I am posting information that was run last week in the AJC. I fully admit that I don't have permission to repost this. But I wanted you to read it and don't know how to find a site that will keep the info up permanently. (Most papers only keep 1 week online at a time.) At the end you'll see a response that was sent to the AJC.
Starting a Church: An old and radical view
By Tom Ehrich
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
Saturday, April 28, 2007
A friend wants to start a church. Let's help her do it.
First, the word "church." Should she use it? That wasn't Jesus' word. He envisioned "friends" going out to serve, not an institution drawing members out of the world.
It was persecution that led Jesus' followers to gather in safe places and to focus inward. After the Christian movement got the upper hand, "church" came to mean institution, buildings, orthodoxy and rule. Are such paradigms worth perpetuating?
Second, denomination, in her case United Methodist. She wants denominational financing to get started, but does she need its overhead and brand image? The fastest-growing congregations are so-called "community" churches that avoid denomination entirely. Even within denominations, many congregations are dropping their brand name, rather than be dragged down by faded franchises and their recent history of arguing over trivialities.
Third, name. Should she give her dream a name? Or does the act of naming begin to hem in the dream? Nowadays saints' names are out of favor, and such conceptual words as "peace" and "family" are overused. That leaves location, such as "Westside Community Church," or religious agenda, such as "Bible Believers' Church."
Changing the focus
It also leaves - dare we think it? - having no name at all. Instead of focusing people's attention on an external, suggesting permanence and structure, focus their attention on the fellowship itself, on relationships, on the bonds they form.
Fourth, space. Does a "church" need a "home?" The so-called "emerging church" movement gets by with meeting each week in whatever space is available and letting one another know by e-mail. The old rule for church startups was 6 acres and a down payment on a building. Do land and mortgages actually nurture healthy faith communities?
If churchgoers weren't managing space and raising money to pay mortgages, what would they be doing? Interesting question.
Finally, clergy. Does a faith community need an ordained pastor who serves as designated liturgist, caregiver, volunteer recruiter and leader? I'm not trying to put my friend out of a job, I'm just wondering about the traditional model. Maybe it is time for self-organizing networks, rather than centralized authority.
Doing what Jesus did
If my friend were to imagine an enterprise that avoided the loaded word "church," the brand problems of denomination, the dream-inhibiting impact of name, the cost and inflexibility of space, and the vocational compromises inherent in ordination, what would she do?
I think she could do what Jesus did: teach a few people and draw them into a radically inclusive circle of friendship. Meet on hillsides, in living rooms, over meals, and talk about the in-breaking kingdom of God - intensely relevant, transformative, troubling and yet exhilarating, not requiring persecution to have urgency, but touched by grace.
She would have to avoid the hyper-righteous tone that Christianity often displays, the holier-than-anyone attitude that supposedly feeds evangelism but actually celebrates self.
As people gathered around her, she would need to remember that it isn't about her, but about God. She would confront the tendency of community churches to be like-minded.
Her denomination would resist, of course, but putting their institutional imperatives alongside her actualized dream of Christians gathered would be good for them.
[end of article] Reader Response:The Kingdom of God: Don't resist its coming
It is apparent that Tom Ehrich doesn't get around much ("Start a church —- how Jesus would," @issue, April 26). He doesn't seem to know that the first century-like "church" that he describes and offers to help his friend start already exists. They call themselves "Jehovah's Witnesses" and they are eating Churchianity's lunch for all the reasons Ehrich points out. Organized religion killed Jesus the first time, and Churchianity continues to resist the coming Kingdom of God.
MICHAEL N. MANTEGNA, Alpharetta
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