Again, It All Comes Back to the Church
Last weekend, I attended an Organic Church Seminar at my church in Long Beach. There were two tracks offered during the weekend. Neil Cole, who is the co-founder of the Organic Church Movement, taught the advanced track and Phil Helfer oversaw the track for the beginners. That's the track I went to. I did attend an advanced track in Los Angeles a few years ago but only for one day, so I thought I hear what an Organic Church is from the beginning.
I really enjoyed what was shared that day and thought the presenters of the seminars did a great job in explaining the movement. There was a lot of opportunities for questions, and there were definitely a lot of questions. The one question that continued to come up was, "what is the Church?" That seems to be the hot topic for today. Elmer Towns and Ed Stetzer, both experts on church growth, wrote a book on the different models of churches that are being used today. At the end of the book, Stetzer asks the question, "do you know why there are so many models of the church?" which he proceeds to answer his own question," because we don't have any idea what the Church is?"
I think that was the biggest lesson I came away with from the seminar. It seemed to me that most of the questions that attenders were asking had something to do with the purpose of the Church. As a younger generation continues to come of age, I wonder how much longer we'll have to answer this question. I'm seeing the "fruits" of this question here in California and it doesn't encourage me. Hopefully, we'll come to a conclusion before we start to ask,"whatever happened to Church?"
I really enjoyed what was shared that day and thought the presenters of the seminars did a great job in explaining the movement. There was a lot of opportunities for questions, and there were definitely a lot of questions. The one question that continued to come up was, "what is the Church?" That seems to be the hot topic for today. Elmer Towns and Ed Stetzer, both experts on church growth, wrote a book on the different models of churches that are being used today. At the end of the book, Stetzer asks the question, "do you know why there are so many models of the church?" which he proceeds to answer his own question," because we don't have any idea what the Church is?"
I think that was the biggest lesson I came away with from the seminar. It seemed to me that most of the questions that attenders were asking had something to do with the purpose of the Church. As a younger generation continues to come of age, I wonder how much longer we'll have to answer this question. I'm seeing the "fruits" of this question here in California and it doesn't encourage me. Hopefully, we'll come to a conclusion before we start to ask,"whatever happened to Church?"
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on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 4:28 AM.
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