What would happen if our churches adopted the first century organizational structure? No more hearing about a "new paradigm;" no more hearing about how "God is doing a new thing." Here is how our churches would look if this first century model was adopted. At this writing, I don't know any evangelical denomination/ministry/church that does this, do you?
Our first century model church would be run by elders. The pastor would either be one of the elders, selected by the elders; or, a highly spiritual person recommended by a church in another city. If the church was newly established by an apostle of another church, it would be run by him/them until mature elders could be raised up from within it.
The pastor-teacher would not be teaching 48 weeks a year (2 weeks vacation; 2 weeks for a guest speaker and/or missionary week). There would be other teachers and prophets teaching many weeks. Some of these would be teaching elders, and teachers and prophets from within the church. Others would be visiting speakers - teachers and prophets and apostles. Elders would mainly be selected by other elders, or if there was an apostle/church over our model church, they would select them.
There would be no talk of a "special anointed" person being the head of the church and the congregation "catching his vision." The vision would be communicated by God to the elders; the elders to the congregants.
In our model church, deacons would be selected by the elders to minister to the sick (helping them heal, seeing they get care), while the elders would be the ones praying for the sick to get well per James 5:13-15,
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
The deacons would also be seeing to the needs of the poorer ones in the congregation, giving money or food to them, and especially looking after the widows and oprhaned chidldren (single adults would also fall within this category if they had no one to take care of them).
The elders would pray and counsel members of the congregation who requested it. Of course both elders and deacons; prophets and teachers had to be very mature both in spirit and in emotion.
Perhaps more people would have more balanced teaching, feel more taken care of, have less control and abuse, and get more out of church. This in turn would attract more non-believers.
Sounds like a pretty good church to me.
A Prayer Request & Thanks
6 days ago
9 comments:
I think there are some churches actually trying to do this 'new testament church" thing. I think New Frontiers, and to a lesser extent Sovereign Grace Ministries as well as some others I'm less familiar with. I'm all for it, and will not settle for any other kind of church if I can help it. There's something wonderful about being in a meeting that feels authentic, like you guess it would have been like at that time. There is a special unity in the Spirit--and intimacy with God when you do church (or at least try to) the way he intended it to be donel
Amen, amen, amen!
This is definitely the type of church I would love to be a part of.
Yes.
i think the house church movement is trying to do this. i've written about them on my blog. try house2house.net
God is good
jpu
Very interesting, Diane. Not to throw water on this, as I believe there are some great ideals here, but if the church was set up the exact same way as the First Century Church, would it still be as effective in the 21st Century? In other words, shouldn't we allow for a changing culture? Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, but culture isn't and neither are people.
I think the church should change with the culture, but not at the expense of the poor, the widowed and the orphan. We think of ourselves as an enlightened church, but we are not if we forget the fundamentals.
For more on this check out my recent post on helping the poor at
http://www.thoughtsofagyrovague.com
rev-ed,
Why wouldn't it work today? I wrote the deacons were taking care of their poor. THis certainly could be extended to the community. But sadly, in many churches I've obsered, they will take care of the community BEFORE their own.
The elders and others are counseling members. Leaders are accountable. It looks to me as if this is a perfect fit for the 21st century.
small group guy,
What I wrote in my post could fit with any culture as long as the unholy part of the culture didn't taint the church...right?
We agree, the church should be relevant to the culture. Where I express concern is this. When the church in ANY way makes a compromise in doctrine, refuses to preach on a specific subject or in any way dillude the gospel, it fails. Often when the church searches for relevancy it leaves some doctrine behind.
I can not think of to many examples of churches trying to truly be relevant that did not compromise the gospel.
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