Chapter 2 The Building

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 10, 2011 at 12:19am

IC buildings are just impossible. That's not to say that nothing good happens there or that God isn't in the gathering. Wherever God's people are, He is. However, you're right to say that the architecture discourages participation. A home, a park, a coffee shop, an office break room -- just about anything is better than an auditorium. I've even been to IC gatherings where the pastor moved aside all the pews and put people in chairs in a circle. No one talked freely. It's not that easy. You're used to sitting and listening in that room. It's not a place for comfortable conversation at all.

I think we need to rid ourselves of the notion that we're going to meet with the brethren in order to "get something." We're not. There's only one good reason, and that is to allow the Holy Spirit to further build us together into the house of God, family of God, body and bride of our Lord Jesus. In order for Him to carry out this work, we must submit, each of us, to His ministrations so that we can bring something TO the meeting. It is our object to contribute rather than to "be fed." When we all come in that mind set, everyone will be fed spiritually (and in our case, since we always share a meal, physically as well).

Permalink Reply by William Boland on January 10, 2011 at 8:10am

IC Building mindset are very difficult to break indeed.  I have noticed, over time, that even after leaving the IC and it's building the spectator mentality is still ingrained in our society.  When we began talking about leaving a few years ago, I would and did encourage the practice of 1 Corinthians 14:26 (each one of you hath) yet the years of spectatorism has/did make it very difficult for others to share.  After leaving, some would share (for a while) then it seemed as if almost everyone resorted back to the IC mindset of being a spectator.  Very disappointing.  So, then were do we go from that, and how do we get others to allow the free flowing of taking part and ownership rather than sitting around with nothing to share?

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 10, 2011 at 1:21pm

It sooo helped us having Milt come and get us started. I'm amazed at how well everyone is participating now. Even the quiet people have something to share. Before that, we went through the exercises at the back of Frank Viola's Finding Organic Church and that also helped us a lot. If you have a group together, William, you might consider doing that. We loved it.

Permalink Reply by Scott McCrae on January 10, 2011 at 8:20pm

Cindy,
I agree with you about not going to the meting to get something. Yet if I am not allowed to offer anything then receilvling feeding is all there is. Now we can also worship God.

Growth comes from speaking, Eph 4:15
Learning comes from going. Matthew 9:13
Feeding/knowledge alone only makes you fat and puffed up 1 Cor 8:1

As far as people being willing to share,
What quality in a leader will draw out the thoughts of others?


William,
What causes people not to share? One thing is that they are dead in the water. They don't have anyth‌g to share.

It is my dream to have house church as a place of discipleship.
Teaching people how to hear God. Study the Bible to feed themselves. How to present the Gospel and lead others to Christ. And be involved in ministry to the poor etc. To encourage each other in their walk with the Lord. How to walk by faith in love. then go on and lead their own groups.

With this format there would be discussion.

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 11, 2011 at 12:43am

Scott, I didn't mean you should share in THAT kind of meeting. Of course you can't. I meant at the kind of gatherings we have -- the organic gatherings. When people leave IC, they don't necessarily leave behind the IC mindset of coming "to church" to get something. And even though they'd like to share, they're too shy or they don't know what to share, or they don't know when to stop sharing, or what they share is just common talk and joking and visiting. Having someone to help you learn how and what sort of things to share is a big help.

This is a problem, and another problem is just the basic foundation being self-improvement rather than the teachings of the apostles, that is, Jesus. Jesus is the only foundation and reason for meeting together. If we get together and share with one another the things we've heard the preachers sharing (about how to be better people, mostly), we won't get any farther with OC than we did with IC. There's a learning curve -- or more specifically, an unlearning curve.

Permalink Reply by Scott McCrae on January 11, 2011 at 10:43pm

Cindy,
I think there should be some ground rules so all can share. And keep it mostly focused on Spiritual matters.

I would suggest:
1. What we have heard from God this past week.
A basic lesson in discipleship is how to hear from God.

2. A lesson from the Bible.
3. Pray for each other for needs and ministry.
4. Encourage each other in our ministries. And our walk with the Lord.
5. I think it is important to be outreach focused. So someone could share about a missionary they suport or a ministry that could use donations from individuals in the group.

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 11, 2011 at 11:48pm

I think the biggest paradigm shift for us has been learning to think corporately as opposed to individually. If you look at the titles on the shelves of the "Christian section" at Borders, you'll see that those non-fiction works not dedicated to philosophy and theology are nearly ALL self-help stuff; how to pray more effectively, how to be a better dad, how to improve your self-image, how to better evangelize, how to stop sinning in ten easy steps . . . I'm making this up of course, but the point is that the church is engaged in an orgy of individualistic navel gazing. And I never noticed it! Frank Viola had to point it out to me. (God's Eternal Purpose; Viola and Sweet)

So a big shift for us was to start thinking in terms of the group, the body, the temple, the bride as opposed to "what should I do?" We are one. Jesus prayed for this just before He was crucified, and only the Father could do it. The big shift in the garden was from Adam being a corporate man to Adam (mankind) being a rabble of disassociated individuals. We aren't sufficient in ourselves and we never were meant to be. We NEED one another.

Of course, as FV points out, the environment of the sacred building only serves to accentuate this. It is in the other places of life that we are accustomed to interacting as a group, and the living room is a biggie. It won't solve all our short-comings, but changing locations at least begins to make those adjustments possible.

Permalink Reply by Scott McCrae on January 12, 2011 at 5:26pm

I have found very few people that have Jesus as their Lord, that what you say of having the whole group following Jesus as their Lord is flabbergasting!

 

Instead of reaching to those struggling, requiring them to step up to the plate and serve God 100%

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 12, 2011 at 7:46pm

This is not the sort of meeting where you can hide for long. Eventually you'll start to feel bad for never having anything to bring and you'll either grow in the Lord or you'll leave. We still love the ones who leave and as long as we're not unwelcome in their lives, keep up contact with them and help them when we can, but people will leave if they don't want that degree of closeness. So yes, I would say that everyone in the group is following Jesus for real. We have people floating in and out of course, but at the moment there isn't anyone who regularly attends who is not committed.

We meet as a group once a week and then on alternate weeks, the sisters or the brothers have a meeting. The rest of it is informal; having meals together, hanging out, etc. The group is beginning to sense that God is about to do some things with us re: outreach, and I'm excited to see what that will look like. It's a young group -- only a couple of years old in its present incarnation, though a couple of the families have been together longer. We're all indescribably grateful to God for having put us together. It's a miracle, absolutely.

Permalink Reply by Mark Collings on January 13, 2011 at 12:19am

The interesting thing about church buildings, aside from their pagan roots, is their "fruit".  It is estimated that in North America there is roughly 3 trillion dollars invested in church property.  Thats 3 trillion dollars "buried in the ground" (and out of curculation for missions, food for the poor, health care). Anyone who has shopped around for real estate will know church properties are usually sold for the land value.  Not a sound investment for the faithful. These single purpose structures are usually financed by debt.  The sermon that led out of the IC was one emploring me to give more to "retire the debt" of one of these financial deals.  Who put this debt on me?  The board of elders (who in that chruch really just make business decisions).  Many para-church and community organizations benefit from these buildings, and they usually pay rent or a fee to use them, so perhaps they should be looked at business assets.  When most Christians go about planting a church,  the building is the first thing to go up.  It is also the first thing to unload when the church misses its financial obligations.  That, in a nutshell, is the kingdom of God value of these structures.

Permalink Reply by Jim London on January 13, 2011 at 1:38am

Now, Mark, you're really being awfully cynical about church buildings, aren't you? There are some pros to church buildings, surely. Let me see ... ah, yes, consider this:

1) Without church buildings, how would people know where they could find a church?

2) A church building, especially if it has a visible cross on the steeple or on the street-facing exterior, is a testimony to the community.

3) It provides continuity from generation to generation, a sense of stability,as grandchildren sit in the same pew where their grandparents once sat.

4) It lets the world know how much diversity resides in the Body of Christ -- with Baptist buildings, Methodist buildings, Lutheran buildings, even non-denominational buildings -- and they can't mistake the diversity because there are signs near the road making it perfectly clear that we're not just made with the same cookie-cutter! Jesus is for all different types and stripes!

5) Where would we have weddings and funerals? Didn't think of that, did you?

6) Who wants to tote the sound equipment all over the place? And the communion table?

See, I came up with all this in about 5 minutes! Are you starting to re-think your views? If so, then it's been worth my while just texting this. See, we really do need each other, or we'll find ourselves flying off onto some heresy before too long. Hope this has helped!

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 13, 2011 at 2:07am

1) Finding the church can be a challenge, but a few dollars invested in a website will do as well as a million plus invested in a building, not to mention debt service and physical maintenance, insurance, staff, etc., etc., etc. We haven't spent ANY money on a website, but you can still find us at the top with a Google search of our area. Alas, our old site still comes up first (after my blog), but if you want to find it, you will.

2) Is it? I'm not sure.I don't mean to be contrary, but seriously I don't think the steeple or the cross is any kind of testimony at all. It's just another steeple with a cross, and newer church buildings usually can't afford the steeple, which is just an echo of European cathedrals, really. None of Paul's churches had buildings or steeples, yet they were perceived as a threat. Are we?

3) Well, yes . . . this sounds nice and all, but I'm not sure it's needed or even all that beneficial. I think it's just what we're used to. And as wonderful as it sounds, it doesn't realistically happen very often. And when it does happen, alas the grandchildren frequently have a hard time understanding how wonderful it is because all they see is the tradition and ritual. And they're angry and no one likes their purple hair.

4) It tells the world that Christ is divided. We're not supposed to be diverse in that way. We're supposed to be one with one another and one in Jesus and with Him. Jesus is for all who are willing to come and die.

5) We have weddings and funerals at home, or we rent a hall or whatever we want.

6) We don't need sound equipment. Do you use sound equipment in your living room? We usually sing a capella (and we sound good, too) and write quite a few of our own songs as well. We have some lovely musicians, but we save that for special music nights. The communion table is the dining room table and we have communion every time we get together. Sometimes we even have bread and wine and say special words.

7) Heresy is rampant in hierarchical church as you know if you've known many years in this system. And once it's established, it's nearly impossible to root out. We don't need officials to protect us from heresy. We have Shane. Anybody who says something that Shane doesn't think sounds kosher will find him/herself explaining in depth. Then we all decide together. Most organic churches have a "Shane" or two, and if they don't, one will arrive shortly.

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