Do you have to go to church to be Christian?
This Sunday towards the end of my Sunday School lesson, my brilliant 10th graders were faced with the question, "Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" After some debate I decided that we didn't have enough time to adequately address this issue and that I would re-visit this topic the following Sunday. I tried several tactics in order to bring them to a certain conclusion, all of which came short. I immediately thought of you all when I returned home, and thought I'd give you all a shot at it.
There are various elements that are at play. Firstly, how do you phrase this question. Is it, "Do you have to go to church if you are a Christian?" or "Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" Secondly, what makes someone Christian? Scripture states that you simply have to believe Christ died for your sins and that He lives today in order to be saved. Is being saved, being Christian? Thirdly, how would you teach this to 15/16 year old Christians?
I will give my response and their reactions to this debate after my October 22nd lesson. I know that there will be those who support both sides, so I thought this would be an invigorating topic for those who participate in this Roundtable.
There are various elements that are at play. Firstly, how do you phrase this question. Is it, "Do you have to go to church if you are a Christian?" or "Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" Secondly, what makes someone Christian? Scripture states that you simply have to believe Christ died for your sins and that He lives today in order to be saved. Is being saved, being Christian? Thirdly, how would you teach this to 15/16 year old Christians?
I will give my response and their reactions to this debate after my October 22nd lesson. I know that there will be those who support both sides, so I thought this would be an invigorating topic for those who participate in this Roundtable.
posted by L. Hamilton | 4:43 PM
28 Comments:
If you are a Christian you are the church. Going to church is a nonsensical question. Do we have to go to worship, yes we need to live lives of worship. Should we gather together as the body of Christ, unquestionably. But the going we are required to do usually is in reference to spreading the word of God, go forth and make disciples.
In short, my answer is an emphatic, "Yes", but let me use a voice of history to aid this answer of why we should gather together each week.
Written in the 1st Century, hear the words of Justin Martyr:
"But after having thus washed him that is persuaded and has given his assent (the newly baptised), we bring him to where the brethren as they are called are gathered together, to make earnest prayers in common for ourselves and for the newly enlightened, and for all others everywhere, that we may be counted worthy after we have learned the truth... And on the so-called day of the Sun there is a meeting of all of us who ive in cities or the country, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time allows. Then when the reader has ceased, the president gives by word of mouth his admonition and exhortation to follow these excellent things. Afterwards we all rise at once and offer prayers; and as I said, when we have ceased to pray, bread is brought and wine and water, and the president likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings to the best of his power, and the people respond with its Amen. Then follows the distribution to each and the partaking of that for which thanks were given; and to them that are absent a portion is sent by the hand of the deacons. Of those that are well to do and willing, everyone gives what he will according to his own purpose, and the collection is deposited with the president, and he it is that succours orphans and widows, and those that are in want through sickness or any other cause, and those that are in bonds, and the strangers that are sojourning, and in short he has the care of all that are in need. Now we all hold our common meeting on the day of the Sun, because it is the first day, on which God changed the darkness and matter in His making of the world, and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For on the day before Saturn's they crucified Him; and on the day after Saturn's, which is the day of the Sun, he appeared to His Apostles and disciples and taught them these things, which we have offered to you also for consideration."
Selections From Early Christian Writers, H.M. Gwatkin, London: Macmillan, 1909. pp.51-57
So should we go to Church? According to Justin Martyr, we must, if we are baptised.
Do you ever wonder where we got the idea of an "order of worship", or a "liturgy"? Well, there you go, written in the First Century.
Thanks be to God for Justin Martyr.
Further questions...
Greg,
I wonder if you could give further explination and clarification to your statements. I am simply trying to anticipate all the qeustions that will arise from this conversation with my class. If Christians are the church, then why build a structure and call it a church? If our lives are to be worship, why gather with others and worship together? Should we get up on Sunday mornings and preach door to door as you state "spreading the word of God" rather than going to church?
Joseph,
Thank you for your research!
I have come to believe that we gather in order to be the Church. It is a subtle distinction in language that I think makes all the difference. I think, however, that thinking this way necessarily implies a return to a sacramentality that can train us up in Christ to be His body, primariliy the Eucharist...
Scott,
I agree with your statement of being the Church, but could you explain, "train us up"?
Grace and Peace,
Joseph
Yep, it's the old problem of whether to conceive of the church as a place/building or as the ecclesia ("gathering", "assembly") of the people of God around the things of God (Word and Sacrament) - and of course it is both. But the latter is foundational to the former: the place where the assembly assembles is the church because that is where people come together in the worship of God and for the participation in Christ's death and resurrection and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit that enables communion between the Triune God and God's creatures, and amongst the body of believers.
In short, my answer is a bit ambiguous because there is a certain reciprocity between the building and the people, or the collective and the individual. I could say, rather simply, that Christians are people who go to (or “gather for”) church (e.g. hear the Word, celebrate the sacraments, stand in testimony to the reign of God), and that, correspondingly, the Church is the place where Christians gather to do these things - there is no sense in separating the two.
But I suspect this doesn't quite make the case to American teenagers in 2006 - it's difficult, nigh impossible, for them (or us for that matter) to think so counter-individualistically. (Thinking about this historically, as Joseph has encouraged us to do, isn't easy either - I'm all about Justin Martyr, but I suspect that, tragically, he's not going to hold a lot of weight w/ Nazarenes, teenaged or otherwise.)
I would try to persuade them by discussing the difference between being "saved" and being "a Christian" - there is indeed (I believe) a big difference, and while this discussion opens up some risky possible conclusions (could it be that one could not be a Christian but still be saved?), I think it's a necessary starting point to answering the initial question, "Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?"
Without detailing every step of how I'd argue in the affirmative - yes, you do - I'll say that I would be driving toward the complex but beautiful notion that all of creation is in the process of being "saved" (redeemed) by Jesus Christ, and that the Church, as the Body-of-Christ on earth, participates directly in this process of saving the world. So in this sense we might even risk affirming (in a qualified sense) the Catholic doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus, "outside the church there is no salvation" - indeed, someone might experience the grace of God independently of the direct action of a church; someone might be brought to an awareness of their salvation by a Gideon's Bible in a hotel room or be "led to Christ" by someone who professes to be a Christian but is not involved in any church (or maybe even by someone who professes a faith other than Christianity – who knows?). We can accept these things, and still maintain that God is saving the world through Jesus Christ, and that Christ's body is the Church, and the Christians who comprise the Church show forth Christ to the world until He comes again...so to say that anyone can be saved apart from the Church is to say that salvation can come by some other means than by the incarnate Christ...which is, of course, absurd.
But, as I hope I have made clear, at least by implication, it is a problem we have because we are uneasy with the tension between Church-as-people and Church-as-place, and indeed, all of the tensions between "Body of Christ-as-Eternal Logos/Son" and "Body of Christ-as-Historical Incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth" and "Body of Christ-as-Church" and "Body of Christ-as-Sacrament" - that list could go on, probably, but it's all part of the same paradox of the God-man, the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. All I would try to show teenagers or anybody is the beauty and richness of a truly orthodox (which we Nazarenes claim we are) understanding of Christ, His Church, Salvation (etc) and their inter-relationship.
My first thought was when I read the post was that the wrong question was being asked because we are the church. When I clicked the comments I saw that Greg had already hit the nail on the head with this one and I agree with him.
The Bible says that we are the church, we are his body, and as we are going out into the world we are the continuation of the incarnation of Christ.
The bible says that as the church we should not forsake gathering together, and so we should gather together with one another. Our Christian walks do not happen in a vacuum as isolated individuals but as part of the community and the world around us.
This does not mean that we necessarily have to "go to church” to be gathering together. I think there are other models that can meet the needs for the church to gather and do life with one another besides just an hour on Sunday mornings in side a building we have mislabeled “the church”.
I think your 10th graders are far too smart to reduce Christian life, fellowship, and discipleship to just our limited modern and western idea of “going to church”. I would challenge them to seek out ways to be the church together and maybe they can come up with something new within their context; even if that may or may not include gathering at “the church” on Sunday mornings.
James
Ahhh, don't you just love new wine?
I hope I never have to "go to church ever again." And yet to live in the mystery of what Cyprian said, "there is no salvation outside the church."
Oh, Joseph, thanks for the great qoute. Here's another good Justin quote, "I was seized by the love of God and the friends of Christ." (btw, I think Justin would have been 2nd century, not that it matters.)
Most of these responses have been what I predicted they would be. It seems that there is this sense of division between church as ecclesia and church as a structure/sacred space as Brannon pointed out. It seems that the easy way out is to stand on the side of ecclesia. However, that doesn't seem to adequately deal with the reality that many people don't gather to worship yet still believe that they are Christian and living in God's will. (This is important since we want these teens to continue going to church their whole lives) I'm guilty of using the concept that we live "lives of worship," but this seems like something my Grandma would stitch on a pillow. If your not careful, pretty soon you see taking out the trash, grocery shopping, and riding motorcycles as ways to worship God. I don't know about you, but I have a problem with that. Don't get me wrong, as Christians the light in our lives should be evident in everything we do and say, but I don't know if its worshipful.
I'm glad that Brannon addressed the issue between saved versus Christian through the idea of "extra ecclesium nulla salus." I have been considering how to present this concept to teenagers because I think it serves as the glue that holds together the debate between ecclesia and the church building.
I agree with James that there are other mediums in which to experience God, there is enough history and Bible to secure that arguement for eternity. However, what are we gathering for on Sunday? We haven't worshipped on Sunday mornings for hundreds of years on accident. I may have misunderstood you James, but I am really uncomfortable with the comment, "I think there are other models that can meet the needs for the church to gather and do life with one another besides just an hour on Sunday mornings in side a building we have mislabeled “the church." I wonder if it isn't that we have "mislabled the church," but rather that we have just forgotten what it means to be the church at all. Perhaps the church has become so much involved in the world, that it is hard to distinguish the church from say, the YMCA. I wonder if we have a hard time thinking of the church as a building because we have failed to maintin the mystery of the sacraments or even the importants of the sacraments in worship. Further, I wonder if that has led to a lack of imagination and a loss of the mystery of God in the sacred space of the church.
I copied a part of the Doctrine of Church from the Eastern Orthodox Church here: The place where the saving and deifying grace of the Holy Spirit is at work is the Church of Christ. The Church is at the same time the image of the Holy Trinity, the people of God, the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. All these aspects are necessary for a complete image of the Church.The Church is the great sacrament of salvation that Christ has instituted in the world. It is the Ark of salvation, and the inaugurated Kingdom of God.
So, is being the church a place, a group of people, an idea, a practice, or a mission? Perhaps to answer the question we should first identify what it is that Christians say they are a part of.
I'm in complete agreement with what Greg & James have said in their posts above. Would anyone care to point out a quote from Scripture or from an early church father that equates "church" with a building? There's no "tension" at all between church-as-building and church-as-people. The former is a convenient but deadly fiction. The latter is reality.
Together, we are the church. We need to meet together regularly to encourage each other, in part by celebrating what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we lose faith, lose courage, and lose hope. We have the example of a couple thousand years of Christians who have found meeting together in a somewhat formal way on Sundays to be a great way to do this (though not to the exclusion of meeting together in other ways "every day," as described in Acts 2).
If I were teaching a group of 15/16 year-olds, that's the approach I would take. We don't want them to "continue going to church their whole lives." We want them to persevere AS the church their whole lives, and in order to do that, they'll need to meet together regularly...
You keep asking, essentially, "If we can be Christians apart from gathering on Sundays for worship, why do we do it?" The short answer is, because we need it. Without it, we lose our connection to the rest of the Body of Christ, and our faith whithers and dies. We cannot persevere without each other.
I understand the criticism of history and the task of the practice in the Church today, but my reason of bringing in the historical quote that I have is to make a couple of points.
1. It is vital to understand the historical Church to understand why we are the way we are today. In the example given we find that in the 1st Century (thanks Mr. Monk :-)) the Christians were "doing" church in a similar fashion to how we "do" church today. That speaks volumes to the people who make up the ecclesia today. How, after almost 2,000 years, is the Church still following the same format followed in the First Century? It is amazing to see how correct King Solomon was when he says, "There is nothing new under the Sun." How many times have we tried "new approaches" and "programmes" to reach new people and to invigorate the current members? And how many times have these programmes lasted? Churches will try something new for about 40 days (yes, I'm being fecicious) and after the 40 days, we go back to the same practices that have sustained the Church for 2,000 years. Or, after the week of Camp Meeting, or the Seminar, or the Revival, what does the Church do? Spiritually and mentally, the Church may be excited and invigorated, but eventually we come back to the same type of gathering together, singing, praying, preaching, and practicing the sacraments. There is something to be said about the constants in the Church. I do not intend to get into the conversasion of "form and content" here, but soon this needs to be a topic of discussion for us here.
2. I am not just a student who lives in the library and books all of my days. I am a part of the ecclesia as well, and for the past year, from January through September, I taught a youth class at my church. I understand the practical side to theology. The reason for bringing this up is the fact that we did a Christian catechism for that period of time that I was with the youth. What I found, at least in these kids (15-18 yr olds) was that they enjoyed learning about the historical church, learning about theology, and seeing Christianity as it has been practiced for two thousand years. The group really liked finding out why we believe what we say we believe, as Christians. There were things we talked about that they had never heard of before, basic Christian beliefs. These kids really wanted to learn, they had good questions and they were really smart about things. My point is this: Why not put some faith in these young people and their minds? Why not teach them "hard" concepts that they may not understand at first? Why not push them to learn about people like Justin Martyr? I have faith that young people have a desire to learn, deeply learn, for more than "40 Days". I have seen that there is much more to these young people than we give them credit. So in regards to the satement about the COTN not caring about Justin Martyr, I say then why not tell them anyway! Make them read, expect something out of them! Challenge them to look at the big picture; challenge them to look outside the box of programmes, campmeetings, pizza parties, and basketball tournaments! This can all be done in a tactful manner.
Sorry for rambling about these things, but my passion lies in the history of the Church, whether that be in a building or in a believer. I have seen inquiring minds, and these minds have been young.
To Levi: Teach the young people about the history of the Church, teach them about the house meetings, the catacombs, the cathedrals, the camp meetings, and the parish church. You may find that you will get more out of them than you expect.
Grace and Peace to all,
Joseph
Rich you have proved my first point. You have to go to church to be Christian. You concluded by saying "our faith whithers and dies. We cannot persevere without each other." Therefore we need each other. If we need it, we have to have it. I need water, without it I die, so I have to drink water. We need church, without it we die, so we have to go to church. We have all pointed out the body of believers is the church, no one denies this conviction. The problem all of us seem to be having is where are we going when we go to church. The opposing sides of the arguement seem to be one group saying that anywhere a body of believers is together, that is the church. The other side seems to be arguing that there is a building we call the church and the people (a.k.a. body of christ/church) meet in that specific place. Sure, where two or more are gathered in my name (Matt. 18:20) is the common arguement for the first case, and justifiably so. I just want to know why build a church then? Why have a building called a church?
If we take the people out of the building with the sign out front saying "Church" does it cease to be the church? NO! NO! NO! Why? Well this is the difficult task, isn't it? Traditionally, it has a steeple, this is so that from any spot in the city you can see the cross watching over the entire neighborhood like a "city on a hill," or a "light on a stand." When you walk into the sanctuary there is a cross, an altar, a table, a pulpit, a baptismal, and depending on your tradition flowers, art, icons, statues, candles, etc. These do not exist in this place, together, ordered however they may be ordered by some accident. When you walk into this building it tastes like church (eucharist), smells like church (flowers in rembrence of saints gone home, or incense reminding you of the Holy Spirit at work among us), it sounds like church (sometimes silence, sometimes music, sometimes the Word is being Broken), it feels like church (the cool sanctifying waters of baptism, the warmth of the brother or sister kneeling beside you, the oil of annointing on your forehead, the hands layed on you at the altar, etc) and all of this looks like the church (it should be marked by the cross, at least).
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make a sound? Yes. If a church is built and you don't go is it still the church. Yes. When people seek shelter, or protection, where do they go...THE CHURCH BUILDING. Why, because that's where the church is, that's where the church meets. Even in the persecution of the early church they met in homes and caves. Not only did they continue to meet, but they marked the places they met. They painted and scratched Christian symbols to communicate their faith in a particular place. Why? That's what I want us to try and figure out.
Why in the face of death would you scratch the Chi-Rho or the ICTHUS on the walls of the caves? I say because a symbol points to something beyond itself, they were marking the space as sacred. The church building is a structure that symbolizes the body of Christ, the body of believers we all confess to be the church (ecclesia). The cross, the Table, the baptismal, the altar, the pulpit, all point to something beyond themselves. The church building looks (at least it should) different than the YMCA because it is different.
Does this mean all churches look the same or act the same...NO! There are building codes, churches in homes, teen camps, church plants, wars, natural disasters, and worst of people that happen to church. But, we do seek to create a special space, a sacred space that lifts us together, if only for a moment, into what we hope the world will look like when our Lord returns. This is why orthodox and catholic services are structured the way they are. It's a replica of the worship service depicted in Revelation which celebrates the coming of the Lord.
I would suggest that there may be one problem that is causing us to have some confusion. When I am speaking of the church building I am speaking of the sanctuary. The classrooms, the gym, and the bathrooms are not what I think of when I am speaking of the sanctuary/sacred space. Churches don't look like churches anymore in America so this might seem confusing.
Man, I'm doing a lot of apologizing these days. Maybe if I weren't just a mouthy punk... Anyway, I need to say "I'm sorry" (I am) to anyone, especially Rich, who might have read the comment I just posted and several minutes later deleted. I thought about leaving it so as to own up to what I said, but then decided it was just far too nasty and reactionary, which is most likely a result of me being far too tired and cranky right now. Mea culpa, everybody. I will try to be a better playmate in the sandbox of Nazarene Roundtable from now on...
First: Levi, I think you are right-on in your last comment; you've expressed many of the sentiments I would like to share much better than I probably can at this point, so thank you.
But I'll try to express them anyway...so, to say what I wanted to say before, but hopefully this time in the manner more befitting someone who confesses Christ: I think to say that the church-as-place is "a convenient but deadly fiction" is a naive and hasty judgment. The concept of church-as-place/building is one that merits much more than quick dismissal. I also believe it is a concept that doesn't require a proof-text from the Bible or the Fathers to support its legitimacy as an issue worthy of reflection - Christians have always worshipped in spaces, most often buildings but out in "nature" too, and the shape and character and aesthetic of those spaces is and has always been granted a certain sacrality as well as being absorbed into how the church worships and thereby conceives of itself as a community. In other words, the Church is represented by a plurality of churches: little ones, big ones, modern ones, ancient ones, european cathedrals, clapboard chapels, ones with icons and stained glass and crosses, ones that have deliberately eschewed Christian symbols, ones that Monday through Saturday function as movie theatres or schools and ones that defy the intrusion of any secular whatsoever. These are all churches; they are the place where the assembly assembles. Wherever the Church gathers to be the Church in worship and prayer, Word and Sacrament, this space is a church, and is thereby part and parcel of the Church. This diversity of buildings and spaces is all part of what comprises the Christian tradition, across histories and cultures and geographies.
Now, I should say that I've just spent the last 14-hours at an international conference on "Sacred Space" (and have a day-and-a-half more to go!), and I have come away even more fully-convinced than I went in that when it comes to social institutions (cities, the church, whatever), the personal and the spatial cannot be separated. We are people who have a relationship both to other people and to the spaces we inhabit. We have bodies that have complex relationships to other bodies as well as to buildings and places. I fail to understand how anyone can dismiss the significance of the building/place upon which the ecclesia converges, no matter how awe-inspiring or how crappy a space it might be. Our buildings still matter, immensely, to how we conceive of the Church as a people, and is neither deadly nor a fiction. In fact, I'm not sure that you can call the Church-as-people abstracted from the space where they become the Church "reality" at all.
There is a reason we tell children that the church building is "God's House" - it's not quaint or anecdotal, and hopefully it's not just so they won't run in the halls and break stuff. While it might not be a complete or self-sufficient concept theologically (i.e. God is not constrained by or contained within the church - God isn't under "house arrest"), I will go out on a limb and say it might be more appropriate theologically to think of the church building as the house of the Lord than to think of "my individual heart" as the house of the Lord. Why? Because it is only in our being the Church together, the assembly of individuals into a community that exists to worship God as the Body of Christ, that we become the people of God and that the Divine is given a "dwelling" in our world. The fact that God dwells among and within us IS the sanctification of space, of materiality, of matter.
A final comment: this dialogue has reminded me of a series of lectures I read recently in which the speaker reflected on the fact that many Protestant churches sit around and bemoan the fact that no one seems to have any use for the church anymore, when (he said) in reality, most Protestants don't have any use for the church in the first instance. I fear we are, simply by virtue of the necessity of this discussion, on the verge of demonstrating just how true this might be. (I hope our discussion, however, is a step in the right direction, toward better understanding and a reinvigorated ecclesiology and "architectural-theology".)
Levi, you've confused me. Were you making points here or asking questions? Also, are you aware of how dramatically your question has shifted since the beginning of this thread? Now you're asking, "Why have a building called a church?" Well, maybe that's not so dramatic of a shift, since it's implied in the phrasing of your initial question. (Just so you recognize that it's very different than asking "Why gather together for worship?")
My (short but not hasty) answer to that is that we shouldn't call a building "church." The church I pastor doesn't. We meet in a banquet hall. Yes, we mark it as "sacred space" by putting up a cross but moreso by what we do during our time gathered there. Our plan is to never have a building called "church." We will eventually build or renovate a building, but we certainly won't call it "God's house" and especially not to children.
The reason I called church-as-building a deadly fiction is because that's what it's shown itself to be. Christians in Christendom have by and large lost the sense of BEING the church. Church has become a building you visit, do religious duties in, and then leave. The New Testament reality is that God's dwelling among us is no longer tied to a building or place but to our lives lived together in the world. The "city on a hill" shines its light by what it does, not by where it meets, at least according to Jesus' use of the phrase. But, as you pointed out, we've depended on our building's unique "religious" look or steeple to play that role for us.
Brannon, I was not trying to denigrate the idea of "sacred space" or the physicality and spatial nature of the church. The Word became flesh, and creation is being redeemed. I get that. But that doesn't mean it's appropriate or helpful to put the label "church" on a building, any more than it is helpful to put the label "Christian" on a CD or T-shirt. Both might be useful shorthand to communicate something true about the building, CD, or T-shirt, but that shorthand is dangerous because it is not understood as such.
Rich, I'm very sympathetic to the idea identifiers like "christian radio" or "christian t-shirts" are hardly useful, or indeed even meaningful in any way, but the fact of the matter is, such concepts are a fairly recent innovation, whereas calling particular buildings where worship takes place "churches" is culturally- and historically-conditioned and not something we can just shrug off by meeting in movie theatres or banquet halls (or by calling our spaces by names other than "church"). I think you might have a point (I'm still mulling it over) that it isn't helpful or appropriate to call the building "church" (while it still might be "sacred space"), but the fact remains that that simply IS what it is called. I mean, we could try to revive "temple" but that has an entirely different set of implications that would be problematic in another sense - and really it's impossible to force such things.
Perhaps I should include my "philosophy of dialogue" in my profile in order to help those understand my approach to blogging. When I present questions to this public format I am attempting to engage the various "conclusions" that people have come to under such a topic. I am not seeking answers as I would if I was asking a professor, my pastor, or doing research on this same topic. I am seeking dialogue. You say what you think, I say what I think, do they match, are they different, if they are different why, have they given an adequate arguement or sufficient evidence in order for me to move a position, have they found holes in my arguement that are detrimental and make no sense, maybe they bring something to my attention that I've not realized, how do I respond to this new information...that's what's going on here hopefully.
The first question propossed has been answered. If you read all of our comments we all agree that we "have to" go to church to be Christian. Now we are trying to answer the question within the question. What is church? Rich you say that the question has shifted since the beginning from "why have a a church?" to "why gather together for worship?" My whole arguement is that these are by nature the same question. I don't think you can seperate the two...you do. So I am trying to figure out how you do that.
You admit that the "Church has become a building you visit, do religious duties in, and then leave." I agree that the church has become that for some people, but this is not a new problem. The Jews did it, and the church has faced this problem for a couple thousand years. This is not true for everyone though, and certainly not enough that it warrants abandoning our church buildings and all other marks of the church to solve this problem, I will argue that it is not the structure that is the problem. The only "convenient but deadly fiction" is that you are teaching people that where you meet isn't a church, but that they "gathered together" are the church. However, I would like to point out to you that by your own statements I can determine that you are meeting in a church. How do I know? You put a cross up. You are the pastor. Your mission is to teach people how to be the church, a.k.a. the extension of Christ into the world. You meet together during the week and talk about how that is going to be done, you worship God and thank God for grace and ask God for strength and help in this endevor. In an effort to do this you have stripped all the images and the whole look of "church" from the structure in an effort to force the people to "be the church." I got news for you...this is not a new idea. The world was Catholic for 1500 years. and since the Protestant Reformation the church has been trying to strip the buildings and sanctuaries down peice by peice so that we no longer looked like the Catholic/Orthodox faith. Look at an Anglican church, then a Methodist, then a Nazarene, then look at your building. See the progression, or digression? Now the only resemblance is the cross you have sitting in your sanctuary. The mission is the same, and your intentions are no different than ours. We want the world to be saved, we want all to experience God's love and sanctifying grace. It's too bad that neither the Catholics or the Protestants have been able to solve this problem, and I would suggest that your "method" won't be the answer. You cannot seperate the identity of the people from the place they meet, in other words you cannot seperate form and content. Everyone your congregation witnesses to wants them to attend their church. Do they invite them to the Banquet Hall and then have a surprise we're a church party when they come in the door. My guess is they probably just invite them to Church.
No one is saying that God is tied to a building. As Brannon points out God isn't under house arrest, it is the people of God that make the church the House of God. I grew up alternating between a dance hall and a bar every other Sunday for Church because we didn't have a building. We marked the space though, and God was there.
If I have conveyed that we can only meet God in the sanctuary then I have made a mistake. I am not saying God only exists inside the church building, but that the space we use for church is more important than the majority of people are willing to admit. "The church is not there for herself but for God and, precisely as sacrament, for the world." (Jenson, The church and the sacraments) The sanctuary serves as a place for worship, it should help us to worship. It does not exist to make me feel comfortable, rather it exists to remind me of the Truth. Orthodox use icons because they believe it helps them to worship just as Protestants use only an empty cross because they find it helps them worship. I am worried because so many have taken the last symbol that sets them apart from the rest of the world, the cross, out of the church.
We are called to be different than the world. In a time where it seems that we are trying so hard to "appeal" to the world I am afraid we will become just like the world. It almost seems as if we don't really believe God is at work and that God somehow needs us to get people to church. God doesn't need us...God wants us. Just recognizing that take us from Christians doing a duty to Christians acting in love. The problem is not the building, and certainly not the ministers for their lives are a response to God's call, but perhaps the people are the problem. How do we change their minds, or teach them what is true? In all honesty...I'm not sure half the time. As culture advances there seem to be more people that are convinced they don't need God. Why? Because Christians are people maybe. It just seems we ought to be working hard to figure out why the world doesn't see any difference in us and joe who recycles, gives to charity, loves his wife, provides for his family, and supports others in his community. I believe this is part of systemic evil's stategy. We become convinced, almost lulled to sleep because we are convinced that being Christian means being nice. Sorry, I'll stop, I'm leading us to a different conversation than this specific blog...
Wow, this has been quite the in depth conversation. A lot has happened since I last commented but in Levi’s last post he wrote, “If you read all of our comments we all agree that we "have to" go to church to be Christian.”
Not to back us up here, but I never agreed that we have to GO to church in order to be a Christian. I said the church isn’t something we go to; it is something we are as a community. I said that as the church we should gather together but it does not have to be “just an hour on Sunday mornings in side a building we have mislabeled ‘the church.’"
Levi, you responded to that post saying that my comment made you “uncomfortable” and that you wondered “if it isn't that we have ‘mislabeled the church,’ but rather that we have just forgotten what it means to be the church at all.” You then wondered if, “the church has become so much involved in the world, that it is hard to distinguish the church from say, the YMCA.”
Those earlier comments resonate very much with your latest comments fearing that we were becoming too much like the world. You admitted that this kind of takes us away from our topic, but I see how your concern for this is linked to the topic about what the church is. I am going to say something that probably will make you feel even more uncomfortable than before. I think the Church would be more like it should if it actually looked more like the YMCA and not less. This is probably truer when you consider the YMCA in its heyday and during the times of its roots as a Young Men Christian Association.
The YMCA was a mission post that loved and served others for the sake of living out the Kingdom in the world of their day. They were being the church to the men and communities they served. Oh, I wish you could get the church today confused with this. Levi, I agree that we need to stand out in the world, we are to be set apart, but sitting in a Sunday morning service does dot set us apart. We need to be set apart by the fruit of the spirit in our lives and by our love for one another and our neighbors that drives us to lay down our lives and serve people unconditionally and with no strings attached.
As I have been reading this discussion I think some of our differences is semantic. I still think as Christians we need to gather together and do life together, I just don’t call it church. Again Church is not a place it is something we are.
As for the place we call “church”, I think Levi brings up an interesting consideration as he looks at it almost like a sacrament. This reminds me very much of the Jewish Temple in the Old Testament. The structure and activity of the temple was symbolic; and for the people that participated in things, weather it was washings or sacrifices, they were very much like sacraments. The temple was a sacred place, and time in this place helped shape the people of God. It is ironic that a guy named Levi today is looking at what many call the “church” the same way.
While I think Levi makes a compelling argument for a need for a sacred place as almost a sacrament of worship for the body I still stand by my statement that we do not have to go to church as a sacred place to be a Christian. Even in the OT where this imagery is the strongest there were times when having a sacred place to worship was not available. God’s people had to adapt to their context and I think God was behind this, mixing it up so that his His people would not confuse the symbols with the reality.
I think Church as sacred space is cool, and as disciple we can draw a lot of richness from participating in that symbolism. While I see how this seems very much like a sacrament, I am not ready to include it with breaking bread with one another and the baptism of new disciples.
We need to do better at “being” church more than “having” church. As the body of Christ we need to do life together, break bread, baptize, bringing new members into the body, and disciple each other as we all strive to be the continued incarnational presence of Christ in the world as the Church. If we happen to gather in a church building, or a home, or a parking lot, being the church is far more important than just creating “sacred space”. You can rightfully argue that it doesn’t have to be either/or, but I fear that for many in our culture that we have gone so long with out actually being the church that we think going to church is the same thing.
James
(Apology up front: This got really long!) :)
Brannon: You're right, we can't force people to change what they call the building where the church gathers. But as the pastor of our church, I get to decide what we will call it. I'd rather not just capitulate to "that simply IS what it is called." That's what people call it, because that's what we've led them to call it for many, many years, until finally people have barely any concept of church-as-us left. It's been replaced by church-as-building.
Levi: You seem to have misunderstood at least part of my post. You started this conversation with the question, "Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?" I took that as primarily a question about an activity (gathering for worship), not the location where that takes place. You shifted from that to the question, "Why have a building called a church?" That's a totally different question, if you ask me.
If the people in my church invite friends "to church," that's fine. The question their friend would then ask is, "Where's your church?" And they would answer (hopefully), "We meet at the Aberdeen Manor..." followed by directions on how to get there. They (hopefully) wouldn't say, "Oh, we don't have a church yet. We just rent the Aberdeen Manor..." They DO have a church, and that church meets in a banquet hall. On Sunday mornings, they don't walk into a church, because a church isn't a place you walk into. It's a family you're adopted into. At least, that's the case if you want to go with the Bible's definition of what a church is. (By the way, I don't spend a lot of time explicitly teaching this stuff. It's taught implicitly by the language we use.)
So I'm with you on the necessity of Christians gathering together regularly and "doing life together" in significant ways in order to survive as Christians (and in order to obey God's Word, which instructs us to). I'm not with you on the necessity of having a special building set aside for that gathering and calling that building "a church." The church managed quite well without "church buildings" for around 300 years, and has continued to thrive without them in different places all around the world, right up to today.
Some developments that have taken place in church history have been "good moves" and some have been "bad moves." We all acknowledge this. Perhaps Christians building special buildings for religious activities was a "good move" when it was first done, but attaching the label "church" to that building is something I'd consider a "bad move."
A have a theory that I haven't really tested: having special religious buildings seems to be just one of a whole set of related moves that started to pattern the church's life after the OT Temple. (A related move involves conceiving of pastors as "priests.") I don't find this to be a biblical or helpful set of moves to make. Yes, the Temple and its priests and activities were symbols and shadows of things to come, but the reality they were pointing toward was Christ, our great high priest (lots of great stuff in Hebrews about this). I don't see any hint in the NT that we are expected to pattern our worship or community life after the Temple. Instead, I see repeatedly that a dramatic shift has taken place, that we are now God's temple, that we are all priests. (I don't know how similar or dissimilar this is to where James was going.)
Levi, you also seem to have linked our "being different from the world" with having certain symbols on the walls in our buildings, specifically the cross. (You said, "I am worried because so many have taken the last symbol that sets them apart from the rest of the world, the cross, out of the church.") Jesus said we'd be recognized as different from the world by our self-sacrificial love, not by symbols. And I don't think I'm misreading you here, because you said something similar when you linked Jesus' "city on a hill" imagery with a church building's steeple. Jesus is talking about our lives, not our meeting places. (It's also interesting to me that the symbol the church used in those early years was the fish, not the cross. How does that figure into your perception of which symbols mark us as separate from the world?)
Perhaps you and I just have different "ideals" in mind when it comes to what we imagine the church should be. You seem to view everything since the height of Catholic/Orthodox power ("Christendom") as a digression. I'd encourage you to go a little further back to the pre-Christendom church of the first few centuries. What you seem to view as a high point of church history, I view as a low point. I wonder if this might be fueling some of our differences on this...?
Do I seem to be understanding you correctly? And am I helping you understand where I'm coming from?
First, a few nit-picks - Rich: I'm not comfortable with anyone who would say "As the pastor of our church, I get to decide [anything! - fill in the blank!]." I am pretty sure we're going to just have to agree to disagree on that one. And James: I am suspicious of anyone who say that God would "mix it up so that His people would not confuse the symbols with the reality." Symbols are realities because all we have are symbols - symbols mediate reality to us, true, but this does not make them less-than-real; rather, following Augustine, it means symbols participate in the realities they represent - symbols "make reality." I would say the real problem is with those who think they have unmediated access to reality, and thereby disparage symbol. But again, this is as near as I come to a non-negotiable, so perhaps we agree to disagree?
Now, on one level, our differences in this conversation boil down to whether you see the church, the people of God gathered for worship, as the beginning or the end - or perhaps better, the foundation or an outgrowth - of what it means to BE the church. I hear a lot of this discourse these days - I suspect we all do - "we need to BE the church." Trevecca (alma mater for several of us on this blog) is all about their motto "To be rather than to seem." But I don't believe we even have a unified vision of what we mean when we begin talking about BEING the church. For example, when I use this language, I mean, first and foremost, the church gathered for worship (which includes prayer, the Word, the sacraments, but is more specific, more focused, than just "doing life" together), and therefore I tend to view sociality, fellowship, proselytizing (as distinct from "evangelism") and the like as secondary, as springing forth, really, from what begins and really (theo)logically should end with worship. But it seems you, James and Rich, though not in entirely the same way, represent a position that regards other expressions of "church" as primary and believers gathered for worship as something of a side-effect.
Now that I've described this not only semantic but also pragmatic and even perhaps theological difference, I will tip my hand a bit further. I will go along with Rich that "we've led [people] to call [our buildings "churches" for many, many years, until finally people have barely any concept of church-as-us left" - but this is precisely why I am at this point persuaded that the position I occupy is the right one (i.e. that worship is primary, and other aspects of Christian communal life an outgrowth of worship): because really in freeing the church from it's "Babylonish captivity" (pace Luther), by breaking the icons and destroying the church buildings, what we have consistently done since the Reformation is strip people of the very symbols and practices that identify them as the church, and the church precisely as the communion of the people of God gathered for the worship of God. I am of course talking about things like the christian year, the lectionary, the sacraments in their fully embodied and ineffable mystery (not the watered-down, intellectualized protestant version), in short, a properly liturgical way of being the church in the world, undertaking the "work of the people" that is the praise and exaltation of the God of the universe in the here and now, the proclamation of and testimony to the salvation brought near in Christ Jesus. The absence of these fundamental elements of what it means to be a Christian, and for Christians to together comprise the Church, is what has led us to overly-fixate on the wrong things (like the building alone), and ultimately lose the plot about what it means to "be the church." Until we correct this error, this problem will persist.
Finally, I think you have, Rich, identified part of the disagreement here: the tension between an idealized view of the height of Christendom and an equally idealized view of the Early Church. (It would take a lot of time and nuance to unpack this in a manner that would do justice to both sides of the conversation, but I hope everyone identifies what's happening here and understands what I mean by this.)
But there is another, perhaps deeper disagreement, and that is the tension between starting with a view toward the individual or starting with a view toward the communal. I, for example, am persuaded that all Being begins in and as Communion - I think this is deeply and genuinely Trinitarian, and the only way to conceive of human ontology on a Trinitarian Christian mode, and I believe this is a biblically and even (bio)logically justified position. I will go out on a limb and say that Levi, Joseph and I are all, in some shape or form, conceiving of things under this type of pattern, and share this conviction. Now, if it hasn't been made clear in awhile, it needs to be said that Levi, Joseph and I all know each other in "the real world" so this is not a new conversation for us - it is one with a bit of a back-log of assumptions and a great deal of understanding of where each one is coming from - so you'll have to forgive us for that much if what it seems like is that we're making assumptions about you or not letting you in on certain "givens" for us (on the other hand, I don't want to paint and "us vs. them" portrait, even though it sounds like that's what I am doing, but I think this does merit clarification).
But James and Rich, you seem to both begin with a view more toward the individual; for example, Rich, it is clear to me that you are mapping a post-Enlightenment view of the subject onto both the pre- and early-Christian worlds in a way that is hugely problematic - these ancient peoples simply did not conceive of the Self in the way that we do, so to conceive of the people of God (and not one divine appointed person) as ALL "high priests" did not, to those Jews who became followers of Christ, mean "we are all, each one of us, priests" but rather "we are all, together as a community of Christ-followers, the temple, the dwelling-place, of God." If fact, it might even be inappropriate to imply that the early Christians conceived of themselves "a community" in the same way we conceive of community, since we are marking "community" out as something specific and important in the face of the decay of "community" in contemporary life (I am suspicious that we use the word so much because it has ceased to have any real, concrete meaning to us). So, no, we, each one of us, are not the Temple of God - I cannot be the temple of God - only I as a part of the Body of Christ called Church can be the Temple of God, and thereby we, as the Body of Christ, represent the High Priest of OT times, because it is really Christ who is the Great High Priest. (Following on from some things James says in his last comment, I would point out that this is what Catholic theologians mean when they speak of Christ as the "primordial sacrament" and the Church-in-history as the "foundational sacrament".) Similarly, *I* cannot be a "city on a hill," but only the Church-as-a-communion-of-believers can be a city on a hill - and as I said earlier, I would conceive of this community as existing most fully and authentically when gathered in the building with the tall steeple pointing upwards to heaven in the worship of God. But I think this is a real, fundamental theological difference in the discussion we are having, and we might, at least in this regard, be at an impasse.
As my final post I will present to you the lesson that I taught my class this morning. I have enjoyed this conversation despite all or our inabilities to understand each other's positions. There is by no means anything lost in these misunderstandings but surely we have all grown intellectually, spiritually, and relationally through this engagement. I do not often get the chance to engage other minds to this extent so I am thankful for this technology. At the end I will put my final thoughts and hopefully we can start a new line of discussion because it's starting to take a long time to scroll to the bottom of this one.
Opened with Sarsum Corda
Split into 3 groups of about 7+
(I have an abnormal S.S. Class)
I had them write down as many different roles that they could think of that they all play.
(ex. brother/sister, student, etc.)
Asked 3 Questions
Q1:Do you ever wish you could change one of your roles? Why?
Q2:If you could choose any role to have what would it be? Why?
Q3:How do our roles define who we are?
Response: They gave expected answers for each, although some found it interesting how many roles they have no power to change such as a brother/sister, or son/daughter.
We dicussed how our roles define who we are our character and personality. Then we began to discuss the role of the church and the various roles that make the church.
I gave a mini lecture over Dr. Steve Greens sermon on Isaiah 11. In breif it states that the church should be inclusive and not exclusive. It should be a place of safety. It should be a place of healing, and finally a place of conversion. He had this great line I'll share with you in regards to conversion. "For if lions are expected to ever lose the taste of blood in their mouths, it will take a major reorientation to living." You have to read Isaiah 11 to get it but it's a beautiful image. I followed with 2 questions.
Q1:Which of these qualities do you identify with most?
Q2:Which of these qualities do you think the church does well? Ours?
Then we read several passages describing the work of the church. After compiling a long list of roles within the church I had them fill out a sheet helping them to identify what gifts they had and then we tried to find roles in the church where they could use those gifts. We talked about how as Christians we fill these roles as a response in love to God. Further, I told them God didn't create us because God was lonely, or God had some need to fill in God's own life. I told them God created them out of love, and our response to God should always be in love. Therefore, our response to the love should be both a return of that love to God and the repeating the story of that love to others who have not experienced that love. It is also for this reason that there is no Christianity apart from the church. The experience can be personal, but never private. God is one, and God's people should also be one.
That was about it. Granted only a few of my kids are in public schools the rest are in private and home schools. A majority are children of business owners and teachers so they have a greater capacity for certain language than your typical 10th graders. This S.S. was put together from Jim Hampton's Vital Beliefs and the Claim the Name Methodist Confirmation Teaching Plans. They are both tremendous sources especially Jim Hampton's. His is Nazarene and includes chapters on the vital beliefs of the faith geared toward teenagers.
In closing, I would say I guess I need to be more clear in my writing. I'll work on that. In the meantime...Rich the questions aren't different to me. Do you have to go to Church to be Christian? and Why have a building called a Church? are the same question to me because Church as building and Church as people are inseperable. You don't see them as having any relationship what-so-ever, so when I asked the first question everyone was coming from different directions and I was trying to limit the many directions that this conversation could go. I suppose I could have said, "The church is the people and the building...Prove me wrong." I just felt that wasn't a good way to start a conversation. Plus I don't assume to have anything figured out completely...never will. Now I would say you have a church. Aberdeen Manor is your church. It is where your people go to church. It can be a Banquet Hall during the week, but's its a church when you are there. Now, if you stay there you have to ask yourself what kind of Christians come from a church that meets in a Banquet Hall. How will that shape those Christians? You admit this is temporary I believe you are renting now and you'll soon move to a place where you are going to talk about architecture and symbols and how you are going to set that up, and what you are going to call it. Whether you want to admit it or not you will have those discussions because you know deep down inside the way that church is setup has an effect on how your church functions and worships. This is also known as Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. The law of prayer is the law of belief...in other words...how you worship, is who you will become. Plus, I know a little bit of history. They used much more than the cross and even the fish as symbols. Lamb, anchor, dove, peacock, rainbow, ship, unicorn, butterfly, ermine, etc. I don't have a favorite point in church history, but the Reformation's an easy point. People have been deconstructing the church since it started. The early church did meet in places called homes and actually in synagogues until the Temple was destroyed and the Jews and Christians stopped getting along. Jesus actually continued worshiping at the temple and preaching at the synagogues until we killed him. I guess for now though we have to agree to disagree. Thanks Brannon for explaining symbols I forget that not all of us have the same vocabulary and the same definitions. James...sorry if YMCA was misleading, you can supplant all uses of YMCA with Starbucks and yes...I am more uncomfortable, thanks.
"Ethically [the Church] should constitute a community apart, yet socially a community involved and concerned." Richard Taylor
Grace and Peace to you all...I've got homework to catch up on!
Wow, I would never have imagined this simple discussion would have turned into such emphatic positions on many sides. After my last post I read through Rich’s and Brannon’s but I will have to wait until tomorrow to read Levi’s latest comments because everyone (including myself) shares so much it is hard to digest in one sitting.
First of all Brannon you said in regards to my comments that you are “suspicious of anyone who say that God would ‘mix it up so that His people would not confuse the symbols with the reality.’” You then said, “Symbols are realities because all we have are symbols.” I am not sure what you suspect me of, but I think you may be making more of my statement than I intended.
I am only saying that God used a variety of ways to communicate who He is and how we could connect with Him as His people. There are many pictures, stories, and symbols God uses to do this, but because of the limitations on human language and understanding none of these images can stand on their own to convey the complete truth about God.
The context of my statement was that sometimes the nation of Israel had the temple and sometimes they did not; God used all these points in history to teach us about Himself and how to follow Him as His people. Because God lead Israel in a constant changing context, He “mixed it up” and taught us the same message in a variety of ways and sometimes even with contrasting symbols.
Secondly, I agree that we do not have a “unified vision of what we mean when we begin talking about BEING the church.” Brannon you clearly see being church as being worship centered, and I think you make a strong case for this. To clarify my position, I see BEING church as much more than just “doing life together”. However, doing it together is a big part of it and I think my belief in this contradicts your assertion that I am coming from an “individualist” point of view of Christendom. You are right that it would have been probably a truer perception for the Jews in the early church that they were “all, together as a community of Christ-followers, the temple, the dwelling-place, of God." I agree with this because I believe that we as the Church are his body and as his body we are his continued incarnational hands and feet to serve and love this world that Christ died for. For me BEING church has more to do with how we as a community reflect Christ in our love and service to the world than what we do when we meet at worship services.
I agree with you Brannon that God meets us in our gatherings for worship and sacraments and that this is part of BEING church. Though service and evangelism can “spring forth” from worship I do not think that I could separate out the body of Christ’s activity in the world from BEING church. Also, I believe that out of the Body of Christ’s loving, serving , and bringing God’s message of hope to the world springs forth times of great celebration and worship by God’s people. To me all of this together is BEING Church. Furthermore I think as a community it is our loving people, feeding the poor, healing the sick, and bringing hope to the hopeless that is most lacking in our efforts to BE the church in our country. I was not negating the importance of worship as the church just trying to make up for a lack of emphasis on being the church outside our gathering times as well.
I’ll read Levi’s comments tomorrow after I have a good nights sleep. Thanks for the conversation.
James
I'll try to keep this brief, sicne Levi's trying to wrap this up...
Brannon:
re: my "as pastor I get to decide" comment... I'm not an authoritarian-type leader (far from it!), but I am the founding pastor of this church. I'm the one who does the vast majority of the preaching, I'm the one who publishes our website, our weekly bulletin, our brochures, our promotional materials, etc. So while others are involved in these decisions, and have been from the beginning, as the pastor (and especially as the founding pastor), I lead the church.
Re: Enlightenment/individualism. I think you're misreading my comments. I agree with you that we are not individually Temples or priests or cities on hills. That's not what I said. Perhaps I should have used the biblical "kingdom of priests / royal priesthood" language to be more clear? Also, I'm right there with you on what you said about the relational/communal nature of personhood and about the Trinity. So I don't think that's behind our disagreement here.
I do differ with you on what activity is primary for us as church. You say worship. I say mission. We could play with that for a while, if you want to. :)
Levi:
Looks like a good lesson! :)
Re: church as building and church as people as inseparable... I don't see how you can maintain that in light of the early church's (and today's church's) uncanny ability to "be the church" without "church buildings." I guess if you're just going to call any place where the church meets regularly for worship "a church," then your statement works, but you should really acknowledge that as a redefinition of what the Bible calls a church. Tell Priscilla and Aquila that their house is a church, and they'd probably look at you funny, because they (or at least Paul) didn't use the word that way.
BTW, I understand both "deep down" and right up top that the space where we meet shapes us. There's no denying it. Which is why we're not planning to build a "church building." We're hoping to partner with a developer to build a set of connected spaces that get used during the week for other things (coffee house, daycare, youth center, dance studio, whatever -- probably some combination of the above) and gets used on the weekends and certain weeknights for church activities. We want to be continually reminded that the heartbeat of God is for our neighbors, that the good shepherd leaves the 99 to go after the 1.
James: I'm sorry if I took your comment about symbols and realities for more than you intended, and I probably should have chosen a better phrase than "suspicious of" - I suppose what I meant was: such comments make me suspicious that my dialogue partner has a weak and devalued view of symbol (and hence sacrament) and I think such a view of symbol is misguided. This is a big issue to me, practically and theologically (as if the two are distinct!), and it sometimes makes it difficult to discuss across this "language barrier" when I say "symbol" and mean "the most truth-full of things" and you mean say "symbol" and mean "something that imitates a real thing." I hope this makes sense, and I apologize if I've offended.
I agree with you entirely that it takes the entire plurality of symbols, not just one, to convey the truth about God.
A final thing or two to James and Rich: first, I hope I haven't come across as too antagonistic in our disagreement - we are all clearly passionate about the church, and I truly believe (and told my wife last night as I was thinking about and telling her about this discussion) that if we all met up for coffee or whatever, we'd have more in common, and more of the important things in common, than we'd find to disagree about, the chiefest one being a profound concern for and committment to the church and to working toward her truly being the Body of Christ. And of course we're going to have different ideas about how that works, how we best do that, because the "how" (I think we'd all agree) is always culturally-conditioned and should be contextually-particular not only to historical factors, denominational traditions, but even (especially!) the needs and situation of the church's locality. I see that what James is doing with The Corridor and what Rich is doing with Living Hope is, in a significant way, seeking to understand and be part of a locality and ask hard questions about what it might mean to "be" the Church, even a Church of the Nazarene, in such a locality, with all the variables of quirks and desires and needs (known and unknown) and prejudices (etc, etc) that come from basic human diversity. So I really respect what you guys are about and I think we are on the same page about the things that really matter, even if we have some fundamental disagreements, e.g. about the primacy of worship.
That leads to my second thing, and since I've explained my view pretty extensively and there doesn't seem to be much confusion about it, I won't go back into that. But I'm still not persuaded that it is beneficial to view the church's worship in the way you (mainly James) describe. I can go along with you a certain distance when you talk about the inseparability of mission ("showing Christ's love to the world") and worship, because I think worship IS mission in precisely this sense - it is public witness, testimony to the love of Christ extended to all, and is thereby "evangelism" par excellence, proclamation of the gospel. Sure there are ways to proclaim the gospel outside of a worship service, and we are absolutely called to show forth Christ's love with our very lives, but this has to find its genesis somewhere, and I believe that it flows forth from the Church-gathered-for-worship.
I guess what I'd ask is: From where does the Church's missional activity draw its life? What catalyzes these expressions of "Being-Church" that you regard as more crucial than what we do in worship? Do you think it just coalesces organically, or does it begin w/ a bunch of individual Christians who have read their Bible and know that we are called to assemble together and take Christ's love to the world, and so decided to get together and "be the Church"? Does it flow forth from the vision of a few who plan and strategize then implement that plan? In other words what is it, in the first instance, that creates and shapes people into disciples of Christ, prepared and equipped and desirous to take Christ's love to the world, if not our "liturgy" itself? There are endless ways I could reformulate this question, so I'll stop and see what you say.
To all...by all means continue. I only meant I needed to pull away for a bit. I hardly think my professor will accept blogging as a satisfying excuse for late work. Coffee does sound good though...
Brannon,
I've been reluctant to enter this discussion given the shear volume of writing already produced. But I like your question. I'm going to attempt a brief answer.
"From where does the Church's missional activity draw its life?"
It is the Spirit of Jesus, which is the Holy Spirit that animates the church as the visible and continuing presence of Christ in the world.
Now given my deep commitment to the importance of corporate liturgy for the shaping of our lives as disciples, I'm not arguing for a Low Church expression of sacramental practice.
That being said, I'm nervous about theologies of worship that stress corporate practices as primordial leaving embodied practices as subsequent action. Does that make sense?
I think Benedict (of Nursia) is right to have guided his monks towards a life of work and prayer.
I think the conversation is akin to the dialectic concerning the relationship of Scripture to the Church. Yes the Church by the power of the Spirit gives shape and meaning to the scriptures, yet in a curiously beautiful way the scriptures by the power of the Spirit give life and breathe to the Church.
More than just deconstructing the chicken and egg thing we often fall into, I'm wondering where the via media lies, and where the mystery of the Body of Christ visible in us by the power of the Spirit given room to roam.
Peace Dudes,
Brian
Brannon,
Re-reading my comments when I spoke of symbols I can see why you became protective of the sacraments. I talked about the imagery of the Temple in the OT and how the people of Israel partook in rituals there in almost a sacramental kind of way. Clearly God meant them in a real way in the symbolism, but the ability to participate in the symbolism wasn’t permanent and God contrasted how he would be among his people in different ways when the Temple wasn’t an option. (thus “mixing it up”- sorry for rehashing this )
Though I mentioned the sacraments, I did this in trying to understand where Levi was coming from who seems to have an almost sacramental view of gathering in the Temple. Like I said earlier, I am not sure I am ready to include this kind of symbolism with sacraments like communion or baptism. I like the imagery of it, and I think God can meet us in it, I just don’t think that community life in the body is bound to the “Temple” the way partaking in the sacraments are.
I totally understand and respect your desire to protect the sacraments from being minimized as “just mere symbols.” I think protestant efforts, motivated in fear of being confused with transubstantiation, have reduced the very real encounter we can have with God in the sacraments to “just” symbols. By no means did I mean to use the word “symbol” as a way to minimize the actual work of God that takes place in and through them. My use of the word was intended to imply to the broader use of symbolism and imagery in scripture; not every image or symbol is a sacrament. I am not sure that “going to church”, should be viewed as one.
With that said, I am not sure how to answer your questions; “From where does the Church's missional activity draw its life? What catalyzes these expressions of "Being-Church" that you regard as more crucial than what we do in worship?” These two questions together seem to imply you think that worship is the catalyst for being missional. I most certainly think it can be, but I think being missional can also be a catalyst for worship. Perhaps Brian is right and this is like trying to deconstruct the “chicken and the egg” type argument; they are clearly related, and perhaps circular - continuing to fuel each other.
Perhaps I am allowing myself to swing to far to the extreme focus of being missional as the primary ways of “being church”. But it seems to me that Christians have long confused attending an event on Sunday mornings with church, and have forgotten how as a community to be the body of Christ, and His hands and feet to the world. Brian may be wise in advocating finding the “via media”.
I do agree with Brian in the answer to your question, "From where does the Church's missional activity draw its life?" He said, “It is the Spirit of Jesus, which is the Holy Spirit that animates the church as the visible and continuing presence of Christ in the world.” I think this is both true in the church’s missional activity as well as its time of worship.
Brannon, I also want to affirm your comments that you believe that “if we all met up for coffee or whatever, we'd have more in common, and more of the important things in common, than we'd find to disagree about; the chiefest one being a profound concern for and commitment to the church and to working toward her truly being the Body of Christ.” I agree with you and I always find your comments on this blog and others very helpful and thought provoking. I think we are able to both enjoy our conversations and challenge each other at the same time because we do genuinely care about the church that we are all a part of. It may not be coffee, but I would love an opportunity to meet up for a drink sometime.
James
Sorry Joseph, I made my original statement and then totally forgot to come back and read anything for a couple of weeks. You guys have had quite the conversation going.
In working with your students and trying to create dialogue with them I think the most important thing you can teach them is the nature of the church. Help them learn understand what it is to be part of something far greater than an organization or company or club. Teach them the beautiful truth of God connecting and uniting in purpose and faith the redeemed children of God.
We can not go to church, we can only be the church. To be the church requires faith, redemption, worship, connection, accountability, teaching, community, and a life time of work. Teach them that and you will honor your call to be the church for them.
Or you could just say "Read Hebrews 10:24-25." and then ask "Can we disobey God and still be a Christian?"
You guys would confuse anybody!
Post a Comment
<< Home