In the summer of 2011, as a result of much prayer and contemplation, my wife Lisa and I set out to re-convey what we believe is the simple, New Testament, community-oriented message of Jesus that
has been lost in much of the organizational, overly structured religious tendencies that we have seen nearly everywhere we have been. With a specific emphasis on not pointing fingers at others, we spent several months just studying the NT. We didn’t want to just start a church slightly different from the one we came from or in reaction to the one we came from. We wanted to do something far different. We wanted the church to be as close as possible to what we found as a result of our prayerful study. We started with the message of Christ found in the gospels. We sought to interpret all of the epistles
and the history of the early church recorded in the book of Acts in light of the greatest command of Christ, which was to love the Lord with all you have and to love your neighbor as yourself. What we found was an incredibly refreshing, community-oriented look at Christianity that allows us to focus the efforts of the church on what is best for the individual Christian instead of what is best for the
organization. It's really amazing to watch as God uses each member to help the others unpack the baggage that our experiences have brought about and then to simply live out relational love for the Lord and each other in our daily lives. What we also say was that this love was to be a beacon to the lost world that we are living in.
What we found is that the principles of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission seem to be the preeminent way that God intends for the Good News to be lived out in our society. But even these basic principles seem to be difficult for us to grasp hold of in the modern version of the Christian church. The first of the two principles (The Great Commandment) is, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. … equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt. 22:36-39 NLT.
Being the son of a high school English teacher, I like to think of this principle in terms of the verbs and nouns. Love, the action verb, cannot take place without motion. Love is not a feeling- the infatuation and warm fuzzy, butterflies in the stomach sort of love. We are to love, and that word in and of itself requires action and demonstration. The nouns of the verse provide the context in which
we are to love. We are to love the Lord, to love ourselves, and to love those around us as much as we love ourselves.
The implementation of this principle is the basis, the focus, and purpose of the church, but how should we go about that? It seemed to us that the best way to arrive at the answer is to look at what the Bible says the early church spent their time doing. The early church seemed to be more a community than an
organization, and the book of Acts says that they gathered in public places as well as from house to house on a daily basis. They were sharing meals together and doing whatever it took to meet the needs that anyone had. The passage suggests that the people knew each other, and that they knew each other
well. That type of relationship develops after spending a lot of time with someone. It is obvious that there was intimate relationship because they knew what each others' needs were. An examination of the letters that make up the rest of the New Testament shows a wide range of admonitions to the church members to demonstrate their love for each other by some of the following: be devoted to one another, honor one another, live in harmony with one another, edify one another, accept one another, instruct one another, greet one another, agree with one another, bear each other’s burdens, be submitted to one another, and forgive one another. It had been our experience that the modern context of the Christian church had often broken these admonitions down to simply sit in the same room with one another a few hours a week while the professionals do the heavy lifting of body ministry. As a result, we are seeking to get everyone involved in the things which are most often left to a few.
The second principle that we can apply to best live out the Good News in our modern culture is to implement the Great Commission. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the
commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age”. Matthew 28:19 NLT. A quick calculation shows me that I have spent nearly 8000 hours of my life
attending church services. While that may be a lot compared to some people, it may not be even a drop in the bucket compared to others. One way or the other, those hours spent in services have given me one thing: a decent perspective on just how it is that the churches I have been part of were trying to fulfill the Great Commission. In my church experience, we have employed an outreach principle. We try to reach outside of the walls of the church building and get the “unchurched” (not God’s Term) to come into the church facility to attend some sort of “outreach event”. It was as if, "If we just get people to the facility, some of our Christianity might rub off on them." With all of the time, effort, and money involved in outreach events, it seems to me that we often still miss the point that we as individuals are to GO. I believe that, in order to fulfill the Great Commission, we need to focus on going to the lost, not expecting them to come to us. Now that seems intimidating to me and to most people, but I think
that is because we tend to look at it as a task we must accomplish instead of an opportunity to be open to. The Bible says of the early church that the world looked in and liked what it saw. The reputation of the people was that of love and kindness. The Bible says that Love (the great commandment) is going to be the way the world will know we are Christ’s disciples. In the book of Acts, it states
that the world looked in and liked what it saw and that the Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved. In those days, the church gatherings were conducted in public places as well as in private homes, but the church was being lived out everywhere that Christians went, for the church is constructed of living stones, the people of God. I would suggest to you that Christ intended for
us to go live out our Christianity in whatever venue we are in. When our lives reflect the light and love of Christ, it will whet the appetite of unbelievers around us. I believe that the Christian fully alive, living out his or her passions in public, is the bait on the hook when fishing for the lost. All the programs we want to put together, all the efforts to get the lost to darken the church building doors, pale in comparison to the testimony of one changed life that goes on to flourish in such a way that causes others to take notice. The Bible says that we should “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have...” 1 Peter 3:15 Notice that it says to be ready to give an answer. That suggests that people will be asking a question. Why do you have such hope? That may well translate to: Why don’t you yell at the ref like the other parents do? How come you are so positive all the time? Why do you work so hard for the company? How come you don’t talk bad about the boss like everyone else? I suggest to you that we take our faith into the world and live it out in an attractive manner. This will require intentionality, but it will require something even greater: that our faith in Christ be positively transforming our lives. That may be the biggest challenge we face in the current Christian church. Are we genuine and growing? If not, it may be reflective of the way we have been doing church instead of being the church. If we just accumulate attenders instead of converts, or are settling for converts instead of growing disciples, what the world sees may not look much different than what they already know. For the faith in Christ that is lacking the expression of love is hardly attractive. It almost relegates the Good News to a get out of jail free card. We are fully committed to rediscovering what God intended the church to be and then helping the believers around us to be just that: The Church. Novel idea, huh? A friend of mine recently called it a church experiment, and it may well be, but I like to think it has a better chance of success at fulfilling God’s plan for his disciples than how I had been doing things in the past, and it seems to me, THAT IS THE POINT!
has been lost in much of the organizational, overly structured religious tendencies that we have seen nearly everywhere we have been. With a specific emphasis on not pointing fingers at others, we spent several months just studying the NT. We didn’t want to just start a church slightly different from the one we came from or in reaction to the one we came from. We wanted to do something far different. We wanted the church to be as close as possible to what we found as a result of our prayerful study. We started with the message of Christ found in the gospels. We sought to interpret all of the epistles
and the history of the early church recorded in the book of Acts in light of the greatest command of Christ, which was to love the Lord with all you have and to love your neighbor as yourself. What we found was an incredibly refreshing, community-oriented look at Christianity that allows us to focus the efforts of the church on what is best for the individual Christian instead of what is best for the
organization. It's really amazing to watch as God uses each member to help the others unpack the baggage that our experiences have brought about and then to simply live out relational love for the Lord and each other in our daily lives. What we also say was that this love was to be a beacon to the lost world that we are living in.
What we found is that the principles of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission seem to be the preeminent way that God intends for the Good News to be lived out in our society. But even these basic principles seem to be difficult for us to grasp hold of in the modern version of the Christian church. The first of the two principles (The Great Commandment) is, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. … equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt. 22:36-39 NLT.
Being the son of a high school English teacher, I like to think of this principle in terms of the verbs and nouns. Love, the action verb, cannot take place without motion. Love is not a feeling- the infatuation and warm fuzzy, butterflies in the stomach sort of love. We are to love, and that word in and of itself requires action and demonstration. The nouns of the verse provide the context in which
we are to love. We are to love the Lord, to love ourselves, and to love those around us as much as we love ourselves.
The implementation of this principle is the basis, the focus, and purpose of the church, but how should we go about that? It seemed to us that the best way to arrive at the answer is to look at what the Bible says the early church spent their time doing. The early church seemed to be more a community than an
organization, and the book of Acts says that they gathered in public places as well as from house to house on a daily basis. They were sharing meals together and doing whatever it took to meet the needs that anyone had. The passage suggests that the people knew each other, and that they knew each other
well. That type of relationship develops after spending a lot of time with someone. It is obvious that there was intimate relationship because they knew what each others' needs were. An examination of the letters that make up the rest of the New Testament shows a wide range of admonitions to the church members to demonstrate their love for each other by some of the following: be devoted to one another, honor one another, live in harmony with one another, edify one another, accept one another, instruct one another, greet one another, agree with one another, bear each other’s burdens, be submitted to one another, and forgive one another. It had been our experience that the modern context of the Christian church had often broken these admonitions down to simply sit in the same room with one another a few hours a week while the professionals do the heavy lifting of body ministry. As a result, we are seeking to get everyone involved in the things which are most often left to a few.
The second principle that we can apply to best live out the Good News in our modern culture is to implement the Great Commission. “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the
commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age”. Matthew 28:19 NLT. A quick calculation shows me that I have spent nearly 8000 hours of my life
attending church services. While that may be a lot compared to some people, it may not be even a drop in the bucket compared to others. One way or the other, those hours spent in services have given me one thing: a decent perspective on just how it is that the churches I have been part of were trying to fulfill the Great Commission. In my church experience, we have employed an outreach principle. We try to reach outside of the walls of the church building and get the “unchurched” (not God’s Term) to come into the church facility to attend some sort of “outreach event”. It was as if, "If we just get people to the facility, some of our Christianity might rub off on them." With all of the time, effort, and money involved in outreach events, it seems to me that we often still miss the point that we as individuals are to GO. I believe that, in order to fulfill the Great Commission, we need to focus on going to the lost, not expecting them to come to us. Now that seems intimidating to me and to most people, but I think
that is because we tend to look at it as a task we must accomplish instead of an opportunity to be open to. The Bible says of the early church that the world looked in and liked what it saw. The reputation of the people was that of love and kindness. The Bible says that Love (the great commandment) is going to be the way the world will know we are Christ’s disciples. In the book of Acts, it states
that the world looked in and liked what it saw and that the Lord added to the church daily those that were being saved. In those days, the church gatherings were conducted in public places as well as in private homes, but the church was being lived out everywhere that Christians went, for the church is constructed of living stones, the people of God. I would suggest to you that Christ intended for
us to go live out our Christianity in whatever venue we are in. When our lives reflect the light and love of Christ, it will whet the appetite of unbelievers around us. I believe that the Christian fully alive, living out his or her passions in public, is the bait on the hook when fishing for the lost. All the programs we want to put together, all the efforts to get the lost to darken the church building doors, pale in comparison to the testimony of one changed life that goes on to flourish in such a way that causes others to take notice. The Bible says that we should “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have...” 1 Peter 3:15 Notice that it says to be ready to give an answer. That suggests that people will be asking a question. Why do you have such hope? That may well translate to: Why don’t you yell at the ref like the other parents do? How come you are so positive all the time? Why do you work so hard for the company? How come you don’t talk bad about the boss like everyone else? I suggest to you that we take our faith into the world and live it out in an attractive manner. This will require intentionality, but it will require something even greater: that our faith in Christ be positively transforming our lives. That may be the biggest challenge we face in the current Christian church. Are we genuine and growing? If not, it may be reflective of the way we have been doing church instead of being the church. If we just accumulate attenders instead of converts, or are settling for converts instead of growing disciples, what the world sees may not look much different than what they already know. For the faith in Christ that is lacking the expression of love is hardly attractive. It almost relegates the Good News to a get out of jail free card. We are fully committed to rediscovering what God intended the church to be and then helping the believers around us to be just that: The Church. Novel idea, huh? A friend of mine recently called it a church experiment, and it may well be, but I like to think it has a better chance of success at fulfilling God’s plan for his disciples than how I had been doing things in the past, and it seems to me, THAT IS THE POINT!
