There have always been churches that don’t have a lot of programming or dynamic, gifted preaching. Usually those are pretty small churches. Kids and parents both seem to agree that children’s ministries and youth groups are pretty important. Churches support this demand because families tend to want to establish deeper roots in a church that has its act together with their children and youth ministry. If they don’t support this, the families will leave.
There is a healthy discussion in the evangelical world lately about the downside to “demographic fragmentation” that is caused, primarily by the manner in which most youth and children’s ministries are set up. That is a really good discussion and I hope it leads to a healthier balance – that is, so that a church is ensuring that there is more interaction between the generations. But you still have the problem that your six year old is going to have a really tough time getting much out of John Piper’s sermon and the adults will be distracted by the kids in the service.
The other bone of contention I have with this video is that it assumes that a church that has programs and/or a gifted preacher, that there is no intention or effort made to send the people into the community. I don’t see the connection there. There are many churches with programs and gifted preachers who are very mission oriented. There are others that aren’t – and there is good evidence that the most important factor here is whether or not the Gospel is preached.
All that said, it is important for individual Christians as well as families and churches to look for ways to simplify our lives. Many of us simply have too much going on in our lives and it is preventing us from carrying out the Great Commission. This is an important challenge for all of us, one that we do need to be reminded of often.
Derek, I agree with you. We have been members of family integrated churches for the past few years, before coming to Bethlehem. The idea is, no programs, just ministry in the community. However, we did see that our four year old was not benefiting the sermon (obviously enough). And also not surprisingly, while she wasn’t misbehaving all the time, she still kept us from engaging as we otherwise would. Our one year old made it even more difficult, because the church didn’t have a nursery either. Our time was devoted to our children, which is good, in a sense. However, there also needs to be a time of investing, seriously and reverently in the word and worship. It also made things very unpleasant for visitors with families. It was really a church that was aiming at a specified demographic and culture.
In our new church, they have an excellent, prayer saturated, worshipful, bible memorizing Sunday school program, that both our kids love – and benefit from. That being said, we are intentionally moving towards the goal of having our family worship together, with the larger body of the church, under solid preaching, as soon as our kids can retain and enjoy it.
I have a high view of the preaching office, and think that it is very important to have a gifted specialist in the word who propels the vision of the church through sound biblical preaching. This should be central. However, I think a central role of this preaching should primarily function to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Not every preacher, even those who preach the gospel, has this in mind. The other programs should train people to be missionaries in their communities as well, more than being a means for pulling people from the surrounding community in. The members should bring new converts – and soon to be converts – in, from the work of their ministry, made effective by the church. That is my vision, and I think it lines up with the vision set forth for us in the scriptures.
I think that ideally, churches should have small community groups made up by locale, that meet with missional intentions to reach their neighborhoods for Jesus. They are to be a means of missionary support for each other in their places of work, and other spheres of influence, as well as the place where the “one another” and “daily” commands play out in relationship. However, these communities are overseen by gifted and qualified elders, fueled by a strong pulpit ministry, and brought into perspective under the historic and powerful liturgy and sacraments of the larger church. All the saints then realize that what they are doing in their little community groups is a part of the the thing that God has been doing since the sin of Adam. The larger church can properly facilitate overseas missions, and other things that only a large, program oriented church can do well. But it is in the small community groups where the daily life and relationship happen, mostly. When someone becomes a member of the church, the are adopted by a community group… and, you can’t be a part of a community group unless you are a member of the church, submitted to the eldership and teaching of the church.
This would also be a good way for elders/pastors to be involved in the shepherding of every family in the church. A pastor could be given responsibility for 5 (or so) community groups, and the families within those groups, and meets weekly with the community group leaders – training them and praying for the members. The pastor then could visit each community group regular, eating a meal with them, getting to know them in a closer context.
There you have it, my 3 minute vision for strong local churches. What do you think? It is has been in process for some time now, and I don’t think there is any perfect model laid out in the New Testament. Yet, I think this is one of the best ways that we can apply all the principals for church we are given in the Scriptures, in our cultural context.
Jeff,
I like your vision and agree with you that it is closer to the NT model than what we normally see in our cultural context. Many of the things you’ve talked about are what is fueling the house church movement, which appears to be growing during the past 5-10 years. I’ve talked to people involved with the house church movement and it seems like this model does foster a greater sense of community and outreach.
So I totally agree with the overall idea of simplifying what we do, spending more time and resources on people rather than buildings – though buildings can be a necessary and good thing – and being more mission oriented. This is a huge challenge though, and we have to remember that it takes a great deal of discipling and patience to bring a person from the immature state where they need to be mostly fed, to the mature state where they are feeding others.
I also agree that family worship is more important than what happens in Sunday School or Youth Ministry, although I don’t believe it is an either/or question. If anything, teenagers need their peers more than younger kids do, so I don’t necessarily think in terms of weaning them away from kids/youth ministry. I think kids need strong believing Christians who are facing the same challenges they are. They also need mentors who aren’t their parents.
When I read the book of Acts, prayer seems to be so vital and central to the life of the church. I think it is largely missing from the equation in our evangelical churches and also seems ignored or tertiary in emphasis when I read about “the missional church”. I say all of this based not only because of what I see in Scripture, but also because when I was in college, the church I was involved in had a very active prayer ministry, although I hesitate to even use that terminology, because prayer was so very central to everything we did. We saw many people converted and we had a very tight knit community. We never once used the term missional, nor did we have a better “system” that we were trying to adhere to. We were mainly hungry for God and His Word. Praying in pairs, in small groups, large groups, in the church and in our homes was just what we did on a routine basis.
I don’t have a lot of faith in programs or systems that don’t emphasize prayer as much as the NT seems to. When a church is saturated in Scripture and prayer, the Holy Spirit leads and works in ways that can’t be replicated or matched in any way. I don’t want to oversimplify things by any means. There are many factors that must be accounted for in order to cultivate a healthy expression of the NT church. But I strongly believe that prayer is the most neglected element in each of the formulations I read about.
There have always been churches that don’t have a lot of programming or dynamic, gifted preaching. Usually those are pretty small churches. Kids and parents both seem to agree that children’s ministries and youth groups are pretty important. Churches support this demand because families tend to want to establish deeper roots in a church that has its act together with their children and youth ministry. If they don’t support this, the families will leave.
There is a healthy discussion in the evangelical world lately about the downside to “demographic fragmentation” that is caused, primarily by the manner in which most youth and children’s ministries are set up. That is a really good discussion and I hope it leads to a healthier balance – that is, so that a church is ensuring that there is more interaction between the generations. But you still have the problem that your six year old is going to have a really tough time getting much out of John Piper’s sermon and the adults will be distracted by the kids in the service.
The other bone of contention I have with this video is that it assumes that a church that has programs and/or a gifted preacher, that there is no intention or effort made to send the people into the community. I don’t see the connection there. There are many churches with programs and gifted preachers who are very mission oriented. There are others that aren’t – and there is good evidence that the most important factor here is whether or not the Gospel is preached.
All that said, it is important for individual Christians as well as families and churches to look for ways to simplify our lives. Many of us simply have too much going on in our lives and it is preventing us from carrying out the Great Commission. This is an important challenge for all of us, one that we do need to be reminded of often.
Now this stuff I like to talk about!
Derek, I agree with you. We have been members of family integrated churches for the past few years, before coming to Bethlehem. The idea is, no programs, just ministry in the community. However, we did see that our four year old was not benefiting the sermon (obviously enough). And also not surprisingly, while she wasn’t misbehaving all the time, she still kept us from engaging as we otherwise would. Our one year old made it even more difficult, because the church didn’t have a nursery either. Our time was devoted to our children, which is good, in a sense. However, there also needs to be a time of investing, seriously and reverently in the word and worship. It also made things very unpleasant for visitors with families. It was really a church that was aiming at a specified demographic and culture.
In our new church, they have an excellent, prayer saturated, worshipful, bible memorizing Sunday school program, that both our kids love – and benefit from. That being said, we are intentionally moving towards the goal of having our family worship together, with the larger body of the church, under solid preaching, as soon as our kids can retain and enjoy it.
I have a high view of the preaching office, and think that it is very important to have a gifted specialist in the word who propels the vision of the church through sound biblical preaching. This should be central. However, I think a central role of this preaching should primarily function to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Not every preacher, even those who preach the gospel, has this in mind. The other programs should train people to be missionaries in their communities as well, more than being a means for pulling people from the surrounding community in. The members should bring new converts – and soon to be converts – in, from the work of their ministry, made effective by the church. That is my vision, and I think it lines up with the vision set forth for us in the scriptures.
I think that ideally, churches should have small community groups made up by locale, that meet with missional intentions to reach their neighborhoods for Jesus. They are to be a means of missionary support for each other in their places of work, and other spheres of influence, as well as the place where the “one another” and “daily” commands play out in relationship. However, these communities are overseen by gifted and qualified elders, fueled by a strong pulpit ministry, and brought into perspective under the historic and powerful liturgy and sacraments of the larger church. All the saints then realize that what they are doing in their little community groups is a part of the the thing that God has been doing since the sin of Adam. The larger church can properly facilitate overseas missions, and other things that only a large, program oriented church can do well. But it is in the small community groups where the daily life and relationship happen, mostly. When someone becomes a member of the church, the are adopted by a community group… and, you can’t be a part of a community group unless you are a member of the church, submitted to the eldership and teaching of the church.
This would also be a good way for elders/pastors to be involved in the shepherding of every family in the church. A pastor could be given responsibility for 5 (or so) community groups, and the families within those groups, and meets weekly with the community group leaders – training them and praying for the members. The pastor then could visit each community group regular, eating a meal with them, getting to know them in a closer context.
There you have it, my 3 minute vision for strong local churches. What do you think? It is has been in process for some time now, and I don’t think there is any perfect model laid out in the New Testament. Yet, I think this is one of the best ways that we can apply all the principals for church we are given in the Scriptures, in our cultural context.
Jeff,
I like your vision and agree with you that it is closer to the NT model than what we normally see in our cultural context. Many of the things you’ve talked about are what is fueling the house church movement, which appears to be growing during the past 5-10 years. I’ve talked to people involved with the house church movement and it seems like this model does foster a greater sense of community and outreach.
So I totally agree with the overall idea of simplifying what we do, spending more time and resources on people rather than buildings – though buildings can be a necessary and good thing – and being more mission oriented. This is a huge challenge though, and we have to remember that it takes a great deal of discipling and patience to bring a person from the immature state where they need to be mostly fed, to the mature state where they are feeding others.
I also agree that family worship is more important than what happens in Sunday School or Youth Ministry, although I don’t believe it is an either/or question. If anything, teenagers need their peers more than younger kids do, so I don’t necessarily think in terms of weaning them away from kids/youth ministry. I think kids need strong believing Christians who are facing the same challenges they are. They also need mentors who aren’t their parents.
When I read the book of Acts, prayer seems to be so vital and central to the life of the church. I think it is largely missing from the equation in our evangelical churches and also seems ignored or tertiary in emphasis when I read about “the missional church”. I say all of this based not only because of what I see in Scripture, but also because when I was in college, the church I was involved in had a very active prayer ministry, although I hesitate to even use that terminology, because prayer was so very central to everything we did. We saw many people converted and we had a very tight knit community. We never once used the term missional, nor did we have a better “system” that we were trying to adhere to. We were mainly hungry for God and His Word. Praying in pairs, in small groups, large groups, in the church and in our homes was just what we did on a routine basis.
I don’t have a lot of faith in programs or systems that don’t emphasize prayer as much as the NT seems to. When a church is saturated in Scripture and prayer, the Holy Spirit leads and works in ways that can’t be replicated or matched in any way. I don’t want to oversimplify things by any means. There are many factors that must be accounted for in order to cultivate a healthy expression of the NT church. But I strongly believe that prayer is the most neglected element in each of the formulations I read about.
Jeff, this is off topic but the “tags” cluster on the right of your blog is funny. “John Piper” is just a tiny bit smaller than “Jesus”
what “tags” cluster?
I’m not sure where it went but it was up there…