Selective Obedience:
Where We Got It Wrong Doing Church Our Way.
(Reasoning With You Series — 2)
Humanity has an autonomy problem. From the beginning, the first man and woman chose to decide for themselves what was good and what was bad and denied their Creator His place as their God.
This quote comes from “Leap of Faith” by Kimya Loder’s contribution to Our Daily Bread devotional of June 10, 2023. It provides the framework for those who view contemporary organized churches as an aberration to the blueprint handed down by the apostles. Organized (denominational) churches are structured to meet the demands of the moment — rather than follow the apostolic model exemplified by the First-century Church. It is the reason today’s Church is not seeing the supernatural manifestations of God’s presence/interventions in our meetings — as experienced in the early Church. Right?
From the early days of humanity, God has revealed the importance of obedience as we exercise our free will. Disobedience led to devastating consequences for Adam, Eve, and generations of humanity after them. It brought brokenness and death to our world (Gen.3:6–19). But in Christ, God graciously provides humanity with a second chance to exercise our free will to choose obedience and freedom from sin and death.
Even so, humans have chosen to ignore the “manufacturer’s manual” for running the church. We have decided to do it our way. But as beneficiaries of God’s grace, the apostle Paul asks, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means,” he concludes (1 Corinthians 6: 1–2).
Whereas God is gracious and merciful in dealing with sinful humans, He will not bend backward to approve of our narcissistic tendencies and selective obedience. Prophet Jeremiah said this about God’s people of his day: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
Individuals running churches and doing things their way have suppressed Christ’s gifts to the whole body of believers — the church — minimizing the chances of other Christians to grow and operate in their spiritual gifts.
Unity in Diversity:
The apostle Paul addressing questions about spiritual gifts in the Church used the analogy of the human body, emphasizing unity in diversity — One body, many parts (1 Corinthians 12–14).
Here is the apostolic blueprint for church meetings of the time:
When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you (1 Cor.14:26–33).
In other words, spiritual gifts are meant to play out in singing, teaching, prophesying, and in words of wisdom from different individuals when believers meet together for worship. Strengthening one another is the heart of fellowship meetings then and now.
I can recall, sharing by different individuals was a major component of fellowship meetings in our student days. Perhaps college campuses present role model platforms for interpersonal relationships and ministry teamwork envisioned in Paul’s admonition. There, the fellowship president is simply first among equals horizontally, as distinct from the hierarchical structure adopted in organized denominational Churches.
The fallout of hierarchically organized churches is a human problem manifesting as power tussles among officeholders and conflicts of interest between leadership and followership.
Rightly, concerned believers are worried about the exit of longtime Christians from organized churches and the Christian faith — giving rise to agitation to deconstruct the Church and Christianity.
The question is, what does it mean to deconstruct the Church? Can it be the answer to the yearnings of our Christian brothers and sisters leaving organized churches? Isn’t there a place for some sort of authority — spiritual authority in the church? Every human gathering and society calls for a rallying figure for the purpose of coordinating, regulating, and leading the group for the common good and the attainment of mutual goals.
Without prejudice either in favor of or in opposition to why people left their churches, we can identify some characteristics of contemporary church practice; how they differ from the apostolic model, and what can be done to strike a balance between two different positions in our quest for an appropriate template for doing church and fulfilling the Great Commission.
In an adaptation of Nate Krupp’s book, New Wine Skins, the writer of a paper titled “Fresh Breeze is Blowing”, introduced his paper in these words:
A fresh breeze is blowing. God is calling and leading His Church back to the humility, simplicity, and mutuality of the Early Church as seen in the New Testament. He is saying “For 1,700 years you have done it your way. Now you are going to do it My way.”
As if to reinforce this proposition, Covid 19 and the shutdowns that ensued, opened our eyes to alternate ways of meeting and sharing the gospel outside of a church building. Though it did not stop the one-man-dominated services, it points to the need for believers to live out their faith relationally in their neighborhoods. It says Christianity and evangelism need not be a Sunday-Sunday medicine. So what is the way forward?
The Early-Church-Model Advocacy:
Here are a couple of issues raised in Nate Krupp’s book highlighting multiple areas of church administration in need of a change from contemporary practices to the Early Church model:
1. From Clergy-dominated Services and Programs to Mutually-participating Communities of Believers.
We are used to attending “a church” and participating in “a service” led by “the minister, clergy, or pastor.” But such is not the case in Scripture. The Early Christians, for three hundred years, gathered in their homes to experience “koinonia,” to share their lives with each other (Acts 2: 42–47). They gathered together to build up one another by what each one shared with the group (1 Corinthians 14: 26, Eph.4: 15–16, Heb. 10: 23–25). The moving of God’s Spirit is manifested in the expression of supernatural power in such gatherings (1 Cor. chapters 12–14).
Today we have a “spectator community” where a couple (the “clergy”) perform and the many (the “laymen”) watch. Many of our Sunday morning services are nothing but a religious “performance.” We have made idols out of the Sunday morning service, the pastor, the building, the pulpit, the choir, the platform, etc.
“We need to repent and return to the humility, simplicity, and mutual participation of the Early Church,” says Nate Krupp.
The indication that the time is ripe for this transition can be seen in many churches where believers (laymen) who have been in church for well over twenty years and are vast in the Word with their own unique gifts and ministries from God, are getting “bored” with being spoon-fed. They are eager to do some sharing themselves. God, independent of the pastor has been teaching them and taking them into a deeper understanding of the Word, intercession, and relational experiences. Yet when church members gather together, they are given little or no opportunity to share and strengthen others.
2. From One-man Leadership to Team/Servants Leadership:
In the early Church, Christians worked in teams. Jesus sent the twelve and seventy out in pairs; Paul always had associates (Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Titus, Priscilla, Aquila, etc.) working with him. The churches were led by a group called elders (Acts 14: 23, 20:17–32, 1 Timothy 3:1–7, Titus 1:5–9, 1 Peter 5:1–5).
Today we have borrowed our organizational pattern from Roman Catholicism, the military, and the corporate world in contradiction to Mattew 20:25–28, 23:8–12, and 1 Peter 5:3. Most of these religious systems have perpetuated one-man leadership, namely “the pastor” of the local church, “the president” or “director” of the para-church organization. This generally leads to domination, manipulation, autocratic rule, and personal failure. We have produced charismatic leaders who entertain and who use God’s people and finances to fulfill the leader’s dreams rather than servant coaches who release the people of God to fulfill their various dreams and the Great Commission.
3. From Gathering in Church Building to Gathering in Homes.
Jesus never erected buildings and he never said anything to his disciples about erecting buildings. He taught that true worship has nothing to do with a place (John 4:20–24); and that his kingdom is within us (Luke 17:21).
The early Christians gathered in their homes (Acts 2:46, 5:42, 11:12–14,12:12, 16:40, Romans 16: 5, 16:2, 1 Corinth.16”19, Colossians 4:14, Philemon 2). The Christians in Jerusalem initially went to the Temple. But after it was destroyed there is no record that they bothered about erecting “church” buildings.
For three hundred years the Christian church was home-centered: Simply believers coming together in their homes to worship (Acts 13:2), praise God (Acts 2: 47), pray (Acts 12: 5), read the Scriptures (1 Timothy 4:13), encourage one another (Hebrews 10:24–25), sing (Ephesians 5:: 19, Colossians 3: 16), listen to the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2: 42), have a meal together (Acts 2:46), have the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinth. 11:22), etc.
But we know nothing about how they met when the group grew too large for the homes. There is no record of fundraising for building projects, or maintaining any facilities. Funds raised were used strictly to fulfill the Great Commission and support the poor and needy Christians.
The question arising from all of these, for us, is: what are the prospects of going back to the apostolic model of meeting together? How realistic is it for Twenty-first century Christians to go back to the world of the First Century? Christians of the First Century met together in homes in the aftermath of Pentecost, the birth of the church, and the persecution of Christians. Homes were the only place available to them apart from the synagogues of the Jews who were hostile to the Christians.
In our day, secret house churches remain the convenient meeting points for Christians in China, while in Hong Kong and Singapore, many of the churches are house churches. Even in suburban North America, one of the most popular Christian activities is home meetings, during the week and Sunday evenings.
What’s more, in many pioneer mission scenarios, the converts are won in their homes through door-to-door evangelism or home Bible Study groups. It is important to distinguish between Bible teaching or lecture and Bible Study where everyone participates in discussing a theme of the Bible say, around the table.
It is fair to say that in today’s world — regardless of location, the Body of Christ will continue to be celebrated as faith communities in large buildings at the city centers and as churches in the home. The two modes of gathering need not be mutually exclusive. One shouldn’t give way to the other. They can conveniently co-exist within the same church district for coordinated evangelistic outreach to neighboring communities and far-flung locations.
It’s really not about us or our strategies — not about how and where, but about One who is all-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful.
As of today, there exist over 20,000 denominations and many more Christian organizations. All of these groups have come into being as part of spiritual awakenings, restoration of truth and practice, or to meet a particular need, and all have been used by God. The question is, what is our motivation for what we are doing, and how we do it? Is it for self-service or to advance the cause of Christ and his kingdom?
Let’s do Christ’s work, the Christ’s way.
