tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post3144962837647264946..comments2024-03-04T00:50:02.182-08:00Comments on KeithGiles.com: The Top 10 Things Every Christian Should Know #6Keith Gileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00328300571647154699noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-22997459239779993292011-07-25T02:19:58.652-07:002011-07-25T02:19:58.652-07:00That (70% to overseas mission) is cool, Dan.That (70% to overseas mission) <i>is</i> cool, Dan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-22833259172772108702011-07-23T10:38:45.660-07:002011-07-23T10:38:45.660-07:00I’ve been part of a number of different churches a...I’ve been part of a number of different churches and I love them all. I really relate to what Keith says about the way churches use money. How we use money shows reveals our priorities. If you want to know what a church values, all you have to do is look at their budget. One church spends over 50% on bricks and mortar and salaries of church staff. One spends over 50% on missions and the poor. I really love the church I’m part of that gives 70% of its income to overseas mission. I’m a new member there, and it’s not a perfect church, but I love that. It shows me where their heart is. REALLY shows me. It’s not just words. It’s action. Sustained action. Every month. DanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-69784623287687886712011-07-21T17:37:51.612-07:002011-07-21T17:37:51.612-07:00I understand what you’re saying, Paul, but my hone...I understand what you’re saying, Paul, but my honest view is still that it’s just a building. I don’t say that to offend you, or to diminish what happens in that building; I just say it because my understanding, from the New Testament, is that <i>we</i> are now the building, the temple, the place of God’s residence—the place that is consecrated to him.<br /><br />And while I understand what you’re saying about a house being “home, sweet home”, I still think, in reality, what makes it “home, sweet home” is the <i>relationships</i> between the people that live in it. They, or those relationships, are what is truly your ‘home’.<br /><br />Also, I think the idea that we ‘go to church’, or that a building is ‘a church’, has substantially undermined our (and the world's) understanding of what church is, and in turn, our growth as Christians. And that's why I've changed my language.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-32601507841235134702011-07-21T14:54:37.585-07:002011-07-21T14:54:37.585-07:00I'm sure there's a lot more putting down a...I'm sure there's a lot more putting down and condescending toward your way of being church than in the behemoth institutions, Chris.<br />I guess what rubs me a bit--and only a bit-- is language like "it's just a church building." <br />It just strikes me as diminishing and even dismissive.<br />Obviously a church is just a building--in one sense. A house is just a building unless it happens to be your home sweet home-- your "castle," your sanctuary.<br /> I see a church as a consecrated House of God, not unlike the Temple that Jesus grew up in and held so sacred as his Father's House. <br />That's certainly not to suggest that Jesus as God is not fully present wherever two or more are gathered in his name--or that God is not at work here, there and everywhere that we broken people aren't shutting Him out and ignoring or questioning his presence.<br />All that said, institutional churches are increasingly being chastened by movements like house church, simple church, Emerging Church and all those movements that I and a lot of others are convinced can be correctives rather than threats to the institutional churches.<br />Ironically, Methodism is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa and Latin countries while American denominational churches are hemorraghing members. They are closer to the New Testament "Way" of being church that we've strayed from.<br />That's why I'm urging everyone I can to come to this very web site with an open mind and think about and discuss and yes, debate it.<br /> We Wesleyans love a hot debate; theology divides us; but worship unites us, which is why we stay in connection with each other--that and through God's grace that connects us all as Christ followers.<br />Peacepaul mckayhttp://jitterbuggingforjesus.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-20354570305247737142011-07-21T12:30:57.196-07:002011-07-21T12:30:57.196-07:00Hi, Paul.
Thanks for your comments. And yes, some...Hi, Paul.<br /><br />Thanks for your comments. And yes, sometimes those who are part of the house church/organic movement can have the wrong attitude. I've had to deal with it in myself.<br /><br />I would say, though, that it goes both ways. I, and many others who choose to meet in the way we do, have experienced some pretty appalling attitudes from other parts of The Church too.<br /><br /><br />You're right, though, we do need to keep the lines open, as much as possible. <br /><br />And to answer your question, yes, I and my kids frequently rub shoulders with people (friends) who are still part of a traditional form of church.<br /><br />I will admit, it's difficult, though, as we see 'church' in quite different ways now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-62483533393724690402011-07-21T09:54:19.259-07:002011-07-21T09:54:19.259-07:00Chris,
Thanks, my brother in Christ our Lord and s...Chris,<br />Thanks, my brother in Christ our Lord and savior. <br />And please allow me a few more comments and I'm out of this discussion.<br />I hope you and your kids are engaging churches of all kinds and being in dialogue with them, not shutting them out, because we can enrich and bless one another and learn from each other and grow in our faith journeys together, complete with some critical thought and engagement. <br />And anyway, the universal church needs a lot more unity and lot less division.<br />Besides, I've been to United Methodist house churches and storefront churches and outdoor churches here and all over the world and we're planting more of them than ever. <br />But frankly, I do detect a little bit of a superiority complex, of the very sort house churchers left behind in denominations or tall steeple churches, among the house churchers I know and have known--and I detect a bit of that at this very blog. It's built into a lot of language that Keith himself and his readers put up here in their comments, and I'm sure that's not the intent of the language. But a lot of it comes across as smug and self-righteous and "puffed up" and smacking of "we are New Testament Christians--we got the right stuff!" I minister at a Baptist Hospital and did two years of chaplaincy training at a big Methodist hospital. The early New Testament Christians didn't build hospitals because hospitals didn't even exist in such primitive times. Realistically, being a "New Testament" house church today is nothing whatsoever like what a New Testament house church and communal living was like for 300 years, and yet I sense a lot of smugness here because, supposedly, house churches are living and being the church like New Testament Christians. Really? I don't think that's even remotely possible, but that's just my, uh, humble opinion. We're all broken people -- and broken churches!(my beloved UMC most of all, of which I'm a severe critic who thinks every day about leaving my UMC in frustration with all its ridiculous "programs" and baggage, but just can't and won't divorce it!) -- in need of God's love and grace and healing power wherever we're doing and being the church. I think we can indeed agree on that, and I'm always open to civil disagreement with my opinions. Thanks and grace and peace to you Chris and all here and God bless you--and I hope my critical language comes across as constructive or thoughtful criticism and not my own puffed up-ness--we all just have to be really careful with our language I think. (I ran way long again, sorry, Keith.)<br /> paulpaul mckayhttp://jitterbuggingforjesus.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-86017862606476666642011-07-21T01:47:26.666-07:002011-07-21T01:47:26.666-07:00Hi, Paul.
I think you've misunderstood what I...Hi, Paul.<br /><br />I think you've misunderstood what I've said. I wasn't AT ALL suggesting that people, such as yourself, who meet in church buildings are not also part of The Church. We all--those who put their faith in Jesus--are part of The Church. And that's my point: it's not a building that is 'the church', it is the <i>people</i>. We don't go TO it; we ARE it. <br /><br />I'm simply changing my language to be Biblically accurate, and teaching my kids to do the same. <br /><br />I hope you can see where I'm coming from now. I really was just agreeing with what Keith was saying.<br /><br />Grace and peace to you, too.<br />Chris.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-59402663610487285172011-07-20T09:01:44.785-07:002011-07-20T09:01:44.785-07:00Chris, with all respect, I don't think it'...Chris, with all respect, I don't think it's helpful to teach your kids that "we ARE the church" by referring to a traditional church as "a church building", not a church." (And please don't remind me that the first churches were house churches and are the "real" traditional churches.) I don't think it's helpful to alienate your children from the millions of people like myself--an ordained United Methodist ministers serving as a hospital chaplain-- who attends church in church buildings with that kind of spiritual smugness. I respect the movement toward house churches and "being" the church and that whole thing raised up by Keith here every day. I have been intrigued by the whole house church movement for 10 years or so and it appeals to me. In fact, when I was in seminary 10 years ago I frequently visited a "house church" that was "being" the church. They were hypercritical of what they saw as "indoctrinating" by the big churches in the "church buildings." They couldn't see the logs in their own eyes, however. They were indoctrinating their own kids, and each other actually, by a form of bashing and spiritual pride and arrogance. I pointed this out to them and, to their credit, they agreed that they were being less than grace-filled in their language and attitudes about churches and toward seminary-trained clergy. I think there's a place for all kinds of churches, even those big bad denominations that build the best hospitals in the country and around the world with their resources, that build schools everywhere, that provide relief around the world--the outreach and mission work of a house church is limited, but and I AM the church when I'm on a Methodist mission trip other church members in the middle of Siberia teaching partnering with Russian Methodists struggling to learn how to "be" church in such an atheist country. Sorry to run so long here. Grace & peace, paulpaul mckayhttp://jitterbuggingforjesus.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9926207.post-31800488749497561022011-07-19T17:33:19.795-07:002011-07-19T17:33:19.795-07:00Excellent post, Keith.
I particularly agree with...Excellent post, Keith. <br /><br />I particularly agree with the section on heretical doctrine. I think it's far more likely to happen in an institutional form of church.<br /><br />The other thing to note too is, if a house/organic/simple church <i>does</i> go AWOL, it's isolated to that one small group; it doesn't affect a huge group of people, as could be the case in a mega church or denominational network.<br /><br />I also believe that when the Body functions properly, with <i>everyone</i> sharing what God has shown/spoken to them, we gain a <i>corporate</i> understanding of God that we would never gain in the old way of doing things (with one person leading).<br /><br />On the same topic, whenever I pass a church building now, I refer to it as a 'church building', not a 'church'. I'm trying to teach my kids that we ARE the church; we don't go to it!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com