Posted on 09/05/2008 6:46:22 PM PDT by guitarplayer1953
Organic Church. I’ve been using this term for around fifteen years now. Today it’s become somewhat of a clay word, being molded and shaped to mean a variety of different things by a variety of different people.
T. Austin-Sparks is the man who deserves credit for this term. Here’s his definition:
"God's way and law of fullness is that of organic life. In the divine order, life produces it's own organism, whether it be a vegetable, animal, human or spiritual. This means that everything comes from the inside . . . function, order and fruit issue forth from this law of life within. It was solely on this principle that the New Testament came into being. Organized Christianity has entirely reversed this order."
The phrase, "the organic expression of the church" was a favorite of Sparks’. I’ve yet to find a better phrase to improve upon it.
By "organic church," I mean a non-traditional church that is born out of spiritual life instead of being constructing by human institutions and held together by religious programs. Organic church life is a grass roots experience that is marked by face-to-face community, every-member functioning, open-participatory meetings (opposed to pastor-to-pew services), non-hierarchical leadership, and the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ as the functional Leader and Head of the gathering. Put another way, organic church life is the experience of the Body of Christ. In its purest form, it's the fellowship of the Triune God brought to earth and experienced by human beings.
To use an illustration, if I try to create an orange in a laboratory by employing human ingenuity and organizational skills, the lab-created orange would not be organic. But if I planted an orange seed into the ground and it produced an orange tree, the tree would be organic.
In the same way, whenever we sin-scarred mortals try to create a church the same way we would start a business corporation, we are defying the organic principle of church life. An organic church is one that is naturally produced when a group of people have encountered Jesus Christ in reality (external ecclesiastical props being unnecessary) and the DNA of the church is free to work without hindrance.
To put it in sentence, organic church is not a theater with a script. It’s a lifestyle—a spontaneous journey with the Lord Jesus and His disciples.
The Traditional Church. By this I mean a church that is created by human organization, chain-of-command styled leadership, and institutional programs. It’s marked by a weekly order of worship (or mass) officiated by a pastor or priest. It’s controlled by a top-down hierarchical organization and sociological slots (called "offices") that people fill.
The traditional church has often been called "the institutional church," "the organized church," and "the audience church." Congregants watch a religious performance once or twice a week, and then retreat home to live their individual Christian lives. Leadership is hierarchical, and Christians are divided into "clergy" and "laity" (or their equivalent—"pastors" and "laymen").
Granted, some traditional churches have small group meetings outside of weekly church services where members get a taste of community life. But this community life is not the driving force of the church. And a hierarchical leadership structure is in place in the small group gatherings. Someone is always "in charge," and the group is ultimately under the authority and restrictions of the pastor or priest.
We can think of the difference between organic churches and traditional churches this way. When God's people assemble together on the basis of the organizational principles that run General Motors and Microsoft, we call it a traditional (or institutional) church. But when God's people assemble together on the basis of the life of God, we call it an organic church.
Organic Church: doesn’t that refer to how God loves carbon and wants us to love carbon as himself?
Could be.
It just occured to me, there is an etymological dilemma in the green movement. Carbon is bad, the primary evil of our time, because it binds with molecules in the atmosphere and warms the globe. But organic is good, the primary salvation of our time, because it means we’re eating *real* food. Do environmentalists ever stop to look up the word “organic”? Do they know it refers to something containing carbon?
As an “organic” church grows it may inevitably take on institutions and hierarchy but it has to continually try to feed the organic soul that is the real church or the soul dries up and you’re left with a building full of people.
Those churches that are what you might call “institutional” often started as organic or maybe its better to say “God-inspired” movements and then somewhere along the way its easy for the organization to take on a life of its own. The challenge especially as the group grows is continually to maintain the connection with the Holy Spirit that built the place in the first place. Catholic, evangelical, brand x as yet unnamed, the challenge is the same.
” Someone is always “in charge,” and the group is ultimately under the authority and restrictions of the pastor or priest. “
What dose the Bible say?
Hebrews 13:17 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
[NIV at IBS] [International Bible Society] [NIV at Zondervan] [Zondervan]
17Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
http://books.allathisfeet.com/organic_church_life.cfm?id=29960
Download this book or read it online.
You will be blessed.
I know that me and my family were.
There's a lot of other material on that website, too, most of it free for the downloading.
how about: shapeshifter church or chameleon church
Thanks thanks.
Please add me.
Sounds like my notion of a NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH.
I think that you may of add it up wrong.
Not all persons are pastors but we are all priest. We have made pastor teachers and preachers and organizers and businessmen and women and that is not what a pastor is.
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
In this verse I don't see anywhere it says that those that rule are in the church. If you can please give more than one verse to make a point.
Brusselsprouts for communion maybe.
I would like to be on your ping list. Thanks.
Could be, that is what the early saints did had a meal together. but I don’t know if they had brusselsprouts, maybe cabbage?
It just sounds like an Evangelical Quaker Church.
It just dawned on me that all the Quakers I know are old hippies and they eat organic.
And that a true Christian would deliberately slander or misrepresent others or their beliefs???????
I'm pretty sure radical Muslims think that way too. Come to think of it liberals take that position about conservatives too. No slander or misrepresentation goes too far.
7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
9Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. 10We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
11The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
15Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. 17Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
The leaders in verse 7 are those who spoke the word of God to you. This is a list of Exhortations to the church. I don't see why leaders in Vs 7 should be different than 17. Not all verses listed here are to my point but I just liked reading them too.
I don't believe “rule” is the best to translate this word.
We as a local church are to select leaders. Once we select these we should tem allow to lead. Always comparing their leadership with scripture
Acts 17: 11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
In bring it to the light you may feel that I am slandering you and misrepresenting what you think is the the truth.
If you disagree with the tagline then you must mean that it is alright to deliberately
slander or misrepresent
others or their beliefs. That would mean that if you told me that you are a Baptist and I say Baptist's believe that extra-marital sex isn't sinful. I know that Baptist's belief that extra-marital sex is sinful and if I spread those lies then I would be DELEBERATELY slandering and misrepresenting Baptists. Please don't respond to me again, I don't have time for such silliness.
I don't think so. Read the sentence in context.
If you disagree with the tagline then you must mean that it is alright to:
deliberately
slander or misrepresent
others or their beliefs.
That would mean that if you told me that you were a Baptist and I said; Baptist's believe that extra-marital sex isn't sinful.
I know that Baptist's believe that extra-marital sex is sinful and if I spread those lies then I would be DELEBERATELY slandering and misrepresenting Baptists.
Please don't respond to me again, I don't have time for such silliness.
I will repeat, I have no time for liberal claptrap parsing and arguing out of context and beyond meaning. Find someone else to play childish games with you, I won’t do it.
DO NOT REPLY TO ME AGAIN.
Then please do not post to any thread I have started. And that way I will never post to you again
**non-hierarchical leadership***
So what about the Biblical instructions on the role of elders?
With that said I believe that there was a place and time for elders and deacons and Bishops. I do not believe that elders and Bishops should sit in one church body but should travel about and do what elders and Bishops do. The body should be organic alive able to change and grow, should be fluid and moving alive. I don’t know if this has answered your question but I did give it a shot.
**The NT was written prior to the destroying of Jerusalem which I believe was Gods way of saying the old way is over and then the believers were dispersed to the four corners of the world.**
What?
Are you saying the NT was overturned by the destruction of Jerusalem???
No What I am saying is that the believers became to comfortable in their areas. And God had said to take the Good News to the world. God gave them 40 years to see the light just as he gave the children of God 40 years in the wilderness. The temple was an abomination to God so He destroyed it. In do so the believers were scattered. In the same way the Church was becoming an institution it was taking on form and rituals and was begging to loose it’s organic life. I do not believe that it was God’s intent for the church to become a institution, a large dying thing that has lost the Spirit of God and is nothing more than a religious form.
Whew! Glad to hear that. ;-) What I am saying is that the believers became to comfortable in their areas. And God had said to take the Good News to the world.
Agreed. But are all Christians to go to all the world? Even with today's travel it is impossible for me to go to "all" the world. The world includes my children and neighbors. What I can do is support those who go elsewhere through money and prayer.God gave them 40 years to see the light just as he gave the children of God 40 years in the wilderness. The temple was an abomination to God so He destroyed it.
Temple sacrifice became an abomination once the Lamb of God was crucified and resurrected. All of the sacrifices were supposed to point to him. Once the true lamb fulfilled His mission, animal sacrifice became pagan.
In do so the believers were scattered. In the same way the Church was becoming an institution it was taking on form and rituals and was begging to loose it’s organic life.
The NT church has a structure and instructions on how to worship.
I do not believe that it was God’s intent for the church to become a institution, a large dying thing that has lost the Spirit of God and is nothing more than a religious form.
It sounds to me like this is confusing the visible church with the invisible. Not all visible churches have "lost the Spirit of God." There are strong denominations that are holding true to the truth. Shoot, there are even individual churches in apostate denominations that are doing the same.
This all sounds suspiciously like the Emergent Church movement.
That all being said, I could very well be wrong and will continue to read along to make sure I'm not missing something.
That is one large organ was it a transplant?
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