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.
Nicole said,
April 28, 2010 @ 8:30 am
And so since all of the other churches don’t have it right, another one is started because someone has decided that they have the “right” way to “do church”? (not intended to be conveyed with sarcasm)
kim said,
April 28, 2010 @ 8:40 am
No, that’s not it at all. The author is very quick to say that ’starting a new church’ just because you don’t like your church is *not* the thing to do. More what he says is to try and pursue an organic expression of Christian life. If you can do it in your church - amazing! If not, perhaps you need to think about that.
Again, it’s not that the other churches “don’t have it right”, it’s whether or not their members are fully functioning members who are coming together to express the the Body of Christ. It’s not “who’s doing what”, it’s whether or not what they’re doing is Biblical and if it’s building up the members of the Body or causing them to become passive. I think these are healthy questions that need to be seriously examined by all Christians - these are the types of questions Jesus asked in His day!
Nicole said,
April 28, 2010 @ 9:03 am
Okay, I see, thank you for clarifying.
kim said,
April 28, 2010 @ 9:25 am
I do hope that helped, Nicole
I think that’s the *last* thing the author was intending!
Sarah said,
April 28, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
I’m not sure what the definition of an ‘organic’ church is, but we used to be involved in a house church and there are definitely a couple in Hamilton, as well as a network of them in southern ontario that connect every so many months. I have a really awesome book called The Global House Church Movement by Rad Zdero (he lives close by). Not sure how available online it is. But how he started was they created a house church movement that was made up of members of his Methodist (?) congregation and was still connected to the congregation, but met in homes on Sunday and did their own thing while still being involved in the larger congregation. And then eventually he started an independent network. Let me know if you want to read it! House church was phenomenally different in a very good way.
kim said,
April 28, 2010 @ 8:07 pm
Sarah, it’d be great if you could get me in contact with them! I’ve read about Rad Zdero (he’s listed as main contact on a website I visited a while go) but they never got back to me about finding a church in the area … I just assumed the website was dead.
Sarah said,
April 28, 2010 @ 8:31 pm
I see he’s on facebook so you could try sending a message that way. We had coffee with him and a couple who had a church in their home years back but I don’t have any of their contact info. We were doing house church with another family from our old congregation and then they decided they wanted to start attending a local church so we were looking for other options. But we actually decided not to join the hamilton house church because there were some things going on that we felt were very unbiblical. And I’m not sure what’s going on these days with that church, or how many of them there are now. Facebook is probably your best bet. Sorry I can’t be more help! His book is really great though.
Liz said,
April 30, 2010 @ 1:02 am
This does sound really interesting, Kim. Thanks for the post. I’ll have to check out the book. I agree that we have tons in common: if we ever end up back in Hamilton I’m going to be knocking on your door for some unschooling, gentle-disciplining, organic-churching company. I don’t even know what organic church means yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m into it.
Tia said,
April 30, 2010 @ 8:39 am
I’m not sure how I found your blog, but I’ve been a silent reader for a little while now. This posts move me to comment. I am a member of a church, not started by a man, but a church organized by The Lord himself. He has organized His gospel in this present day after the pattern that He establish while on this earth that fell after His death. If you have any questions feel free to email me. -Tia
kim said,
April 30, 2010 @ 8:48 am
Sarah - thanks for the heads up - I have a message out to Rad Zdero
Liz - LOL that’s precisely what I thought … “organic church? I’m there!”
I’ll keep you updated on what we do!
Tia - thanks so much for the offer … I might just take you up on it!
Di said,
May 1, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
“organic church” huh? So inspired by the quotes from the book I will be purchasing it for a read. We tried home church here for a while. It worked so well for families and gave so much room for Him to move through the reflections, art, craft, chats, food, drinks or together time. It was often shared with a meal which was great. At some point it became stagnant cause we tried to attend our Church as well as “home church” - as did most of the group. Don’t know if this is of interest, but a friend from that group runs a Praxis network that is like an online “organic church”. It is going well, and we are now even meeting on Monday nights as well. Have a read, if you want more info, email Adrian Greenwood or you and ask me more.
http://morepraxis.org.au/