Go or Send? How Best to “Do Church”
My pal William Dudding over at Reforming Baptist, has a great post examining the missional model of church growth. He bristles at that term for it’s cutting-edge, postmodern feel (even while others would complain it’s over-used and much abused). I respect Will all the more, for posting a couple video clips of Mark Driscoll talking about this, because if you know Will, he is very much not a Mark Driscoll fan. We can learn from anyone, however, and it takes humility and sincerity to admit that.
I agree with the main point of Will’s post, that attracting people to a church with it’s programs is not the NT model for “doing church”. Rather than sending people to our church, we should be going to where the people are and reaching them. We should gather as believers to be built up, edified, and most of all to worship Christ together. We then leave the assembly to take Christ to the lost all around us.
How do we do this effectively, however? How can I get my own self to open my mouth boldly and also to compassionately interact with the people God has placed in my life? These are the questions Will brings up, and which demand answers.
I think we need to get creative, and make sure our church activities don’t sap us of any time and strength left to think missionally of our own neighborhoods and communities. We need to envision ourselves as missionaries to the places we live.
God ultimately has to guide us and empower our ministry, but there are strategies which may enhance our effectiveness in God’s mission. One of the tools and methods that I most believe could work, has also been ignored by the wider church. In fact I still haven’t come to a place where I have liberty to attempt this (or is it just plain ol’ courage I lack?).
I’m talking about using small groups as home church-meetings, in a sense. We can invite people to come to these smaller meetings where we are more open and real and less “church-ly”. We can let the lost see how Christianity is lived out in our homes and how it radically shapes our outlook. I look in vain to the New Testament for a one-man-gets-up-to-speak-while-the-thousand-congregants-sit-down-to-listen-quietly model of church teaching and preaching. I see believers interacting with one another, teachers interrupting each other as God gives them a word, and prophets judging the prophets in a vibrant, lively way.
I’m a little leery of changing things up too drastically, however. We have hundreds of years of tradition, not to mention the fact that preaching can be very effective in people’s lives. So what about some kind of mix between an emphasis on home groups (where evangelism and discipleship can happen, and where gifted teachers can exercise their gifts) and corporate gatherings of the entire church for preaching and extended worship?
This kind of model is described in detail, in a book I gobbled up a while back, called Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. In the book they talk about living with gospel intentionality. They show how an emphasis on community is encouraged in Scripture. They see evangelism as a three-fold cord: building relationships, sharing the gospel, and introducing people to community (by means of the home groups). All the while, they encourage the Gospel and the Word to stay central. But they also encourage community involvement, and meeting social needs in the name of Christ.
The benefits of the emphasis on home groups is that church planting becomes easier. Training and discipleship can happen while people are ministering in home settings, and seeing ministry modeled up close and personal. Furthermore, the togetherness that this model fosters, aids in purity and spiritual growth, as we really can’t become holy by ourselves, nor were we expected to (think Heb. 3:12-14).
Total Church does have some radical ideas, but I appreciated how they connected everything to the gospel. It’s a book I’ll be picking up again, as I continue sorting out how best we should do church for God’s glory, our growth, and the eternal benefit of the lost around us.
Does this make sense? Am I missing some important problems with this idea? Anyone else thinking along these lines? I’d love your feedback here, or over on Will’s post where they’re discussing this too.
Disclaimer: This book was provided by Crossway Books for review. I was under no obligation to offer a favorable review.
Pick up a copy of this book at Westminster Bookstore, Amazon.com or through Crossway direct.
I agree with you that small/home groups are a great way to evangelize. I believe this mentality is sadly lacking in these groups.
However I don’t think the “traditional” one-preacher-many-congregants model is totally absent from the New Testament. It is at least there implicitly.
This leads me to my red flag about small groups. Again I say small groups should be evangelizing and serving the communities they are in. But, I also think we need to be encouraging new converts to be baptized and become members of a local church. If we let people linger in the small group context, not only will they miss the blessings in the ordinances of the church but the leader may be more likely be usurping authority that he has not earned. Whether he does it by accident or on purpose it is a danger that needs to be guarded against.
With that danger in mind and avoided, I think the church does need to encourage the model you have mentioned.
By the way, if you are interested in an encouraging co-labor in your own small group I’d love to discuss and seek the Lord’s wisdom on it.
Thanks for sharing Mr. Hayton.
In Christ,
Matt
Thanks, Matt. You bring up some good points. At present, I have a small group of sorts where I’m teaching through Mark every other Saturday morning at 9am in St. Paul. That’s about it for now (although I’m more involved in church programs and such, facilitating adult SS, and helping out in other avenues).
The idea of starting a missional small group with someone else does sound appealing, maybe God will lead us to that. Hope all is well with your bunch.
Blessings in Christ,
Bob
Thanks for this post! I would have missed the Driscoll videos on account that I don’t typically listen to him. However, he did make some great points there. I recently finished a book by Tim Chester (Gospel-centred Family) so I wasn’t all that surprised to see that he wrote a book discussing the topic on which you’re deliberating. I have found his writing to be thought-provoking. I posted on your friend’s site, but will post here as well, that one of the things that challenges me as a stay-at-home Mom are his thoughts on being a serving family. He writes, “If we put our children before serving God and others, then we make an idol of them. How will they learn to worship God as God if they see us worshipping them in place of God? We don’t serve our children well by putting them at the centre of our lives, a space reserved for God alone” (pg. 90, Gospel-centred Family by Ed Moll and Tim Chester). I wish he had expounded on this concept as I have five children seven and under. He does have some helpful suggestions. I look forward to reading some of his other titles. Thanks again for sharing! Great things about which to ponder!
Funny, I responded to you on my friend’s site just now before seeing this here! I’m interested in that title you read too, I’ll have to track it down. I agree that’s a peril of living as a Christian in this world, we can focus so much on life in the world (preserving ourselves from sin, etc.), that we forget about the needs of the world.
What is funnier still is that I almost responded to you on your friend’s site again before checking here and seeing that you had responded here as well. I ordered my copy of “Gospel-centred Family” directly from The Good Book Company, but I think it is slightly cheaper at Monergism.com, and you can get free shipping if you’re already ordering other materials.
There is a definite balance for which to strive. We watched a short missions presentation at church this past Sunday in which a pastor was confessing his foolishness in investing all of his time shepherding a large flock to the neglect of his family so I am very aware that we can err in either direction. In this season of life, I find my temptation is probably to err on the side of serving my children too much, so I am very grateful for the thought-provoking discussion begun here.
I look forward to hearing more about your thinking on these matters. Our church has small group meetings in various homes twice a month at which we discuss application questions from the Sunday message, engage in a time of worship, prayer, fellowship, etc. This seems to be similar to what you are suggesting as far as home-church meetings, I think.
I really liked what you said about making church not so “church-y.” I’m not sure if you had read the book, “Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary.” This is a great book that describes how people who do not normally go to church are not familiar with how churches “work,” and thus they feel uncomfortable going. Having a place where people can freely talk about topics is a great way to get these people into church.
I do also see value in the speaker-congregation model. Having read historical documents about the NT church, I see a model where the Holy Spirit inspires someone to speak, and that person speaks to the entire congregation. The Holy Spirit may then lead someone else to lead the congregation in a song. This may sound disorderly, but when the Holy Spirit is really leading and the congregation is sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, it becomes a very effective worship time. This model may work well with a group of believers who are strong in their faith.
When we were running a student ministry near Tokyo University, we tried to have a more small group approach, where we have opportunities to discuss topics. When we did this it was very effective, and many students were open to asking questions. However, the pastor of the church held closely to traditions and went back to lecture style. This turned off several students, and we saw many of them leave. I wonder if there is a good way to encourage this pastor to be flexible in his way of thinking?
Also in Japan, people (who are not students) are generally conditioned to listening quietly to a lecture. They might have questions, but even if you offer the opportunity to ask questions, they remain silent because the lecturer has the absolute authority over the topic being “discussed.” It is a great challenge to get people who are conditioned like this to open up and have discussions. I often have to first give an example from my own life, then point at specific individuals and ask pointed questions.
As usual, good thought-provoking stuff here. I read a couple of books some years ago. “Reimagining Church” and “Pagan Christianity” both by Frank Viola, he was joined by Frank Barna on the second book. I agreed with alot of the the things in the books, but the main thing they did was to get me to look alot more closely on how we “do” church. I had already begun to take a more serious look at “church” and comparing how we do it as to how it was done in the 1st century. One of the things that I always felt, was that the Holy Spirit would seem to me to be stifled under the way most of us “do” church. The idea that the “man of God” prays every week and receives what the Lord wants us all to have seems limiting to me. I always felt that perhaps maybe the Lord would speak to me or anyone else and have us give it to the congregation, not necessarily a 3-point, 30 minute message mind you, but you know, lay something on our heart that could be briefly shared, and then perhaps others join in and “flesh” out the message.
I would be alittle bit nervous to really “rock” the boat about this because we do have hundreds of years of tradition. But you know I think about alot of things that could be much better. I think if more folks had more of a say, you would automatically get more preacher accountability, coming out of extreme fundamentalism, this really appeals to me. As it is now the “man of God” reigns supreme over the congregation.
I’m rambling, keep up the good work.
Because He Lives,
Greg
I’m with you, Greg. Good rambling. Change has to be incremental, usually. And God’s brought us all a long way, so we can hope for more. Others are seeing this too, so this is good.
Thanks for dropping by,
Bob
I can no longer get to Will Dudding’s site Reforming Baptist Blogspot. How come it went private? Did Fundyland CEO’s censure the site? Some type of conspiracy?
No, I think it’s more his own decision, or he’s getting too much spam or negativity from previous fundamentalists. I can pass your email on to him, if you want, and ask him to grant you access.