One of the things that I have found to be interesting, confusing, confounding, and even amusing in the Stone-Campbell Movement has been our commitment to the “Restoration” of the New Testament church. While there are many things that are admirable about this calling such as our interest in being enthusiastically evangelistic as they were in the first century.
However, one of the things that I have witnessed has been our obsession with reestablishing the FORMS of the first century church. We have laboriously combed the Scriptures as an Architect would a blueprint to develop our programs and strategies only to find us come up wanting. As a result, we have developed into a people who have:
- Never realized a first century congregation.
- Become law/works centered and overlooked grace for a majority of our recent history.
- Become apathetic and nondescript as we have “crossed the tracks” economically.
WHAT IF?
What if the call to Restoration was less about techniques, forms and process and more about the CHARACTER, PASSION, and FAITHFULNESS of the people we see in the first century? What kind of people might we bie if we recaptured that as opposed to how the Corinth church did communion?
Just thinking out loud. Discuss amongst yourselves . . .
Today in class we had author, writer, poet Robert Benson speak to our Intro to Ministry Class on the topic of Liturgy. He started out talking about his own spiritual journey from being born and raised in the Nazarene church then meandering to the Methodist and more recently ending up in the Episcopal church. In the course of this discussion, he said something that is going to stick with me for a long time, he called all these different traditions different people sitting on a long pew that we call the “church.”
Driving home the other day, I saw this sign that says, “Jesus dies for ‘My Space” in heaven.” Now I have to say I see these signs all over town with similar phrases and sayings.
