A friend of mine, Daniel, has been emailing me about the struggle he is having in his own mind (aided by some traditional-minded friends) as he attempts to walk out a more organic, Jesus-following lifestyle.
He writes of the “voice of the traditionalist” (my own term):
With the handful of families we are developing a relationship with, we are being told that we should put a name to what we are doing and call it something and that we need to think about leadership structure etc, etc. We are told that our church should look like this or that.
It feels like there are two paths to go down. One path is called church and it makes you want to have a meeting, set up structures and a church name and define who is in and who is out…
A friend who has planted a church phoned me the other day and basically told me that unless I make what we are doing like every other form of Church (get a name, write a big vision document and see who is in and out) then what we are doing will fritter out and accomplish nothing…
Everyone around us is looking to what kind of meeting we are having and how many people come to it. We are sick of meetings and longing to share our lives with people……So it is hard not to slip into the meeting=success idea and get discouraged.
Daniel also writes of the voice that is leading him believing this is the Spirit’s voice.
So where we are at is looking to share and love people. We open our home at every opportunity and it is all about sharing our lives with people… We are planting the gospel and believing that Jesus will grow the church…
All we want to do is follow the Spirit's direction, live by the word of God, and love people. We are always asked about how many people come to our meeting on a Sunday! It kind of doesn't register because we are asking ourselves the question, "Lord who do you want us to share our lives with?” Discipleship means sharing your life with people – not an hour here or there while we sit and sing songs with our eyes closed.
Yes we believe in the church, leadership, and the fivefold ministry but how we get there is not as simple as just appointing, planning and programming. I told one friend, during a conversation, that I wasn't really too bothered about seeing who is a leader as we just want to help people be obedient to Jesus. I told him I believed that my heart (and more importantly God's heart) to see leaders raised up will be realized as people grow in their obedience to Jesus not as a result of our plans or programs.
It feels like I want to totally let go of trying to build something and just do what we love – build up people. But everyone is saying that we need to have meetings and structures… The Spirit is saying build people, pour yourself out into people, and love people…
Today I feel encouraged again because I genuinely think that Jesus would be doing what we are doing. And that is all we seek – not a big church – just to be doing what we see the Father is doing every day…
Use Your Imagination With Me
As I listened to Daniel express these two competing voices in his mind, I could not help but imagine what the Church-of-the-future might look like as it follows one or the other of these voices.
Imagine a world in which the “voice of the traditionalists” is the primary or only voice. Oh, wait a moment. That is the church-world that we already live in for the most part. So that does not require much imagination to see.
Now, imagine a church-world in which every believer gets their focus and energy off of the meeting/structure/program treadmill and begins to hear the voice that Daniel is listening to: looking to share with and love people; opening their home at every opportunity; following the Spirit’s direction daily; wanting to help people be obedient to Jesus; discovering and following his/her unique calling to live as salt in a flavorless world; seeking to see and do daily what the Father is doing.
Some might say that it is possible to do both: traditional church gatherings and a lifestyle of people-loving with real-life sharing/caring. Perhaps, but my experience is that the demands of sustaining the traditional church programs often make this difficult. Therefore, please allow me to dream of what could happen if every believer began to step out, as Daniel is attempting to do, and live the 24/7 lifestyle as the primary focus of their Christian walk and life.
Comments
13 responses to “A Tale of Two Voices”
Wow! How clearly it is presented here; the spiritual battle that goes on between the church of this world and the church of God. I don’t think that is too hard a statement.
I hear the voice Dan hears, and it longs for my obedience, yet my church leadership longs for my obediance as well. We need you at the prayer meetings, we need you to serve on Sunday morning. We need you to lead this small group. We need you to schedule your spiritual life around the church.
Just a couple thoughts from the cheap seats.
It takes courage to step out into what God is calling you to do, to go against the norm….you will never know until you say Yes Lord I will follow you….and walk in a way that you have not known….Let the peace of God rule as an umpire in your heart…
I understand the consternation and the battle. We are almost a year into our organic house church plant. We decided to go with some structure, but quite loose on a bunch of other things. For me and our officers we have been willing to wrestle with this battle by putting it through the lens of: Is this ‘form’ or ‘function’ and if so, how do we steward it? It is different for each and every expression, the point is, focus on the main thing (the gospel) versus pressure by man and God will handled the rest. Many of my legacy church friends give us the same advice and assume we are going to buildings etc, and I have just learned to be humble, thankful, and graceful with our responses. “That is not what God has called us to do, and we are not saying we are doing it better than others, actually we have much to learn, but, we love the ‘church’ like Christ does so we are going to to see what God does.” Others from the HC movement say we are too similiar to the legacy church, so we are on a pedulum of criticism. Relax, that usually happens when your doing what God wants you to do. We just added 3 more unchurched to our fellowship last week, and my constant prayer if faithfulness and longsuffering, that I would do it well. Perserve brother, and my main point is find out what your internal and external call is and do it and realize that there are going to be voices, but you should be listening to the MAIN VOICE… let me know if I can assist you in anyway…
My wife and I are taking a different approach. We have spent the last 3 months praying and thinking about which way we are to go. Our interest lies in mission. Our number one question is “are we prepared to count the cost.” If it be totally organic so be it. If we add some structure to it so be it. I really think that we have to deal with heart issues rather than structure or no structure.
So we are giving ourselves to prayer, the word, fasting, hospitality, giving and community all for the sake of bringing the love of God to a dying world.
Our direction lies more in the vein of Neil Cole, Floyd Mclung,Dr. Choudrie, the Chinese house churches.
I’d far rather be part of a structured house church that is missional than an organic church that has little mission.
“The gathering of disciples by Jesus was not to start up some religious service that we could become involved in. His call was connected to the throngs that sought him out. His call to his disciples was not to form little cliques of people that would “enjoy one another” but a call to move out to the throng. This was going to be the kind of calling that required them to take up their cross and count the cost. Jesus looked over the fields and said the harvest was plentiful but the workers were few. So for this reason I am interested in numerical growth…. not church growth where we see how many people we can cram into one building but bringing Jesus to every nook and cranny of society.
I am coming to realize that the issue lies far deeper than structure or no structure……but in our willingness to get on our knees (trembling and shaking) and a willingness to count the cost.
Form will never produce what prayer can.
I think it is unfortunate that the idea has arisen that spending your life living with and loving people to Jesus is mutually exclusive with structure, meetings or leadership. I am fascinated with “organic church”, but pastor at a traditional church. I believe we are being the church God called us to be in spite of our more “traditional garb”. I think there may be room to have both models making committed followers for Christ. I have been to a few events for organic church planters and recognize their upstream swim. While I can sympathize, I think being “reactive” towards the “established church” is counter-productive. Please don’t take this as criticism. I think I feel your heart beat….it’s rhythm is not unlike people faithfully making disciples in very different environments…
Just think about it…a voice that says stay here…play it safe…don’t take a risk of being misunderstood or losing friends & family. Or another voice that says “come follow me”…don’t look back….don’t go back and collect your things(of this world/religious system) and I’ll show you..teach you a better way to live your life…a shared life with a community of believers. It’s just a matter of risk…a risk worth taking…be led by the Spirit.
having been raised walking the ‘traditional’ path, sometimes i tempt myself – i should have a formal group, i should gather people in a weekly meeting, i should… then i remind myself that it isn’t about numbers or formality and i just keep relating to people
someone wrote recently, “the best way to end a movement is to try to control it”. may i modify that a bit, “the best way to end a movement is to organize it.”
To Daniel
Your friend who phoned you up isn’t totally off the wall about these groups frittering out. Of the 7 house churches I know of in this area only one has lasted more than 10 years. That one looks almost the same as an insitutional church. They have a name. They have singing and a speaker. They also have a Sunday school. Of the 6 remaining, the average length is 2.1 years. The sad thing about the breakups is that some of the people went back to the traditional church and many of the people are mad at each other. If you factor in the one that lasted 15 years the average goes up to 3.9 years. The 3.9 year average is deceiving because one house church doubled the average. A better way to gauge this is how many house churces lasted and in my example only 1 out of 7 are still going today. And that is the one that organized and had a name.
So you see your friend isn’t out to lunch. It is we who are out to lunch. You see the problem (up to now) is that the organic/simple/house church IS MEETING focused. The number one topic is “what are we going to do when we meet.” I beleive the number one reason that house churches last such a short time is that people leave the traditional church and find each other and begin to meet. At first everything is nice and polite. As time goes on the reasons why people come to house church begin to surface. Community. Mission. Meeting…. Someone in this corner begins to complain there is nothing for the kids. Another person insists there should be no agenda. Another wants more singing. Another thinks there should be more teaching. Another thinks we should do no mission until we hear from the Holy Spirit. Another thinks we should have a vision. In the end people feel trapped in a house church that doen’t meet their particular slant.
So my wife and I have little interest in the meeting as it relates to some kind of church service. But we do feel the need for people who come around us who we call our church…who share the same vision of mission as we do. I personally look forward to meet with people who desire a deeper walk in this missional lifestyle. This could very well be a planned time once a week where we pray, study and share our burdens with one another.
Any where you see growth happening…Neil Cole, Floyd McClung and others…you will find that they have put in place some kind of coming together for deeper discipleship. I am one who is not afraid of that….
So I believe that organic and coming together (or a planned time for deeper discipleship)can work. How that will work out will be different in every group. I have no excitement for a weekly time where we come together and do the same thing every week. My heart resonates with Cole and his LTG groups. I believe they are absolutely necessary if we are going to reach people.
I have more to say but this has gone on way too long.
I have to say, we have a home-based church and we get that sometimes: “when are you going to start going to church?” We want to become discipled and to disciple. We want to show Jesus’ love to others. Great post. Thanks.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I agree in very much of what you say.
I have been touched very much by what Floyd McClung shares and is involved in now. And right now I am reading my second book of Neil Cole. And yes, I also thinks that the LifeGroups that Floyd (, and Neil) is dealing with is a key.
The voice of God is so sweet and simple, to a child, easily understood, light and life giving, a burden easy to carry, a yoke not heavy to bear.
Why do we have to make things so complicated? The sin of human nature perhaps… to always try to add to Gods ways?
Instead of being church….we do and attend church.
Tis such a shame.
In the Philippines and some parts of Asia, we aim to have any organic church dissolve within one year. The members should have become disciples who can disciple others in their own circles. This “church multiplication movement” aims to plant “the Gospel of God’s kingdom (King Jesus)” in the neighborhoods and workplaces of each believer. May each organic church be re-born in new “simple churches” that make disciples who reproduce their own disciples (Jesus-followers, Mk. 3:14-15)!