Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Thoughts About "Biblical"

I've been reading some stuff in the last week or so about what's "Biblical" and what's not. I'm getting kind of bugged by it.

Specifically, it's stuff on how churches do church. The train of thought is "we want to do church Biblically" or "more Biblically."

Haven't you been doing church Biblically before? I know some of the leaders this is coming from, and I know they HAVE been, and fabulously so.

Is it that other churches AREN'T doing church "Biblically", so we feel the need to differentiate ourselves as doing it "Biblically"? Every church wants to have a niche in its community. Something they do or are gifted to do (read honestly: something we don't think any other church is either doing (a) at all, or (b) very well, mmm, or "Biblically").

I know a lot of Pastors. We ALL want this ... to do church "Biblically". Nothing less. Just because I have a desire to do church "Biblically", and it grabs attention for one reason or another that I want that, doesn't mean others aren't doing it "Biblically", or even that I myself am not. But that's exactly what it sounds like.

What is getting the attention is any individual churches or Pastor's METHODS that usually have drawn a very large group of people. We tend to flock toward them to find out HOW they did that so we can figure out how to do it where we are (both Pastors AND non-Pastors do this, by the way). And we call it "Biblical". Or at least that's one moniker we put on it. Makes us feel better about it anyways.

I'm all for being "Biblical" and I sure hope we're doing church "Biblically". The question begs, what is "Biblical" church? How can we communicate our heart more accurately, so that it doesn't sound like we're saying others aren't doing it "Biblically" or can't be defined as "Biblical", or that the fruit (numbers) a church produces isn't big enough to say they are a "Biblical" church?

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