Simple Church Minute--Leadership among God's people over history

 Today, I am reprising my post of September 14, 2011.  About three years ago, I wrote a number of scripts for what, in my mind, were two minute radio commentaries on various subjects which are behind what has been called simple, organic church.  Almost all never got used as radio programs, but they do break down the reasoning behind non-organizational fellowship around Jesus from a belief and history standpoint.  On this one, at the bottom, I have added footnotes (when I originally published these, as I was thinking radio, I didn't write my sources down--I am attempting to correct that).  At the bottom, I reference www.hrscn.com, a website that services non-organizational churches in the Hampton Roads, VA area--at www.simplechurch.org, there is a place to possibly find similar connections in other areas of the world.
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2016—leadership in God’s people over history

            My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.  In the Old Testament, after Joshua led the chosen people into Israel, the Bible tells us that for about 200 years, God Himself was the leader, with persons called judges as the human leaders.  These persons had wider responsibility than what we think of a judge today as having. For one thing, having responsibility for people before God did and still does have a spiritual element.  Still, as it says in Judges chapter 21 verse 25, “In those days, there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  There were threats by enemies in various directions, and the people, who were the chosen people not by faith but by to whom they were born, eventually demanded a king, the story of which is in First Samuel chapter 8 and following.

            In the time of the New Covenant, God raised up a new chosen people by faith, not ethnicity.  They were opposed by both the Old Covenant status quo supporters and the government who heard that believers in Jesus saw Him, not the emperor, as king.  The church had no buildings to destroy, and leadership was by gifting, not to which family you were born to or under what person or group you were trained by. As an underground group that wasn’t a true organization, there was no need to collect money, except to help the poor, both from within and neighbors in need nearby AND also to assist fellow mature believers who were constrained by the Spirit to travel to areas where people had not heard the message of Jesus.  Even then, the apostle we know the most about is Paul, who had a skill by which he didn’t have to depend on others as he spoke about Jesus in his travels around the northern Mediterranean.

            Whether it was intentional or accidental, when the Roman Empire made faith in Jesus officially legal, it forced the trappings of religions of the world it was familiar with onto Christianity—buildings, paid staff, regular collection of money to pay for the buildings and paid staff, and tax-favored status for the now formal organizations. History shows that if something is forced onto a culture for a period of time long enough that no one remembers the thing not being around, everyone treats it as normal.  For instance, in this culture, no one remembers not having radio, and almost everyone doesn’t remember not having TV, and with them, news from around the world being whipped to us almost immediately. 

            I grew up with it assumed that a church was a building and a pastor held a job that one went to school for years to be able to do.  When I was in high school, I learned that there were some pastors and people who taught them or were their overseers who did not believe the standard beliefs of faith in Jesus.  Years later, I learned about spiritual gifts, but where I was, most of the talk was about speaking in tongues, not about who was the one who appointed the leaders.  About this same time, I met persons who didn’t have a church leadership title, but did have a special ability to teach about faith in Jesus in a way that spoke to both my mind and into my spirit, or at least the latter.  Some of these people did normal, everyday jobs.  Only in the past couple of years did I learn that the title “pastor” was not used as a title for a leader until after the Reformation, and that that word’s appearance uniquely in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 in our English Bibles does not reflect a unique word in the original written language, but was a translation decision by persons who reflected their experience of church—whether accidentally or intentionally, only they knew.  Leadership in the true church, the believers desiring to follow Jesus, is not a title for any person or group to hand out, but a responsibility accepted by a believer in Jesus who cannot do other than whatever the Spirit guides, AND if that includes sharing with other believers or not yet believers what he or she has learned about following Jesus rightly AND if that falls into one or more of the categories of leaders mentioned in the Bible*, so be it.

             I can be reached by email at (757757tev@gmail.com--website posted originally is no longer in use) or by phone at 757-735-3639.  To see a transcript of what I just said, my blog is tevyebird.blogspot.com, and this is the posting of September 14, 2011.To find out more about simple church internationally, visit www.simplechurch.com, and in the local area, at, www.hrscn.org.
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Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity, 2002: Present Testimony Ministry, later, Barna Books/Tyndale House, p. 12,13, 18, 21, 107, 176, 177.
2 Cor. 2:17 clearly connects to this discussion, but not mentioned in the text above.
*correction of the way I phrased the sentence originally.

Book Review: The Pastor Has No Clothes by Jon Zens

The Pastor Has No Clothes: Moving from Clergy-Centered Church to Christ-Centered Ekklesia, by Jon Zens (Lincoln, NE: Ekklesia Press, 2011)

            This is the book that has taught me the most about following Jesus in spirit and truth that I have read so far this year.

            Jon Zens is a man who holds training in Christian theology through doctoral level, but, by the end of that training, concluded that what the New Testament shows us to be the way the church was to operate is what God meant, and what we see in western society is that tradition, having been morphed by various political and social movements through history, changed practices in the church to the degree that it does not reflect what Jesus taught the apostles, who, in turn, taught the early church.  In Jon’s previous works, he dealt with the difference between the early church meeting in homes informally as opposed to the tradition prevalent since the Roman Empire’s Edict of Tolerance of having buildings, paid staff, and ritual, in “A Church Building Every ½ Mile” and the role of women, which was uniquely equal before God and the rest of believers in “What’s With Paul and Women?” 

In “The Pastor Has No Clothes”, Jon deals with the difference between the early church, where believers met informally, and understood themselves to be responsible for each other’s growing in faith to the modern formal service dominated by one person designated in most institutional churches as a pastor or priest.

            The title, obviously, is a play on words off of Hans Christian Andersen’s children’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, where the Emperor is conned, but the people fear speaking out until a little boy says, “The Emperor has no clothes.” The pasted together look of the front cover is further symbolic of the content.  The not subtle comparison is that the pastoral office (not the persons holding the position specifically) is treated with dictatorial respect, without regard to the wisdom or lack that comes from the position by historical (not biblical) tradition.

            The forward to the book states a main point—the division between clergy and laity is unscriptural; the first word comes from the Greek kleros, which means the inheritance, and all believers, by faith are the inheritance, and the Greek laos, which means the people, and all believers are God’s people.  Both words referred to all believers.  From there, the first sixty pages breaks down in simple English what the church that was trained by the apostles were taught about their common life of living for Jesus, and how the Roman Empire and later social and political moves distorted the church in later times, with the result of the church largely losing much of its unique flavor in contrast to the world, going from believers “edifying each other” as in 1 Thessalonians 5:ll changed to one person in charge of a formal organization, being somehow divinely called to this work (although no one ever explains how that works), teaching others forever, and being in charge of everything.  This is explained in a manner that is readable for the average person.

            In pages 61 to 70, which is an introduction to the balance of the book, he examines some of the ideas Eugene Peterson, the lead translator to “The Message” Bible, seminary professor, and pastor, has in his recent memoir of his days as a pastor, and his mother’s experience of preaching in the towns of Montana.  Jon uses this reference in that, in the memoir, Eugene points out certain difficulties with being a pastor, which correspond to the basic problems all pastors have today, and shows how the main problems tie to traditions that are not based on anything scriptural.

            The rest of the book builds a theological argument.  If one isn’t into reading theology, and Zens’ writing is not nearly as complicated to read as much of the writing today in the field, these first 70 pages are worth getting the whole book. For persons in a pastoral position, I wish I could buy a copy of this for each believer occupying such a position (and I say believer in that, for persons holding church office who are not believers in Jesus, this whole argument is irrelevant to them).  If one has the mental wherewithal to read theology, the conclusion Jon draws at the end I will say is surprising enough to keep everyone who cares about living to glorify Jesus .reading to the end. 

            Other writers have pointed out that the word “pastor” comes from a Greek word meaning “shepherd” and of which is translated “shepherd” the other 17 times it appears in the New Testament, which questions whether its appearance in an English Bible is even appropriate. Surprisingly, to me, Jon never brings up this point either in the general reading or the theological argument part of the book.  He does discuss what the Greek word ekklesia, commonly translated “church”, meant to the early church, and what its clearest, not tradition-distorted, equivalent would be today.  To me, that fact was worth the price and time of buying and reading this.

            In buying my copy, I am aware than many Christian bookstores will not carry this title due to Zens’ reputation for challenging the status quo (www.cbd.com included, as of last week), but www.amazon.com has it, and, given that Jon runs a bookstore in Wisconsin, I’m sure his website, www.jonzens.com has it.

1055--preaching in OT & NT

            This is another one minute version of the two minute commentaries I wrote in December, 2010.  This one is a shorter version of #55 on preaching in the days of the Old and New Testaments.

1055—preaching in OT & NT

            This is Simple Church Minute.  What was preaching like in the days of the Old Testament?  Prophets spoke sporadically.  False prophets also spoke. Sometimes the people apparently preferred the false prophets. The people were allowed to interrupt and ask questions.  As Israel was both an ethnicity, belief, and sometimes a nation, the king had spiritual responsibility, usually for ill. Prophets and priests spoke from the burden of their heart, but not with the rhetorical manner that the Romans would later be known for. 

Jesus also spoke in the traditional Jewish manner, even allowing for the trick questions of the religious leaders.  The early church did the same. Assuredly Jesus taught the 12, who taught the early church. At that time, preaching meant dialogue; speaking indicated oratory or at least monologue.  Oratory as status quo ritual was, though, a Roman cultural tradition that came to the church before most other ones.

  You can find out more about simple worship in this area at www.hrscn.org.

On this and many of these writings, I have taken this information from George Barna and Frank Viola’s Pagan Christianity, which, in turn, has the historical footnotes.

Simple Church Minute 96--When is a group a church?

96—When is a group a church?

THIS IS NOT ON FIRST RECORDING

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            On these blips, I have discussed a number of practices in which the ways of the early church in the Bible differ from the ways of our traditional churches that are not a function of living in different times and cultures.  This brings up a question:  What about meetings of groups that do not consider themselves to be a church, but function more closely to the ways of the early church than traditional churches themselves.  This includes the pattern of producing, both persons coming to initial faith in Jesus, and believers growing in faith.  Are such groups actually churches?

            In one sense, this is a difficult question.  Can a chapter of a school parachurch organization that overtly states that they are not a church, actually be a church?  Can a small group/cell group/care group that is affiliated with a traditional church actually be a church, and the traditional church not?  Can such a group, if the believers in the group meet to worship Jesus, live their lives as worship, and meet to build up each other in faith, be the church even if they have been told by someone, and they being respectful to their leaders agree, that they are not?  Conversely, can a traditional, institutional church which claims to be the church, even if they have believers as leaders, and even if believers meet to worship Jesus, BUT do not allow any significant amount of the believers building up each other due to their having more persons than can truly know each other, or having substituted one or a few persons attempting to build up everyone for every member ministry—is that actually a church? 

            Many traditional churches have rules on how much academic training one must have to be a church leader.  A little notation is that many of these institutions have a lower standard for groups they support that are either outside of North America, or in the North America inner cities.  Gee, I believe God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and cares for all people the same, without regard to geographic location or economic status.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  You can learn more about organic worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or (local website).

Simple Church Minute 87--Simson's Thesis #11

87—WS#13

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            We have been mentioning a writing by German writer Wolfgang Simson, 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today, we bring up Thesis #13, From denominations to city-wide celebrations.  On this idea, Simson writes, “Jesus called a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious corporations with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other.  Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has lost its voice in the world and become politically insignificant, more concerned with traditional distinctives and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world.  Jesus simply never asked people to organize themselves into factions and denominations, and Paul spoke of it as worldly, a sign of baby Christians.

            In the early days of the church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly his church and vertically converted to God, and they then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth.  This means not only Christian neighbours organizing themselves into neighbourhood or house churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for city-wide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the city or region.  Authenticity  in the neighbourhoods connected with a regional of city-wide corporate identity will make the church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the city church, the sum total of all born-again Christians of a city or an area. Unquote.

            There is a lot in that statement, and you can reread it at your pace, along with the rest of the 15 theses at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. You can find out more about simple forms of worship at http://www.simplechurch.com/ or for this area at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 86--Simson's Thesis #12

86—WS #12

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            We have been examining Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Thesis #12 is “Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper as a real supper with real food.”  About this, Simson has written, “Church tradition has managed to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in a homeopathic and deeply religious form, characteristically with a few drops of wine, a tasteless cookie and a sad face.  However, the Lord’s Supper was actually more of a substantial supper with a symbolic meaning than a symbolic supper with a substantial meaning.  God is restoring eating back into our meeting.”  Unquote.

            Another word some flavors of church use for the Lord’s Supper is communion, which is a synonym for fellowship.  Communion as it is done in every institutional church I am aware of is done, as was said above, with tiny amounts of food, everyone being somber.  The Calvinist tradition, for instance, immediately proceeds this by asking everyone to examine oneself for sin.  It was a somber thing.  Conversely, I think back to when I was in college and a group of us from a Christian group went down the street and had soda and pizza.  I can look back and say that doing that together better represented what fellowship is and what true communion should be.  It wasn’t just food, the conversation brought us together as people who were catching what caring for each other is all about.  The Christian life is first about enjoying true fellowship with our fellow believers, the joy of which radiates to the world around us, as opposed to ritual, being somber, and parsing the fine points of theology.  The older I get, the more I see true church in a dorm room, parking lot or tenement versus an expensive building devoted to only the rituals and well meaning man made traditions.

            You can read back and ahead about Mr. Simson’s work at www.simsonwolfgang.de. You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info about simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

Simple Church Minute 84--Simson's Thesis #10

84—WS#10

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Lately we have been examining writer Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church.  Today we come to Thesis #10, From worshipping our worship to worshipping God.  On this idea, Simson writes, The image of much contemporary Christianity could be summarized as holy people coming regularly to a holy place on a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual led by a holy man dressed in holy clothes for a holy fee.  Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called worship service requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions.  Statistically, a traditional one- or two-hour worship service is very resource-hungry but produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, i.e. in changing their lives.  Economically, it is a high input low output structure.  Traditionally, the desire to worship in the right way has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism.  This not only ignores the fact that Christians are called to worship in spirit and in truth, rather than in cathedrals holding songbooks.  It also ignores the fact that most of life is informal, and so too is Christianity as the Way of Life.  Do we need to change from being powerful actors and start acting powerfully? Unquote.

            My experience has been that the times that I’ve seen the Holy Spirit actually do powerful acts has been in the informal aspects of everyday life—conversations, reading by myself, challenge situations, when myself or others have erred.  Even when things have happened in an institutional church situation, preparing moments happened previously elsewhere.  John chapters 3 and 4 are excellent opposing examples of how important moments happen.

             The 15 Theses can be found on the web at www.simsonwolfgang.de.  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com. For more info on simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally, (local website).

Simple Church Minute 81--Simson's Thesis #7

81—WS#7

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Recently we have been visiting a writing by Wolfgang Simson called “15 Theses toward a Re-Incarnation of Church.”  Thesis #7 is “The right pieces—fitted together in the wrong way.”  About this idea, Simson wrote, “To do a jigsaw puzzle, we have to put the pieces together according to the original pattern, otherwise the final product, the whole picture, turns out wrong, and the individual pieces do not make any sense.  In the Christian world we have all the right pieces, but we have fitted them together in the wrong way, because of fear, tradition, religious jealously, and a power-and-control mentality.  Just as water is found in three forms—ice, water, and steam—so too the five ministries mentioned in Ephesians 4:11,12—the apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists—are found today, but not always in the right forms and in the right places.  They are often frozen to ice in the rigid system of institutionalized Christianity; they sometimes exist as clear water; or they have vanished like steam into the thin air of free-flying ministries and independent churches, accountable to no one.  Just as it is best to water flowers with the liquid version of water, these five equipping ministries will have to be transformed back into new—and at the same time age-old—forms, so that the whole spiritual organism can flourish and the individual ministers can find their proper role and place in the whole.  That is one more reason why we need to return to the Maker’s original blueprint for the Church.”(Unquote)

            If one is farming, plants can be helped in growth by potash, phosphoric acid, nitrogen, and lime.  If a plant’s ground is low on lime, adding it will help growth, but if it has sufficient lime, adding it will hinder the plant’s growth.    You can find out more about Simson's 15 Theses at http://www.simsonwolfgang.de/.  You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple worship, one can find http://www.simplechurch.com/ and (local website). 

Simple Church Minute 73--various minor unscriptural traditions

 73—other items

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            George Barna and Frank Viola, in their book Pagan Christianity, point out 61 customs found in all or part of the traditional churches in the world which have no basis in anything described in the New Testament.  A number of these I have discussed in other blips, but some I haven’t felt are sufficiently important to discuss, but today, I at least wish to take the time to mention them.             

            Such traditions include: candles on a communion table, the communion table, making the communion table the center of the meeting, using incense as part of a service, taking communion four times per year, acting solemn during worship, searching oneself for sin before taking communion, feeling guilty for missing a service, the pulpit, pews, the stage, the building as a holy place, a pastor or priest having a special chair, church bulletins, sermon outline notes, four part sermon outline,  playing music while taking a collection, taking a regular collection, the clerical collar, congregation standing and singing when the clergy enter, modern ordination, wearing “Sunday best” clothing, special clothing for the pastor, priest, or minister, ushers, the collection plate, steeples, the choir, the boys choir, the worship team, stained glass windows, high ceilings, long public prayers said in archaic language, funeral processions and orations, Sunday school, Paul’s letters being arranged in the Bible according to length,  baptism separate from conversion, infant baptism,  sprinkling form of baptism, hierarchical administration.

            The book Pagan Christianity, printed by the Barna Books imprint of Tyndale House, is written to be read by the average person, but, for theological types, has many and long footnotes to explain the historical basis behind their statements and conclusions. Both Barna and Viola have further comments on their respective websites and blogs.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more information on simple church, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 52--prayer

52—prayer

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Both religious traditionalism, not just Christian, but also some other beliefs, and our civil pseudo-religion, tell us that prayer is something connected to bowing one’s head, closing one’s eyes, and having a serious demeanor.  First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 17 says, “pray without ceasing.”  This clearly cannot be done with eyes closed, hands folded.   Neither you nor I can drive a car, do one’s job, and a whole bunch of other things with one’s eyes closed.  Might I suggest that following God’s direction, pray without ceasing, requires my attitude being one of my desiring my spirit being in communion with the Holy Spirit at all times.  In Matthew chapter 6 verse 7, Jesus connected saying the same words over and over with being an unbeliever.  From there through verse 13 appear the most often repeated group of words that are repeated over and over as a prayer in traditional churches.  Verse 7 should be a huge hint that that was exactly the opposite from what Jesus was communicating.*

            Now, what I just said is the basis of innumerable teaching in which traditional churches are often followed by doing the same ol’ societally traditional prayers.  Honestly, it isn’t appropriate to stand up and say “The Emperor has no clothes” as in the children’s story when it comes to this point.  First, the Holy Spirit has to speak to your spirit about this.  Second, this is why in the Word, it teaches that every believer is empowered to lead every other one to fullness of faith.  Third, if someone proverbially sticks their foot in their mouth, the brother or sister can be gently corrected by believers they know and trust are looking out for their best and everyone be stronger in following Jesus.  This can only happen if every believer is not just allowed, but encouraged, even expected to minister to everyone else for God’s glory.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

*What is written here is slightly different, and, I am convinced, more correct, than what I recorded in the audio version.

Simple Church Minute 35--on creating a tradition

35—on creating a tradition

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            One night, I’m guessing it was about 1975 or 6, I was watching the late news, and I was tired.  The news ended, the Carson show came on, and Johnny started into his monologue.  He made a joke about the Four Spiritual Laws.  One thing that popped into my head was, “If he can make a joke about that to an unbelieving audience, it’s finished as a useful tool.”

            Over time, I realized why.  We believers in Jesus need to hold to God’s Word, but any traditions and programs not directly in scripture are, at best, only temporarily useful.  At worst, if we act as if a non-scriptural tradition is necessary, it will get in the way of our truly reflecting Jesus to a watching world.  In the case of the Four Spiritual Laws, shortly after Explo ’72, Christian bookstores in my area had dump tables filled with groups of 25 packets—there was enough there for a large portion of the city.  By 1980, much of the church realized that, if it was an effective method, it wasn’t anymore.  Almost any person, believer or not, knew by the gold cover and shape where a discussion was headed.  From what I could see, Campus Crusade, who developed the tool, realized the problem in the late 1990’s.  This is also a trend among those who wish to make faith into an organization—the people who receive a thing, even if it was of the Holy Spirit originally, tend to miss the next move of the Holy Spirit.

            Virtually all traditional church structure is like that.  How often do you hear believers discussing whether the walls of a church building are more of a problem than a blessing?  How about whether church leaders’ salaries make it more, rather than less, difficult to do the works of a believer effectively?  How many churches are prepared if a political change made the organization and payroll disappear by law?

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on organic church*, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally at (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 25--guilt, long pastoral prayers

25—guilt and long pastoral prayers

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Today, I’ll cover two non-biblical, post-apostolic traditions.  The first one is the idea of feeling guilty over missing a worship service.  This tradition is a more recent one, dating back only to the Puritans.  They came to North America from England to worship as they chose.  As such, they rejected the traditions of clerical vestments, icons, ornaments, and ornate buildings.  They had their clergy write their own sermons, which came to be very long, theologically in depth pieces, although they did allow those attending to speak or ask questions, unlike most traditions.  For those of you who are not into theological precision in speeches, this was boring.  Since they were both church and state at the time, they fined or put into stocks persons who missed the Sunday sermon.  They also had the Calvinist idea of acting solemn, as part of a realization of how far one was from God’s perfection.

            The second tradition is the long pastoral prayer.  The Puritans developed a tradition of allowing spontaneous prayer.  This eventually changed into a long pastoral prayer—and by long, it could be over an hour long.  Now, within some parts of Judaism, there is a tradition of a public prayer that is somewhat like a review of the major occurances of the Old Testament, but whether that somehow influenced them is not clear.

            Jesus, in Mark chapter 12 verse 40, was talking about the ways of the scribes, and one of his criticisms was, “and for a pretense, make long prayers.”  The important word is pretense.  If one or a group has much to pray about, fine.  But God wants our worship to be in spirit and truth, not pretense, not acting.  Hypocrite was the Greek word for “actor.”

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info about organic church*, see http://www.simplechurch.com/ or (local website).

On the recording, at this time, it says, “house churches.”  While that phrasing is OK, to say “organic church” is better.  I comment on that in blip 94.

Simple Church Minute 22--congregation stands, somber attitude

22—congregation stands and somber attitude

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute.

            Today, a quick trip over two traditions not hinted at in scripture.  First, in many churches, there is a tradition of the congregation standing and singing as the clergyman walks in to be seated.  This just may come from the same place as, in a modern court, the bailiff announcing “all rise” as the judge walks in. That’s because, in the judicial tradition of the Roman Empire, those in the court room rose and sung for the entry of the judge.  As with many Roman court customs, similar traditions became a part of Roman pagan temples, and after the Empire started (quote) helping (unquote) the church, a similar custom began in 4^th century basilica worship.  It continues in almost all of the institutional churches to this day, except for the Pentecostal/charismatic branch.

            The second custom is acting serious and somber in church.  This comes from a Frenchman named Jean Joubert, but more commonly known by the anglicized version of his name, John Calvin.  Calvin saw himself as an attorney—he left his legal studies at the University of Orleans to flee the Inquisition, and went to Geneva, Switzerland.  There, he created a liturgy which was heavy on theology, and which necessitated pastors needing significantly more theological training.  To this day, churches following his ideas require pastors to have a masters degree minimum, and go give sermons more similar to seminary lectures than other branches of the church.  Calvin eliminated music, and encouraged a sense of feeling guilty before God.  Martin Bucer introduced reading the ten commandments in each service.  The New England Puritans went further yet to fining children for smiling, and having a person to poke people who were falling asleep.  From this came the tradition in the US in the 1800’s of the pastor being the most highly educated person in town.  First Thessalonians 5 verse 16 says, rejoice always.

            You can email me at simplechurchminute@gmail.com.  For more info on simple worship, visit http://www.simplechurch.com/ or locally (local website).

Simple Church Minute 12--clerical collar and funerals

12—clerical collar and funerals

NOTE:  I originally wrote a segment for each of the 61 points Frank Viola and George Barna make in their book, Pagan Christianity, about traditions in the institutional church not based on scripture.  After writing it, I chose to not include this segment merely as I felt that in wouldn’t be an interesting radio commentary.

My name is Tom; this is Simple Church Minute

            Today, I look at two traditions that have no connection to the Bible or the early church—the clerical collar and funerals.  John the Baptist, the prophet whose job it was to introduce Jesus, was known for his direct speech and unimpressive clothing.  Matthew chapter 3 verse 4 speaks about this.  From Luke 23 verse 11, it seems that the nicest clothes Jesus ever had was given to him as a mockery.  On the converse side, we have the clerical collar.  Fancy clothes for clergy goes back to the Roman Empire, but the clerical collar goes back only to 1865.  It originated in the Anglican tradition, but spread to Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and, at least occasionally, almost every other tradition.  It replaced the black Cossack as a piece of clothing that could be slipped over anything to give the “man of God” look.  To this day, it is the recognized symbol of a clergyman, in the sense of it developing a social sense of the person wearing it being somehow separate of everyone else.

            The second tradition is the funeral.  For the believer in Jesus, the death of another believer is not the same as for those who have no hope.  The Bible tells us of the rewards of heaven, without much care about what is at the transportation point.  Many cultures have had much that is unique to their cultures about funerals, but the New Testament says extremely little about it.  Much of what has slipped into the church are adaptations of 4^th century pagan practices which had some connection with the Roman pagan cult of the dead. From that came funeral processions, services, and orations, which culminate in the declaration that the deceased is up above, looking down on us below.  The role of comforting loved ones has moved from the orator to the traditional church pastor in a way that just might be a little too alike to be comfortable.

            You…