Church: My way or the highway!

One of the things that has always fascinated me when studying the Word of God is that the Church seems to have limitless options on how it physically carries out the plans and purposes of God. There are no set rules for how a Church service should be organized, where services should be held or how often we're to meet. There are a few Scriptures which give information about what happened in a Church service (1 Cor 12-14) or where the Church Body met (Rom16:3-5), but overall, we have only general information on what should happen when we come together.

We do, however, have indication that each church, and especially the elders in each church, are responsible for setting up the church to operate in a manner consistent with Biblical principals as a whole (Matt 18:10-20, Acts 14:23, Titus 1:5, Eph 4:11-16). This gives great responsibility to each Body to hear from the Lord on how they are to go about His work and how to organize that individual Body to best accomplish God's purposes on an ongoing basis. And while the elders and leaders are responsible for instituting the directions heard from the Lord for that Body, this is to be done in a manner which will create an atmosphere conducive to fellowship, teaching and training through love and humility (Eph. 4:11-16, Romans 12). What this looks like in each Church should be somewhat different dependent on the mix of people, their gifts, their location and the work God has called them to do as a local Body.

So as we look at the Church today, we can see that each individual Church operates in the same manner as others in some ways, but there are those which operate very differently from what's considered the 'norm.' This does not necessarily mean that either one is right or wrong. Most importantly, as long as a church is within Biblical guidelines, we should look more at what that Church Body is accomplishing for God rather than examining how they carry out the details of His directives.

For example, consider the idea that some Churches meet in homes and some in other buildings. Some pass an offering plate and some have a box in the back of the room, some have worship leaders and some don't. Some churches support foreign missionaries while other churches house local soup kitchens. All of these activities fall within the general guidelines of accomplishing God's will, but we're not given specifics as to how they should be done. It seems that this is intentional on God's part: this should cause us to continually seek Him and His guidance in forming His Church in the manner He desires!

If we get to a point of depending on stringent rules and methods for serving God, and those rules and methods limit God's ability to direct His Body, then we have usurped the authority of God and come under man's authority. In essence, this scenario creates a form of Law which makes people slaves to men under the guise of serving God. Paul addressed this in Colossians 2, saying that rules and methods have the appearance of wisdom but they're based merely on man's teachings and customs. When man sets such stringent order in the Church that God can no longer do what He desires to do, it is no longer a church but an organization. This is reminiscent of the religious system propagated by the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' day; one which Jesus condemned as a set-up for a few to take advantage of many by turning them into slaves to religion and tradition (Matt. 23).

So each person must seek God's wisdom to learn how they can worship, serve, fellowship and grow, then plant themselves in a Body as God directs. It is the responsibility of each individual to make sure that Body is within Biblical guidelines and God is at the helm, rather than man. But it is also our responsibility to NOT turn our nose up at the Body down the street which meets at a different time, stands while worshiping, meets on Thursday instead of Sunday, or meets in someone's home.

While many in the Church at large agree on Biblical doctrine, we often don't agree on what that doctrine looks within the Church structure (not a building, but a living, breathing organism). In fact, it seems that some people have gotten to the point of great certainty in their ideals of how Church should be done, even though many of those ideals cannot be proven out Biblically. But there may be more freedom (and necessity) to hear directly from the Source on a daily basis than we have customarily (and traditionally) thought. Seek for yourself: you'll likely find that the Bible does not give us the dictate that it's "Church my way or the highway," but it promotes a complete dependence on God in forming the Body of Christ at any given time and location!