Read this yesterday in my quiet time, wanted to share it with a friend who was sharing her thoughts on the same wave length, and thought I would record this here for my future benefit and anyone else who may be stirred by it.
"In the Old Testament almost every man and woman did the faith-oriented things for which we credit them not in religious environments but in real-world environments. Moses did most of his work in the Pharaoh's conference rooms and in the desert. Esther did hers in a king's palace. Nehemiah did his on a construction project. These men and women were administrators, scholars, builders, soldiers, and merchants. For the most part, they were not clergy. They were the people of the streets, and their faith was defined in terms of a God who wanted to be active in the streets.
Their faith language, recorded in the Bible, was the language of the streets; but we have taken it away from there and made it a religious language. Their jobs were the work of the streets; but we, in our lack of imagination, have taken these men and women off the streets and made them seem like theologians and full time religious workers. The problems to which they addressed themselves were usually the problems of the streets but we have taken the problems and spiritualized them.
In short, we have tended to tame these men and women of the Bible, making them smaller than life. It is not that we have not admired them and revered them as heroes. And it is not that we have not wanted to be like them. But it has not occurred to us often enough to wonder if they could have been construction workers on a highway project, manufacturers, franchisees, secretaries, and managers in our day. The result? I'll say it one more time; we do not fully appreciate that their faith was a faith for the real world and not for the the restricted environment of professional religion."
(From Christ Followers in the Real World by Gordon MacDonald).
Coming back a day later to add more thoughts on this topic from a discussion with a friend on her private blog....She was talking about church and a quote that she had stumbled across that mentioned "living out rather than reaching out" I wrote;
I think the idea of Church has become so muddled and befuddled. It's become, for the most part a "Programmed Organization" when it was designed to be a "Living Organism". We go there looking for what we can "Receive" (or complaining about what we *wanted* to receive and didn't); when it was designed to be a place we go to GIVE.
Give our worship, give of our spiritual gifts to the body, give encouragement and exhortation to fellow believers, give our financial gifts on the altar, give our attention to God's word as a body, give our devotion and delight and thanksgiving at the Lord's Table, give ourselves over to prayer and supplication.
It grieves me that these things have been all but squeezed right out of the program, or scheduled so tightly into an order of service that it's treated more like a 5 minute potty break than a spontaneous living act of worship.
At the same time, we've made CHURCH the be all and end all of reaching out when I totally agree that if the organism went forth and spread out (like a virus :D) every week from that time of congregational worship "living out" there were would be no need for organized/programmed "reaching out". AMEN.
The apostles WENT FORTH and interacted in every day life. They didn't call people to special evangelistic meetings, or video series this special outreach or that.... they just lived and interacted personally and transparently with everyone they came in contact with.
Can you tell I am passionate about this?? :D
10 comments:
I love your blog! This morning's quiet time is turning into a "Amen" session of prayer through your blog.
So glad I found you (through Crystal at Biblical womanhood by the way)
blessings on your day
sheila
Welcome Sheila! So glad to have you and interact with you at the "world wide well" (my new metaphor for the modern social/spiritual connection allowed through the blogosphere, like women "meeting at the well" in bible times.)
so glad our Father has a purposeful plan for each of us... helps with humility as well as banishing feelings of insignificance... definitely worth a separate post on your site!
Amen and Amen again...thanks for "adding your thoughts" to the first post.
Depending on ones views or experiences they bring to the "table" it is well to practice this "organized religion" as it comminiates to some who don't have any other means of fellowship.
From my own personel experience the leaders who submit to the Spirit will indeed give fresh light and prespective to carry out of the sanctuary and into the world, then there have been those Sabbath's when it was all about rest and no message..because HE KNOWS what I needed. YKWIM?
I love my church family and our practiced service..sometimes, but I know the true service happens in the heart and with those HE sends us to! Thanks for sharing your insight and carrying this torch, sister!
You know how amazing it is when you are studying something and it seems like everywhere you turn, there it is again???
I've been reading the book Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola & George Barna. It's an excellent examination of the "institutional church" versus what they call the "organic church" and where we get all these customs and traditions. Your sentence about a programmed organization instead of the living organism it was meant to be is right on. The book has really been opening my eyes. For instance, the word "church" was never ever used to refer to a building in the Bible. The church was a community of believers. You never went to church. You were the church.
Anyway, the book has been astonishing. I had no idea where some of these things came from and really, how far they've taken us from the living, breathing body of Christ we were meant to be. Check it out. I think you'd enjoy it. Oh, and you can download and read the first chapter online at www.paganchristianity.org
>>Depending on ones views or experiences they bring to the "table" it is well to practice this "organized religion" as it comminiates to some who don't have any other means of fellowship.<<
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an "away with the church" kinda gal. I strongly believe we are called to come together regularily to engage in all the activities I mentioned in my entry.... I just cringe when we come together and most of things don't happen because we don't have *time* in the program.... kwim?
Gina, yeah... that's been happening to me too with this topic, it's always rather exciting when you see God moving to re-enforce or cement concepts He is stirring within. I love what you said about not "going" to church, but the "church" coming together... amen.
It sounds like I would heartily agree with the premise of the Barna book, at the same time I have to be careful about what I read about this and other modern dilemma's regarding the state of the church. Things tend to weigh very heavily on me and the enemy takes advantage of this to work overtime piling up stones of discontent, discouragement, depression, anxiety and judgementalism in my life.
Thanks for interacting with me on this subject ladies, it's been encouraging!
After studying theology through a night class for the last semester I was amazed to find this 'modern' idea about an organic church is not new. It has been around from the get go. I have to be true to my heart and say I see it more important then the organization church... something I am still studying.
>>I was amazed to find this 'modern' idea about an organic church is not new. It has been around from the get go.<<
Yeah, it's about coming "full circle" and "getting back to our roots".
I think in one sense we are coming back to our roots, but church in the 21st century will not and should not look exactly like church in the 1st century. Church is always lived out in a cultural context. The form that we find ourselves with right now did indeed make sense at one time. For example, the emphasis on our gatherings being mainly a time of teaching made sense in cultures where people were naturally relational but uneducated, with many people not having access to education in any other way. Now we are in an age of information, we have access to the best teachers, the best information at the click of a button, but we no longer know how to live well in community and take care of each other. The form needs to make sense for our current culture, which will hopefully reflect many of the same principles but probably unique practices.
Hey Jude, thanks for popping in and voicing your thoughts. I'll have to chew on this a bit. To a degree, I can say I agree about cultural context, but not sure how far I would let the pendulum swing in that regards. For instance, I would say (and I think we are all saying, here and on our individual blogs) that in this day and age, the relational aspect and the "living out" aspect needs *special* attention.
That would not change the fact for me that the mandate given to church leadership is to be faithful in expounding the word to the congregation and guarding against heresy. Yes, we have access to the best teachers at the click of a button. We also have access to people we might *think* are great teachers who are actually subtly heretic.
However much access to information we might have, (and possibly more-so *because* of all the heresy floating around at our fingertips) I believe doctrinal expounding of the scriptures is a crucial role of local church leadership.
There are some things, that despite cultural context, are constants.
I also don't quite see why our meetings should not and can not look like they did in the first century despite the cultural differences. They came together, broke bread, prayed, encouraged one another from the word, worshipped. It was a simple affair that didn't require multiple staff on full time salary to "make it happen" or tight schedules and uber-organization.
Anyway, those are my thoughts off the top of my head... I'll be chewing on this for days I'm sure...
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