Organic Church in the Bible?
(based on David Garrison’s Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World)
Ever thought about whether or not “organic churches” were in the Bible? While you might not find the actual coinage, the first century was spiraling with new converts and multiplying churches that were planting other churches…sounds pretty organic to me! Truly, the New Testament testifies to a church planting movement that occurred in the eariest days of Christianity!
Church planting movements can be traced to Jesus himself, who trained 12 disciples only long enough to give them the ‘keys of the kingdom’ before slipping away, letting the disciples spread the Good News.
Vision Driven – It was Jesus who filled his followers with a vision for the entire world’s salvation, and prepared them for what kind of community would naturally flow out of this salvation. What other characteristics did Jesus instil in his original organic church?
Prayer – Prayer saturated the lives of the earliest Christian communites. Jesus taught them to pray the Lord’s prayer, as well the power of prayer that can expunge demons, and resist temptation. Today, organic churches are known for prayer that changes lives.
Abundant Evangelism – Jesus’ direction to go into towns two-by-two and share the Good News was not forgotten. Though The Book of Acts follows the ministry of Peter and Paul, we hear of the gospel spreading without hinderance (Apollos comes from Alexandria with the gospel, but how did it get to this great city? Even remote islands like Crete were infiltrated with Christian leaders for Titus to entrust with the gospel. Organic church planting movements today exhibit this same vibrant evangelistic characteristic, spreading faster than its leaders can keep track of!
Scriptural Authority – Even Jesus fled to the Sciptures in times of crisis (his temptation in the desert). Following in his footsteps, the early church was wed to the holy Word of God, even speaking it as they fell in martyrdom (as was the case with Stephen). Today’s Church Planting Movements are thinking theologically and biblically about what it means to be a church today. They are even finding themselves more resilliant in times of crisis, because they focus on God’s Word.
Models for Multiplication – For so long we have neglected the only model for evangelism that is ordained by Christ himself! In Luke 10, Jesus teaches his followers how to spread the Gospel. Sending them out in pairs, they should enter a villiage and find a “person of peace”, leading to the conversion of a whole village. In the next chapter, we hear that Jesus now has 72 disciples. It looks like they followed Jesus’ instructions! (12/2 = 6 (pairs of disciples) x 12 (new converts) = 72 disciples)! Jesus then sends out the 72, and when we come back in Acts, Peter baptizes 3,000 believers! (72/2 = 36 pairs of disciples x 12 = 444) this made the total disciple-membership over 500. (500/2 = 250 pairs x 12 = 3,000!) Interesting…clearly the early church followed this model of discipleship and evangelism.
Preparation for Persectution – Both the early church and the organic churches of today know that persecution will be the lot in life for those who choose to follow Christ.
All in the Family – Unlike the individualistic conversions of Western believers, most Organic Church Movements are started through whole-family conversions! Biblical examples of this include Jesus’ family, Peter and Andrew, James and John with their faither Zebedee, and Cornelius’ family.
Divine Power in Evangelism and Ministry – Earliest churches cast out demons, healed the sick and even raised the dead! Many church planting movments are built around this same principle, and are even seeing God working his miracles in our world again!
Person of Peace – We’ve talked some already about how Jesus taught his disciples to look for the person of peace in a particular village or neighborhood. But did Paul follow Jesus’ example? He always seemed to have a companion with him in his travels, (going two by two with Timothy, Silas, etc). And Paul has a vision of a man in Macedonia calling him to come and share the gospel. When he gets there, he finds that this “person of peace” is actually a woman named Lydia.
