Weblog Entry - 05/17/2003: "Church"

05/17/2003 Entry: "Church"

Rachel has been the catalyst for an interesting discussion under the heading "listening to a non-church goer". It's reached 9 parts so far, and has been fascinating. Today she links to this article, Why I don't go to church anymore and I felt a strong need to respond to some of the points it raises.

Asking "Where do you go to church?" the author says

I have never liked this question, even when I was able to answer it with a specific organization. I know what it means culturally, but it is based on a false premise--that church is something you can go to as in a specific event, location or organized group. I think Jesus looks at the church quite differently. He didn't talk about it as a place to go to, but a way of living in relationship to him and to other followers of his.

I take the point, but the fact is that the New Testament does speak about the church as a specific gathering of people. Gathering requires a "place" -- not necessarily a building of course -- and a time. Our experience of church is by necessity rooted in specific locations. "Going to" church and "being" church are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I continue to claim that the one requires the other. Yes, there are circumstances in which fellowship with others is impossible. But those are exceptional circumstances. If being part of the church is like being a part of a body as Paul said, then the body needs all its parts together if it is to be complete.

Acknowledging the importance of fellowship, we read But sometimes that kind of fellowship is not easy to find. Periodically on this journey we may go through times when we can't seem to find any other believers who share our hunger. That's especially true for those who find that conforming to the expectations of the religious institutions around them diminishes their relationship with Jesus. I think that is dangerously close to saying that the wrong sort of church is worse than no church at all. It's an argument I've heard before, and I disagree absolutely and utterly. What I most object to is the slight sense that those who express their faith differently, who don't appear (to us!) to "share our hunger", are not on the same journey as we are and are therefore not worth engaging in fellowship with.

Of the question "Shouldn't we be committed to a local fellowship?" we read,

That has been said so often today, that most of us assume it is in the Bible somewhere. I haven't found it yet.

There's a good reason for that. The local fellowship is assumed. How else would Christians meet together, except in a local fellowship? How else can we be "be committed to one another", except by being together? It is true that "we make a huge mistake when we assume that fellowship takes place just because we attend the same event together, even regularly, or because we belong to the same organization", but it is equally true that we can be fairly sure that fellowship does not exist at all if meeting nver takes place. (There's a discussion to be had about whether that meeting has today to be a physical one, but that's for another time)

The small group house church is an immensely attractive proposition, but if a group grows beyond the dozen or so that can fit comfortably into the average domestic living room decisions have to be made which lead inevitably to some kind of organisation. Call it "non-denominational" all you like, organising a crowd of people takes some system of order whether you label it or not.

I was glad to read that

I realize some people who leave traditional congregations end up abusing that freedom to satisfy their own desires and thus miss out on church life altogether. Neither am I a fan of 'church hoppers', who whip around to one place after another looking for the latest fad or the best opportunity to fulfill their own selfish desires

but found it difficult to distinguish this from the following paragraph

once you've tasted of living fellowship between passionate believers, it is impossible to settle for anything less.

I don't want to seem over-critical, because I think there are many important issues being raised here, but it seemed to me that the authenticity of "church" is being judged on the criteria of what it does "for me". But the way (perhaps I should say The Way) of Jesus is not about personal satisfaction or individual spiritual improvement. It has always been about sacrifice, and that is true of our life within the church as it is without. "What do I get?" is (or should be) a much less important question than "What do I give?"

Replies:

It's funny that I should come across this post today. Our pastor mentioned the delight of church-going as part of taking delight in the Lord. He didn't specifically address the idea of being in church vs. being church, though "being church" is inherently part of the delight, IMO.

I'm glad you had that last paragraph...it's always a good thing to be reminded that we ought to consider what we ought to give rather than what we get out of church.

Posted by Gonnabe @ 05/19/2003 04:50 AM CST

Thanks for the thoughts Richard, I appreciate your points on the matter -- I'm going to see if I can contact the author of the article and see what they say in response to points like yours.

.: peaceRachel

Posted by Rachel C @ 05/17/2003 11:26 PM CST

I've been kind of following the discussion on other blogs too, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's slightly uneasy to say the least about how far some people want us to remove our christianity from "churchianity" (is that a word?!).

I know there are some places where the traditional institutional "Church" stifles the reality of "being" church, but we should be able to challenge and revitalise this from INside, not from turning our back on all traditional structures altogether.

thanks for well expressed reactions from "inside"!!

alice

Posted by alice @ 05/17/2003 05:34 PM CST

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