If you want to listen to the heart and soul of country music, give a listen to Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams. True to her namesake, Hank Williams, Lucinda captures the pure essence of country music: human grief and joy reaching out for some sense of transcendence through ballads rooted in people and places.
Forget the radio and take a listen to Lucinda.
Contining from the last post, I reiterate that these ideas are my own flawed eyes and insights.
I’ve been involved in some form of home church meetings for the past 17 years, and for nine of those years with the same group of people. At times it has been painful, discouraging and exhausting, and that’s probably because it has been a small family. This is about a choice to love and to continue building relationships, and not about, “If it feels good, do it.” (Which is what a lot of American Christianity looks like to me.)
I’m not blind to the weaknesses of home churches, and I do not believe that they are some kind of panacea for the body of Christ. While there are many challenges, here are some problems that initially come to mind.
1. Sectarian and judgmental – Many home churches movements that I have been around use words like “Basilica” to describe the larger, organized churches. They fundamentally believe that these churches are some expression of paganism or compromise with the greater culture. And I admit, our group has struggled with feelings like that at times. When I first started participating in home churches meetings, a good part of the meeting would be devoted to castigating other large churches.
Our little group has tried to discipline our tongues and spirits not to stand in judgment on the church system. When I’m in a group (home churchers or otherwise), I do my best to refrain from the common tendency to point out all the flaws of paritcular churches, movements or “TV Evangelists.” For the most, these groups are not part of my world, and I simply need to keep my mouth shut.
This pattern of judgment and criticism toward the larger body of Christ seems to be a pattern in various small church/simple church movements over time. Now I don’t deny that this pattern can show up in any size and type of church, but it seems particularly magnified in the home churches with an us vs. them mentality. (There’s a good sign though in that some newer home churches see themselves as missional extensions of a larger body.)
2. Low commitment – Because of the casual nature of home churches, I’ve watched many people come and go. People may disappear for weeks at time and then reappear. While I don’t like the heavy-handedness I sometimes see in churches, this overly casual attitude can limit the possibility for real intimacy over time. It is hard to reveal our weaknesses in front of people who may have no deep commitment to the relationship.
3. Doctrine of the Holy Spirit – While some home churches embrace the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, I’ve seen a tendency to reject His action in history. What do I mean by this? They tend to read church history through the lens of how a bunch of people messed up the church and turned into a pagan substitute for the body of Christ. And only a few faithful held to the true calling of the church. I see this as a practical denial of the Holy Spirit’s involvement with the church. As though somehow God couldn’t keep sinful man from ruining the church He created, so a few faithful have to keep relighting the true torch of faith and passing it on.
Any groups (home church or otherwise) that are looking for some pure expression of the church, end up putting more confidence in man’s plans and designs than the Holy Spirit’s guiding presence to preserve and present the church as the Bride of Christ. God calls sinful men into His kingdom of love. He transforms them in the midst of a called-out community of other sinful men. Of course, our humanness interferes and ends up wounding and distorting. But the wonder of God’s providence is that He works out His purposes in the midst of our fallen lives and creates a masterpiece (as Paul so wonderfully captures in Ephesians).
4. Continuity through time – One of main problems of I see home church and large Evangelical churches is the breakdown in continuity through time (past-future-present). But I will pause here and write a bit about that in the next little post.
Longing for a Holiday wrote a post yesterday about why staying home and reading the Scripture was more appealing than attending Palm Sunday services. She got me to thinking about why I left organized church in 1991. After immersing myself in ministry during the late 80s, I resigned in spring of 91 and walked away from organized churches with no plans to ever return.
In fall of 92, I went to graduate school and studied relationships. At the beginning, I railed against all the problems of organized church. Eventually the anger left, and I learned to love the church in all its human messiness. Over the last 15 years, I’ve grown to listen and learn from various streams within the body of Christ, but I still haven’t returned to organized church.
As I’ve thought about replying to yesterday’s post, I decided to break this “What’s Wrong with Church” into three posts, considering problems with organized church, problems with disorganized church (home church), and how might we respond. This reflects the struggles a sinner still learning to love through the cross, so it’s still filled with lots of my human flaws. I sketch out these ideas, knowing that God in His grace blesses many lives through large, organized churches (and even TV ministries).
Here are three key problems I have with organized church (specifically large organized churches).
1. The Illusion of Success
To walk through the land of Egypt still inspires countless visitors. Impressive, stunning structures such as pyramids fill the visitor with wonder. In its prime, the civilization of Egypt looked likes an amazing success. But, of course, it enslaved people. Herod, following the wisdom of Egypt, also built a pretty impressive kingdom: a great Temple and many stunning buildings. But at the expense of the people. When Jesus came Judah looked pretty successful with passionaite worshippers, intensive discipleship programs, a glorious building project, and expectations of soon return of the Messiah.
It looked successful (both physically and spiritually) and it was a complete failure, standing under the curse of God. Now the reality is that we as sinners stand under judgment and live and move and have our being by the gracious love of our Father. It’s not wrong to dream big and build big, but the danger is always that trust will transfer from the grace of God to the wisdom of our buildings, best-selling books, discipleship programs and more.
I fear many big, organized churches are in danger of believing their own press (just many of our big time evangelists). This illusion can mean that relationships with God and one another can be sacrificed in order to keep the project moving forward. Watching this pattern play out again and again drove me from organized church in 1991.
2. Sacrifice Relationships
The last point leads into this second point. Relationships become secondary to buildings, structures, org charts, and so forth.
The responsibilities of a Puritan pastor reached beyond simply delivering a great sermon on Sundays. He was in the ministry of the “cure of souls.” This required time spent with every family in the church, including nurturing the spiritual formation of the children. The bigger we grow our churches, the less relational a pastor can be. Many churches have layers of staff with some lower level folks (and often non-staff) involved in the lives of the families (if that post even exists at all).
In Paul’s Idea of Community, Robert Banks argues that Paul’s primary metaphor for the church (though implicit) is the family. His language is of brothers and sisters and our Father. Jesus also uses family language to speak of the growing community. He actually redefines the Mediterranean understanding of family as the burgeoning family of disciples.
Unfortunately, many Christian friends that I know who attend large churches, explain that their “real relationships” are outside the church. Some have told me that they would be hesitant to share their real struggles with anyone in the church where they attend. This a huge problem and seems to mock the whole idea of “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.”
3. Superficiality
Some big churches also fall prey to the “trend of the moment.” I had one “very successful” pastor (both in planting and publishing books) tell me he questioned the church creeds and thought we might need some new creeds. I almost fell down. Whatever hot, exciting trend in culture (with its church variation) can easily become the temporary fad.
Even relationships has become a temporary trend. Instead of a long-term commitment to love through the suffering of the cross, words like “relationality” are easily tossed around to indicate the importance of a growing trend. Of course, I wonder what happens to that relationality with the trend grows boring and everyone moves on to the next big thing.
Part two coming
These comments were primarily directed to large churches but I realize these faults can show up in any size churches. While I’ve chosen to spend the past 15 years in simple churches that were focused on home-style meetings (with a bit of liturgy), I also see some fundamental problems with the home church movement. I’ll share that in part two.
My wife asked me, “So what does Egypt stand for in the Bible?” As we talked, it evident that the typical response of the “world” is not sufficient because Egypt often shows up as a place of provision for Abraham, Joseph (and the sons of Israel), and even the baby Jesus.
As I’ve thought about it, I’ve been playing with this idea here: “Egypt is a place of provision but not the person of provision. Israel violates this distinction and looks to the gods of Egypt as the person of provision (see Joshua 24:14). By mistaking the place of provision for the person of provision, the Israelites become enslaved by the “lords” of Egypt, and must be delivered by the LORD of creation.
We live in Egypt. Our physical and emotional needs may be met in the world around us, but this place is not the provide. YHWH is our Father who graciously blesses us in the midst of our sinfulness and the sinful world around us. He overwhelms us with blessing. If we look to the “lords” of our nation (commerce, government, education, etc) as our provider, we will (and often do) become enslaved.
Bob Marley sings:
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? –
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
If you listen to Marley, Dizzy Gilespie, Stevie Wonder or a host of other musicians, you’ll get the sense that song is at the heart of everything. They may not be so far off. Both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien envision the Creator calling all things into being through a song. The Bible reveals this as a Creation song (six days of creating, one day of rest). The song can be broken down six separate stanzas with a Sabbath bridge, or two sets of three (three days forming, three days filling, one day of rest/celebration).
But we live out of sync with this creation song. Instead of forming, filling and celebrating, we tear, break apart and criticize. Our choices and actions reveal chaotic dissonance that hurts ourselves, the people around us and the creation. Celebration turns into lamentation.
In the Silmarillion , Tolkien reveals this dissonant strain that threatens to unravel the stunning harmony of the creation song. Enter Bob Marley and the redemption song. The Bible reveals YHWH singing a new song after Adam’s calamity in the garden: the redemption song. I’m still trying to think through the structure of the song, but at a high level the song is about death, burial, and resurrection. YHWH sings an incarnational song where He enters into the suffering that echoes through humanity’s dissonant strains.
Bringing the dissonant strains of suffering into Himself, He heals the breach and ushers in new creation. Both the creation song and redemption song reverberate through all creation. particularly in the human heart. The redemption song tunes the whole human person to the glory of the creation song.* But the redemption song doesn’t stop. Both songs move from counterpoint to resolution, revealing a stunning polyphony.
So keep singing Bob and Dizzy and Coltrane. By YHWH’s grace, the Holy Spirit will “stir us up” and reveal the glory and wonder of these two loving songs in us, in our relationships, and in all creation.
*I remember some of the Christians Celt speaking of spiritual formation as the tuning the five-stringed human instrument (taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell) to the song of God’s glory.
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