I had a brief but thought-provoking discussion yesterday with the guys about what could happen with the network church as I’ve been thinking about it. However, it was just as valuable to think about what’s impossible for a church or a city full of Christians to do at this point. Why are these things impossible, and what, if anything, can be done about it?
It’s impossible, for now at least…
- For everyone to agree on doctrine
- For everyone to agree to disagree amicably on doctrine
- For everyone to agree on practice
- For people to hold strong their beliefs, yet still accept others who believe differently as equally valid members of the same faith (our book group is starting Exclusion & Embrace, so I may have a different perspective on this soon)
- For one group of elders to lead a metropolitan church (i.e. all the Christians in a city)
- For churches to stop doing what they’re doing overnight (and I don’t think they should)
Given these constraints, what’s possible for a network church model, and what are the goals? More on that later.
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I think that it is possible to Love God with all our hearts and worship Him. If we take our eyes off everything else and only open our hands to Christ our exdistenctive will melt. If we look into each others eyes and see Christ we will not see the differences. The biggest problem that I have is that I point to Christ with only one finger and hold on to all my degrees, theologies and likes and dislikes with the other 4 fingers. I have a real hard time letting go of my stuff to let Jesus be the center of my life. Beyond that is there anything that is important.
Don, I have no idea what an “exdistenctive” is but I would challenge you on the idea that we can (or should) unify ourselves around “Christ.” Isn’t that the whole problem to begin with? Who “Christ” is or what “Christ” means is precisely what no one can agree about. What does it mean to point to Christ? What does it mean to let Jesus be the center of your life? The moment those questions start to be answered is the moment the “differences” become evident. I don’t even think the unification of difference is desirable, much less possible. It seems to me that the question at stake here is not whether Justin, et al., are believing fervently enough but whether religious community is even possible to begin with (by “possible” I mean without doing violence to that inevitable difference). I’m quite skeptical on the matter myself but am certainly open to contrary opinions.
I stand justly corrected. You are right I am wrong. Once I saw your reply I went I missed it. Heaven certainly looks inviting!
Good points, Justin. Kind of disheartening to think about, but I think guys like you and various others are helping to explore other possibilities. I think with enough experimentation and exploration we’ll see some great things emerge.
Unity is not currently possible on a city/regional level because we are programmed with an individualistic ethic concerned primarily with preserving our rights, freedoms, and comfort. Combine that with high value placed on consumeristic religious experience in most churches. Add to it a highly westernized version of reality that cannot allow gray area and you have disconnected individuals looking for church to satisfy their god deficiencies, to tell them what to think and to pat them on the back when we hate others who think differently.
That’s about your first question. What is possible? Nothing. I think we’ll always be hateful, selfish people until we are transformed. Despite being raised a Christian and ‘being saved’, I feel as though I have sleep-walked through life until recently. The awakening involves a conviction that I have been obsessed with myself (what I think is right, what I deserve is the priority, etc.). Network church is doomed to the same failures unless (and maybe this lends hope to establishment churches) we individually and collectively experience real transformation. It isn’t quick or clean as I am finding I am always in danger of going back to sleep.
I guess that I have to be okay with the fact that God is bringing about the Kingdom and I only need to figure out how to participate in that. While even this general activity can be seen as a doctoral item that can be debated I’m not much interested in debate. If believing or not believing in a certain doctrine (or not believing the right way) disqualifies me for the Kingdom then so be it.
I don’t think unity as we tend to think of it is possible on a metropolitan level because we don’t have metropolitans, i.e. bishops, any more. The unity in the early church came at a price - some people were judged as wrong, and were excluded.
That’s a harsh reality to look back on, but I think the conclusion is unavoidable. If we strive for unity on doctrine or practice, it can only come by drawing a smaller circle that only includes the people we agree with.
But maybe that’s too corporate an approach to unity. Maybe we think of it that way because we’re used to the church being wealthy and powerful. Agreement matters a lot more when you have money to spend. What if we stopped looking at unity as a way to control resources?
Maybe a network church can work without unity. Blogs are a great example - I highly doubt the people who read and link to this blog agree with me on everything (not even I agree with myself a few months later in some cases). When has anyone complained about a lack of unity in blogs? Never that I can recall. Maybe the church should adopt this approach.
Justin, I’d be interested to hear you develop that some more.
Hmmm. I see what you’re saying. I guess I was understanding ‘unity’ in terms of a shared identity. The corporate unity you describe does seem as if it has as its main priority control. However, the unity in an ideal world (what’s the word for that again?) is a people bound by their master. Maybe we’re back to the starting point here because the question again… is this shared identity feasible in a network church approach?
Cliche alert: I heard someone giving advice for marriage. He said run as fast as you can at God and then look to the side to see who is running the same speed and then marry that person. Cheese, but it rang true for me. I think unity (shared identity in Christ regardless of corporate affiliation) in a network model occurs when we run, run, run and then look around and see who’s right there.
It doesn’t address your questions about doctrine. I believe we have to rediscover or reinterpret what all of our churchy words mean. Is unity total agreement? No. Is fellowship a potluck? No. Is worship singing lame songs? No. There is always an organizing principle in any interaction between to or more people. Through discussions like this maybe we are understanding better and worse ways to relate as a church.
Tim, I think the catch to your analogy might be: how do you recognize those who are running beside you? What are the identity markers?
Hi Tim,
To put a different spin on it, what if we did not consider group membership part of the question of church?
Certainly, group membership was a big deal to the early church, as Paul’s writings make clear. However, the early church was largely Jewish, and therefore had a powerful attraction to the concept of group membership.
Of course, there plenty of groupings that we could consider relevant to church life (saved, unsaved, member of our denomination, member of another denomination, atheist, agnostic, leader, backslider, lukewarm, etc.). But what if we stopped thinking of these categories as relevant to us, however God might choose to use them?
Hey Justin. I like what you’re saying. It seems that you’re suggesting we move past human labels and see what God might have behind that. It feels like God is there! Maybe I’m caught up on something that is irrelevant. I don’t think God cares about our labels or memberships. So what I was trying to say is that there is an organizing principle though to us it is not clearly definable. There are those able to see what God is doing and to join in and there are those that don’t or at best are hit and miss in their participation. Maybe we’re too caught up on this explanation and not involved enough in seeing and doing. My hunch is that the others like us will become visible (in the physical and virtual world).