TotD: What is the Church 2

This blog follows on from "TotD: What is the Church?" To summarise we are living in a post-Christian, or rapidly changing Ireland. Across the Western World churches are seeing a drop in attendance from young people, and few from unchurched backgrounds attending in the first place. This should raise some serious concerns for us as the church living in the Twenty-First Century.

These thoughts are based on readings for a module in college and are not yet fully formed in my mind, or in many of the Christians that think them through theoretically or practically, yet. They are intended as thinking points that I have come across and people don't seem to think about a lot. I also believe that they are vital things to think about as the Church.

- The Biblical definition of a Church:
A lot of the time I keep hearing it said that a church is a mixed group of people, of varying ages and social classes and with a recognised, long term leader.
Although you can find qualifications for elders and deacons in 1 Timothy and Titus, and mentions of pastors, elders, deacons, deaconesses and other church leaders can be found elsewhere in the Bible, none of these are ever mentioned as being a definition of a Church, or what a church is.

Every time a church is mentioned in the Bible it is mentioned as a group of believers. Even the Greek word means 'ekklesia' means 'assembly' or, as Thayer's Greek Lexicon puts it, 'a gathering of people called out of their homes to meet together.'

i.e. "Where two or three are gathered in My Name I am there with them." -Jesus, in Matthew 18:20 (my paraphrase, or a translation in my head)

Everything else we have added are things we have added. The need for a pastor, although good and biblical, is not a requirement, or the Brethren movement would not be a Church, they have no pastors. In other places the pastors can change regularly, Paul was considered the leader of churches despite the fact that he was not often at those churches physically. If you look historically at some of the first century churches they did not have a mix of social statuses present, some were all lower class and some were all higher class. These would be disqualified by the modern Evangelical definition of a church.

Often people harp back to the New Testament looking for evidence of what the church should look like, outside of being a group of people who are in love with Jesus and consequentially love one another and others outside of their community, there is no set vision of the church in the Bible. There is no passage in Scripture that says "when you meet together this is exactly what you should do."

Often Protestant Christians give out about the amount of tradition (/Tradition) that the Roman Catholic Church has added to the Bible. What Protestant denominations don't realise is that they add traditions to the teachings of the Bible as well. The doctrine of the church, and how it should be run, is (though undoubtedly based on scripture) stuff we have added.

Those other qualifications for a church to be a church are based on scripture, and there find their origins, but they are additions, or interpretations. Therefore, a Church is simply a gathering of people who believe in Jesus and love Him, and are gathered in His name (in some senses this can negate the actual church-iness of what people on earth claim is a church). A Church is not a building, a product, a place, or anything else you might want to call it. It is simply a gathering of people, together in Jesus' name.

- Evidence of what a Church was like in 150 according to Justin Martyr.
Justin Martyr is an early Christian apologist who lived from about 100AD to 165AD. The Catholic Church claim him as one of their saints but he is pre-Catholic (of course).

He is one of the earliest sources, outside of the Book of Acts and the epistles, of what the Church looked like in the post-Jesus-on-earth world (sometimes called AD). He speaks of Baptism, transubstantiation in the Eucharist, and then speaks of what Sunday is like. I will quote this in full:

"CHAPTER LXVII -- WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRIST-IANS.

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration."

Taken from 'The First Apology of Justin, Chapter 67, found at http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html,  accessed 16-10-2013.


From Justin's writings we can see what it meant to be part of the Church in the second century. There was a time of meeting, as long as time permitted on a Sunday, reading from Scripture occurred and there was teaching and exhortation, there was breaking of bread, money donated and used to feed the widows and orphans of the congregation.

Again there is nothing here to suggest that the way we run Church in the 21st Century is 2000 years old. In fact, they went on for as long as time allowed, not the 30min-120min services we are familiar with.

-What the Church looks like today:
Today our churches are very different from those that came before. Going to church is such a timed affair in the 21st century. It is almost as if we can only give 90 minutes on a Sunday to God, and then we have to leave and get back to our lives until the next Sunday (or maybe another 90 minutes mid-week). I hear stories of Churches in Africa and China where Church starts at 7 (I would honestly hate that) and ends when the sun sets. To most people 12 or so hours of Church sounds like the closest thing on earth to Hell. That shouldn't be the case. This is what we should want to do. We are the Church, we should want to be the Church, spend time ministering to one another's needs and worshipping our God and reaching out to bring other people into the most wonderful (at least ideologically) family on earth.

I would love to spend some time giving out about having stages, thrones, pews, high altars and pulpits, closed off sanctuaries, etc etc. but that is not really the point, and in some Church buildings those things are a blessing.

Instead I will talk a little about the Church and politics, and then the Church and consumerism.
Politics:
Jesus gave us the command that leaders in the Christian world should not lord it over others. However, since the Catholic Church crowned its first King in c800AD the Church has been lording it over everyone. Now, I am unsure as to what I think about Church involvement in politics, I do vote, I am a registered member of a party etc. but I think that pushing Christian ideals on an unChristian world is not really the best approach to showing the Church as a loving community that welcomes sinners. What I do know is that the position the Church found itself in from the year 800-1900 was not good. The Church became unloving, pompous, selfish, vain, power hungry, murderous, corrupt and other such things that are so contrary to Jesus' vision of His community of followers on earth.

Consumerism:
I think that Christianity in this century (and the last) has largely bought into the idea of consumerism. This is a generalisation of the Church and might not be what yours looks like. We wear Christian brands to show ourselves as different from the world (not the fruits of the Spirit). People pick and choose a church based on the same principles they would choose a type of cheese in Tesco. We devote a slice of the pie that is our entire lives to the Church, while the rest of the pie is for other things.

Christianity has become a thing, not a way of life, not a life altering decision, not something we are persecuted for but something we wear. There is very little commitment to Christ in that kind of Church.
We need to think about this seriously, because it is certainly a serious issue.


-What post-Christians are looking for:
This is a hard topic to address. What exactly will draw the post-Christian person back to the Church.

One of these things is the old faithful authenticity. In the world today there is a lot of fraud and lies and cover ups, etc. The postmodern world is crying out for something genuine and real. The problem with the church as it exists today (again generalisations) is that we have a lot of 'Sunday Christians'. I have heard it said that "if Jesus comes back on a Sunday between 11 and 1 we'll all be fine."

This is humorous, a little insulting maybe, but it makes a good point. Consumer Christianity has bred Sunday Christians. These, if you don't know, are people who come to Church and wear a 'I'm a good Christian' mask while there. When they are not in Church, however, they barely give God/Jesus a thought. They may as well be any other non-Christian on the street, because that is the amount of difference they are making to God's Kingdom (nothing).

Secularisation was widely accepted in the post-Enlightenment (modern) period as a good idea, and as progress for the human race. In the US and the UK, after a generation of secularism (which we have largely not experienced here in Ireland) people are beginning to reject the idea that a person can be whole without developing their spiritual side. This is important for the Church because "there is an element of Christianity which is spiritual" (this quote is sarcasm, Christianity is all spiritual). The Church has something to offer here, and needs to be prepared to offer a contemplative, meditative view of Christianity not just things like Christian Persuaders and apologetics (these have their place, undoubtedly, but we need to look beyond them and see what else we can use to reach people).

-How can we change?
I apologise if you see this as judgemental of the Church that exists in Ireland today, but I believe it is true that we need to adapt and change if we are going to continue being missional and bringing people to a knowledge of Jesus.

One thing I think is important to change is our concept on what is and what isn't a Christian. We often have very strict ideas about people having to have datable, and timable, conversion experiences. They need to have said a prayer and that gets them in. We need to realise that this method of bringing people to Jesus is seriously flawed. Anyone can say a prayer, it means nothing to (I would argue) the vast majority of people who have said it. We need to shift to seeing people as disciples of Jesus, not people to convert. Discipleship is what Jesus calls for in the Bible and, in some sense, discipleship begins before conversion.
Someone can be learning about Jesus and God, and understanding applications of this to their lives, before they ever understand who Jesus truly is.

I wonder is someone who has huge doubts about Jesus but believes, deep down, that He is God and is trying to overcome their doubts to be able to fully believe, in a better position than someone who, in some Evangelistic meeting or another, said a prayer and maybe believed there and then, for ten seconds, or maybe they were swept up in the moment. Now, anyway, it was just a moment that means little. Who is better off, the doubter who kind of believes but kind of doesn't or the person who we outreached to and 'led to the Lord' using the sinner's prayer?

I certainly hope you didn't read that and think person B, but if you did, that's exactly the problem we need to face as a Church, these ideas we have added to the Bible.

This blog seems very unfinished, because it is filled with ideas and thoughts that have not yet reached their fullness. I hope you can see past anything that hits you as judgemental and see the heart of the issue, being that the Church needs to adapt to reach people in the now, and the future, or we will watch it die out.

in A anim agus A chuid seribhis,
Wavey ~
ask.fm/Wavey1111- if you want to ask a question, or make an anonymous statement for me to read.