Church Types

I read a lot of books, articles, etc. In being an avid reader, it seems that my mind is always turning a churning. I chew on ideas and concepts all of the time. Some of my best ideas have been birthed out of reading something and thinking it over for a time. This blog entry is birthed out of several articles that I've read in Christian Standard and the Lookout, a book I'm reading on the "Reformissional Church" (not to be confused with the "reformation" church or churches).

Postmodernism has ushered in a new era in the life of the church. The golden years of the church no longer exist (if they ever did in the first place). In this new age of secularism and "forward thinking", relativism is king and tolerance is applauded. If everyone just let's everybody do and believe whatever they want, then we're all happy, right?! If someone wants to murder another person, that must be okay as long as it's okay with them. And most normal civilized people with any type of heart or compassion would stop me there and say, "Hey preacher, you just stepped one foot over the line." But my reply to you would be, "Who drew that line?" There's only one true answer to that question and we all know the right answer.

Today, the church finds itself as one of many options for a "belief system". Culture is throwing many options for "faith" at the people, and everyone is setting up their own belief system. This swing toward a man-centered theology versus a God-centered is alarming and the church has much to be concerned about if we wish to remain relevant to our culture of tolerance. The greatest thing we have is the truth. And most people, even the postmoderns, ultimately want to know the truth.

Through this time in church life and history it's interesting to see how the church will respond. There are several different types of churches that will respond in several different types of ways:

1) The assimilating church is the first type of church. This church tries to prevail by making itself relevant to the prevailing culture by adopting some of the culture's characteristics, using 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 as its justification. The problem with this type of church is that it tends to become so focused on relevancy that it's seduced and assimilated to the culture. The church then loses its biblical purpose for existence.

2) The protecting church goes to the other extreme of the assimilating church and wants to boycott current culture and set up its own little parallel culture. It's a form of separatism and the "holy huddle" mentality. It's a circle the wagons and protect mentality. Isn't the purpose of the church to make disciples and doesn't that mean that we have to engage culture?

3) The unchanging church just ignores the world around it. This church believes that it has nothing to do with the world or culture. Enough said on this one, you get the picture. (Amish, Anabaptist, some Mennonite sects, and other conservative extremes of denominations)

4) The battling church sees the two opposing worldviews and equates them as enemies in a battle. This church declares war on the culture and tends to pick fights with...well...just about anyone. It becomes more about the war than the result. Many times these churches try to bring about change through political means and advocacy groups or para-church organizations(the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, etc.) This church is great at polarizing people rather than trying to bring them to the Lord into togetherness.

5) The influencing church doesn't necessarily want to be the best church in the community. It wants to be the best church for the community. It loves the people who are stuck in the culture and tries to talk about differences between truth and lies in order to influence change. It is involved in culture to facilitate change. It seeks to influence rather than battle.

Hopefully this will make a person look inside their church and ask, "what type of church are we?" And if we are all honest, it will only take a jiffy to figure out where your church really is. Perhaps for some, you may find your church somewhere in between a couple of these descriptions. Regardless, let's consider the book of Acts and see what and how church is really supposed to be. That's what I'm praying and hoping for Oakwood!