Philip Edwards, “The Churchless Christian” offers 7 Reasons Why We Still Do Simple Church, which includes some good observations which anyone reconsidering the weaknesses of ‘regular’ church should give some thought. Among the list are several tidbits such as:
- “the larger the church one is committed to, the less community involvement one has.”
- “Our kids love doing Simple Church and get annoyed when we don’t have it.”
- “over 80% of all money and time given to normal church is used for buildings and salaries”
These pretty much sum up my own observations as well.
I love the moniker “simple” church. Without delving into all the distinctives of Simple Church as opposed to any other ilk, I have to say I like terms that speak without explanation. For my part, I like simple church because it says nothing about size, location, or structure… just implies that all of those need to remain simple.
I’m thinking back to our recent conversations about missional, getting out of the house, and about church size relative to our maximum channel capacity for relationships. It seems that we could do things so much more simply than the ways we’ve tried so far. It really hits home when you think about giving $100 to a church, only to have $80 of that go to the costs of running the local church, to staffing it and keeping up its programs and properties. To keeping you entertained, fed, and watered. In other words, as Tom Skinner observed, “we tithe to ourselves.”
There needs to be a simpler way, one which sees our time free to give to our family and community rather than to church meetings and programs. One which sees the financial gifts we give go toward the poor or to relief efforts or to someplace other than keeping the building warm and lit waiting for us to show up next Sunday and actually use it.
Maybe I’m overstating it, but I think it abundantly clear that smaller, less complex, less clergy-driven formats for church can release more resources to the direct advance of the Kingdom than can the megachurch model. At first glance this might be counter-intuitive, as it’s often assumed that there’s greater efficiency derived from expansion — but I think the opposite is true. Simple is efficient.
So what say you all? When it comes to the release of resources and the efficient advance of the gospel, in what ways can simple be more (or less) efficient than the attractional institutional model? What in this vein does the institutional model do well that a smaller simple church model can’t compete with?
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March 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Hi there! I’m a friend of Jude’s and have just begun visiting your blog.
My background is one of growing up in a Brethren tradition. No paid leadership. No single pastor – elder and deacon boards only. And seldom more than 80 people in a congregation (at least the ones I’ve been part of). While $ did need to go for building costs, the rest was pretty simple. Few programs but TONS of relationship. Not having grown up in a Christian family, these folks were far more “family” to me – especially in my young adult years.
Now, in my journey beyond the Charismatic church (that was the step AFTER the Brethren) I long for that type of relationship again. Complicating our ability to take risks in searching for our “fit” is the fact that we are raising two children – one with FASD. What to do? Is it even possible that a small church would have the commitment and skills necessary to support us? Could we really find the “family” we need in a large institution? Traditional Sunday morning structures just don’t fit our family. But what else is there?
March 15th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Smaller is better. I came to Christ as part of a college ministry attached to a large EFCA church (avg Sunday attendance was 1,500). Didn’t take me too long to realize that this big church stuff becomes very self serving. “What can you do to serve the church?” That quotation never came out of anyone’s mouth, but that is in effect what they were wanting. It took so many people giving up their time to keep that thing running. And for what? So that we could have a really entertaining Sunday morning and then go home to mow the lawn. Now folks my age (mid 20s) are starting to leave that church in search of something simpler (and more real).
A few years ago I read “Houses that Change the World” by Wolfgang Simson. Simson really fleshed out what I was feeling and shows how much more sense (cents) it makes to just have house church. He’d say that Cindy’s 80 folks at the Brethren congregation is too big. Start small and stay small by multiplying when you get to around 12. I completely agree w/ Brother Maynard (and Simson) that this is the way it should be done. We’ve created a Sunday morning entertainment show that seems to have little real life fruit. I don’t see that in the NT. Jesus was with his people, and then his people went out to be with other people. Impossible to do in the megachurch.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Cindy, welcome here. We’ve now got more than one Cindy, Bob, and Bill commenting here somewhat regularly, so we’ll try to keep everyone straight!
There’s a lot to be said for the Bretheren tradition, as you point out. I think churches tend to build themselves up on a single point of distinction, until they’ve pushed aside all the good stuff as well from the places they came. The baby with the bathwater, as it were.
It’s always down to the kids though, isn’t it? I liked Philip’s perspective that I linked to… their kids prefer Simple Church, and he notes that it works better for them because they have a child with autism. I don’t want to minimize the challenge that this would present, but I guess everyone has some kind of hurdle, large or small. I’m not certain which would be the greater difficulty for you: to be in a large congregation or a small community?
My encouragement would — and not to pick apart what you said — be that I suspect when you approach your family at a family gathering, the foremost question isn’t whether they have the commitment and skills necessary to support you. In the church, the family analogy is tricky because people have an easier option to run away or decline support, but what you actually need (and correct me if I’m wrong or missing something) is something more fluid. Something that will form around you even as you spill into the nooks and crannies. Fluid… such that “fit” is a far too rigid word or concept for what you need. Not to single you out — that’s precisely what we all need, something fluid, less wooden, more genuine. Can we be formed together? Now there’s a question.
What else is there? Well, Cindy… you’ve come to the right place, I hope. Start with the “Simple Church” link in the post above, it’ll take you to Wikipedia and will throw a bunch of alternate terms at you while it gives the overview. There’s actually a lot of options, from “churchless faith” to house church to alternative communities which on the surface look like the same old structure, but something below the surface is just different about the way they’re wired.
But I believe yes, it is possible that a small church can absorb you and add your distinctiveness to its own. Support is mutual, and sure, some people or some kids need more support and understanding than others… autism or FASD is only a matter of degrees. At times, that’s easier for people to deal with than a poorly disciplined and badly behaved child.
I’m probably going to get flamed for that last comment, I hope my meaning isn’t misconstrued ;^)
March 15th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I appreciate the input. (I’ll go by Cindy-lu to avoid the confusion factor) But, in our case, FASD looks EXACTLY like a poorly disciplined and badly behaved child. I posted on my blog about how it takes a village to raise a child – especially ours. If we don’t have a community of good examples who will help guide our 9-year-old he’s going to become another one of those car thief statistics you’ve been hearing about lately. He’s already an adrenaline junkie, and because of how his brain is wired you can’t simply reason with him.
It’s far too complicated to get into here, but the kind of long-term, intensive, relational supports we need are not something that can or should be entered into lightly. It’s like asking a group of people to adopt all of us – as ones with special needs. Not a decision to be made lightly.
BTW, I expect nothing of support from my family. They haven’t got what we need, and have needs of their own that require our support. And they’re all the family we have nearby. Jude and Rob are about the closest we have, but there are definite limits as to what they can provide and what we can ask of them.
I will check out the link for Simple Church and get back to you.
Thanks.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Cindy-lu,
I won’t begin to pretend I understand your situation. Good post on the village, though. When we met with our own simple-church group recently, we talked about family as a value and about the fact that the adults have some level of relationship with everyone else’s kids, because that’s simply what it means to be involved in each others’ lives. That said, I don’t know if my own village can raise a child, but I’m pretty sure we can come up with an idiot on demand.
One community that I hang around is St. Benedict’s Table, which is a much simpler place at the core than you would ever expect for an Anglican tradition. Recently there was a fundraiser, Noah’s Bark for one of the families in the community. Noah is an 8-year-old boy with severe autism (the fundraiser was for a service dog), and one thing that I find remarkable is the way in whic he is accepted as part of the community, and everyone seems to have this smiling kind of, “Oh, that’s Noah” look when something is just slightly amiss. I’ve seen this in other communities as well, and though I don’t know your specific situation, I do know that — wait…
I just remembered a “life verse” from someone in our own community, so I’m going to throw that at you, Psalm 68:6: “God sets the lonely in families.” From this, I know that there’s a fluid place that exists for you, your kids, your whole family. I don’t know a lot more than that, but I hope that helps. It’s simple, at least. ;^)
March 15th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
It still comes down to the kids for us. Hubby and I could totally do without regular church. My kids are constantly begging me to preferrably go back to our old church, and at the very least go someplace new. I still don’t know if we are going to find some combination of institutional church which has the programming my kids love and something house-y, or if we can somehow go all the way and live simple church. (You should know, Cindy, that we still plan to do some sort of house group when we move, and that you will be tops on the invite list, that it will involve all our kids and that we will figure out what will benefit M in the midst of it)
I’m really curious what kids love about simple church. What goes on that captures kid’s hearts and minds? And how does a small group meet the diverse needs of different ages?
I buy into that it’s *my* responsibility to raise my kids in the faith. I just think I suck at it and could use a lot of help. Just like I feel like I need our local school to help my kids intellectual development, I feel like I need more than us for our kids spiritual development. That’s what remains attractive to me in the institutional church. That’s what I’m scared of being without.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Jude, thanks for that – it’s real, and honest!
Not that all kids are going to be the same — based on age and personality, of course not. But although our kids enjoyed the program, given the choice they’d opt for what we’re doing now. We know because we ask them periodically.
We held a bit of a bull session recently with our small group, with the intent of better orientating ourselves for the future. Three families with kids 8 and under specifically sought input from the kids before attending the meeting. Here’s the result:
Family 1 (still attending institutional church):
Family 2 (attends institutional church occasionally):
Family 3 (mine):
Out of that conversation, we’re changing the way in which we gather with the kids… it isn’t 100% integration with the adults, but it will be fully integrated or kid-focused on alternate weekends. Can’t tell you if it’s “the” answer, but we’re going to try it and see what happens. Even if it works for us, I don’t know that it would be right for everyone — I’m starting to think it just takes a lot of experimentation.
I understand the feeling that any of us “suck” at raising our kids in the faith, but I think the real truth is that we’re just out of practice and lack a good example, having been a part of a structure and format that can often encourage abdication of this responsibility. I think it’s best to simply start, and to make efforts at blending it into the daily aspects of life… an average of 5 minutes a day in context is worth far more than an hour a week in a manufactured setting. Like it or not, our kids watch how we live our faith, so it’s better to be intentional about it (a realization that frightens me too).
Given the turn the conversation is taking, it’s worth mentioning that I’ve got a bit of a summary of posts and links on the whole area of kids in the emerging church in last month’s Children’s Ministry in the Emerging Church.
For my part, I recognize that most people are reticent to leave the institutional church because there isn’t something else for their kids… but the thing that convicted me (and I’m not saying this is right for anyone but me) was the question in my mind, “If it isn’t good enough for me, how could it be good enough for my kids?”
March 28th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
[...] From the blog-o-sphere, Adam Walker Cleaveland, some guy I just discovered, commented on something written by Tony Campolo, and made the claim that a lot of people that are totally part of the emerging church conversation are also part of the institutional church. Something Roger, over at FutureChurch, said about the Emerging Church conversation as well. Aaron Flores use the term institutionalized Christianity, in some ideas he has for how the emerging church page on Wikipedia should be changed. Whould that be something different than the institutional church? Could we have mayor discomfort about institutionalized Christianity but still be fine with the institutional church? Or the other way around maybe? Philip Edwards list 7 reasons why they are doing “simple church“, and other Brother Manyard comments on this, especially focusing on the cost of maintaining the institutional church. And at the Dyingchurch blog you will also find much critique on the whole paid pastor and expensive church building thing. [...]
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I have to say that this is a ridiculous statement:
“It really hits home when you think about giving $100 to a church, only to have $80 of that go to the costs of running the local church, to staffing it and keeping up its programs and properties.”
People, ministry is person to person and intensive. As a volunteer, I give about 15-20 hours a month to my church. Most people can’t give quite that much, and so we need paid staff to accomplish much of the “periphery” to ministry, as well as training us. It costs money to employ people here in America, and so we need to pay whatever staff you have. And, as a seminary student, quite frankly, I don’t want to work for your church where you fail to see the investment of local funds into local ministry – for that is what a congregation is – as a good thing. Just stay home and send your check to “WorldVision” if that’s what you think should be done. Don’t make use of the resources you begrudgingly fund.
Something stinks profoundly in this latest round of “world-changing” vision by this generation. Father, have mercy on us. We like to have our ears tickled and we like to dictate the show …