What is Church?

When we play word association with “church” we inevitably come up with a series of words the majority of which have negative associations: building, steeple, boring, old, traditional, meetings, oppression, condemnation, a bit of singing and standing up, homosexuality, friends, hymns, institution, parish, bishops, organs …

Philip Pullman writes in his novel, The Subtle Knife, Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.

Pullman’s thesis, driven by a profound hatred of the church, is that man should build the republic of heaven. Compare the biblical understanding of man experiencing the Kingdom of God. One comes from man the other from God.

Emma Goldman, The church is an organized institution that has always been a stumbling block to progress.

Bernadette Devlin, Amongst the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom.

Elton John interview with Observer
I would ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it. Religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it is not really compassionate. I admire the teachings of Jesus Christ, but dislike religious bodies. The reality is that organised religion (the church) doesn't seem to work.

However, nearly 2 billion people describe themselves as belonging to a church. Nearly one third of the world’s population – and growing.

The Pastor said to infrequent visitor, Jack, 'You need to join the Army of the Lord!'
Jack replied, 'I'm already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.'
Pastor questioned, 'How come I don't see you except at Christmas and Easter?'
He whispered back, 'I'm in the secret service.'
 

What did Jesus say about the church?

 

He used the word that is sometimes translated as church, ecclesia, twice, in Matthew. He never instituted a church organisation or sect. Never founded a monastery.

However, he talked a lot about the Kingdom of God. About a hundred times in the gospels.

Alfred Loisy, the French theologian said, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God and what came was the church.
 

So how did the church start?

 

After Jesus ascended his followers experienced the day of Pentecost when the God’s Holy Spirit came. The people who obeyed the call of Jesus and sought to follow him in their lives would meet together from time to time (in houses and temples and on the riverside). Those repeated meetings gradually gave form to the church as it emerged in the 1st century.

What did it look like? It is very hard to be definitive. It would have been culturally distant from us – a background Greek philosophy, an occupying political force – Rome, a Jewish religious heritage. The church also emerged in a largely farming environment within small towns and villages. Initially at least the church would have been fairly haphazard gatherings of people usually under the leadership of someone from that community and usually rejected and resisted by their society.
 

Christendom

 

Emperor Constantine became a Christian and declared Christianity the official religion in 313 AD. From being a religion on the fringe it came into favour. Rome went Christian. Perhaps at that point the church became an institution and we see the development of Christendom.

Constantine was not a great Christian role model and his morality combined with this institutionalising of the church left a terrible legacy.
 

Post-Christendom

 

We live in that legacy and as result suffer from many unhelpful characteristics, three of which are:
 

1. Come to us philosophy

 

Here we are, you come to us. The focus becomes buildings and geography.
“If you build it, they will come?” The danger is to default to looking after the shop.
Hence William Temple’s oft quoted assertion that the church is the only institution that exists for the benefit of those who are not members. He was trying to correct the balance. We become inward facing rather than looking outwards.
 

2. Sacred secular divide

 

Participation in church becomes the definition of following Jesus. We are sacred on Sundays, secular the rest of the week. We cease challenging people with an holistic journey of complete change in their lives.
 

3. Lop sided leadership

 

The outward focussed, non-hierarchical community that went out to save the world sometimes ends up with a leadership structure that, instead of leading out and calling people into mission, becomes top heavy and pastorally overweight.

I.e. we spend too much time, money and energy in organisational management and pastoral oversight.

We need more apostleship, i.e. risk-taking, entrepreneurial, outward focussed leadership.
 

So should we de-construct or re-connect?

 

There is a temptation when we see the result of 2 millennia of Christendom to de-construct the church, take it apart, devalue it, ignore it. We do this at our peril for God loves his church.

Instead, I believe that we need to re-connect the church with what Jesus was getting at when he kept on preaching the Kingdom of God. Re-connect that message with today’s culture.
 

Language baggage

 

Unfortunately, the word “church” now carries so much baggage that it is almost impossible to use it without the person hearing the word misunderstanding what we are saying. An invitation to “church” may be at best a misunderstood invite and at worst a very negative one.

We were talking with a Moslem taxi driver on the way home the other day and he asked, “What do you do at the Vineyard?” How would you answer a Moslem with no church experience whatsoever?

From a grammatical and language point of view you could use quite a few other words apart from church: session (like parliament), gathering, assembly, congregation, community. Although each of these carries their own baggage, I prefer to use them unless I have to use "church".

You will notice that the most frequent phrase I use is, "community of faith". It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue but is the best I have come across. Alternatives could be: a session of followers, a gathering of believers, an assembly of the faithful.

There is more than just a language/communication consideration behind this. What am I trying to describe? Well community of faith is short for a:
 

Called out, under covenant, community of faith

 

 

1. Called Out

 

Primarily, this is an act of God. He does it. We can’t build the church still less the kingdom. We are entirely in the hands of a sovereign God who compels us toward him. He calls us out of our world to face up to and follow him.

When Jesus implied this he was drawing on the Jewish heritage of the Exodus – God had called the people of Israel out of Egypt. They had very little to do with it – it was his move and his power.

Likewise this thing we call the church, in particular this thing called the Vineyard is only here by his call and anointing.

Luke 12:32 Do not be afraid little flock for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom.
 

2. Under Covenant

 

God has promised. He did so at Mount Sinai when he had called the people of Israel out of Egypt. Hence the 10 commandments and his covenant with them that they would be his people as promised to Abraham centuries before.

We are offered a new covenant, a new promise. The old is gone the new has come. The final sacrifice has been offered. The price has been paid, forgiveness is offered and promised. Jesus promises that the followers of Jesus will prevail.

Hebrews 10: 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful.
 

3. Community of faith

 

As the people of Israel gathered together to worship they formed the community of faith in the wilderness. Later, that became identified with the synagogue – local meetings of the community.

The early church’s identity emerged as the people who had been saved recognised their need to come together and share their faith and its expression. The church existed through the repeated meeting together: and forming some level of accountability, some leadership structure and the basic expressions of a sacred community (baptism, communion, serving one another etc).

Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.

 

The local church and the trans-local church

 

The church was not just the local church, it was also the trans-local church. But the local church is fully church too. The called out, under covenant, community of faith is both local and trans-local. It is plural and singular. Paul writes both to churches and to the church in particular towns and homes … (1 Cor 16:19).

The danger for these communities of faith was that although they had come into existence through the will of God and by his saving action, they sometimes forgot their mission and, as we identified in the characteristics of Christendom, they turned inwards, forgetting from where they had come and to what they had been called.

The church’s identity is summed up in Jesus’ aphorism about the commandments,

Matthew 22:37-40, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind … love your neighbour as yourself.

Having been drawn and captured by his great love we are turned 180’ degrees and sent out to share what we have received.

In the Vineyard we are fond of quoting Jesus’ final commission to us, recorded in
Matthew 28:18ff, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples…
 

What is key to understand is that we are still the community of faith whilst we are living out our lives in the world. Not just when we are gathered together.

 

When I sit in the 24/7 prayer room, I look at pictures and drawings, poems and words and installations and I can see our community of faith made up of many individuals following Jesus and taking the Father’s love into many different places.

Playing tennis, working at the computer, walking with friends in the park, at the workplace, with neighbours, in their families, praying for the sick, serving the poor, on mission, casting out demons, in the classroom …

I guess the test question is, "If the Wharfedale Vineyard disappeared overnight. Would our neighbourhoods notice?" Well yes they would, in part. But there is so much more to being a community of faith than simply thinking of church as getting together in lovely groups of friends to drink coffee and sing songs.
 

What should a church look like today?

 

So that maybe it will be missed?

Jesus described the evidence of a church at work like this:

John 13:35, By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Whatever word we use, church, congregation, community of faith, gathering, session – it is crucial to see that this is a verb not a noun. Loving one another is not a noun but a verb. I know the word church is a noun but its meaning is understood as a verb. It is dynamic and in motion.

This extends to:
 

Leadership

 

This is not a role or title but an action. A verb. There is not much in the bible about leadership in the early church except that it was there and it wasn’t always very good. But it is most often associated with servanthood. Hence our value of servant leadership. Our value statement reads the significant pastoral authority that rests with leaders must be exercised with humility, selflessness, grace, care and a desire to build this community of faith.
 

Community

 

It is not just the times of services advertised on the website. The community is living and working and doing. At work and play. Home and away. We seek to follow Jesus actively as we live our normal/abnormal lives.

Indeed, it is generally acknowledged in the UK by government and social agencies that a very significant proportion of the care that is delivered in this country is provided by the church. Hence the tax relief on charitable contributions.
 

In summary:

Church is not just an event but must become an action.

 

What is church?
It is a called out (God ordained),
under covenant (existing by and for his promises),
community of faith (in action to experience the love of God and extend it into our world).
 

A Called, Covenant, Community.

 

David Flowers
4 February 2007