verse4today: "I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you" (Exodus 23:20).
Posted on 2012-02-10 via Twitter
H2O: At some time in your academic training you learned that H2O may appear in three different forms: water, ice, or vapor. You also learned that it can only appear in one form at a time; that H2O cannot simultaneously be both ice and water. You also learned that the three aspects of H2O share essential attributes, like hydrogen and oxygen, but also hold distinguishable characteristics that allow us to identify one form of H2O as water and another as ice.
THE CHURCH: In the New Testament, the word "church," which comes from the Greek ekklesia, literally means "called out." It is most accurately translated as an assembly of people or an assembling of people. When applied to followers of Jesus, like those in first-century Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), the word "church" refers to a group of Christians who, in response to God's invitation, assemble to respond to God's grace. This understanding of the word led the notable theologian, Hans Kung, to conclude that the church properly exists when it assembles. Of course the New Testament uses the word "church" with reference to a group of Christians who may or may not be gathered, as in its references to a group of congregations in a particular region or to the entire body of Christ (Colossians 1:24), but Kung is on to something. The primary definition of the word "church" in the New Testament is "a local assembly."
H2O & THE CHURCH: It may be helpful to make another distinction with regard to the church, one illustrated by H2O. Local congregations of believers may take one of two shapes, but never simultaneously. These two shapes are the Gathered Church and the Scattered Church. The Gathered Church is that group of Christians who come together, in one space at one time, typically on the first day of the week, to participate in a liturgy or worship service. When we gather we are, in fact, a temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 3:16), enjoy the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and more. Once the liturgy for the weekly gathering comes to an end, the Lord sends us, his disciples, back into the world where we seek, by God's grace, to fulfill our manifold callings or vocations. By disbursing, we become the Scattered Church.
The Gathered Church and the Scattered Church share some essentials, just as water and ice share the essentials of hydrogen and oxygen. The apostle Paul catalogs some of those essentials in Epheisans 4:4-7: one hope, one faith, one baptism, etc. However, and this is a point many miss, just as we may distinguish water from ice, we may distinguish the Gathered Church from the Scattered Church. The Gathered Church, for example, is a corporate entity which meets in one place at one time for the purpose of corporate worship, while the Scattered Chuch exists primarily through individuals worshiping the Lord with their lives as they faithfully fulfill their callings in the world (Romans 12:1). One might say that the Gathered Church is corporate and the Scattered, individualistic. One is out of the world; the other in the world. One a temple of the Holy Spirit; the other, temples of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, just as H2O cannot be both ice and water at the same time, the local church cannot be simultaneously gathered and scattered. It must be one or the other. It is either a corporate entity gathered out of the world or a collection of individuals sent into the world. And here is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. Many these days suggest that the church not only gather for worship or its weekly liturgy, but it also gather for service in the world. Some even think it a good idea to occasionallly cancel the Sunday morning worship service for that very purpose. But we would be hard-pressed to find scriptural mandates or examples of God sending the corporate church into the world to live and serve as a corporate entity. While we find the church gathering for a purpose other than worship in the so-called "Council of Jerusalem" (Acts 15), that gathering is, shall we say, out of the world, not in it. When we look at the New Testament church, we discover that the primary means by which the church serves the community is not by gathering as a corporate entity in the community, but by scattering throughout the community and fulfilling our vocations wherever God places us. The issue, then, is not whether or not the local church serves its community; Christ followers have been called by God to be salt and light to the world, as well as living witnesses to the Gospel. The fundamental question is which church serves the community: The Gathered or the Scattered?
APPLICATION: Why this distinction between the Gathered and the Scattered Church? The April 2009 edition of the Banner, the denominational magazine of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA), includes an article, written by two veteran pastors in the CRCNA, Allen Likkel and Jul Medenblik, with this provocative title: "Does Your Church Have the Right to Exist?" While the parameters of the magazine don't allow the authors to fully develop an answer to the question, the article does convey the authors' conviction that a church only has a right to exist when it serves the needs of the community: when it establishes a tangible, real, incarnate, corporate presence in the community. Echoing contemporary authors like Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost, the argument is flushed out with a couple verses, such as John 20:21 ("As the Father sent me, I am sending you") and Matthew 5:13-16 (You are the "salt and light" of the world), and references to folk like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who once wrote, "The church is only the church when it exists for others."
Now, I really don't disagree with the general thrust of Likkel and Medenbliks' proposal. Clearly, as they noted, Jesus sent his apostles into the world (John 20:21) and commissioned each disciple to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16). In addition, as noted in the article, the apostle Paul, as a church planter, shared both the Gospel and his life with the Christians in Thessalonica (I Thessalonians 2:8); like Paul, we may have opportunity to do the same.
Personally, however, I believe that the verses cited teach us that God calls individual followers of Jesus, not the corporate and local congregation, to visible, tangible service in the world. In John 20:21, for example, Jesus sent his apostles, not the church, into the world to fulfill their individual callings as heralds of the Gospel. In Matthew 5, Jesus challenged individual disciples, not the corporate church, to be salt and light in the world. In 1 Thessalonians 2:8, Paul defends his ministry by commenting how he shared the Gospel and his life with the church in Thessalonica, not the community of Thessalonica.
So, based on those scripture passages, as well as others, I would like to propose a different route to a similar destination, which is the church serving its community. This alternative path is founded upon the following convictions:
Finally, and most important for this conversation, the Gathered Church, if it hopes to reach the destination of the local church serving its community, must resist the temptation to gather at the expense of the Scattered Church. In my estimation, the Gathered Church gathers too frequently, calling people out of the world, not just for worship, but to maintain a lengthy menu of ministries and exhausting legacy of traditions. We need Gathered congregations who minimize their time together so that they might maximize their presence in the community as faithful followers of Jesus fulfilling their divine callings as spouses, parents, children, neighbors, citizens, co-workers, civic volunteers, politicians, and more. When that happens, one member of a church engages the community by teaching at the local public school, another by serving as a social worker, another as an attorney, another as a garbage man, another as a Little League coach, another as a volunteer with the Girl Scouts, and so on. Furthermore, when that happens, we serve the community without compromising the validity and value of our weekly Gathering, that time when we come together, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, for passionate worship, relevant teaching and authentic community.
I appreciate your desire to define the role and even nature of the church. I see that among other roles the gathered assembly is to do so for:
1. Instruction in the word of God, or for a word from God. In the O.T. God would call his people to gather when he needed them to remember, or had some information he want to tell them. This in some ways is the most interesting to me. Do we have folks or our pastor who is so intune that they can call the assembly together because they have been told by God that he wishes to speak to his people? What would we think of a member or pastor who all of a sudden called for such a meeting? Would we believe them--or believe God even still works in this way?
John 1:1 states that the word became flesh. I feel that this is what we are called to do--scattered church. We put skin on the word, just as Jesus put became flesh. But, we must gather for instruction. 2. The gathered community are called to stand out. Just as God called Abraham to be a called out people--an example to the rest of the world, the gathering of the church models hopefully the continued fulfillment of this calling out. Come out from where you are modeling a corporate solidarity and corporate worship in a pagan world. 3. The gathered community comes to give God his due. Just as we will one day stand together heaven and worship as the collective people of God, we stand now, “the kingdom of God is near.”
Question: What do you mean by expense of the scattered church in conjunction with frequency? The church (God’s people in the world) suffers when they neglect teaching, worshiping, and gathering because I believe the church scattered and gathered becomes weak and sickly. Paul admonishes the church to not neglect worshiping together as some were choosing to do.
To the degree that we can share our worship experience with a LIVING GOD can we best be salt and light in the world. When they say, “Look he or she so enjoys their LIVING experience with God that they go to church rather than a,b, or c do we testify. To the degree we can divine the true word from false, and clearly tell others of the faith to which we hold can we be truly salt and light as we like Christ preach right from wrong, the world from God’s wisdom. To the degree that we come together to support one another as family members can we model that God is calling a people out of this world and promising a new future.
I agree that we often meet to serve ourselves. But, it is in the gathered setting in which the teaching, modeling, and worshiping must occur if we are to be well equip, as the scattered church.
Take care,
guy