You might have us confused with that other church...

Right now, History Church is not playing by any rules other than the Bible. We look at scripture, and if it's not there... we don't add it. Truth is, there are very few rules for the church in the New Testament... about worship, about structure, or even about leaders. If we can just break free from the muck of our own abiblical biases and church traditions, it's actually quite shocking how open to interpretation it is...

Good example ~ I grew up in Grace Brethren churches where we washed each others' feet as a third ordinance! Now, I have some good memories of that... but we're not adding it to History's ordinances just because I did it my whole church-going life.

I think this is intentional. God wants us to work-out a lot of messy, inadequate and confusing things in our churches because that's how we grow spiritually. But it amuses me whenever people want to appeal to the way things "should be done" in the church... because there isn't any!

Take church government, for example. There are so many different kinds, and they're all inadequate! I've seen church planters get fired by the very elders they appointed! I served at a church where the pastor could not fire a staff member without a congregational vote! I've seen a megachurch pastor ditch an elder board because it had devolved into a political committee, rather than a spiritual one!

The people at History are amazing because they thrive in a community that's constantly evolving and changing as God builds his church. I don't want our church to get bogged-down by traditions and ways of doing things that aren't in the Bible... even if they're not bad things in and of themselves. The best way to prevent this is to continually change as God leads. This is how you rid religion.

Comments

[Jon Sampson]

Great thoughts! It's so easy to hold on to things that FEEL right, but sometimes we have to put those aside to pursue what God's calling us to - here and now. Change often grows us and shows a new side of who God is.

[david]

nice post, ben. i seriously had a gentleman at our church accost me yesterday saying, "what is going on with all these RADICAL changes?"

what had we changed?

we stopped passing a "friendship register" and had a new format for the bulletin...

radical.

[Jason Roberts]

I agreed with until you got to the church government thing. Church govt isn't abiblical -- non-elder led church govt is.

Even though much of the church in the last 100-150 years has ignored this the pattern in scripture is for Elder's that are under-shepherds to the real senior pastor Jesus.

The fact that forms of church govt are inadequate are because people are inadequate which should make us cling tighter to the patterns we see in scripture.

I do like the thought though that we add a lot of traditions based on tradition even though scripture doesn't speak to it.

[Ben]

J, I personally agree with you on elder-led churches. But we can intepret how this is carried-out differently. For example: If the office of pastor is interchangeable with the office of elder, then a staff-led church can be an elder-led church.

[Jason Roberts]

I'm with you on that Ben. In fact I'd say that Elder and Pastor are the same thing in scripture.

When we think through staff then we have to think through the staff that are serving in Elder/Pastor roles and the staff that are serving in Deacon roles.

[Wesley Handy]

Ben, Greetings Brother!

I just want to say, I think footwashing is awesome!

I did not know that about you! Maybe I did one time, but forgot. Anywho.

Yeah, don't bring on anything unless scripture commands it or gives it as an example (and examples exist).

Visit my blogs:
ulfilasdufilas.blogspot.com
missionsforum.blogspot.com

We're praying for you and your church!

Wes

[Ben]

great to hear from you Wes! I'll bookmark your sites to follow your adventures!