In case you’re wondering, I don’t have any posts in the works about ecclesiology. It just doesn’t interest me the way it once did.

I’m still getting free emerging church books every few weeks, and in fact just got Phyllis Tickle’s new The Great Emergence, which Brian McLaren calls “the most important book of the year.”

I may or may not end up reading it; The Divine Conspiracy is our next book group book, so that’ll probably occupy my limited free time.

I’m not sure if this interest will return, but I wanted to explain the lack of posting on church-related matters. We’re happy at the Ohana Project, which is enough like the church we started that it’s comfortable and different enough to be challenging. And the people are great - I’m realizing relationships are far more important than church structure.

Having been to a few churches other than the one I helped to start in the past few months, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am very, very hard to please. I almost always encounter something I’m uncomfortable with, and not necessarily in a good way.

As I’ve mentioned, that feeling is minimal when I’m with the great people at Ohana Project, and I’m starting to realize that (gasp) church should not exist to make me happy. This should really be no revelation, because we set out to plant a church that was free from the consumeristic, church-shopping mindset that informs the design of so many church plants.

We’ve avoided suburban “perfect-fit” churches intentionally, and have no interest in visiting them. I’m sure we could find one that would fit us like REI gear, but I’m not convinced that would be a good idea.

And yet, as I look back on what we did as a church when we were meeting on Sundays, it was very closely tailored to our personal preferences. This wasn’t a matter of marketing, but of the fact that we naturally did what seemed best to us. There was no one else to market to us, but we were constructing a church that would be the way we wanted it (for better or for worse).

One of the downfalls of this approach, I realized recently when speaking with Jeremy, was that we left discipleship (our own and others’) out of the equation. We held gatherings, which I liked, but did not get much out of them in the way of challenge to live a holy life - since it was up to us to challenge ourselves, not a lot of discipleship occurred.

All this makes me wonder whether you can ever be satisfied in a church that’s good for you. I think we’re so shaped by consumerism that we have lost the habit of being comfortable in situations that aren’t tailor-made to suit our preferences.

One of the things I like about Ohana, as I said the other day, is that I’m not in charge, so it’s not left up to me to challenge myself. That may make me feel uncomfortable from time to time, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I should break out of the assumption, expressed either by being in charge or by ruthlessly church-shopping, that church should make me comfortable and happy.

If you realized that my previous post about church was written in celebration of April 1, you might be wondering what I really think.

The truth is that we’ve been going to The Ohana Project for several weeks, and plan to continue doing so. This is in spite of the fact that I don’t like worship services and am not nearly as charismatic as most OP-ers.

So why are we going? Not surprisingly, it’s about the people. We knew several OP regulars before we started attending, and found out that we knew even more people when we started going. They’ve been great to us, even though I have a reputation for being perpetually dissatisfied with church.

The nice thing is that we’ve had the opportunity to not really worry about whether everything at church is being done the way we’d do it. Unlike many churches that we could doubtless find in the city and in the suburbs, OP is not tailor-made to suit my whims and preferences. And I like that.

It’s good to, for a change, be with other believers who have a vision and a passion for what they’re doing, without my having to be involved in making the decisions. I don’t mean that I want to just show up and not get involved, but for now I’m enjoying being in a community where other people make the decisions.

As I said in my post “Professionalism” a few months ago, one of the things I’m tired of with church is the lack of professionalism. Amy and I have been doing different things church-wise over the last few months, and while it’s been a good time of decompression, I think it’s time to find a church that can fulfill our needs and do so in a reasonably professional manner.

I’m fairly familiar with the churches in the area, and have decided that Overlake Christian Church is the place we need to be at this stage in our lives. They have enough service times, parking spaces, and worship leaders that we finally will not have to worry about any of those things.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about making this shift in my ecclesiology, and have concluded that bigger is better. A church like OCC can achieve economies of scale in ways that smaller churches can’t. It’s the best of both worlds - no wasted resources, and professional services.

I’ll also be relieved to be attending worship services again. God wants us to attend worship services, as 2000 years of church history have clearly shown. It’s humbling to only realize this after so long a journey.

See you at OCC on Sunday. We’ll be in section 3, row M, seats 55 and 56.

I’ve maintained for some time now that a Sunday service does not validate or invalidate a church, and in principle, I still believe this.

Yet I can’t seem to shake the feeling that a church isn’t a church without a Sunday service, or at least a replacement service of a similar format at some other time. We still do our theological book groups on alternating Tuesdays and Film Night on alternating Saturdays, which have varying degrees of impact on my life.

It’s been a few months now since we stopped meeting on Sundays, and while we went to a few great churches on Sundays for a few weeks, we haven’t gone anywhere in a while. I’m thinking of going to a Presbyterian church (maybe U Pres) on Sunday.

I think we need a level of involvement and activity that’s higher than what we’re doing now, but not necessarily as high as we grew up with. Of course, there are many factors that give church attendance a different role in the life of faith. But I’m not sure exactly what those are right now.

Still figuring it out. Peace.

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.

As part of my continuing series on the as-yet-undefined “network church,” I’d like to explore the relationship between church community and dining.

I don’t think churches should be seen as providers of products and services. The seeker-sensitive, consumeristic model in which people church-shop in order to find the best fit for their family doesn’t resonate with me. Nor does it seem to me what Jesus had in mind for his people.

I’m not sure where this similie will go, or if it will be logical and complete when I’m done, but try this on:

Our modern model of congregationalism is like always eating at the same restaurant.

We’d find it rather strange and possibly unhealthy if someone ate every meal at the same restaurant. Even if their choice was fairly healthy, it does seem a bit unbalanced to depend on one restaurant for all of your dining needs.

Similarly, I consider strange our notion that you should just belong to one church (even though there may be hundreds in your area) and only have one group of Christian peers, instead of forming a network of Christians that can help you live in the way of Christ.

But wait, you say. I thought Justin didn’t like the idea of churches as service providers. Isn’t a restaurant’s job to feed people? Is he or isn’t he saying churches should “feed” people spiritually? And isn’t church-hopping even more consumeristic and narcissistic than church-shopping?

Within the dominant model of churches as competing service providers, yes. Jumping from one church to the next so you can get the best of each, without all the responsibility and commitment of belonging to a single congregation, is incredibly self-serving and consumeristic.

But maybe the practice seems wrong because the system in which it’s possible is wrong. I think we’re going to see more and more people not really belonging to a single church, but hopping between different activities, services, and gatherings of different churches in their area (as well as events such as conferences and concerts that aren’t organized under the auspices of a single church). You may not like this trend, but I think it’s only going to increase.

So let’s look at what might be wrong with the current model, at least as compared to the early church and what we’re actually told in scripture (not that churches are wrong, but that we might not have figured everything out fully yet):

• We have one set of elders per congregation rather than one set per town
• We have churches organized as nonprofit organizations. In the US, a nonprofit organization is a type of company. The motive is not profit, but the challenges this introduces are similar. Hmmm, I don’t think I can find a scripture reference for how to structure local churches as legal organizations.
• We have a single, paid staff person called the pastor/priest/preacher/minister, who is basically in charge of everything for the local congregation (subject to the approval of the congregation’s elders or denominational oversight structure). I’d love to see a case for this made on the basis of scripture, really.

I say this not to attack 99% of the churches in the world, but to put in their place those who get high and mighty when defending the status quo.

I think the best models for church life are yet to come, meaning they aren’t on the radar yet, though they will be soon. It will be painful for congregations that have built themselves up as nonprofits to thrive in this environment, and easier for low-overhead, low-key groups that are OK with people being transient and having overlapping commitments to various communities of faith.

Doesn’t that make sense? Would a restaurant owner get mad if his customers ate at another restaurant? Or would he simply strive to provide something of value to the customer, while recognizing that he’s not the only one in the business capable of doing so?

Ultimately, though, maybe we don’t need so many restaurants. We need some, but maybe we need more grocery stores, markets, farms, co-ops, and cooking classes.

A committee was recently formed at the elementary school where I work to address the problem of the playground grass. Due to constant heavy use and inadequate summer watering, there are many uneven and bare spots.

The committee quickly focused on one key goal: getting the grass to a healthy, sustainable state. This will require installing an upgraded irrigation system, aerating and treating the soil, reseeding, and watering the grass over the summer.

Why is this necessary? If the grass is to fulfill its purpose in providing a safe play area for kids, it needs to be able to sustain itself, so the investments that have been made in it will not be lost. True, we could just lay down new sod every few months, but this would be wasteful and financially unsustainable.

The sustainability issues for any organization are similar:

• The system must be able to tolerate the wear and tear caused by its normal functioning for its intended purpose
• Sustainability requires investment and long-term planning
• Sustainability requires moderation, so that resources are not expended more rapidly than they can be replenished
• The system must provide sufficient value to those who are investing in and maintaining it

As you may have guessed, this is another post about the church.

The church should of course be a sustainable organism. How, exactly, though, should it be organized in order to best fulfill its purposes while using resources wisely and being sustainable for the long term?

I would first suggest that the church and the organizations formed within it should not be viewed in the same way, nor should community be equated with an organization.

If we are moving toward a model of church-as-network, we will need to start considering some nodes in that network transient and some more enduring. This is virtually heresy to many people, since a church (congregation) is seen as something that should always continue to exist, and if a church stops meeting, it’s seen as a bad thing.

Certainly, it is sad when a community of people stop spending time together - this is true whether or not we’re talking about a church. But is it bad for a church to die, any more than it’s bad for a plant to die and another take its place?

(I should add that while our church is not meeting on Sundays any more, we are still spending time together as a community in other contexts. This is a common misconception, and I wanted to be clear on this point.)

The question, then, is: what types of organizations, communities, and gatherings should be created with sustainability in mind?