iCHURCH*
Posted on October 7th, 2005 by Reformed Pope into the Uncategorized categoryIs church just about dressing up and stepping into a Christian Culture every Sunday? What’s the significance and purpose of Church? Is it a place where you meet your friends? Is it something you “do” once or twice a week? Or is there supposed to be something more? Something that leaves you transformed because it’s in the context of this community of people that you are changed by God’s presence and refreshed by the meaningful relationships of those who stick closer than a brother?
Church. What’s the big deal?
It’s God’s big deal. He came up with the idea and He’s moving forward with the idea. The church is His bride, His family, the one who He died for. Church is the hope of the world, the revealer of His wisdom, the place of His residence, the people who He has entrusted with His life and power. Church is the big deal.
When God said that He would build His Church, He desired to create a community that was truly interactive, the kind of community that you would be involved in. It’s about interacting with His presence in a such a way that you discover the joy and life of getting to know Him more closely; you experience the power and reality of who He is and you have the opportunity to celebrate Him, His life and the friendships that He surrounds you with. Church is a community and an experience that you interact with, it really ought to leave you transformed… more fully devoted to Jesus.
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October 8th, 2005 at 10:29 am
hey RP, this is a very thoughtful post.
You know that article you let me interview you for? I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go. I ended up writing about the desire of people to Be the church rather than Do church. That is what I’m hearing all over the place, in the blogosphere, in homegroups, in line at the grocery store…there seems to be an increasing thirst for intimcy not only with God but with each other.
A new friend of mine in the blogosphere, has recently blogged some thoughts about this. you can find her at www.emerginggrace.blogspot.com
(by the way, the article is still in dry dock with the ezine who requested I write it. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s published)
So what does Being the Church look like in the lives of ordinary people like me? How do I manifest the Presence of Jesus as His bride in the everyday details of life? These are the questions I am asking myself. Maybe I’ll blog about it myself sometime.
I’m interested in hearing what others have to say about this.
October 8th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
After 12 years at Bible Temple…oops!..City Bible Church (including a stint at PBC), and 4 years at a CBC church plant that blew up in a very ugly fashion, we found the very church you are describing. http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/
Plant one of these in Portland and we just might consider moving back.
October 9th, 2005 at 11:59 am
Pam, you’re right; this is a very thoughtful post. Unfortunately, RP didn’t write it.
October 9th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
Hey Jonah, the very church “RP” is describing (he didn’t write it–ask him what the asterisk means) is City Bible Church. This exact passage appeared in this weekend’s bulletin, verbatim. Interesting?
October 9th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
I don’t know what RP’s * means, but, you’re right, this IS in CBC’s current bulletin. It does sound kind of like them, in that it pedastalizes “the church.” I believe the Bible is clear that that all believers comprise the church, aka the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the branches (Christ is the vine), etc., etc. However, the church is NOT the “hope of the world.” JESUS is the hope of the world! If unbelievers look at believers and don’t see Jesus, there is a huge problem. Our purpose is to reflect Him, to lift Him up so that others are drawn to Him. Unfortunately, more often than not, at least in our culture and country, we reveal our sinful selves more than we reveal Christ, which repels unbelievers rather than draws them. God change us!
I’m glad CBC is trying to reflecting on “church.” But, they can quote a passage of Scripture and view it very differently than I do, so I’m not particularly heartened by this current examination of “church” nor optimistic that they will conclude that they need to stop in their tracks and let the Lord tear them down and build them up as a completely different “structure,” which is what needs to happen if they are to ever be an instrument of healing rather than destruction.
October 10th, 2005 at 7:57 am
Glad somebody cleared up the authorship of all this…I got a little scared there that my solidarity with City Business Church was rapidly disintegrating.
Anonymous….good point about the church not being the hope of the world. It’s interesting that the CBCer’s go so far as to say that, particularly considering the fact that they really consider themselves the only “real” church out there. If they’re right, we’re all more than a little screwed.
The language of this little “Church” blurb is very revealing, it seems to me, and says a lot about CBC’s self-image. It’s propaganda of a particularly vile variety. “Let’s all feel good about us and everything we’re doing.” Open wide, down the hatch….bullshit served fresh and hot, three meals a day, all for the low-low price of 10% of your income and 100% of your free time….and the condition that you stop thinking your own thoughts. Why think your own thoughts when we make you feel this good?
God’s in His Heaven, all’s right at CBC, viva la Frank and all the other affluent white guys who are and should be running your life for you. Yippee, yay Church. Ra ra ra.
Maybe this is an example of Rambo Action Jesus’ bride — Botox-Lobotomy-Angora Bouquet-Barbie….”I’m beautiful, but stupid….” Vomit.
October 10th, 2005 at 10:28 am
It’s amazing how the tone of the posts changed immediately upon peoples realization that CBC wrote this piece. I would wager that had the posts continued coming with no knowledge of the true author, the very same people would have looked at “iChurch” and said “WOW, what a great post”, but instead you all have discovered CBC fingerprints on it and suddenly it is hypocrisy and ideology far removed from what God has so graciously and clearly revealed to you as what He really wants a church to be. Good idea on the anonymous post RP, it looks like you have quite a following here.
October 10th, 2005 at 10:33 am
It’s amazing that people who still go to CBC read this blog.
RP, it looks like you have quite a following here.
October 10th, 2005 at 10:52 am
I agree with some of what was said in the post/bulletin. Ideally, the church is supposed to be all of those things - a place to be changed by God’s presence and refreshed by the meaningful relationships of those who stick closer than a brother. And those who alienate themselves from a healthy and thriving local church are missing out on an entire facet of Christianity. However, what is found at CBC is the “dressing up and stepping into a Christian culture” church. The church they hypothesize about, although not the hope of the world, is a church where spiritual growth and maturity can successfully be coupled with a sense of community and brotherhood. They’re just nowhere near becoming that church - in fact, they seem to be running headlong in the opposite direction.
October 10th, 2005 at 11:07 am
Who’s to say that I go to CBC. I am a casual observer of this site and I just thought the mood swing was interesting and inlightening.
Nothing more, nothing less.
October 10th, 2005 at 11:24 am
Who said the comment was directed at you?
October 10th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Gee, my mistake, I guess you must of been talking about someone else and just using my line at the end.
October 10th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
Sorry Anon but the source of the article is very pertinent in this case. The sentiments expressed are a very nice description of what the church should be. However, when it’s being parroted by an organization such as CBC, the message just reeks of backslapping propoganda.
The church is supposed to enhance someone’s walk with God and fellowship with other believers. As soon as someone attempts to insert the institution of church as a mandatory conduit between believers and God, it’s time to run. The church is a big deal only in that it’s the sum of a set group of believers. The bureaucracy, politics, and personality cults plaguing many modern churches are purely optional. I believe that’s the point of the article, but that point falls flat because CBC shows little if any motivation towards becoming a facilitator to God as opposed to milking their members for tithes to fund the next pipe dream.
October 10th, 2005 at 2:18 pm
Wow Anonymous who is just a casual observer,
What do you have to say to that.
October 10th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
Jonah:
4 years at a CBC church plant that blew up in a very ugly fashion
A CBC ‘church plant’, eh? This explains so much. I always had the feeling that these churches were turned out on an assembly line.
I hope nobody was seriously injured in the explosion. The debris must have been interesting.
B-)
October 11th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
No Samuel, it’s the pastors that are turned out on an assembly line. Or are they pod people?? I don’t know which.
October 12th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Wow CBC did a church plant?
In all of my time there I don’t think I ever saw a real church plant. I just saw Pastor’s who were on staff, or minsitry leaders who were disgruntled or wanted to leave and go their own direction. Behind the scenes there was allot of manuevering Frank trying to talk them out of it and then all of the sudden…bam. The annoucment that CBC was “sending them out” to plant a church in such a such area. In truth these people were on their way out the door already and CBC got to be a part of it by bullying them or offering them their “protection” in the form of “spiritual covering.” All pretty and clean on the public side, and all messy behind the scenes.
I mean come on people the list is very long starting with Wendell Smith. (Which by the way, leaving was the best thing he could have done.)
The closet thing to planting a church CBC has ever done (targeting a specific geographic area or people) is starting the Westside campus. And they did that to keep Westsiders from leaving and get at the money on the West Side. They couldn’t even just start a church over there and let it be. They had to start a “Campus.”
Sad CBC, sad.
October 12th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Fearthecurse,
You are absolutely right! Not only was it messy behind the scenes while those intending to plant their own church tried to “wrestle a blessing” out of PF (which in and of itself is note-worthy, as if PF was God or as if anyone needs his “blessing” to do what God is calling them to do; and how sick it is to want the source of the reasons you’re leaving to endorse you!). As I was saying, not only was it messy behind the scenes with CBC “forbidding” the subsequent church plants, and they somehow ended up presented as CBC’s ideas, CBC now likes to mock those who have left in terms of their perceived failures (judged by CBC’s standards of numbers–of members, of those responding to altar calls, of pastors’ salaries, etc.). Sick.
Jesus prayed that “we” would be one as he and his Father are one. That is intense. This kind of unity is what he wants in his church. This requires knowing and being known, the good, bad and the ugly, as they say. Authenticity. Authentic community between and amongst Christians can only happen when people are all on the same page about who Jesus is (our Savior, without whom we would be nothing on earth & would perish forever) and who we are (fallen, sinful creatures who need Jesus before & “after” we become believers, for our salvation, holiness, and everything else). Churches like CBC who require either explicitly or implicitly)conformity to “community standards” or cultural norms can never have authentic community or intimacy because people cannot be themselves, cannot be “real” or they will not be accepted. So, we conform, slowly but surely, thinking maybe “this time” we will experience true community the way the Lord intends, and then we end up losing sight of what we know in our guts and realize we are not being true to ourselves or to the Lord, and then we either stay out of fear of never finding authentic community that resembles the Acts 2 church, or we leave and try again.
Can you tell I speak from experience? NOT just from CBC, either. The human condition is the same wherever we go, and we want to define what is “good” and “acceptable” and what will result in “spiritual superiority” rather than trusting in God’s truths and ways which are so much higher and mysterious and simpler than ours.
OK, now I’m depressed. It’s too early to drink, too.
Anon
October 12th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
The church plant I’m talking about was back in the days before the “Great Stranglehold” began. And it was doomed from the start. Pastors are called to love the people not use them as commodities.
October 14th, 2005 at 9:35 am
When I first read this post I knew there was no way RP wrote “refreshed by the meaningful relationships of those who stick closer than a brother?” Yeah and PF would utter the phrase “strait cash homey”. This new message from CBC is just damage controll, they figured that people are starting to get fed up with church= business, pastor=ceo, and christianity=lifeless show. So they are attempting to ease those concerns by saying the right things about church. This is indicative of a people centered, success driven, proff texting “church”. Can’t wait for PF’s next book about how too Grow. Did anyone read his one on preaching , I saw the book title and laughed, what is next Bin Ladens book “Passive Resistance, Lessons I Learned From The Life of Ghandi”.
Finally the church is an institution and an organism both at the same time, just because we saw and expierienced abuses of the institution side and neglect of the organism side does not neglect that the Lord has ordained both.May we never boast in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. and to all pastors woe to you if you do not preach the gospel.
October 14th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
No one should ever say the phrase “strait cash homey”.