Location: Evergreen Park, IL
For those of you who grew up in church...remember that little rhyme with hand motions about the church? The one that goes, "Here's the church and here's the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people," or some variation of that? The rhyme what quite entertaining for me as a child but as I've grown older I've began to think more and more about the church.
Most members of the universal church today agree that the church isn't the building but rather the body of Christ. This is why we so many different forms of church around the world. From small meetings in homes to a gathering under a tree, church is anywhere where the people of God our gathered. But what will the church look like in places where it doesn't already exist?
It's hard to think about places where there is no church. For those of you who don't know, the most likely place for this to occur is the 10/40 window. The space in the eastern hemisphere between the 10 and 40 latitude lines north of the equator. These people have a lack of access to the Bible, Christian resources and missionaries. I was there last summer and got to see up close how the people have been deceived by false teachers.
As I learned about evangelism in the 10/40 window I realized many of our Western church models wouldn't work for these people. The culture they come from separates men and women completely. It requires extreme modesty for women. It places high value on written scriptures, so much so that no one would ever think to put a sacred book on the floor or write in it. Music is a controversial issue. These issues would post major problems when it comes to planting a church among this society.
So I began to wonder...
Is there anything wrong with church being separated by gender? Doesn't 1Timothy encourage older women to mentor younger women and older men to do the same with younger men?
Is it wrong for women to cover their head as a sign of respect and modesty? Any depiction of women in Bible times usually includes them with head coverings.
Would it be so awful if the Bible were always placed in the highest place of honor?
Can we worship God without music?
I'm not saying that Western models of the church need to change but I'm wondering how much contextualization can happen in the context of a place where God's church has yet to take root. It's not about making Christianity palatable because the Gospel is offensive. However, the West doesn't have the claim to perfect Christianity and imposing it on other cultures doesn't seem fair.
I could be totally off base here and I welcome your opinions. What is the church? What is the church supposed to look like? How far can contextualization go?
For those of you who grew up in church...remember that little rhyme with hand motions about the church? The one that goes, "Here's the church and here's the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people," or some variation of that? The rhyme what quite entertaining for me as a child but as I've grown older I've began to think more and more about the church.
Most members of the universal church today agree that the church isn't the building but rather the body of Christ. This is why we so many different forms of church around the world. From small meetings in homes to a gathering under a tree, church is anywhere where the people of God our gathered. But what will the church look like in places where it doesn't already exist?
It's hard to think about places where there is no church. For those of you who don't know, the most likely place for this to occur is the 10/40 window. The space in the eastern hemisphere between the 10 and 40 latitude lines north of the equator. These people have a lack of access to the Bible, Christian resources and missionaries. I was there last summer and got to see up close how the people have been deceived by false teachers.
As I learned about evangelism in the 10/40 window I realized many of our Western church models wouldn't work for these people. The culture they come from separates men and women completely. It requires extreme modesty for women. It places high value on written scriptures, so much so that no one would ever think to put a sacred book on the floor or write in it. Music is a controversial issue. These issues would post major problems when it comes to planting a church among this society.
So I began to wonder...
Is there anything wrong with church being separated by gender? Doesn't 1Timothy encourage older women to mentor younger women and older men to do the same with younger men?
Is it wrong for women to cover their head as a sign of respect and modesty? Any depiction of women in Bible times usually includes them with head coverings.
Would it be so awful if the Bible were always placed in the highest place of honor?
Can we worship God without music?
I'm not saying that Western models of the church need to change but I'm wondering how much contextualization can happen in the context of a place where God's church has yet to take root. It's not about making Christianity palatable because the Gospel is offensive. However, the West doesn't have the claim to perfect Christianity and imposing it on other cultures doesn't seem fair.
I could be totally off base here and I welcome your opinions. What is the church? What is the church supposed to look like? How far can contextualization go?
Two fellow interns and I at a restaurant on one of our last nights in the country
Love your questions - they are what got me seeking out what it REALLY meant to be Christ's church. And the Word and example that was laid out by the Apostles is not so "cookie cutter" like we see today. Keep asking and seeking!
ReplyDeleteI think as long as the gospel is being preached without compromise, it's all right to adjust to the culture. Even Paul does this - I don't recall where - but he uses the altar in Athens to the unknown god as a way to introduce Christ, using their own culture as the door to witness.
ReplyDeleteNo one in the Bible is prescriptive on how worship or witness looks like - we're instructed only to love and disciple. That's going to look different for everyone based on personality, gifts, and spiritual journey, as well as a whole host of other factors.
And of course, Western models of church aren't going to work in non-Western cultural areas, precisely because they're Western! And there's nothing wrong with that. I think we have often, historically and now, fallen into the trap of promoting our culturally diluted gospel instead of the real, inerrant one we were given when Jesus walked earth.