My Relationship with the Traditional Church
Ten years ago, my family and I, along with several other families, launched out in an adventure to start a house church. Ten years later, we have four house churches spread across our city and I write quite a bit about the phenomenon, actively encouraging other Christians to start house churches. You’d be forgiven if you called me an advocate.
In all of my talking about house churches, there is usually this unspoken elephant in the room when I reference the traditional, legacy church. When I use those phrases, I’m referencing everything from your traditional Lutheran church that meets in a cathedral to your rock out charismatic church that meets in a warehouse and everything in-between. How do I feel about those churches? What kind of relationship can someone who believes the things that I do have with people “haven’t left the building?”
I think it’s important to start here: The universal Church is made up of people who have repented of their sins and decided to follow Christ. Church is the name of a person, not a building or a meeting. Church is the name Jesus gives to His bride. And because of this, wherever believing people gather, the church is there in some form.
This is important, because we tend to forget that what makes us church isn’t our doctrine or how meet or our practices. What makes us church is the fact that we have a relationship with Christ. This Jesus-centered approach will keep us from all sorts of pride and hypocrisy.
Because I believe that Jesus inside of people is what makes us church, I actually have relationships with believers that meet as traditional churches. I pray with them. I stand with them in times of trouble. I counsel them. I challenge my pastor friends not to let their ministry be about a paycheck or a building. They challenge me to be a better father, employee, and spokesman for the Gospel. There is a healthy give-and-take without me having to compromise who I am and this healthy give-and-take is shaping all of us into something better. We all tell the story of a God who loved us enough to become human and take nails for our sins and sometimes we tell it together.
I can do all of this without compromising who I am and what the Lord has shown me through this journey into organic church. Frankly, the more I believe in radically pursuing Jesus as a spiritual family, participatory meetings, servanthood over hierarchy, simplicity of meeting together, relational discipleship, and incarnational ministry, the better I am for our house churches AND the more useful I become in encouraging my friends in the traditional church.
All of this is to say you can be a part of an organic house church and not have to hate the traditional church that you came from. Continue making disciples. The Lord will build His church. Stop having the argument. Plant Kingdom gardens and let the fruit speak for itself.
We Don’t Need to Exaggerate the Goodness of God
It seems like every where I go, people are distraught about God and how He’s perceived in the world. Christians–people who are supposed to declare the goodness of God–are spending an inordinate amount of time either apologizing for God being the way He is or trying to say He’s different than what the Bible says He is. All of this is in some kind of misguided fear that God will look bad and unappealing to our unbelieving or once-but-not-now-believing friends.
This looks different depending on where you go and who you talk to, but the basic premise is this: The God the Bible describes is old-fashioned. He worked as God of the first century, was definitely better than those B.C. gods, but the times have changed. Penal sacrifice, lists of sins, submission to His lordship…all of these are things that were applicable then, but need to be updated. So they take the best parts of the God of the Bible, exclude the parts they don’t like, and present a sort of God 2.0. This God is not only like the God of the Bible, but He is so unbelievably good that He’s not awkward to bring up at parties.
For those of you who struggle with this, I have good news: We don’t need to exaggerate the goodness of God! We have a God who created everything out of nothing! Nothing! And then, after He created everything, He created mankind and set him over every amazing thing He made. When mankind had the audacity to spit in His face and turn our backs against Him, God started a rescue plan that culminated in being born into this Earth, living as an innocent man in a despicable world, and dying the death of a criminal, all so He could restore humanity to its rightful place of having a relationship with God!
This relationship could be restored as easily as repenting and believing that He did what He said. There were no mountains to climb or any money to give. No secret wisdom for the wise that only a select few could have. As many as wanted to could come to God. Also, if you’re sick, there’s healing! If you have demons bugging you, there’s freedom from that! He will restore everything that’s been lost in your life, you just need to ask.
This is why the Psalmist says:
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
Now there are all sorts of accusations that can and will be leveled against God. But those are accusations against a God who is nice but never does anything. Beloved, we have a real God who pardons us for all the crap we have put Him and others through. We have a God who heals all of our diseases. We have a God who redeems our lives from destruction that we caused ourselves AND He sets His loyal love on us. We, who turned are backs on Him, became the objects of His affection.
Beloved, you might be able to make up a Genie who serves you, but that Genie isn’t real. Nor is he God. But God, friends, God will restore you and your life if you surrender it to Him. You can’t exaggerate this. It’s literally too good to be true. If anyone in real life ever treated you like this, your story would not be believed.
So the next time you are tempted to believe that God needs to be updated to fit the modern era and conform to modern sensibilities, remember how ridiculously good He is. Don’t try to exaggerate His goodness–you’ll end up in error–but declare in truth how good He really is.
You won’t regret it.
Don’t Start a House Church Out of Anger
I’m always trying to get people to start house churches. It’s kind of a little crusade of mine. So people are always a little surprised when I caution some folks not to start a house church.
So while I have a huge list of reasons why people should start house churches, I have a small list of reasons they shouldn’t. One of the main reasons I caution people to not start a house church is because they are angry with another believer or group of believers.
It’s a common scenario: Something a pastor or leader or just someone else in your house church did makes you angry. Out of anger, the impulse to start a house church arises. Sometimes it’s out of a desire to prove the offending person wrong. Sometimes we just want to get away from the person in our current church. Sometimes its because we want a church of our own to lead. Regardless, the temptation is there–Starting a house church is easy, I’ll just do that.
Starting a house church is easy. That’s one reason we love them. But when we start house churches out of anger and division, we set ourselves up for disaster down the road. What many don’t realize when they start a house church is that often those who lay the vision for a house church sow the seeds of the future of that house church. Those with prophetic gifting will often find themselves planting prophetic house churches. House churches started by people with mercy gifts will often multiply disciples with mercy gifts. But those who start house churches out of anger will often end up with an angry house church.
This shouldn’t surprise us. James tells us:
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
See the problem? Anger fills us with a kind of hubris that causes us to take matters in our own hands to show other people. We will prove ourselves. But this is so outside of how God births his Kingdom. Jesus invites us to serve others, to turn the other cheek when wronged, and to lay aside all forms of anger because it’s truly the seeds of murder in our heart (See Matthew 5:21-24). Anger with a brother actually represents a break in your relationship with God that needs to be dealt with immediately.
This is why I recommend, before someone with anger in their heart plants a house church, that they go and try to be reconciled with their brother or sister. Obviously this is not always possible. Not every conflict can be reconciled, but Paul tells us that as much as it is up to us to live at peace with others (Romans 12:18). That will mean forgiving the brother or sister we believe wronged us. It will mean trying to rebuild he relationship, to whatever degree possible. Sometimes it may even mean bearing with others’ weaknesses, because not everyone will be perfect, or even our definition of perfect.
History is littered with angry people who started house churches only to be rejected by those who were part of this new house church. The rejection often comes from anger and bitterness, because the writer of Hebrews tells us that bitterness in one person will defile many. So before you pull the trigger and plant that house church, please, for the sake of the Kingdom, reconcile yourself to whoever you might be running from.
“…the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”
Photo Credit: Angry Hulk by Clement127
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 