Category: Books / Videos

Written in 2006, this small 80 page book by Buff Scott, Jr. is easy to read and highly recommended. If you’ve visited my Resources page, you can see all the books I’ve read over the last couple of years. This book has a passion that most of the others lack. There are only a few copies left in print. They can be purchased by going to Jon Zen’s website. In the search menu type “Buff” and his book will come up. It’s only $4.00. You can also download a free PDF version of this book by going here.

When Moses’ descent from the Mountain of God was delayed, the children of Israel built an idol in the form of a golden calf and bowed down to it, thus corrupting themselves (Exodus 32:1-8). If the implication of the above caption carries any validity, the Christian community can be charged with idolatry, for she has built for herself “golden calves” in the likes of church edifices while Jesus’ descent from heaven is being delayed.

I affirm that church structures and edifices are monuments that testify of our idolatry. The issue is not whether it is right or wrong to meet somewhere. The issue is whether or not we have built church structures and edifices and set them apart-sanctified them as holy articles or entities. I’m convinced we have. The evidence surrounds us. If I might be so bold, the organized church is as guilty of idolatry as were the children of Israel who erected Asherah poles as symbols of worship.

“Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved [consecrated] stone in your land to bow down before it” (Lev. 26:1).

Protestants and Catholics have done just that. Catholics have not only set up “consecrated stones” in the form of “holy” church structures, but they have made idols and images and bow down to them. We are speaking of earthen material destitute of emotions- idols and images that cannot hear, speak, or understand. Protestants, on the other hand, have set up their elaborate edifices and crosses and view them as sanctuaries and hallowed designs. There may be a few exceptions, but the rule seems to be universal.

There’s an old maxim, “Our heart is where our money is.” If we will but consider the hundreds of millions of dollars that are squandered on church structures, designs, religious inventions, edifices, statues, and compare that amount to the few dollars we spend on seeking and saving the lost and feeding the genuinely poor, we don’t need a prophet to locate our hearts. If this isn’t idolatry, I’ve lost my ability to reason. In the institutional church, money has become the “name of the game.”

And speaking of “games,” be on the lookout for those churchy “pledge cards.” Usually, they’re just another way of bleeding us blind so that the “holy edifice” idol can be even more embellished and revered. Instead, I suggest we bypass the collection plate and “pledge cards” and send our dollars to evangelize unbelievers and help feed the world’s poor.

But no! We’re too busy with our home-based “materialistic evangelism” to bother with the lost or to fret over empty stomachs.

When we mull over the fact that an evangelist and his family in Asia, Africa, India and several other world locations, where responsive hearts are abundant, can be supported for as little as $50 a month, but we don’t because we have an edifice to construct and a deadbeat pulpiteer to keep vocationally afloat, it is heartbreaking and depressing.

There are scores of missionaries who have been “called home” from evangelistic fields who could no longer be supported because of a materialistic program back home. This is not only despairing, it is an evil and a misplacement of priorities.

Ours is a history of a noble movement that apostatized centuries ago when Jesus’ command to “get out and go” was replaced by the clergy to “come in and stay.” Our idols-churches-have isolated us from the world’s needs, immobilized us, nailed our pants and panties to cushioned pews, and provoked us to import professionals to do our ministries. We no longer have to speculate why the world looks upon us in disgust and laughs at our efforts to “save” them.

To clean out one of the cobwebs some of you may have accumulated, let it be said that I have never argued that believers should not come together. For if we’re going to encourage and stimulate each other’s faith, and we ought, we must have a designated place to meet-whether in the living room of our home, under the shade of an old apple tree, or in some idol (church structure).

My whole point has been that our priorities are misplaced. We spend millions of dollars on our idols-venerated structures and edifices and very little on evangelism and feeding the world’s hungry. As I see it, we are as guilty of idolatry as were the children of Israel and the pagans of their day. I entertain no doubt but that my analysis is correct.

We esteem our church structures as the “works of our mighty hands” as though God Himself built them. We refuse to be ousted from our comfort zones. The cushions are too comfortable, and we delight in being hand-fed by hirelings who induce sleep by their stagnated “sermons.” We are stalemated with no hope of recovery unless we revamp the whole system and start over.

Buff Scott, Jr. produces a weekly newsletter on all faith related topics. You can be added to his email list by contacting him at renewal@mindspring.com.

It was one of those “series of events” that our Lord loves to orchestrate. I was introduced to some articles by Buff Scott, Jr. by my good friend Jon Zens, and like I always do, immediately looked up the author to find out more about him. There wasn’t a lot about Buff on social media but I did get his email and found out that he lived in Phoenix. Imagine my delight when I found out that Buff lived only 10 minutes away from me.

I recently spent some time with him and found him still active at soon-to-be 97 years old. He’s been writing a weekly newsletter called Reformation Rumblings for almost 40 years and he has been a proponent of relational gatherings for almost 50 years. You can read a sample of his newsletter here. If you would like to be added to his mailing list email him at renewal@mindspring.com. The following is an excerpt of one of his three books where he defends relational gatherings and his friend Olan Hicks defends the conventional church model.

If we reflect upon what has been addressed and corroborated by heaven’s declarations thus far, I think it is safe to say that the early ekklesia was not composed of sects, denominations, churches, or religious parties. God’s colony of redeemed sinners functioned as a humane and evangelistic community. Their meetings were informal but orderly, serious and alive, responsive, and mutually managed. Ours are “services,” as at a funeral, largely non-responsive and non-stimulating.

The early meetings were bereft of pulpits, collections to buy and maintain flashy edifices and to keep an elite pulpiteer vocationally afloat, ritualistic nonsense, and pew-sitters. Their environment was family-like. Our gatherings resemble formal business meetings, where business or worship doesn’t begin until the hands on the clock are at a certain crossroads. Our overall anatomy mirrors a corporation, an institution, not a compassionate community of concerned ones.

What dissimilarity! We have retrogressed, not progressed. We have traded the holy for the common, the celestial for the terrestrial, the spiritual for the materialistic, the sacred for the plain. Yet there are many receptive and seeking hearts within the corridors of the apostate church. God will deliver them, if they are willing to remove their soiled garments and replace them with garments of reconciliation. His children no longer need wallow in the partisan litter of the religious establishment, for God will raise up reformers to rescue His elect. He always has. He always will.

But it isn’t likely He will penetrate the divisive armor of those whose hearts are solidly enslaved by the institutional church, and whose deep-seated infirmity is “mad church disease.” The divisive spirit is a work of our carnal nature. It is reflected thusly: “We are right and others are wrong; we are the only church Jesus founded; no one else regards the Bible as the only source of authority as we do; all of our teachings are from the Bible and are error free.”

As long as this separatist spirit lingers within the contemporary church, she will never be able to apply a healing balm to “mad church disease.” Freedom in Jesus will always escape those who parrot this mindset and exhibit a cliquish spirit.

It is indeed a rarity to find freedom in the apostate church. The reason is that the party line must be parroted, her precepts supported, her traditions preserved, and the “church system” idolized. If we veer a little to the right or lean a little to the left, we will soon be verbally disciplined and told to shape up or ship out-or worse. This is not freedom-it is bondage. To find a man who is truly free to speak his mind and heart while employed by a church, or by one of her organizations, is like looking for shelter in a hailstorm. Even pew-sitting peasants are not allowed the freedom to speak their heart and mind without ecclesiastical reprisal.

The only way to be free in Jesus is to cast off our shackles and disavow the sectarian systems religious parties that have subjugated us, and that includes all of them. This I have done. This I will not undo. No church or religious organization upon the face of planet Earth has one bit of control over my life, my mind, or my beliefs. I will no longer be a bondservant to any of them. My only Master is Jesus and He alone. I will forever be His slave. I refuse to bow to any other. “Give me freedom or give me death” will always be my cry. For without freedom to think, to dissent, to investigate, and to question, our walk with the Lord would be hard to negotiate.

You can download all three of Buff’s books here.

I recently read and enjoyed Howard A Snyder’s first book The Problem of Wineskins. This followup book is equally engaging even though it is a bit scholarly. Published in 1977, it is segmented into three parts: Perceiving the Kingdom, Understanding the Kingdom Community and Embodying the Kingdom Community. The excerpt below is from the second section and talks about the importance of community when it comes to witnessing.

If Jesus Christ actually gave more time to preparing a community of disciples than to proclaiming the good news (which he did), then the contemporary Church must also recognize the importance of community for proclamation. I would emphasize the priority of community in two directions: in relation to the individual believer and in relation to witness.

In the first place community is important for the individual believer. Mainline Protestantism, from its structures to its hymns and gospel songs, has emphasized the individual over the community. It has had a keen sense of the individual person’s responsibility before God but little corresponding sense of the communal life of the Christian. Too often the Church has been seen more as a mere collection of saved souls than as a community of interacting personalities. Christian growth has been a matter of individual soul culture rather than the building of the community of the Spirit. Saints who lived isolated, solitary lives were often placed on a pedestal above those whose lives were spent in true community. These tendencies, of course, were part of Protestantism’s pre-Reformation heritage.

But four biblical truths should call us back to the priority of community: (1) the concept of the people of God, (2) the model of Christ with his disciples, (3) the example of the early church, and (4) the explicit teachings of Jesus and the apostles. Christ’s statement, “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Mt. 18:20) quite adequately defines the Church. Authentic Christian living is life in Christian community.

This does not mean, obviously, going to the opposite extreme and dissolving individual identity in the group. The individual emphasis is a biblical one, but a partial one.

Spiritual growth occurs best in a caring community. There are spiritual truths I will never grasp and Christian standards I will never attain except as I share in community with other believers-and this is God’s plan. The Holy Spirit ministers to us, in large measure, through each other. This is what Paul is talking about when he says “we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Eph. 4:15-16). This interaction of the many members in one body is body life. Karl Barth rightly points out that when the New Testament speaks of upbuilding, it “speaks always of the upbuilding of the community. I can edify myself only as I edify the community.”

This has immediate implications for the evangelistic task. The individual believer’s responsibility is first of all to the Christian community and to its head, Jesus Christ. The first task of every Christian is the edification of the community of believers. If we say that evangelism or soul winning is the first task of the believer, we do violence to the New Testament and place a burden on the backs of some believers that they are not able to bear. The idea that every Christian’s first responsibility is to be a soul winner ignores the biblical teachings about spiritual gifts. Further, it puts all the emphasis at the one point of conversion and undervalues the upbuilding of the Church which is essential for effective evangelism and church growth.

This leads us to affirm, secondly, the priority of community in relation to witness. Fellowship and community life are necessary within the Church in order to equip Christians for their various kinds of witness and service. In one way or another every Christian is a witness in the world and must share his faith. But he can be an effective witness only as he experiences the enabling common life of the Church. And this common life is truly enabling only as the community becomes, through the indwelling of Christ and the exercise of spiritual gifts, the koinonia of the Holy Spirit.

This book by Howard A. Snyder was written in 1975 and contains many valuable insights. The excerpt below explains sacrifice, priesthood and the tabernacle before and after the church was born. Highly recommended for those considering stepping away from institutional church.

Sacrifice, priesthood, tabernacle-all instituted through Moses in the Old Testament. Theologically, all passed away with the coming of Christ and the birth of the church.  Historically, all passed away with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. They had become irrelevant, anachronistic.

And so the church was born without priesthood, sacrifice or tabernacle because the church and Christ together were all three. The church faithfully embodied this truth for more than a century, and overran the Roman Empire.

The great temptation of the organized church has been to reinstate these three elements among God’s people: to turn community into an institution. Historically, the church has at times succumbed. Returning to the spirit of the Old Testament, she has set up a professional priesthood, turned the Eucharist into a new sacrificial system and built great cathedrals.  When this happens, a return to faithfulness must mean a return-in both soteriology and ecclesiology-to the profound simplicity of the New Testament. Usually, however, reformation in doctrine has not been accompanied by sufficiently radical reform in church structure.

The significance of the tabernacle must be singled out for special attention here-partly because it usually is not but primarily because it has significance for the church, for ecclesiology. Why should God be represented by a physical structure? Why a tent?

In the Mosaic covenant the tabernacle was the symbol of God’s presence. “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst” (Ex. 25:8). The central idea was God’s habitation with his people. God could not actually dwell in the hearts of his people because of their sin and rebelliousness; his habitation had to be symbolic. So God ordered the tabernacle built and laid it out to Moses in extravagant detail. It was to be made according to the blueprint revealed on the mount (Ex. 26:30; Acts 7:44; Heb. 8:5).

But for the church the tabernacle is fulfilled in the body of Christ, as we have seen. So the necessity of a physical tabernacle has passed away. Why? Because now God dwells with his people in the hearts and bodies of the believing community, through the inhabiting of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit “dwells with you, and will be in you” (Jn. 14:17), Jesus said. If one loves and obeys Jesus, the Father and Son “will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn. 14:23). “I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

Clearly, the central idea of the tabernacle is God’s habitation, but in the New Testament God dwells within the hearts of his people, not just symbolically among the people. The veil has been torn in two; the stony heart transplanted with one of flesh. So the church is “a dwelling place of God in (or through) the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

There will also be an eternal, eschatological fulfillment of the idea of God’s habitation. For when John sees the holy city descending from God, the first words he hears from the throne are, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men” (Rev. 21:3, AV; compare Ezek. 37:27-28). This is the meaning of the holy city: God’s habitation eternally, spiritually, really and perfectly, with his people. Therefore naturally there is “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22). And has this not ever been God’s design: a city without temples because God himself is its temple? Here all limitations of time and space have evaporated. God and man are in perfect communion. Eternally, there exists the fellowship, the koinonia, of the Holy Spirit.

So we see a threefold progression. First, God symbolically dwelling among his people in a physical structure called a tabernacle. Second, God actually dwelling within the hearts of his people through the Holy Spirit. Third, God dwelling eternally with his people, in perfect spiritual communion, in the age to come. The first reality points to the second, and the second to the third.

In this book, Henri Nouwen compiles his thoughts into three sections: reaching out to our innermost self, reaching out to our fellow human beings and reaching out to God. In these three sections, he writes about moving from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality and from illusion to prayer. Although this book is not specifically about organic church, there are some great thoughts like the excerpt below on community.

The word “community” usually refers to a way of being together that gives us a sense of belonging. Often students complain that they do not experience much community in their school; ministers and priests wonder how they can create a better community in their parishes; and social workers, overwhelmed by the alienating influences of modern life, try hard to form communities in the neighborhood they are working in. In all these situations the word “community” points to a way of togetherness in which people can experience themselves as a meaningful part of a larger group.

Although we can say the same about the Christian community, it is important to remember that the Christian community is a waiting community, that is, a community which not only creates a sense of belonging but also a sense of estrangement. In the Christian community we say to each other, “We are together, but we cannot fulfill each other…we help each other, but we also have to remind each other that our destiny is beyond our togetherness.” The support of the Christian community is a support in common expectation. That requires a constant criticism of anyone who makes the community into a safe shelter or a cozy clique, and a constant encouragement to look forward to what is to come.

The basis of the Christian community is not the family tie, or social  or economic equality, or shared oppression or complaint, or mutual attraction…but the divine call. The Christian community is not the result of human efforts. God has made us into his people by calling us out of “Egypt” to the “New Land,” out of the desert to fertile ground, out of slavery to freedom, out of our sin to salvation, out of captivity to liberation. All these words and images give expression to the fact that the initiative belongs to God and that he is the source of our new life together. By our common call to the New Jerusalem, we recognize each other on the road as brothers and sisters. Therefore, as the people of God, we are called ekklesia (from the Greek kaleo=call; and ek-out), the community called out of the old world into the new.

Since our desire to break the chains of our alienation is very strong today, it is of special importance to remind each other that, as members of the Christian community, we are not primarily for each other but for God. Our eyes should not remain fixed on each other but be directed forward to what is dawning on the horizon of our existence. We discover each other by following the same vocation and by supporting each other in the same search. Therefore, the Christian community is not a closed circle of people embracing each other, but a forward-moving group of companions bound together by the same voice asking for their attention.

It is quite understandable that in our large anonymous cities we look for people on our “wave length” to form small communities. Prayer groups, Bible-study clubs and house-churches all are ways of restoring or deepening our awareness of belonging to the people of God. But sometimes a false type of like-mindedness can narrow our sense of community. We all should have the mind of Jesus Christ, but we do not all have to have the mind of a school teacher, a carpenter, a bank director, a congressman or whatever socioeconomic or political group. There is a great wisdom hidden in the old bell tower calling people with very different backgrounds away from their homes to form one body in Jesus Christ. It is precisely by transcending the many individual differences that we can become witnesses of God who allows his light to shine upon poor and rich, healthy and sick alike. But it is also in this encounter on the way to God that we become aware of our neighbor’s needs and begin to heal each other’s wounds.

I have included some excerpts below from Paul L. Wachtel’s book written in 1989, The Poverty of Affluence. These excerpts were compiled by my good friend Jon Zens who introduces his thoughts on the subject in the first chapter below. The post is lengthier than usual, but I hope you take the time to read it through.

There can be little doubt that an aggressive individualism reigns in America. The “community sense” that used to be stronger here is virtually lost in the 21st century. But, does what is calling itself “church” even foster and cultivate living community, or does it contribute to the individualistic status quo? In the midst of a culture that is falling apart, the Body of Christ is to be an organic setting where the multi-faceted wisdom of God is manifested in and through the saints-a new humanity, a new community which is radically counter-cultural-a setting where the only medium of exchange is love-a family community where Christ’s shared life is lived out among the brothers and sisters as the visible Life expression of Christ in and to a needy world. Wachtel mentions “the widespread yearning for greater closeness to others.” It is clear that folks will not find this in the culture at large. Many are looking for love in all the wrong places. Will they find that “greater closeness to others” in Christ’s ekklesia? Jon Zens

Something about our commitment to (economic) growth seems akin to the phenomena observed in individual neuroses. For me the heart of the notion of neurosis is the occurrence of vicious cycles in people’s behavior in which their sense of security is undermined by the very efforts they make to bolster it. In what follows I shall examine how our quest for economic growth has been both a cause of drastic changes in the way we live, and a cornerstone of our efforts to deal with the anxiety generated by those very changes…

In explicating further, I wish to begin not with economic growth per se but with the sense of community and its decline. For most of human history people lived in tightly knit communities in which each individual had a specified place, and in which there was a strong sense of shared fate. The sense of belonging, of being part of something larger than oneself, was an important source of comfort. In the face of the dangers and the terrifying mysteries that the lonely individual encountered, this sense of connectedness-along with one’s religious faith, which often could hardly be separated from one’s membership in the community-was for most people the main way of achieving some sense of security and the courage to go on.

Over the past few hundred years, for a number of reasons, the sense of rootedness and belonging has been declining. In its place has appeared a more highly differentiated sense of individuality, implying both greater opportunity and greater separateness…

This does not mean, of course, that some sense of community, and some secure ties to others do not remain. We could not survive without such ties…While there is much truth in the common claim that individualism arose in the Renaissance, that claim must be understood as referring to individualism as a vector that began to challenge that of rootedness as the central force in society, not as a new phenomenon altogether.

The facts of our separate bodies, our separate pain, our separate deaths, as well as the differences in temperament and personality…preclude the possibility of a complete absence of individual identity and a sense of separateness…This understood, it may be stated strongly that we have witnessed a striking increase in the sense of separate, differentiated identity and a corresponding sharp decline in the sense of community and belonging.

The sense of belonging and shared fate has been further eroded by the social and geographic mobility that are far more characteristic of our society than of previous ones…One out of five of us moves each year. Today our place in the social order is less clearly demarcated and less securely held. We have no reserved seats. We must win our place.

We have friends, of course, but they are friends who have chosen us…Jeremy Seabrook refers to the “strangers who live where neighborhoods once were”…

Our enormously greater capacity to predict and control events, to alleviate pain and hunger, to provide leisure and abundance should have made us happier, Life now shouldn’t be just different, it should be better, much better…That, I think, is not the case…

Our present stress of growth and productivity is, I believe, intimately related to the decline in rootedness. Faced with loneliness and vulnerability that come with deprivation of a securely encompassing community, we have sought to quell the vulnerability through our possessions…But the comfort we achieve tends to be short-lived.

In all eras people must find means to reassure themselves in the face of their finiteness and mortality. We are all ultimately helpless to a far greater degree than we dare admit. Our fragility before the forces of nature (both those outside us and those within that cause pain, disease, and aging), as well as the certainly that death is our ultimate earthly destiny, are unbearable to face without some means of consoling ourselves, and of giving meaning and purpose to our lives.

Religion, as well as the sense of belonging to a community, once provided that means for most people. But over the years the progress of science and the development of newer, more efficient modes of production undermined religious faith, as it did the traditional ties between people that, together with religion, made life livable…The older ways did not disappear, but they ceased to exert the exclusive dominance they previously had…

The accumulation of wealth and material comforts, rather than secure rooting in a frame and context, began to form the primary basis for quelling the feelings of vulnerability that inevitably afflict us. Increasing numbers began to base their hopes and dreams on the evident progress in our ability to produce goods…

The economist Fred Hirsch noted that a decline in sociability and friendliness has been characteristic of modern economies. He noted that friendliness “is time consuming and thereby liable to be economized because of its extravagant absorption of this increasingly scarce input.” Hirsch suggested that the time needed for consumption of all that has become within economic reach may “reduce friendliness and mutual concern in society as a whole”…

If we are to fashion an alternative capable of luring us away from the attractions (and concomitant costs) of the consumer way of life, clearly restoration of the sense of community and connectedness to others must be at the heart of it…This kind of change will require considerably more attention to context, to support groups, and to the mutual sustaining of values and assumptions…

The consumer society has not left people in higher spirits. Far more than joy or contentment with their present materially comfortable status, Seabrook found disillusionment, sense of hopes betrayed. A sense on the part of parents that they had lost touch with their children; a sense on the part of the children that they had been set adrift; a fear of muggers, rapists, vandals; a diminished sense of being able to count on others for help-these were some of the things that seemed to accompany and to spoil these people’s increased affluence. The loss of community is one of the great problems we face as a society, and one of the great burdens for a very large number of individuals…

Few of us would explicitly avow that we have chosen to rely on products instead of other people, and, fortunately, the bonds of community and interdependency are too important to be severed completely. But the widespread yearning for greater closeness to others suggests that for many there is a sense of superficiality about these connections, even when things look good “from the outside”…

We are faced with having to learn again about interdependency and the need for rootedness after several centuries of having systematically – and proudly-dismantled our roots, ties, and traditions. The tallest trees need the most elaborate roots of all. To make use of our technology in a way that enhances rather than degrades our lives, we must take account of our new understanding of ecological limits and interdependence.

Many of us have felt discomfort in our spirits while attending institutional church. We’re not quite sure what’s wrong so we suggest tweaks to help things run smoother hoping that will fix the problem. It never does. This recent (2024) book by C J Penn reads like his personal journal as he begins to remove the graffiti from God’s masterpiece.

His honesty is refreshing and the pages are filled with scripture and quotes from others. Like the Matrix movie he takes the red pill and documents his journey out of church religiosity. Throughout the book he encourages readers to start their own journey.

The first half of the book flowed nicely but then I came to Chapter 16 entitled “Christian in Name Only” which seemed to be completely out of character. His disparaging remarks on Trump and on his Christian supporters and his remarks about the pro-life movement were concerning.

Mature Christ followers know the temptation on relying on politics to save the world. Politicians will never save the world and legislating morality doesn’t work. It’s completely legitimate to write about how Christians can get overly zealous about politics and politicians, but the writings here railed against one politician and one political party.

Honestly, I didn’t read the rest of the book. Hopefully, the author will rewrite this chapter presenting a more general view of politics and religion which I agree is well needed.

This hard-hitting book was published in 1966 by Clyde Reid. The full title is The God-Evaders: How Churches & Their Members Frustrate the Genuine Experience of Christ. Many books talk about the dysfunction of the church structure but this book focuses on the mutual evasion by the clergy and the laity in experiencing the genuine Christ. If you find this online, it’s worth reading. The short excerpt below talks about “The Law of Religious Evasion”.

Churches tend to be more interested in programs and buildings and statistics than in persons. Never before has the spiritual poverty of our present religious structures been so clearly revealed. As a student put it to me so vividly one day: “The church stands in the way of Christ. You tend not to believe in God because of what you see in the church.”

To suggest that a revision of the order of worship or the liturgy will solve the problem is naïve. To rely on a new and up-to-date theological understanding is not enough. To insist on better preaching as the answer is to base our hopes on a false premise. We must look further and deeper than we have looked thus far. In this spirit I suggest the following insight as one of the dimensions of our difficulty.

We structure our churches and maintain them so as to shield us from God and to protect us from the genuine expression of Christ.

On a conscious level, we are gathered and organized in our churches for religious purposes, but on an unconscious level we have other motivations which take precedence and which contradict and nullify our spiritual intentions. Our behavior reveals all too often that unconscious resistance rather than conscious intention is determining our actions.

The church as a group tends to emasculate impulses toward Christ, corral them, then render them safe and harmless so they cannot upset the comfort level of the body.

This emasculating process is carried out in a number of subtle ways in the churches. We structure the services of worship as to prevent genuine worship. We use the clergy as buffers to protect us from the direct impact of religious influence. We invest great energy in the defense of doctrines which stand between us and God, rather than opening the way for a deeper relationship.

One of the bedrock answers that helps me to understand why we structure our churches to evade God is simply our fear of God. If we expose ourselves to His influence, we cannot be sure where it may lead us. If we follow Him, we may be led far from home. God represents the unknown, and the unknown is always frightening.

My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Jon and Dotty Zens a couple of weeks ago. It was an honor spending time with them and hearing stories of their travels around the world. They have been encouraging relational fellowships since 1977 so their knowledge is not only based on the Word but founded on real life experiences. 58 to 0, How Christ Leads Through The One Anothers is a fabulous book. It’s meatier than some of his other books, so be prepared. I have included an excerpt below. You can check out his website here.

Years ago, Vernon Grounds wrote an article about “the fellowship of porcupines.”  He noted that all of us are capable of poking one another in hurtful ways. The DNA of Christ in us longs for a community of shared life in Christ. But, as Henri Nouwen observed, the path to vibrant community “is hard and full of difficulties,” (H. Nouwen, Reaching Out, p. 46).

From the Lord’s perspective and purpose, He birthed the ekklesia on earth to express and display His Son. And through the ekklesia, He makes His wisdom known to the principalities and powers that rule in the heavenlies, thereby, His reign and love in the ekklesia will be seen by the watching world, (Ephesians 3:10; John 13:35).

Thus, despite the numerous obstacles and challenges to a believing community, fully functioning ekklesia is not optional, but the vitality and the heart of God’s eternal purpose in Christ. Followers of Christ on earth are faced with living in a serious tension within the messiness of His family, yet nevertheless, continuing to pursue Him together as those captured by His eternal purpose for His Son to have a Bride.

Nouwen crisply captured the essence of community when he called it “a joyful togetherness of spontaneous people,” (H. Nouwen, Reaching Out, p. 15). 

So why do we find it so difficult to live the shared life of Christ with others? Why does a believing community seem to blossom so infrequently? I think it would be beneficial to touch upon some of the formidable challenges that we must wrestle with in the context of community.

Every culture has its peculiar characteristics that give believers a sure test of faith as they follow Jesus. Here are four to reflect upon.

1. Mobility: In our era, mobility is an issue in most places in the world. But in America it seems that many people are too mobile! Folks do not remain in the same place long enough to establish community with other believers. They are always moving for a variety of reasons. This makes it not only difficult, but near impossible to develop community together. Usually the parting takes place before the bond of Christ takes root through knowing Him in and through one another.

2. Distance: Many Americans drive long distances one-way from home to the church building of their choice. The fact remains that deepening relationships cannot be built from a distance. Living within reasonable proximity to one another facilitates community Life. Authentic community is the everyday things and everyday life that we share together.

3. Individualism: We live in a culture where, for the most part, people have built walls around themselves, and they don’t want to let any body in. People live in subdivisions and have never met their neighbors. “Jeremy Seabrook refers to the ‘strangers who live where neighborhoods once were’…. It may be stated strongly that we have witnessed a striking increase in the sense of separate, differentiated identity and a corresponding sharp decline in the sense of community and belonging,” (Paul L. Wachtel, “America, Land of Lost Community,” Searching Together, 38:3-4, 2012, p. 29).

Given that believers have usually been infected with forms of individualism, it takes a fresh revelation from Christ in order for them to see that in the Spirit they are part of a Body in which they receive from and give to the other parts, (1 Cor. 12:13).

4. Materialism and Consumerism: Most Americans feel pressured to devote a lot of time to obtaining and maintaining their things and their career.  Building Christ-centered communities will involve each follower re-visiting how they use their time, money and resources. Community flows out of believers giving priority to Christ in others, not to pouring time and resources into things that will perish. Bruce Springsteen captured the spirit of this in “Blood Brothers”:

We played king of the mountain out on the end away
The world come chargin’ up the hill, and we were women and men
Now there’s so much that time, time and memory fade away
We got our own roads to ride and chances we gotta take
We stood side by side, each one fightin’ for the other
We said until we died, we’d always be blood brothers

Now the hardness of this world slowly grinds your dreams away
Makin’ a fool’s joke out of the promises we make
And what once seemed black and white turns to so many shades of gray
We lose ourselves in work to do and bills to pay
And it’s a ride, ride, ride, and there ain’t much cover
With no one runnin’ by your side my blood brother

It is with great sadness that we must observe that the churches people see on the street corners are not counter-cultural, but for the most part they acquiesce to American cultural norms. Is it any wonder that we do not see the Life of Christ in believers coming to expression in vital community? The very church structures themselves-both the buildings and the hierarchy-tend to foster mobility (people hopping from one church to the next), distance (relationships are not developed), individualism (no cultivation of body-life), and materialism/consumerism (church budgets need so much to pay for the buildings, the upkeep, their image, and the salaries).

Del Birkey’s well researched treatise on House Church was originally published in 1988 and re-released in 2019. It reads like a text book so if you’re into scholarly works, this book is for you. I hope you read the following excerpt carefully, it’s essential to model when doing life together.

The original Christian small group had gathered together with their Master-Teacher. The end was pressing upon him. His society had sought him for signs. He refused to give the kind they wanted, but he did signal his most significant clue for all who would follow him. He conquered with the sign of a towel. With the washing of their feet he established the symbol for servant work. He declared, “I have given you an example” (John 13:15). This lesson was forthrightly simple. Jesus wears the towel-apron of a servant, and we must wear it, too. After all, he said, “No servant is greater than his master” (v. 16).

In this manner, Jesus contradicted all other models of influence and self-importance. The one who makes the towel his or her badge is not the one who maneuvers for a place in the power structures of life. “The sign of the towel was not a put-on. Servanthood was not a role Jesus played on earth’s stage, but his real character.”

Jesus gave servanthood to his body, the church. Jesus conquered  with the sign of a towel, and he gave that quality of attitude to his disciples. Leadership in his body is not the real issue-servanthood is. Life in his church is not the same as life in secular society. On the contrary, kingdom life calls for an entirely new model, not merely a new definition.

Jesus clashed head on, therefore, against centuries-old authority structures. He turned the whole issue of authority on its head and recast it into an issue of servanthood. Jesus acknowledged that the Gentile model of leading was rigidly hierarchical. After a minor scuffle over who was to get the seats near the king (Matt. 20:25-28), Jesus unveiled the kingdom model. The Lord went to the core of the problem. He said, “Their great men exercise authority over them” in such a way as to achieve outward behavioral conformity to their ways.

Jesus had a better idea, however. His leadership ethic in kingdom work would achieve inner heart commitment to God’s ways. The way of authoritarian leading, he said, “shall not be so among you!” Instead, if you want to get ahead, you will have to succeed at serving. If you want to be first, you must be the very last, the servant of all (Mark 9:35). Greatness among his followers, he
declared, will be measured not in quantities of personal rank and acumen, but in qualities of personal humility in servanthood.

A little later, after a bout with the religious elite leaders, Jesus further contrasted the two models of leadership (Matt. 23:1-12). Faulting and chiding them, he made the distinctions stark. They created a faulty dichotomy between word and deed, but his teaching made them synonymous. They laid heavy burdens on others, but in the kingdom all are brothers and sisters and share. They maintain high visibility for personal praise, but Jesus said that whoever acts proudly will surely be brought down. They gave preeminence to those with titles, rank, and power, but Jesus said the preeminent will be the last in the kingdom. He said they should stop calling their leaders with pompous titles. The Gentile model worked from the top down, the kingdom model from the bottom up.

The church confirmed its servanthood in its ministry. The reason is simple and Jesus’ conclusion could not be clearer. “One is your Master, and all you are brethren” (Matt. 23:8). Evidence gathered from the occasional letters to the New Testament house churches and the other epistles provide ample principles and insights for the practicing of servant leadership in Christ’s church. It is not a question of whether or not we will have leadership, but rather a question of how it will be put into effect.

It may be, suggests Marlin Miller,

that the equivalents for our word “leader” in the first century culture were not used for the Christian church because of the shifts in understanding that took seriously Jesus’ teaching that “among you there shall be servants and not rulers.” The old language for leadership was linked with the language for ruling and domination.

The language of New Testament leadership is one of horizontal relationships, of leading and following, of voluntary submission and service toward one another. The only final authority believers acknowledge is the absolute authority of Jesus as Lord (Phil.2:10-11).  He has no other intermediaries.

This servant leadership in the house church takes initiative in helping the group form a consensus rooted in the Jesus tradition and moving in the direction of fullness in Christ. If we see that kind of servant leadership in the sociological context of the house church, it makes much sense. It can manifest itself more wholly in the context of small size and direct interrelationships.

Furthermore, the kind of persons equipped to be elders in the New Testament house church are the kind of persons who demonstrate the qualities which encourage and build family solidarity.  In this way, the house church context provides a congruity between such characteristics of leaders and the biblical style of leading. 

Miller concludes:

We have discovered a pattern of leadership in the New Testament house churches which provides both the model and the characteristics of what leadership should and can be in the house churches of our time. The recasting of authority, from the right to rule to the freedom to serve in a community of mutual subordination, is a biblical model which goes beyond both the restoration of hierarchical structures, on the one hand, and egalitarian individualism on the other.

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