Posted: 06/02/2009 at 2:19pm | IP Logged

MSU Project Paper

by Jolie Eastman

6/2/09

Jolie Eastman is a student at MorningStar University in Fort Mill, South Carolina.  She wrote this paper for a term project.

My destiny is to revolutionize the church all over the world. I will bring clarity to the perception of God’s heart, and show His heart to whomever I encounter. It is one of my passions to spread the Kingdom to those who wouldn’t normally step foot in a church.

I was one of those people who hated going to church. I had had it with the fakeness that I saw in church every week, so I stopped going. Such is the case with so many people today. But out of that hurt and bitterness there are many people who are finding God outside of the “normal” church: those four walls that are often viewed as houses of intolerance and deceit.

The word church hasn’t always been only associated with that building that one goes to on Sundays. In fact if you look at the word “church” in the Bible, it’s never referring to a building. In his book Houses That Change the World, Wolfgang Simpson points out that “the ‘Body of Christ’ is a vivid description of an organic being, not an organized mechanism.” The church is a group of believers: the Body of Christ. Wherever they are, so is the church. In Acts 2:46-47 it says “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” They met in the temple court and the houses. They were a loving community, and all had something to contribute. In Acts 2:44-45, it talks about how they shared material things: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” They also shared with one another spiritually. In 1 Corinthians 14:26 it says “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church” Acts is full of examples of how they cared for one another and loved God. That’s so different from many modern churches where no one really knows each other, and no one particularly cares.

Two of the most important things we were ever commanded to do are to love God and love others. But sometimes the church doesn’t display these commandments very well, although they preach them. It’s this hypocrisy (among other things) that hinders many from entering the Kingdom.  Because of the way the modern church is often portrayed (and not always inaccurately), many people won’t come near. One of the biggest misconceptions of the church among unbelievers is that they’re judgmental hypocrites; people who say one thing, but do another when they think no one is looking, then criticize others for doing the very things that they have done. You will not see a world with those perceptions sitting next to you on Sunday morning. It is for that reason that we are commanded to go out and make disciples. “He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Mark 16:15 Instead of bringing people into a building that they don’t want to be in in the first place, we need to bring the Kingdom to them, in a way that makes sense. 

Another thing that might deter a person from attending a Christian meeting of any kind is the awkward, contrived atmosphere that most of them have. In the book So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, Jake Coleson illustrates this point well. “’Let me guess,’ John said leaning forward. ‘When you first get together there is a lot of energy and excitement. But about the time you start the meeting things get awkward. Even your sharings seem a bit forced and artificial. When you finally end the meeting, the energy and excitement return as people pick up and leave. Is that close?’”  I agree. Many services today make me feel uncomfortable because of their unnatural air of formality that isn’t seen in any other aspect of our lives. I don’t see how meeting with other believers should be anything other than extremely natural. It’s just us enjoying each other and our Lord, while inviting the world to join in that relationship.

But what does that even look like? The closest thing to that sense of community I’ve encountered, outside of the book of Acts, is in small groups: mainly house churches. It’s more comfortable for me to talk about God in a small, interactive group of fifteen people I know well, as opposed to sitting quietly in a meeting of hundreds while someone talks at us. While there is a time and a place for larger gatherings of believers, I believe that the smaller, more intimate gatherings are far too often neglected, and more important than most realize. An unbeliever will almost always feel more comfortable going to a friend’s house than visiting a church full of strangers.

Joel Killion hosts a fellowship of believers in his house in Wilson, NC.  The group relates to one another as a family. They care for each other and help each other.  They are the most hospitable bunch I’ve seen. Even if you’ve never met these people, they welcome you as their own. This is exactly what Joel was looking for. After spending most of his life in a traditional church, he wanted something more organic. “… I am for organic, holistic, 24/7 living in Christ as seen in Jesus’ life; I am for living Christ in every area of life, everyday, in such a way that there is no room for a sacred/secular, spiritual/natural split in any area of life. Jesus should inundate every area of our lives.” (Personal Interview 25 May, 2009) Joel’s passion is to have a safe, comfortable place where people can commune with each other and with God. At a point in my life when I didn’t even know what to do with God, let alone His children, I visited this group of sincere, real people. And for the first time in my life, I saw a sincere and real God. This wasn’t any one person’s doing, but the effect of a group of people being real with each other and being real with God.

Ron McGatlin is an ordained minister. When asked how he started going to a house church, he replied, “I was seeking real and relational church as opposed to traditional systematized religious church. I became aware that we were not to go to church but were to be the church. The church is the people of God gathering with Him and not a structure or religious system. The church is people.” (Personal Interview 1 June, 2009) He, like many people, was looking for something more genuine than he’d seen before. He longed for an environment where all believers could contribute to one another, as opposed to a place “where a few people do the spiritual stuff and everyone else sits and watches.” (Personal Interview 1 June, 2009) He found what he was looking for in a different setting than he was used to.

I was raised in a very traditional church. I’d go to church on Sunday morning (wearing a pretty dress, of course), sing some songs, listen to a sermon, and go home. I’d forget about anything pertaining to God for the rest of the week, then do the same thing next week. After spending most of their lives (and all of mine) in that type of church, my parents decided to try a house church. They immediately fell in love with the intimacy of that structure. They eventually went on to start their own house church, then move into a more apostolic ministry among the house church community in their area. But at the same time, I was still attending my youth group at a traditional church. I was there a few years, but when I was sixteen, I, like most people that age, began to question things. I soon saw how contrived this church’s meetings were. I was sick of the big production they put on every week, and the hypocrisy of even the leaders of the church. I became restless and dissatisfied with my walk with God. I felt that I had been let down by the church. It was clinched in an incident with my youth leaders. All of that combined evoked in me a typical teenage emotion: anger. I was irritated with everything that had to do with the church. Even the good things of the church left a bitter taste in my mouth. I still loved God, but I didn’t know how to relate to Him anymore, because I didn’t want our relationship to look like anything I’d seen before. I went searching for truth- for something real. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Eventually, I put God on a back burner. I couldn’t find anyone with a like mind other than my parents. I felt utterly alone in my fluid beliefs.

About two years after my initial fallout with the church, God began to bring into my life people who shared many of the same ideals as me. In talking with like-minded believers, I was able to begin to understand God better. My beliefs became less fluid and more solidified. I even had more joy. Then God told me to go to MorningStar. I was slightly perturbed, and had no idea what to expect. But God far surpassed anything I could have imagined. In those months He began to show me even more of who He is, and His heart toward me. He showed me who I am in Him. Recently He’s once more been stirring up my dissatisfaction with what the church, as a whole, has become. This wasn’t to refresh my anger with the church, but to do something about it. I want to help restore the church to what God intended: a relationship rather than a show. I also want to spread the Kingdom to those who don’t want the fake Christianity that they’ve seen. I’m not for or against the traditional, Sunday morning church. Neither am I for or against house church per se. I am for the expansion of the Kingdom. I feel the way I am to do that is in a different way than most people have seen, because that’s what makes sense to me: a relationship, not an institution. I’ve “had church” in Starbucks. I’ve “had church” in a park. I am the church. We are the church. My biggest obstacle in doing this may be the same as my biggest strength: nobody’s seen this type of lifestyle in centuries. That’s slightly overwhelming to me, but the place I intend to start is with relationship. That’s what God wants with us, and that’s what’s I’d like to see among His Body. As Ron told me, “Ministry is organic and by the Spirit in all of the natural settings and venues of life.” I want to show the world God’s heart as He has shown me. I want to spread the kingdom wherever I go, and fellowship with other believers along the way.

Bibliography:

Coleson, Jake. So You Don’t Want to Church Anymore. Moorpark, CA: Windblown Media,     2006.

Simpson, Wolfgang. Houses That Change the World. Waynesboro, GA: OM Publishing, 1998.

Killion, Joel. Personal Interview. 25 May, 2009.

McGatlin, Ron. Personal Interview. 1 June, 2009.

http://www.biblegateway.com/