Online environments lend themselves to debate, argument, wedges, hyperbole, all the stuff we can’t get away with when we have to face a person in person. Seldom does life online foster peace and joy in the Spirit with brothers and sisters in Christ.
Sitting wherever we are on the other end of the Internet is nothing like serving side by side for a common purpose in love, seeking to build up brothers and sisters in their faith, to share struggles together and encourage each other. Those are essential aspects of life in the Body of Christ. Online is nothing like the Body of Christ at least as I know it.
Friends here that I really enjoy would be a treat to spend time with in worship together. Even though we are from enormously different church backgrounds. No one gets to "remote in"to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Communion is an in-person event.
Exactly, Merv. I think the aspect of caring for those we know tempers our speech a bit, as we know that some of the subjects here are highly emotional to some, and it would be painful to have to confront them, perhaps both for us and them. We have a couple coming over this afternoon who I know is YEC, and I would love to have a conversation with him about why he feels the way he does and I feel the way I do about creation, but while I have opened the door a few times, he has not seemed interested in entering that discussion. Again, his life is deeply invested in that view and sometimes it is just easier to not talk about it.
I’m not recovered enough yet to get to my NYC church, but the day I’m better I will go. We are commanded to observe the Lord’s supper and are told not to neglect congregating together.
I wanted to come back to Adam’s questions, because he brings up such important issues, that NT is not silent on (neither is the OT; the Psalms are full of songs regarding the joy of worship at the Temple.
The NT had no concept of a physically disengaged church; the local church comprised of physically-present people made up the local expression of the Body of Christ. But people are messy. A mess. They bring their personal problems and lack of consideration with them wherever they go. We have evidence, though, that these local churches corresponded. That’s cool! But there’s no reference to that correspondence substituting for in-person worship and ecclesia.
Whatever our ideals are about how we should treat each other in person and out, the NT has a lot to say about how people should interact in church (which means they didn’t to it well in the first place) and in their church communities. Little to nothing online, certainly not in a discussion/debate forum fosters the kinds of relationships and interaction described below, cannot replicate the purposes. These are the things of church communities that happen in the flesh.
Ephesians 4:2-7
English Standard Version
2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Eph. 4:29-32
29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Eph 6:23&24
23 Peace be to the brothers,[d] and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
Colossians 3:11-17
English Standard Version
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,[a] free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-18
English Standard Version
12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle,[a] encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Glad to hear. We are all trying to find our path in these uncertain times. Many blessings and encouragement to you in our journey.
Attending a church meeting may be a different kind of experience for extroverts and introverts. Extroverts may get their batteries loaded by being social in the church while introverts may need some silent time after being in such a social context. A couple where the man was an Asperger-type autist visited once our home. When asked what kind of church would be optimal for him, he answered that a church with one member. Not because he had anything against others but because of his autism.
We are different and we have our sore points and traumas that affect our behavior. The church should be a place where different kind of persons could feel they have come to their second home, a place they are accepted as they are. That is easier to say than to live true.
If other members, especially those having leading positions, have too narrow expectations of how church members should behave or otherwise are somehow creating an oppressive atmosphere, it is no wonder that people do not want to attend church services. I would add to that list those places where you always have to be superpositive and smiling but this addition is mainly a cultural handicap - we are different.
I believe that we are saved individually but should grow and live as a part of a serving community of believers. If we think what the church or church services give to me and act based on that, our attitude is perhaps wrong.
Church should not be individualistic, it should be the body of Christ where all serve with their talents. Unfortunately, church culture in the western societies is often syncretic, reflecting the individualistic culture of the western societies rather than the model described in biblical scriptures. In this matter, we are often blind because we have grown and are too used to live in this kind of culture. There is a need for a radical reformation where we take apart the syncretism and stick to the message and model of the biblical scriptures. Otherwise the future of western churches does not look good.
- A variety of spontaneous responses from an unchurched Christian:
- I give, why?
- Reasons why I don’t go:
- I can’t drive and I hate explaining why my wife, who does, hates driving me to church and then coming back an hour or two later to pick me up and drive me home again.
- When I want to contribute monetary resources to a charitable work, since I don’t have the physical wherewithal to perform personal physical labor instead of or in addition to contributing money, there are a multitude of charitable organizations in existence that can and will use more of and allocate my money more effectively, efficiently, and judiciously than any church I know of.
- I can find more spiritually uplifting songs, singing, and sermons online.
- I know how and when to pray wherever I am, and where to find preformatted prayers if and when I need help getting started.
- The only sacraments I want and need can be obtained outside of any church.
- if and when I need correction, there are a goodly number folks around BioLogos ever ready, willing, able, and eager to give it to me, solicited and unsolicited. And outside this forum, God has blessed me with a wife and kin who will give it to me too.
- And that about covers my needs and wants.
I wonder if you, or anyone else could identify the reasons or even necessities of the sacraments?
Some churches do not even recognise the necessity of Holy Communion (Mass etc)
I am part of the non-conformist community that plays down the necessity of Ordained or separated apart authority for sacraments (not just communion) let alone the mechanics of them.
Churches have to have structure and human dynamics that can work against pure theology. There is always compromise whether it is the authority of the Pope or the priesthood of all believers, or simply preferences in format and behaviour. Which is why finding a church can be problematic. If we start dictating what must or mustn’t be included then we start impinging on individuality and freedom. However, from an outsider’s point of view, the church is fractured beyond healing.
Richard
- I am an unchurched eclectic believer in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. The day that I subscribe to the beliefs of any church that you preach in will be the day that I have become a Conformed Nonconformist.
- As a relevant afterthought. I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, visiting nephews and nieces. Been here since June 29th and will be here till July 12th.
- As kin are wont to do here, I was taken to a popular Mexican-style-food restaurant for a great meal; and it occurs to me that some of the folks here in BioLogos might find this short video interesting.
- Coming to a church near you, … sooner than you think.
I once encountered a joint Lutheran/Episcopal congregation where the entire congregation was organized by twelves: everyone was part of a small group of twelve, the leaders of those small groups were organized into small groups of twelve, and at the top were the twelve elders. In total they had almost two thousand adults, so there were a few “excess” groups that didn’t fit a nice tidy scheme of twelves.
I wish more of the writings of Wilhelm Loehe, a Lutheran pastor-theologian in the mid nineteenth century, were translated into English. He wrote a piece that divided the mission work of the church along the lines of systematic theology’s approach to the Trinity, diving everything about the Godhead into “opera ad intra” and “opera ad extra” and extending that to missions and thereby emphasizing that it is the mission work among/within the church that defines who we are, and that without healthy missions within there could be no healthy missions to those outside. This permeated all his writings about the life of the church and missions, but most of that fell by the wayside for English-speaking Lutherans including those who still run the seminary he founded in the American midwest (working from Germany!) because so little of that got translated.
Immediately on reading this the United Methodist congregation my mother dragged us to after my grandmother died came to mind – it was toxic in many ways, from a seriously warped view of tithing to constant competition among a slice of the membership to see whose “Sunday best” was best to a youth ministry (if it could be called that) that had very little to do with the Bible.
My teen years were shaped far more by being part of the high school debate team than by anything to do with church . . . .
It also has no concept of multiple churches divided by doctrinal and other differences all in a single city! Even though when Paul wrote to the Romans there were probably a dozen distinct house-based churches happening, it was to a single church in Rome that he wrote!
I’ve become very picky about finding a congregation/church due to both depression and anxiety spawned by PTSD. One thing I’ve learned is that liturgy bordering on pageantry is best for me, but the local options have definite difficulties running from an Episcopal church where they don’t care if you believe in the bodily Resurrection to a Lutheran one with the same problem to another Lutheran one that is trying so hard to be “serious about the Bible” that they’ve become decidedly heterodox to a Methodist one that’s trying so hard to be “relevant” they’re more a social club than a church to a Roman Catholic one where the current priest only administers the Eucharist under one kind (just the bread) . . . .
My last psych-doc called such churches “clown schools” because they insisted on having faces that might as well have been painted on.
I can think of one congregation I attended when able in my grad school days that didn’t have that problem because they had gone back to a practice of the ancient church: income was divided three ways evenly: one to run the church, one for missionary work, and one for caring for the needs of everyone in the congregation along with friends and neighbors. When the first third kept coming up short they actually debated selling the building (instead they distributed surveys to about twenty thousand households centered geographically on the building asking “How could you make use of our building?” and ended up renting space to a dozen or so civic groups at 15% under the going rate for facilities of matching quality plus providing space for another bunch of groups at fractions of what similar facilities would have cost because they judged those groups valuable to the community).
This is a somewhat misleading claim. We do not have much historical information about the earliest phase but if we read the letters in the Bible, we can find divisions and disagreements. Later documents tell about divisions and disagreements. It is told that when Constantinus made Christianity an accepted religion, he was surprised about how quarreling the Christians were - there were even physical fights and killing among Christians.
During the first centuries, all church communities (‘home churches’) were counted as part of the proto-catholic church if they accepted the teachings of all apostles and the generally accepted scriptures (varied a bit because there was not yet an official canon). If that principle would be applied to this day, most churches would be counted as part of the catholic church despite the doctrinal disagreements.
There are different reasons for the divisions but in many cases, the division happened because reformers were driven away from the church, not because the persons themselves wanted a division - an example of this is Luther and his followers
Can you direct me to any specific untranslated work of Löhe’s that you think best exhibits his thinking? Not that I lack for reading material…….
Ha! 
Propping up? Believers encourage, bless and care for each other > fellowship as instructed by scripture. Online Church ultimately feeds individualism the hallmark of our age.
Is it a church that became a restaurant or a church with a restaurant in it kind of like the ones with a coffee bar just bigger?
Interesting to consider. Our pastor occasionally guest lectures at Truett Seminary at Baylor, and he says that many students in seminary have no intention of being traditional church pastors but plan on ministering in coffee shops etc. In fact, he worries about a present and coming crisis where there is a shortage of pastors as more are leaving the ministry than coming in.