We could break down people’s ideas about church into two camps – traditional and biblical. By “traditional” ideas, I mean ideas about church nature, purpose or function that you don’t find in the biblical story.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the idea is wrong, but it’s important to identify the origin or roots of ideas because it can be really insightful for discerning whether something is healthy, unhealthy or neutral. It can also get more nuanced than that. Maybe an idea is healthy in a certain context and not in another.
Borrowing from the world
A very common practice is to take the Scriptures and interpret them to fit a culture or a context. The world’s ways infiltrating the church is nothing new. All of Paul’s letters were written to churches that were constantly battling the temptation to think and act like the world. He had to keep reminding them of the totality of the gospel; that being a part of God’s family, nation, and kingdom included leaving the world’s ways behind.
Not much has changed. If you look at the Christian landscape (at least where I live), an honest assessment would be that we do the same thing. We borrow a lot from the world and then we have all sorts of (the wrong kind) of problems. Many times we are borrowing from the world and we don’t even know that it’s unhealthy. Books like John White’s Flirting with the World unpack how modern churches do this and don’t even recognize it.
What tends to happen is churches come up with their own ideas or borrow things from culture which become traditions. Then tradition interprets the Bible so that the traditions become “biblical.”
You can take a tradition and then go find biblical passages that seem to support a tradition, cut them out of the biblical story and paste them all on page. Then you can claim the Bible teaches the tradition is biblical.
Translations of the Bible add a layer of complexity to this. While Bible translations are of course great to have, there can be some issues with words that get chosen by the translators (for whatever reasons they chose them). There are some really suboptimal words used in a plethora of places in the Bible that make it seem like the authors are supporting ideas those authors never originally communicated.
Examples of tradition interpreting the Bible
One example of tradition interpreting the Bible would be…
A church is a building you go to.
When someone says they’re “going to church,” they are generally referring to a building they are going to. In many minds, that’s become “biblical” because the Bible says “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” (Hebrews 10:25)
People use that verse to tell people they should go to a building every Sunday. The problem is church buildings didn’t exist for the first 300 or so years of church, so it’s really not biblical. It’s a tradition that came along later.
Another example…
A church gathering involves going and listening to the same person give lectures about the Bible week after week for years on end from a pulpit.
In many minds, that’s become “biblical” because the Bible says to “preach the word.” (2 Timothy 4:2) While preaching to reveal Christ IS a biblical idea, hearing the same person preach sermons week after week for years on end from a pulpit is not a biblical idea. It’s roots come from the art of Greek oratory, persuasion and entertainment.
Ideas about church that aren’t biblical
Along those lines, here are 5 traditional ideas about church that aren’t biblical…
Number one…church is a learning center where you go to “get fed.”
It’s common for a Christian to give a reason for switching churches to be “I didn’t feel like I was getting fed.” This idea sees church as a place you go to learn something to help you with your growth with God.
Number two…church is a theater where you go to witness Christian activities.
This became big with what was called the “seeker-sensitive” movement where big buildings and stages were built for big theatrical-like productions. They include rock concerts featuring Christian music and a speech by a very talented motivational speaker that leaves you emotionally charged when they’re done. Basically, you go for a show and you get something from that show. It’s like going to a TED talk, movie, Broadway show, etc.
Number three…church is a corporation that provides Christian “goods and services” where you pick and choose what you want to do.
There’s a staff with a board of directors (elders), a CEO (lead pastor), etc. and their job is to serve you with an experience and provide services you might need. We “purchase” those goods and services by giving money to keep the whole thing running.
Number four…church is a social club.
It’s a place to go that brings people together with similar beliefs to interact with each other. It brings Christians together in our city to develop relationships and keep those relationships going.
Number five…church is a shopping mall.
It’s a place with programs you can choose from. You do things you want to do and don’t do things you don’t want to do.
What’s the end game?
Think about this…what is the end game for all of these ideas about what church is? There may be some good in all of these. But when we think about church in this way, where does it leave us? The end game with all of these is focused on personal satisfaction.
They’ve become ways to address our vertical relationship with God, but do little to address the end game of God’s purpose and plan for a church to be an expression of the community life of God.
For many Christians, the end game is to “go to church” and take what is experienced there to go and live a happy life. They’ve been convinced that choosing Jesus is better and being in a relationship with God leads to a happier life.
Unfortunately, that end game doesn’t align with the purpose of church, and there are major consequences to that.
Things seem to be shifting
But things seem to be shifting where I live (America). Maybe 20 or so years ago something shifted. It seems to me the invention of the internet has played a big part in this shift. There have been books published and mass marketed dealing with the issue of the nature and purpose of the church that large Christian publishers wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole just a couple decades ago.
Information is not as controlled as much anymore. It still is to some degree. Google kind of chooses what to rank. But even then, Google is creating and using technology to attempt to generally rank things highly that people are finding most beneficial. My main source of Christian teaching isn’t from the pastor at my church. It’s resources that come from Florida and Oregon, and I live in Ohio.
The consequences of living isolated individualistic lives (mental and physical health issues) are at an all-time high.
More Christians (at least where I live) are realizing their church experience isn’t aligning with what they read about in their Bibles. So they are questioning these traditional ideas about church and becoming hungry to discover biblical ideas about church, not just in theory, but in practice.
So it seems our culture is ripening for change in the idea and experience of church that will likely be throttled by upcoming circumstances (likely difficult).
It’s healthy to discern between traditional and biblical views of church because how you think about church is a foundation for how you do church.
Michael Fleming
Mike Fleming is the creator of Finding Healthy Church. Over 20 years ago, he was sparked by the frustration of failing to experience what the biblical story claimed a healthy church was like. He caught a vision and passion for seeing local churches be what they were designed by God to be. He shares what he's learning along the way so the health of local churches around the world are improved. He’s currently working on an eye-opening book that will help better understand what it means for a church to be healthy.