I was looking through some old blog posts of mine this morning and came across this quote:
“Consider the possibility that a church should own no property at allâ€
Larson, Osborne, The Emerging Church (1970), p51
Posted March 24, 2006. Almost one month before Phil and I walked into encounter for the first time. Funny how God works things out.
Maybe I just love encounter too much. Or maybe I just really love that we don’t have our own building. Or maybe I just like the intimate feel at encounter. I don’t know – but I just can’t see myself going to a church like this and enjoying it:
See the other 7 churches noted as “most innovative buildings” in Ministry Today.
It’s a buzz word. It’s often misunderstood. It’s central to the Christian faith and yet so absent from many churches. Community. It would be appropriate to launch into sociological reflection on the dearth of community in our culture, drawing from observations made by sociologists like Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone, Better Together) in order to demonstrate the human desire and decline of community, but I don’t have the time or expertise. Instead, I will address two main issues with our attempts to find community. First, defective Christian views of community are based on unbiblical notions of the Church. Second, true community is based not on what you do but who you are.
I still have to wonder and question why it seems like many in the church today are against this idea of “community.” They seem to think its some evil conspiracy of the purpose driven church.
Jonathan Dodson talks more about this in his recent article for Next-Wave Ezine:
The church is not just people; its God’s living room, his neighborhood.
But even with Jesus dying to remake people into better, worshiping, missional communities, the Church still remains defective. The family of God is dysfunctional. Why? Because at the center of community we too often have a set of rules, not the gospel.
Most communities fluctuate in their success based on how well people keep the rules of the community. For instance, if I join a book club my acceptance in the club will likely go up or down based on how well I understood the book, know the author, and can discuss his ideas. My sense of acceptance from the community is related to things I do, not who I am. The same is true for most community outlets in this world. If I am part of a Fantasy Football community, my sense of significance will ride upon how well I know my player stats and football trivia. Bottom line, the strength of a community is often determined by how well I perform, by what I do or don’t do, not who I am.
So what can we as a church body and a community of believers do to ensure that people feel significance based solely on who they are and not what they do?
All too often Christian communities have rules at their center, not the gospel. If you read the Bible, don’t drink beer, and “go to church,†you’re accepted. If you do the opposite, you are not accepted. This is religion, not the gospel. Religion says “I obey a set of rules and I am accepted,†but the message of Jesus was “You are accepted by my grace and as a result you obey and follow me.†As dysfunctional people we need something more than performance to bind us together. We need something that provides acceptance and forgiveness even when we fail one another. We also need something big enough to satisfy our infinite appetites for community, something divine. We need Jesus.
Jesus is sufficient for our failures and successes in community
A good friend of mine e-mailed me a question about fellowship in the church yesterday.
I wanted to ask you a question about church and Fellowship.
Is there debate about people who don’t attend or belong to a church,
but conduct Fellowship (by that I mean prayer and study) in their
home with other people, but without a reverend or priest or some sort
of Church leader present?Some people go to Fellowship during the week with like minds and then
go to church on Sunday. But is it rare for Christians to not go to
church at all and just have Fellowship throughout the week?
Basically, what’s the role of Fellowship?
Here are my thoughts:
Not sure if by Fellowship you mean a specific program of some sort or not. My circle of friends refer to “fellowship” in a number of terms/ways/definitions but it mainly just simply means to “hang out together.” If we sit around at a coffee shop we’re fellowshipping. If we eat a meal with family or friends we’re fellowshipping. If we attend church together we’re fellowshipping.
There are those who are adamant that Christians be a part of a local church body. That definition can vary depending on who you talk to. Some may say being a part of a community group/small group meets the “requirement.” Some say a home church would work. While others think you must be a part of a particular church body that meets in a church building and you must be there every time the doors are open.
For me personally, I believe a person can be just as strong of a Christian by simply studying Scripture in their home alone as they can be by being a member of a mega-church like Prestonwood Baptist, or a small local church like Sardis Methodist.
But I do believe Jesus talked strongly about community and our need for community. I believe we are created to yearn for community, both with God and with our fellow man. I think that community is important on many levels. For one it helps encourage one another and two it gives us an opportunity to “work out our faith” (Philippians 2:12) with others. In other words by meeting with others in fellowship or community it helps us understand and “work out” what Scripture means when it talks about things like “going to church” or “tithing” or “sharing love” or “loving our neighbor as ourselves.”
Our church has a strong push towards community groups that meet throughout the week (full disclosure – I oversee them). Our leadership team has talked many times about the people involved in the groups.
Some see our community groups as an extension of the church – people come to the Sunday morning service, want to get more involved and know more people, so they go to a community group and build relationships there. Others see community groups as the entry point for people outside our church – i.e. people who aren’t coming on Sunday mornings, who aren’t involved in a church are invited by their friends to come and enjoy community/fellowship/Bible study at someone’s house, rather than feeling pressured to attend a large church service.
I think both views are vital and I’m thrilled to see both happening. I can think of 3 or 4 people/couples that are involved in a community group during the week and have never attended a Sunday morning service. That’s awesome to me! I’m glad they’ve found a place where they feel comfortable to share their thoughts on God and life.
I’m also thrilled to see those involved in church finding ways to share God’s love with those around them – whether they attend our church or not.
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Any additions, subtractions or disagreements? What are your thoughts on fellowship and church attendance?
Woot! has a very fun and interesting post about how the Consumer Electronics industry sees it’s customers. They took a look at the marketing and mannequins that were used at the recent CES show to highlight what the industry “obviously” thinks about the consumer.
They may not mean to. They probably don’t even realize they’re doing it. But the vendors at CES reveal a lot about how they see their target audience with their choices of booth graphics and display mannequins. Here’s our cod-Freudian interpretation of what the industry really thinks about you, the sucke- uh, the consumer…
It got me thinking – if people are doing this with industry – what about our churches. How do we as a church see the “consumer” or the world around us? What perceptions does it give off to the world around us? Do we need to change that perception?
“A message purporting to be the best news in the world should be doing better than this.” – Brian McLaren
“The greatest message deserves the greatest marketing” – Mark Batterson
The church doesn’t exist for itself; it exists to serve the world
We’re looking for new background videos for encounter. And I’m always interested and on the look out for new ways of doing technology/video in worship… I’ve had this picture in my head for a while but thought it would only be limited to intellibeams and such. I would have loved to have done something cool at Christmas but it didn’t pan out – this may be the answer though to what I’m looking at and looking for.
That’s not paint or wallpaper on the wall of Irving Bible Church – that’s video/graphic projection.
Check out the entire gallery.
I can just imagine some of the things that could be done with a setup like this.
Want more information, check out visualworshiper.com