Some thoughts on communicating the truths of simple, organic church

            How do we lovingly challenge, or at least inform, our brothers and sisters in Christ, with regard to the group of truths upon which this development (I am avoiding the word “movement” in that there, as I see it, some problems with the term) of faith called “simple/organic church” is based?

            I say this in that while there are a couple of persons who, in my opinion, have communicated at a forefront level who live in my area, I still perceive that most believers in Jesus that I know have not dealt with this group of teachings (a. church as people, not organization, b. generosity, not tithe, c. Jesus as actual Head of the Church, not ritual or professional human leadership, d. giving to help the poor and pioneer missionary activity as primary beneficiaries of the generosity, e. leadership by gifting, not training or accreditation, etc.) because of their being unaware of the teachings’ existence.

            The blunt truth is that, if they were aware, which they may not be, there is a problem with the fact that these teachings are counter to the financial interest of a large number of persons—not just those on the staffs of traditional, corporation-based churches, but also Christian bookstores and Christian radio and TV.  These teachings are not being overtly suppressed by these groups, but some less assured of their incomes might wish such if they were aware of the teachings’ existence.  Among non-professionals, because of being unaware, many have yet to either accept or reject these teachings, although if past history foretells future trends, some will reject because they are not, in the early awareness, status quo, or that they threaten persons who are their hearts are genuinely knit to.   Also, when more persons become aware of these teachings, these groups could not suppress them if they tried, similar to what we saw in the previous century on the subject of spiritual gifts.  To clarify, if a greater amount of believers give first to helping the poor and pioneer missionary activity, as opposed to traditional corporate church budgets, it would be of detrimental effect to Christian bookstores, which I perceive are more and more dependent on sales of light reading Christian books (as opposed to books that examine theology or thoughtful topics) and the various pop culture trappings sometimes derisively referred to as “Jesus Junk.”  As for radio and TV, they almost all depend either on playing music, which is given them by record companies in that the music is an implicit commercial for record sales, or programs, which are paid for from the budgets of traditional church organizations, which pay for themselves either by attracting new persons to the church, or at least giving pastors a greater awareness of their work among fellow ministers.  None of the above fits into the simple church paradigm for the same reason it didn’t fit into Jesus’ plan, which then became the apostles’ plan for guiding others in faith. 

            A few months ago, I thought that I needed to move to another city on the opposite side of the country.  Thanks to the internet, I could see that, if I had moved there, I could not find anyone involved in simple church for a two hour drive (this is somewhat stretched due to the city I was looking at being in the desert).  I also recognize that that does not mean that there is not, just that no one had joined www.simplechurch.com which, as far as I can find, is the best location for finding others in other areas at this time, I think. 

            One of the difficulties in communicating any message in U.S. culture is, because we have a freedom of speech with relatively minor limitations, we are overrun with messages.  I can look back on my life and see that I came fairly close to contacting the issue of simple church about ten years before I did.  I took a correspondence course from a Christian grad school that had a Chinese studies program.  Now, at that time, I got that the church had grown greatly in China during the Mao years in spite of governmental opposition, and that would be a reason worth studying what happened, but, as I only took a couple of basic courses on a correspondence basis, I missed out on the informal interaction that happens on a campus that would have informed be that part of the importance in the phenomenon was how governmental opposition forced the church to follow the early church’s structure, at least until a slight amount of easing allowed Western organizations to rush in and “help.”

            About two weeks ago, I was involved in a group discussion with a number of persons involved in simple church in my metro area.  One of them was an institutional pastor, has been involved in pioneer missionary work, specializing in working in Muslim cultures.  At this time, he can only be involved part time due to fund raising issues.  I respect him as a leader.  One thing he pointed out was that, in his position of desiring to align finances so that his family can work in full time missionary endeavors, he is not in the best position in our culture to speak about finances among certain groups.  To hold the position of the New Testament that only apostles/pioneer missionaries are to be supported in a culture where most believers consider it unthinkingly normal for local leaders to be paid is to say, implicitly, from his point of speaking, “I should be paid, most of the people you know who are paid shouldn’t” (my made up quotation, not a sentence he actually said).  Therefore, for myself, as a person who probably wouldn’t be allowed into many countries if I tried due to health issues, it is more than my role to emphasize that those of our mature brothers and sisters in Jesus who have it on their hearts to go to the 28% of the world’s population that doesn’t get to hear the message of Jesus should be supported to do that, and are, according to scripture, a higher priority for our generosity than any other project except helping the poor, and many of the areas they wish to go to can also fall into that other priority also. 

A short comment on giving by a person without a current conflict of interest

A few days ago, I was part of a group conversation of a number of persons involved in simple churches.  One, who has in the past been an institutional church pastor, and is now involved in missionary work, pointed out how the messenger does have an effect on the message.  From his training and background, he knows how to present a financial need to a crowd to get a response, but for him, as a matter of honoring Jesus in purity, he would not do so any longer.  Further, it is one thing for him to speak to others involved in simple church on how the early church only spent money on helping the poor and to support those who would go and communicate the message of Jesus where it has not been heard, but as a person prepared to be one of those itinerant missionaries, his saying the same thing still can come across as his having a financial interest in the process, particularly among those believers who have not fully come to understand why the traditional way of raising money in the church really doesn’t have a scriptural basis, when those scriptures referring to this issue are understood in proper cultural context.

            I believe, therefore, as a person who is not in a position to go to another portion of the world to communicate the message of Jesus’ gift to mankind by geographical movement, at this time, I should reiterate that message.  We, the believers in Jesus, the true church, have not been directed by God to do a lot of things we have been told are things we should financially support, although I believe that, in a sense, we are free to still support those things, at least until the Spirit speaks to one about it.  The directive of scripture is clearly, though, to support our brothers and sisters in Jesus who desire to physically go to the geographical areas in which the 28% of the world’s population which has not heard God’s message before all the other good things we can imagine which scripture has not directed us to financially support. 

2021--on work

    

            This is another expansion of one of the two minute (speaking time) commentaries I posted in December, 2010 into a five minute (speaking time) format.  This is an expansion of #21—supporting Christian workers.

2021—on work

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  When God sent the Holy Spirit upon the people in the upper room in Acts chapter 2, they were a group of people desiring to be obedient to Jesus, whose lives had changed in a way that, although obvious to anyone who knew them, was not easily able to be described, and was not even a blip on the overall society’s radar.  There was no organization, no money, no one of any renown; even Jesus’ own death was notable to unbelievers only long after it happened.  We see in Acts 2 that when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they went out into the streets, spoke, and many that day and in the days following sensed the spirit of God in the words and the actions of the believers, repented of their sins, and attached themselves to this growing group of people.  There was no human organization, no human plan.  As the weeks and years passed, the apostles taught the new believers what Jesus taught them. The church cared about those around them, both those who believed and their neighbors who did not. Some of those who were not believers came to faith in Jesus, and even those who didn’t respected how they cared for others unlike anything they had seen.

            Apostle was not just a term for the 11 who had followed Jesus and taught the early believers.  It came to be a term for a believer gifted to go and communicate the message of Jesus to others in other geographical areas, direct persons to become followers, and teach these early groups of new believers how to be the church.  People were part of the church as groups.  We see the New Testament church spent money on only two things—helping the poor, both within and outside the church, and to help persons called apostles go to other areas to spread the message of Jesus.  The word “apostle” then meant virtually the same as the modern English word “missionary” does today.  Even then, the apostle we are told the most about in the Bible is Paul.  Being a former Pharisee, he received training in a trade, so that when he went on his travels, he didn’t have to depend on financial help from the church in Antioch, just north of Jerusalem, which he was part of between the time of his coming to faith in Jesus and years later when he began to travel to non-Jewish areas of the world.  A couple who we are told also moved to help spread the message of Jesus, Priscilla and Aquila, also had the same skill as Paul.  There was no place in the early church for a trained, salaried religious professional, unlike all the other beliefs in the society around them.  We see a church meeting at the home of Lydia, who sold fabrics to the royal class.  As a result of coming to faith in Jesus, some who were formerly illiterate desired to learn to read so that they could read scripture, which gave them a skill useful to the Roman government.  In 250 AD, when Diocletian’s last general persecution happened, so many believers held government positions and fled for the hills, the government could not function. Diocletian had to relent, and that was one of the events that led to the eventual legalization of faith in Jesus in the Roman Empire.

            Today, one of our society’s problems is that in too many businesses and other organizations, the people they want to hire and promote are neither the best trained nor the best workers, but those most easily corrupted.  It is a natural, but difficult part of a believer’s living for Jesus to desire to do work that is honest and ethical by God’s standards.  How do we give out best to honor Jesus in work? 

1. Work as unto God, not as unto man.
2. Get a skill.  One in six in our society with a college degree is not using it in his or her job, so our world’s idea of counseling is sending a lot of people down dead ends.  In every culture, we, the church, are directed to be salt and light.
3. Many godly people chase employment in the organizational church, but that wasn’t God’s plan.  I know what I am saying about leadership and every member ministry can be felt to be threatening to persons in the status quo system, but it has no basis in scripture. It is only as a copy of the religions of the world, even when a position is held by a person seeking to honor Jesus.
4. Each of us needs to desire to work for an ethical employer.  The believers in the early church who were slaves had no choice, and there may be times today where, for a time, we may have no choice, as our society is overrun with employers whose only honest jobs are the bottom line ones, but we should favor honest work with a passion.
5. We have a responsibility to follow the teaching of the apostles, that helping the poor is important.  A problem today is that there are organizations created to help the poor, but whom use the money to support the organization and the people employed by the organization first.
6. We have a responsibility to support our brothers and sisters who desire to go where the message of Jesus’ love for mankind still hasn’t been heard, even though those places, in this day, are the most dangerous places to go.

I can be reached at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com or by phone at 757-735-3639.  If you would like to re-examine what I just said at your own pace, a transcript of what I just said is posted on my blog, tevyebird.blogspot.com, on the entry dated August 27, 2011.  You can find out more about non-corporation structure of people desiring to be the church at www.hrscn.org. 

As with many of these posts, various information in this was obtained from George Barna and Frank Viola’s Pagan Christianity, which has, in turn, copious historical footnotes.  Some of what I have said here about employment in this society comes from my life, none of which has been spent on the payroll of any church organization, for which I feel grateful for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, even though I have many friends who have had the opposite experience.

An excellent work on the role of work in the Christian life is R. Paul Stevens’ The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective (Carlisle, UK: Pasternoster, 1999, and printed in North America jointly by Eerdmans and Regent College).