Simple Church (1 of 2)

The purpose of this article is to clean up what I just spent a few hours scribbling into a yellow legal pad, so I can have it for future reference. Maybe it'll help somebody out there? Soooooo, a friend of mine invited me to have coffee with him and some other missionaries to discuss the concept of "simple church," which he discovered at a conference for missionaries in Europe. The conference speaker had served as a missionary in Central America and then in a restricted access nation in Asia. That setting--the one hostile to open evangelism--forced the missionary to rethink "standard" church planting techniques. Thus emerged the simple church idea in his mind, as it has in the minds of others. I thought it intriguing, so I went. Glad I did, especially since the café--right across from the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran--served up the best cappuccino I've ever tasted. I'm going to record some random thoughts about what I was told and have learned, and then give some off-the-cuff reaction:

• There is a movement out there called "Simple Church," touted by people within the movement as a "second Reformation" (i.e., the first Reformation gave us the Bible back; the second is giving us the church back). There's even a networking blog.
• There's a book out called Simple Church, and a related one--with a hipper title--called Organic Church. Interestingly, the aforementioned books are 272 pages each, so I wonder how "simple" they are. I would have expected a tome purporting itself to be "simple" to be, say, 10 pages, but I digress ...
• "Simple Church" compares itself against "Traditional Church," and thinks it is more biblical. It notes how many people are disenchanted with "church," but not with Jesus, and opines that if churches were more simple, we would see New Testament multiplication.
• A traditional church says, "COME to us"; a simple church says, "GO to them."
• A traditional church says, "Come meet us in our beautiful building"; a simple church says, "We'll come meet you where you are" (and would consider that place "church").
• A traditional church says, "Come hear our pastor wax eloquent"; a simple church says, "Let's read the Bible together and discuss it."
• Related to the above, the hearers in a traditional church are tempted to let their minds wander in the long sermon; while simple church members are engaged in the discussion.
• A traditional church aims to grow and become mega; a simple church aims to multiply in smaller, more-mobile cells.
• Because traditional churches are large, members/attenders can get lost; because simple churches are smaller, there is more accountability.
• A traditional church has a "top-down" leadership style; a simple church has a "bottom-up" leadership style.
• A traditional church has 10% of the congregation doing 90% of the work; a simple church is better distributed, needing everyone.
• A traditional church has a massive budget and employs a big staff; a simple church has a minimal budget and relies on laymen.
• A traditional church emphasizes their stuctures; a simple church emphasizes relationships.
• A traditional church emphasizes its weekly meeting times, while a simple church sees life as church. Someone quoted Ronnie Stevens (sp.?) who said, "Jesus did not die on the cross for us to say, 'It's Saturday night! Tomorrow we've got to go to church.'"
• A traditional church tends to have more "religious consumers," while a simple church tends to have more multiplying workers.
• Simple churches have their defection rates too, and its leaders say you can expect two-thirds of professing believers to not bear fruit.
• Simple churches should be small and lay-led until they get expansive.
• Simple church philosophy, at its core, is "evangelism-based rapid reproduction" and "obedienced-based discipleship" as opposed to knowledge-increasing discipleship.
• Simple church philosophy emphasizes an immediate evangelism ministry BY THE NEW DISCIPLE. Get him out sharing his faith right away.
• Simple churches are like cells that can be linked and, when you form between six (minimum) and 20 (maximum) cells, they can meet together periodically for celebration.
• Neil Cole (author of Organic Church) said: "If you really sincerely have a core value of multiplication, the only way you're going to ever see a multiplication movement is with simple churches." The only way, whew!
• Dan Morgan, who was in Albania teaching church planting and happened to drop by for a cappuccino with us, suggested that, when planting a more traditional church, you should build a core of 50 people in your pre-launch before going public. In other words, "do not organize it until you have an 'it' to organize." Otherwise, you're sitting around hoping people will come, and if someone does come, and is one of only a few wide-eyed people, he will likely feel very awkward. He also thinks that, if you don't see fruit (conversions) within the first nine months of labor, you should counsel and consider whether it is wise to continue as is, relocate, or radically change strategies.
• Morgan says of the simple church movement, "The cap on the movement in general is its leadership. The cap on YOUR movement is your growth in being a competent, committed, leader of character, and your commitment to reproduce such leaders."

My thoughts on the movement:

• First, this is a blog, not a theological journal. I haven't done the research, haven't read the books. These are off-the-cuff impressions and reactions to my coffee with friends. Sorry if anything is unfair, if I erect straw men, etc.
• I like simple. The simpler, the better. Yes, I'm encouraged to start simplifying.
• I'm still looking for a simple, concise definition of what a "simple church" actually IS. Sounds like a new name for "cell church" to me, or even like the less-organized "house-church," and may be a distant cousin to "emerging church" (which is also having a hard time defining itself, or, more accurately, does not want to define itself--or anything else).
• I think that the idea of us going out rather than hoping people will come in is the strongest point of the philosophy. Many a missionary has burned himself out running bus/van routes picking up people and bringing them to the building. I think we cover more territiory by having smaller groups spread out. I want to explore this.
• For "Simple Church" leaders to call this a "Second Reformation" seems a tad self-aggrandizing to me. They're saying that we'll all be a part of "simple churches" in the future. I'm going on record here calling this the attempted shift from mega-churches to micro-churches!
• There is nothing new under the sun. Many of the "simple church" ideas are simply biblical concepts (multiplication, humble leadership, laymen doing the work of the ministry, etc.) which exist in MANY traditional churches today. I love and agree with many of the ideas mentioned in the above section, but the irony is that I was already familiar with these concepts, having learned them in a traditional church!
• I don't love the "us vs. them" (simple vs. traditional) mentality. Maybe that's not their intent, but it comes out. Almost fosters negativity towards our "traditional" churches.
• There appears to be an aversion within this movement to organized leadership, including pastors and deacons. One review said that "the simple church de-emphasizes that the church needs to have formal positions of leadership such as overseer, pastor, deacons, elders." Simple, yes. Biblical, no.
• The emphasis on Bible discussion instead of listening to the sermon seems to undermine a mandate for the church--the proclamation of truth, as absolute truth, by qualified and God-ordained men. That said, I'm with them on the simple fact that people's minds wander after about ten minutes of listening to discourse, while discussion tends to engage us more. I think we need both/and, not either/or. And all preachers should continually work on their homiletics (my favorite book is The Elements of Preaching--it's really simple).
• I think there is a whole lot to be gleaned from the concepts of simple church; I'd love to read the 272 pages sometime. Just like in the federal budget, there is probably a lot of "pork" in our traditional churches. Programs and expenses that need to be rethought, trimmed, cut, or simplified.
• My next blog entry will be my version of "simple church."