I cannot stop thinking lately about church models and how they relate to the great call of Jesus to go into the world and make disciples. It’s week 22 and I’ve been pretty soft up to this point. Please allow me to speak candidly today.
For the last several years, and especially during the pandemic, I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the way we do church. The way we do it at Ren Church is similar to how most churches in the western world do it. You enter a building, usually on a Sunday morning. You find a seat in one of the rows. You probably say hi to some people. Of course, the greeters—who are trained to greet—greet you. The band plays three or five or ten songs. Next is the sermon. In our church it might be 30 minutes or an hour. Almost the entire 90-minute experience is passive. In other words, you don’t really bring anything. Even our giving is done at home online. We might be greeters or serve in the kids ministry once a month. But mostly we just sit back and take in the music and the teaching as a recipient. Is that a fair description?
It’s a sort of spectator sport. Everything is prepared perfectly by the competent pastor and his team. Since it is a bit like a show, we become critics of the various elements. You know what I mean. The speaker was too loud, too funny, too scattered, too whatever. The style of music was too classic rock. I didn’t like the smoke machines. The atmosphere was too bright. Or too dark. There were spelling errors in the projection of the song lyrics. The vocal was, meh. And some quietly think, “There’s got to be a better show in town than this. Maybe we will go somewhere else next week.”
Where did we get this?
All of this is reasonable. I mean, who wants to hear a terrible sermon or listen to music that’s out of tune? I don’t want to even be in a space that is aesthetically unpleasant. We want “church” to be an awesome experience. That’s not necessarily wrong. But what I can’t stop thinking about is how we came up with this model of doing church. It certainly isn’t from the New Testament. Yes, there were times when Peter or Paul spoke to a crowd and the people sat and listened. Absolutely. But the portraits of church life found in the Book of Acts were much more communal. They met house to house. They broke bread together and ate together with joyful hearts. They met together for prayer. When they assembled it was more like a spiritual potluck. One brought a revelation, another a hymn, another a prophecy, and so on. Everyone came prepared to contribute. That’s a very different model from what most American churches do each Sunday. Many people even attend church without talking with a single person. Is this really what God intended?
Big Sunday show
You may be wondering what all this has to do with our mission to reach people outside the walls of the church. I am convinced that the present model of the “big Sunday show” is making our mission harder than it needs to be. Think of all the people in your circles who aren’t Christian. Do you think they want to come to the big Sunday show? In most cases, no. They are skeptical of organized religion. They may give it a try, but the whole thing feels like an indie rock concert followed by a Ted talk. Even if an unchurched person does start attending, he or she often gets lost in the shuffle of the crowds.
It’s not that God doesn’t use this strange model that we’ve created. Many people have encountered Christ in churches that use this model. I’m just questioning if it’s the best model. Is this the best way to reach people? Is it even the best way to spiritually grow people who are Christians? How many sermons do people need? Let’s be honest. Many people come to Sunday church, hear the sermon and do not put it into practice. And they do this week after week after week. Many people attend a church for years but don’t really know anyone intimately. The present model allows people to have anonymity. You can be a part of a community without communing with anybody. It’s odd, right?
Again, it’s not that coming together with a large crowd of believers to worship and hear the Word preached is bad. But it’s that this has become almost all there is to church life. For many Christians, Sunday church-attending constitutes their entire experience of church life. There’s just not much more to it. I think it’s safe to say that it is relationally shallow.
Stewardship
Also, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars in America on church buildings. Some churches have campuses, literally. Food courts! Fountains! Million-dollar sound systems. For what? To heighten the spectator’s experience. In some cases, 5,000 or 10,000 people are entering a gigantic building and everyone is listening to one person talk. Everyone comes in to watch the show.
Oh, and it’s not enough to just teach the Bible. The speaker has to be comedic and wild and easy to listen to. He has to be an entertainer of sorts. We’ve made the role of pastor so ridiculous that few people are even interested in it as a vocation. The modern pastor has to be a CEO, a comedian, a scholar, a finance expert, an entrepreneur, an administrator, a community organizer, a fundraiser, a dynamic communicator! Who can be all that? No wonder thousands of pastors quit the ministry every year.
And let’s talk about money for a moment. Where does all the money go? The average tither probably gives $500 a month. In a church of 1000 that’s $500,000 month. That’s a lot of money! Most of it is spent on the salaries of people who work all week long to prepare for the one hour big Sunday show. It goes to buying and maintaining huge buildings. It’s spent on programming for the already saved. Doesn’t that seem out of sorts? I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be paid staff, but it seems like we could be much better stewards of our money. In light of the fact that millions are suffering in extreme poverty it’s hard to imagine Jesus leading the American Christians to build bigger and better buildings for the sole purpose of housing the big Sunday show. Ugh. Imagine if half the churches sold their buildings and met in homes. And gave the money to help the extreme poor. The entire world would be stunned.
A shift is happening
I wonder, honestly, if this whole American model of church is causing unbelievers to repel the Christian faith. There is an ever-increasing movement happening around the world, and here in the states, of house churches and micro churches. People are returning to the simplicity of the early church model. They are prioritizing making disciples and practicing real Body ministry.
When I first came to Christ I have to confess I thought Sunday church was a little strange. I really tried to like it, but it was hard to connect with the experience. I tried so many different churches in the first year. I went to church because, well, that’s what good Christians do, right? In fact, I went Wednesday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night (this was 1989). I felt unsure about inviting someone to come to church. If it was weird for me—how much more for an unbeliever?
Simple church
But one thing that I did with a handful of my Christian friends was gather together informally to eat, talk, make up worship songs, and pray. Sometimes we’d be under the stars, sometimes in a cozy apartment. There was no start or finish. We weren’t aware of it at the time, but we were doing church in a very natural way. It was small. Maybe 4-5, sometimes more. We constantly invited people to join us. And they did! One of the ones who came and found Christ was a young lady who would later be my wife :)
Since those early days, I confess I’ve gotten away from that simple model of small gatherings in houses or fields or by the ocean. It’s interesting to note that most of the ministry of Christ was done outside or in homes—where the people were! We spend so much energy creating a big Sunday experience and then trying to get people to come to our building. Wouldn’t it be better to do church where the people are? In homes. In parks. In cafes. In community centers.
Don’t leave the church you attend because of its traditional model. It’s still the Church. God is present with His people regardless of the model. But my encouragement is to pour yourself into something small. Does your church have small groups? Join one and be devoted. If it doesn’t have small groups or gatherings then create an informal one. Don’t fuss over it. Don’t make it a big ministry. Keep it simple. Just open your house or apartment. Or gather someplace that unchurched would feel comfortable.
Living room
I remember moving back to Providence in the late ’90s with a passion to reach college students. I had a friend who was a resident director at Providence College. We partnered together and started a very informal gathering I think called “The Living Room.” The idea was that the Father wants us to be relaxed in His presence. We didn’t do it at a church but, rather, in the middle of campus in a quiet space. I can’t even remember the format. I think I just played some gospel songs and chatted with people who came. All kinds of students came to check it out.
What if we did church outside the walls of church buildings? At least in this part of the country, I’ve found that it is getting harder and harder to even get people to step foot in a church. Where do people already hang out? Drive around on a Saturday. Where are people? Maybe shopping, maybe doing errands. They are at beaches and parks. They are at restaurants and cafes. Sports events and concerts. The zoo. But do you want to know where the vast majority of people are? They are in homes. I think our houses and apartments are perfectly suited for doing church in a way that the unchurched would feel at home. Perhaps even more ideal is to have church in the home of an unchurched person. Jesus did that all the time, didn’t He?
Try it
I want to invite you to experiment with this idea. Open your home to a group of believers who will actively seek to bring unchurched people. Try not to turn the group into a miniature version of traditional church though. You don’t need to sing five praise songs and have a 45 minute teaching. You don’t need an overhead projector. Make food. Lots of food. Have a simple purpose for the gathering. Describe it as a gathering to discuss the Bible. Or a gathering to learn more about the Bible over a meal. There doesn’t need to be music every time. Maybe some weeks it’s all music. Maybe some weeks are just sharing a meal and stories. Maybe another week is a 3-hour discussion about God’s sovereignty. Or maybe it turns into a time of extended prayer. Let everyone contribute and let the Holy Spirit lead. Make it the kind of gathering that is so drenched with love and so fresh that it’ll be easy to invite an unchurched person to come check it out. When’s the last time we had unchurched people in our house? When’s the last time we invited an unchurched person to our house? Hmm.
This is getting long so I'll leave it there, but I’m sure I’ll be writing more on this in the days to come. Again, do not leave your traditional church. Stay committed. But try some informal gatherings with a handful of believers and invite unchurched people to join you. Go through the gospels and take note of all the interesting places Jesus hung out with people. Yes, He taught in the Temple. But He often taught in homes, in fields, in the market, on the side of a mountain, in a boat, on a beach. He “did church” in the homes of wealthy people and the homes of poor people, in the homes of His followers and in the homes of unbelievers. Everywhere Jesus went was church. We are the church! So if a handful of us start gathering in someone’s backyard to talk about Christ while enjoying barbecue chicken—it’s church.