Simple Church

Allow me to go Martin Luther King, Jr. for a minute. I have a dream. I have a dream when one day the church will become simple again. Not simple-minded, but simple. I become weary of administration, budgets, buildings, programming, and the like. I look at the early church - a mega-church - that thrived as a home-based people of God living together in harmony and turning the world upside-down for Jesus Christ. They had no buildings, no budgets, no programs, and no printed curriculum, but they had power.

This does not mean that they had no problems. And certainly as they grew they had to strive for some kind of organizational structure. Acts 6 & 15 shows us that some kind of structure had to come into play to deal with a variety of issues. But the community of Jesus-followers were much more organic than they are today.

Say the word "church" today and it is hard not to think about all the externals that consume our money, time and energies. And, yet, despite our sophistication, how does our impact compare with our brothers and sisters from AD 30? Ouch!

Let me be clear that I am not attempting an insurrection against organized churches. I pastor one. I was raised in one. I have seen them change people's lives. I think God uses and will continue to use them. But I have been challenged in my thinking to envision something different. I'm not the first. Organic faith is not original with anyone. Movements have come and gone which emphasize home churches, bi-vocational ministry, etc. I also don't want to see any kind of movement back toward "simple church" become a cult or a legalistic stance which considers all other ways to do church as opposed to the designs of God.

I simply have a dream.

• How much better could we minister to one another if we focused, not on elaborate services and flashy programs, but on praying together, loving one another, and sharing life together?

• How much more could we learn and grow if we became voracious in our Biblical appetite, meeting together to read, memorize, study and discuss God's truth with no additional curricula which has to create interest because people are not naturally hungry for God's Word?

• How much more powerful could our light to the world be if our lives were truly transformed and, in the context of transformed living, we could invite people to walk with Jesus, not just attend a weekly service?

• How much blessing could we extend to a battered and bleeding world if our money were not tied up in mortgages, utility bills, insurance, & salaries?

• How much more time could we give to touching the wounds of marginalized people if we weren't occupied with board meetings and various forms of religious red tape?

My dream does not spring from naivete. I understand that as movements grow, organization at some level is required to facilitate further growth. Moses' dilemma in Exodus 18 elaborates on that. I also realize that the culture in which I am immersed would consider the "simple church" so freakish that it would be suspect by many and might not prove effective in reaching others. Our culture expects faith matters to be addressed in the context of well-organized and well-groomed frameworks.

And yet, I still have a dream of what could be. Much of it stems from my own restlessness. I cherish this dream and will continue to ask God to help me in pursuing it in thought and in practice. God is, after all, the one Who makes dreams come true. Especially if they are His dreams. And I wonder if He might be sharing His dream with me. Who knows?