You have said You are the Vine, Lord,
And that I’m a branch in Thee,
But I do not know the reason
Why I should so barren be.

Bearing fruit is my deep longing,
More Your life to manifest,
To Your throne to bring more glory,
That Your will may be expressed.

But I fail to understand, Lord,
What it means – “abide in me,”
For the more I seek “abiding,”
More I feel I’m not in Thee.

How I feel I’m not abiding;
Though I pray and strongly will,
Yet from me You seem so distant
And my life is barren still.

Yet You are the Vine, You said it.
And I am a branch in Thee;
When I take You as my Savior,
Then this fact is wrought in me.

Now I’m in You and I need not
Seek into Yourself to come,
For I’m joined to You already,
With Your flesh and bones I’m one.

Not to “go in” is the secret,
But that I’m “already in!”
That I ne’er may leave I’d ask You,
Not how I may get within.

I am in, already in You!
What a place to which I’m brought!
There’s no need for prayer or struggling,
God Himself the work has wrought.

Since I’m in, why ask to enter;
O how ignorant I’ve been!
Now with praise and much rejoicing
For Your Word, I dwell therein.

Now in You I rest completely,
With myself I gladly part;
You are life and You are power,
All in all to me Thou art.

One of the things that is so striking about this song, to me, is how honest it is about struggling to feel like God is present. Which is something most Christians struggle with, if they’re honest with themselves.

But the response is so full of truth, yet in all my life it lacked power – I am already in Christ, and He is already in me. I’ve heard this probably a million times, but I’ve never been able to rest in it. God’s presence has always been a pursuit, whether something I was supposed to attain through Bible study and prayer, or by attending (or creating) a stirring worship experience, or by seeking His presence through intimate worship. All of those approaches miss the point. We are in Him. He is in us. There is no work for us to do to attain it. We can simply rest in Him. When we gather, we are giving expression to that reality. What a blessing!

Our previous “house church” was pretty much just that – a church that met in a house. It’s not like there was a “sermon,” but in reality it didn’t move beyond the concept of clergy any more than a traditional church would. Most people called the leader the pastor (though I specifically did not refer to him as such), and looked to him as that kind of a role. He led it more like a bible study/discussion time, so it was in reality more open than a typical church would be. It was a good step for Amy and I when we joined that group, but I felt, over time, more and more God’s leaning to do things differently.

Then the leader of that group moved away, and we were faced with whether or not to try hosting a house church ourselves. But without someone filling the pastor/clergy role, we did not really know if it would stick with a group that had been, for the most part, been passive in gatherings. But we felt called to give it a try. My brother, who leads a fully organic meeting at his house, agreed to help us get started.

In the end, it really came down to not having people who were really interested in doing something different. I’m not upset about it, as I didn’t want to have any regrets about not trying it. We also learned a lot through the process, and will be better prepared next time God calls us to do this – and we are confident that there will be a next time. The main thing we’ve learned is that in order to try hosting an organic meeting, you need to do it with a least a couple of people who totally “get it” and are committed to church gatherings led by the Spirit alone. While my brother was helping us, he and his wife were still hosting their own meeting and I didn’t feel right relying on them for that role indefinitely.

So Amy and I will be doing some exploring and asking God what He would really like for us to be doing right now. We have some schedule concerns with the other house church groups that we’ve been networking with – it’s not easy to do late evenings with young kids, especially when they get up really early for school and get very cranky early in the evening. (That’s one of the reasons we really liked Sunday afternoons.)

There’s also a “traditional” church that I’ve been somewhat connected with over the last couple of years (I’ve led worship there a few times and played guitar/bass a few times also), that we’re considering checking out some of their smaller groups and see how open they are and how their small groups currently function.

So pray for us in this regard. We might not get totally settled until March or so — I’m having a major jaw surgery in January and it’ll be a few weeks before I’m really up for much, anyway. (I’ll post more about that later.) I may have a difficult time compromising my ecclesiology, but I’m willing to do that if God is calling us somewhere and wants to use my restlessness to stir things up there.

The interesting thing is, literally a day after we made this decision God placed something into our laps that our hearts have longed for, something actually a little more extreme than organic house church (in many people’s opinions, anyway). That deserves its own post, so stay tuned.

First of all, we shared a meal together, but rather than just dig in and eat, we tried to set up a new rule – nobody can serve themselves. If you need something, someone else has to get it for you. This didn’t work out quite as smoothly as we had hoped, but in hindsight I think it went rather well for the first time. We didn’t have too many people (8 adults, 11 children), but we’re anticipating a few more next week so things might get hairier.

Overall, we’re trying to think of ways to turn the meal into something more than just an opportunity to eat. Our idea was to figuratively add in a bit of the washing of feet into the mix. Everyone liked the idea of it, but we’ll probably tweak the execution as we go along. Kids always make things like that interesting and more complicated.

After we ate and cleaned up a little, we moved into the den for worship. We spent 25 minutes or so with the kids, but it was a little disjointed. Britt brought some instruments for the kids to play, but it turned out the instruments were WAY too loud for kids to use. Give a kid a stick and a drum and all they want to do is bang it! So this week I’m on the hunt for some good kid-friendly percussion that isn’t too loud.

We then sent the kids down to the basement. We have a great person to help with the kids down there – she’s 13, lives in a nearby neighborhood, and is phenomenal with the little kids. Her dad works with youth camps and orphanages in Russia and Ukraine, and she’s spent many summers working with youth camps in Russia. She’s worked with kids for our larger house church gatherings that we’ve held here, and we’re extremely blessed to have her helping us out.

While the kids were learning some Bible stories, playing games, and singing songs, we continued upstairs, thankful for the relative quiet. I informed everybody that there was no plan. I printed out a sheet with a list of songs on it, all of the songs I had ready to go in my worship lyric software (more on that in a future post), and let them know that if there was a song they wanted to sing, to say so. I led some songs, some folks read some scripture that was on their heart, and some others requested some songs. From what I remember, we sang “So Good to Me,” “Today,” “Your Love is Deep”, and “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” (kid songs), followed by “Praise the King,” “Glorious One,” “Restore to Me,” “How Great is Our God,” “We Fall Down,” and “Come Fall on Us.”

As we wrapped up that phase, Britt talked about commitment to the cause of Christ. He noted that Jesus wasn’t terribly interested in the disciples knowing everything perfectly – but that it was their commitment to him that had to come first. Likewise, when the church first began in Acts 2, you didn’t see much in the way of “right doctrine” before people began joining the church. It began with an acceptance of the gospel followed by commitment to the church, and discipleship naturally followed.

I had wanted to start in with a reading of 1st Corinthians 12, but felt that chapter 11 was a better start. We ended up talking a lot about communion as a meal, and that led to a good discussion of rituals. I’ll blog about that later, because I have too many thoughts on that to summarize quickly. I decided to save chapter 12 for later.

After that, we talked some about logistics and how we might handle things from week to week. With the exception of Britt and his wife Becca, everyone we had yesterday was from our previous house church. While it would have been awesome to have more folks show up, I think it was actually perfect for us to do this and talk some things through, because it was different from how we’ve had house church together in the past. What we’re doing now is more open, and the goal is for others to be contributing more directly. That will come with time, but I think we set a good starting point of not having things too structured.

We’ve had some more people tell us that they’ll be coming next week, and we’re looking forward to it. It was a good bit of work preparing to host it here, but I imagine that will get easier as we go.

When we left our church home in 2006, where I was a worship leader, we felt God leading us to pursue a more authentic form of church. We did not know at the time what that would look like. We visited several churches, but when we visited a house church we were amazed at the difference. We began to feel a calling to eventually host a house church, when God opened up the opportunity for us to do so. Since that time we have been further challenged to rethink what it means to “be the church.” While we did not know exactly when God would set this task in front of us, it is unmistakable that the time for us to do this is right now.

You may have never been to a house church before, and possibly you’ve never heard of one, either. So a brief description may be helpful. We are seeking to build a community:

• That seeks, first and foremost, to see Christ revealed through His body of believers (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-27);
• That thirsts for a church family based on the love of Christ;
• Where communion is a full meal, shared regularly;
• Where gatherings are controlled by Christ through the Spirit, and where each person can contribute;
• Where leadership is built from within, based on maturity and gifting;
• Whose resources are used to help those in need – in the church, the local community, and throughout the world;
• Where membership is defined only by belonging to Christ.

We are not seeking to build a community based on how other churches do things wrong. We are seeking to build a community based on the principles and commandments given to us by Christ and His apostles. We want to build a church family that is focused on Christ, without the overhead of buildings, budgets, or unnecessary traditions.

Gatherings of the church will not be based on coming to listen to someone else speak. Gatherings of the church will be based on coming to hear Christ speak through each of us. (See 1 Corinthians 14:20-31.) Gatherings of the church will be designed to have time to be together, to love each other, to help each other, and to grow together. Exactly how that will work will vary from week to week, depending on who joins us, and depending on how the Spirit leads.

Over the past year, we have also been a part of a network of house churches. This larger group currently gathers once a month, on Saturday evenings. Sometimes these larger gatherings are focused on worship, sometimes on discussion, sometimes on fellowship. We are blessed have the support, guidance, and participation of others who have been down this path.

One of the main questions people ask is: what is your plan for kids? Different house churches handle kids differently. Our current plan is to keep children in with the initial part of the gathering, and to practice engaging with our children through song, Bible readings, discussion, and prayer. After a while, we’ll have someone take the children downstairs for more activities and playtime while the adults continue meeting. We are looking for people for this role – if you know someone you would recommend, please contact us!

Based on our experience, we feel that this is a good balance between learning our spiritual responsibilities as parents, and having time without kids to really focus on what God has to say through each of us.

We will have our first gathering on Sunday, September 28th. We will join together for a full meal, as communion, around 1pm, followed by a time of worship, discussion, and prayer. There will not be an official start time or end time, so feel free to come when you can get here and leave when you need to.

If you are planning on sharing a meal with us, or will be bringing children with you, please contact us to let us know you will be coming so we can make sure we have enough food and enough supervision set up for the kids.

If you live in or near the East Lawrenceville, Grayson, Loganville, or Dacula areas, and any of this resonates with you at all, even if you are just curious, we invite you to come and join us. If you know anyone who would be interested who lives near us, please pass this along to them as well. To all of you, we ask specifically for your prayer and support as we enter this new phase of our lives and ministry.

If you are interested or have any questions at all, please contact us! We’d be more than happy to tell you more about all of this. We hope to see you here on September 28th!

Take care! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired, because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give a gift to someone in need, don’t shout about it as the hypocrites do – blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I assure you, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone, don’t tell your left hand what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.

And now about prayer. When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I assure you, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered only by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! (Matthew 6:1-8, NLT)

Kind of puts Matthew 25 into a different perspective, doesn’t it? I ask you – how does campaigning for public charity fit with the private, secret approach to charity commanded us in Matthew 6?

Pagan Christianity garnered a lot of attention, partially because it came on the heels of Barna’s Revolution. But the response was more intense, because it revealed the aspects of the modern institutional church that have no Biblical basis, and went further to discuss how they undermine Biblical principles. You can’t publicly criticize nearly all aspects of the modern institutional church – church buildings, order of worship, sermons, the clergy system, dressing up for church, music ministers, tithing and salaries, modern baptism and communion practices, and modern Christian education – without getting a lot of backlash. I participated in many a blog discussion about that book, responding to a lot of criticisms from people who had actually never read the book.

In any case, the Christian community’s reaction to Pagan (as well as to Revolution) all kind of missed the point. I think it’s important to scrutinize all of the things we find in the institutional church, and to step outside of it – but if it just stops there, you’re left with nothing. Or in some cases, just a smaller copy of the institutional church that happens to meet in a house. The question really is, if we shake off all of the institutional baggage, what do we do instead? The answer to that, thankfully, is found in the New Testament. And dealing with that is what Reimagining Church is all about. It’s not about creating some new church, really – it’s about reimagining in light of a true apostolic tradition – the apostolic tradition that has been passed down to us as scripture.

If Pagan shed light on all of the aspects of the modern institutional church that are not Biblical, Reimagining is about shedding light on Biblical practices that the modern institutional church chooses to ignore.

While Pagan Christianity was an update of a previous Viola book with the same title, Reimagining Church is actually an update of Rethinking the Wineskin. So I don’t really have to go into too much detail about it – if you really want to know more about Reimagining, read my comments about Wineskin, which were very detailed and broken down essentially by chapter. (My comments on that one were possibly too detailed – I always fear that authors will get offended if I quote and summarize so much!)

I covered the following areas of the original book:

• Gatherings
• Common Meal
• The House
• Family/Community
• Leadership – Oversight
• Leadership – Visionary
• Purpose
• Membership
• Boundary
• Tradition

All of these elements are in the updated book, though organized a little differently, and expanded in some cases. So I’ll just give you my impression of the difference.

Overall, I’d say that this book is quite a bit better. While every bit as challenging and disturbing (in the appropriate sense), I think some of the reorganization helped the book to come across a little more clearly. Early on in the book, Viola included some specific testimonies of people who have been exposed to organic church – this was a great idea, and helped to bring the book down to a relational level early on.

One of the aspects that people struggle with the most when discussing issues of organic Christianity is the lack of official leadership. Viola includes an entirely new chapter to address specific questions people have, based on specific scriptures, as well as dealing in a general sense with the word choices used in the original Greek compared to how we translate and use those words today to justify hierarchical, authoritative church structures (any church with a “pastor”). This chapter alone is worth the new version of the book, and I’d encourage someone (perhaps even Viola) to go further and deal with this type of topic in a book all its own.

I did find it interesting that the metaphor of the “wineskin” was almost totally absent from this book. It is described once or twice, and alluded to a couple of times, but this is far different from how prominently the metaphor was featured in the original. What was really good, though, and totally new to this book, was the emphasis of the trinity as the organizing metaphor. Specifically, that the church is really supposed to reflect the image of the trinity – no hierarchical structure, mutual submission, unity, etc. This was a fundamental shift that I think had a great impact on the book. The metaphor of the trinity better reflects the nature of the church, and is a better returning point than the wineskin was.

There is one quote I wanted to share from this book. I shared a similar quote from the original, but it is important enough that it bears repeating.

Seeking to repair a house that has cracks in its foundation will never prove productive. I believe it’s time that we honestly examined the structural integrity of the modern church system. I strongly believe that the clergy system, which includes the modern pastoral office, is what needs to be abandoned. It’s the system that’s one of the main culprits, not the people, the motives, or the intentions. Experience has taught me that an institutional church will never fully embody the dream of God until it recognizes that the framework within which it operates is inadequate and self-defeating. Despite the good intentions of the persons who populate it, the interior design of the organized church sets us up for defeat.

True renewal, therefore, must be radical. That means it must go to the root.

The concept of clergy, and more important, the idea of a “pastor,” is central to the experience of Christians who have been raised up in a modern institutional church. And to those of us who have had this experience, it is the idea of stripping this away the “pastor” that is the most disturbing aspect. The pastor represents some sense of safety, in that even if I don’t know what to believe or what to do, at least the “pastor,” who is “ordained,” and is professionally committed to the church, will provide me with good leadership. Yet an honest examination of the New Testament reveals that there is nothing there that justifies the modern concept of “pastor.” And it is this single concept that most plagues the church and keeps her members silent and passive in the Christian life. The pastor stands, almost literally, between us and Christ – as long as we look to that official leadership we will never fully understand the functional headship of Christ and the mutual edification between members of Christ’s body.

In some ways, I think that Revolution, Pagan Christianity, and Reimagining Church are like a trilogy. Like any great trilogy, the first part, Revolution, introduces the players, the problems, and the concepts. While it can stand alone, it alone it does not tell the whole story. Pagan Christianity plays the role of the middle part of a trilogy – things turn dark, problems continue to rise, until you’re not sure how things can possibly get better. Then finally, like in the last part of the great trilogies, Reimagining Church reveals the way out, the way back to how things were better back back in the beginning, and redefines the way you see the entire story.

It takes radical thought to challenge the existing institutional church tradition. But it is exactly this tradition that must be scrutinized. If you’ve ever asked the question why – as in why in the world do churches do things the way they do – you owe it to yourself to read this great trilogy – but if you only read one of them, read Reimagining Church. But be warned: it just might make you question everything about the modern institutional church.

In an institutional church, the music liturgy is controlled by clergy. It has to reach a broad audience, and in today’s church environment in specializes to appeal to certain types of preferences (much like preaching style did just 20 years ago).

But in an organic worship setting, all individuals are free to contribute, and there is no controlled liturgy (music or otherwise). So people can learn, on a personal level, how people connect with the songs that they have been drawn to (or written!). They can learn the stories behind these things, on a deep and personal level.

To put it another way, the structure is far, far more important than the style or quality of the worship music on an artistic level. You could say the same thing about preaching…

I don’t know that comparisons to OT temple worship are entirely appropriate, because the idea of worship being a highly refined art isn’t really supported by NT methodology. If our gatherings are supposed to be “every-member functioning,” as Viola would say, then the idea that church worship should necessarily reflect the best of available art doesn’t match up.

Singing is not worship, but it can be a part of worship, and it can help lead people deeper into worship. It definitely should not be as professionalized as it is now. But if we are to take the route that worship should reflect “good art” and refined tastes, it can only lead to further professionalization. And a heck of a lot of disagreement about what is good and what isn’t.

At the heart of the issue is understanding that there are many different kinds of tastes, and a taste that might be sweet to one person might be bitter to another.

Setting worship music to popular styles has always been an issue. Derided by those in the church who were quite elitist and detested the idea that worship lyrics could be sung in a common, “vulgar” style. Much like how the church detested the idea of translations into common tongues for hundreds of years. (Even if the “vulgate” was the common tongue when it was produced, and the Greek was the common tongue when it was written.)

The point isn’t to make people happy with worship music. It’s to help them connect with God in an intimate way. And you can use worship music to expand people’s tastes and lead them into deeper worship, using music they would have never normally enjoyed. (I’ve done it.) But it can’t be done in a divisive way. If I just outright discount someone’s musical tastes as awful (even if they are), I’ll have little chance of helping them to explore the beauty of my musical tastes. Our relationships in the church, regarding music, should not be approached with such an attitude. And if we truly understand that what is “good” or “bad” about art is entirely subjective, then we can approach each other with love and grace and share with each other what we love about the styles that we connect so deeply with. (from Oh Happy Day at iamjoshbrown.com)

And Dan Kimball is reviewing Pagan Christianity and interviewing Frank Viola about organic church. Good stuff, actually, but of course I had to comment. First is a quote from Dan Kimball’s review (really the only negative part of it), where he shares what he sees as an issue with Frank’s approach:

What I disagree with is that if we follow this, then we should be all reading Scripture only from scrolls, as the “pagan” printing press was not around at that time and the “pagan” way we bind the Bible today and put them into pages was all developed hundreds of years later. Or that we have “pagan” forms of communicating and use laptops, blogs and the internet (I am using hyperbole to make a point, but it is this type of reaction which I feel the book consists of in how it stresses many of it’s practical conclusions).

And my response:

That completely and totally misses the point. And Viola specifically addresses this in the book. He only looks at pagan elements, that have been added to the church, that have diminished the functional headship of Christ in the church. That reduce the organic nature of the church. Using Powerpoint to display lyrics or scripture for a sermon isn’t the issue, but having a professional worship leader and preacher define the liturgy for the entire assembly is. It is not that we can’t utilize modern technologies in the church, it is that we shouldn’t allow pagan/modern practices to redefine the church. (from Pagan Christianity and Frank Viola – Part 2 at dankimball.com)

This is actually a revision of Pagan Christianity, which was first released by Viola several years ago, and has apparently been out of print. With this revision, he’s partnered with George Barna. I’ve not read the original version of Pagan Christianity, but I’ve heard that this revision is much better on several levels.

While Rethinking the Wineskin actually focuses on church practices and principles described in the New Testament, Pagan Christianity focuses much more on the church practices (and their underlying principles) that have been added to the church since the New Testament era. It is really an impressive history book, detailing how certain practices were first introduced in the church. But it is also a criticism, for the practices Viola mentions have had detrimental effects on the functioning of the church:

• Church buildings: this idea is simply not found in Scripture, and Viola explains how the church building as a sacred space was connected to the use of relics (usually bones of dead saints) to create sacred, holy spaces as the only “appropriate” place to worship. Early Christianity intentionally stayed away from the “holy space” concept prevalent in every other religion. The financial overhead of a building is only one of the problems it creates. (As opposed the house.)
• Order of worship: the order of worship has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of years. The problem with a set, unalterable liturgy (whether spoken or set to song) is that it prevents the practical functioning of the body of Christ within church gatherings. Not only is it not found in scripture, it is directly at odds with descriptions found in scripture of early church gatherings as well as inconsistent with the theology of the body of Christ.
• Sermon: like the order of worship, the sermon takes control away from the body and places it in the hands of the individual. But sermons also were borrowed directly from pagan philosophy styles of the Greek sophists (the inventors of rhetoric) who were more interested in oratorical skill than in any kind of accuracy. The idea of a “trained speaker,” turned into “religious specialist” was taken from this tradition. This does not call teaching or preaching into question, but it certainly calls into question the regularly styled oratory and professional approach to preaching. Preaching as found in the New Testament was sporadic, spontaneous, dealt with an immediate situation, and lacked rhetorical structure. It also usually took on some form of dialogue rather than simply being an oratory.
• Pastor: The pastor is at the heart of preventing the body of Christ from functioning in the way demanded by New Testament theology. Pastoring is a spiritual gift, but the idea of the modern “pastor” is completely unbiblical. Its introduction to the church first began with Ignatius, who believed that “a bishop stood in the place of God while the presbyters, or elders, stood in the place of the twelve apostles.” Eventually these ideas morphed into the priest system. But it was always about separating God from man, establishing man-made structures and hierarchies to take the place of the organic leadership that Christ worked through in the early church.
• Sunday morning dress: “Dressing up for church” is a more recent issue, brought on about 150 years ago with the introduction of a middle class who could afford some nice clothes, and wanted to identify themselves with their more wealthy neighbors. But the idea of special clergy robes was integrated from the Roman court systems, and over time became yet another symbol of the separation of the clergy from the laity.
• Music ministers: the choir was borrowed from Roman imperial procedures for processional music, eventually leading to a specialization of singing by the choir alone. Similar to how preaching was viewed as requiring training in the methods and practices of oratory and was reserved for only professionals, the singing was reserved for the trained, professional members of the choir, creating a spirit of spectatorship that survives to this day.
• Tithing and salaries: the modern idea of a tithe has no basis in the New Testament, which calls believers to give according to their ability, and to give as they feel led to give, out of joy. The modern idea of the tithe exists as a result of the combination of the church with secular authority, which used the “tithe” as a way to forcibly fund church operations. Viola explains how tithing in the Old Testament was designed to help the poor, but in the modern understanding of a tithe, the church expects even the poor to give 10%, and makes them feel guilty if they are unable to do so. The tithe becomes a cop-out for those with a lot of money (because they can easily give the “required” 10% and ease their conscience), while becoming a burden of guilt on the poor. All to fund further religious specialization of the clergy, separating these same poor people from God and preventing the full functioning o the body of Christ.
• Baptism and communion: Baptism became a part of a larger religious ritual rather than the simple practical expression of faith as described in the New Testament. Many began to view the act of baptism as providing the forgiveness of sins – Constantine himself waited until his deathbed to be baptized for this reason. Communion in the New Testament was a full meal, with remembrance, celebration, and discipleship, as a center of the gathering community. It later became infused with ritualistic undertones, taking on elements of pagan mysticism to eventually become the Eucharist in the Catholic mass. The reformation changed the theology behind communion but it did little to change the practice itself, which still commonly has heavy ritualistic undertones.
• Christian education: After the institutionalization of Christianity, Christian education always followed the prevailing education methods of the day. With a focus on knowledge, Christian education has little in common with the methods Christ employed in discipleship. Christian education is at the heart of the “specialization” of Christian ministry to the select few, being a basis upon which a person is “called” to professional ministry. This concept has nothing in common with New Testament Christianity and is based completely in secular systems of training and credentials.

The reality is that all of these elements were absent from the early church. All of them were borrowed and adopted from pagan and religious systems. Few people will disagree with that. What people will disagree with is whether or not they hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ.

Wineskin talked a lot about these issues as well, but didn’t go into nearly the same level of detail about them. Likewise, Pagan Christianity deals somewhat with the New Testament church practices and principles, but doesn’t go into nearly the same detail as Wineskin. But I think to truly understand how these issues hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ, you have to look very closely at how God instructs the Church to be. And since today’s institutional church doesn’t take scripture very seriously in this regard, of course they will disagree with Viola’s style, tone, and conclusions.

Even still, those who agree with Viola are sometimes at a loss to put it all together. Viola also puts a lot of plugs in for a book coming out this summer, called Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity (to be released in August 2008). I’m pretty sure that this book will actually be a combination of a couple of Viola’s previous books, including Wineskin. I know that a lot of people had wished that Pagan Chrstianity had contained more practical descriptions of how to implement organic church principles – Viola has been pushing this upcoming book as the “response” to Pagan Christianity.

But I’m not sure that we should get too caught up looking for “practical” tips to implementing an organic church. Part of the point in things being organic is that they don’t look exactly the same everywhere. But every practical thing we try to do should be examined against the principles of the church, as described in the New Testament, and those following the path of organic church welcome others who can help guide them along the way.

I also don’t think it’s wrong to adopt styles and practices from surrounding culture, as long as they don’t redefine what it means to be the church, and as long as we don’t form some kind of new tradition around them. For instance, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hosting a concert-style worship event or a seminar-style teaching series, but I don’t think that these should become the defining characteristics of our church gatherings — which are more appropriately modeled after the relational form of discipleship that Christ employed. Keeping things organic helps to ensure that my “great idea” doesn’t obstruct how the church is supposed to function, and also helps to ensure that my idea doesn’t outlive its usefulness.

I think that the story of the church over the past 1700 years, most of all, has been one of religious leaders redefining church to be less and less organic and more and more institutional. We are beginning to see a paradigm shift back to an organic view of church. It started decades ago and is still growing. It might not really explode for decades more, but those of us whom God has called out of the institutional church to follow His call to a return to organic communities are glad to see authors like Viola and Barna put a voice to what God has been laying on our hearts. Some in the institutional church will respond as God puts in on their hearts as well, and others will lash out because it is too much of a challenge to their institutional worldview. If they had the power to silence it, many of them would try. This has always been the case when God speaks through His prophets, and we should expect no different today.

If you’ve not read this book, and issues of this nature are at all an interest to you, I highly recommend reading it. It will give you a very different perspective on the Sunday morning experience, and at a minimum, will help you to understand the perspective of your “organic church” contemporaries.

This is the conclusion to the series reviewing Rethinking The Wineskin by Frank Viola. See my introduction to the series, if you haven’t already, for the background discussion about the book.

By the way: I know that Amazon lists a really high price for this book. It’s actually kind of hard to get, but ChristianBook.Com (where I bought it from) still lists Rethinking the Wineskin for only $11.99. It currently shows it shipping in a couple of weeks.

It’s taken me some time to wrap this series up. I don’t usually go into as much detail with a “review.” But this book has really pushed me, as well as really voicing a lot of the things God has been pushing me (as well as my siblings) towards. This kind of detailed review is as much for me as it is for anyone who reads my blog. When something this important comes along, it helps me a lot to be able to capture a lot of quotes and my thoughts about them.

But I hope this has been challenging for you as well. And if you’re intrigued by my summaries, I highly recommend trying to pick up a copy. Viola is actually in the process of repackaging several of his books, and I suspect that this one will end up being repackaged as well. Hopefully even better.

There are so many things that we’ve touched on while examining what the “new wineskin” really is:

• Gatherings
• Common Meal
• The House
• Family/Community
• Leadership – Oversight
• Leadership – Visionary
• Purpose
• Membership
• Boundary
• Tradition

Viola finishes up the book dealing with a couple of topics, including looking at what other reform movements have done in the past couple of decades. Viola spends some time in the final chapter analyzing the shortcomings of several modern church movements, including the megachurch, the third wave and restoration movements, and cell churches, and has some things to say about how they really haven’t reformed very much. Viola is also highly critical of “house churches” that haven’t really adopted organic principles and practices.

That’s not to say that Viola feels that institutional churches can’t be used by God.

It is a fact that God has used and is using the institutional church. Because of His mercy, the Lord will work through any structure as long as He can find hearts that are truly open to Him.

But Viola is clear that the institutions themselves are more of a hindrance than people realize.

He spends most of his last chapter on what to do next. His assumption is that many people who read this book, currently in the institutional church, will wonder where to go from here and how to implement the principles he’s laid out in their current church.

Some have championed the idea of renewing the institutional church from the inside out. But those who have sought to revamp the established church have met serious resistance and frustration.

I’ve read similar quotes from other authors. I would say that most people who have gone down this path have entertained similar ideas, and I’ve personally put a lot of thought into what an existing institutional church could do to move toward the original wineskin described in the New Testament. As I’ve told some friends of mine who are pastors, I’ve love to see someone really try it. But I’ve become more and more skeptical about the possibilities. The most likely thing that would happen to an existing church, given that kind of pressure, is that it would be torn apart. You’ll never get dozens, hundreds, and especially thousands of people to have that kind of paradigm shift together. The early Christians did not “reform” Judaism by improving the institutional system, but instead created a completely new, organic church that defied all logic of worldly leadership and religion. We are faced with a similar task today in trying to rediscover the new wineskin.

It is the clergy/sectarian system that inhibits the rediscovery of face-to-face community, supplants the functional Headship of Christ, and stifles the full ministry of every believer. Consequently, all attempts at renewal will be short-sighted until the clergy structure and denominational system are dismantled in a local fellowship…

In sum, the modern church will never be renewed until it recognizes that the framework with which it operates is inadequate and self-defeating. Despite the good intentions of the persons that populate it, the interior design of the institutional church sets us up for defeat.

True renewal, therefore, must be radical. That means it must go to the root! Recovering the Lord’s testimony necessitates that we forsake our ecclesiastical patches and band-aids!

Again, this comes down to a paradigm shift. Those can happen radically within a generation, but it is usually a new generation that embraces such a shift. I believe this is one of the reasons why the average age of clergy is climbing rapidly. As described in Barna’s Revolution, this paradigm shift is beginning.

But people who have not made this shift cannot understand why those of us who have are so restless.

Those who have not had a paradigm shift regarding the church will either ignore or oppose those churches that have.

In the eyes of those who see the world through institutional glasses, unless a church meets in the “right” place (a building), has the “proper” leadership (an ordained pastor or priest), and bears the “correct” name (one that indicates a “covering”), it is not an authentic church! Instead, it is dubbed with innovative terms like “para-church.”

For those who have not yet grown weary of running on the program-driven treadmill of institutional “churchianity,” that which is abnormal is considered normal. And that which is normal is regarded as abnormal. This is the unhappy result of not basing our faith and practice upon Scripture.

Viola quotes Jon Zens to further emphasize how we have twisted scripture to support the existing institutional system:

It seems to me that we have made normative that for which there is no Scriptural warrant (emphasis on one man’s ministry), and we have omitted that for which there is ample Scriptural support (emphasis on one another).

On a final note, look again at Christ’s parable of the wineskins:

No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth over a hole in an old coat. Otherwise, the patch will shrink and pull away — the new patch will pull away from the old coat. Then the hole will be worse. Also, no one ever pours new wine into old leather bags. Otherwise, the new wine will break the bags, and the wine will be ruined along with the bags. But new wine should be put into new leather bags.(Mark 2:21-22, NCV)

The context of this statement is clearly comparing Christ’s ministry with the traditional Jewish system. He’s saying something very clear here – don’t mix what I’m doing with something that is not compatible! He’s still telling us that today. Christ modeled for His followers, on a daily basis, what it meant to follow Him, and what it meant to be the church. What it looked like to be the new wineskin. But we keep trying to put the new wine (Christ) into an old wineskin (religious institutions). God is challenging us to rediscover the wineskin Christ began, with the joy, peace, and fullness that comes along with it. May we be faithful to the task he left us:

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20, The Message)

May we be always reminded what the context of Christ’s command really is. They didn’t view this command as some kind of directive to do something completely different from the kind of leadership Christ modeled for them. They viewed this as a command to continue on in the practices and principles that Christ trained them in.

This series is reviewing Rethinking The Wineskin by Frank Viola. See my introduction to the series, if you haven’t already, for the background discussion about the book.

In Christianity, we have nearly 2,000 years of tradition behind us. How much of this helps us? How much of this hinders us?

I’m actually not going to focus much, right now, on the traditions of the last 1,900 years. Primarily because that’s a different book (one that I’ll do a short review of soon), but also because over the past couple of years I’ve made it my goal to tease out the tradition of men from my thinking. It’s an ongoing struggle, and will likely always be a struggle.

But the NT does talk about tradition – specifically, about apostolic tradition. The apostolic tradition is not a set liturgy or detailed description of worship gatherings. It is not a detailed description of how to organize churches geographically. It is not about obedience to some kind of new law of church practice. If it was, we would not need the guidance of the Spirit in our churches.

The apostolic tradition is all about the principles of following Christ in an organic way.

The apostolic tradition is the embodiment of those spiritual principles and organic practices that the apostles modeled in every church during the first century. It is the principles, methods, and lines of working that constitute the wineskin that God has formed to preserve His new wine.

In other words, Christ brought the new wine of the new covenant, and the apostles created the new wineskin of the church to contain the new covenant. Christ specifically said that the new wine could not be contained in the old wineskin. Therefore the apostolic tradition is essential if we with to truly reflect Christ in the church.

The NT presents the church in its purest form. It shows us what the church was like before it was tainted by the defiling hand of man… if we ignore Scripture on these points, we will make the perilous mistake of creating a church after our image.

I’ve been saying for awhile that I’m starting to take the NT more seriously. It is exactly because of this that the apostolic tradition becomes more important. For as much as the NT has to say about individual salvation and personal holiness, it has more to say about corporate holiness, our responsibilities to each other, and how we corporately interact with God. Viola quotes Stephen Kaung:

People believe that the Word of God shows them how to live individually before God, but they think that insofar as their corporate life is concerned, God says, ‘It’s up to you; do whatever you like.’ And that’s what we find today in Christianity; there is no guiding principle as to our corporate life – everyone does what is right in his own eyes. But dear brothers and sisters, we are saved individually, but we are called corporately… there is as much teaching and example in the Word of God that governs our corporate life as there is our personal life.

The apostolic tradition is the new wineskin. But we have held on to so much more that is either glaringly absent from the apostolic tradition, or even specifically forbidden. Professional clergy are never mentioned in the tradition. (Helping traveling ministers is mentioned, but Paul dislikes taking payment for ministry!) Single-leader and presentational systems are not mentioned, instead each member ministers to the entire body. In a time when religion was always combined with a “holy space,” Christians specifically refrained from building temples are basilicas for worship, instead intentionally choosing the simple relational format of the home. Denominations and church splits are specifically warned against. Unity was of the utmost importance.

Observing apostolic traditions means following what was theologically and spiritually significant in the experience of the early church. The apostolic tradition represents the balance between reenacting the specific actions of the first-century church and ignoring them… Multitudes of church leaders today have opted to regard their own ideas of “doing church” as wiser, more expedient, and more successful than what is found in the NT. The tragedy of this mistaken conclusion is manifold. When Divine tendencies are replaced with man-officiated programs and schemes, God’s ordained purpose for the ekklesia is crippled at best. It is crushed at worst.

I believe that the heart of the modern church’s problem in this area is pragmatism. The idea is that we are after tangible results. God will not be pleased unless we reach as many people as we can. A church building is necessary to reach the unsaved in suburban cultures. That paid pastoral staff serve a need in the church community. Et cetera.

But I believe that the Bible shows, time and time again, that it is not results from pragmatic approaches that God desires from us. God’s desire of us is simply to be obedient.

The tragic story of King David’s presumptuous act of placing the ark of the Lord upon a wooden cart is the summary witness that God’s work must be done His way (2 Sam. 6:1-7). The humanly-devised scheme of placing the holy ark upon a cart appeals to modern pragmatic ears. Yet the idea was borrowed from the heathen Philistines. And it violated the plain instruction of Jehovah.

There is simply nothing we can add to church practice that can be of any lasting value if we are not first and foremost obedient to the direct and obvious descriptions of church life, principle, and practice as described in the NT. This is the apostolic tradition. We would be very wise to compare our modern churches to it, and make any and all adjustments that we need to make in order to follow what has been handed down to us. Not what has been handed down to us through 1,900 years of human improvements. But what has been handed down to us directly from the apostles themselves, in the form of NT scripture. It is this, and only this measurement, with the guidance of the Spirit, that we have been given to adhere to. Pragmatism should be viewed as our enemy if it distracts us from obedience.

I’ll finish with a quote from A. W. Tozer about pragmatism:

What shall we do to break its power over us? The answer is simple. Acknowledge the right of Jesus Christ to control the activities of His church. The NT contains full instructions, not only about what we are to believe but what we are to do and how we are to go about doing it. Any deviation from those instructions is a denial of the Lordship of Christ. I say the answer is simple, but it is not easy for it requires that we obey God rather than man, and that brings down the wrath of the religious majority. It is not a question of knowing what to do; we can easily learn that from the Scriptures. It is a question of whether or not we have the courage to do it.