The writing on the wall

This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"

But, in the last five years I

Comments

[George]

And when you are on the street armed with your Bible and people start coming to Christ, what are you going to do with them? How are you going to disciple them? How are they going to be encouraged to grow in faith?

[Darryl]

It just may be that the worst place to send them is some churches. Maybe a good church, or one's kitchen table or living room?

[George]

It will always come back to church don't you think Darryl. Lets say hypothetically you start with your Bible in downtown Toronto and God begins to use you to draw others into a relationship with Him. Lets say the numbers begin to increase and these people need to be discipled and taught fom God's Word. Lets say they begin to bring their families around including their children and teenagers. Next thing you know you have outgrown your kitchen or living room and you need somewhere alse to gather and do God's work with these people. What do you have then? You got yourself a church right?

[Darryl]

I think you have a church long before that. If you think of what a New Testament church was, it was a group of people meeting together in a house somewhere. They never moved beyond that.

[Dave]

My view: The early church had no buildings dedicated to Sunday assembly due to the correlation between persecution and economics. Persecution was eventually outlawed by Constantine, under whose government church buildings as we call them became advantageous. I'm not so cynical of the bricks and mortar used to house large numbers of believers in a given locale as I sense the emerging church is. In my view the house church is no magic bullet and can only rightly be defined as a church when the sacraments are observed and the oversight of qualified Eldership is in place. The Apostle's doctrine finds a simple home Bible study insufficent for spiritual formation.

[Darryl]

Dave: I mostly agree. I don't think bricks and mortar are wrong. They do have a way of taking over and becoming the focus. I read this today: "One of my big focuses right now is getting people to think in terms of mission/vision and not the other stuff surrounding numbers, buildings, etc." Somehow in many churches more energy is spent on these things than making disciples. There's a gravitational pull toward this and away from mission.

[Regular K]

Moving out of the churchDyingChurch.com recently wrote a post called "The Writing on the Wall, describing how pastors are stepping down from their positions and moving out of the church, taking their ministry to the streets. Although not all Christians will agree me wit...

[Steph]

I can not agree more. The Holy Spirit is moving us to do something new. While we do not need to reject the traditional church completely, nor need to find something opposite, we do need to be open to the challenges we face today. How can we spread the Word? We are in transition, the whole world is in transition, but God will prevail. He will find a way through us.