Click on the image to watch the video:

Sigur Ros

What do you see when you watch this?  What emotions are stirred in you?  What does it say about the Church?  About God?  About how lives are transformed on-the-way?  Read the previous post on this blog: This is Us! How is that story and this video related?

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.

Humans have a tendency to fall off one side of the horse, only to get back on and promptly fall right off the other side.  Mega-churches captured our attention with the regional impact, dynamic programs and preaching, and resource capabilities in the 1970-90′s, and forerunners like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren still shape the American Christian conversation in essential ways.  But sometime in the mid 1990′s, the “emerging church movement” erupted and fresh expressions of “micro church” began counter-balancing congregations with 10,000+ members.

Missionaries from around the world began contributing to the ecclesiology of America – saying essentially, “Look, this church planting thing has been our main project for centuries – and we mostly plant churches in people’s homes.”  Many American Christians thought – if it works around the world, why not America too?

The trouble began when just anyone started planting a little church in their living room, for any reason at all under both positive (let’s share Jesus with our neighbors) and negative motivations (let’s react against the abuses of the churches I’ve been a part of).

The end result was that many house churches, even ones that really strive for health, simply cannot do what the mega-church can do!  There are simply not enough hands on deck in a group of 12 people; not enough resources (financial and otherwise), not enough diversity to build a fully functional Body of Christ in an area.  For folks that staunchly hold to the local autonomy of a house church, I wish you well, but I’ll expect to see your house church in the intensive care unit before the end of the year!

If we don’t want to fall off the “other side of the horse” we must rely on an extended family. The church in the New Testament, while each one of them gathered for worship and lived out Kingdom life in a local house church, realized a greater “Church” that they depended on that existed beyond their walls.  This MACRO Church, connected communities in a given city or region, offers healthy leadership, the financial support, the complete spiritual gift matrix, and much more.  It is an interdependent community of communities; a node of resources that helps spiritually form both the individual, and contributes to the health of each house church!

The mega-church can find this balance with real small-groups that aren’t just another program for people to attend; and a house church can find the same balance by connecting with or forming a real network of a dozen or so house churches that bring diversity and regional leadership.  Hugh Halter and Matt Smay in their book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church help put more form to this concept.

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Sign up for MACRO!

If you are a part of a small group, house church, or congregation – and you’re ready to explore the practical implications of developing a healthy balance  in Christian community, Godgrown is releasing MACRO March 1st – sign up and invite others in your community to learn alongside you!