Updates from September, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Mark 8:44 am on September 15, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Where You Meet Matters 

    Sometimes it is the obvious thing that remains so hard to see.

    Lately I’ve been struck by the context in which the Christians in the First Century gathered to experience the Life and Community of Christ.  I’ve also been struck by the truth that the context of the New Testament is miles apart from the context we Twenty-First Century Westerners experience the Christian life.  

    For example:

    • Early Christians were persecuted and killed by the government, we are privileged by government.
    • Early Christians met huddled in homes, around a table; we meet in buildings that rival huge coliseums and event centers.
    • Early Christians made the “one-anothers” a central element to their faith, their gatherings and their relationships; we struggle to adapt the 54 “one-anothers” into a typical Sunday worship gathering.
    If we want the New Testament to be most applicable to our lives, we should assume the context of the New Testament!Over the past 6 years, as my wife and I have experienced the Christian life through the “house church” context – we’ve seen passages of scripture come to life that we never quite understood before.  Let me give you a quick example.  Read 1 Cor 11:7ff – Paul is talking about the Lord’s Supper, chastising the Corinthian Christians for causing division in the house church gatherings between the rich and poor members – the rich came early and brought all the nicest foods and wines – getting drunk, sick… while the poor showed up with nothing to eat, coming in after a long day’s work.  If this isn’t a problematic potluck, I don’t know what is!  

    There is just so much more sense that is made in this passage when the church meets in the home.  In fact, most English translations get the last phrase wrong – and it has troubled many Christians’ interpretation of the Lord’s Supper for years.  Paul warns (in the English translations anyway) that some people who incorrectly take the Lord’s Supper will get drunk, sick…and some have even… “died”– that word died has caused the fear of many that if we don’t have the right mind when we take the wafer and grape juice shot glass, that we’ll be struck dead.   Looking at the Greek however, the word is “fall asleep” not “die” – and while that can be a euphemism, think about it logically – when you eat and drink too much, you get sick and you fall asleep.  It just makes sense.  And it makes the most sense in a household context.  

    Think about the teachings of Jesus on reconciliation with a brother in Christ, Mt. 6 and Mt. 18.  Think about each time that Paul communicates to the elders and deacons in the Pastoral Epistles.  In every case they are meeting in a network of house churches!  

    I’m no patternist, I don’t believe in legalistically recreating First Century culture.  But if we want to live out the kind of life that Jesus invites us to – we can’t just pick and choose what that life is!  It is a matter of becoming family, living like family, acting like family – God’s Family.  Jesus invited his disciples to a Table.  The early Christians invited their seeking friends to their Table.

    In the End, we will all gather in the New Jerusalem around the banquet Table of God.

    Table Fellowship is Christian Fellowship.

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    • Rusty Wimberly 2:43 pm on September 15, 2011 Permalink

      I’ve wrestled with this subject over the past 3 years now and most people still don’t get it. I fully agree, the form follows function. The place we gather will most often determine what happens when we gather. With house church being a great forum for “one anothers” it seems to be challenging for other things such as preaching, teaching, outreach and extended times of gifted ministry. The building setting could be more conducive for teaching, evangelism and community outreach…maybe? The bottom line in our culture is some people are not going to feel comfortable coming to a strangers house. All in all, we all need to be reminded that church is not defined by the building but in order to actually follow the Lord in discipleship we need to do it in community. 

    • Mark W 11:57 am on September 17, 2011 Permalink

      Rusty — good thoughts! We are finding that having a mix of “regularly scheduled events” both in and out of homes helps new guests feel welcome, AND it keeps the focus off “event” but places faith back into “all of life” where it should be. The book AND by Halter/Smay has been very helpful. Have you read it?

    • Mark W 11:57 am on September 17, 2011 Permalink

      Rusty — good thoughts! We are finding that having a mix of “regularly scheduled events” both in and out of homes helps new guests feel welcome, AND it keeps the focus off “event” but places faith back into “all of life” where it should be. The book AND by Halter/Smay has been very helpful. Have you read it?

    • Website Hosting 6:57 am on January 19, 2012 Permalink

      Really interesting thought and interesting post..

  • Mark 7:16 am on April 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Adventures in Missing the Point 

    We humans are pretty funny creatures.

    We hold in us the very essence of the Divine, the purpose of all creation.  We are the very focus of God’s love and his mission.  We were important enough to him to put everything else in the cosmos on hold so he could live and dwell among us as our friend.

    He dined with us; he died for us.

    And still – we have this funny habit of majoring in the minors.  What more does the Church bicker about than Communion / the Eucharist / the Lord’s Supper… see!  We can’t even agree on what to call it!  :)

    I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised.  When something of that magnitude – dining with our Creator, is handed to us mortals, we have a tendency to shoot off in unimportant rabbit trails, just like the disciples did on that final evening with Jesus in the upper room.  As Jesus is sharing the elements of bread and wine, washing feet and calling them “friends,” they are busy bickering about who will desert Jesus – and we have been bickering ever since.  Right in the presence of Jesus, we have all these ‘adventures in missing the point.’

    Its almost as if we have some mechanism in our minds that numbs us from approaching what is real – and we choose instead the tertiary, the tangential and the temporary.

    It is like Mary hiding in the kitchen preparing the food to the neglect of her guest – Jesus, Immanuel…God with us.  God may be ‘with us’…but are we with him? Or are we just in the other room, finishing up the dessert?

    When it comes to Communion/Lord’s Supper, whatever you want to call it – (don’t call it anything!), let that be the one time when formalities don’t have to matter.  Who cares whether there should be leavened or unleavened bread, one or two cups of wine (grape juice?)

    Maybe its time to re-institute the holy sacrament of playfulness, of friendliness, of devotion to the one thing that matters.  Is it worth giving up your connection to Jesus to decide whether or not to pass a plate of bread around the room, or to come to the front to receive it?

    I’m done majoring in the minors.  I’m done focusing on the steps of the dance, and instead simply enjoying my Dance-Partner.  I’m interested in looking squarely into Jesus’ eyes and letting him remain the center of my life – where he wants to be anyway.  I’m ready to have some fun in my friendship with him – to let his love be the driving force of my theology, my liturgy, my life.  Its so much more fun!

    How about you?

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  • Mark 9:02 am on March 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: City on a Hill Community   

    BOTH AND 

    While I’m the first to admit that there needs to be “all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people” – there’s a catch in my throat even as I say the words.

    I think its because I know that most Christians when they hear those words believe that today’s dominant expression of church in America should continue to be the default image in our minds when we think “church” .  This expression of the Church is the Sunday morning programmatic model, built around staff, buildings, high-cost infrastructure – with the aims of becoming another “mega”church.  This the picture most people think of when they think of “church” – at least here in the West.

    And yes – every part of me is thankful to God that there are tens of thousands of churches built around that expression of God’s family – it is obviously reaching tens of millions of people with the authentic Gospel of God!  Praise God for that!  Lives are changed!

    And yet – there are still 250 million people who were not a part of a church gathering last Sunday – and have no connection with a church…many more still may have no true commitment to the Lord Jesus.  And that number is growing all the time.

    So a quote stands out to me:

    “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve already got.” — Genius unknown

    Jeff Kirsch, a member of the City on a Hill faith community has a recent, great post on some of the metaphors and assumptions Jesus used to describe what God’s Family looks like – yeast, field, flock, seed, soil… this is a Kingdom, a church that doesn’t need institutional maintenance and a ministry marketing department -

    …it is a “subtle contagion”…

    …or as in Mark 4:26-29 the farmer (read pastor) sleeps while the Kingdom grows beyond his control!

    Why not work with the grain of the Kingdom, rather than against it?

    Let the Gospel seed grow underground in your friendships, permeating every nook and cranny of your life – truly trust that the fire of mission and divine love will bubble up in people as you share life on life with them.

    Trust that Jesus truly is the head of the Church – and not you and your staff.  Could it be that our churches look too much alike – each vying for the same 15% of the population – meanwhile hundreds of millions more are looking desperately for a church that looks like Jesus-with-skin-on in their context, only to find the same praise band or Powerpoints wherever they go.

    I’m writing this not out of anger or bitterness; I’m writing this as a missionary, crying desperately for the Christians to reach out to a lost world.  Could it be that the biggest obstacle for people in discovering the true Lord Jesus and his Church is our pre-conceived notions of what church is and how it should function in the world?

    The lost need us to recapture the characteristics of the Kingdom of God and to tear down the walls of the church-box in our mind.  The desperate are dying for us to incarnate the Gospel in fresh ways on our block – even as we love and bless what God is doing down the street.

    I am cautiously optimistic though, as I look at the horizon of “church planting” – the wineskin of the church is becoming fresh, new. Churches gathering in nightclubs, poetry circles, homes, parks, under overpasses and in city centers.  Churches that live together 24/7, that function as a little family and a source of light and healing for their blighted neighborhood.  I’m seeing new forms of God’s family take shape in our little organic church network.  I’m seeing new faith-community experiments bubble up all over Chicago, and the country.

    Its time to take the lid off – where might things spread if we took Jesus’ images of his Church seriously?

    Its BOTH/AND.

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    • peter lambert 2:30 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink

      are you suggesting we actually follow Jesus instead of the institution? You Heretic. Lol. Some very serious food for thought in your post

    • Mark W 4:24 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink

      If we explode the image in our minds of what church is – if we let down our guard and our expectations – if we set aside our own visions of success and look instead for what God might want to do; even as strange and unique as it might seem to the prevailing “church planting” world – for God’s glory – let’s give it a shot and see if it sticks! I think a little “bio-diversity” in God’s garden might do us some good.

    • Jon 'JB' Butler 4:08 pm on April 3, 2011 Permalink

      Good thought provoking post.
      I think we can sometimes forget that maybe our lives and expression of faith in the living God, should be as living as him.

    • Mark W 4:22 pm on April 3, 2011 Permalink

      Jesus presented with us a “way” meaning he didn’t ask us to “admit he existed” or “attend a specific gathering on a specific day” – This Way is what 1 John 2 means when it says, “we are to live as Jesus lived.” That’s what discipleship is about – as much as we’d prefer it to simply be a series of worship songs and prayers, etc.

      Jon – thanks for your thoughts – how does our lives provide an “expression of faith in the living God” as you suggest?

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