Book Review: Reimagining Church
Can we please be daring enough and creative enough to change this five-hundred-year-old ritual - which incidentally doesn’t have a shred of biblical warrant to justify it? Can we accept the challenge to equip God’s people to function under the headship of Christ without human control? And if we don’t know how to do this, can we please be humble enough to bring in someone who can and see what happens? (Reimagining Church, p. 266)
What a fantastic book! While Pagan Christianity exposes the non-scriptural nature of most of our church practices, Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity discusses what church would look like without them - and challenges its readers to act on their new knowledge. Author Frank Viola walks the reader through reimagining the following:
- the church as an organism
- the church meeting
- the Lord’s Supper
- where church is held
- the family of God
- church unity
- leadership
- oversight
- decision-making
- “spiritual covering”
- authority and submission
- denominations
- apostolic tradition
This book packs a big punch and led me, for one, to see what church could look like done in the tradition of the apostles and the first century Christians - truly a Christianity of which I would be unashamed to be a member, and Christianity for which my soul cries out!
The biggest things that stood out to me is that being a passive spectator to a once-weekly ritual is waaaaaay easier than being in real relationship with other Christians. Consider the following quote:
“There’s a price to pay in responding to the Lord’s will for His church … You’ll bear the marks of the cross and die a thousand deaths in the process of being built together with other believers in a close-knit community. You’ll have to endure the messiness that’s part and parcel of relational Christianity - forever abandoning the artificial neatness afforded by the organized church. You’ll no longer share the comforts of being a passive spectator. Instead, you’ll learn the self-emptying lessons of becoming a responsible, serving member of a functioning body … And you’ll incite the severest assaults of the Adversary in his attempt to snuff out that which represents a living testimony of Jesus.” (Reimagining Church, p. 278)
Interestingly, while my intellect shudders at that description, my spirit jumps with joy - or perhaps it is His Spirit within me? Either way, I’m excited - excited that perhaps I’m not crazy. That I’m not alone in feeling that if Jesus were here on Earth today, He wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with the way we “do church”.
I’m not sure where to go from here. I’ve signed up to a forum for organic churches and have been invited to a conference event to hook up people looking for organic church. I don’t think that there are any organic churches in our area - not that I’ve been able to find. So what do we do? Wait for someone else to plant a church? Pursue planting one ourselves? Do we even know enough people passionate about this type of Christian living to make this a reality?
Questions, questions. I’m hoping to purchase Finding Organic Church. It is apparently a very good book - discussing finding, planting, and sustaining organic churches.
