We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us - Sir Winston Churchill
What was Winston Churchill talking about? Well he had observed a truth that not many
people talk about. This truth is that humans are effected by our environment
and that means the actual buildings we dwell in. I want to show clearly that Jesus wanted
people to meet in family environments, usually homes, for a reason. This is quite a detailed observation yet crucial to our understanding of what we have been born (again) into.
First we must ask what the purpose of the Church is. Most will say evangelism. I would say it is for evangelism but
primarily for the people of God to be met by their ‘family’ who are in Christ
together. This being ‘met’ means
experiencing the acceptance, affirmation, love and care that the body of Christ
family offers. From that place of having
been met by this, we can go out and contrast this world, being radiantly
different without opening our mouths!
This in turn attracts interest from those not yet in Christ.
I think I’ve just described Matthew 5:16. In the same way, let your
light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your
Father in heaven.
But what is ‘in the same way?’ Jesus mentions salt and light and here the
reference is to two elements of the Old Testament purposes. The light refers to the overall aim of Israel
in the Promised Land – ‘Light to the nations’ Isaiah Ch 60, 49:6, 42:6 are
examples of how Israel was to aid the salvation of the nations by shining out
the Glory and goodness of God… ideally.
Because this didn't go too well we have plan ‘B’… Salt.
When the nation had fallen away from pure worship of Yahweh
God sent Elijah to tell them to repent.
In 2 Kings 2 Elijah and his servant Elisha take Joshua’s ‘in-road’ OUT
of the Land! This is scrupulously
documented stage by stage with Prophets interpreting this journey every
step. It is my observation that this was
a Messianic type. It was a vicarious
exit from the land back in to the desert, a place of choice and decision. This exit from the land is a picture of
Christ giving his life for the lost.
Elijah and Elisha reverse the journey into the Land on behalf of the
people who were lost in the apostasy.
Elijah is taken to heaven and Elisha goes back into the Land with a
double portion. At Jericho he takes salt
and the waters are healed.
Because of the finished work of Christ, a Christian is light
(a means where God can show the unsaved
his glory) and salt (the healing
for his own who have lost their way). This is what the hearers at the time of Jesus
would have heard. What has this got to
do with meeting in homes? Simply, Jesus
wants you to be salt and light and environment affects this dynamic. A version
of salt and light is just a version. I
want to propose that we can only be genuine salt and light by meeting in the
environment Jesus says is better for us. Let’s look at where the two main
environments came from.
The majority of Christians including possibly you believe
that it isn’t important how you meet because it is the heart that matters. What this refers to is the heart toward God
and to this extent I would agree. Our
hearts towards God is the important thing.
However we cannot exist in isolation.
We must engage other believers and this is extremely clear that
Christians should meet with other Christians. It is this dynamic where most
Christians have little understanding.
They think ‘If I’m right with God, nothing else matters.’ This is not true at all! The very mechanism
of your growth in the Lord is your engaging with your brothers and sisters by
the Lords own design! So ‘ is your heart
right?’ is just one important element to our Christian walk. Also central is ‘how do you engage your
brothers and sisters?’
Assuming we are right with the Lord, walking in faith and
repentance we then have to engage our in-Christ family. This has to be on the
Lord’s terms, the way he planned it. Let
me explain how this goes wrong. Soon
after the Apostles died those who came after began edging into their own way of
meeting and many today feel this was an ok thing to do. The way to meet together became a hybrid of
what the Apostles demonstrated and what leaders thought should happen. In the 4th Century there was a
huge change that took place. Instead of opposing and sometimes persecuting
Christians, the Emperor accepted Christianity as the state religion. This looks like a good thing and what came of
this also looked like a great idea.
Emperor Constantine was both head of the Empire and head of
the Christian Church. If you had the
same scripture to look at, ‘be salt and light’ AND you had power, influence and
resource you would probably do what he did.
The Roman Empire had defeated nearly all the known world. It had a
method by which it efficiently conquered and managed its subjects. Here’s an idea… lets structure the Church
like the Empire! If we do this it will,
like Rome, conquer the nations with the gospel!
This looks like a logical and rational plan!
So with Rome as a general blueprint for expansion and
conquering it was entirely reasonable to produce the elements that caused this
success in the church. With this in
view, they recreated the way leadership worked.
They had an Emperor at the top and ranked leadership all the way down to
the professional clergy. Rome worked
with municipal centres that governed locally.
This was what the church became, meeting places in the community serving
(over) the people. Because this was now
a state religion, not the choice of an individual based upon revelation from
the Gospel, all people attended. The
people needed to see why they were there so rituals and ceremonies became the
Christian service so that the people could partake and ‘be’ Christians. This all occurred over time and gave birth to
the Roman Catholic Church.
This Church became powerful, a religion with all the
components of the Roman war machine. It
wasn’t a war machine though… except for when it was! It persecuted other Christian expressions and
locked horns with Islam in the Crusades.
The Roman Catholic Church became the Holy Roman See, a powerful
political entity, not much to do with Jesus Christ.
After the Reformation the Protestors were born. These Protestants centralised their focus
back to God and his word but failed to eliminate the actual components that
made Rome what it was. The local
offices, professional clergy, ritualistic services and ranked leadership was
never addressed. So even to this day we
still see the components of Rome in Protestant churches all over the
world.
In the last 30 years there have
been upgrades to this way to meet. The
leaders have become more able, the buildings more contemporary. Ritual is at a minimum and many don’t want to
be over anyone else. All well and good,
but this still has the fingerprint of Rome and while it is there we can never
be anything but Rome in it’s aims and objectives.
Evidence for this is the addiction to evangelism in this
gathering. Let me be clear, I
passionately want to see the lost saved, but not at the expense of the Lord’s
primary purpose. Most Christians see the
purpose of the Church as conquest into the unsaved regions of the world. The
reason this is the beating heart of the believer is because the church
structure and environment yells TASK!
It’s all about getting a job done, the very reason the church became
Romanised. They took away the family and
replaced it with industry.
I’ve been in churches where there’s a sweet fellowship time
after the singing, praying, notices, sermon and communion. But there is an agenda. The higher priority is what I do, where my
role and function is before my relational bond with my family. That we are family is THE core priority for
the Lord and what issues from this changes the world. The shattering truth is that Rome is not only
found in the Mass at the local Roman Catholic Church. It is found ingrained into our psyche. When we meet in the practices of Rome we are
powerless to resist the drive toward conquest.
All we have done is fitted scriptures around it. We are incapable of even seeing Scripture
outside the boundaries of our Roman Ecclesiology. Of course you don’t do what those ‘horrid
Catholics’ do for Church but you still have the component parts! The leaders still serve up ‘God’s Word’ for
you. You may not think the bread and
wine become Jesus’ flesh but you still separate them out ritualistically. You don’t believe the Pope but you follow a
vision statement made by men.
The denominational Church and those who do what they do are
still bound by Rome in practice. When
the believers meet together it isn’t on the basis of being met by family, it is
to be equipped for service. I will
suggest that this starting point is what has good people enter a lost world and
see minimum impact.
Trying to be family won’t work. Actually being family will over time. This is
at the core of what I am observing as a Reformation of church practice. Or, is
it a revolution of the heart to dig deeper into our core beings and have the
Lord excavate everything
1 Cor 10:5 Casting
down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of
Christ;
Its easier to dismiss
these observations than get with a program that finally extracts Rome from our
walk with God.
Gary Ward
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