What's the Deal?

The church in America has failed. It has failed to be the place of healing, comfort, and joy that it should be. Instead, the church manipulates Christians in order to support its political and financial goals. The church allows no diversity of thought or practice, but instead has shattered into 22,000 denominations each of which thinks it has the only true interpretation of scripture, the only proper ethics, and is the only righteous representative of God's work on earth. In order to maintain this farce, Christians are forced to either conform to a church's practice or face alienation, ostracization, and personal attack. People swap churches regularly, often confused after being attacked by a group of people who once claimed to love them. Most church growth now is transfer growth, not expansion. Some people drop out of the church entirely, thinking themselves unworthy to be one of God's people.

The ministry is corrupt. Pastors and elders plot and scheme against each other to gain power and prestige. Every ministry is a kingdom, and woe to anyone who rises up against the king. The church has sold itself for political influence, allowing secular political parties to determine its beliefs. Many churches will not tolerate a member who votes for the wrong political party, or who does not support a church's pet cause. Financial misappropriation is rampant. Church politics has replaced love for one another as the main expression of relationships within the church. Racism, sexism and favortism abound.

In place of true holiness the church has erected a pharisaical system of legalistic ethics, in which the sins the people in that community commit (gluttony, envy, racism, lying, posturing) are downplayed while those the community has little chance of committing (homosexuality, drinking, smoking) are loudly decried. Anyone who violates these arbitrary rules is ostracized or disfellowshipped. Like all legalistic systems, this one leads to hypocrisy and inauthenticity and a culture of lying and fakeness.

Theology has become ensnared by those who would use it to further their own agenda. Statements of faith have become more detailed and rigid. Diversity of scriptural interpretation is not tolerated as it was when the church first began. Anyone who deviates from the "absolute truths" of the church is considered a heretic. Often, theology is bludgeoned into supporting whatever views the leadership prefer. Anyone who disagrees is not disagreeing with men, but with God himself. One only has to look at the battle against segregation in the south to see the lengths that men will go to twist scripture to support their own evil purposes. This crime has been repeated throughout history.

But there is hope. Throughout history the church has stopped being the manifestation of God's people and turned to become the power of men. During those times Christians obsolete the old church by creating an entirely new church. Since all men are evil, these reformations only last a short while before the church has again been co-opted by men and their schemes and power games. Then another revolution comes. No church is perfect, but they are reformable.

We think it is time for a revolution in the church, based upon three core concepts:

• Love. The church was designed to be ruled by love, not rules and power and money. Love accepts people in weakness and attempts to build them up. Love is longsuffering. Love understands imperfection. Love rejoices in true justice.
  
• Freedom. The church was never meant to control every aspect of a person's life. It was meant to allow Christians to join together to worship God. Within this narrow purpose the church has authority, but outside that narrow purpose the church has no authority. A Christian's relationship is with God and is accountable to God alone. Only God judges, not the church.
  
• Diversity. The church should not value conformity. Nothing in God's creation abides conformity, but rather the beautiful diversity of the world. Men impose conformity as a means of control. God births diversity. Christians should not isolate themselves with others who think alike. The church should tolerate a wide range of views, theology, and practice.

This is the beginning of our journey to found a new church to rectify the mistakes of the old. It is a difficult task. It will take struggle and pain. We will make mistakes. But we must do this, because God calls us to do it and because we owe it to those who come after us.

Comments

[cspew]

Bravo! I agree with much of this post. I'm sure hard-core evangelicals would fault you for saying you're going to base a church on these 3 things and not Christ... or the Bible. As an aside, though, what will the theology of the church be based on and be governed by? I think it should be goverened by Christ; however, not necessarily by "The Bible" or by the Christ as interpretted in most Evangelical minds.

Are you aware of other churches similar to this? In Blacksburg, NLCF (part of GCM) tries to be the church "for the next generation" but I often find that it's the same theology dressed up for generation neXt. Eventually, it attracts the same conservatives and the principles above are overshadowed. I've heard good things about Vintage 21 in Raleigh, NC.

One other challenge for a church w/ this model: How do you survive financially? You can't really count on giving as much as previous generations did (due to the fact that your members will be younger and less affluent than most other churches, and that this church wouldn't likely want to guilt people into giving money)?

[Rob]

Good questions. Hopefully as I add articles I'll be giving some of the answers. You are correct to say that I'm not advocating a sort of "Southern Baptists who listen to Green Day", in other words, not a normal evangelical church which has taken up some of the cultural clutter of genX or genY. To me that's a waste of time, because when you get through all the horizontal stripes and tattoos, you still have the same old same old.

Money is a particular peeve of mine; I'd like to eliminate it from the church entirely. But more on that later.

And you are also correct to see that the bible is but _one_ way we know Christ, and not the one that the early church stressed. As you know, the early church had no bible. But more needs to be developed here positively.

[cspew]

Let me expound on the $$ thing. Money can corrupt the church, just like it can corrupt individuals; however, it is needed. One cannot have a meeting place, cannot buy provisions for performing services to the community, cannot effectively reach out in our society (as an organization) without it.

Having said that, one of my pet peeves about today's churches is that people don't participate. We'll just hire a slew of pastors and a support staff at a budget of $2.4 million a year and they'll do all the work for us! Growing up, as my "normal-sized" Northern VA church morphed into the mega-church it has become, I thought it was telling that the number of people that would show up for church work day actually went down - not only as a percentage, but in absolute terms!

So I would think that the 3rd millenium church would rely on a higher level of participation, therefore, reducing the need for money; however, there still will be monetary needs.

My wife and I have tossed this idea around to no final conclusion. But the way we're leaning is towards 2 things:
1.) Church should generate money on its own. This could be dubious if abused, so it requires more thought/analysis, but why couldn't the church run a business? Many charities do this in the form of Thrift Stores, but these rely heavily on donations and volunteer hours. Why can't the church just have a secular side business?! Would they lose tax-exempt status? If so, would it matter?
2.) Instead of emphasizing regular giving for church operations, why not emphasize endowments and other monetary mechanisms for sustaining itself without the need for constant funding? This also makes the church less dependant on the whims of big donors. As a side benefit, it may actualy teach the parisheners the value of saving money and the magic of compound interest.

[Rob]

Yes, interesting, but you need to think outside the box more. There is a need for money in the way the current, 20th century, American church is structured. You're assuming that we need buildings, a paid staff, a paid full-time clergy, chandeliers, stained-glass windows, crystal cathedrals...sorry, I get carried away.

Free your mind. Imagine a church without money. Millions of Christians do it every day around the world. We can too.

I really do need to get that Church Practice section going...all will be answered in time...