Articles

Too many of us still think the best way to win people is by inviting them to our already-established church, to join us where we are because we have something good for them there. This seems to be the thinking behind most of our efforts to create a welcoming, inoffensive, full-service experience for them once they arrive. This is the “Come To Us” approach.

But that’s not the way Jesus fulfilled His mission, and it’s not how He intends for us to fulfill ours. He completely left where He was in order to mingle with us here. And He now commands us to assert ourselves in a similar way, to leave our familiar surroundings and meet with others where they are. The attitude we need if we’re going to succeed is, “I’ll come join you. Let’s start something with the people you know and care about.” This is a “Go To Them” approach.

In a previous post in this series, I suggested that it is dangerous to the spiritual maturity of believers to place an extraordinary emphasis on Sunday as “The Day” for Christians to meet together as the church.

But there is another more dangerous emphasis that is often found among the modern, traditional church today: the place – typically a building designated for church meetings (i.e., worship services). (Of course, those who ‘house church’ could look at their particular house in the same dangerous manner.)

When I was growing up, the church building was like the temple in many ways. Oh, we SAID that our bodies were the temple of God, but we ACTED as if the church building was. There were even different levels of holiness attached to the church building.

There were things you could do/say elsewhere that you did not do/say while on church grounds. There were things you could do/say on church grounds that you did not do/say while in the church building. There were things you could do/say in the church building that you did not do/say while in “the sanctuary.” There were things you could do/say in “the sanctuary” that you did not do/say while on the platform. There were things you could do/say on the platform that you did not do/say while standing behind the pulpit.

In the closing words of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus leaves us with what has become known as "The Great Commission". In it, Jesus charges his disciples with a set of tasks until he returns. Here's what Jesus commands us to do:
1) Go out into the world and make disciples.
2) Baptize these disciples in the name of the Trinity.
3) Teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded us.

If we take a moment to evaluate how we, the Church, have done in accomplishing these tasks, I think we'll see where we've missed the mark, and hopefully where we need to get back on track.

In the previous posts in this series, I suggested that it is dangerous to the spiritual maturity of believers to place an extraordinary emphasis on Sunday as “The Day” or a specific location as “The Place” for Christians to meet together as the church.

Besides teaching people that they are only the church on a particular day and at a particular place, the practices of modern, traditional churches also dangerously teach people that the church is only meeting when they follow a particular program. Sometimes this is called liturgy. Sometimes it’s a specific set of activities or events that must happen.

Can you imagine what would happen on Sundays among most churches if there were no songs? What if no one preached a sermon or delivered a homily? What if certain creeds or prayers were not recited in unison?

And, yet, none of these things are necessary for the church to meet. However, because most churches practice these things “religiously,” people are taught that they are necessary and if they don’t happen (sometimes in a certain order) then it is not church.

In this case, it is not the day or the place that is defining the church, but a certain set of activities. Interestingly, these activities typically have little to do with the people involved. Anyone could sing the songs or recite the creeds/prayers, and it would still be considered church. The people themselves are replaceable. The people no longer define the church; certain activities – the program – defines the church.

BELIEVE, BELONG, BECOME
Someone once told me that every single human being has a desire to believe something, to become something and to belong to something. As we enter into relationship with others we need to listen for the clues to where people are at in this process.

Ask people questions about what they believe, find out what they are searching to belong to, help them to come to grips with what they want to become.

Dear Nicolay,

Do you remember when we traveled around Ukraine doing the Vision Conferences to encourage church planting as part of a saturation church planting strategy? Those were exciting days full of enthusiasm, in spite of the resistance from many brothers. We fully expected that God would enable us to begin 40,000 new churches by starting reproducing churches. We talked about reproduction, movements and starting new churches, and the glory of God.

In the previous posts in this series, I suggested that it is dangerous to the spiritual maturity of believers to place an extraordinary emphasis on Sunday as “The Day” or a specific location as “The Place” or a specific set of activities as “The Program” for Christians to meet together as the church.

In this final post of the series, I want to focus on another “danger” of the modern, traditional Sunday: a focus on a specific person or group of people who must “lead” the church meeting. Usually, this person is the senior pastor, sometimes combined with other “staff” such as “minister of music” (minister or worship) or perhaps another “associate pastor.”

And, what happens when that person (the senior pastor) can’t be there – rare though that must be? He (or she) hand picks a replacement.

SOCIAL LEPROSY
In the book of John, Jesus prays for those who would follow his teachings after he ascended into heaven. What I find fascinating is that Jesus began by praying for what he didn't want to pray. Yeah, it sounds strange, doesn't it?

Why would anyone ever start praying by asking God for what they were not asking? Maybe the clue is in what it was that Jesus didn't pray. He says, "I pray not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the Evil One" (John 17:15).

Why did Jesus pray this?

We are excited to announce the publishing of a new book in Russian- Reimagining the Church by Frank Viola. The book will be available in April, but until then we would like to share with you some excerpts to give you a taste of the book.

It’s important for you to know that reimagining the church as a living organism isn’t a pipe dream. The church actually can express herself organically just as she did in the first century. That said, the following letters were written by various people who have experienced organic church life in recent years. These are their impressions:

Letter 1

I never planned on leaving the old way of doing church. I wasn’t looking for a new church and couldn’t even conceive of what an organic church would look like ...

A young mother chose to do her washing in the local laundromat because it was a useful meeting point for developing links with other local mothers. In her scale of values, deepening of relationships with neighbors was more important than the convenience of doing her washing at home, even though she possessed her own washing machine.

Shopping times provided natural and useful opportunities for
developing contacts with people.

In her scale of values effective evangelism was more important than efficient shopping. For her it was preferable to make her purchases from two shops even though she could have obtained all the items from one. Her approach to personal evangelism was determined by a matter of simple arithmetic. It is
better to witness to two shopkeepers than it is to one!

Do you have a sanctified imagination?  How do you use it?