Thoughts On Attending Church

One of the valuable lists that is included in "Reimagining Church," is a description of the different kind of church meetings that occurred in the New Testament. In brief, here is the list:

1) Apostolic Meetings were special meetings where the apostles ("Reimagining Church" calls them apostolic workers) preached to an interactive audience. They were either planting a church or encouraging an existing one. Reference: Acts 5:40-42, 19:9-10, 20:27, 31. These were never permanent arrangements, the apostles came for a time, then left, with the purpose of equipping the local body of believers to function under the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not a human head reference: Ephesians 4:11-16, 1 Corinthians 14:26.

2) Evangelistic Meetings happened outside the church during the first century. The apostles preached the gospels to unbelievers wherever they gathered: synagogue or marketplace. The idea was to plant a church, or add numbers to an existing local body of believers, reference Acts 14:1, 17:1-33, 18:4, 19.

3) Decision-Making Meetings were called together whenever a big decision needed to be made, reference Acts 15. The elders and apostles played a helpful role, but the decision was made by everyone.

4) Church Meetings were regular gatherings of the local body of believers, reference i Corinthians 11-14. Certainly unbelievers were present from time to time, but the purpose of the gathering was for believers to worship and fellowship together.

Beginning on page 51, "Reimagining Church" describes the differences between a typical church service of today, and the worship time of the ancients.

After reading "Reimagining Church" I realized that the Lord had given me much and now expected much of me. Our family is still weighing the implications of this book. One of the ways I have made peace with attending our church is to remind myself that we are really attending an apostolic meeting. Sometimes evangelism is included.

Our church services are not like the worship services the New Testament describes, but I imagine they are similar to when Apollos came to preach, or one of the apostles. An Apostolic Meeting. Our church encourages the regular meeting of small groups (some churches call them home groups) and perhaps that is where the more New Testamental worship can take place (though our family is not involved with such a group).

We love the people in our church, and we love the pastors. God's Holy Spirit is at work among the people, and He is blessing work that He is enabling among many of our people. There are a few ministries represented in our church which God has just about opened the floodgates of heaven to bless (I am involved in one of them, a teaching ministry that is a "parachurch" organization, but has several key members who also are members of our church).

By this, it seems to me, God is at work through institutional churches, though it may very well deeply grieve Him that we have greatly limited ourselves with this construct. My fervent hope is that God will bring the "Revolution" into institutional church and change us from the inside.

On the other hand, considering what's happened to the seven main mainline denominations in our country, and considering the turning of the political tide away from Christianity, perhaps God is allowing the emptying of our institutional churches (by a million members a year) for the purpose of our survival. Perhaps, in years to come, it will be safer for God's people, and there will be more liberty to live by faith, if we are decentralized....

Why are a million people a year leaving their churches and not looking back?

Where are they going? Who are they? What are they like?

After reading a recent article published by The Barna Group, I began to look for some answers, and began with a book that George Barna was recommending -- which he had incidentally written: "Revolution."

Of course the title would immediately appeal to those who still hear John Lennon singing "Gotta be a revolution..." in their heads, and who discovered Karl Marx in college (the new revolutionaries are Marxian, not Marxist).

Is there a revolution? After reading Geroge Barna's book and experiencing that strange sensation that he must know me (because he is describing my thoughts uncannily well) I decided that the Spirit must be on the move.

But what is God doing right now? Why would He be emptying His churches?

"Pagan Christianity," written by George Barna with his friend Frank Viola, offered some ideas. Perhaps, they posited, the institutional church, founded in 325 by Constantine, and reformed five hundred years ago by Martin Luther, John Calvin and a few others, was in need of more than an overhaul. Perhaps the institutional church model has run its course, and the new way is really a return to the original way.

Reformers have been yearning after a return to the church of Acts, the "first church," the "original church," for a long time. there have been revivals, Dissenters of even the first protestants (clear back in the sixteen hundreds the Quakers and Anabaptists were dissenting the mainstream reform movement. Didja know the Quakers included both men and women prophets and teachers?). There have been reformers of the reformers, Disciples of Christ, the Plymouth Brethren.

How is this new "revolution" not a replay of all these other "revolutions"?

We had to wait a full year for the next installment, this time written solely by Frank Viola, but clearly covering twenty years and more of in-the-field research and experience. "Reimagining Church." The first half of the book is still pretty rough (in my opinion); the last half of the book has been distilled to the tincture of purity in inspiration, truth and revelation.

My next blog will be my own review of that book, beginning with some observations about "Pagan Christianity."

http://frankviola.wordpress.com/