I have gone through a metamorphosis in my understanding of church in the last few years. The best way to illustrate the change in my understanding is to tell you about our involvement with Nash Sports Academy and the youth of Ocean View.
Nash and Joann Booysen are co-workers with us in Ocean View, a community of 35,000 people. Actually, the truth be told, we are working with Nash, not the other way around. Nash heads up a sports academy and Joann, his wife, leads a day care program. Their passion is reaching the children and youth of Ocean View.
Nash and Joann do church all week long. Nash and his assistants and the volunteers from All Nations who work with him coach thirteen sports teams. They mentor the young people, build friendships with them and visit them in their homes � in short, they impact their lives.
On Friday nights a group of kids from the community gather in Nash and Joann’s home for worship and Bible study. We meet on Wednesday nights in four other homes with those who are seeking to know more about what it means to know Jesus. We are doing church during the day with the youth of the community, and at night in people’s homes who are coming to faith in Christ.
Is this not how Jesus did church? He was with ordinary people all week long. He was involved in their lives. He “gathered” those who wanted to know more. He built community with them. He invested in their lives. He spoke truth to them. He was a source of life for them.
Church can best be summarized for me in the words of Jesus from Matthew 18: “Where two or three are gathering in my name, there I am in the middle of them.”
Not just one day a week. Not for two hours on that one day. Not in a holy building�but all week long. Everywhere we go. Spread out. Engaging people’s lives. Making a difference to those who have not come to faith in Jesus. Serving those less fortunate than ourselves.
Doing church differently does not mean we wander aimlessly through life with no direction or purpose. And it does mean being intentional about investing in people, gathering people, and obeying Jesus commands. Doing church differently involves living our lives full time for Jesus and his kingdom. No matter what our vocation might be. We are all called to make disciples in the vocations and through the passions God has called to.
On Wednesday last week, I sat with Nash and some local school officials and a business friend from the States. We discussed how we could serve the community and the school by building a community sports center and soccer/football field on the school grounds. We all agreed we had to do this. 52% of the high school youth of Ocean View use Tik, or what we would call crystal meth. It is a dangerous, addictive, destructive drug.
As we met last Wednesday, Muslims and Christians, businessmen and sports enthusiasts, All Nations representatives and parents, we were collaborating to impact the youth of Ocean View and rescue them from the drug dealers and broken homes in the community.
To me, it was church. There is more to it than that. But at it’s core, we were obeying the great commission and the great commandment. That’s what church is about.
I invite you to do the same. If you want help, check out my latest book, co-written with Larry Kreider. It is titled Starting a House Church, and is published by Regal in the USA. It is available on amazon.com. Or listen to the some of the free audio messages about simple church on our media page here. You can download them as an MP3 if you wish.
6 Responses to “Doing Church Differently”
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I so agree with this. It’s what God has been speaking to me about church and I’ve had a radical shift in what I previously thought church was. Imagine the impact in our world if all christians lived like this every day and not just on a Sunday! I used to live the other way and it was a dry and desolate experience, but now I feel so alive as I allow God to walk these paths through a small part of Scotland through me! I’m still seeking how the ‘fullness’ of real church can be outworked in me and will definately be investing in this book.
God bless, Meg
Well said! Actually, I would argue that maybe our accepted cultural norm of church is actually doing church “differently” and what you are describing is doing church “normally!” Certainly in Acts the norm was that Christianity was a lifestyle - with very few references to the church meetings. I love the way you describe “Muslims and Christians” meeting together as “church.” This will blow some minds! We must not compromise Christ. But if we are to have any missional impact on a post-modern society, we MUST learn to take Christ into these situations and shine His light. We cannot afford to have an “us/them” mentality any longer. Keep up the good work.
I can’t agree with you more.It is actually to BE on outreach 24/7. Consciously at first,but as we grow in Jesus it comes naturally. We love people due to the realization of His unconditional love for us;we want them to share in that same realization. And love is action.That equals whatever we do to the least of these: Whether in Pick n Pay supermarket,or in the parkinglot talking to the carwatchman,or to my child etc.etc. Every waking moment. To live IS Christ….
Hey guys,
Good to hear you’re still on the cutting edge. We’re trying to do some of the same stuff here in Hamilton’s inner city with fragmented families (e.g. in a kindergarten class of 20, only one child is living with two married parents) and people struggling with addictions. We’re in the process of starting up intentional Christian discipleship houses, not unlike Dilaram, to facilitate that. Thanks for the encouragement that we’re not crazy. :-)
Robin
Hi Floyd
I so appreciate your spirit and emhasis
I fully agree with you and believe that worldwide the walls are coming down.
My friends in Gansbaai built a boat over a period of 2 years. I remember getting there one day and noticed that they had broken down the old shed and built a new one double the size over the old one! It was time for the hull to be released from the mould and they needed more space. I realised in a flash that it did not matter how big the new building would be, it would never replace the destiny of the boat. The boat was never deinged to decorate a building or a harbour for that matter, it was designed to face and conquor the ocean. I believe that we are going to witness dramatic change in the church structure worldwide. It does not matter how comfortable the building was, it would never become the destiny of the boat! (Unless we want to build museums!) The boat is not going back there. Only the mould remains where more of the same will be built by a team of specialists. There needs to be a mindset shift where the church becomes a logistical base in a sense to accommodate all the positive activities present in a typical harbour within the community. I do not propagate a certain recipe as such, but I believe as we see the bigger picture of lives launched into life’s ocean, there would be a spontaneous expression of the kind of practical fellowship that accommodates the vision.
Here is an extract from a little book I wrote, DONE:
GREAT CHANGE IN THE CHURCH
Rick Joyner, a prophetic teacher from Charlotte, USA, says: ”I see such a sweeping return to Biblical Christianity coming, that the very understanding of Christianity, by both the world and the church, will be changed.”
Great change is indeed coming to church-life, as we know it. Multitudes of believers find a fresh expression in a smaller home environment rather than the clumsy impersonal big building context (Often spelt, contest!). What needs reformation though, is not in the first place the size or structure of church expression, but the content of its message! Unless the fundamental ingredient of our understanding of the finished work of Christ is grasped by engraved spirit revelation, the smaller compact package of the home church will soon become the same baggage that neutralised and paralysed believers for ages. ‘A little leaven leavens the whole lump’ says Paul in Gal.5:6-10. He clearly refers to religious tradition, in this case, circumcision that represents personal contribution and performance in order to distinguish and qualify the individual. Even the slightest emphasis on personal effort and contribution, nullifies the faith that grace reveals, and makes gratitude phoney. Any presence in our belief, even insignificantly small, of something we still have to do in order to obtain favour from God nullifies the power of the cross and puts us back under the law of performance. ‘While we compete and compare with one another we are without understanding! 2Cor.10:12.
Most Christians do not have a problem with the fact that Christ is revealed and received by faith, the problem comes with the practical walk which so easily becomes cluttered by all the performance-related emotions that the law triggers, such as boasting, competition, guilt, fear, suspicion, sin-consciousness etc. Any form of doing not inspired by the revelation of grace results in dead works! It is the faith-inspired and faith-sustained walk that triumph in life! Gal.3:2,3.
Faith is fuelled by revealed value; (Gal.5:6) love sees that something has happened to mankind in Christ that is of far greater authority and consequence than what happened to humanity in Adam’s fall. Rom.5:14-21, 2Cor.5:14-21. It is also as much superior to the prophetic shadow sustained by tradition, as the child that is born is superior to the placenta that held and sustained the seed and foetus of promise. Col.2:8,17, Gal.4:1-10. Faith understands that the conclusion of grace is mankind’s inclusion in Christ.
Ministry initiative will spontaneously be ignited when believers discover afresh the success of the cross and the value God places on every individual. “The love of Christ constrains me (Not guilt or a sense of religious duty, neither a job-description) For I am convinced that because one has died for all, therefore all died, from now on therefore I regard NO ONE from a human point of view…2Cor 5:14,16
hey I’m not sure how i got on your email list but wanted u to know that I resonate with much you are saying esp. about the next church! keep it rolling! dave gibbons