Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” Can Christ be divided into pieces? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul?

For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News – and not with clever speeches and high-sounding ideas, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power. (1 Corinthians 1:12-13, 17)

Even in the early church, people started picking one “leader” over another. Some were trying to align themselves with Paul, Apollos, or Peter. Basically, these were different guys, they had different approaches to ministry, and some people thought one guy had it “right” moreso than the other. Early on, the church was in danger of being divided. So this is Paul’s attempt to prevent what would eventually become our present-day denominations.

Paul goes on:

As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy human wisdom and discard their most brilliant ideas.” So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made them all look foolish and has shown their wisdom to be useless nonsense. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never find him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save all who believe.

Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:19-21, 26-29)

The main point in this passage is that Christ “is the one who made us acceptible to God” (v30). But there is another implication here.

Where did the divisions start? The division started because Paul, Apollos, and Peter each had a unique approach to ministry. And though they each pointed people to Christ, they were influential to the point where people were following them instead of Christ.

Paul is indicating here that the wisdom of man is useless to God – meaning that God will use the foolish and the weak to spread His gospel. Yet our modern-day pastors ensure that their leadership skills are top-notch. They utilize the best statistical methods to make sure their worship services are having an “impact” by tracking attendance, monetary giving, or even the number of cars in the parking lot. They employ the best consultants to help them tweak their message and presentation to be friendly to their target demographic. This kind of approach is the exact same thing any modern-day CEO would do. This is the best of human wisdom. If it can grow a profitable company, of course it can grow a church.

But the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Or in the fruit, as Christ said. In his research, George Barna paints a bleak picture that the “churched” population is still lost. This is the result of human wisdom – building large buildings, filling them with a lot of people, but the end result being that you can’t tell them apart from the rest of the world. And on top of that, division between believers is stronger than it ever has been.

Paul seems to paint a different picture. But in order to get there, we have to learn to not rely on human wisdom. Which means a lot less of acting like a CEO would, and a lot more acting as Jesus did when He chose the twelve and told them to train others in a similar fashion.

“Clever speeches and high-sounding ideas.” Doesn’t that sound exactly like what a typical approach to church is today?

Something struck me last week, and it’s become a focal point of my thoughts about being a follower of Christ and joining in fellowship with other followers.

The Old Testament was a complete system. In order words, it contained a covenant between God and man, and all of the directions you needed to follow in order to fulfill your obligation within that covenant. The law was complete – nothing needed to be added to it (though the Jews continued to add to it anyway through their legalism). And nothing was to be taken away from it.

It has been apparent to me for years that the New Testament represented a new covenant. The veil was torn in two – we no longer require a priest, performing sacrifices, the Jewish celebration days… all of those specific instructions no longer apply.

But the modern church we grew up with looked nothing like the church described in Acts, and in the letters of the New Testament. Certainly nothing like what Christ Himself did while He was here. So the thought was that while this is a new covenant, the New Testament was not a complete description of it. It did not explain everything. The role of an apostle, so vivid in the New Testament, was explained away as only necessary during the founding of the church. Likewise with prophecy, miraculous healing, and speaking in tongues (the latter only if you’re not Pentecostal, but I have my own opinions about how they’re not using the gift as described in the New Testament).

I believe that the changes I have gone through in the last couple of years has led me to this point: that the New Testament is as complete a description of the new covenant as the Old Testament is a complete description of the old covenant.

In the Old Testament, God told them exactly how to build the temple. What types of materials to use. In what way to perform the sacrifices, and exactly who was qualified to do it. Everything was given to them, down to the letter, in terms of how they were to relate to each other and to God.

I now believe that the same is true of the New Testament. We are not told how to build our temple because we are not supposed to have one. Christ told the woman at the well that the structure can no longer be the focal point of worship – yet our churches still sing about how holy the sanctuary is.

Christ told us exactly how to relate to God – to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And how to relate to each other – to love our neighbors as ourselves. And the new commandment was that by loving each other, people will know that we are His followers.

Then Acts and the letters in the New Testament proceed to give us a full description of what that should look like. Meeting in each other’s homes. Reaching out to people where they are. Doing miraculous works. Sharing the gospel with others. Helping out each other in every need.

Finally, I understand that we don’t have to be creative, visionary, or strategic. I simply have to be obedient to the principles and directions laid out in the New Testament.

Britt had a series awhile back called Things I Can’t Find in the Bible. It’s a list of twenty things that are incredibly common in modern church that are simply not described in the New Testament:

Friendship Evangelism
Asking Jesus into Your Heart
Christian Entertainment (and the PS)
Seminary Education
Denominations
Dressing Up For Church
Priest Class Under the New Covenant
Ordination of Man
Political Action
Having a Building
Registered Membership
Christians as Sinners
Day of the Week
Specific Ministry Positions
Preparing for Sermons (and the intermission)
Order of Worship
Christian Tithing (and the addendum)
Material Wealth as a Sign of Faith
End of the Gifts of the Spirit
Changing the World

In his conclusion, Britt said:

Looking back, it seems like I have systematically questioned what many consider foundational Christianity. Maybe I have. But ultimately I only want to experience the complete freedom in Christ that results in great joy, power, authority and peace. I find that greatly lacking in most of the Christians I meet from day to day.

We’ve shrugged off much of the apostasy that the Catholic church introduced into Christianity. But there are still so many things that we cling to that are simply not described in the New Testament. As Wolfgang Simson said:

If it was possible for the very essence of the gospel – salvation by faith, justification by grace – to be buried under the sand of history, what about the rest? If we can gravely err in the very key and core issues, could we also have erred in other, lesser issues? The fact that the Bible was again given into the hands of common people started what I call the history of rediscovery: it was the turning point where the church started to climb again out of darkness, escape its own structural prison and rediscover, step by step, long-forgotten truth and long-forgotten practices, including the house church as an organic form of church.

I think the end result of adding things onto the New Testament has lessened the degree to which Christians experience joy, power, authority, and peace. I no longer think of these things as simply extra-biblical – I now think of them as a hindrance. Naturally, it takes time to shrug off traditions of the past, but I believe that this is where God is leading His church – to a point where where are reliant only upon Him, and not tradition. And the first step is to see what God intended for us, as described in a complete covenant, as distinct from where we find ourselves today.

I was looking back at my archives the other day and realized that it was over three months between writing Part 5 and Part 6. I guess that’s what moving and getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas will do to your blogging. In any case, Part 8 was the last part I had planned to write, so I wanted to recap the series. It starts with us leaving our church, sharing my experience and thoughts about my time there, and our experience searching for a new church, discovering house church, and my thoughts about it since.

Deconstruction
Why I Left My Church
Approaching Ministry
Worship Wars Part 1 – My Background
Worship Wars Part 2 – Compromise and the Excitement Factor
Worship Wars Part 3 – Why It Shouldn’t Be a War, Anyway

Reconstruction
Why We Have Chosen House Church
Part 1 – Some Definitions
Part 2 – vs. Small Groups
Part 3 – vs. Cell Churches
Part 4 – Intermission and Coexistence
Part 5 – Some History
Part 6 – Men and Open Formats
Part 7 – What Would Jesus Do With Ten Million Dollars?
Part 8 – Unbelievers “Get It”

Looking back over these past six months, I’m amazed at how much has changed. We left our church, considered a move to New York, found a house church, and moved into a new house. I’m particularly amazed at how many of my thoughts were leading us directly into house church, before we had ever made a decision to go that route, much less visited one. Below is an example from Approaching Ministry:

Most churches understand the family aspect as social gatherings. We know each other, we enjoy hanging out together, and we do favors for each other. That’s a great start. But we’re really called to live life together. Jesus didn’t just see the twelve a couple of times a week. They lived together. They slept together, ate together, traveled together, worshipped together, and ministered together. Real family cannot be experienced in a group of a thousand, five hundred, or even fifty. We have to get smaller, but we have to seek something more than just “small groups.” We need to take a more basic view of church family, and seek our primary connection with the church through a family-sized unit instead of a congregational one.

Lord, thank You for leading us to a place that fulfills, even if only dimly, the vision You have given us. Our house church isn’t perfect, as none are. But the reality is, it is in this environment where we can practice Your example of living life together, of sharing our burdens with each other as a part of our regular worship, and seeking Your will for our gatherings.

It’s official – as if blogging about house church for the past five months doesn’t prove that I’ve been drinking the house church Kool-Aid, I’ve had to defend my comments against the pastor of a megachurch from a neighboring state.

Being a worship leader at a somewhat small conventional church (100-150), over the past two years I’ve been asking a lot of questions about how conventional churches approach things. I had been struggling with implementing things that I knew would help the church grow, but the culture of the church wouldn’t accept certain changes easily. Further, even at our size, I saw that we had many of the same problems that plague churches that are much larger. So while I’ve never been on staff at a church, I have some insight into some of the same problems that people are struggling with at larger conventional churches.

I still read many of the blogs that I have been reading over the past couple of years, where they ask a lot of the same questions I had been asking as I was struggling with what God wanted me to do. On these blogs, I now tend to comment about what I have found is the answer – greatly simplifying the church and stripping it down to relationships and discipleship – two things that worship services at conventional churches are, quite frankly, pathetic at achieving.

I’ve noticed that people on staff at megachurches, and to some degree, those that attend megachurches, are the ones who have the hardest time “getting” the idea of a house church. To them, a church simply isn’t successful unless it’s reaching thousands every week. In many ways, that is their experience and that is their standard. So when you try to communicate the benefits of house church, they can’t comprehend it.

In this particular case, this pastor said that “the house church model has ONE problem – they neglect the great commission. If Jesus would have wanted us to sit around and suck thumbs… He would have commanded it.” He later tried to smooth things over, but the fact is that he just couldn’t accept the house church as legitimate.

In contrast, I get a completely different reaction when I talk with people who are not really connected with a church. This includes people who have never gone to a church, people who used to go to a church but walked completely away (for various reasons), and even people who attend church irregularly. They appreciate the idea that we can put a huge amount of our time and money, into helping other people. They understand the concept of focusing on spiritual development outside of a presentational atmosphere, and why this is preferable to what conventional churches focus on. They can view the gospel without all of the extra stuff – they can see that we’re not selling a church brand, a product that comes with a lot of earthly fringe benefits. They can appreciate that we’re not trying to entice them to the gospel with beautiful buildings, angelic choirs, huge pipe organs, rock bands whose members sport spiked hair, and huge video screens so that we can see the famous pastor preaching the message in another building miles and miles away.

People who are not Christians that I have talked to about house church tend to say things like, “that makes a lot of sense.” People who are Christians that I have talked to about house church, if they attend a conventional church, tend to tilt their head to the side and say things like, “huh.” People who are on staff of large conventional churches tend to tell me I’m wrong.

It’s strange, but it seems like the religious establishment disagrees with what Barna calls a “Revolution.” Are there any other religious figures you can think of who did things that rubbed the religious establishment the wrong way? It’s good to be in the company of God’s prophets.

Whether or not unbelievers get it doesn’t really affect my decision to follow Christ in the context of a house church, but it is a great testimony to the simplicity and accessibility of the format. Churches are struggling, trying to figure out how to reach the post-modern generation that is rising. Many conventional churches even struggle to figure out what “post-modern” is. The very group of people the church has the least capability of connecting with, those with a post-modern worldview that for the most part has no background in Christianity, are much more receptive to the idea of a house church than they are to a conventional church.

Remember, in 380 AD, bishops Theodosius and Gratian, operating with the full authority of the Roman government, required all Roman citizens to be members of the single, state-recognized, orthodox church, and banned all other churches, including those meeting in homes. Less than 350 years after Christ’s death, the exact form that Christ himself used to disciple the twelve was banned from the church.

I pray that our brothers and sisters in conventional churches will pray for our success, and not be threatened by it. I pray that they will not choose to follow the path of the Jewish council, Roman government, and even Martin Luther, who all chose to persecute those who believed that following God did not include following professional clergy, but included simply meeting together, studying scripture, confessing their sins, and praying for one another.

The reality, though, is that if persecution is to come, it will come with the blessing of the established religious system. It always has.

If you’re a pastor, and you’re getting ready to start a church, one of your primary roles is that of a fund-raiser. The simple fact is, to have a church you have to have money. (Well, for a conventional church, that is.)

I’m throwing ten million out there just for kicks, but it is a justifiable number. Of course, you’ll get started in a home, a school theater (or lunchroom, gym, etc.), or other cheap-rent options, but from day one you’re looking to secure the land to build on one day. And that land is not cheap. In Gwinnett County, where I live, they have minimum acreage requirements for churches. And land is expensive here, as it is in most metro areas. Even if the land is donated, you’re still committing a lot of resources to holding a piece of real estate until you can build on it.

Then, of course, you have construction costs. Even for a small church of a couple of hundred (you do have a vision to grow, right?), the costs will grow into the millions, even if you do things on the cheap and skimp here and there (for which you’ll eventually regret it). If you do it “the right way,” you’re talking about a multi-million dollar facility for a couple of hundred people.

All told, ten million isn’t that far-fetched for start-up and construction costs for a new church. If you’re talking major expansions of large churches, ten million is nothing.

So let’s think for a moment, based on our knowledge of Scripture, what would Jesus have done with those ten million dollars?

Give it to the poor?

Is there anything else you can think of?

I can’t imagine, in any way, that Jesus would have commissioned a new building to house His ministry. That He would have encouraged His disciples to design an eye-catching sign with a nifty slogan. That He would have invested in a top-rate band in order to create a buzz about the quality of the music. That he would have made sure the pews were padded so that people would be comfortable while they listened to Him preach.

That doesn’t make those things evil, or necessarily wrong, but it raises questions about how appropriate they are.

Jesus’ style of sending His disciples out was pretty simple: “take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town.” (Luke 9: 3-4, NIV) To anyone who had money, Jesus didn’t solicit funds for Himself or His own ministry.

Jesus said to the rich young ruler, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” (Matthew 19:21, NIV) We like to dismiss this directive by claiming that this guy was rich, so Jesus was giving that guy a message specific to him. In order to take that approach, we have to ignore what Jesus said directly to his disciples:

But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:31-34, NIV)

The fact is, Jesus was pretty clear about where His financial priorities were.

Would Jesus have taken ten million and build a beautiful building to house His ministries? Absolutely not.

One of the reasons I love house church is that no money is needed to care for a building, janitors, secretaries, etc. Some house churches do pay their pastors, but usually they do not, and if they do it would not be a full-time salary. Most leaders of house churches choose to set the example of earning their own living, as Paul clearly recommended. You can’t really support a pastor full-time with a dozen or so members, anyway.

So where does the money go?

It goes to whatever causes God leads us to support, whether individually or collectively. The resources of a house church go to help the poor, support widows, orphans, halfway houses, and other types of ministries that, I believe, Jesus would give His money to.

Many churches give money out of their budget to help the poor. But if you’re in a church where that figure exceeds 10% of the church’s budget, consider yourself in a select group. Even still, the other 90% goes directly into the building that you worship in, or the staff that are there primarily to serve you. In most cases, that building does NOT help the poor, it is helping you.

I believe it is much better for us to give our money completely away, to those who are poor and who are in desparate need, rather than to donate so that I can attend church in a better, bigger building with more comfortable seats and a modern media presentation system. I think we miss the opportunity to be truly selfless when we give our tithe to our local church, because the majority of that money is used on things that keep us attracted, and serve us, rather than aiding those who truly need it.