Pulpits, pews, and pastoring
I am not ashamed of how God has gifted me or the calling on my life. I’m a Pastor, and I say that with as much humility and servitude possible. But this gets me into funny situations when people try to make small talk. I have often thought that NBC could write a funny sit-com about my life. When I was in student ministry and the obligatory “what do you do?” would be asked, I would say something like, “I work with students”. But now, I have found that it is best to rip the bandaid off. So here is how it goes:
Person 1: “What do you do?”
Me: “I’m a Pastor.”
Person 1: with much hesitancy because their brain is trying to figure out how to get out the conversation without being rude - “Oh. . . Where do you . . . work? . . . preac . . . pastor at?”
Me: “I am part of a network of house churches.”
Person 1: “Oh! I just forgot I need to . . .” runs away
I am…of course…kind of…kidding. Usually there are many questions centering around when will we get a building or if it’s full-time deal. Why are these interactions like this? It’s like a massive barrier gets put into what should be a very normal human interaction. It is like a massive separation occurs when people find out I am a pastor; then I begin to “work” the relationship so that I can show them that I am learning, struggling, sinful, and broken just like the next guy.
Well there is a separation that has happened; the church as we know it today drastically changed from the model of the early church all through one man. 313 years after Jesus, a man named Constantine passed a religious tolerance edict and began to erect church buildings. Constantine was the authority because he was the emperor. Previous emperors were known for building pagan temples, gathering suspicious relics, and attributing divine status to places, things, and even the dead. Constantine was really no different outside of his infatuation with Christianity, so he began by building churches. The design of these buildings was multifaceted. One design straight out of pagan ritual was to create separation between the “more faithful” and the “less faithful”. We can still see evidence of this today. Constantine and these new “churches” would have martyrs of the faith buried or entombed in the church so that these “saints” could still participate as the church gathered. Besides just being creepy, think about that…as though they would have desired to leave the presence of the Lord to make it to church on a Sunday morning? Another design to enforce separation was the pew and the pulpit. The design was to illuminate those who were “sitting” in their faith and those who were “proclaiming” their faith. The unintentional result of this was that, for the first time, we see spectators in the church. But one of the scariest things that Constantine produced to identify separation was the church choir. He borrowed this from the pagan Greek temples; the idea was to celebrate communion with a processional as the choir sang. These choir members were like second tier clergy but they were still considered above those sitting in the pews. This hierarchical model created space to gather with the purpose to watch just a few use their gifts. This in itself isn’t wrong, but when we label this “church”, it instills in us an idea that is very far from what God calls the church to be. It’s crazy to think about, but starting in the fourth century, church became a once-a-week activity. The “90 minutes per week” consumerism that runs rampant in the church today finds its roots here.
Do you see it? We are STILL HERE! Pomp, show, and separation are killing the church. THIS WAS ALL RELATIONAL IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. Jesus made no show of the communion. In fact it was done just after He had very intimately washed the feet of His disciples. The ordinance of the Lord’s supper was made to be taken face to face with brothers and sisters, encouraging one another about who Jesus is and what He did for us.
I am not knocking the idea of worship through a chorus or choir, but listen to how Paul defines this as practice of the early church:
19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Do you see the intimate relational context? There isn’t a choir and then everyone else. It is submitting to one another. We weren’t made to worship in pews or rows. We were made to worship facing one another with our hearts facing heaven.
Even the existence of the sermon and “altar call” are things that have been developed because of the structures put into place beginning with Constantine. These things, and more, serve to elevate pastors. So watch what happens: preaching becomes priority. To quote Frank Viola from his book Pagan Christianity, “The Body of Christ becomes nothing more than one mouth and many ears”. Out of this void of a fully formed church, we have had to create other things to fill the gaps for the missing gifts. So in the Great Awakening, we see the introduction of the “sinner’s prayer” and invitations or altar calls. None of this is found in scripture.
In some areas, we try to maintain this separation because it benefits us. In other areas, though, we ironically try to create church programming and language to bridge the gaps. We make small groups so that intimate relationships can occur. We create “Meet the pastor” moments or offer for people “come down front” and be prayed over. We even use the term “welcome home” when people visit or join our church.
Winston Churchill famously said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
Selah Memphis is a church that of course gets to benefit from having little overhead thus we can do incredible ministry. But we are a network of house churches so that we can have relational transparency with one another, holy intimacy with the Father and minister to everyone with the gifts God gives each individual member of the church. Our goals are to grow in a more intimate relationship with the Father, spur one another on in love and good deeds, and to be known by love to all so that God can use us to reach the people around us.
We earnestly believe God is calling His church to kill all forms of separation, decentralize leadership, and strive to be in full dependence on the Father. That is the true design for the Church.