Paul's Passing Thoughts

Home fellowships, the church as it is meant to be, is not a bureaucratic political institution, but it is an organization. There is organization in regard to roles and spiritual gifts though fairly simplistic. Home fellowships combine informality and freedom to pursue gifts along with good organization. This is a powerful concept, but not very Western. Some prefer to call this “organic.” In other words, the endeavor of God’s people takes on a life of its own within truthful confines.

The home fellowship movement must resist authoritarianism as well as a loosey-goosey form of fellowship—things must be done, “decently and in order.” Good organization maximizes the use of money and gifts that usually are expended for institutional infrastructure. Instead of Joe volunteering to paint the church building, he volunteers to help the home fellowship paint the house of an elderly widow living on a fixed income.

If Joe wants to start another fellowship network in a different city, he merely moves there and starts an extension of the fellowship in his new home or the home of someone already living in that city. If a group of Christians in a city want to start their own home fellowship network, but lack gifted teachers, they can appeal to another network that may have elders willing to relocate. Or, they can merely obtain the teaching manuscripts from another network, and have a reading followed by open discussion. Or, they can approach an institutional pastor who is looking to go in a different direction.

In a few home fellowships that I know of, strong organization through elders, deacons, and deaconesses works very well, but those fellowships were started by pastors with a significant following who left the institutional church. Just being free of the institution itself shifts the focus from the institution to individual gifts, but organization is still needed.

Fellowship replaces authority, gifts replace programs, and leadership leads without dictating. If what is happening violates your conscience, vote with your feet, but by all means be sure to join another fellowship or start your own. However, fulfilling Christ’s mandate to make disciples is not a part-time venture, it is worship. Worship is walking in the Spirit in the whole of our lives. For most, that means working with our hands in order to supply the need of God’s people, but for others, it means the “ministry of the word.” If you look around, the attitude that this ministry is a part-time endeavor is evident. Who will deny that Christians by and large are illiterate in regard to sanctification accordingly?

What I am saying is this; in regard to the laity, leadership is seen as a part-time venture because they are not formally accredited by the institutional church. They aren’t worth much investment because they are a mere help to the expert pastors, or the best a small church can afford. Even the “expert” pastors spend little time in the “ministry of the word” because they are also the CEO of the institution. This has always led to weak sanctification and overall ignorance in regard to Christian living. My wife Susan and I makeup 80 years of Christian experience and both agree that we have learned more about God in the past two years since leaving the institutional church than all of the former years combined—this is no accident. Moreover, the institutional church creates all kinds of drama that distracts Christian’s from the great commission mandated by Christ and their own gifts. You would think that commenting on the latest blogosphere controversy was indeed a gift of the Spirit. If it is, we are in the biggest revival since Pentecost.

The “ministry of the word” is not a part-time job. Nor is it administrative. Home fellowship movements must combine freedom with sound organization. Home fellowship movements must rediscover sanctification on their own. They must undo 500 years of Protestant darkness. They must redevelop the true called out assembly model from the ground up. This is not a part-time venture. The days are evil; we must make the best of our time.

In the early church, lay elders were supported full time. 1Corintians 9 makes this clear. There were obviously no seminaries or institutional accreditation, yet this was the case nevertheless. This was according to need, and seeing the ministry of the word as vital. Of course, situations vary along with the freedom for an elder to work, but home fellowships need to be open to fully supporting the needs of a gifted teacher.

The apostles were accused of being in the ministry for money, and this is why the apostle Paul worked though he was a huge advocate for elders being supplied for in full time ministry of the word:

“1Corinthians 9:11 – If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? 12 If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”

Frankly, a great way to start a home fellowship is to find a pastor who has been totally beaten down by the institutional church and is looking for hope and answers. Home fellowships need to realize that they have something they have always had: the power of the purse. The institutional church has preconditioned Christians to believe that money is only validated within the institution. This is astounding to me because church hierarchy has effectively vanquished the reality among the laity that the institutional church is nothing without laity greenback. I liken it to what happened on some plantations during the Colonial era:

“Hey guys, it just occurred to me; there is one slave master and five enforcers, but seventy of us. And it takes fifteen seconds to reload a musket.”

Orthodoxy has convinced the Christian masses that their money belongs first to the institutional church. Let me repeat that:

“Orthodoxy has convinced the Christian masses that their money belongs first to the institutional church.”

This isn’t true at all, and is part and parcel with the idea that the institutional church owns the truth, and agreement with an institution is all that is required for the laity. In other words, “humbleness,” “submission,” etc., replaces a personal responsibility to be discerning in all matters of life. Discernment has no relevance apart from the institution, and neither does your money. Many Christians would vehemently deny the truth of this, but the institutional church has always mastered the art of getting people to function in certain ways while denying it verbally. Case in point: “The church isn’t the building, it’s the people.” Right. A comparison of investment regarding infrastructure versus people in the institutional church is a stunning discrepancy. Few Christians know the basics of theology, are proud of that, and have total gift unawareness. And “family” is like the Olive Garden; you are only family when you are there—at the building. Ever left a church? When was the last time you heard from anybody there? That’s what I thought.

Christians no longer have to beg the institution to do certain things or not to do certain things while paying good money for the privilege. We are responsible for our own stewardship. There are gifted lay people in the church who should be getting our support—not cronies of institutional orthodoxy.

Christians must start thinking outside of the box in this regard and start putting their money to work for God’s business rather than the business of the institutional church. Home fellowships are where the people really are the assembly. But that does not exclude good organization and expenditure of resources that show the value of the ministry of the word.

paul