What Happened to the Concept of the Church As Family

My long time friend, Terry Clements, responded to the responses of folks to her Facebook posting

regarding the mega churches of our day and the human need for a sense of belonging and significance. The thread said in part

Terry: Thank you everyone for responding. It has served to remind me that back in the day our families may not have believed the same things but we did believe in the value of being in church. Our churches for the most part were not large by today's standards but the "fellowship" among the members was off the chart. This is a "Common Core" I can support.

Denise:  I don't want to be a number in the church, I want to be a person .

Robert: That's is the problem today churches do not put an emphasis on fellowship. From my point of view churches spurn single parent family. I have seen play out in multiple churches in this area.

David Appleby: I really don't want to highjack Terry's thread but I will say that in this present church age we have to a large measure turned away from the Pauline concept of church as a family.

Robert: So what your saying is a large group of people are being left behind by the church?

Denise: I've also found out that some churches don't minister to those that have lost a loved one or call and even check up on their own members of the church either..

David Appleby: What I am saying is a large group of people are missing out on significant, and I believe essential an element, that the body of Christ (Church) is uniquely positioned to provide, i.e., a sense of belonging to a family.

David Appleby: Actually back in the day mentioned in most of these responses there was interaction between churches and the members of the various churches. I had a friend when growing up went to one church on Sunday morning and to our church on Sunday evening. Churches were pretty much the core of our social life.

I ended that conversation there because it took on a more personal tone about the participants own life experience. However, it got me to thinking about what we seem to have lost in the demise of the community based church.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950's every town usually had about a half dozen or more churches. There would what I used to call the big three: First Baptist Church; First Methodist Church; and First Presbyterian Church. These generally were the churches that grew up with the community as it grew so did they. Over time, as neighborhood began to develop and the communities began to be come town and then small cities the number and kinds of churches also increased.  And to be clear all these churches placed an emphases on church growth.  They wanted everyone to become a Christian and preferably their brand of Christian. Fundamentally they were the shared a common faith but differed on a variety of lessor doctrinal teachings and procedural rules.

I will not talk specifically about each group individually but I will share my impressions of what happened in Baptist church life.

Baptist churches while often different in size were pretty much the same in every other way. I was the product of the Baptist churches of the 1950's. The Baptist church in the 1950's placed a lot of importance on Bible study and age grade Bible teaching. We had a Sunday School Class for everyone from the newly born to the soon to the nearly dead.  You could attend any Baptist church give them your name and age and they would be able to put you in a class just exactly like the one in your home church. Same age, same room arrangement same “quarterly” (Sunday School book) and focused on the same lesson as your friends at your “home” church.

The worship service, like Sunday School, was also much the same from one Baptist Church to the other. I can still see the old Sunday School Report Boards hanging on the left and right of the chancel and a copy of the Church Covenant on the wall to the right of the Chancel. Chancel in a Baptist Church is the platform or the pulpit area.

As you entered the sanctuary you would receive a “bulletin” from a smiling and friendly usher who greeted you at the door. Every door coming into the sanctuary would be manned by a smiling and friendly usher with a hand full of bulletins. Folks would visit and greet one another in the few minutes prior to the start of the worship service. It was generally considered pre-worship fellowship time.

Now back to those bulletins. Bulletins served two purposes. First it contained the most important and urgent announcements for the membership. Second it contained the order of service for the morning and evening services. One really interesting thing was that while specific songs, sermons etc.
would be different from church to church the order of the worship services, especially the more formal morning service) would be the same from church to church.

I suspect this was also the case for the Methodist and the Presbyterians. There were not a lot of rules but there as a lot of standardization.

Now, I’m sure your asking, “Why this trip down memory lane?” Well there is purpose to my method. The structure of the church in the 1050-60's was one that was not so different that Christians of previous eras would be uncomfortable with what was happening. In short, the church of my youth was designed to facilitate fellowship within a family of believers.

This was also the period among Baptists when our churches (all of them) experienced growth and new churches were constantly being created. All of this was the result of the conviction that church is in fact a family more than a community. I however, in the late 1960's and early 1970's the culture began to change but the church continued as the one place where people could experience all the benefits of family. Then some bright fellow wrote a book entitled, A dynamic church: Spirit and structure for the seventies. From that point on the die was cast so that Baptist churches in the community (neighborhood) model would eventually just fade away.

Please take note that I am not hear to decry the changes. Some, have actually been for the good and others not so good. I am here to speak of the value of the Pauline view of the church as a family of believers where the world “family” carries with it all the implications of a family unit.

This brings me back to where I began with the Facebook thread partially quoted above. As that thread developed I learned that the people all had belonged to church where when they had a crises in their life the “church family” did not respond to them with compassion; care for them in their need; comfort them in their sorry; stand with them in their time of trouble. Now to be sure, these things also happened in the neighborhood churches but to a lessor degree.

We have maintained the Pauline doctrine that speaks of the church as the body of Christ in which all the body parts must function in harmony with one another and be healthy for the body to function most efficiently. So with the church.

This is the reason Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  He said, “Make Disciples” not “win the lost.”

Is there a difference you ask? The answer is yes! Winning the lost speaks only to entrance into the family of God while “making disciples” speaks of helping people discover their calling, spiritual gift and place in the family of God.  It includes winning the lost as the beginning of the making disciple process but not the ultimate goal. The goal is helping them discover their place in the Church and function as the part of the body God has called them to be through use of their Spiritual gifts.
When and where this happens the church becomes what God intends. This is why a small neighborhood church can be a better picture of God’s plan than a huge Mega-church. The small church has less fat (underutilized members) than the Mega-church.

Proverbs 6:6 says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!”  Among the things we can learn from observing ants is that every single ant has a function and the whole ant colony is dependent on each ant discovering what their place in the colony is and then filling it. The same is true of the church.

All church members need to be filling their roll as a part of the church thereby making the church what it should be.  Ideally, all that is required for the church to become what God intends a given local church to be is for all the members, individually to fill the spot in the body of Christ (the church) that God has placed them in that church to be.

If this happens, those in the body of Christ who are hurting are ministered to by those who riding high on the blessing of God.  I once had a man in my church who believed (and I concurred with him) that his function in the body of Christ was to help those who were in need. He said to me once, “For many years I did not understand why everything I touch prospered financially until one day reading in the Bible I came across Ephesians 4:28 then I realized it was so I could be His hands to help those in financial need. I honestly believe if I stopped helping people God would stop blessing the work of my hands.”  I tell you this man found his place in the family of God and stepped up to the plate and fulfilled his calling.

He was saved because someone shared the Gospel with him but he was blessed that the person who lead him to faith did more than introduce him to salvation but also started him on a life of discipleship. We are not all called to be the same thing but we are all called to be something in the body of Christ. If that happens then the complaints in the Facebook thread I started with will be greatly diminished. Granted, as I said earlier, it does not guarantee a person will not be overlooked but it does reduces the chances of it happening. Why, because in the neighborhood church we know everyone who attends.

As and aside I might add that the emphases in our contemporary worship on the individual and group praise has taken away from an essential element of the church’s function. Remember that according to James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  In other words that while we want the words of our mouth to be acceptable to God the only way that can happen is when the deeds of our life are in keeping with His purposes as defined in James 1:27 and numerous other passages of Scripture.

“So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead. But someone will say, You have faith and I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that, and shudder!…”  James 2:1719.  Clearly, as far as God is concerned the proof of your praise is seen in the actions of your life.

So much of our praise is about ourselves when it ought to be about God and how He has allowed us to be used up in His service. It should flow out of His leading us to become more and more like Jesus every day. Do you like Jesus look out over your town, your city your country and/or your world and weep because they are like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus healed the sick, cared for the dying, and snatched the lost from Hell. I can promise you that leading someone to Christ will produce an up swell of praise in your heart that you’ll never even come close to in a praise and worship song.
This can be done in the Mega-church but it is much harder. Just one reason why I think there will always be a place for the neighborhood church. I also believe that the next generation will see a return to the smaller neighborhood church if for no other reason that the time of trouble that will come upon Christians in the years to come should the Lord tarry.

Lord, help me live from day to day
In such a self-forgetful way
That even when I kneel to pray
My prayer shall be for others.

Help me in all the work I do
To ever be sincere and true,
And know that all I’d do for You
Must needs be done for others.

Let “Self” be crucified and slain
And buried deep: and all in vain
May efforts be to rise again,
Except to live for others.

So when my work on earth is done,
And my new work in heav’n’s begun,
I’ll praise You for the crown I’ve won,
But praise You more for others.

Refrain:
Yes, others, Lord, yes, others,
Let this my motto be;
Help me to live for others,
Help me to live for others,
That I may live like Thee,
That I may live like Thee.