Saving Church

The Following is the script for this video:

Saving Church! We usually think and talk about saving people—and we should. But the devil is also set on destroying the Church. First, let me clarify what needs saving. I don’t mean saving any building we may wrongly call a “church.” Nor do I mean saving any denomination or branch of it labeled as “church.” Further, the goal is not to preserve the forms we may follow in Sunday meetings.

Rather, in what the New Testament names as the “body of Christ,” it’s the body life that needs saving. Back in Bible times, those little bodies of people united with each other by their common life in Jesus. Bands of brothers and sisters in Christ built the church and changed the world by laying down their lives for one another.

Suppose you’re looking for a fitness center. In its ads, one gym features this guy. No way, you say. This place apparently strengthens only select members of the body. Most remain undeveloped. What if churches, in a similar way, overdevelop a few but leave most members undeveloped? The Church needs to be saved from that. As spiritual fitness centers, churches should equip everyone for body-building action.

Meet Joe, a Christian for 30 years. During the week, he trains medics to respond to emergencies. Yet during his church meetings on Sunday, Joe, so to speak, sits on his hands along with most everyone else. He is benched. Oh, sure, he sometimes takes his turn at ushering and running the sound system. But his God-given gifts for building the body of Christ lie dormant, unused.

In his book, The Reconstruction of the Church, E. Stanley Jones says: “Men and women who during the week are molders of opinion, directors of large concerns, directors of destinies are expected to be putty on Sunday. . . . They have little to do, hence they do little.”

If our goal is church as the New Testament presents it, what stands in the way? Two main obstacles. First, the status quo. Doing church the way we’ve done it for centuries. And second, the protective fence we keep building around the status quo. A fence made up of all the ways we guard the way things are to avoid change. In actual practice, what are trying to save? The Church or the status quo?

What does the status quo look like? If you hear the words, “church meeting,” what comes to mind? It might look something like this. If this reflects the status quo, how do we build our fence around it to guard and preserve it?

The layout of the meeting room makes up a  major part of that fence. An arrangement of chairs, pews, or benches all facing forward. A  platform, usually raised, from which performers  may be seen and heard. This design reaches all the way from ancient amphitheaters to Carnegie Hall. This theater layout is ideal for letting  spectators watch events. The design gets baked into church buildings. And, as Winston Churchill warned, “We shape our buildings and afterward our buildings  shape us.” Visit any church, and you’ll probably find some form of this layout. Those in the New Testament church, though, met face to face. 

The centuries-old idea of the so-called “laity” also serves to protect the status quo. Old as it is, the “laity” is not found in the New Testament. Usually without seminary training, the “laity” are not relied on for insights that strengthen the Church. Their role is to fill up the mostly-silent audience. Never mind that Scripture calls all Christians “priests” who are to lovingly serve one another. The “laity” fence keeps people like Joe sitting on their hands.

Working closely with the “laity” part of the fence is the “clergy” section. In the meeting layout, the platform is mainly clergy territory. In many cases, the one called “pastor” greets, prays, makes announcements, preaches, offers the benediction, baptizes, and officiates at communion. Microphones amplify the voices of those on the platform. However, the New Testament knows no clergy-laity distinction. No  “Reverend Peter” or “Reverend Paul” there!

The stated aim of Sunday meetings forms this next section of the protective fence. Churches typically see “worship” as the purpose for the weekly meeting. This reinforces the need for platforms from which worship leaders and worship bands can stimulate those in the audience to worship. But that misses the mark. Nowhere does the New Testament say we are to gather for worship. Rather, the biblical purpose for our meeting together is to build up, strengthen, and encourage one another.

If the so-called “laity” were allowed to speak, things could get messy. What if one of them says something out of line? What if we hear unbiblical ideas? So, this part of the status quo fence keeps the meeting safe and tidy. It allows only those with the right credentials and formal training the right to be heard and taken seriously. Thus, this section of our fence keeps meetings neat and predictable.

In all these ways and more, the church-meeting status quo gets surrounded, fenced-in, and preserved. As years pass, each section of the fence reinforces tradition. In time, it becomes nearly impossible even to imagine doing church any other way than the status quo. The fence has done its job!

But what should we be aiming to save? The status quo?  Or the Church? Should we arrange our meeting spaces to silence members of Christ’s body or to free them to contribute what God’s Spirit wants to say through them?

To quote E. Stanley Jones once more: “The biggest redemption before the church today is the rescuing of the laity from church membership as . . . spectatorship to church membership as . . . participationship.” What Jones is saying comes straight from a prominent New Testament theme:

• I Thess. 5:11: “build each other up.”

• I Cor. 14:12: “try to excel in those [gifts] that build up the church.”

• Jude 1:20:  “build each other up.”

• Heb. 10:24: “motivate one another to acts of love and good deeds.”

• Rom. 14:19: “build each other up.”

Notice two emphases. First, the assigned work: build, build, build, build, and motivate. And second, the assigned workers: each other, each other, each other, and one another.

But wait! Didn’t Jesus say HE would build his church? Yes, but he enlists the members of his body as his builders. Doesn’t he use pastors as his church-builders. Just as coaches equip players, pastors are to equip the builders. But notice all these calls for one-anothering.  And notice how these verses assign the church-building work to all of us in the body of Christ.

Suppose you’re an architect tasked with creating a suitable floor plan for church meetings. Your job description asks that you keep these words in mind: “When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all.” Given this as the goal, what do you think would be a suitable floor plan for gathering the Church?

Will your blueprint look more like this . . . or like this?