Wednesday, August 25, 2004
what does church look like?
John at Subvergence was blogging his thoughts on what Church should look like, and it got me thinking. He answers a couple of questions about his own thoughts:
Why do I feel like church should be small and intimate?
Why do I feel drawn to less structure within church?
...and this is what peaked my interest:
I like some of the thinking that is happening among those align with the emergent church, and yet I'm not quite as eager, as some seem to be, to completely abandon everything that happens in most evangelical churches.
I've had quite a few church leaders email me after reading my article, Church: the rules have changed, that was published back in September of 2003 in Automata 5.0, as well as The Ooze, Ginkworld, and a few other places -including this blog (I'm not trying to brag, rather I just want people to know where to find what I'm talking about). Anyhow, back on topic... Quite a few in leadership of traditional, evangelical churches had emailed me to ask for advice concerning bringing more life to their church, making it more Missional, and becoming the Church, rather than just going to "Mutual Admiration Societies". At first, I didn't know how to respond. We were one of those who had abandoned everything and started over. Granted, over the past 2 years we have built up into something that we believe is much more true to ourselves as the Church, but we didn't evolve into this from a traditional structure.
For 7 years, we were more traditionally structured. I led worship, my father preached a sermon, we had "ministry time", an alter call, even home groups and prayer meetings. Granted, we were a bit more "on the edge", but structured traditionally nonetheless. When my father gave the pastorate to Nadine and me, we already had such an entirely different vision of community than that of the former, we felt the need to break the mold. My mother and father had done incredibly well in empowering our people to seek out their own vision in ministry, and they were still just sitting there as pew people. The time was right to break them of their habit. We immediately called off Sunday mornings, and more or less kicked everyone out of the church. I don't recommend this to anyone seeking to bring about change within their church group. We did it because it was exactly what they needed. And it worked... they all started to pursue the visions they had longed to do. We then started having the "Monday Night Thing", an open support/share group, and slowly grew into much more.
Not many people who are looking to "reform" their current church can do something so drastic. So I had to think about what other options are available for those who were asking. After some prayer, contemplation, and saying to myself, "I think I can, I think I can..." over and over, a little engine train came out of nowhere and nailed me! I had been reading Journey Inward, Journey Outward, by Elizabeth O'Connor, in which she so eloquently told the story of Church of the Savior, and explored what it means to be the Church. What a wonderful way to give new life to the evangelical church! Finding those within the congregation that have the love and vision of a missionary for the local community. Helping them develop their gifts, the very things they love to do, helping them become the unique self that they were created to be, helping them become the Good News! Then to set up a team of people around them to work together at bringing that vision to its fullness! Being about the business of calling out the depths of others, and teaching those around us to do the same. This would completely revitalize and reform the evangelical and traditional church. This would put the focus on being the Church, as opposed to "going to church."
The Inner Sanctum Church may have abandoned everything to be able to explore, redefine and/or restore what it means to be the Church, but it was our time to start fresh. We had a new group of people, eager to learn, and an old group of people who were ready to be "sent." For those who cannot bring themselves to risk losing all to start over, Church of the Savior's story gives us all a very exciting and refreshing way to bring our focus back to being and becoming the body of Jesus, the very presence of God to the world as mentioned in Isaiah 58.
Perhaps I will go into our structure as The Inner Sanctum Church a bit more later.
I want to thank John for helping to bring this post from merely thought to script. And I apologize that blogger has poor options available for being able to splice longer posts.
