Why do organizations and institutions that at one time
dominated their area of focus seem to, eventually, fall aside? I serve a
denomination that at one time in the history of the United States boasted that
one in every five citizens were Methodist of some fashion. Those days are long
past. Ironically The Book of Discipline, the prevailing guidelines for
Methodists was a scant 100 very small pages. Now the rules have tripled, The
Discipline has exploded and the churches have
What comes to your mind when you hear the
word “church?” I believe in the church because it is God’s plan to save the
world placed into human hands. But most of the time when I hear the word
“church” it relates to a solemn structure on the corner of intersection that is
largely ignored. This is not how the church started.
The
church started as a movement.
Movements move.
Matthew 28:18 Then
Jesus came to them and said, “All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, 20 and
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you
always, to the very end of the age.”
John 20:21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has
sent me, I am sending you.”
Acts 1:7 He
said to them: “It is not for you
to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit comes on you; and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth.”
In these texts we
are reminded that we are called to move, to “go,” to be sent, not to be sitting
in stained glass mortuaries waiting on others to come to us. The church is
called to “make disciples,” “be my witnesses,” and journey to the ends of the
earth, not sit and soak on Sunday morning. The church started as a movement,
but became a monument.
The
church became a monument.
How did it happen? How did a dynamic
movement of Spirit empowered believers settle for becoming a monument? I think
it is in our nature to try to organize, systematize, and memorialize what God
is doing.
From the Old Testament we (people) have
struggled with understanding God who is “trans-local” or who cannot be
contained in a single location or place. We like our gods located. The people
of Israel had the Ark of the Covenant; then the tabernacle; and then they built
the Temple. They sought to put God in a trunk, then a tent, and then in a
temple. Every time we try to “locate” God it allows us to ignore him everywhere
else. God becomes separated from our daily lives and we practice a kind of
visitation of the holy. We sequester him from our homes, businesses, and
relationships. Christians carried on the tradition of locating God in a place.
For three hundred years the “church”
exploded. With almost not physical structures, worship was held in small
“oikos” communities, usually gathered in homes. There were deacons, bishops,
and overseers to insure accountability and a measure of orthodoxy, but without
the constraints of “locating God” these organic expressions of spiritual family
grew and thrived. By the time Constantine took over as emporer more that half
of the know world was Christian, then things got messy.
Constantine sought to organize,
systematize, memorialize, and institutionalize the church. He did this by
formally establishing a system of government that mirrored the Roman Empire.
Romans were a building people, they understood buildings (so well many still
remain today). So, they built chapels and cathedrals. Bones of saints were
buried beneath the altars of the most holy places and, before long, the
movement erected monuments and God was located in a box again.
Even the word “church” is not really a
Christian concept. It comes from the pagan tribes that once inhabited what is
now Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. “Kirk.” “kirkja” or “kirch”:
The lord’s house—German term for a place or ritualized ceremonies. Pagan
cultures built buildings to hold their gods where they could go when then
needed to to get what they wanted? Consumerist religion isn’t anything new.
Early on English translations adopted
this term rather than the understanding of “gathering” or “ekklesia.” Before
long the church was located was in a building. This was easy to understand in a
culture dominated with Kings and Lords who owned all the land, the landowner
had power and provided for the welfare of the people. The church bought into
this idea. So whoever controlled the building controlled the souls of the
people and the interpretation of the scripture. This simple linguistic change from
“gathering” to “gathering place” laid the groundwork of stopping the movement
of the church and causing us to see the church as a monument. “Here’s the
church, here’s the steeple, control it and control the people.”
How do we reclaim the movement? That’s
for another time.
