KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 1B

I then suspected that the problem with the church was a theological problem.

I had only been in Las Vegas for a few months when my fellow Apex leaders and I began sensing some issues brewing beneath the surface of our seemingly “successful” church. These issues would have been easy for us to ignore since people were coming to our church, and offerings were steadily increasing. But we were not satisfied with that. The church had grown to hundreds of people. The crowd dynamic was exciting. But those of us who had first “dreamed her up” in college had begun missing the radical and intimate community we had experienced in college.

We began to realize that somehow we had accidentally experienced what it really meant to be church with each other back in our college days. Back then we cherished our experience of community with each other so much that we had covenanted to start a church together someday. We were largely motivated by an intense desire to keep our community together. Yet in the process of starting and leading this church, we were on the verge of losing our community with one another. Beyond that, to the extent that we still were living in community with one another, only about fifty out of our five hundred people were really connecting to each other in a deep and meaningful way. The others enjoyed our Sunday “show,” but they frequently came and went. Apex attracted many visitors, but although the front door was “wide open” bringing these visitors to our church service, our “back door” was cracked open as well. In response to this, we tried implementing small group programs, but in the end, most of the groups were small and unhealthy and were not effectively closing the back door. We felt a dilemma. How could we really be what the New Testament Church was?

Some of our leaders went out on a week-long trip to visit innovative ministries around the country who were reaching our generation. The ministries we visited used a wide variety of approaches. At one particular stop on our trip, we visited a church that was in the process of decentralizing into a group of smaller churches, or house churches. It was this stop that impacted us the most. What we saw happening in these house churches was exactly what we were missing. We had based our entire ministry on our “show,” which was exciting and good, but missing the essence of what church really was.

In the following months as we processed our discovery, we began reading books from people who were further along on the same journey. Through our reading we saw that what we were contemplating was not just the next great model for church. Instead it was much more radical. What we were contemplating was a better understanding of our theology of church.

At this point in my life I already had a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from CBS&S. I was certainly capable of writing a theologically accurate and Biblically sound definition of “church.” However, what I knew was not reflected in what I practiced. I was living with a blind spot. Though I knew in my head what church really was, I practiced a different idea of what church was, one that was conditioned by my culture. I was living out an understanding of church centered on the assumption that church was a “place where” certain things happened. I knew better, yet I played along!

Apex was different from most of the churches I had known. We had enhanced much of the stuff that happened at our “place.” We had made the music, the teaching, the atmosphere, and even the attitude of the place more authentic and more relevant to our generation and to the emerging culture. Yet we had never challenged the “place where” assumption behind church. We just assumed that church must be a “place where” certain things happened, and we had set out to make the things that happened as good as they could be in our context.

Our culture’s “place where” assumption about church comes out in many of the simple, innocent phrases we commonly use regarding church, such as:
• Where do you go to church?
• What time does church start?
• We don’t go to church anymore.

Our culture has allowed the North American entrepreneurial spirit to control our theology of church. Because of this, our real primary definition of church (though we would never say this) is that church is a non-profit organization! Church in North America has become the spiritual version of the corporation, only with kingdom growth as the bottom line. So when we examine questions like “what is wrong with the church?” we automatically begin by trying to make the non-profit organization more effective. It never even occurs to us to question whether or not the non-profit organization is really the best understanding of what church is.

This leads to logical outcomes. Non-profit organizations (though not bad or good things in and of themselves) must put on excellent programs if they hope to impact the busy, distracted people of their target audience. In order to put on excellent programs, they must hire talented staff people, they must recruit large pools of volunteers, and they must buy or rent first-class facilities. And, of course, in order to hire talented staff and to acquire first-class facilities, non-profit organizations must raise large sums of money. If the church understands itself as a non-profit organization, then it has little choice but to raise large sums of money so that it can hire talented staff and acquire first-class facilities so that it can put on excellent programs so that it can actually impact a busy and distracted target audience. There is no other way to operate if we understand the church primarily as non-profit organization.

The problem is that our theological understanding of church is not primarily that of non-profit organization! Instead, we understand church primarily as being the people of God who are sent out on God’s mission. Once I came to admit this fact, then everything I had previously assumed about church began to rapidly change.

After spending a few years processing this renewed theological understanding of church, I began expressing the essence of church in even simpler terms. Now I would say that church, in its simplest form, is “plural for Christ-follower.” If two or more Christ-followers are together, they are an expression of church. Of course, there is ultimately the universal church made up of all Christ followers in all times and all places. But church often is expressed in more tangible, small meetings between two or more Christ followers.

This understanding was vital to me because I previously defined church by what it did instead of by who it was. Even in our early days of planting house churches, we insisted that a group must do certain things regularly in order to be considered a church. But we would never consider this as a viable way to identify a Christ-follower (the term I am using for Christian). We would insist that a Christ follower is one who follows Christ, or one who has been saved. We would not say that a Christ follower is one who reads the Bible, prays, and uses his spiritual gifts. Though a Christ follower will, in fact likely do these things, it is not the doing of these things that makes one a Christ follower. A Christ follower is identified by who he is (or, stated better, by whose he is), not by what he does. This is true because a Christ follower does not always perform perfectly to a set of standards, yet this does not change his identify as a follower of Christ. Once we accept that a Christ follower is identified by whose he is, not by what he does, then it is possible to see that church (defined as plural for Christ follower) is defined by who (or whose) it is, not by what it does. Two or more Christ followers coming together are church whether they are doing “Christian things” or whether they are watching television. Though a healthy church will do certain things, it is not the doing of these things that determines whether or not it is in fact an expression of church.

What a huge puzzle piece this discovery was for me! It led Apex into a five-year transition. We began to de-centralize our church into a network of smaller communities. As we decentralized, we were not against organizational tools like church buildings, paid church staff, and church programs. We had just come to understand these tools as totally optional and definitely secondary. This understanding changed everything. Although we held on to our weekly large meeting for awhile, we began meeting in smaller communities in each others homes (or wherever) for our primary church meetings. At first we called these smaller communities house churches. After a while, we found the term house church to be confusing, so we opted for more accurate descriptions such as simple church or organic church. However, even these terms confused the real point, which is that what we were becoming was actually just church. There was no need for labels or titles once we understood what we ourselves meant by church.

Our smaller communities began as mini-organized churches meeting in living rooms. We copied many of the elements of larger church in our homes because we did not what else to do. Although a few communities flourished this way, most began discovering that they had to function more like a family and less like an organization if their community was to survive and flourish. As a general rule, the communities that included a meal as part of their meetings were the ones that became healthy communities that functioned like families.

These theological issues of church, which were a key puzzle piece to understanding what was wrong with the North American Church, would cost me and our church many things. First, it cost us many people. Early on in the transition, we lost many people who decided to go back to mega-churches instead of completing our transitional process. Second, my convictions that paid staff persons were not essential to church would eventually cost me my “career” as a paid professional pastor. Third, it cost us our reputation in some circles as some long-time Christians misunderstood our intentions in de-centralizing our church and thought that we were, at worst, seriously misguided and, at best, not very strategic. In the end though, the benefits of a simple understanding of church would far outweigh its challenges as we started really being church more than doing church.

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Supplemental Readings:
• Matthew 18:20
• Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35
• Acts 16:11-15, 22-34
• Acts 18:6-7
• Romans 16:3-5
• The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
• The House Church by Del Birkey (Herald 1988)
• The Church Comes Home by Robert Banks
• The Naked Church by Wayne Jacobsen (BodyLife 1998)
• Houses That Change the World by Wolfgang Simson (OM Publishing 2001)
• Cultivating a Life For God by Neil Cole (ChurchSmart 1999)
• The Organic Church Planter’s Greenhouse Intensive Training Even Participation Notes by Neil Cole & Paul Kaak (CMA 2003)

KEEPING CHURCH SIMPLE – PART 1A

I next suspected that the problem with the church was a cultural problem.

After college, I spent five years involved in church planting in the New York City Metro Area. Part of that time I spent on a church-planting team in the New Jersey suburbs. The remainder of that time I spent working in the offices of a church-planting organization on Long Island. My time in the New York City Metro Area taught me much about culture. The culture of New York was different from the Midwestern culture in which I had grow up. The northeastern United States, New York in particular, was further along the postmodern cultural transition than the Midwest. I learned about the cultural transition first-hand as I lived among New Yorkers. During the same period of time I was learning about this cultural transition “second-hand” by reading various books about the postmodern culture shift in North American and how the shift impacts the North American church.

These experiences helped me understand that North America was fast becoming the next great mission field. This realization helped me understand that I could only be Christ’s ambassador in the postmodern culture of North America by seeing myself more as a missionary to a “foreign” culture, and seeing myself less as a pastor to my “native” culture. Though I was still young enough to consider myself a native to the postmodern culture, I had grown up in middle America’s evangelical church, which meant that I was truly an immigrant to the emerging postmodern culture all around me. I would have to learn to engage this culture as a missionary.

To engage the culture as a missionary, I would first have to do what all missionaries must do when they engage a culture: I would have to “learn the language of the culture.” In my situation, this did not mean that I would have to learn a new spoken dialect as much as it would mean I would have to come to understand the norms of the people. I would then have to engage the culture on its terms, spending massive amounts of time with the natives in order to understand their worldview and how that might impact their understanding of the Gospel.

Only a few years had gone by since I had devoted my life to reaching my generation for Christ. Yet already I began to see that the problem with the North American church was much broader than I initially assumed. The issues were more than just generational, they were cultural.

In 1999 I left New York and moved to Las Vegas to rejoin my college friends as part of the leadership team of Apex, a church specifically targeting my generation. But even before I arrived in Vegas, I had already become aware that generational issues were not at the core of the North American church’s problems. My early experiences with Apex would confirm this. The average age at Apex was right in the middle of my generation. Yet the people who were part of Apex did not always fit neatly into generational categories. For example, there was a seventy-year-old man who related to our style of ministry. On the other hand, there were twenty-five-year-olds who hated our church. We were about more than just a “ generationally-targeted” ministry. Sometimes we described it by saying that Apex was more about an attitude than it was about an age. That attitude was really the understanding of the emerging postmodern culture.

Once again, I thought I had found the answer to my question of what was wrong with the church. I would reorient my life to be a missionary to postmodern North America. Again, this understanding, though proving to be a vital piece to the puzzle, would only lead me toward a deeper understanding of what was wrong with the church. My journey had just begun.

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Supplemental Readings:
• Acts 17:16-34
• Acts 18:1-17
• Missional Church, ed. By Darrell L. Guder (Eerdmans 1998)
• The Church Between Gospel and Culture, ed. by George Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder (Eerdmans)
• Transforming Mission by David Bosch (Orbis 1991)
• The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George G. Hunter (Abingdon 2000)
• Resident Aliens by William Willimon and Stanly Hauweras (Abingdon 1989)
• Ancient-Future Faith by Robert E. Webber,
• Foolishness to the Greeks by Leslie Newbigin (Eerdmans 1986)
• The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Leslie Newbigin

A friend of ours who currently resides in Las Vegas, NV has been on an interesting journey over the past several years. He has chronicled a bit of that for a class he was teaching at a mid-western Bible college. He shared that paper with us when we were out there in October last year, and I asked him if I could share it with you. He happily agreed.

It is written in a few parts, so as to not overwhelm you I will post it in those parts. Perhaps I will even comment in between. Perhaps not. But with our move towards simpler life these days, and some really well spoken (written) thoughts by Greg, it just seemed the right time to post these.

Enjoy! And feel free to comment as well. More to come.
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Keeping Church Simple
By Greg Hubbard

PART I: THE JOURNEY TOWARD A SIMPLE UNDERSTANDING OF CHURCH

My story from the past fifteen years is so intertwined with my beliefs about church that I could not begin to separate one from the other. So, I am going to weave my story and my convictions about church together as I retrace fifteen years of my life for you.

In 1989 I made a last minute decision to go to Cincinnati Bible College & Seminary (CBC&S) to prepare for ministry of some sort. I made this decision based on the feeling I had after taking two short-term mission trips during high school. One trip was to the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the other to the Central American nation of Honduras. On the return flights home from each of those trips, I had an overwhelming sense that for the first time in my life I had been part of something that really mattered. This was a confusing thought, though, because I knew on the one hand that I was not gifted to be a third-world missionary. I also knew, on the other hand, that I was not gifted to be a pastor in the traditional American sense of the word. Yet I felt a sense of longing to prepare for ministry.

Out of blind obedience, I decided to scrap my college and career plans. I changed my plans three weeks before my first semester of college was to begin, and enrolled in CBC&S instead of Indiana University.

During my four years of undergraduate study at CBC&S I began to put words to something I had sensed for awhile: “Something was wrong with the church in North America.” Partially motivated out of youthful rebellion, yet partially motivated by a sincere notion that something wasn’t right, I set out to figure out and, hopefully, remedy what was wrong. Little did I know where that journey would lead me over the subsequent fifteen years!

I first suspected that the problem with the church was a generational problem.

During my undergraduate years at CBC&S, I began to study church growth and church planting. These subjects were not part of the mainstream curriculum of my conservative college, but they were creeping into the curriculum through some more progressive-thinking professors. I learned that the church in North America was experiencing most of its numerical growth from rapidly-growing suburban mega-churches and from new church plants. Much of the material I studied concerning mega-churches and new church plants dealt with a specific target audience: the Baby Boomer Generation (those born roughly between 1946 and 1964).

I was fascinated by mega-churches, new church planting, and the corresponding demographics of the Baby Boomers. These theories were combining two areas I had previously seen as distinct: world missions and pastoral ministry. The lines were now being blurred. I began to feel like I had found my unique niche for ministry.

It all made sense except for one glaring inconsistency: I was not a Baby Boomer! I was born in 1970. As I studied the demographics of the Boomers, I realized that I was not studying the demographics of myself or of my high school friends. We were very different. Only later would I learn the labels for our generation.

Still, the whole idea of a church targeting a generation with the gospel was exciting to me at that point in my journey. As I learned more about my own generation, I became aware of the longing I had within me to see my generation come to know Christ in a real and relevant way. I began to have a heart for my own high school friends.

All of this led me to believe that the problem I sensed with the church was directly related to generational issues. The North American church had just begun to understand the Baby Boomer generation. This understanding led to massive growth in mega-churches and new church plants. I wondered what might happen if the North American church began to really understand my generation. I was excited by the possibilities. After attending a nation-wide, cross-denominational conference with two hundred other people who were wondering the same thing, I decided to get serious. I decided to devote my life to seeing the church reach my generation for Christ.

Only later would I realize that this generational issue was not the core problem of the North American church. Instead, this generational issue would turn out to be the first piece to a puzzle that I would have to put together in order to get to the core what was wrong with the church.

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Supplemental Readings:
• Psalm 78:1-4
• Jesus for a New Generation by Kevin Graham Ford (InterVarsity 1995)
• 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail, by Neil Howe & Bill Strauss (Vintage Books 1993)

We went to see the trains last night. Among many other family night events. This break from our previous busyness of gigging and serving and doing and being everywhere has been so amazing. So refreshing. So great for our family, I believe. We spend every evening either together as a family, exploring our town or just doing something fun together at home, or we spend it with friends, sharing our lives and our homes.

But last night we finally got to see the trains.

There is a track about 2 miles from our house. It would be great to walk there, but the road is a wee bit perilous for such an excursion with such small children. So, we drove. We parked the van in a little gravel pull-off area right by the tracks and got out to explore the area until a train arrived.

We found some really neat rocks, the sparkly kind with lots of colors. We found some deer tracks in the mud. We also found a few snails, three or four Gold Finches and even some raspberries! We later found out that we had seen some Locust trees as well, thanks to our wise and knowledgeable Grandpa Tom!

It was great! We were having so much fun just enjoying the simple things. We didn’t need a movie to entertain us, or a video game, or a board game, or an amusement park, or any other sort of contrived activity that all have a place and are all certainly enjoyable. But last night, and for the past couple months, we have just been enjoying the simple.

And then, just before sunset, while telling stories back in our van about some armed robots that Dad had read about earlier… the train crossing lights started flashing and the bells started sounding.

A train was coming!!!

We all excitedly stood at the front of our van, facing the tracks, eagerly anticipating the arrival of our first close-up train! We heard the train’s whistle growing closer, and within a few short moments, there it was!!! Big, and fast, and powerful… and we all waved, prompting a few short toots aimed in our direction by the engineer.

We all loved it! And I suggested we stick around another five minutes to see if another would go by, and sure enough, it did! We saw a passenger train go the other way, and though a bit shorter in length, he was a bit more busy tooting his train whistle, and Ian said, “I saw him waving!!” 🙂

So, perhaps though it felt like we were the recipients of the majority of the joy that night, perhaps we also brightened the trip for a few train drivers.

Point is, we didn’t do your typical “entertain me” evening that is quite common in our country these days, and probably had some of the most fun we have in a long time. And we did it together.

I can’t wait for the next train. 🙂

“A 44-year-old woman from Monroe County was killed today as an automobile driven by a former Olympic Medalist missed a stop sign and collided with her vehicle. The driver of the other vehicle was not hurt.”

“Police say three men were fatally wounded as gunfire broke out in a downtown neighborhood around 1am Monday night. No names were released until the families of the deceased have been notified.”

“There is no new information in the search for a 12-year-old girl who is missing from her home in Texas. Police are still searching for any clues in connection with her disappearance.”

“Fifty Iraqi soldiers were killed today when a road-side bomb detonated as their vehicle passed.”

“An earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale leveled homes and businesses in Indonesia Tuesday, killing thousands and leaving tens of thousands more homeless.”

We report the news these days like mindless, heartless automatons. We show no connection to any of the stories, no human compassion is revealed. Just this emotionless, objective presentation of the facts.

And then when we add emotion, it usually deals with our protected areas of ideals or beliefs. We fight hard against those who would undermine our way of living or our worldviews.

But we calmly report the devastation of a single family’s life. The complete collapse of one individual’s world, and the ripples large and small that are felt through the fabric of their personal relationships.

I was listening to a Christian radio station this morning, and they reported the news in the same way you might hear anywhere else. Disconnected. Heartless. The first story mentioned above was accurately quoted – it was the one I heard that got my attention this morning – though, it may have been more real… more connected… if reported like this:

“We heard today of a local man, [Name Here], whom you may remember as an Olympic medalist in the 2002 Olympics. [Man’s Name] missed a stop sign and collided with the car that [Woman’s Name] was driving. She was a [Something Descriptive about her Life] from [This Town]. She was killed in the collision. [Man’s Name] was not injured physically, but must be dealing with a lot of other pain at the moment.”

OK, so it would take 5-10 more seconds, but it connects. It shows that we care. It shows we realize that each of these tragedies we so calmly report happen to REAL people. I was wishing today that somehow the news reporters could actually, personally know each of the people involved in these stories, or at least report as though they did. How differently these stories would come across then. Not just facts, but lives… shared.

As though we were in this together?

Now THAT would be news.

On the lighter side of things today, this a stream of conciousness at lunch from the mind of our three-year-old son, Alex:

(I mentioned something about God… then Alex says:)

“I call him JE-sus. [to Dad] Sometimes, you call him Jesus. You can call him Jesus, too. Mom can call him Jesus, and You can call him Jesus, and Ian can call him God [editor’s note: not sure where this discrepancy came from…] and Kirsten [who’s 1 yr old, with not much of a vocabulary…] can call him… “Aaah!”

Big smiles.

All around the table. 🙂

Perhaps the thing God is teaching me the most at the moment is to respect the choices and decisions and lifestyles of other people. To really allow them to choose what they think is best for their lives. Whether it is meaningless like the insane compulsion to use inferior computers when Apple computers are far superior and so readily available at GregsApples.com for a low, low price… 🙂

Or, the deeper stuff of life, too.

We are clearly all very different. Difference displays God’s diversity. His bigness, in that he contains all of who we are in one entity. He is clever, he is witty, he is thoughtful, he is wise, he is spontaneous, he is organized, he is gentle, he is strong, he is all of that and more than we know. All in one. He made us all a unique combination of pieces of himself.

But we are not always good at embracing the differences. Usually, we want to snuff them out. Our first inclination at the sight of something different is to want to correct it, to make it better. Right? When I see my kids doing something that I would not, or that I think is wrong or even a waste of time, I want to tell them not to do it. Or to do it differently. Of all of the people I might influence, I have the most say in my kids lives, but I have done that with other people as well. I have a really hard time holding back my ideas for what Jen should be doing, or how she should be thinking, or spending her time. She would appreciate me learning to use a leash on my words, but as of yet I have not mastered that.

I have mentioned before on this site that a bunch of the things we do as “the church” (as it is understood in popular culture) are intended to conform people to a way of thinking that is held by a small group of people in leadership, or a single leader, or even perhaps the majority. There is a code of right behavior, and we are all encouraged to align ourselves accordingly. Without thought of or allowance for a difference of opinion or interpretation on how one might live out a life with Jesus.

While those words may paint a slightly darker picture than you may perceive, they do mirror reality in that we are not very good at letting others experience their own journey with their Father. There are “ways you do things” and we often find ourselves at least thinking that people should be righting their ship accordingly, if not telling them to their face. (Or, as is often the case in “the church”, telling many other people how we think they should be doing it.)

We are very into controlling.

Perhaps it’s because we have so little control in our own lives? Since we can’t really control what happens to us, or even, it would seem, what we ourselves do, then the next best thing would be to tell someone else what to do, right? If you can by guilt, authority or some other means of manipulation get them to do what you think is right, then you have some semblance of control in your own life. But not really. It too is only an illusion.

The idea of releasing control is especially frightening in the setting of “the church” as there are standards to uphold and to visibly conform to. When someone who has lived a life full of habits and behaviors that stray from the standard, from the code of right behavior for a follower of Jesus, then they need to be carefully monitored so they will be brought up to code. Their lives will then be an appropriate witness of the power of God, being conformed to the likeness of all the other members. Right?

Nope.

“Do not conform any longer … but be transformed…”

Interestingly enough, the word Paul chose to avoid was “conform”. He says we should be “transformed” by the renewing of our minds. Allowing God to do a work in us that conforming to a set of rules, or code of ethics or standard of behavior could do in us. We can’t do it for ourselves, and we can’t expect it of other people.

You may be at a point in your journey where the rules are helping you tremendously. You have never known boundaries before, so the clear fences of right and wrong actually produce freedom in you. In my book, A Journey Shared, there is a story about “The Heart” that likens it to the scripture where a runner is free to run in the path of God’s commands… he has a direction, a boundary. But that may not be where your brother or sister is.

You might be at a point where you grew up following all the regulations, serving a God who monitored your every move and either approved or disapproved. There was no middle ground. For you, learning of God’s grace and his deep love for you has set you free from the bondage of performance. You are realizing the depth of his mercy and grace and enjoying your freedom from the fetters of religion. But that may not be where your brother or sister is.

Whether it is in the depths of our relationship with God, or a casual confrontation regarding the schedule for your house for the week, there will most certainly be differences. The hardest part of the journey for me right now is not only accepting them, but loving the freedom of others to choose differently from me. Even if I am right, and they get hurt, or hurt others (as long as they are not feeling free to KILL someone or something) … I want to know the freedom of stepping back and letting others have their Journey with Father. Freedom to choose, to learn, to live and even fail as he leads them in their journey.

I am definitely becoming more “pro-choice”.

(And no, I’m not talking about a political disposition…)

You know we live through long, cold winters when at the first sunny evening we will stand in long lines outside the door of our favorite local ice cream shop even though the temps haven’t been out of the low sixties for the entire weekend.

The weather is definitely one thing I do like about living here!