ditching denominations
My local paper, which is usually as informative about current events as the back of a cereal box, ran an article this past weekend about the huge number of Americans leaving the major Protestant “brands” for nondenominational alternatives.
As is customary with The Tennessean, this is not really news, at least to those of us in the church. But I’m interested in your thoughts.
Do you agree with Pete Wilson—are there no longer any advantages to being part of a bigger group?
Or are we just replacing the traditional denominations with newer ones along newer lines—church planting networks, for instance, or regional alliances?
Does size of church matter—is it easier for bigger, richer churches to do their own thing?
What about the sort-of denominations that grow up around some of these bigger churches, like the Willow Creek Association?
What do we do with legitimate doctrinal differences? How alike do we have to be before we work together to plant a church or start a ministry?
And what does this mean for the independent Christian churches and our nondenominational denomination? More church leaders than ever before might be open to our emphasis on the simple New Testament church. Should we broaden our definitions of who’s in and who’s out—and would anyone like to comment on the irony of needing to?
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Jennifer Taylor
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Thanks for the link and the interesting questions, Jennifer. I’ve wrestling with my own church membership recently. Here’s where I’m at right now:
I think there are advantages to belonging to a big group, but big groups need to be built from healthy small groups. Small groups need to be built from healthy relationships, and healthy relationships are built on Jesus, love, and submission. This is where churches and denominations struggle. We’ve mastered the art of organizing big things, but many Christians (myself included) are very bad at obeying Jesus and loving others. The result is big, unhealthy groups with the appearance of health. But they don’t smell like Jesus.
Any church (house, institutional, mega or otherwise) is only as strong as it’s individual disciples. From that perspective, if a group of very obedient Christ-followers gathers as a church, affiliates into a network, or organizes into a denomination, then that group will be a vessel through which Jesus expresses himself.
This post seems like a “getting ready to make a change” post. What is God putting on your heart about his church and your place in it?
I think you’re right about the big vs. small thing. Recently a friend asked me, “How can someone grow up in the church and know Christ and still do XYZ?” My response: being in the church, and even being a Christian, doesn’t mean a person actually obeys Jesus. We’ve done a good job organizing groups and a poor job discipling individuals. Hmmmm. Maybe a blog post there.
Not really planning any big changes–except perhaps giving up The Tennessean entirely.
The funny thing is that many Christians see the church and write about the church through the same lens as The Tennessean. It’s all about organizational metrics and broad trends, rather than specific movements of the Spirit. You would think that Christians would recognize that God is big enough and creative enough to work through denominations and house churches and everything in between.
I would highly recommend Ordinary Hero by Neil Cole. He talks about planting churches through one-on-one discipleship, rather than growing churches by attracting walk-ins with programs.
At the heart of his model is the principle that believers can’t effectively share the gospel with others unless those believers are being changed by the gospel themselves.
Is bigger better? Through out many aspects of modern life the answer appears to be a resounding “NO!” There is a growing movement to simplify and live with less this movement also includes the desire for less oversight. It stands to reason that people would want the same thing in their church choice.
Of course larger churches like Willow Creek and Saddleback can offer more, they have deeper pockets! There is always an advantage to being affiliated with a larger group the biggest advantage is the ability to pull together resources. But Peter’s article demonstrates that this type of affiliation dose not have to be a traditional denomination, the flood relief efforts came about through groups (other churches) with common interests and open communications.
Doctrinal differences are the reason we have denominations. Even under the idea of Simple New Testament church people will develop there own beliefs, they will have different opinions and interpretations. People will gather with liked minded individuals and in modern society the ability to find like-minded people is much easier. The continued growth of “non-denominational” churches can be expected and these churches will likely have more diversity to meet the needs of specific sub-groups of Christians.
Once someone accepts Jesus as their Lord and Savior how much testing must they endure before I accept them as brother? So, instead of categorizing people to determine who’s in and who’s out, I need to ask “who am I willing to work with?” Can I work with someone who believes singing should not be a part of worship?
Well, here’s irony. My husband and I find ourselves (40somethings) drawn toward more of a “denominational” feel rather than evangelical generic settings, which increasingly independent Christian churches look like. We have visited several denoms and non-denoms lately. Some of the denominations have a solid structure for discipling and practices that can increase the likelihood of intimacy and Christian community, whereas evangelical churches can be a free-for-all. Beliefs are haphazard, it’s hard to get a handle on what the majority of attendees in these nondenominational bodies believe about God, Jesus, salvation — not sure they know! Increasingly I wonder if shared political views or commitments to specific social justice and community issues are what these nondenoms are built around. When you visit church websites, it’s a struggle to figure out what kind of church you might actually be visiting — so much effort is made to downplay doctrine and beliefs. For the sake of unity, maybe? But what these churches end up feeling like is community centers with some nice people doing some nice things. Not exactly cutting edge Christianity. And I’m afraid too many of our independent churches are trying to be like them. We’ve always had a tendency to mimic the “cool” churches.
My hunch is that big Non-Denoms are built around a shared culture. I’d argue that Saddleback and Willow demonstrate this, so do Fellowship Bible, Grace Chapel, and The Village Chapel in Nashville. Denominational churches are built on shared heritage and a kind of family identity.
I’m not sure that the large nondenoms I mention know all the beliefs & practices of their congregation- all those I mention are squarely within orthodox boundaries, but are mute on non-salvational doctrinal disputes– something Restorationists should applaud. There are days I wonder if they are more Restoration minded than we are!
If they 1) preach the bible only 2) extend unity on nonsalvation matters like calvinism/arminianism and 3) disciple their congregations in orthodox christianity, how far off from a Flagship like Southeast or E91 are they? (besides not actually having christian church roots)
What they lack is our Christian Church culture, but what’s the right response? We’ve always celebrated our diversity.