Repost: The greatest source of idolatry in evangelicalism

Back in August of 2009, I put up a post on making an idol of the local church, The greatest source of idolatry in evangelicalism. My point was a fairly controversial one, namely that something that is revered and beloved in the church, namely the institution of the local church, is the greatest source of idolatry among God's people.

This is an odd statement for many people to even contemplate. Our lives as Christians revolve around the local church, or at least it revolves around "my church" with little thought to "your church" other than how I can entice you away. We support our local churches with our time and our "tithing". How can something so beloved be a source of idolatry?

This was originally posted when I was just starting to think through some of these issues but in spite of some over the top language and hyperbole, the points I raise still bear contemplation. If we raise the "local church" to a position above the Kingdom, above the Bride, above the mission of the church, we have created an idol. Read and let me know what you think...
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If you listen to a sample of evangelical sermons, you are almost certain to come across at least one dealing with idolatry. Often these sermons will point to any number of idolatry culprits in the world: money, possessions, entertainment, pleasure. Ah how easy it is to stand behind a pulpit and give a mea culpa for our idolizing the television!

What is the essence of idolatry? Can something secular be truly idolatry? Or is idolatry something that of necessity has a spiritual context? When we look at idolatry, is it not a misrepresentation of the proper worship of God? We don’t see God’s wrath descending on the Israelites because they spent too much time playing Fantasy Chariot Racing. We see them altering the worship of God to suit themselves. Whether the sons of Aaron offering strange fire or the Israelites crafting a golden calf, idolatry has as its source a wrong view of the worship of God.

So again at the risk of having my “Reformed” secret decoder ring taken away, my assertion is that the source of the greatest idolatry among Christians is…

The local church

Please note an important caveat here. There is a difference between the local gathering of the church and the “local church” as we traditionally have known and practiced it. We have often blurred the line and exalted the local church above what is healthy or what is Biblical. Christ did not come to redeem the local church. He came to redeem His elect and as a result of our common salvation we gather together. The local gathering of the church plays a vital role in the life of the Christian and I don’t see that as a source of idolatry, but I am seeing signs of it in the expression of that gathering.

There seems to be a recent uptick in the number of people who are making assertions linking the local church with the Bride of Christ. Often these are accompanied by statements that amount to: “How can you say you love Jesus but don’t like His wife?” or “How can you love Jesus but say His bride is ugly?”. Let me be blunt:

The local church is not the Bride of Christ!

The local church may contain members of the Bride of Christ, of His Body, but Christ did not die to redeem the local church. Many, many people mistake the “local church” for the Bride of Christ, as if they are synonymous. They probably would reject that claim if you asked it in a straightforward way, but in practice that is how it looks especially among many of my reformed brothers.

Some of our most revered confessions blur this line in the same way. Take for example the following creedal statement:

The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

That sounds an awful lot like something you might coming from Rome and it actually is very similar. But that is not something from Rome, it is from chapter 25, section II of the Westminster Confession. You can’t overstate that last sentence, “out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation”. Does that strike you as a Biblical idea or a Roman one?

The great danger of idolatry in and of the local church is that it doesn’t seem in our eyes to be idolatry. Someone who spends too much time playing X-Box, like me, can pretty easily see the problem. The local church is above reproach in the eyes of many or most Christians. Critique of the local church, especially the Western model of organized religion with professional clergy distinct from the laity and heavily structured meetings, is tantamount to hating the Church.

Here are a couple of places where we have made more of the local church than is warranted or demonstrated in Scripture…

We have made an idol of the pastoral “office”. Think this is not true? Imagine a local church where the pastor has just resigned and suggesting that rather than form a pastor “search committee”, you recognize and raise up men within the existing congregation to serve as elders without pay instead of hiring a professional from outside of the congregation. How do you suppose that would be received? Like the Israelites, we desire men not to lead us but to rule over us. We revere them for their education and set them apart because of their seminary degree. We put their names on our signs and our vans. That is not entirely the fault of pastors, although I have met a few who were borderline megalomaniacs who seem to be in vocational ministry to exalt themselves. I think the blame lies in the pews, on men who are content to let one man do the hard work of ministry for minimal pay so that they are not called on to sacrifice of themselves.

We have made an idol of our buildings. Think this is not true? Suggest to someone in the midst of a building campaign that perhaps building a new facility is poor stewardship. The church in America owns billions in real estate, owes enormous sums in the form of loans and interest on those loans and shows an insatiable appetite to build bigger and better buildings. This is not a symptom of the seeker-sensitive model megachurches but is true of churches that most would consider highly orthodox. Is it wrong to have a building? Not at all. There are a lot of really ugly but functional buildings that serve as a great place for God’s people to gather. Is it wrong to build magnificent palaces and modern day temples? Absolutely.

We have made an idol of our church traditions. Think this is not true? Try suggesting that the local church replace its VBS and Sunday school with age-integrated worship.

We have made an idol of our rituals. Think this is not true? Try modifying the ritual observance of a local church like the Lord’s Supper. Instead of passing around oyster crackers and grape juice in little cups, say we are going to share a common loaf and a common cup and do so in the course of a full meal among believers. Or for a less traumatic change, suggest changing the order of service. Even something as simple as eliminating bulletins can cause apoplexy among some.

We have made idols of our distinctives. Commitment to social justice, commitment to expository preaching, devotion to this creed or that confession, association with this denomination and not that. There are whole ministries that seem to be devoted to proclaiming their doctrinal distinctives. We are this and not that, and often neither the "this" nor the "that" has much basis in Scripture.

These are some of the idols of our worship of the local church. Why do we have such a violent reaction to chnages like the ones I have listed above? It is not because they are supportable from Scripture. It is because they are what we know and are familair with and that is a pretty poor reason to do almost anything, especially something as important as the local gathering of God's people, His church.

What a wonderful blessing it is for the church to gather together for fellowship, love, edification, prayer! What a shame that we have taken that wonderful gift and crafted an idol of our own imagination to take its place.

The curtain drawn back on mormonism

An unusually candid interview with a mormon leader shows just how tenuous a grip their leaders really have: The Fo-Mo Chronicles: The truth will set you free. People are fleeing in droves. Are we ready with an answer for the truth that is within us? Leaving mormonism for atheism doesn't change that person's eternal destination. We must be willing to comfort and confront in love those who have been freed from this cult and all other cults. The Gospel demands nothing less.

Cringe Inducing

Ugh

So I stumbled over to the Wall Street Journal Opinion Pages, a daily destination for me on the web, and right at the top was an editorial with this title:

What the Bible Teaches About Capitalism

Before I even started to read I knew that was going to be trouble. I was not disappointed (or maybe I was, I am not sure). As I finished it up and swallowed the bile back down, I noticed that the author, Aryeh Spero, not only had an unusual name, he (she?) is a Jewish rabbi. Nothing wrong with that per se but when you title an essay "What the Bible Teaches About Capitalism", you are going to get a lot of osetnsibly Christian folks to read it. What was missing of course was any sort of interaction with the New Testament which makes sense since the author is Jewish. That didn't stop those commenting on the essay from making the leap from Old Testament teaching against sloth and envy and applying it to Christian teaching. One guy said:

Great article Rabbi. I would add that when Christ chose his 12 disciples, they were not idle, they were at work. so even in the Christian part of our beliefs, we see examples of work being a characteristic that signals to strong, dependable individuals.

Which seems to miss the point that not only were the twelve neither strong nor particularly dependable, they also quit their jobs to follow an unemployed teacher around the countryside, a teacher who specifically sent His disciples out without moneybags and depending on the generosity of strangers for their meals (Luke 10:4-8). That comment was pretty typical of what you find in the over three hundred comments (and counting).

I am quite certain that many Christians will gobble this up as theological cover for living however the heck they want as long as they go to church and put a check in the plate. The contention that swirls around money in the church is reason enough for us to be very cautious about how we approach the subject and very careful that we don't mask our own cultural values with Biblical cover.

There is nothing inherently pro-capitalism in the Bible. Nor is there anything pro-socialism. There certainly is not much that would permit one political party or persuasion to claim the Bible as their own. Let the politicians argue about tax policy. We have a Savior to show the world.

Compulsory Community

Had just an incredible blessing Saturday morning! My wife and I had breakfast with two other couples and spent over two hours just talking about big stuff, about family, about church, about Christ! I can't imagine much that is better than that, doing what Christians have been doing since the first days of the church: breaking bread together, praying together, encouraging one another. If that is not what church is all about, I am completely misreading the New Testament.

We got to talking about the church and about China because of a unique connection one of these brothers has with that nation. As the church grows, explodes perhaps is a better way to put it, in China, it does so under constant threat of persecution. I am not sure if that is as true now compared to how it used to be but still it is a totally different cultural context. Anyway, the point we got to was that when the church is under pressure and persecution you are not able to drive thirty minutes to the church of your choice. You might need to sneak over to the house of your neighbor who is a Christian, perhaps under cover of darkness and not after checking to see what denomination they are. Oddly (at least in our minds) history shows us that it is precisely under these circumstances that the church thrives and expands while in our "Christian nation" the church has been unhealthy for a long time (perhaps always) and is rapidly fading into irrelevance, a circumstance that most of the church is completely unprepared to deal with. Under pressure the church truly depends on one another and it is not a "can I borrow your chainsaw" dependence but rather "can you watch over my family so that they have food in case I am jailed" dependence. Fellowship is a matter of survival, not a matter of personal preference. Persecution compels Christians to set aside differences for the sake of survival.

In the west? Our association is completely voluntary. I am not compelled by any outside force to associate on other Christians and I am likewise not dependent in any meaningful sense on others. I can take my ball and go home if I don't like something and there are plenty of other gatherings that will accept me with open arms. I don't have any sort of commitment to the church because I really don't need the church in any appreciable sense. What we are left with are these very loose knit, competing organizations that try to guilt or blackmail people into "membership" so that they don't scamper off to the next organization. Many Christians are on a quest to find a church full of people just like themselves and they are not only able to do this but encouraged because there are not any external pressures that make "personal preference" irrelevant to community. We fight and feud over secondary issues but what would we do if survival itself was our primary concern? I am guessing that we would be less concerned about our neighbor's position on the end times and more on how we can support one another.

Our strongly held secondary positions: baptism, eschatology, soteriology, etc. are important and worth working through in the church but they pale in comparison to true unity with the community of Christ's followers. We don't advance the Great Commission by winning debates about baptism or smiting an Arminian with a clever argument about Calvinism. The greatest issue in the church is not whether T.D. Jakes was invited to a conference that few people paid attention to other than for the controversy and when we focus on that sort of stuff while the church is splintered and competing with itself speaks volumes about how disunified and divided we truly are. Is modalism a heresy? Yeah I think it is but so is division in the Body of Christ.

We are not really in community with one another when our "community" is based on a voluntary association that caters to our preferences that we call "church". I am quite certain that the culture my children will find themselves in will be very different than what I know and have experienced. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the future of the church, the actual church and not organized religion, in America is going to be far more difficult but far healthier in the years to come. The "visible church" in the West is way overdue for a winnowing and that day is coming soon. When it does, it will be the community of Christ that will be revealed amidst the persecution and an unmistakable witness will finally be visible. God grant us the strength to face those days without the crutch and hiding place of organized, culturally acceptable religion and instead finds us relying solely on Christ and the community He has created.

How to raise a billion dollars for international missions

Eric Carpenter has figured out a sure fire way to raise $1,000,000,000 for international missions just from the Southern Baptist Convention alone: A Pilgrim's Progress: Over $1 Billion for Missions from the SBC.

Seems like a great idea. I wonder if it will gain any traction in the SBC? After all, the SBC was formed as a cooperative venture for the cause of missions, so I am sure that missions trumps any other program....

Moar Free Stuffz!

Check out the latest giveaway from Home Educating Family magazine, giving away several free subscriptions! Weekly Giveaway–January 25, 2012

The gathered church is the result of community

We typically assume that community is manifested when we gather as a local church, whatever form that takes. Our local church becomes our "community" because we have chosen to associate with that particular church. That church might be a traditional church or a "house church" or an urban church or any of the hundreds of different styles and flavors you can find around the country. In other words, we define community largely by whatever manifestation the local church takes on in our lives. My local church is my community.

I would propose that the gathered church is an outgrowth of community in Christ and not the other way around, or at least it should be. So many of us have friends, family and neighbors who are Christians that we spend time with and know very well but we are not associated with the same local church, so we don't view them as part of our church community. I found something that Alan Knox wrote this morning to really tie into this post. Alan wrote about organic church life as being relational, not structural. In speaking of organic church life, rather than "organic church" or "house church", in his post Why Is It So Hard To Find Organic Church Life? Alan said:

A group may have a specific weekly meeting (or more than one) and share this kind of life in Christ. Or, they ma not have a regular weekly meeting. Then again, a group may have a weekly meeting (or even meet together more often) and yet not share their lives with one another in Jesus Christ.


When these groups do get together, it is relational not structural. Thus, as the relationships change or the people involved change, then the group will change as well. It is fluid and dynamic.

It seems that we really do focus on the structure, even unintentionally. I sometimes find myself daydreaming about how an organic, simple church would look but it almost always focuses on the gathering. As I think through this I guess I somehow assume that the gathering will lead to community. If we have just the right kind of gathering, community will spring forth as a result. This sort of structural or model approach might explain in part why so many of us want something more than we find in organized religion but are still searching seemingly in vain for it.

I do not think it is the intent of authors like Frank Viola or Neil Cole to suggest that what we need is to just form "organic" churches or house churches and that will fix our problems but I do think that some people read their works and come away with that impression. At times I know I have! If we look to structural solutions, I think we are going to miss out on the richness of community because there is so much more community out there than we are ever going to experience in church meetings.

For example, this is kind of what our week (tentatively!) looks like...

On Tuesday I spent the evening ministering at the pregnancy resource center. I got to talk to several men in a dad's class on the topic of power and control as fathers, a very interesting conversation with three other men in very different places in their life. I also got to talk for a while with one of the men one on one, a very hard conversation with a man who needs a lot of prayer and mostly needs Jesus but he is also very disenchanted with the church. We got to talk about the Gospel a bit and about the church. I hope it was encouraging to him and that he will keep coming back. During the evening I also got to fellowship with Christians from a wide range of churches who also minister there.


Wednesday I took the kids to an evening activity at a local church and participated in an adult Bible study.


Last night my wife and I had dinner with a couple from a completely different local church. We had a great and very interesting time of fellowship over the table! We also got to talk to a random guy who came up to us and was talking about Catholicism, Mormonism, Mitt Romney, Nostradamus and the end of the world. That is what happens when you go out in public! Best of all we got to clearly declare the Gospel to this man and contrast it with whatever he was talking about. 


Saturday morning we are having breakfast with yet another Christan couple from yet another local church.


Sunday afternoon we are taking the whole family and having a meal with another family in their home.

Yet there is a disconnect. We don't see most of that other list other than the Wednesday evening Bible study as "church", much less "community". Why do we exclude so much of the way we gather together with other Christians from legitimacy? The more I think about it, the more it seems that I am finding "organic church life" or "community" in lots of different places but most of them are outside of what we see as "church". I think that is true for a lot of people who have friends, family and neighbors who are Christians; they spend a lot of time with those Christians but a separate "church" group that they see as community based on where and how they gather.

The order is all backwards. Community must precede "church", in the sense of "church" describing the scheduled, formal gathering of Christians, and "church" proceeds from community. In the times I have described above, I found myself encouraged and stirred up to good works in every event with the exception of the actual meeting at "church". If I am encouraged and edified and stirred up outside of "church" and not so much when I am in "church", which is really "church"?

I see myself moving away from looking for a particular church model or structure and just seeking community with other Christians where my family and I will be encouraged and equipped. Rather than predetermining how that is going to look on Sunday, I am trying to focus on building relationships wherever and however I can and letting it kind of come to whatever form works out, fully recognizing that the form will be pretty malleable and not at all static. Not sure how that is all going to work out but I am confident in God's hand guiding it.

My least favorite conference name ever

Preaching Christ: The Pastor As Herald of The Gospel

A couple of pastors telling other pastors why pastors are uniquely heralds of the Gospel?

I am afraid I can't make that date.

Today

Didn't go quite as planned. Had some interesting ideas but nothing came together plus work was kind of hectic. Should have some stuff tomorrow.

Christians and government

In 1527, the early days of the "Radical Reformation", the Anabaptists wrote the Schleitheim Confession. This brief confession is somewhat unique in this period because it is one of the few formal statements by the Anabaptists. Whereas the magisterial Reformers had plenty of time and opportunity to write lengthy creeds and confessions, safe and secure for the most part, the Anabaptists were typically on the run, being persecuted, imprisoned and martyred often by the same people writing the magisterial creeds (not the actual authors of course). Of course many of their leaders ended up on a stake being burned alive or tortured in a dungeon or in hiding, so writing confessions was not really a priority.

One of the most fascinating sections of the Schleitheim Confession has to do with the sword and the magistrate. The sword conversation is a pretty well-worn topic but the issue of Christians as magistrates, agents of the state, is a whole other story. Here is the applicable section, it is fairly long and archaic in language but worth the read....

Thirdly, it will be asked concerning the sword, Shall one be a magistrate if one should be chosen as such? The answer is as follows: They wished to make Christ king, but He fled and did not view it as the arrangement of His Father. Thus shall we do as He did, and follow Him, and so shall we not walk in darkness. For He Himself says, He who wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Also, He Himself forbids the (employment of) the force of the sword saying, The worldly princes lord it over them, etc., but not so shall it be with you. Further, Paul says, Whom God did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, etc. Also Peter says, Christ has suffered (not ruled) and left us an example, that ye should follow His steps.

Finally it will be observed that it is not appropriate for a Christian to serve as a magistrate because of these points: The government magistracy is according to the flesh, but the Christian's is according to the Spirit; their houses and dwelling remain in this world, but the Christian's are in heaven; their citizenship is in this world, but the Christian's citizenship is in heaven; the weapons of their conflict and war are carnal and against the flesh only, but the Christian's weapons are spiritual, against the fortification of the devil. The worldlings are armed with steel and iron, but the Christians are armed with the armor of God, with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the Word of God. In brief, as in the mind of God toward us, so shall the mind of the members of the body of Christ be through Him in all things, that there may be no schism in the body through which it would be destroyed. For every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed. Now since Christ is as it is written of Him, His members must also be the same, that His body may remain complete and united to its own advancement and upbuilding.

That is pretty archaic like I said but the gist as I understand it is that serving as a magistrate (basically an officer of the government, whether President, police office or dog catcher) is inherently a conflict of interest between serving the interests of the world and living as a citizen of the Kingdom. By serving the state, you are in conflict with serving the Kingdom. I am not sure how far you take that, for example by working at a "secular" job am I entangled with the world? It certainly seems that human government gets different treatment in Scripture compared to having a "regular" job. Perhaps this is because of the inherent function of government that uses compulsion or even force to exert its will. If you don't pay your taxes, the IRS can put a lien on your house. If you don't properly license you dog, the dog catcher can take your dog to the pound and compel you to pay a fine. If you are in the middle of committing a crime and are interrupted by a police officer, there is a chance that you will be forcibly detained or perhaps even shot. A President as part of his duties must be ready to use military force to defend his country (Which is why no one who is a pacifist should seek that office. Ever.)

When I look at how entangled Christians are with politics, even the vast majority of us who do not serve in any sort of government office, I have to think that the authors of the Schleitheim Confession might have known what they were talking about. Everything about government seems antithetical to the Kingdom of God. More cynically, the way that so many public officials make vulgar appeals to people of faith for political support is hugely troubling.

The allure of doing what we see as God's work by the methods of the world is seductive. We look to government and think that we can pass laws making sinful, unregenerate men into saints or at least constraining their behavior. Who among the followers of Christ doesn't want to see abortion end and marriage affirmed? Still. If we ban gay marriage, will we have a more "moral" society? If we outlaw abortion will that make the unbelievers around us less ungodly? If we smite the Iranians, are we doing God's will? Is there anything at all we can accomplish via the governmental and political process that advances the Kingdom? If not, should we be joining with the magistrate that is an "...avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." (Romans 13:4)? I have a friend who is a police officer and we have had some discussions regarding what this means to him, namely that in his role as a police officer (and formerly as a soldier) he might be called upon to use force, even deadly force, in the execution of his duties. It is pretty deep stuff, very hard to work through.

It is interesting to look at the Scriptures and see the reaction of Jesus to the tyrannical rulers of that day. Jesus didn't seek to overthrow Caesar or demand societal rights for His followers. He didn't rail against unjust taxes or military occupiers in Jerusalem. He actually taught His disciples to expect hatred and persecution from the world. The first century Christians didn't form legal defense funds, they expected to preach Christ and Him crucified and perhaps pay for it with their lives. American Christians not only want the freedom to worship, we want a seat at the table in the halls of earthly power.

Lower taxes or higher taxes. Green energy jobs or manufacturing tax credits. On and on. For all of our altruistic notions, I am starting to really think that we should avoid being an agent of the state because in so many ways being an agent of the state, a magistrate in 16th century lingo, invariably requires us to engage in behavior that is contrary to what Jesus and His apostles taught and exhibited in their actions.

What do you think?

Does our way of life impair community?

Dan Edelen has another excellent post with another provocative title: Is the Organic House Church a Myth? You should read the whole post but Dan observes that in spite of all the talk about organic church life, actually finding this life is pretty difficult for many of us.

I made the following comment on his post:

I have had a somewhat similar experience but I also know of “organic” gatherings that are thriving. As for me, trying to find people who are actually serious about a more organic form of the church has been a struggle. A lot of people are fed up but it seems that inertia just keeps us going.

I think the problem comes in when we try to replace one church model with another church model, without addressing the more important question of community. If we have a community of believers living their lives with one another, the church will happen fairly naturally. if we try to substitute a model of church, even one with lots of Biblical support, for community it is bound to fail.

I know that “community” is an overused word to the point that it has lost most of its meaning. It still is the right word to use to describe what we see in the New Testament and what we should see in the church today. Defining it is one thing, seeing it lived out? Quite another.

Dan replied with an especially good comment:

Arthur,

I have long written on this blog that the New testament demands a way of living that flies in the face of what we consider normal, societal living. Our entire lifestyle in America wars with Christianity. As a result, almost every model of church one tries is either going to be broken by that lifestyle or is going to make for some serious angst should one fight societal norms tooth and nail.

Where it becomes hard is that change only comes if we commit to it and simultaneously address the problems of both church models and societal models. That so few smart Christians are taking on greater societal structures and talking about it publicly makes it hard for the little guy to make gains.

That is borderline blasphemy! “Our entire lifestyle in America wars with Christianity”? Doesn’t he know that America was founded as a Christian nation and all we need to do is get back to our Judeo-Christian roots and all will be well?!

I think Dan is on to something here. If we refuse to really consider the issues caused by our cultural and societal structures, are we ever going to be able to move past religiosity and into community? If my life as a disciple is competing, often very unsuccessfully, with my cultural preferences where is the self-denial, the sacrificial life? Denying yourself flies in the face of American culture while living the American dream while attending church on occasion gives the appearance of the best of both worlds. I get my public piety and get out of hell but I can still have all of the trappings of America affluence.

Can I go a step further and make this suggestion? The greatest cultural dangers to Christianity are not found in abortion or gay marriage or banning school prayer or removing Ten Commandments monuments or saying "Happy Holidays". The greatest cultural dangers to Christianity in America are the very things that generally are though to make America great: Patriotism. Self-sufficiency. Affluence. Success. The very things we love and give thanks to God for in our prayer meetings might just be the greatest impediments to Christian community and the most damaging to our Gospel witness.

If we try to modify the church model without also breaking down our societal norms and expectations as the church, we are invariably going to end up with an irreconcilable tension because the allure of the American dream. The American way of life, apple pie and flag waving America, truly is in direct conflict with the life of a disciple. As Dan says, if we address the church culture without taking a hard look at our cultural comfort, it is a recipe for conflict and division.

What say you? Is it possible to live and pursue some variation of the American dream while taking up your cross daily? Can we have community in America without turning our back on so much of what being American promises us?

Gospel dispensers

As a follow-up to my post yesterday Where Are We The Church? I want to keep thinking about the relationship between the community of the saints and the mission of the church. What role does the church play in the mission of God? Can the two even be properly distinguished? What is our focus? Is it on the gathering or the going?

Let me say this at the outset. If the gathering of the church you are part of is not equipping you to take the Gospel to the lost, it is failing in its calling. Utterly and completely. It doesn't matter if you have super preaching and follow the "regulative principle of worship", if Christians can come Sunday after Sunday and walk away with nothing more than some notes about the sermon on their bulletin, you aren't a Biblical gathering of the church. It also doesn't matter if you have a participatory meeting where everyone gets a say if no one gets equipped. We cannot lose sight of the primary purpose of God's collected people, namely to be the vehicle God uses to carry out His purpose in the world.

I like what Dave Black had to say regarding the church and her mission in a new entry, The Church Is A Granary

We err when we think of the church as a storehouse for converts instead of as a distribution plant. Every believer must be equipped to become a witness for Christ. And every church must become a center of Gospel distribution. Jesus sent out the 12 and the 72. I have the deep conviction that every deficiency in the church can be traced back to a failure to follow the New Testament teaching and pattern about missions. We may be completely orthodox in our theology and yet fall completely short of the New Testament teaching in our practice. Our faith must be a living thing, not just faith in itself. The earliest Christians were wholly dedicated, sold out to Jesus Christ and His cause. And because they were committed men and women, they expected their converts to be equally committed to the Great Commission, to propagate the Gospel, and to serve as Jesus served. Their leaders trained the entire church to be fulltime ministers rather than selecting a few who would devote themselves to "fulltime Christian ministry."

The church is indeed a distribution plant. We are supposed to be making disciples to send them out to make disciples, not making disciples to show up on Sunday. As we make and equip disciples, the community of the saints is what should be formed for the purpose of equipping, encouraging and sending.

Community and mission are not enemies. To the contrary, if the church is functioning correctly and hoping to impact the world for the Kingdom they must go hand in hand. I tend to focus and think a lot about the gathering, not just the Sunday meeting but the people of God living lives together. That is so crucial to the health of the church but if that gathering doesn't lead to the going, it is worthless no matter how Biblical we think it is. We oftebn get caught up in the "doing church right". If we can just make the church gathering more organic or more reformed or more "spirit driven" or more participatory, we will be OK. We need to have our end on the end result we desire first instead of the process. If you try to build a house by slapping up walls without a blueprint, you are going to get a haphazard house that will fall down sooner or later.

Conversely if we neglect the community of the saints, mission simply will never happen. Just assuming that any old church gathering is fine as long as we are personally "missional" grossly misunderstands the purpose of the church and the vital role it fills in mission. The church is the equipping and encouraging system that God has ordained. How and why and what we do when we gather has a major impact on how we carry out (or don't) the mission God has called every single Christian to. Some, I would say many, models of church gathering not only do little to equip believers, they tend to discourage mission from individual believers in favor of sub-contracting mission work to the "properly" appointed professionals, leaving most Christians on the sidelines as observers and check writers.

I would also clarify again that what really matters is the community of the church more than any regularly scheduled "official" gathering. The community of believers who make up the church is the thing, not gathering as the church and hoping community happens.

I am not sure this post makes any sense at all. It seems a jumble of stuff that doesn't flow very well. That might be because I am having a hard time even processing all of this yet again as I come around to this topic over and over. I still have more to write about this but I am afraid of adding to this post and making it worse. Certainly not my best effort in the blogging world!