Estimated reading time: 7 minute(s)
KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 2C
Practical Implication #3: Learning to Question our Most Frequently Asked Questions!
Meaning no disrespect to those who ask, I must admit that most of the questions that we are asked about simple church are the wrong questions! We humbly acknowledge this because these are the same questions we spent much time asking ourselves. The questions we are most frequently asked include the following:
• What do you “do” at a simple church meeting?
• How do you control these churches doctrinally and morally?
• What do you do with kids in a simple church?
• How are finances handled in a simple church?
• How does leadership work in a simple church?
There are, of course, some reasonable answers to these questions which are included below.
But first, let’s consider if these are the best questions to be asking! What is it that these questions all have in common? I have come to realize that these are all questions that we ask as we try to take what we’ve learned about church under the “place where” assumption, or the “non-profit organization” assumption, and apply it to a simple church setting.
• We are used to having an order of service when we go to church, so we ask “what shall we do at house church?”
• We are used to having control structures in place to preserve a certain denomination’s theology and to make sure that we don’t “blow it” morally. Because we have grown accustomed to these control structures, we ask how we can preserve theology and morality without such structures.
• We are accustomed to dropping our kids off at class, attending the church service with other adults, then picking our kids up afterwards and hearing all that they have learned about Jesus. We enjoy this convenience (at least until we get the phone call asking us to volunteer as a children’s worker and to teach a room full of kids about Jesus!). With this in mind, we ask what the arrangement for kids would be like if we met in a house.
• Finances are a major issue in the non-profit organization, as discussed above. We are accustomed to elaborate systems for teaching tithing, collecting and accounting for offerings, ensuring bills are paid, and systematically distributing missions and benevolence funds. We shrink at the prospect of having to re-invent all of those systems within our little house church, but what else would we do?
• And last, but not least, is the question of leadership. We are accustomed to a board (or multiple boards or teams) that run the church either according to a representative government model, or a corporate business model, or some combination of the two. How does this translate into church in the living room, we wonder?
Many of our questions stem from our “place where” / “non-profit organization” understanding of church. We’ve even been taught which Bible verses justify (or even mandate!) each element of our non-profit organization’s structure. After all, 1 Timothy 3 was intended to give the qualifications for “board members,” right? We jest. Of course Paul did not have “board members” in mind, but probably a very different understanding of what it meant to be an “elder” than what we have come to understand.
Having established that these frequently asked questions are not the best questions to be asking, here are some general responses nonetheless!
What do you “do” at a simple church meeting?
Simple Church meetings are open to many activities. No two simple churches meet in exactly the same way. Some simple churches have a set meeting time each week just to ensure that everyone does gather and make a priority to meet with God and with each other. Some simple churches are meeting throughout the week, intermingling individual lives with one another, allowing each other to be more spontaneous about when it is time to engage in spiritual disciplines and when it is time to have fun together.
Some groups have embraced the Greenhouse theory of “D.N.A.” (Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, & Apostolic Mission). Under this theory, each simple church looks to keep all three elements as part of its core identity, whether only two or three are gathered, whether an entire community is gathered, or whether multiple communities are gathered. Regardless of the size of gathering, there is church when there is Divine Truth (awareness of God’s presence and the freedom it His love brings), when there are Nurturing Relationships (awareness of each others’ needs and genuine love for one another), and when there is Apostolic Mission (awareness of the spiritual and physical needs of those around us, and the mission to them which we have as the church).
Other groups get this more intuitively and are able to spontaneously be what God has called them to be.
As far as specific activities that happen in the midst of simple churches, they are not new ideas, but often fresh expressions of familiar ideas and include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Churches break bread, not only in the sense of remembering the body and blood of Christ, but also in the literal sense of sharing meals (and the preparation and clean-up) with each other. Both the spiritual and the physical aspects of Biblical “breaking bread” come back together as one as they originally were.
• Churches pray, not only in the formal sense of thanking God before a meal and asking God to heal the sick, but also in more contemplative, meditative, and experimental forms. Churches practice the Biblical concept of blessing as they pray for each other and speak into each others’ lives.
• Churches teach, not only through reading a section of the Bible and making life application from it, but also by allowing each person in the community to come to meetings prepared to share what they have been learning from their week with God.
• Churches worship, not only by singing praise songs accompanied by musical instruments, but by actually creating in the image of the Creator (which may include original artistic expressions to God through songwriting, poetry, painting, cooking, writing, etc.).
• Churches serve the needs of others, not only by planning service projects, but by simply noticing what needs are present in the room or in the neighborhood and spontaneously responding to those needs.
• Churches laugh together and cry together. Churches hang out and eat meals and play video games and go on trips and go to movies and play board games and flat out enjoy life together. Churches go through the worst parts of life together crying with each other and working through conflict and saying goodbye to loved ones and listening in silence to a friend whose life has fallen apart.
Since churches are like families they go through the most profound moments of life together and the most mundane parts of life together, and everything in between.
Since church is plural for Christ-follower, and Christ-followers are holistic people who simultaneously live the sacred and secular, churches are holistic communities that simultaneously live the sacred and the secular as well.
Once again, it is important to realize that churches are really identified by whose they are, not by what they do. Only when they realize whose they are will they really begin to do what they are designed to do.
Supplemental Readings:
Acts 2:42-47
Romans 12:9-21
1 Corinthians 14:26-33 (read in the broader context of 1 Corinthians 12-14)
Authentic Relationships by Wayne & Clay Jacobsen (Baker 2003)
These have been very interesting readings!