(Editor’s note: This is one of many responses we have received to Chad Hall’s recent column “Why Church Isn’t Really a Church.” Hall laments the confusion between the organization we call “church” and the community of believers who are the living Body of Christ, the Church. To read Chad’s article, click here. We’ll post more replies soon.)
In all the years I have been reading Leadership Journal, I have never felt the need to respond to an article, even when I disagreed with it completely. Sometimes, however, an idea comes around that is so muddled and potentially dangerous that to fail to respond would be sinful.
Chad Hall’s recent articles on LeadershipJournal.net fall under this category. Because I am the pastor of (pick one) a local church, “authentic church,” or just a 501(c)3 masquerading as a church, I have a vested interest in this conversation.
I think what Hall is arguing for is another form of “primitivism.” To quote Os Guinness, “Because the primitive is the pure, the original, and the desirable by definition, all that is developed, settled, and institutionalized is obviously questionable. American evangelicals therefore characteristically display an impatience with the difficult, an intolerance with complexity, and a poor appreciation of the long-term and disciplined. Correspondingly we often demonstrate a tendency toward the simplistic, especially in the form of slogans or overly simple either/or solutions” (Fit Bodies, Fat Minds, p. 42).
Hall’s either/or solution is this: Either you are an “authentic Christian community” (whatever that means) or you are just another 501(c)3, a charitable organization that may or may not contribute to the building up of the true church.
Hall says, “Like other congregations, the one I serve strives to be an authentic church, but we get in our own way.” Perhaps he hasn’t read 1 Corinthians or Galatians. “Getting in our own way” seems to have been a problem for the ‘authentic Christian community’ from the earliest days.
Os Guinness relates the story of the 17th-century Puritan, Roger Williams: “(His life was) punctuated by leaving church after church—(it) was one long quest for ‘the first pattern’ of God’s church.”
A cursory reading of church history would indicate that the quest for “authentic Christian community” (Hall’s phrase) is bound to be frustrating for those who are impatient with sinful, self-centered people and poorly executed attempts at community. Hall writes, “Deep down, not one of us believes the organization we serve is a true expression of authentic Christian community.”
First, I don’t serve an organization—the organization serves me. I serve Jesus Christ and his people in the building of a biblically-functioning community of believers striving to present the Gospel to our world. The organizational structures serve us as we work toward this goal.
Second, was the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 2) a “true expression of authentic Christian community?” Probably not. I suspect that, for all its genius and brilliance, it was a messy gathering of newly-redeemed, still-sinfully-inclined, ordinary people. Probably, there were people in the community who created, or themselves became, barriers to outsiders finding Christ. But, was it a Christian community? Yes. Was it a church? Yes. Did the early Christians decide that all the effort they were investing in creating community was worth it in spite of the frustrations? Yes. Did they “quit” their churches in search for more “authentic” expressions of it? Apparently not right away.
I humbly believe that what Chad Hall needs is new eyes. He needs to look at the church, not through the eyes of a primitivistic desire for some kind of “authentic” community which is always just outside our grasp; but through the eyes of a soon-to-be-crucified Savior who entrusted His continuing community to imperfect people. Perhaps then Chad could see that what passes for “church” these days is, however imperfectly, the “manifestation of Jesus in our world.”
No, I do not believe that my church is a “true expression of authentic Christian community.” I don’t believe such a thing is possible this side of heaven. But the church I serve is, in fact, an “imperfect expression of deeply-longed-for Christian community.” And sometimes we taste it, in spite of ourselves. We call ourselves a church. Not an “authentic church,” just a church.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine … to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3: 20-21, emphasis added).
Doug Johnson is pastor of Community Bible Church in Knoxville, Illinois.
To read Chad Hall’s column, “When Church isn’t Really a Church,” click here.
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