Being a member

One of the local 'churches' has a booklet entitled 'Joining the church'. It was through reading and studying that booklet that I realised I was unable to 'join the church'. But I still hang out with them. Enjoy the people. Love them to bits. Think most of them are pretty cool. Share many values with them. But... well... since I am a member of the church I cannot re-join and since what they call church isn't it doesn't make sense.

But the way the booklet says things, I cannot be a real member.

4 Our Values

• We are committed to the Bible as the revealed Word of God.

The Bible talks of Jesus as being the Word of God and doesn't refer to itself as the Word of God. I got into trouble some time ago by saying we don't worship Father, Son and Holy Bible.

That the Bible is important is without doubt. That it is a record of God's dealings with mankind throughout the ages is without doubt. That God will not say anything today that contradicts the Bible is without doubt. That the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Bible is without doubt. Elevating it to be the Word of God, when Jesus is referred to in those terms is close to blasphemy.

It's interesting that the Apostles Creed has nothing in it about what we believe about the Scriptures. The early believers didn't consider it something to make essential to following Jesus.

• Worship is an expression of our devotion to God, in which every believer participates, in song, prayer and gifts of the Spirit.

Worship is showing or demonstrating the worth-ship of God, by definition. All of those can be worship, but not necessarily. Some people can and do worship aside from those things. I am one of those people. So 'song, prayer and gifts of the Spirit' is not worship for me.

I worship the Lord from Monday to Friday. Saturday I enjoy Him. Sunday... well... not sure really but for me its neither worship nor enjoyable.

Frequently the singing is good at that 'church' [their word] and they are blessed with some of the best musicians in churches in our town. I'm sure for them, the singing is worship. But for others its not. I'm one of those.

5. Who are the Leaders?
We believe that elders are men anointed by the Holy Spirit and fully responsible for leading the local church.

From what I have read there were women involved in leading the early churches. From the Bible it is clear 'In Christ there is neither male nor female' [Galations 3:28]. It's a principle that is clear and unambiguous - start from the principle and work out the detail. So male only leadership is both counter Scriptural and counter God's order.

The early elders [silly word to still use as its so ambiguous] were not fully responsible for leading the local church from what I see in Scripture. They older people [who were middle aged probably in today's terms] who were there as stabilizing influences. From what I see older people - by that I mean over 65 [and maybe especially men] tend to have impaired judgment. So we need younger elders... actually at this 'church' there is nobody over 65 as an elder so this really applies to other churches here where all the 'elders' are over 65.

The elders are appointed by the leadership of the parent 'church' (oh no, now the word is really confused). There is no transparency in that and it has been said that the people appointed as elders are those we would expect. Not from people I have spoken to. Now I am not against the elders - both are cool people. But the lack of transparency I struggle with. And some people who should be in leadership are not.

I guess this is really about church governance... something else the Apostles Creed is silent about.

6. How do I join the Family?
The elders of the local church are like gate keepers.

I'm sure I can find no Scripture to back this up - Jesus talks about shepherds sleeping across the gate to stop wolves and others entering, but not that they are the people who decide 'Yes, you're a believer and can be a member'. He decides that. And there are references in Scripture to this being ambiguous till the end of time.

Jesus first used the term "born again" when he was talking to Nicodemus.

Jesus only used the term 'born again' when he was talking to Nicodemus. We have taken one phrase, used once and pulled it apart and developed a whole theology over it. It's now become a jargon phrase that some people understand and some don't. It's become really confused when others have started using the phrase. What's a born-again Muslim or born-again Buddhist?

Jesus main thrust was to follow him, turn to God and live in relationship with Him.

The New Testament makes it clear that baptism is for those who have repented of their sins and have come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I used to think this too. Now I realise this is not exclusively true. There are three different ways of looking at it.

• Baptism post repentance [ambiguously Scriptural so called believers baptism and practiced by some Christians]
• Baptism for whole families [ambiguously Scriptural and practiced by some Christians]
• Holy Spirit baptism [ambiguously Scriptural and practiced by some Christians]

Because there is considered ambiguity over this and the early believers never included it in any of the early creeds I believe that coming down on one of the three leaves you open to being non-orthodox in approach. Any church that comes down exclusively on one strand is not really following Scripture.

Again there is nothing in the Apostles Creed about baptism. Interesting omission since so many people get hung up about it. From that omission and the reference in Acts 15 where the council in Jerusalem including the Apostles discussed the requirements to be put on gentile believers, should they or should they not be circumcised. Rather than deciding that they should not be circumcised, but should nevertheless be baptised, the ruling they came to was [verses 28 & 29, NIV]:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

I'd love to find a church that followed this mimimalist ruling by the council of Jerusalem. Most seem to have a plethora of extra rules.

Bible Study 4 - The Church
The church is not a building - it's PEOPLE (Acts 2 v 42-47) with a common vision (Acts 4 32-35).

The reference Acts 2 v 42-47 doesn't mention 'the church'. Certainly its what we have come to mean as 'the church', but somewhat different too.

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...

I have not seen a church that meets together every day [in the temple courts]. We generally have communion [breaking bread] in church buildings... OK, life was different then. So how can we draw things out from one place to another if we want definitions of exact practice?

When we look at what we do, we need to see it in terms of a repristinisation of the Gospel. So change is inevitable, but based upon principle not detail. And maybe some of the early practices were better than our current ones.

The Acts 4 passage starts about vision 'All the believers were one in heart and mind' but never states what it was, but then goes on to talk about what they actually did... 'No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.... For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales'. I haven't actually seen this in any church to be honest.

As the people of God, the church's primary reason for existence is for the glory of God. Therefore, this should characterise everything we do. The most important obvious way in which we can bring glory to God is in worship.

What about 'By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another' - sounds to me like Jesus definition of how we bring glory to God.

Worship is, therefore, a very important aspect of the life of the church. But what is worship? Worship includes the following elements:

Praising God

What follows is a list of what happens in a church service then back-reffed to unlinked Scriptures to show its OK. Yes, it's OK. But its cyclic definition... and if you carry on you read:

It is important to ensure that no one feels "left out". Instead, each person should feel that they "belong" and are cared for as part of a family.

Of course, now we come back to 'By this shall all men know you are my disciples by your love for each other'. But people have different love languages. They feel things differently. I feel very loved and part of the family... and simultaneously don't like the practice and feel left out by it.

When I was chatting with one of my sons recently I said I wish I could be a member of a church and never go to the church services. I enjoy the other followers of Jesus. It's the meetings that drive me crazy. And other people say the same thing. I'm not sure what the solution is.

It's almost 100% certain than no church will suit everyone... unless that church somehow [and I've never seen it happen] allows for diversity in expression. Not diversity in aim - diversity in expression. That might look pretty different to what happens now. How about multiple things happening at the same gathering so we're not all forced into the same mold. Now this is nothing unique to this 'church'. Most of the 'churches' here suffer this problem.

Leadership is an essential element in any organisation. The church is no different, and God has given gifts to His church including the provision of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers (Ephesians 4 v 7-16).

I sincerely hope the church is different. Leadership is from the Lord not man! Leadership is servant leadership as the Lord demonstrated. The organisation is flat - everyone communicating directly with the Master. [We used to say God has no grand-children].

This difference between church and world has yet to be seen in modern times.

Bible Study 6 - Prayer

The overall feeling I get from this section is that prayer is a task that needs working at. That is is difficult. Take for instance:

Lack of disipline. You need to find a place and set time aside. If you don't work at it you will never succeed.

Because we don't sense the nearness of God and we give up. However, it is important for us to realise that we are not in something that is LIKE a battle - it IS a battle, and we must press on.

Because we lack a sense of the greatness of God. We need a BIG vision. The Holy Spirit can give it to us as we pray.

I think the starting point should be the opposite. Prayer is easy. It's natural. It's not something special, it's just chatting with our Father. When we raise it to something difficult/special then we do two things:

• Make it difficult and thus people feel like giving up
• Make it something different to how we read from Jesus - yes sometimes he sweated blood... but it was always real to where he was

I chat with our Father frequently but not regularly. By that I mean I have no fixed times, no fixed structure, I just share with my Father through the day. It's like talking to my wife - I don't book times to talk to her, I don't have a regular time to sit and talk [she wishes I was more regular at meal times though] but we enjoy a relationship of which communication is a critical part. It's the same with our Father. We enjoy a relationship of which communication is a critical part. Not scheduled, as that would make it religious. But real. As we walk through the day, we share the day with Him. That's prayer. It's easy. Or should be...

Bible Study 7 - Giving
...
Jesus spoke a lot about money because He understands human nature.
...
Jesus affirmed the principle of tithing in the New Testament (Luke 11 v 42)
...
The tithe belongs to God. He wants our first-fruits, not last fruits, or worse stil, the leftovers!

Well, that's an interesting mixture of thoughts. Our human nature is given us by our Father. We are created in the image of God. That's the starting point. He is creative and He is love. We follow in our Father's footsteps.

My reading of Scripture is that Jesus talked some about money, but I wouldn't say 'a lot' - maybe sometime I should count the verses.

I believe in giving. I believe in giving first fruits. Reverting to legalism for percentages is returning to the law. We are free from the law. As in fact we always were. Man made law. The tithe was for celebrating with God not for giving to the church!

Note that at the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, they made no comment about tithing or giving in general. Returning to a legalistic tithe is returning to the old covenant, and I want to live under the new. I can cope with grace, it's laws I cannot keep.

All Newfrontiers churches (including Grace Church, receive input from Ephesians 4 ministries (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) under the apostolic leadership team headed by Terry Virgo.

I think it dangerous to give authority to one man. Jesus brought together a team. Not a man. We relate directly to the Father. God has no grand-children!

In so many ways Grace lives up to its name. They have been there for me when I have needed it. But at the same time I wish there were some way to really be a member... not a half or quarter member.

I wish that the church were more open and flexible, more centred upon the light yoke our Lord came to bring. If I could find a church that started off as just having the Apostles Creed as its core, and Acts 15 as its practice - as was the case of the early church - then I could truly become a member.