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Monday, May 5, 2008

Rethinking the Concept of the Church

Another post from the Borg family! How fortunate for our one two readers.

Having grown up in a largely evangelical culture Rachel and I have had to rethink our understanding of the church. After all, many in the evangelical world (this is one of those broad, sweeping, generalizations I tend to make) don’t have well formulated ideas on what the church is and how the Christian relates to the church. This is obviously a very important subject for every family to consider, after all, when Christ finished his earthly ministry on earth he left the church to carry out his work, and it’s plain that Scripture assigns a very important status to the church. The church was purchased by Christ’s giving of himself and shedding his blood (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 5:25), the church is called the Bride of Christ (Revelation 21), the church is the body of Christ (Colossians 1:18), and it is the church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against (Matthew 16:18). Granted the church consists of all God’s elect, it spans the divides of denominations, it is bigger than any race, nation, culture, or language, it is present on earth and in heaven. But the church has always been manifested in a visible and tangible way on earth, and under the gospel it is in local congregations—and it is the local congregation that Rachel and I have grown to love and cherish. But it also appears that the idea of the local church is being attacked by pragmatism and postmodern thought (I read an article in Newsweek a few months ago about the growing popularity of house churches—how awful!). So in light of all this, Rachel and I want to ask the following questions and would love to hear thoughts on them!

  1. How important is church in the Christian’s life?
  2. What is the purpose of church?
  3. Is church an “optional” thing for Christians?
  4. When considering a move should churches in the area affect someone's decision?
  5. Can church be supplanted with audio sermons on the Internet?
  6. Are para-church organizations *just as* important as the church (i.e. Christian camps, Christian organizations, etc).
  7. Is church membership important?
  8. How do you teach your children to love and value the local church?
  9. What should “church day” (i.e. the Sabbath) look like? Or, what are some things you and your family do to honor the Sabbath?
  10. And one more “fun” one: Should solos be allowed in church?

Well feel free to comment on any of the above questions. Hopefully, if we are fortunate enough, Rachel will pipe in with some of her thoughts—I know she’s really wrestled with this stuff lately.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. Direct, weekly communion with a body of believers is imperative (aka very important) to the healthy Christian life. This includes the visible offices of pastor, elder, deacon, and various teachers, whose duty it is to instruct, admonish, bear up, encourage, and work towards the sanctification of all believers in their congregation, as well as preaching the Words of the Gospel to all who would hear.

2. If you want it in one sentence, the purpose of the Church is to radiate the glory of Christ through the work of missions.

3. If by church you mean being a part of the body of believers, then it is not optional. If by church you mean regularly attending a church service, then I would still say it is not optional, but I would warn against legalism. "If the oxen falls into a pit..."

4. Personally, when considering a move, I try my best to look at churches before I even look at places to live.

5. No, but I fall guilty of this more than I would like.

6. I feel this may be a bit of a loaded question, because their importance may, in some respects, be just as important, but in other respects, may not. When it comes to the missional work of the church, mission organizations play a vital role in reaching the unsaved, but I would not go to a missions organization on Sunday for church.

7. Is it important? Yes. Is it necessary? No. However, if a person is attending a church, but has absolutley not inclination to become a member, they should probably re-evaluate why exactly they are attending that church. If it is simply to be fed or to socialize, they may need some Godly council. As a side note, I am not a member of the church I attend, but I hope to pursue that in the near future.

8. Teach them to love and value Christ, there may be a sense where it will then come naturally.

9. If we are to remember the Sabbath and keep it *HOLY*, then we should strive to make the Sabbath wholly "other" unto God. Any acts of worship, prayer, and meditation are up to the Spirit-led conscience of the individual. However, again, we must be wary to avoid legalism.

10. This has always been of my pet peeves. :)

Anonymous said...

These are just off the cuff answers so rebuke me lightly for any herecy.

1.)Church is highly important for a christian. It's a blessing from God for his saints. There is great pain and hardship for the christian that doesn't go to church.

2.)Church is a place where you hear the proper teaching of the Word, administering the sacraments, and where discipleship and discipline take place. It's also a place to do public worship.

3.) A christian outside of a church is like a child raised by wolves.

4.) Yes. Missionaries are the only people who should go anywhere that doesn't have a good church.

5.)I think you can do such a thing, but you're really cheating yourself out of the pastoral care that we all need.

6.)A good friend of mine said that para church organizations come after church, work, and sleep. If all of those needs are met, then it's okay to go to one.

7.)I think membership is probably the best way to discapline your congregation. It's the only way I can think of to have excommunication.

8.)I am not a parent, so I can only guess. I would say love it yourself, and they will learn from you and copy you. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is grown he will not part from it.

9.)In America we have two days of rest. I think that the church day of rest should look different from the human day of rest. The Sabbath is a time that God has given us to prepare us spiritually for the week to come. It is a gift often neglected and even shunned by myself and my fellow believers.

10.) I think so. Church is a time of worship, and we can worship during a solo. At my and the blogger's church we have a piano solo during the offering, and the beginning, and end of every service.

I sure hope I got at least a D or at least an F+ on this quiz.

Anonymous said...

i think of church as the living body of christ rather than the building "house of christ" concept that money people tend to think of. so when you think about the living church, i think that communing and interacting with other christian regularly is immensly important in your personal growth as a christian and understanding of the word.

i think that the purpose of my concept of church is to help each other make sure that we are each on a righteous and honest path. to have support and someone to talk about the word with...openly without condescending judgment.

i don't think that you can escape "church" in the sense that i view it. i think that going to a specific house of worship is optional. i think that most can have a more fulfilling a meaningful "church" experience within a smaller congregation of like minded individuals than the drones that go to most "churches."

i don't think that churches in the community should matter. i think that it is the living churches responsability to mold a church that they have found into what they wnat it to be. i think that every time you move you bounce around for a bit in the church department but once you find one that you appreciate and are inline with...it's the members duty to create opportunties and maximize the ones that are there already to fit their own needs.

you can...but i think that it separates and causes a divide in the church goer and the church. it isn't as personalized or as humanized as it should be when you start doing things like that. i think that a lot of people fall away from churches, in general, because they are not finding spiritual guidance on a personal level as say our grandparents had when they were growing up.

yes. para-organizations are "just as" important. this is where you make a church community a true community rather than a sunday hub and road trip. to truly "build a church" you need to have these options. i also think that it's important to have these groups tailored to christians at various stages in there faiths.

i am skipping the membership question.

i grew up totally in loe with my church...i was going to become a nun until i was like 16 in fact i loed my church so much. and then i realized that i wanted a family one day and that was just not going to work being a nun. i think that one of the main reasons i did truly love my church and my spiritual relationship was due to the "para-groups" as you call them. sunday school. my grandfather and my dad were also a HUGE part of what made me love the church. the men that i admired most as a child had such amazing devotion and love for jesus that i couldn't help but love my church, going to church and my lord.

"church day" is every day for me. it's just the nature of my living situation. i think too many people get hung up on "one day a week" and need to spread the love to a daily sabath. i grew up in a mostly jewish community and my best friends parents were pretty jewish and they set aside daily devotional time as a family that they referred to as their nightly sabath. i think that it's important to not only have personaly devotional time daily but especially as a family.

"solos"? i would hope we single people were still invited to church. :)