I recently came across a couple of posts by Buff Scott, Jr. and have added them below. The first one is entitled The Early Believers vs. Today’s Believers and the second one is entitled Why Are House Meetings Springing Up All Over The Board? At 96 years old, Buff is still producing weekly Reformation Rumblings electronic newsletters. If you’d like to be added to his email list please contact me.
The early believers won the world without Theological Seminaries, Missionary Societies, clergy, elaborate and expensive edifices, or any of the other “artifacts” and baggage that burden us today. They changed lifestyles without throwing a rock, burning a building, drawing a sword, or parading down Main Street in Jerusalem with pedophiles, losers, and so-called “transgenders.”
Their resurrection message to the unregenerate was simple, “Repent, and turn to God!” The new reign welcomed everyone-yes, even homosexuals and prostitutes and drunkards and thieves and swindlers. In the congregation at Corinth, there were recovering homosexuals, prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers [I Cor. 6:9-11]. They had been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
If we intend to influence the world with the message of salvation, we must struggle for reform within our sectarian establishments and partisan religions. For if we do not opt for reform we will face defeat before we “fire the first shot.”
The religious Establishment couldn’t be any more warped if the Lord had commanded it. The world will not nor cannot be won to Messiah Jesus as long as she is the cause instead of the solution. Nor can the world be conquered for the Captain of our salvation by exerting most of our efforts parroting the party’s clichés or adding more theological waste to our partisan rostrums. The slate must be cleaned, reformed, renewed, and reshaped before receiving our marching orders. Then and only then will we be able and ready to give the battle cry!
If apostles Peter and Paul had endeavored to spread the message of the risen Christ while agreeing with and furthering the sects of their day, their efforts to transform the world would not have survived. If we hope to achieve reformation, we must reach beyond the established order and ecclesiastical structures. The activities, movements, and efforts of the first believers were unskilled, ordinary, unsophisticated, and informal-although serious and edifying. Our contemporary arrangement is perplexing, rehearsed, organized to the brim, ritualistic, formulistic, and boring. It is, in truth, self-destructive.
More and more disillusioned believers are suspending “going to church” and switching to house meetings instead. Their reasons vary, but it is safe to say that all of them are tired of being programmed by a solo speaker-professional elitist-who downloads their spiritual food week after week.
I was driven to write a few words about this subject because of a piece that appeared in the January (2010) issue of Newsweek. Lisa Miller says in Finding Spirituality at Home, “[Believers] mistrust authority and institutional hierarchy.” This, according to her, seems to be the principal reason so many are abandoning the big churches in favor of house meetings-commonly called “house churches” (a term I dislike). And some of the big churches are hurting. They are not hurting in spirit, but in the pocketbook!
I agree with Ms. Miller’s diagnosis that it is mainly because of mistrust of authority and institutional hierarchy that so many are walking away from institutional religion and the big churches. There are other reasons as well.
- Believers are sick of meaningless liturgy-stand, sit, bow, sing, contribute. These rituals, rites, and formalities are totally empty of any coherent and edifying message, and they do nothing but breed disheartened believers. Truth-seeking believers long for a family-like atmosphere where everyone is free and encouraged to verbalize, share, mutually participate, and where no one is dressed up like he’s on his way to a Halloween party.
- Believers are finally recognizing that once they formally “place their membership” with a church or denomination, they get caught up in all of their projects and programs. Many have begun to realize that the Christian community has moved from compassion to project. As a result, she has lost her anchor.
- Most believers who are walking away from established churches are aware that Satan is shouting “Hallelujah” when 85-percent of church contributions is squandered on materialistic projects and programs and only 15-percent go to support evangelism and to alleviate the needs of the destitute. These were the only two undertakings the early believers contributed their money to-evangelism and alleviating the poverty of the destitute.
- Believers are also becoming more aware that “church conversion,” as opposed to heart conversion, is not the way of salvation. Religion and church have polluted the stream flowing from the river of life. On a personal note, I ceased long ago trying to convert anyone to any of the modern-day religions or to any of the numerous sects. I now point them in the direction of Jesus only, because 2000 years ago there were no church factions for believers to join. They identified themselves with other believers of a common cause, thus forming Christian congregations or communities. None of the early believers were afflicted with “mad church disease.” And none were church addicts.
- As the apostles and first believers were not Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Mormons, Catholics, or associated with any of the other sects that sprinkle our current partisan landscape, recovering church addicts are also free of these schisms. These religious parties did not exist in the apostles’ time. Therefore recovering church addicts will not be formally aligned with any of these except to work within for reform.
- If Jesus were on earth in the flesh today, I’m confident He would view our present-day religious institutions as He viewed those of His time. He worked among partisan systems for reform while not joining any of them. And so it is with recovering church addicts-work within and among partisan groups, whenever possible, without subscribing to any of them.
So may house meetings increase! And may the systems that enslaved believers for centuries decrease and finally self-abort. And to God be the glory.