Let’s Start a New Church!

There are many good reasons for starting a new church. New churches win most of the new converts to our faith, for one thing. They can often respond quicker and more efficiently than older churches to new needs within a given society. And, of course, missionaries who wish to establish a beachhead in a nation without many Christians must establish new congregations.
Sometimes, Christians must start new churches because the old ones have become apostate or grown deaf.

In the book of Revelation, God warns some of the churches of “Asia” (modern day Turkey) that they were in danger of moving outside the borders of His kingdom. He did not want to "remove their candlestick"[1] (or refuse to recognize them as churches.)

The Lord’s words to these seven churches show us how God keeps working within His Church, even when it operates far beneath His standards.

The church, like ancient Israel, is a community made up of individuals in various stages of spiritual development; tares and wheat, sheep and goats.

So these reasons, starting a church because one wants to finally attend a REAL church, where TRUE believers SOLD OUT TO GOD create BIBLICAL COMMUNITY – well, knock yourself out! If the church succeeds, it will take about a generation before you will face some other prophetic zealot leading an exodus out of your beloved church with the very same cry on his lips.
It is never a good idea to throw away something good in order to grasp something perfect. Why not? Because the perfect thing is only in your head – or in heaven – or in the coming Kingdom Age. Its certainly not here. Not now. Not with people like you. Or me.

As we grow to love the body of Christ, we must also become mature enough to remember that God has “incarnated” it within visible, fallible and earthly bodies – probably like the church you presently attend.

In the Church, you will find people of great spiritual power and purity of life coexisting with the most twisted and corrupt individuals imaginable. To some extent, these attributes even coexist within each believer!

Therefore, we can’t determine what a “real” church is just looking at the name over the door.
Of course, we would all like to belong to a “real” church.

In every era of the church’s history, believers have walked out of corrupt church situations to begin a “New Testament” church (by which they mean a church that will be on this earth all that the universal church is described to be in the New Testament. The only problem with this impulse it this: even the churches in the New Testament era were not “New Testament churches” at least by that criterion. Otherwise, why would Christ have threatened the churches of Asia with excommunication? )

All attempts to “begin the church again” have ended up as new denominations, groups that later generations leave in disgust to try yet once more.

You will save yourself much heartache and disappointment if you realize the following unassailable truths: believers are forgiven but fallen, men and women. Some who call themselves believers are not really born again. Those who are born again are at various levels of spiritual maturity. Those who are spiritually mature are still fallen human beings. Believers make mistakes. Leaders of churches are fallen people.

There is no other kind. At least not yet.

Does this mean that we just excuse bad living? Of course not!

Men and women who claim to follow Christ must be expected to live like the Lord taught us to live. We must hunger to live a godly life. We must believe in the Ten Commandments. We must believe in the Sermon on the Mount. Being a believer means to come under the authority of God and His word.

And yet, and this is worth repeating: we must not reject a concrete good simply because it has not yet reached the level of an abstract perfect.

God’s Word gives us an abstract image of what a “good” Church looks like. We must keep reaching for it, both as individuals and as local churches. However, we must also believe that God already sees us, and sees His Church, as it will be in its glorified state.

Individual believers must view themselves that way too.

We should thank God for the extent to which we (as individuals and as local churches) reflect God’s goodness and grace even in this life.

We should not reject the good that individuals and churches do simply because they have not yet reached the perfection that we long for – and that our Lord promises us will one day occur.

The place where all expectations are reached is called Heaven.

That does not happen here on this fallen plant.

Keep that in mind as you start that new church!



[1] Revelation 2:5

Messy Church

It is not difficult nowadays to find people who believe church is a mess. In fact, it has become rather unfashionable to honor the church for anything. Even church leaders have joined the fracas, making jokes and taking jabs at the church. The congregational response is nearly always laughter.

The church: what a joke.

The mess is not new, of course. Church has always been a mess.

What is new is our expectation that church ought not be a mess, or that the mess was something unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary.

Our ancestors never expected to find paradise when they went to church. They went to the church to “taste of the powers of the world to come.” They went to experience a “foretaste of glory divine.”

Our ancestors understood the inescapable reality of original sin, the verifiable existence of the “prince of darkness grim,” and the daily grind of walking through a “world with devils filled that threaten to undo us.”

We now have little patience with such doctrines or with those who preach them. We think of these phrases as cute, quaint and hopelessly irrelevant barnacles that cling to hymns we no longer sing and books we no longer read. In the absence of such doctrines, we expect the full realization of the Lord’s coming kingdom right now, without pain, without resistance, and without repentance.

I write these blogs in hope that there are still many who understand that the teachings of the Bible – doctrine, if you will – are vital to authentic Christian life. Without them, we cannot do else but continually reshape the church (and our faith) according to the beliefs of whatever secular philosophy pleases us – or pleases the crowd we hope to attract.

In the last few blogs, I have been asking a question: “what is the church anyway?”

I have admitted that there are a number of conflicting definitions. We call the definition of church an “ecclesiology.”

Even though it is new for Christians to dishonor the church as they are prone to do at present, we have disagreed for several centuries now about what church is supposed to look like.
Although this is as unpopular subject as one could possible imagine, deciding one’s ecclesiology is a very important part of a Christian’s spiritual life. For example, we all know that words like "Pentecostal," “Episcopal,” and "Baptist" are adjectives. Way back in the seventh grade, Mrs. Beeker told me back that “an adjective is a word that modifies a noun.” If we are not sure what a noun means, what can an adjective, which is a word we use to modify, qualify and specify that noun, do but cause more confusion?

Therefore, we must know what the word "church" means before we add a modifier to it.

That’s what the last few blogs have been trying to address: defining the word “Church.”

Most Christians agree that the universal (we won’t make them say catholic!) church is a spiritual organism. Only God knows exactly where it is. Only He is sure where it is not. Most Christians these days would also agree, even with some hesitation and reservation, that the universal Church contains believers scattered throughout all the denominations of Christendom. There are even followers of Christ outside of Christendom, for that matter. Most Christians would further agree that there are people scattered throughout every denomination (sometimes in leadership) who do not have divine life in them. Such people are not therefore, members of the Lord’s Universal Church. (Of course, the Lord told us that we cannot distinguish true believers from fake ones. God and the holy angels will separate them at the end of the age.)

So we can all agree that the Lord’s church is a spiritual entity. It consists of all those who believe in Christ and who seek to follow Him. Most of us believe that this includes even many heretics, people who do not believe rightly because they have been taught incorrectly or who in all sincerity have misunderstood the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the Lord’s Church.
Most of us also believe that local congregations throughout the world (and through the centuries) are mystically united within, to the universal, or “catholic,” Church.

We will all agree that the Lord Jesus Christ founded the Church.

We agree that the Holy Spirit filled the church at Pentecost and that he has continued to guide it since the days of the apostles.

All believers of every era and in every place are, therefore, a part of God’s Church. Believers are, in the words of St. Paul, “seated in heavenly places with Christ.”

Since only God knows for sure who is or is not a part of the Church, much of the life and work of the church is invisible to us. God sees the Bride of Christ adorned as a bride for her husband. He sees the wheat. He sees the unfolding of the Kingdom of God.

We experience mess.

We see mixture; the collection of what Christ called “the tares and wheat”.

Down here on earth, we deal with a lot more than angels, saints and cherubim.

I once heard an old preacher say “to live with the saints up above, that will be wondrous glory. To live with the saints here below, that is a different story!” If you have been around church very much, you know what he was talking about!

While most of us have wonderful stories of Christ-like people who have brought joy and understanding into our lives, we also tell less inspiring stories about those who claim to follow Christ but make our lives difficult!

The saints up in Heaven are now beyond the reaches and effects of the fall.

Down here, we are not.

The church, as we experience it in the day to day, is a collection of tares and wheat, led by fallen men and women. It makes mistakes. It takes wrong turns. It often disappoints. Sometimes, parts of the church even goes into heresy, (teachings that deviate from the ‘faith once and for all delivered to the saints.”)

It takes something of a sanctified imagination to see the church as God sees it: as it will be and as it really is for those who love it.

So why is the church a mess?

Because Jesus Christ receives sinners, of whom I am chief.

Latte Communion?

Believers through the many centuries have held different views about the church.

Some have believed that the Church achieved its most ideal form in its earliest days. People who hold this opinion think that we should return to the government, doctrine, and mode of operation that characterized the Church in its earliest stages of development. These believers attempt to eliminate everything from public worship or church government that they believe does not to have the specific authority of the New Testament. “Speak where the Bible speaks; be silent where the Bible is silent,” such Christians say.

Other Christians have taught that the early church pragmatically developed its form of government and style of worship to meet the needs of the time. Although we must be faithful to the words of Christ and His apostles, the church is free to evolve to meet the needs of people in whatever era or location it finds itself. “By all means, save some” is the cry of these believers.

Yet others have insisted that the traditions that come to us from the early Church and which have developed through time, are our best guide. Thus, we should interpret the Word of God and practice our faith as it was defined in the first few centuries and developed through the ages.

This school of thought interprets church government and doctrine thorough the long lens of history, much like our American legal system used to do. In this view, the development of the church has been like that of a growing child; we can't return to the primitive innocence of the early church any more than a man could return to his childhood.” “We hold to that which has at all times and in all places been believed by the people of God,” claim those who hold this view.

These different views of church affect how we receive our faith. Did the Lord Jesus establish the sacraments and ordinances of the church? Have these been faithfully passed through the generations from teacher to teacher? If so, such things are valid for all time and we have no authority to tamper with them. However, if practices of the church – such as the use of wine and bread in communion – were culturally conditioned expressions of faith for the first century; then
we can accomplish the same intention by sharing coffee and pastries at Starbucks.

Most Christians will express some sympathy with each view of the church. Finally though, one must decide which of them the most faithfully carries out the Lord’s teaching.

How one makes his or her choice about the way he or she views the church creates denominations.

One Christian insists that we should meet in homes because early Christians met in homes. The same person may disagree with a friend over whether or not one should use a piano in worship since early Christians had no piano. Both of them may uncomfortable with a third Christian who argues that we should all speak in tongues because early Christians spoke in tongues. As these three argue among themselves about church buildings, pianos and tongue-speaking, they may suddenly unite against an Orthodox Christian who uses incense in worship. “After all,” he will say, “God told Moses to use incense in worship. When did God change His mind?”

As these four argue, another Christian from the “seeker sensitive” sort of church will roll his eyes and remind the others that seekers are lost; they cannot understand all these complex arguments about “trivial things. We must present the gospel in ways that unbelievers can understand.”

Likely, all the previous arguments will now cease as the others gang up on the new guy.

Perhaps it is getting clear that the particular way we envision “church” will lead us to all sorts of conclusions about what church should look like. These conclusions can separate us from sincere and godly believers who disagree with us.

It can be frustrating!

On today’s date in 1954, Edward Murrow and Fred Friendly aired a show called See it Now, in which they exposed the political witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. A Communist scare had blazed through the nation and left everyone implicated that did not dot every ‘I” and cross every “t” of Senator McCarthy’s definition of patriotism. Leaders had been smeared in the arts and sciences as well as in political life. No one had seemed immune from the fiery ignorance of McCarthy’s uninformed populism.

None of the organs of government seemed capable of stopping the daily slander against dissent and difference. What signaled the beginning of the end was a television program made possible by the founding documents of this county. Fortunately, a free press was as sacred to Americans as our three branches of government. The living tradition of freedom, passed down from our revolutionary forefathers in countless poems, stories and fourth of July celebration picnics, erupted to protect some of the citizens from the mob spirit of the rest of the citizens.

This has occurred in the history of the church as well. Church leaders do not always get it right. Power can corrupt and wealth can even blind otherwise great leaders. Evangelists, priests, pastors, presbyters, superintendents, popes, elders, vestries, monks and theologians can err and have erred. The masses can err too and fall prey to snake oil and smoke for a generation or two. Sometimes it is the church structure that corrects the mob; sometimes it is the piety of the pew that corrects the pulpit. Sooner or later though, the truth prevails and err is rebuked.
The Lord told us that this would happen. He said that Hell would try but would not succeed at stopping His Church.

I haven’t answered the questions I raised earlier in this blog. I have my opinions. However, in the end, it is a mystery how the church continues its way from century to century and from culture to culture. Saints have emerged from all parts of the church and when one consults them, he gets many different opinions about how it’s all supposed to work. Nonetheless, the work continues.

Most Protestants believe that Mother Teresa was a Christian, although they disagree with her doctrine. Most Roman Catholics believe that Billy Graham is a Christian, although they can’t understand why he doesn’t make the sign of the cross when he prays. Most Pentecostals believe that the Holy Spirit was at work in the Reformation, although they are hard pressed to discover which reformer spoke in tongues. Spurgeon was a great preacher, even though he smoked a pipe and C. S. Lewis was a saintly thinker even though he drank too much wine. General Booth did a good thing when he founded the Salvation Army, even though they don’t receive Communion.

What a mess! What a fascinating, confusing mess!

(I called this blog Latte Communion, because hopefully it caught your attention! My daughter wrote a blog last week called Chocolate Communion, in which she talks about chocolate, children, and Communion. You can read her blog by clicking here: http://www.beatriceblount.blogspot.com/ )