Loving The Church Without All of the Organizational Trappings

I want to approach this post from an apologetic perspective. There is a common misconception held about those who don’t agree with the popular church culture. That misconception is that because some reject the organization commonly known as the “church” that somehow those same individuals don’t love or care for the “church”.

I guess the biggest problem with that is that when the word church is used, different groups see this from two totally distinct and often times contradictory points of views! One group says they want to get back to the 1st century or “apostolic” church also known as the New Testament church while the other group says the same thing while both groups often disagree with each other radically. With that lets get into it.

Loving the Church

Lets first start by saying you can’t love Christ without loving the church the two are not to be separated. There is no church without Christ and the church is the bride and body of Christ, thus to dislike the church is to dislike the head and groom of the church which is God in flesh! Thus if someone says they hate the church then it is likely, though not necessarily apparent, that they also hate Christ. The two are one flesh (Ephesians 5:31). So it is simply impossible to take one with the other. Not to mention if you hate the church, then you hate Christ and if you hate Christ you have also rejected the Father, since they are one, and thus most likely you have not been reconciled to God and may like the benefits or the philosophy of God while not loving Him. It happened with the Pharisees and throughout “church” history and I am pretty sure it is happening throughout the world.

So loving the church is synonymous with loving Christ and loving Christ is synonymous with loving the church; however, we now have to define “church”. We have to be fair and biblical with this. The Church IS the body of Christ. The church is a group of one, much like the trinity is a group of one. God is one in three persons and the church is one in many persons. All who have been born from above is the church. We say we understand that, but we don’t, because if we did there would be no need to keep talking about this. We throw the word “local” into the conversation and then we being to redefine church. Don’t believe me?

The Church In Practical Terms

Our lack of concern and love for one another in groups we disagree with is evidence that we have redefined church. Because we disagree we have decided to separate ourselves into denominational (organizational) trappings that cannibalize our witness and makes us look much like a Target vs Wal-Mart scrapping for scarce resources and in the process slandering one another to get such resources. We put walls up and then expect God to move on our behalf. But Paul asks “is Christ divided”? The answer is no and if we are there may be a good chance that we are not in Him at worst or at least not filled with the Spirit at best! We have erected these walls and because of that we have decided who we will and will not care for because they are not part of “our church”. SEE THAT? Do you see that, we can say all the long that we understand the definition of the church, yet our practice rightly shows us that we have no clue with this is about! That is because our organizational trappings have so blinded our eyes that we couldn’t see the church if it fell on us!

The Trappings

From hierarchical  positions, to massive buildings, to pastoral visions, to biblical authority, to sacraments, to pulpits, to denominations. I am sure someone could add many, many more. However, these things are not part of the Church. They are part of the organization commonly known as church, but they are not the church nor parts of the Church.  And often times when someone comes along (look at the group known as the Anabaptist for more information) that questions such trappings, they are grouped, rounded up and thrown into the lion’s den of “anti-church”. You see how that works? I redefine the church thus giving it a definition not consistent with those who are the cornerstone and foundation of the church and then when someone disagrees with that redefinition I can say “they don’t love the church”. It is the easiest thing to do and it only strengthens my argument and secures my position on the new definition.

There are many men and women who have decided to go a “step past reformed” (the protestant reformation) and have decided to not only question the theology of Rome but also the ecclesiology of Rome. And because some have begun to knock on the door of the enshrined they have been labeled distastefully ( I am very glad that the sword no longer belongs to the church because men like Viola would have been drowned a long time ago ). You see a quick study of church history will show us that though the Reformers did a great job addressing and clarifying Justification and Salvation by Grace, they only turned in the right direction as it related to the priesthood of believers, but they never moved forward really. Yes they did bring the bible into common language, but they kept the same system of not questioning their truths and if you don’t believe me, you need to look no further than a few quotes and few graveyards of those who disagreed with them.

We Do Love The Church

Those who see things differently do love the church and we even love our brothers and sisters who see things differently. Sometimes the disagreements get a bit too serious and sometimes downright ugly but usually that is because of the slanderous positions casted upon us.  We love the church because we love the Groom of the church. We love the church because we look to the head of the church. We love the church because for eternity to here she has always been the plan and purpose of God to express His glory to the world. She is His, redeemed and secured in His blood and she is beautiful and beloved and there is no way we can say anything other than lovely things of her because it is the Master who makes her as lovely as she is. She was is in His side and He is coming back to finish what He started with Her. So sure we love her, we are her, we are one flesh with her, how can we reject who we are? We just don’t care for this organization that part of her has decided to clothe her in! Is she organized? Yes to say the least, especially when she is rightfully responded to her head! She has leadership, and working parts, and moving parts who moves together and build one another up so that she grows more and more into the head, but that leadership and those parts are just that PARTS they are not the head and whenever we see those parts doing things that only the head should be doing then we must ignore those parts and this is what is happening today

So you have to love the church, shoot, you are part of the church you are one flesh; however, you don’t have to like what she is being clothed in. You don’t have to submit to the trappings, regardless of how many hold to that trapping or how popular or enshrined the people who created those trappings may be. We have all been given the freedom to respond directly to the head, with no mediators in between and we are obligated to discern His voice as His sheep. So please don’t get the two confused the trappings/organization is not the organism called the Church no matter who tells you so.