If it’s cool, hip or seeker friendly …
It ain’t worship.
Because true worship …
Is not about us.
Category: Simple Church
“The Pastor” of a church, ministry or whatever …
Is a phrase and a concept utterly absent from the New Testament.
Nope, not, nada …
Just ain’t there.
Instead, it comes from reading post-Biblical assumptions, presumptions and meanings not found in Scripture back into Scripture.
In the New Testament, some minister pastorally …
As simply one of many different functions expressed within a healthy church by a diversity of people.
More specifically, the New Testament references multiple elders in each church, each of whom is to function pastorally …
As well as teach, watch over and protect God’s flock together, among other things.
But no one is ever called a “Senior Pastor,” “Lead Pastor,” or any other form of “Pastor” in the New Testament …
And the word is never, ever used as justification for one person to be over a church.
Be a Berean …
Search Scripture to see if these things be so.
Then have the courage to follow what God’s Word actually says …
Rather than subsequent human traditions.
I love a well staged performance as much as the next guy, but please …
Just don’t call it “church”.
In the New Testament, “worship” occurs when we respond to God’s ongoing sovereign presence by living ongoing lives of reverence and obedience …
Which might, at times, properly invoke emotions.
Pagan worship, however, starts by manipulating emotions to “usher in” a false sense of God’s presence through special effects and special “leaders” at special gatherings.
It is a concept foreign to how the New Testament says God’s people are to function together as His church.
Unfortunately, there’s way too much pagan worship, and too little New Testament worship, in our “churches” these days.
It is narcissistic foolishness to twist the truth that all Scripture points to Jesus …
Into the lie that our own perceptions of Jesus therefore supersede Scripture.
Such non-sequiturs, and those who promote them, inevitably destroy all they touch …
Including authentic faith, discipleship and churches.
The viability of a church today typically depends on “the Pastor”.
How is that even Biblical?
You can’t find that anywhere in the New Testament.
Instead, the New Testament says we are to be the church – the multi-part Body of Christ – as each of us uses our diverse functions and gifts to minister to one another, encourage one another, and strengthen one another …
Including local elders who emerge among us to serve beside us by pastoring, teaching and watching over the flock.
The simple fact of the matter is that there are no favorable examples in the New Testament, as is common today, of one person primarily leading a church …
Unless you read your own post-New Testament presumptions, meanings, and traditions back into Scripture.
Nope, not, nadda …
Just ain’t there.
Which raises the question:
What else about “church” as we’ve come to know it …
Has nothing to do with church as the Bible actually shows it?
You’ll never find viable “organic” or “simple” church among its post-modern hucksters, spinning their existential failures to gullible groupies.
But you sure gotta give them credit for something, because they do know how to tickle those itchy ears …
When people are used to build up a ministry, rather than the ministry being used to build up people …
It’s no longer ministry.
People with true gravitas make hard things seem easy because they’ve spent years quietly learning how …
By actually doing them.
Trendy “influencers” with media platforms …
Not so much so.
I’m more interested in going and sharing Christ as He uniquely brings life and builds “His church” among you and your friends …
Than always expecting you to come and find Him in “my church” among me and my friends.
Such is the heart of the Great Commission.
Making Jesus all about that one thing,
Which happens to be your thing,
Denies His Lordship over all things,
Including the many other things,
He does through others.
The older I get …
The more I realize how much the Kingdom of God depends on hospitality.
The Great Commission isn’t about coming in for prepared messages …
But going forth as prepared people.
Those with the Biblical commitment and personal humility needed to actually function together as part of a simple, participatory church in their home or other hospitable local gathering place …
Do.
Those who don’t and can’t make it work in their own lives and home towns, however …
Seem most inclined, regrettably, to write books and blogs – and travel around – telling everyone else how to.
Unfortunately, great has been the wreckage they’ve caused.
Such “organic church” writers and “itinerants” peddle what they themselves don’t do, under a plethora of misleading titles and slogans like:
“Beyond Evangelical,” “Deeper Life” and now “Insurgence” (Frank Viola); “Subversive” and “Red Letter Christians” (Keith Giles); House2House and Apostolic “Workers” (Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens and Felicity Dale); “Viral Jesus” (Ross Rohde); and “Houses That Change The World” (Wolfgang Simson).
When it comes to them and their mutual promotion networks, be discerning …
Because you can’t get to authentic from phony.
Nor can you get there with their general distain for God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word …
Or their competing, trans-Biblical existential ideologies.
Please hear me:
For the health of God’s people, it’s time for those of us who are actually making simple, participatory churches work in our own lives and home towns – through a firm commitment to the apostolic foundation already laid in Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word – to begin looking towards each other for mutual encouragement.
If we refuse to be discerning and instead continue to look to – and promote – those who peddle other agendas, pretenses and ideologies …
Then their persistent pattern of failed lives and failed churches will continue to be a hindrance to our own churches and what God wants to do among us.
Their bad fruit and inability to make their own books work in their own lives and home towns – or consistently and sustainably anywhere else – should be a clear warning which we all heed …
No matter how deceptively charming and misleadingly enticing they otherwise may seem.
Healthy churches and healthy lives deserve no less.
When I stop viewing my own God-given gifts, callings and motivations as being more essential than yours …
We can finally begin expressing – together – the multifaceted fullness of Christ.
I never wore skinny jeans or cool glasses …
Or had an elevated stage with a smoke machine, a hip band, brass-tinged collection plates and comfy pews for the feel-good masses.
I didn’t peddle trans-Biblical messages like “deeper life,” “easy believism,” or “seeker friendly” …
Nor did I seek – as is common these days – notoriety through books, blogs and conferences about “how to” on things I never made work first in my own life and hometown.
Instead, my life has been about simply going – without pretense or fanfare – wherever Jesus sends me.
Often it was to the fringes of polite society in my own county to help break bonds of darkness through the raw, unmitigated gospel of repentance and Christ’s Kingdom rule.
So I went to places others feared to go …
Where those who are lost and know it live broken lives.
And like Jesus commands in Luke 10, I never brought a budget, a branded “ministry,” a title, an agenda or a program.
Instead, I learned to embrace, respect and honor – in their own communities – those I encountered …
Because “love,” I have found, is such an overused word these days.
So I’d go – simply, just as I am – carrying an unadorned message of grace, forgiveness, repentance and redemption …
But in the authority of Christ’s name and the power of His Word.
It was enough:
Lives were changed …
Disciples made …
And simple, indigenous churches emerged – without building campaigns, ministry teams, sound equipment or marketing plans – in living rooms and coffee shops and other places where relationships naturally happen.
I’m not claiming total success each and every time I’d go.
Trust me, I made many mistakes. But by doing it, I learned …
And despite my shortcomings God nonetheless brought forth amazing fruit and built His church more often than not.
As His Kingdom took root and local leaders emerged, I’d then stay in touch as an ongoing resource but otherwise recede back to my own local fellowship …
So others could come forth and express Christ in their own wonderfully unique ways that reached their own communities.
It cost almost nothing:
I gave of my own labor and resources …
Rather than live off of, or peddle for donations, those God sent me to reach.
But this I learned:
Although Christ expresses Himself in different ways in different cultures and contexts, and He calls us each to different things …
His Kingdom is never about building our own kingdom.
Forgive us, Lord, for what we’ve done with your mercy and grace …
Because it’s not about us.
Godly unity isn’t about tolerating those who deny Biblical authority …
But calling them to repent of it.
Good stewards of God’s blessings don’t give a dime for the paradigm of “church” as we’ve come to know it …
But give instead as the New Testament actually shows it.
Where God rules …
There are no “selfie” churches.
We deny Biblical authority when we read post-Biblical traditions, meanings, and presumptions not actually found in Scripture back into Scripture.
This is especially true with our current concepts of:
“Church”
“Worship”
“Communion”
“Tithing”
“Pastor”
“Ministry”
“Leader”
“Submission”
“Covering”
“Preaching”
“Teaching”
The meanings we give those words today are not found in – and often are at odds with – the original language, meaning and context of the New Testament when written in the first century.
Let’s be like the New Testament Bereans and once again begin “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
Only then can we truly say we have begun to accept the plenary authority of Scripture over all traditions and opinions to the contrary …
Including our own.
Using others as pawns in the vision, mission or purpose God’s given you …
Never turns out well.
For you or for them.
Unfortunately, the biggest hindrance to church as the New Testament shows it …
Is church as we’ve come to know it.
Hollow existential ideologies distort Christ and His Word to appease prevailing sensibilities …
And lack actual spiritual power.
I really, truly do love the Church.
I just don’t like what typically masquerades these days as the Church.
“Church,” “pastor,” “preach,” “teach,” “tithe,” “worship” and “ministry:”
You keep using those terms …
But I do not think they mean in the New Testament what you think they mean.
Yet you claim to follow the New Testament as God’s written word.
How can that be?
Plumbline Faith 