26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace (1 Cor 14:26-33).This isn't like anything I've seen before. You wouldn't actually attend a church like that, would you? In this scenario, "each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation ..." That's not a church you can "attend". That's a church in which you participate. You wouldn't just be showing up to listen, worship, be fed, but to share, to lead worship, to feed. Imagine if you went to a church where everyone showed up "for building up".
One of the things that strikes me in this explanation of church is the final verse: "God is not a God of confusion but of peace." Most of us, reading this description, would think "chaos". Paul didn't. He thought that God, as a God of peace, would be pleased with a church service where everyone had something to add. Paul thought that God's idea would be to have a "conversational church", where someone over here says, "This is what I learned from Scripture this week" and someone over there would say, "No, Ted, that's not quite accurate. You see, here it says ..." (v 29) and that would be good. One of the reasons this strikes me is that I've been in many churches where things are quite controlled, but not necessarily characterized by "peace". Odd.
Now, I'm not saying that this passage describes what church should be like. I'm not entirely sure it doesn't, but I'm not suggesting a rule here. I'm just saying that maybe, just maybe, it would be interesting some day to find a church where the people that go there don't attend; they minister. They don't come to be fed, but to feed. They don't show up to see "what's for church today?" like a smorgasbord, but to share what they had all week. It might be interesting at that.
22 comments:
I think the only place you can find something like that would be in the small groups within a church. Such a church as you describe would HAVE to be a very small church, one that by today's standard be a very unsuccessful church. I think that as a small group grows into a "church" it should split into 2 small groups, and so on. I've gotten to the point where I'm looking for a church that has a good foundational teacher that will produce small groups that can grow together. If the purpose of going to church is to fellowship, then its going to happen in small groups, not in the main sanctuary on Sunday morning.
The only problem I have with a church like you describe is that it doesn't seem to fit at all with the biblical concept of a multiplicity of elders.
The multiplicity of leaders would be the leaders of the small groups. And by small groups growing and splitting, I'm not thinking of 5 or 6 people growing the 12 and splitting, but a larger number. When you start getting lost in the crowd its probably too big. If you go to a church and have no means of being held accountable or being discipled, I don't think that church is going to be a good place to grow as a believer.
It wouldn't be pretty you know. It would require a tremendous amount of humility and grace toward one another; humility because of man's aversion to correction and his need to have things his way. You know... the same ole thing that churches have struggled with from the get-go. Much of this is solved by our present form, a leader/prophet/teacher/everything else, a few sub leaders, and then everybody else. Church is much tidier this way. No one expects to be involved so they are not disappointed when they're not. And no one is subjected to hours of rambling pushed on everyone as prophesy. And no one gets offended because they are asked to yield the floor to their fellow rambler, a rambler for which rambler number one has no respect for in the first place. Yes, humility would have to be key when you think about it. It kind of reminds me of this scripture: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Then there's grace required of us all when someone says something that weighs in as false; that everyone handles such a situation in a gracious manner so that all may profit, even the one in error should he be humble enough to do so. I been in small groups like David describes and it is actually the closest I've ever come to experiencing the church as described, but as you say, it fails in Biblical leadership. I also think I remember you saying that the home church movement also has its problems in this regard. But I agree with David that this looks like the only model that could conceivably adhere to this description.
After thinking about what I said previous, just wanted to add that I do see myself in the humble deficient, rambler, and offendee category.
Dan: "Much of this is solved by our present form ..."
I wonder. How much of today's bad theology in the Christian church is due to the fact that we have one or two people in charge of a church and no one has the right to correct them?
But I realize you didn't actually mean "solved". It sounds like the problem is pride ... something of which we're supposed to divest ourselves, not feed. It seems to me, in fact, that the key ingredients to make such a church operate would be things like humility, love, peace, patience, self-control ... hey, wait a minute ... this is starting to sound familiar (Gal 5:22-23).
This isn't like anything I've seen before. You wouldn't actually attend a church like that, would you? In this scenario, "each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation ..." That's not a church you can "attend". That's a church in which you participate.
Just dropping in to say, fyi, this is a description of our church (generally). So, at least some churches do this.
Oh my goodness, do you mean that God knew what He was talking about when He put those things in the Bible? Its almost like He knows what is best for us, like He's our Designer or something.
I am a part of a network of house churches, but we didn't begin that way. It looked like any other American church, other than the fact that we didn't have a senior pastor. We had a team of pastors/elders, each responsible for differnet things, but otherwise, we looked a lot like any other American church.
We realized that there are quite a few flaws with that concept (as Stan has pointed out in a number of posts on the topic), the cheif of which was this very thing: Discipleship wasn't happening. People knew how to go to church, but the masses didn't know how to be the church.
Our current set up involves, what we call, a 3G model, with three environments: gathering, growing, and going. The Gathering environment is our weekend gathering of the house churches (what looks more like traditional church, but isn't viewed internally as such) with a team of elders over it.
The growing environment, our house churches, is broken up into 5 regions, with a team of elders overseeing multiple house churches within a region, and each house church having at least 2 elders in it. The house churches are responsible for care of the community in which they meet, multiplying into other communities, sending missionaries, supporting missionaries, carrying out the ordinances of baptism and communion, etc, along with utilizing the other two environments, gathering and going. People are expected to come utilizing the gifts God has given them for the edification of the body, serving each other and not seeking to simply be fed, themselves.
The Going environment is broken into four categories, domestic unreached, domestic reached, international unreached, and international reached, obiously referring to people groups. Each group has a number of resources and can help house churches, regions, and the entire network plug-in to missions opportunities all over the city, nation, and world.
Deacons are appointed (not voted on) as needed for specific tasks, not to yearly blanket commitments, and this happens in all three of the environments.
This isn't perfect either, but neither was the original model. And this is constantly changing as the Lord teaches us new things. We're desiring to see people not sit on the sidelines (or in the pew), but get into the action, making disciples for Christ's cause. We've noticed that, for the general population, there's a period of detoxification from the American church. It seems to be anywhere from a few days to a few years for people to break free from the consumer mindset that uses terms like, "going to church," "church shopping," etc., and seeks to get people to come to them instead of going to where they are at.
I know there's a lot of debate on whether or not house churches are a good thing, but I just thought I'd throw this out there so that all of you could see how another body is doing things, rightly or wrongly, if only to spur on further thought of how we can be more like the church we were intended to be.
David, referring to what Ryan wrote, this is more along the lines of what I'm thinking. (Thanks, Ryan. Very interesting.) In the original version (Acts 2) (which, by the way, isn't presented as "this is the way it is supposed to be done", but "this is just what we're doing now"), "church" wasn't a "Sunday affair". It was a day-by-day affair. In that context, a Sunday (Sabbath) gathering of a larger body of believers would be a part, with small gatherings of components of that larger gathering during the week. I can see that working better than most of the current house-church models I've seen today.
Ryan, you explained how deacons are appointed on an "as needed" basis. How do elders get to be elders? (Just a side question.)
Ryan, you explained how deacons are appointed on an "as needed" basis. How do elders get to be elders? (Just a side question.)
And who appoints them and on what basis? I assume there's some group of "elders" or whatever you might call them, but who appointed the elders or how did they get in that position?
What denomination/tradition is this? I'm curious.
From what I remember, the elders are nominated by other elders, deacons and trusted memebers. The list of nominees is reviewed and interviewed, and some are eventually appointed by the elders. In other words, there's no voting for deacons or elders.
I'd also like to point out that house churches are different from small groups in at least one major way, and that is that they are to be intentional about multiplication. This stresses discipleship to take place, not only among those in the house church, but for us to be actively ministering together outside the four walls of the home, evangelizing (which is not an end in itself, but a part of the process of discipleship) and growing up new believers, helping them develop their gift(s) to eventually be used in a new body of believers in a their own neighborhood.
Ryan, sounds like Apex Community Church.
If it were not for sin and the self-obsessed idolatry at it's root, we might be able to have a church like that.
Steve, I wonder if the church at Corinth was less sinful or self-obsessed than we are.
Yep, that's us. How'd you know? I didn't want to put our name out there, but only because I didn't want people to take it as boasting that our church is the only one that does things right, or any such nonsense, but that's us. Our technical name is "Apex, a Network of Community Churches." I also didn't put it out there because I don't want anything I say to reflect in any official way on the church...I could very easily misspeak or misrepresent something inadvertantly, so please, this is all unofficial. :-)
Dan, I don't know that we're actually a part of any denomination officially (giving money to an organization), but before the house church thing started, we were considered Southern Baptist...I don't think that's changed, but I'm not 100% certain.
Ryan
I'd love to visit such a church.
Me, too.
Well, next time you're in Dayton, OH, let me know, and I'll take you. And you still didn't answer my question Stan...how'd you know it was Apex?
Oh, sorry, Ryan. My mistake. I googled "gathering, growing, and going" and found "the 3G model".
ha...that's funny. You just had to know, didn't you?! Being in Arizona I was wondering how you would have heard of us, but you're on top of things, as usual.
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