Movements, church models, house churches and stuff
I found an interesting article on the net with regards to church models. I've been guilty in the past of believing that my church's model is the real proper model for doing church. Can someone spell the word arrogant? Yep, I suppose I can. But God rebuked me on that. Big time. This morning while a little bored (or should I say, just not feeling like working) at the office I stumbled across this article. It talks about house-church, and the fact that when we call something a 'movement' it tends to loose what made it authentic. For Emergent, I thought it would be a welcome reminder - it's not a movement! It's simply a group of friends serving Christ together and wrestling with how to do that.
The article also says that no model for church is the ideal or correct model, but if a church is simply getting to know Jesus then that church is being a church. It's not about the model, it's about Jesus being the head of the church. I took the rebuke on the nose, and felt it would be good to share it. Here's the link : http://www.lifestream.org/LSBL.Feb02.html
It's a fairly lengthy read (for non-readers, I suppose) and gets off slowly but tends to get a little more thought-provoking along the way.
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Movements, church models, house churches and stuff
I have a hypothesis, but I think its one that can't be proven. God brings a group of believers together. They serve one another and the world around them as the Spirit (super)-naturally gifts and leads them. Others see what is happening and ascribe a name to this "model". But, its not really a model at all. It is simply the Spirit working through those who are obediently following him. This would look completely different with different people in a different context. But, once it becomes a model, then everyone tries to do it their way... which was never their way to begin with.
-Alan
The shape of water
In terms of "models" of church the question, "Which is the correct model?" may well be applied to water: "What is the right shape of water?" Of course, water takes the shape of its container and we can easily imagine the "cup" people fighting with the "vase" people who equally agree that the "bottled" water guys, whilst making good missionaries, can't do local church.
A container is only useful as long as it holds water; a church model is only useful if it helps bring about the Kingdom of God.
Pattern, model, flow...smo! :)
Whether you like to name it or not the is a 'pattern' or 'model' that is 100% correct and needs to be followed. It's documented in the bible, the new testament church - align with the word!
A
Cool, I agree with you
Cool, A, I agree with you. We ought to align with the word. But who can claim they've interpreted this 100% correctly? How do you, personally, interpret what the New Testament model is? (I would be interested to hear.)
Bear in mind that I believe my church is following a very close New Testament model, and I support our heart on this 100%. But we're not perfect in all of our interpretations and neither should we ever think we are!
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