In my process of deconstructing, not just from institutional church but from institutional thinking… 🙂
…I’ve been realizing that there is a common thread or theme running through it. It could be worded several ways, but all convey the same basic question:
- What does true Christ-following look like without all the extra trappings we have attached to it?
- How can we be more life-giving in the practice of our faith?
- What does a true Christian look like?
- How do we get back to the basics of living the example of Jesus, and shed all the unnecessary stuff loaded onto us by the Christian subculture?
- What is possible if we remove the excess baggage and just live in the truth?
What all these boil down to is that at the root of our faith, at the bottom of it all, is something the early church referred to as The Way–following the way of Christ. They weren’t launching a new religion; they were following a Person–a heavenly King who had come to earth, lived, died, and was alive again, and was coming again. They lived in the simple reality of following His example, and sharing the good news about this King and His Kingdom. This simple practice of faith was what turned the world around them upside down–not mega-churches and business-like ministry organizations and all the other Christianese stuff we have now.
Today, we are so bulked down with our separated, irrelevant churchy subculture that we can hardly move. We pour millions and millions of our hard-earned dollars into huge organizational structures that do little more than sustain themselves, or to fund churchy TV programs that are watched mainly by Christians who give more money to keep them on the air. Forget (for a moment) the corruption and un-Christlikeness that so often happens in these environments; just the structure itself is so bulky that the vast majority of its energy is spent on self-perpetuation. We hear about how we need to pour all our money into these things so the gospel can continue to be preached…but if we look at how much time/money/energy actually goes into meaningful actions that convey the gospel and the love of Christ, and compare that with how much is spent keeping the machine running…the amount of wasted effort is astronomical. Only governments run more inefficiently. 🙂
So why do we do it? Why not reimagine, rethink, redesign? Why not remove this restrictive garb that really doesn’t have anything to do with the Bible, so we can be more efficient, more effective? Why don’t we dig under all this crap and get back to the foundation, to the engine that’s really supposed to be running this thing? Why do we keep doing things this way?
Why? Because the show must go on.
We keep doing it this way because in our minds, we have always done it this way. We don’t know another way, or we lack the creativity and the courage to imagine it differently. And if someone is imaginitive (or stupid) enough to suggest an alternative, the people who are invested in the current structure, who have something to lose by changing things up (i.e., the “powers that be”), come up with all sorts of manipulative ways to resist the change–ranging from demonizing the imaginers to warning their respective audiences of the dire consequences of the unknown.
Yet with all this, the question remains: what could things be like if we removed these restrictions? What if we could just follow Jesus without all this extra stuff? What if we just made it simple again?
- What could the church look like if it wasn’t defined by a building and a bank account?
- What could ministry look like if it didn’t have to fit within traditional parameters?
- What could faith look like if we weren’t so distracted by the trappings and expectations of our churchy subculture?
- What could our lives look like if we focused more on trying to follow the Way of Christ than on keeping up appearances?
This is what I mean by removing the restrictions. It isn’t about casting off all restraint; it’s about recognizing just how many things are weighing us down that are unnecessary, things that are normative and expected for most Christians but actually hinder us from being who Christ meant us to be.
So what could it look like? Really?
What are your ideas?
After reading this post, it reminded me of a video that Francis Chan put together called "The Big Red Tractor". It's an excellent example of the American institutional church… http://vimeo.com/7152556
I like your challenge to think 'What could the church be like if..'
There are a few parts that I am already doing, but a lot more imagination is called for. Not imagination just for imaginations sake, but for the sake of returning to the life and purpose Jesus has always called his followers to.
I think there will be such a wide variety of possibilities that we could probably do whatever God sparks in our hearts, and be right on target somewhere. In fact, I expect that's why he sparks those ideas initially.
Jeff, I'm finishing up a book that answers this exact question. The Way is meant to be simple. It is we humans that make it hard.
I find it interesting that "precedent" is the means currently being used to change our country's constitutional foundation, to move us from what we were, to what (some) would have us become. "Change" is the new mantra and judicial precedent is the means…
Likewise, in the church years of [institutional] precident has shaped, or maybe rather, disfigured us into being what we are: something radically different from the foundation, the practice, and the means that was given to the early church.
The church too needs change, not in the direction of our nation; which is moving away from it's foundation, but rather back to it's biblical (radical) roots without all the baggage…
RE: "Why do we do it?" (The way we are doing it?) In a word: Tradition. Precedent's deception has the church is it's vice…
Keep telling it like it is Jeff.
rob