Why Gather?
The question of why we gather for worship has been posed on this blog. I suspect that some of you think I'm just fishing for stuff to write about, or looking for a way to create tension, since that's my favorite way to make people learn.
Though I would never shy away from creating tension, I assure you that the question of why we gather for worship is not just a teaching device. It is a significant question on the horizon today. Some loud voices within Christendom are arguing that we don't need to gather together at all.
Pete Ward published a book in 2002 called Liquid Church, where takes the idea of “being the church” to the extreme. He draws a metaphorical contrast between liquid church and solid church. Solid church means "getting together in one place to do the same thing together," while liquid church "doesn't need, or even want, a weekly congregational meeting.” Writes Ward: “One of the research students at my university… was in a coffee shop with one of his Christian friends. As they talked, he felt that Christ was communicating between them. For him this was church.”
Hmmm. What do you think? Is that church? And why or why not?
Though I would never shy away from creating tension, I assure you that the question of why we gather for worship is not just a teaching device. It is a significant question on the horizon today. Some loud voices within Christendom are arguing that we don't need to gather together at all.
Pete Ward published a book in 2002 called Liquid Church, where takes the idea of “being the church” to the extreme. He draws a metaphorical contrast between liquid church and solid church. Solid church means "getting together in one place to do the same thing together," while liquid church "doesn't need, or even want, a weekly congregational meeting.” Writes Ward: “One of the research students at my university… was in a coffee shop with one of his Christian friends. As they talked, he felt that Christ was communicating between them. For him this was church.”
Hmmm. What do you think? Is that church? And why or why not?
posted by Bob | 9:00 PM
5 Comments:
God just moved me to change around an entire ministry based on "the church" happening more over coffee than in a stuctured gathering. However, there is something worshipful about standing in a room full of believers every now and then.
This subject has been a consistent meditation of my heart this week. Now, finally at the dawn of a new day, I have found a small pocket of time to rock the boat.
Masticating on the words "liquid church" for the past few hours has kind of made me sick. We have all seen the failings of many prominent churches when it comes to the assembly of God's people. Most are showy and flashy and hope your attitude in departing is that you were captivated. Not by profound teaching or the Spirit of God, but with stage shows, and power points, and catchy christian vernacular. That somehow with these "tools" they might captivate you enough (without actually doing much more than getting your name on a card) to come back next week. But in the drive to disassociate with this type of expression let us go to God's word to influence our thinking.
I fully agree with Ward's Christian friends. Actually, I think there would be something completely wrong with their friendship if they didn't feel like time together was "church". But, it is here that I want to throw out some disclaimers. It's here that I want to look at the word church. There are two separate foci for the word; a local and a global.
The global refers to the body of Christ that transends time and space. It includes those that have died in faith and those that will die in faith before the end of time. It is in fact this word, translated Catholic in older versions of the apostles creed, that I am referring to. From this "translation" or focus of the word church I would be in full agreement with Ward's findings. However, out of some 120 references (may just be the OT numbers) to the word church in the bible around 20 - 40 of these actually have a global intention. The rest center on the local body of Christ.
The local body of Christ is an easily found reference in the word of God. First and primary it is seen from the address of many epistles in the New Testament. It is seen in the community that was meeting in Acts 2:42-47 and is intuitively represented in the writings of Paul when he speaks about and plants the churches.
It is on the beauty and importance of this local body that I want to rest.
I'll first build from Acts 2:42-47 where Luke gives a provocative description of the fellowship of believers. We begin by seeing that they are devoted to one another. Such a loose and casual comittal as a meeting over coffee has little feel of devotion. In fact it would then just be another assembly, just with fewer people and much less devotion to the next parts of Acts 2. We see men and women here devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. This is the main breaking point for me in the "liquid church" model. I have come to find that Bob is only one man. This one man leads a church of over one hundred people. Since he is right now the dedicated teacher of the word of God, he would be a very busy man each week.
No, seriously now, we find in 1 Corinthians 12 a discussion on giftings. Here we are told that we are a body, all working together in unity. It is here in community that we live for the benifit of others; as Acts 2 points out, the believers there were selling all there possessions and sharing all that they had with one another. This was a time for Holy community. A place where they broke bread and remembered Christ. A place where they might bring sin from the darkness into the light, while others around them loved through the eyes of the gospel (1 John 1:5-7). Even from the Old Testament we see that God set aside a sacred assembly for himself. One for which He punished those to death whom where not pure or brought unholy sacrifice to him.
So, I would say (disconnectedly and much like the ramblings of sleep depraved madman) that we must have an assembly. I place to remember Christ and spur one another on to pursue Christ.
Acts 2:47 "praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
So, tear apart my exegesis and snuff out my unfounded arguements and lets be transformed in the conversation that follows.
Cool Runnings (peace be the journey)
Ryan Beck
Ryan Beck, why aren't you in Coram Deo?
I agree with Ryan. While spiritual formation and development can and should happen in informal, unplanned gatherings of friends, it is not church. While communion with Christ can and should happen outside of a weekly church service, such communion does not inherently represent an instance of church.
In our zeal to be the church that God wants, we have turned a critical eye to its present incarnation, picked up the scalpel of "renewal", and methodically, mercilessly excoriated the Bride of Christ. Now we have looked up, taken a breath, and said "now what?"
Put on the spot, we quickly look around and start pointing to any moment where the Spirit of God was active, saying "umm, that's church."
Is it?
to be continued, after expense report, emails and other worthless work-related activities.
Any commentary I might provide would just be a restatement, and a poor one, of Bob's excellent essay on covenant renewal on the resources page. Go read it.
Yet another interesting topic here, Bob. I must say, I've heard a lot of reasons why gathering is important, and I've tried to be open to them all. Heh, the Sunday school answer would be because 'God is there,' would it not? Yet, unfortunately for me, I never did make it to Sunday school. I wasn't really interested in God back then; it was all who I was going to play with at what time.
Yet this particular issue is important, in my opinion. It's true, we are supposed to be the church all the time. We're supposed to be out ministering and witnessing to people whenever the opportunity presents itself, and I've certainly had some unpredictable opportunities in my short life as a believer. Yet, that shouldn't be the end of it. We need to be prepared for whenever and wherever God wishes us to witness. We need to be ready to go at a moment's notice, as that may be all the notice we have.
Ryan's wonderful quoting of the Bible is something I (unfortunately) cannot compete with. I am not well-versed enough with the text to bring out half-a-dozen references to back an argument with. I, sadly perhaps, operate more with my feelings than my book knowledge, which is completely the reverse of my former self. Interesting how God changes a guy, eh?
Anyway, I proceed. It's this 'at a moment's notice' that's the important thing about witnessing. Surely, we can prepare a small book to take with us wherever we go, with the 'message of God in three easy steps,' but how useful is that? We can memorize large amounts of scripture, but if we memorize it, do we not miss the import of re-examining it five or ten years later? God teaches us through His word, and He is able to do so because the Bible means something different every time someone reads it. I've gotten several different lessons out of the same passage. What other source can teach so spectacularly that each section has a number of lessons directly linear to the user's life experience? Surely, no mortal agency could devise such a work.
Okay, so I've ruled out mass memorization and carrying around a 'witnessing packet' 24-7. What's that leave us with? I'd hazard to say that what we need is a time when we go to learn more about the Bible. A time when we need to learn things that we may not see on our own. All the quiet time in the world won't help someone if he's focused and determined to see the same thing from the word. A single person is physically unable of coming up with everything. It just doesn't work that way, that's not how God made us.
We need a time of learning. I've seen some stubborn people try to learn, and they do surprisingly well some days. It's this time of learning that's important. We could do it with friends, yes, but what would that get us. They're your friends because they're like you; what'd you say, Bob, cause brings community? They're alike, and they're in community. That's no good, because they'll get the same kind of things that you will out of the study.
No, you need a large enough group that other mindsets and thoughts will be there with you. The cause needs to be pursuit of Christ, and the community needs to be the church. We need to be part of a community that has a specific time to teach us the lessons God wants His people to learn. He gave us the Bible because He wanted us to learn from it. Is it our fault that we learn best in groups? And the larger the group, the more we'll learn. Church is just the classroom for the believer that lives in the world. It's the classroom for the professional who wants to stay with the times, for the person who needs to keep up with his job. For the world is ever changing, and the application of God's word needs to change with it. That's what Church is for.
Well, I'd continue, but that last line is so sweet, I just can't...
-Jim Hossack
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