Re-Imagining The Church: Through The Years

we're going to talk about reimagining the church but reimagining it through the years what should Church look like I me we've asked this question several times and I think we started asking it again during covid and after covid what should Church look like well it's it's not just being asked by us it's being asked by faith communities all over the world and even here in the states where there are there's still money and there's still jobs prices have gone up so much that traditional churches are struggling you may not know this but in many places insurance is almost impossible to get for church buildings now there are entire regions in America that are the insurance people are pulling out of church insurance for a variety of reasons and I'm not sure I understand them all but I've read about it and read from churches that are now struggling without any insurance cover there are banks that have decided they they're going to pull back on loans because loaning to churches in this environment doesn't make any sense to them contributors are being squeezed by the economy that's not news to you you're being squeezed I am as well I can remember when fast food also meant cheap food not So Much Anymore you know you have to take in mortgage papers uh but you you you you get the bill and you're going well that that was fast that went from here to there pretty fast brick and mortar is getting more and more expensive that I've read several articles recently about bad Boomer people if you don't know what Boomer people is they love to name generations and the generation I'm in would be that baby boomers because we were born in the the baby boom after World War II and the Korean War and they're saying these people bought nice big houses and they won't move out of them even though they don't need them anymore and now families need them well families can't afford them we get this we understand this churches are also harder to fund harder to build harder to maintain it's harder to keep them comfortable and even up to safety standards so what should Church look like now well there are those that will say whatever the cost we must make it look like it always has and that's the problem because Church hasn't always look like anything it is always changed it is always transformed or as my favorite uh philosophers Calvin and Hobbs the the comic strip not the actual philosophers uh they you use the word transmogrification which should be a word and I guess it is now because they word ified it um but the the church is always transformed the way it looked acted worshiped and alike and that surprises people because well we'll get to that we've had many reset moments over the last 2,000 years we talked about that a few weeks ago this is just another one so when we ask what is the church supposed to look like we might want to understand what we're asking perhaps we should expand the question and say what can or should if you want to put a harder word the church look like here now in our present reality while remembering that none of this is new Every Generation or at least every third or fourth generation has had to ask this since the time of Christ you heard read to you today by Mary Ephesians 1:1 15-23 church is important to God because that's the bride of Christ and this is the way that he has chosen to work within the world is in faith community ities now that faith community did not historically Gather in buildings as we do today that Faith Community has often gathered and then not gathered and then not throughout the last 2,000 years in every century and every culture they had to find a way to be the people of God the Community of Faith I was raised with the teaching that our church had restored New Testament Christianity which in itself is a problematic phrase that we did things just like the first century did and that was wrong in almost every possible way it could be wrong we even had books restoring the Ancient Order behold the pattern which always struck me because behold the pattern had more pages in it than the Bible did and I was thinking man that's a pattern to behold it must be super obvious if you can write a book longer than the Bible about it but there there wasn't a pattern you had to force read that into it so let's go to church and yes we're going to use the modern verbiage here we're not going to quibble about well the church is in a building the church English changes we're going to work with modern words the way modern words are shall we let's go to church around the time of the Apostle Paul can you imagine what that felt like what that looked like there'd be a lot of fear in the room the Romans see us as atheists because we're a weird subsection of a larger better known weird group the apost the uh the Romans thought the Jews were very very strange and the Christians were a subsegment of the Jews so that made them even stranger they believed that people like us sitting there in our community were a threat to the peace and the political peace of Rome you look about and you see many if we're in the Roman Church H the church that was actually in Rome by the way Keith Murthy who did the giving segment did that from Rome but he's moving to Houston so it'll be nice to be able to have him a little bit closer regardless if you're in Rome you're looking around and you're seeing that there are Jews in the room and you might be a gentile or you might be a Jew but you're very different you came from different cultures sometimes you look at each other wondering am I the Orthodox one and they're the heretic or are they the Orthodox one and I'm the heretic in fact an entire meeting of the church had to take place in Acts 15 where the Elders of the church basically said leave each other alone and let each other be the church the way they are the church where they are because they'd come together in in Acts 15 to say we want you to make rules for how the church is supposed to be regardless of where it is or whether they are Gentiles or Jews in it and the apostles and the Elders of the church in Jerusalem said it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to make these rules so just don't be sexually immoral and don't act like pagans and they they sent them out be the church where you are whatever that looks like but in Rome we're there in that church assembly realizing a split is coming there are tensions in the room and then we hear the buzz Paul is coming or perhaps somebody that he sent a Timothy a Titus one of those a Sylvanas one of his secretaries might be coming a Phoebe might be coming to read the book to us what will he say are we okay can he reassure us about our faith our future our current situation I'm often asked via email or whenever I go about visiting churches in these various areas that are are we okay with our Safe Harbor is is uh first of all we are okay we don't have extra money but we have enough money to do what we can do because you you send it and you help us always in the nick of time and we're so grateful to God and to you for that but what they really are asking is is it still okay for me to worship at home do I need to go to a brick and mortar we want to stress we're not here to steal any sheep from any flock that's not what we exist for I don't consider us to be in competition with any brick and mortar instead if you add brick and mortar to us or US to that or if you choose this or that we just want you to follow Jesus that's all and we're aware that times have changed and we might need to find a different way to be church this last week in fact I was speaking to several groups and in one of them couple church leaders all of a sudden the shutters went up off their eyes and the penny dropped or however you want to put it they went oh they looked over at me and they said you know you guys are really doing it the way the early Christians had to where a visiting minister went around and visited the little groups that met in houses in small towns and I I yes yes you don't want to go duh you don't want to insult the person because they're being honest and open and the Holy Spirit has touched their heart you don't want to quench that at all yeah but back to Paul's St the singing would have been very different chanting would have been in the way they sang and they would be chanting scriptures Psalms long Psalms you can almost tell you if somebody gets up and and says we're now going to sing Psalm 119 all the kids going no because it'll last forever but it didn't work quite that way but the chanting sometimes was communal but most often was done by one or two voices we see that in Corinth where Paul has to tell them one at a time please because they were actually trying to compete with each other singing during worship Corinth was a hoot there would have been no Harmony there would have been no Bridge No Chorus it would have sounded really different and you think that's different when the time for the Lord's Supper came they wouldn't have called it the Lord's Supper they would have just called it supper it would have been food where food was shared with people but not just food their common story was shared their their needs were shared and taken care of we know this from the first century letters we know this from their books that whenever they they came together at the table and they did do some formal moments to remember Jesus Christ and his teaching they would share those stories they would share stories about what they were doing in their life and that if somebody needed money it was given to them during the supper if somebody needed food extra food was brought my wife and I worked for a church long ago that never got the concept of potluck now that's an American thing I'm sure other people have other words for it in the South they know how to do it you bring enough for lots of people whatever you're bringing most things are cheese-based you know there's macaroni cheese there's kiche there's lasagna there's whatever so the cows are really working it hard but they they bring that all together but the church we worked at they only brought enough for for them and they ate it fast and by the time I would get into the line there was nothing left that they didn't know how to potluck we tried to teach them but neither of us being Southern we didn't do it right but they would have eaten a whole meal and it wasn't just on Sundays it was any day any time they could get together and it wasn't necessarily in a building it could have been in a house it could have been in a synagogue it could have been down by the river with sister Lydia they gathered where they could when they could and they woried regardless of the day although Sundays became very important they worshiped they broke bread any time they got together it didn't look like us it didn't sound like us but God certainly approved it and worked within it God chooses to work with us in particular time times in particular places in particular cultures God locates himself to particulars now that's a hard phrase for some but work on that God locates himself to particulars now this messes us up if we've been taught that the church is supposed to look one certain way and that it's always looked the same like God has a franchise church and it's it's rather like McDonald's anywhere you go to McDonald's in the US you know exactly what's on the menu you know exactly what to expect when you order you know what it's going to taste like and you know all of that now by the way if you go to McDonald's and Japan it's a whole different food you go to Russia they don't have them anymore they but they just renamed them uh it's different food why do we not understand that God didn't create a a franchise church offering franchise goods and services to people who like the franchise but instead created a survivable movable changeable effective Community of Faith regardless of time circumstance or culture well let's skip forward a few thousand rather 1,000 years to the time of let's say St Francis of aissi the church was very diverse in the first few centuries we'd be shocked at the variations that were within the early Church in practice and in some rather important beliefs and then we come to an Era for about 600 years in Europe where you are peasants now it always fascinates me when when people do their genealogy and we're not talking here about the um the blood test where they show you know what countries your people came from but where they're actually going up the family tree and people always want to find in in America they always want to find an Indian princess a Native American princess they didn't have princesses but best of luck um they they also want to find royalty somewhere probably not most of us would had a life that was mud sickness backbreaking work early death of our children most of them in infancy unable to read never schooled and no hope of changing our situation none for 600 years serfdom and peasantry was the life of 99% of all human beings unable to read no hope nothing except tomorrow you're going to do this and if a child is born they're going to do this if a grandchild is born they're going to do this the question we love to ask young people you know what do you want to be when you grow up was not asked for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years because there was no option none no Pathway to power they will never matter not a one and then to worship they enter a church because most in Europe did if at all possible when they could it was the only Grand edifice they were ever allowed to enter they were never allowed to enter a palace never allowed to enter a castle never allowed to enter the the home of a lord a baron or any of those but rather they could enter a church they would see statues of those who lived pure and holy lives they would see the stories of the Apostles the Saints of Jesus himself told in stained glass because they couldn't read but they could see they could see and the visual drawing you toward the the center where there would be three and most churches of of any of any import three large Windows to indicate the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit it was the only place to go if you wanted to formally Worship the Lord but it would also humble them reminding them that they are not this they are worthless they learned helplessness and most churches today are full of people who have learned helplessness the preacher the pastor the elders they will do the work we just show up and attend to show our faithfulness and then we live good good lives like people who follow confucious or Buddha just live good lives during the week the only difference is we go here on a certain place in a certain day rather that seems to be sad but it's the way it is we have learned helplessness and allowing other people to do Christianity for us the church at that time though heavily flawed yes in Personnel Theology and leaders that was the Avenue the only Avenue people had to find peace with God and hope for the future there they heard the stories they heard the hymns they rarely were invited to sing those hymns but they heard them they saw Grace in stained glass always needed others to help them be saved it was a Jesus and time some people yearned for more they formed parachute par Church groups called orders some like Francis move their worship outside and they used nature and animals as a part of their worship it was a living stained glass representation of God and God honored it God met them inside the cathedral God met them outside the cathedral well let's bump up a bit in our time machine let's go to the time of Martin Luther a German monk lawyer and theologian he was also a Roman Catholic priest but he was very trou troubled by what he saw in the church what would it be like if we went to one of his churches or one of the churches of the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s worship consisted of sitting in a building and listening to long long sermons lasting several hours and if you've ever been to these churches if you've ever gone to Europe and been into one of these churches the pews are the most uncomfortable thing you will ever sit in in your life the seats are about a foot long so no thigh support and the backs are straight up so there's no lounging about and in the early Americas I don't know about Europe at that time in the early Americas you'd even have somebody whose job it was to make sure you didn't fall asleep and they would actually have a long stick with a little Thumper on the end of it and they'd thump you now a lot of you are now thinking I would volunteer to work in a church if I got to be the thumper but no that is not listed in the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12 so that one's right out but there we are and sometimes they had more than one sermon on Sunday people dressed up formally in the best clothes they had even if those clothes were were patched and stained for God God had moved into the building by that time and Community had moved into the building outside was business outside was secular we had been trained to bring God back into the building the very thing Jesus had loosed from the temple we stuffed back in most of the lessons were very very deep they weren't like most lessons today including my own I'm not pointing fingers elsewhere they were very very deep theologically they required a lot of attention hell heaven and character and history of God were the main subjects hymns were very formal almost martial in tone Onward Christian Soldiers holy holy holy A Mighty Fortress Is Our God they were measured infused with emotion and solid doctrinal Precision Church the Reformation was serious business and nobody was allowed to forget it for a second and it was also a deadly business many lost their lives as the loyal Empire leaders masquerading as Jesus's people sought to purify the church by from its corruption its false teaching but not by disenfranchising people but by eliminating them yeah Luther's people went to actual physical war with zwingle people and on and on Protestants killing each other Catholics killing Protestants Protestants killing Catholics in many churches in Europe today when you walk in I know for certain uh throughout Scotland and England you will see banners hanging from the the ceiling and they are military B banners of the people who fought for that religion no wonder atheism took over pretty quickly thereafter they killed him in horrific ways in the name of Jesus and those who claimed to follow the Prince of Peace took up swords and the and the burning p and went after fellow Believers caught between rival army armies whether rival Protestant armies or Protestant and Catholic armies and the Inquisition the common people took religious religion seriously but to them it was a dark and a dangerous thing so let's get out of here let's move our church a little bit forward to the 1800s a lot of churches would have looked very similar to people who had lived 300 years early sermons are still very long full of theological weight but remember this if you ever watch Ken Burns special on the Civil War back what was that 30 40 years ago but it made a real Mark or or if you've ever studied or read letters home by soldiers in the American war between the states so the war of Northern aggression whatever you want to call it you will find that 14-year-olds that were Barefoot and had not gone past sixth grade wrote letters that were so beautiful well phrased and had vocabularies that would shame University graduates today they knew their language they knew how to handle tough subjects when they wrote If you in America it was things like McGuffy readers and you can get reprints of those today and you'll look at one that was geared for fourth graders and you're going I know of college graduates that would struggle with this logic uh discourse debate mathematics all of the other they knew those things and so when they went to church it was very detailed it was very deep it challenged you now some of the things that we found we would find there in our church of the 1800s would would shock us even offend us and and rightfully so separate doors for men and women and when they entered they had to sit on different sides they were said to have done that so that people would not be uh distracted by the lust of the flesh but rather be able to pay attention to the preacher once again no community let Church be done in front of you learned helplessness if people of color were allowed in at all which wasn't common they'd have to be in the balcony or sat outside listening through the propped open Windows religious divisions were so prevalent that most churches were small and they would have to wait for somebody from their particular Branch to come through and they might only have commun once every few years because it was a rare event when Thomas Campbell came to the US the father of Alexander Campbell from Ireland he was an old light antib Burger seceder branch of the Presbyterian church and if you were any of the other versions of the Presbyterian Church he couldn't give you communion and that was the norm no wonder so many churches even today only take communion at certain times during the year because they for a couple hundred years didn't have that option they weren't given the opportunity there was no Community we would have been outraged at this we would have been outraged at a lot of it and we should have been but whenever they did come together their worship went on for days and days and days because it might not come back sometimes for weeks when I was a boy they would sometimes have gospel meetings or revivals and they would be 2 weeks oh I hated those I did now there weren't any other options we didn't have the internet or you only got one or two channels on the telling but you still all of your evenings there was no play there was dressing up because God couldn't hear you unless you had on the right clothes I guess but we would have been uncomfortable outraged by the racism the sexism the strange infiltration that politics class and color into entered in to the Theology of the time the angry preachers and their congregations that would Teeter between boredom and Terror would have driven us away and you know what we haven't done we haven't flown over 80% of the world's land mass we don't have time to talk about the church in the days of the Russian Zars or the Soviets we don't have time to talk about the church in China in the early 1900s or Japan in the 1700s or in Africa early on the first few centuries some of which have continued to this day although they face Extinction In Our Lifetime the Coptic church and then the rest of Africa before and after the colonization the removal of resources the arrival of missionaries we haven't even talked about that but every one of them looked very different because it had to Jesus knew his church would have to change for every culture and every time he told his Apostles in fact wherever two or three of you are gathered I'll be with you he even went further he said if whatever you decide in Matthew 18: 19 and 20 whatever you decide about something we will agree with in heaven perhaps one of the least read and understood passages saying we understand you've got to adapt for where you are and this is very very important Jesus spent zero time telling them how to sing how to organize how to build a building what day to take the Lord's Supper not a word but he did tell them that they had to learn to agree with each other quote along the way let it be a process where we learn to agree he told us that when we agreed with each other Heaven agreed with us that Matthew 18 passage Paul even Illustrated that in a remarkable but rather um unexplanatory phrase he says yod Yoda and syi two ladies he said I tell you to agree with each other he didn't say what the debate was about he didn't even say who was right he just said agree cuz that'll make the community more at peace there'd be Harmony in a church I wonder what the issue was but you see that's because I have been trained to look for the issue I've been trained to look for the problem solve it get people on the right side where Jesus just didn't do that he said just agree just move on agreement was the issue peace was the issue sharing in love and joy and faith was the issue if they agreed Christ was with them and agreed with them we are not the church because we go to a building that has a name on it we are not the church because we don't have a building buildings have nothing to do with it at this point in history perhaps if we were illiterate surfs who needed stained glass windows to tell us the stories I happen to think stained glass windows are gorgeous beautiful things I love them but we don't need them to tell us a story now some people have said but we still need buildings for weddings and funerals I'd say the last 20 years I've done very very few funerals or weddings in a building that was a church building other venues have been used we need to Once once in our life maybe get ahead of the curve instead of trailing it by a generation or two we are the church you are the church because Christ has brought us by his blood because of our belief because of our baptism because we've agreed to join together in order to praise him that joining can be online it can be in homes it can be in parks and yes in structures of any kind including the Great and Mighty Cathedrals as long as we unite to remind each other who's we are and who we are and as long as we remind each other to live in this world in which we find ourselves as ambassadors of Christ and so we gather to heal each other's wounds to remind ourselves we don't dance to the consumerist tunes to a conformist song or to the song of modern-day politics and Earthly rulers and the fear they try to constantly sight I got the privilege this last week of visiting with house churches in Texas Arkansas and Oklahoma people have asked recently well how many do you have to have before you come up I don't have a set number I usually say around five because it does cost money for us to get to you but we're happy to we would love to so people will say well when are you going to come to our place and we'll find out well we don't even know you you haven't let let us know send us a note at info@ our saafe harbor.com that says here's our name and address we'd love to have somebody pop in whenever you're able to come through we'll do it because we are the church that's what it looks like now it's what it looked like back then too Through the Ages the church has emerged in different languages cultures cities different worldviews but our mission Remains the Same tell the story of Jesus the son of God crucified and resurrected tell the world that there is an alternative to the stories and communities that the world offers us a different way to live a way to matter Ephesians 1 we are the church God loves it God established it God bought it with his blood what does it look like what does it need to look like look like the people of God in this place in this time do for Jesus what you can where you are with what you've got that's all he ask may God bless you and give you peace

Channel: Our Safe Harbor Church

Views: 304

Keywords: Patrick Mead, Our Safe Harbor Church, Christianity

Id: QjTb4D_bY28

Length: 34min 24sec (2064 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2024