The Presbyterian Church, whose Boy Scout leaders wouldn't let a young black boy join their Cub Scout troop in 1965, is now 1/2 black and 1/2 white. God is patient and kind.

Partly. It's what I call "ministry du jour."

Only 2 comments 'bout racial reconcilliation?

Ouch.

" We must become, rather than buy, a kingdom community where people of different ethnicities and economic backgrounds among others feast together at Jesus’ banqueting table."

There will be no end to the buying until God's people give up the system of church that consumes 76% of the "giving:" to make gatherings "seem" beneficial. This is systemic buying of church. So the saints select from the buffet of brands and styles to pick one that matches their styles and tastes. When saints see the Biblical value of church were there is no buying of buildings and hired staff, where 100% of the giving goes out the door. where 100% of expression of truth is "one another" oriented in full participation and where leadership is 100% reproducible, then you might see a quality of faith that can be fully relational from God's design.

It doesn't matter how much passionate lecturing the pulpit guy does to push multi-ethnic truth. True God designed relationships will be marginalized to a very few, not just with multi-ethnic but also multi-generational. Most children will NEVER see their parents faith at work at church because they are age separated, and their parents are largely consumers rather than producers. How shallow is that.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
Systemic change driven by God's Word is required to get different results.

Tim, do we really need to hijack this into a house church debate?

I agree with you that churches should be wary of how much of their spending goes back to themselves, but house church has its own set of maladies as it relates to our attempts to move beyond gathering with those who are just like us. Most house churches I know of fall into the same homogeneity issue - people like to be with people who they are like.

And to me that's the root of addressing why our churches don't move us in a direction of engaging the "other" - because we aren't preaching a gospel that pushes us out of our comfort zones, a gospel that doesn't consume us with God's love for humanity and the other.

Hurricane Katrina caused some white churches to integrate because some black churches were destroyed. So God will do what we won't do.

theycallmepastorbryan

It's easy to play the hijack card when you don't want to deal with the substantive issues involved. I would not bring it up except that the Biblical basis for supernatural relationships is the core of organic church life and the bane of institutionalized gatherings. You see the problems but do not want to question your comfort zone of institutionalized leadership. You think it is holy as is. It's not.

"...because we aren't preaching a gospel that pushes us out of our comfort zones..."

Are you thinking that if the saints just heard the right words coming from from the other side of the pulpit they would step out of their comfort zone?

The institutional form is a finely tuned comfort zone version of God's design for His people. Results will be no different than what you see even with different words. As someone who left those habits 12 years ago, I still struggle with their residue in my flesh. Believers in home churches are not immediately able to kick all the selfish habits they were trained in when they sat in the pews. No surprise there. Doing what God has asked for does help spiritual growth. You can't "run the race" until you "throw off everything that hinders...". Heb. 12:1

Tim, I'm going to base this on what I've experienced of smaller house churches... They have just as hard of a time if not harder, pushing outside of their affinity groups.

And like it or not, yes the words we say do matter. And there is a truth to that we don't preach a demanding gospel, generally we end up preaching a "just get your butt covered so you can go to heaven" gospel.

Captcha: "Graft Often"

I'm not willing to pursue an institutional vs. house church discussion other than to point out that all the house churches I've seen suffer the same homogeneity problem. If you've got stats that prove my anecdotal experience wrong, I'll take it, but I don't see much in the way of multi-ethnic house churches either.

What if it is that we have made gatherings the issue instead of the functions and identity of the Church. Gathering in any form is not the purpose, function, or direct identity of the church. It is just something that we are supposed to do as a body of believers. Rightfully so to stay connected with one another. I feel that we have made our gatherings the issue and disciple making has taken a back seat role. As Tim said 76% of a churches money and probably time and other resources as well to just put on a meeting and gathering. I agree with Tim that does not seem like the Biblical view of using Church resources. We should be disciple making, feeding the poor, fixing the medical care crisis that the government cannot fix, and many other things with the money.

I also find it interesting all of the weird stipulations that we put on churches here in the States. Church looks much different if you step into an eastern country. I think the way we do missions should inform the way we do church back home in the states.