April 14, 2008
Out of the Ashes
There are huge differences between a church split and a church plant, but let me play the role of spin doctor and say that God can make them one in the same. We’ve got a couple of new start up churches in town that, in my mind, are the remnant of my church. From a Biblical perspective, not a marketing perspective, I think their meeting locations are GREAT - both are meeting in funeral homes. Now if they only had a baptistery they could advertise they were bringing them back from the dead. The newest of these churches to rise from the ashes will start meeting April 20th, 10:30 am at the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home and it’s my understanding that they intend to have a more traditional venue. If you’re an out-of-town reader and want to join in the birth of this congregation, send me an email and I’ll give you directions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Hi, Gail
I think it's great that these two new churches are meeting in funeral homes. It kind of fits with your comment on your April 11 post,"It’s going to be interesting to see how people respond to another death in the family." What better place to deal with death than a funeral home?!
In my Sunday morning small group/Sunday school/Bible study class (I never did figure out which it was supposed to be)the leader told us he and his wife would no longer be leading the group. Because of church issues, they were going to begin meeting and serving with another group of Christians. Just as death usually brings pain, tears, separation, and grief, that's what I saw happen in our class.
However, our God holds life in His hands, and out of death, He is perfectly capable of bringing forth NEW LIFE! That is what I see happening here. From the 'death' coming out of one church, He is bringing the birth of two new churches. He can and will continue to bring good out of the bad, for those who love God, and are called according to His purpose.
This is my first time reading your blog. I didn't want to hassle with setting up a Google account, so decided to come on as anonymous. However, I'm going to sign my name, as I have no reason to hide and no fear of what anyone in this church may do to me...
For Him,
Arlene
Yikes! I wrote my previous comment before I had read much of this blog. Then in reading through, I found the Feb. 11 blog about writing as 'anonymous'.
Lest I hurt someone with my comments in my previous post as to 'having nothing to hide', etc., let me make it clear I am not in anyway condemning anyone who is more comfortable writing as 'anonymous'. Believe me, I did consider doing that myself! My comments were only meant to explain why I used 'anonymous', but then signed my name.
And who knows, I may regret doing that. Even if I don't fear what anyone from church may do to me, that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy it!
Please forgive me for possibly making any of you feel put down or hurt.
For Him,
Arlene
Hey Arlene,
Glad to have you join in.
I think the funeral homes are so appropriate. Like you, sermon topics and messages that could be presented in such a setting just keep coming to mind.
Quick recovery on your second post! I doubt anyone will take offense.
We do feel safer as anonymous. It’s one thing to be in fear for doing something wrong or illegal, however in the church were in fear for speaking the truth. How skewed is that?
Gail
Gail;
-----I noticed that you did not give the time or location of the other church spin off also meeting at a different morgue. I do not know what happened between the minister starting this journey, as he calls it, and the little ministers of your church. But I definitely received the impression from him that this was no church plant. What he told me I found very exciting. His leadership style sounds more scriptural, and his understanding of the individual’s need for edification from the gathering seems to have life. In fact, I perceived that he was talking about a fellowship to operate with less control of the leaders, where the individual’s could also serve with less micromanagement. While he related to me his dream, I could more easily see the early church in it.
-----And although I thought it a little amusing that the meeting place is similar to the early church which eventually came to meet somewhat in the catacombs, I noticed it a bit different in that he was sure to tell me his was a purpose driven journey. Not that the purpose driven venture is outside the principles of the Word. It is just that early church leaders did not own or direct the people to the point that they could say, “Oh, we are also purpose driven,” or “Yah, we are traditional.” Paul’s short glimpse of the early church meeting (I Corinthians 14:26-40) portrays a church where the edifying music was more a production of those who came to meet than of some hired pit director. Its services seemed more formatted by the characters and interests of the people who met than by the conformance to a pre-planned format laid out by a few organizers. I understand the opportunity a group of leaders has to say this will be this or that and not the other. But I would rather such not be called a church. It is more fittingly termed a club, a mission, a project, or something representative of the narrow limit’s confining its nature.
Let’s just be honest about terms.
Steve Corey
Hey Steve,
My information on one of these spin-offs is sketchy and quiet honestly I didn’t want to put on a secretary’s hat to find out who, what, when and where. I’d like someone from either of these groups to post their information on the blog so we’re all aware of the choices that are available.
Gail
Dear Steve,
Let me say brother, I have the utmost respect for you. I can see from your writings that you truly have a heart for God. With that being said, I must say, I disagree with your statement that one of these new churches should be called a club, a mission, or a project. It is called a church because WE, the believers that make it up, are THE CHURCH. We worship the Lord together. We study His Word. Our plan is to love one another and guide others to Christ. Everyone involved in this new church has devoted a great deal of time in the Word and prayer, trying to seek the Lord's will throughout the beginning stages and conception. I am excited to be part of a body of believers that wants to get out of the pews and not just talk about what should, could or needs to happen, but one that goes out into this world and gets in the ring for Christ and tries to make a difference. Also a body that loves and cares for the spiritual and physical needs of its members (including the youth). For a chance not only to show Christ's love to the unbelievers but to the hearts of the believers alike. This format of church may not be for everyone, but we shouldn't quench the Spirit as He moves others. Let's not get hung up on the phrase "purpose driven" and miss what God has in store.
You are a good man and I'm so sorry for what happened to you and your family. Please know that what I've written was not in anger and I just wanted to offer a different point of view in love.
Anyone who wants to avoid speculation and know the whole vision of The Journey so that they fully understand what they plan to do can come to Crippin Funeral Home on Sunday at 10:30. We will have some worship time and then some food while Richard will lay out the vision and everyone will have an opportunity for questions and discussion.
In Christ,
Dave
Hi Dave,
Welcome to the conversation. Thanks for the information on the new church.
Gail
P.S., Dave;
-----Don’t be sorry for what happened to me and my family. Nothing happened to me and my family. My family and I stood up and spoke the truth in a bad situation where and when the truth was in need of being spoken. The sorrow needs to be for the church to which the truth was spoken. The leaders could have recognized the Scripture presented to them. They could have admitted the principles therein. They could have honestly reflected upon the history of their church and their actions within it. They could have been concerned with the simple definition of love. But they did not recognize, they did not admit, they did not reflect, and they were not concerned. Therefore they lied about me and my family. They lied to the church. They did nothing to me. They did it to the church God gave into their care. And they did it to themselves.
-----As for me and my family, we have the solid feel of rock under our feet. We understood what it is to show partiality, and we refused to do so. We understood what it is to be a watchman. We did not refuse to be such. Although our feelings were hurt for a spell, our consciences are clear for eternity. We are not the ones refusing to understand the inner workings of love so that we can define “church” by our own terms.
-----The Word of God lays out the definitions. They are simple and clear. Desiring the church to aim at this goal, or take up that mission, or be like this, or pay attention to that problem is to interject your own convictions into His moving, living body. Together, within the church, there is a place for teams of interest and ambition to form and go forth to reach a specific objective without capturing and harnessing the whole church, and without requiring all in the church to become that same kind of body part. God gives the church a wide variety of needs and concerns to address. Man turns it into clubs and projects by trimming off and invalidating those needs and concerns that do not serve his own personal objectives. Man calls it a format. And can we effectively do the love and care for the spiritual and physical needs of its members (including the youth) while accentuating and preaching being the healthy outgoing one? What accentuation do the services reaching inward to the hearts of believers get from leaders who predominately promote the outward ones as those that make the church valid? Those chances will happen only in passing, as the leaders attention is given them only in passing, because going out into the community is what defines this church you start. Christ's love will have to go with those for whom this format is not, because the area of the Spirit they need is quenched by what your chosen format is not. God did not give the church leaders to focus its attention upon their own personal interests and objectives, their own chosen format. You do not find the concept of church format in the Bible. He gave leaders to lead the church through the whole of the wonders of life and service the Word of God presents to His children through His Spirit. The leaders are to shelter them from the toxic environment of the world by their authority. They are to shelter them from the self absorption that projects self understanding upon the congregation, including the leaders natural, humanly limited formats. And they are to allow God to provide the wide variety of important services through His children to both His children and those lost in the world by the understanding He develops in those coming. The counseling is vital. The teaching can not be ignored. The mercies must not go uninspired. Discernment must not shrivel. The giving. The exhorting. The prophesying. The kindness. The pleasing one another. And the taking interest in interests of others, even those different than your own, is vital to the church. And the Spirit Who moves through these must not be quenched by light shown only upon the need to go into the community. All must be there in the light of the leaders’ attention for the body to be the body. Love must be genuine, validating all who are truly His.
-----So how can we say that this church is for going out into the community? What about those to whom God gave a different service left back at the church? Are they to go out into the community too, and do the service God gave to you? If they are, they will not do very well. They weren’t given the same gift the leaders were given. They were given different gifts, many having a specific inward focus on the spiritual health and well being of the church itself. What of the edification and inspiration they need? They are going to go to a different church, because all they will hear concerning validation at yours will be about the need to go into the community. Those gifts necessary for the maintenance of the body health, itself important for ambitious community outreach, will go to some other church with them. Thus, gifts other than the kind the leaders emphasize are sorted out by the human focus of the format’s attention. Then, those in your care begin to serve only one, or a few functions of all necessary to the church, and pick and dally through the rest like a child does to his vegetables. That is fine, if you recognize the fact that the rest of the church is meeting in other places, and yours is only being a self focused part of it. Accepting that, you will need to reach out for other churches to supply yours with the gifts it lacks for spiritual health. That condition is more clearly referred to as a teamwork, if you do not like the term club, or project. It is merely akin to what Paul and those traveling with Him were. They were not a church, and did not try to make like they were. They sought out churches for their fellowship needs. Yes, they were a part of the church, but they were on a mission providing a service to the church in planting and growing it. Nothing wrong with that. And there is nothing wrong with humbly calling it what it is.
-----I do not mean to do the service you all are trying to perform any harm at all. I am compelled to speak the truth about what I see. And I see a lot of the Spirit working in your efforts as much as He is in the efforts at the other start-up fellowship across the way, and in all the rest of the churches across the community. And I see men limiting His working in all those fellowships by defining them out of their own mental capacities, all being inferior to the mind of God. So I simply take the occasion to speak the truth: it behooves you and us and the community to allow the mind of God, beyond your limited mind, to develop the format of His church as He will. I think that is when the true amazement will begin. I think that is how the true definition of church will be demonstrated. I think that will truly render useless such definitions as “purpose driven,” “traditional,” the “this,” the “that,” and the “other.” But who will start teaching it? Who will start leading the body back into unity?
-----That is why I do not hurt over what those leaders did at us. They did nothing to us.
All love and blessing to a great service you have chosen,
Steve Corey
Sorry Dave, I must have tripped trying to post my first comment:
Dave;
-----Thank you so much for your objection to my reference to club, a mission, or a project relative to the fellowship you and those with you are bringing to life. Frankly, there is nothing wrong with clubs, especially with missions, or with projects, as long as their parameters focus towards godly purposes. But this is just the rub, they have parameters set by men, while the church has parameters set by only the Word. And that statement must be recognized in light of the fact that God presented the Word in a clear, readable, logical, understandable format. His parameters for the church are not mysterious, and they are not many.
-----It is when we begin making parameters in addition to His parameters that the church stops being His and begins to be ours. And frankly, none of us died and brought back the keys of death with the resurrection of ourselves. So we do not “have” churches. Church is not ours. So when I say, “The fellowship I am starting down here at place X is going to be the this or the that kind of fellowship,” I am making it my fellowship. If it really were the Lord’s, it would be the this or the that He makes of it. The Lord directs His fellowship through those who understand the wide variety of skills, talents, interests, minds, and hearts He himself develops in His people. There are welcomes to them all, contemporary, purpose driven, and traditional. Not just purpose driven. And there should be a necessity to stay out of the way of His congregating them together as His Spirit so desires. That is His church, according to His parameters, as Paul told the Corinthians, “…that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.” (I Cor. 4:6).
-----So that being said, Dave, what church do you know that is not defined by parameters of men beyond what is written? I don’t know of any either. Therefore, is there really any of these fellowships we can call churches, that really do belong to the Lord, without the limiting interference of the leaders? The jealousies that keep Baptists in the Baptist pews, the Methodists in theirs, and the Church of Christ folk off in their own a cappella corners, also keep the contemporaries in their churches and the traditionalists in theirs. While America’s schools rot on the vine, while good Christian folk wish they could pay the college tuition rates to send their grade school children off to even one of the small Christian schools, all the multitudes of the community’s churches protectively huddle around their own little ideas plucked from beyond the Word, unwilling to join hands with each other and provide for the community a Christian school competitive in price with the public ones. No. Some other church’s idea from beyond what is written might be taught to my child instead of my own idea from beyond what is written. The same principle works ad inifinitum through all the issues Jesus Christ could dissolve having the full service of His church, not our “churches.”
-----No, Dave, it is not that the great work you are involved in is itself, only, extruded beyond the parameters of the Word. It is that they all are. And I am a little tired of trying to hold the bar for expressions low enough so nobody’s feelings get hurt. The end is near, and godly behavior towards one another is important. That includes welcoming all who are His. That includes the concepts Paul taught about not burdening brothers and sisters with your own convictions. Yet church leaders continue to do just that. Down the street it is traditional because that is the conviction of those. Up the street it is contemporary for the same reason. Do we not have anywhere where it is just about the Lord, the Word, love, and one another? We can say, “It is impossible for any man to be perfect.” But is it impossible for any man to get right the obviously divisive factor in God’s body? Is it that hard for the Laodiceans to buy from the Lord their salve and their gold?
-----But I am glad you bit on my expression. I have been hoping someone would. I believe these things must be taken seriously. But I also believe we all, including myself foremost, are lower than higher on the scale of imperfection to perfection. So you do not appreciate the technical term “club,” or “mission,” or “project,” and I do not blame you. If it were up to technicalities, I would miss the entrance to heaven. Therefore, I am thankful it is up to grace. I am thankful your church can properly be called a church because of grace. And I am thankful we are not dismissed by grace from paying attention to the technicalities of the Word. We are saved from the requisites of not doing the Word, but we are not saved from the need to admit the Word’s truths.
I love you, God bless your work, and God bless and multiply the Lord’s church in your care,
Steve Corey
One of the families leaving XYZ church due to disagreements with the leadership, and the possibility of their planting another church led one of the elders to state that it was "Satan."
Does the leadership think they are the only ones who have access to God? Do they think they are the only ones the Holy Spirit influences and works with?
I guess that, in their eyes, anyone who disagrees with them, or their programs are automatically tools of Satan, even a family who has been involved in Christian Ministry for many, many years; the father for over 60 years.
Oh, leadership! Be careful! Be very careful!
God has planted, not one, but two new churches for His people to worship and serve Him, and to have fellowship with others of like faith. Praise God!
In Christian Love,
Callie
Post a Comment