One of my new ventures is in the area of church planting. Here in Iowa, we have a lot of rural communities that are low population density, but have a lot of corn or soybeans or a combination of both. The question then arises, how do we plant a church where there are more cows than people and little land that isn’t used for farming? Doesn’t seem real practical to buy land and build a building. Once I started thinking about it, who’s idea is the “buy and land and build a building” model anyway?
Now don’t hear what I am not saying (cause that never happens). There is a TON of value in the brick and mortar church, and I think they should happen and continue to happen, but sometimes they are not practical. The problem as I see it is that we have become so building dependent that it’s hard to get anyone out of the mind set. After all, if we are going to go to church every time the doors are open, we have to have a church with doors, right?
Perhaps we have created a “Church Culture” that may be counter-productive to doing anything except what we have always done. We have created a “Sunday Go to Church” culture and perhaps this culture is one of the things that will hinder us in the future. As people continue to get more and more busy, perhaps a Saturday night or even Thursday night church would be better, but we have made Sunday the only day to do church. We have created a building based culture that has caused the home church to struggle really catching momentum. Maybe the culture of the American Christian church is hurting us when it comes to the Church that Jesus built.
I don’t have the answer, I wish I did. Maybe it’s best this way, causes us to have to focus more on relationship. We need to change our strategy to focus more on relationships because we live in a Un-churched society in was is now a post-Christian nation. Maybe the answer shifts from how and when we do church to how we relate with those who we wish to do church with. What do you think?
When it comes to the things of God, the culture always gets it wrong.
I think we need to look for people who are being had by the culture (the world, sin, and the devil) and then put in a good word for Christ Jesus and what He has done for them.
And then let that Word go to work in them. And when they come back and ask you to explain more to them, we thank God for He is at work in that person.
Dan – We have four (4) distinct assemblies meeting on our campus. I think shared facilities is one possible solution. One building, four assemblies, cost divided by 4.
I don’t think we have to have a building-based church culture, but there is considerable attestation to it historically. The function of the tabernacle is not quite the same as the function of the local church although many have conflated the two. Temples have been built for many false Gods with the idea that people should come and do their religious things there. Neighborhood shrines and even household displays have been set up for daily worship. For the Jews, the synagog was the local place for gathering, teaching, marrying, etc and the local Rabbi was the man of God on… Read more »
I think you have to ask yourself a few questions first. Is this going to be a 501c3 church? Does the area you wish to plant a church in allow someone to have a home church without permits? What programs does this Church plan to offer? Care centers, personal care homes, hospices, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, bookstores, schools and other uses related to their ministry and outreach objectives. Does the Church plan to have any employees? Does the Church plan to be located near Alcohol Sales or Adult Entertainment? Beware of special use permits, special exceptions and conditional uses government… Read more »
the first places where Christian people gathered ? hired rooms like ‘the Upper Room’ (now the site of the Cenacle), private homes, and then under persecution, they met in the catacombs . . . the first great Cathedrals ? built on the sites of Christian martyrdom . . . where blood soaked into the ground from the death of martyrs . . . (‘martyr’ means ‘witness’) . . . so the Churches were memorials also that someone had believed to the point of death rather than to deny Our Lord . . . the Churches stood witness in memorial .… Read more »
“As people continue to get more and more busy, perhaps a Saturday night or even Thursday night church would be better, but we have made Sunday the only day to do church.”
No questions or comments on that sentence?
I’ll take that… It is a GREAT sentence. We, the people of the Church, of America, of the SBC have largely made it mandatory that “Church” is only official when on Sunday. The fact that the early believers met on the 1st day of the week was as a memorial of the day Jesus rose from the dead. That does not make is a prescription that we do likewise and no other day. The facts in Acts are that they met every day for teaching, prayer, & worship. So can we… the whole nine-yards: worship, choir, praise team/band, preaching, etc.… Read more »
Jim, If the Old Testament is instructive at all–and I believe it is with New TEstament qualifications of course–then God did elevate one day above another. By that I mean He did not say, “Anyday, anyway, on any whim.” Paul also talked about choosing “any day” but I don’t think that automatically construes to “every day.” I do not think the whole of Scripture would support a new Baptist denomination: Tuesday Baptists, or Second Day Baptists. And . . . when it says the “Church met daily,” it does not necessarily mean that every house church met every day. It… Read more »
the day of Christian worship IN TRADITION is Sunday, established by the early Church because they wished to celebrate together in community on ‘the Day of the Risen Lord’ . . . it was a decision of the whole Church, the custom began in Jerusalem, and when the first outlying centers of Christianity were established (Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, etc.), the custom of Sunday was brought to those centers. The Church has always held services EVERY DAY, and still does, the official day of gathering in community has always been Sunday . . . and it’s NOT in the Bible that… Read more »