I found this interesting article by a guy named Dwight Friesen. He’s a missional thinker in the Seattle area. I found him through a paper he had done while working on his D.Min at George Fox Seminary in Emerging Culture. That’s where I’m doing my D.Min. starting in August. This title of the article “never go to church again.”
He states:
I am diligently working to destroy the erroneous notion of “going to Church.”
Christ never called us to “go” to anything. Christ’s invitation to follow Him has always been correctly understood to be an invitation to a life of following. And the church is meant to be God’s new community of followers on earth.
We cannot go to church any more than a parent can “Go to Parenting.” Once a person becomes a mother or a father their entire life is forever and irrevocably altered. Though “Mom” and “Dad” are titles, those terms describe a life focus for the bearer of the title. To be a Mom is to be a person of action. A woman can not become a mother and continue her life exactly as it was before. In fact if a parent were to continue with life as usual that person would be abusive, negligent, absent, or dead. When a couple has a child their priorities change, the way they use their time is altered, it changes the way they look at life. Parenting is not something a person attends (like a movie) and then return to their life, instead parenting forever changes the person.
When a person encounters Christ and the grace he extends, God adopts that person into his family. We call that family the Church. To be part of the church is to receive a new set of lenses to see the world through. Church is not an event to attend. Church is a lifestyle. Church is living life as a person in communion with God, and in community with like-minded people. Its clear in the Bible that God has always wanted church to be more of a verb than a noun. We church when we our lives are marked by action.
He goes on to share what he sees as the core of what marks people as people of God and states what when these core things are done, people become the church, they don’t go to the church. Facinating essay.
If you found this page useful, consider linking to it. Simply copy and paste the code below into your web site. It will look like this:
Never go to church again
Related Posts:
Change movements, disciples, and the chicken and the eggMORPHE: Church Restarts and Parent Church
Pastor, Are You Lonely?
Our church’s growth plan
Are You Open During the Week?
June 21st, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Dear Brother David,
Great stuff! This is a thread that has been on my mind for some time. I always love the church signs that say, “So and So Church Meets Here” emphasizing that the building is not the church. When I speak to people, especially in the pulpit, I make a point to say, “the meetings of the church” or “when the church gets together,” etc. instead of “going to church” or “come to church.”
Love in Christ,
Jeff
June 21st, 2006 at 10:02 pm
The church isn’t walls around us, it IS us. I dig what this dude cooks. Good stuff like buttered horseradish Mashed potatoes.
Wait, and Steamed Crabs… thanks for bringing this article to my attention. Shawn Michael
June 26th, 2006 at 11:52 am
man, why is this so hard for us stinky humans to understand?! — i know i am the church - but i too get caught up in placing more importance on the building, meeting times — than the body.
i wonder if God shakes his head at us — wondering why we don’t get it!
thanks for the reminder david — btw — i’ve used your post as a teaching point for my student leadership and my new interns. - hopefully they will get it
In His Grip,
Francie