It’s 9:00 at night. I’m sitting in the student center at NIU. I’m supposed to be working on my sermon for Sunday. Instead I’m blogging. I think my priorities are screwed up.
I was flipping through the stations on my radio on the way here and I started listening to a Christian call in show. I usually hate these Q&A shows. The hosts normally have some type of agenda…and normally you can figure it out within a few minutes. This show was no different.
This guy (sorry, I never did get his name) was telling everyone that the “church age” was over. He was claiming that all the churches were in sin (not just the denominations, but the local congregations). They were spending too much time creating their own theology to fit their specific needs and desires. These theologies, in his mind, went totally against the word of God. He felt that because of this the church was run by the devil, and that the reference to Babylon in Revelations was in reality speaking of the church. The only solution was to leave the church (or the local congregation as he put it.) Only true “born-again believers” would see the blatant error the local congregations were walking in and therefore should they should leave, as soon as possible.
Here is the funny part. Once you left, he felt that you should not try to create a fellowship (like a house church); instead you should just stay by yourself. He claimed that Hebrews 10:25 supported this theory. Go ahead, look it up, I’ll wait…
I didn’t see that there either…I think he is making his own theology up! The sad part is that people were calling them, telling him what a great idea it is to be a believer all alone. What a sad thing. Everything that I have studied lately points to the congregation, not away from it. My thoughts are that Christianity is about community, not about a solo thing. Acts makes that totally clear. They were in one heart and mind, they met at the temple, and they met in their houses. I would entertain the idea that the big church thing we have in the west may not be biblical, but the fellowship definitely is. I think we, as evangelicals, have really got this personal salvation thing all messed up. Yes, the decision to follow Christ is ours alone, but once that decision is made, we move from the world of the individual to the world of community. “Love one another”…how can we do that if we are alone. Even the desert fathers in the early church lived in community. Granted, they spent a lot of time in solitude, but they also spent a good amount of time in community. So much so that if one of them was missing from a community meeting, the community went out to them to see if they were ok. That doesn’t sound like a lone gun to me.
The idea of being a Christian without community is an idea straight from the pit of hell. I believe that Satan promotes this to get to us one on one. Granted, with Christ, we can stand up to him. But alone, we are apt to start believing some of the lies that he tells us. It is through community that we “sharpen each others swords”. It is in community that we keep each other in check. It is by ourselves that we start to believe things that my not be God. Anyways, being by ourselves is just out right lonely…who in their right mind wants to experience the things of God all by themselves…it is a whole lot more fun sharing with other what God is doing with you, and observing what God is doing to the people around you.
I’m done ranting…back to sermon writing…
I was flipping through the stations on my radio on the way here and I started listening to a Christian call in show. I usually hate these Q&A shows. The hosts normally have some type of agenda…and normally you can figure it out within a few minutes. This show was no different.
This guy (sorry, I never did get his name) was telling everyone that the “church age” was over. He was claiming that all the churches were in sin (not just the denominations, but the local congregations). They were spending too much time creating their own theology to fit their specific needs and desires. These theologies, in his mind, went totally against the word of God. He felt that because of this the church was run by the devil, and that the reference to Babylon in Revelations was in reality speaking of the church. The only solution was to leave the church (or the local congregation as he put it.) Only true “born-again believers” would see the blatant error the local congregations were walking in and therefore should they should leave, as soon as possible.
Here is the funny part. Once you left, he felt that you should not try to create a fellowship (like a house church); instead you should just stay by yourself. He claimed that Hebrews 10:25 supported this theory. Go ahead, look it up, I’ll wait…
I didn’t see that there either…I think he is making his own theology up! The sad part is that people were calling them, telling him what a great idea it is to be a believer all alone. What a sad thing. Everything that I have studied lately points to the congregation, not away from it. My thoughts are that Christianity is about community, not about a solo thing. Acts makes that totally clear. They were in one heart and mind, they met at the temple, and they met in their houses. I would entertain the idea that the big church thing we have in the west may not be biblical, but the fellowship definitely is. I think we, as evangelicals, have really got this personal salvation thing all messed up. Yes, the decision to follow Christ is ours alone, but once that decision is made, we move from the world of the individual to the world of community. “Love one another”…how can we do that if we are alone. Even the desert fathers in the early church lived in community. Granted, they spent a lot of time in solitude, but they also spent a good amount of time in community. So much so that if one of them was missing from a community meeting, the community went out to them to see if they were ok. That doesn’t sound like a lone gun to me.
The idea of being a Christian without community is an idea straight from the pit of hell. I believe that Satan promotes this to get to us one on one. Granted, with Christ, we can stand up to him. But alone, we are apt to start believing some of the lies that he tells us. It is through community that we “sharpen each others swords”. It is in community that we keep each other in check. It is by ourselves that we start to believe things that my not be God. Anyways, being by ourselves is just out right lonely…who in their right mind wants to experience the things of God all by themselves…it is a whole lot more fun sharing with other what God is doing with you, and observing what God is doing to the people around you.
I’m done ranting…back to sermon writing…
