"Billions of dollars have been wasted in constructing and maintaining unscriptural church buildings, in glitzy, manipulative media evangelism and dishing out toothless paper degrees. None of these tags provide entry into heaven. All this wealth could have been used for advancing the Kingdom by training skilled fishers of men, ameliorating poverty and in meeting the needs of the 10\40 window countries. Remember there will be no shanty towns in the New Jerusalem (Acts 20-33-35)." Meta Church, Victor Choudhrie
Thank
you for your thoughtful push back regarding our emails and Face Book
postings. You feel we unfairly attack the institutional,
congregational church. For the first 35 years of my christian walk I
worked hard, sometimes double tithed, gave offerings, fasted, prayed
and generally did all that I could to make the congregational system
work and multiply. We saw some small "success" and made some friends in
the journey but never really saw any fruitfulness worthy of the One who
called Himself "The Lord of the Harvest".
We
loved preaching and some of the most exciting life moments were on the
stage. However, I realize that those in the entertainment industry feel
the same "anointing" as they preform. The sound of the football
chants, the U2 concerts and the high praise and worship is the same.
The emotional fulfillment is the same. The crowd dynamics are the
same. Why would Jesus send the crowds away in order to invest in the
12? We judge success by the size of the crowd and the feeling of the
moment. He did not. I began to question the system.
I
began to question the system when we began to hear about disciple
making movements that were baptizing hundreds of thousands and
mobilizing labourers from those same harvest fields to multiply that
process of disciple making in a simple, relational process where ever
life happened- in the street, in the home, in school, under a tree, in a
tea house or at work. Movements like the one begun by Victor
Choudhrie.
Our
questions about the system became stronger when leaders failed. At
first we thought that was the result of character flaws, lack of
friendships and, of course, that is true but we began to question the
system in which relationships are hierarchical, positional and organized
by power as being the largest contributing factor to such failure.
Friends speak the truth to one another. In a hierarchy you do not have
friends. You have competitors for your position, your place is
contingent upon performance & gift rather than character and you
have members who support you. We began to question all of this when we
confronted gross sin, financial mismanagement and lies in the circles
that we touched. We began to question it even more when we began to
hear about disciple making movements whose disciple makers were
primarily lay, bi-vocational, trained on the job and baptizing thousands
of new followers. Yes, there are still moral failures but at least the
system does not work against relationships and truth telling and reward
gifted con artists.
We
questioned our involvement in the congregational system when we faced
the reality that centuries of mission work to Muslims had born
absolutely no fruit but that in this century we are now seeing at least
80 (as documented by David Garrison's "A Wind in the House of Islam" )
disciple making movements creating hundreds of thousands of followers of
Jesus all across the Muslim world and that all of these movements
function outside of the institutional system that I had served for so
long.
Yes,
there are many committed, sacrificial servants of Jesus within each
denominational system. I was one. However, I had to face the truth
that what I was doing was not fruitful and and that most of the
resources in people and funding were committed to keeping the buildings
and the leaders going while the poor got second best. The mortgage got
first priority, the leader's salary got second while actual mission and
the poor got the left overs. It was a religious business. Jesus gave
the poor first priority. Are we not to be His followers? Yes, many
good communities exist doing good things but I like Peter Drucker's
statement that "Nothing is a useless as doing well what should not be
done at all." That is my view of the building and event based system
even when it is doing its best. To me it has become abundantly clear
that if we build church, we lose the Kingdom but if we seek to make
devoted followers of Jesus first and serve the poor, then community is
shaped by and around that and we extend the Kingdom.
"If
we would do what Jesus commanded and exampled and make disciples then
He could do what He promised and build His church." Church is a family
on mission with Jesus. Church is not a meeting, an event, a place or a
building. Most would say that and then in practise deny it. We do not
lack orthodoxy. We lack orthopraxy. And I am not an advocate of house
church per se. If you put your butt on a pew or on a couch makes
little difference if you are simply a consumer of spiritual information
and experiences. House church solves nothing if the mentality has not
changed. It makes many problems worse.
All
of these factors came together so that I could no longer work in the
congregational system. For the third year now we have taken no money
from our donors for our personal living or travel. We are working &
investing to build business income streams so that we can live and
travel on our own dime. Acts 20:32- 35 came to loom larger and larger
in my consciousness until I simply had to act accordingly.
If
what we are saying is so distressing to you, by all means "unfriend".
However, I think you may wish to ask yourself why you are so
distressed. You may find that you are wrestling with these same issues.
Wrestling
is good and you may wish to wrestle with David Garrison's Church
Planting Movements as a starter to understand why I could not longer
support building, meeting, preaching based expressions and when I began
to read the scriptures through the lens of disciple making movements why
I found all other expressions to be less than what Jesus asked us to do
and be. Maybe give our Luke 10 Manual a read and understand our
journey?
The
congregational system in a building or in a house is simply is not a
vehicle for harvest and for disciple making. The Jerusalem model of
church did not last. It was not sustainable then and it is not
sustainable now. As Neil Cole says, "The main impediments to disciple
making movements are the three big "Bs"- Big Shots, Budgets and
Buildings."
My
main problem with the congregational system is that it cannot get the
job done and actually proves over and over again to be an impediment to
getting the job done that Jesus asked us to do.
Your brother
Steve
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