains as church any longer.
The efforts of today’s church, in distinction to the New Testament model, revolve completely around the Sunday morning service. Think of the effort, time, and resources that is poured into a single hour service once a week. Given the tremendous importance that we place on this one weekly event, you would expect that Scripture would be chock full of references that guide us in how this event should be done. But curiously, there are none. When one looks at Scripture, one will search in vain for commands on how to pull off the important weekly event we commonly know as “church,” but hundreds on how we should live in community and honor God with our lives together. To quote William Law, a mentor of John Wesley: “it is very observable that there is not one command in all the Gospel for public worship; and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture of any other. The frequent attendance at it is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament, whereas that religion or devotion which is to govern the ordinary actions of our life is be found in almost every verse of Scripture.” The focus of the New Testament church is not on a Sunday morning service, but in honoring God as we live in community with one another. To the early church, church was not a service meeting once a week, but an organic movement of “called out ones” demonstrating their faith in everyday, yet radical ways. The focus of the early church was on living together in community rather than Sunday morning processes.
It is clear that the Bible neither prescribes nor promotes the traditional model of the local church as we know it today. The current Sunday morning service of church so prevalent in the Western world is neither Biblical nor unbiblical, but rather abiblical. “Church as we know it” is just one interpretation that human beings have devised on how to live a godly life in community, and nowhere are we commanded that the dominant Sunday morning service paradigm is the only viable model for being the church together. As priests of the Lord, the church has freedom and latitude to use whatever means necessary, including modifying the basic blueprint of its meetings and structure if it means greater missional impact and greater growth in its members.
But would a new paradigm look like for today’s church? We will continue to explore this in our next post.
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