“There is a degree of organization within the church — not so much within “church buildings” — found in the Scriptures. When the church would meet, things would be done in order, and there would be elders and deacons of certain qualifications presiding over things.

But when we start having deacon boards, business meetings, church democracy governed by “Rules of Order,” trustee boards, membership rolls, lesson plans, Sunday school plans, offerings-just-to-pay-church-bills, building programs, and so on… Then yeah, I think organized churches are unscriptural — or at least superscriptural (read: beyond the Scriptures).”

Do you believe that the church may only be organised insofar and to the same extent as it was organised in the New Testament? So to say, the New Testament is wholly descriptive and prescriptive of what a church ought to be.

You mentioned several examples, ‘Rules of Order’ was one. Do you think because the New Testament does not mention churches having Rules of Order or Books of Order, or whatever they may be called, that it is an inappropriate to have such in our churches today? We agree they are not necessary but this is not same thing as saying they should not be used. This same point applies to the other examples you gave.

Is the central issue for you one of formality and informality? The church has become a turgid organisation when it should be a fluid community. Are organisation and community contradictory?

“There’s two attitudes that can be taken:

2) The God of the Scriptures was wise enough to not only tell us how to be saved but also how to worship Him, and we would do wise to stick to it as closely as possible.”

I don’t understand how these two attitudes are opposing views. The first speaks of organisation and the second speaks of worship.

I also don’t understand how the clause ‘redefining church from the people to the premises.’ follows from ‘The Scriptures give us the freedom to meet as we want’. If someone believes the Bible gives freedom to meet how we want why does it follow that they are redefining church from people to premises?

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To speak more generally, I agree that the church today is not without fault, and sometimes serious fault. But I don’t think this is reason enough to pan churches as organised institutions.

But when we start having deacon boards, business meetings, church democracy governed by “Rules of Order,” trustee boards, membership rolls, lesson plans, Sunday school plans, offerings-just-to-pay-church-bills, building programs, and so on… Then yeah, I think organized churches are unscriptural — or at least superscriptural (read: beyond the Scriptures).

There’s two attitudes that can be taken:

1) The Scriptures give us the freedom to meet as we want, redefining church from the people to the premises.

2) The God of the Scriptures was wise enough to not only tell us how to be saved but also how to worship Him, and we would do wise to stick to it as closely as possible.

(Okay, I’m characterizing a bit in those attitudes, but I’m definitely stuck to number 2.)

What do you mean by organised? Are you saying organised churches are unscriptural?

I moved from thinking I wanted to be a preacher, to wanting to lead and establish house churches, to figuring out that even house churches are another form of organization that is not needed…

Like you said, we are ambassadors of Christ. We also are “the Church” — kind of interesting that the idea of “going” to church is not inherent in the scripture — but rather that “the Church” existed in different places (i.e. the Church at Ephesus, the Church at so and so’s home, etc…)

I recently read a fantastic book about some of this thinking on what the Church is and isn’t. You can read it for free thanks to the goodwill of the authors. Here’s a link to the website of
“So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore”