Read the linked to posts at the end of this one.  It says Now read this and this.  Read the this-es.

#1 Not sure I value the thoughts of someone who has stopped going to a church building less than someone who hasn’t…yet.  I think those who leave have much to to teach us who haven’t…yet.  If they keep meeting with other Christians in some form I think, in particular, they can help those of us in traditional church models discover what really matters about our meetings.  Is it the building?  Well, they don’t have one and they still seem like a church.  is it the music program or the nursery or the paid staff?  Well, they look like they’re being a church together and they don’t have that stuff.  FOr me the lessons are endless.

#2 You and I can’t know what those motivations are – how “pure” they are.  I agree they need to be but who’s to make that determination.  I can’t determine my own motivations all that well, much less yours.  But, yes, we should watch our own the best we can with our poor minds.

And thanks for the thanks.

Thanks for the in-depth response. I have a lot more respect for what you’re saying if you’re involved in your local church. I’m just, justifiably, leery of dude’s who travel around judging churches while living off of them, and never plug in to a local group of believers do live the mess that is life together. If you’re doing that, then this conversation is definitely valid.

I think that “the gathering of saints” as mentioend in the Word is fascinatingly vague. We know that they met together to build each other up in their faith and encourage each other in every good work. They met together because “iron sharpens iron”.

I just hear way to many people bashing the church who obviously have issues with authority, despite the fact that the New Testement lays out the qualifying traits of deacons and elders who are in fact authority figures. At the very least, they were put in place to help guide the church and keep her on “the straight and narrow”. Any way you slice it, this whole “church doesn’t need leaders” rhetoric that I hear form some people is just un-Biblical crap.

The Bible tells us to “sing praise” to God a couple hundred times! If you can do this by yourself, I guess you don’t need corporate worship. I’m good with that and God probably is too.

I think that there’s nothing wrong with having a pastor stand up and teach while people sit and listen. The discussion should be in fellowship after the message is delivered. You of all people should get this as you depend on this format to make a living! It’s funny to me how Jesus and the disciples preached yet I hear tons anti-authoritarians saying “we shouldn’t just have to listen to one dude preach”. Listen, then discuss. The Bible seems to follow that model.

I don’t have a problem with discussing the church and her issues as long as 2 criteria are met:

The person offering critiques must be currently involved and serving in their local church.

The spirit of the criticism must be pure. I know that sounds high and mighty but I’m simply saying we should check our hearts and motivations first (that’s not some backhanded dig – I promise).

Thanks for talking about stuff that I appreciate the fact that you talk about things that actually matter.

Anyway, sarcastic taunting aside…

If it’s ME you’re asking, here’s what I’m DOING:

1. I’m traveling to approximately 100 churches every year, speaking with approximately 75% of pastors at the churches I visit and talking with approximately 10,000 Christians in person at those churches in a year.

2. I’m speaking and singing while at these churches about “the Good News” of Mark 1, which is the kingdom come.  God has arrived on earth and left behind the Church and the church to preach this Good News to the poor, to give sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed and to defeat the Enemy of God.  That’s what I try to educated and inspire others to.

3. I give to my local church – my time, money and talent when needed – and specifically to their food pantry that counsels and provides food for families whose ends aren’t meeting at the moment.

4. I mobilize people through my blog to care about one another, their neighbor, the poor across the street and around the world.  Specifically we, the Church, at Shlog.com have saved dozens of kids from poverty together.

5. I’m writing a book that will be distributed by a large denominational press – a book about the Kingdom, who’s in it, why, and how they live.  I chose a denominational press simply because I’m not writing for the emergent church who’s already thinking these thoughts – I’m writing for people like me in mainstream denominations who haven’t heard what they’re saved for yet – and we’ll give away hundreds of copies to pastors in hopes that this message will infect the American churches.

That’s some of what I’m DOING to be the Church God intended, to inspire and mobilize and educate the local church, and to serve both.

To speak about church/Church honestly is no more bashing her than questioning the actions of a president (his war or his oral sex tendencies) is bashing a country.  I am not questioning the God of the Church (though I think He’d be OK with that) or it’s beauty to Him or me.  I am questioning MY and YOUR motives for being involved in it, it’s methods in modern American society, it’s effectiveness at accomplishing the mission it was given by Christ (The Good News) and some of it’s present HUMAN leadership.  Specifically I am question their use of God’s money for programs which God has not commanded us to erect and their failure to use God’s money for those programs which HAS seemingly commanded us to erect.

At the same time I have written three other posts on the subject of church after this one which “bash” not going to church at all and question whether one right way of doing church exists in God’s mind and asserts that perhaps the best questions regarding church don’t deal with whether we go to church or what kind we go to but WHY we go.  That’s not bashing is it?  That’s conversation starting – the kind of conversation that birthed the Reformation and the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution. Should they not have bashed the Catholic Church and it’s indulgences, the bigots in Selma, or King George’s “oppression”?  Change is a messy business, Jeremy.  Roll up your sleeves and dive in with us, brah.  Your thoughts are welcome.

Regarding your thoughts: Assembly of the saints – or gathering – isn’t defined in scripture as we’ve defined it today in America.  Is a gathering friends in the front yard, or in the kitchen or under a steeple?  What is the form of this gathering?  Is the gathering defined by the form or by its purpose?  Or both?

I think that it’s no new revelation that the church is screwed up – just like you and me.

I think Jesus calls the chruch his “bride” and bashing it instead of working to help beautify it is like telling someone “Hey – I love you but I can’t stand your wife.”

I think the Bible tells “Do not forsake the gathering of the saints, as some are in the habit of doing.”

My church isn’t perfect and it’s packed full of imperfect people. But guess what – I’m there every week, offering the little I have to help make her more beautiful for Christ.

What are you doing, bro?

Good dialogue.

1. jesus said he would build the church.  it seems that the new testament is favorable towards believers meeting together in some capacity.

2.  accountability.

3.  i love corporate worship and teaching.  i think it inspires and challenges a lot of people.

i know i could get some of the things mentioned (accountability, fellowship, prayer, etc) from other places, including community groups or my neighborhood, but it seems like when a church is really the church, all those things are molded into one living, breathing organism that is something spiritually unexplainable.

i would also agree that much of what is passed off as “church” is not really church, but a church service…a modern interpretation according to a group of people’s predispositions.  nothing inherently wrong with that.  but maybe “the church” should do some of the things that it’s not doing and stop doing some of the things that don’t really matter