Beyond the Church

Why did Jesus so often in His deal­ings with those who would come to Him sim­ply tell them to go, repent­ing of their sins? Why, with rare excep­tion, did He not invite peo­ple to fol­low Him, join­ing His assembly?

Why did the apos­tles, in their deal­ings with the peo­ple they encoun­tered, not spend time invit­ing peo­ple to par­tic­u­lar churches, even after they believe?

Why did Phillip, after bap­tiz­ing the Ethiopian, send the man on his way? Isn’t bap­tism sup­posed to be the entry rit­ual to orga­nized churches?

Why are today’s evan­ge­lis­tic tac­tics so often for­mu­lated in such a way as to not share Jesus Christ but to instead share an invi­ta­tion to an orga­nized church?

Why are we con­tent to let evan­ge­lism com­pletely miss the point? Why do we intro­duce our­selves as rep­re­sent­ing the First Bap­tist Mis­sion­ary Church of the Lutheran Assem­blies of the Church of God in Amer­ica rather than intro­duc­ing our­selves for what we are, ambas­sadors of Jesus Christ. Is it that we are more com­fort­able rep­re­sent­ing a brick and mor­tar orga­ni­za­tion that peo­ple can see, touch, and par­tic­i­pate in rather than rep­re­sent­ing Jesus, whom most con­sider either “the invis­i­ble man in the clouds” or sim­ply a long deceased Nazarene?

Why do we orga­nize gim­micky pro­mo­tions within orga­nized churches which reward putting butts in the pews rather than encour­ag­ing true evan­ge­lism and godly liv­ing so that trea­sures may be heaped up in Heaven?

Why do we expend so much time, effort, and money in orga­niz­ing, build­ing, and pro­mot­ing orga­ni­za­tions (churches, falsely so called) rather than liv­ing and expe­ri­enc­ing an organic, spon­ta­neous faith that results in com­mu­nion among saints wher­ever they may be? Remem­ber that it was some­thing like three cen­turies before Chris­tians started build­ing churches and the like; it was around that same time that the church ceased to be an organic, liv­ing organ­ism and became an insti­tu­tion, not all that dis­sim­i­lar from the world’s busi­nesses or gov­ern­ments. The Roman Catholic Church evolved out of that shift, and while the Ref­or­ma­tion saw the res­cue of many pre­cious teach­ings, our churches are still brick and mor­tar, and we still endow those build­ings with entirely too much rev­er­ence and respect. We treat them as “holy places.”

For all the empha­sis today’s Chris­tians place upon build­ings, atten­dance, and for­mal mem­ber­ship, not a jot of Scrip­ture is wasted on such things. Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity goes beyond to what it is usu­ally con­strained. It must go beyond it.