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My Church is Like ????
A book I recently read spoke of the difference between the house churches which are multiplying rapidly in third world countries and the traditional church model we are used to with its bigger and bigger church buildings and staff centric services. Here is an excerpt:
Are the big churches the real McCoy? Or, are they a blend of four unbiblical models.
Harvard, where the professor is a preacher, the lecturn is a pulpit, and students are parishioners. Trouble is, they can sit and take notes for forty years, but they’ll never graduate, never get a degree, and never ever become professors themselves.
Hollywood, with its stage, entertainers, polished performances, costumed singers, applauding audiences, etc. All the church needs is popcorn.
IBM, where a board of directors runs everything from the top down, where permission to do things is denied or granted by the CEO and committees, where finances are the overriding factor behind policies, and where the institution competes with other churches for market share.
Wal-Mart, whose aisles and aisles of tempting merchandise offer something for every body, Seeker-sensitive megachurches, with their array of 100+ programs, mirror beautifully the “consumer heaven” ideal of Wal-Mart.
-- Megashift -- James Rutz
What metaphor would you currently use to describe your church?
What are the hallmarks of a Biblical church?
What metaphor would you ideally like to use to describe your church?
Participation in small groups, ministry and in worship is vitally important and defines how much life is actually in the Body. One of the most important questions to consider is how to encourage more participation (and I don't mean sitting in a pew or in a lecture class).
If anything be revealed to another that sits by, let the first hold his peace.
(1 Corinthinas 14:27)
Comments?
You bring up an interesting trend. The small house church plants that have populated continents like Asia are beginning to spring up in North America. Many believe the "mega-church" is a dying breed even though many still thrive in North America. The future trend seems to be this kind of church planting on our continent. Church movements are springing up in houses, shopping centers, apartment complexes, etc. in the U.S. What is yet to be determined is how the house church movements deal with growth. Will they institutionalize like the larger churches have done or stay small and organic? Time will tell, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAt one point over the past couple of years we were desribed (by someone) as a hospital ship, moving around to heal people. I like the idea of motion or purpose but I would ask if there is something more; something beyond healing that we need to be doing - like mobilizing for ministry, mission, and perhaps "war". So maybe we need to be an aircraft carrier, moving to a location with purpose, sending out people on missions (like the aircraft that it propels), participating in the battles for the kingdom that really matter. One caveat, though, big ships are hard to turn.
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