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1.
We ask thing of everyone, with slight differences, but
how would you define "postmodern" in relationship to
the emerging church?
Actually,
I’m probably the last person in the world that should be
answering this, but, I would define it as burned out… well, it
kind of is, but the truth is the word “postmodern” is about
as descriptive as “horse-less carriage.” All it says is what
it is not and doesn’t carry with it any information of what it
is. When the first automobiles were introduced in the US, there
were many fatal accidents caused by people pulling up on their
steering wheel when trying to stop rather than pushing down on a
pedal. Words have that much power.
The
word postmodern could have the same effect in the church. The
misunderstanding of what it is just might kill many churches. It
seems that in the Church the word postmodern is often times
mistaken to refer to an age group, such as “Gen X.” This
isn’t about the fashion, trends or music preferences of a
certain group. However, it seems as though that is what many
church leaders have boiled it down to. Just because you have
coffee, candles, couches and the word “community” in
everything you print doesn’t make you “postmodern.”
In
my opinion, postmodern is a more accurate reference to an era or
maybe a way of processing thought. The end of the modern era
brought us into a new era, one that is after-modern or
postmodern. While scientific accomplishments and rational
thinking defined the modern era, this new era seems to be
leaning in a different direction. In relationship to the church,
I think we need to realize that this is just the era we now live
in. People understand truth in different ways. The point is not
to be “relevant” with all the cool new stuff but to be
contextual. Jesus was totally irrelevant to the existing culture
he was in. He was opposed to what the religious and political
leaders were doing and his message of peace wasn’t what the
Jewish people were looking for. They wanted a political revolt.
On the other hand, Jesus was contextual. He saw that people
would understand the message of the Kingdom in different ways.
He told one person it was about being born again and for an!
Other it was about selling all he had. He realized the message
had to be but into the context of the person’s reality. The
modern era put the Gospel message into a nice tiny package; a
quick equation for eternity. For the way western society in
general processed things at the time it may have worked… but
it no longer does.
An
accurate way to define this new era is by what Todd Hunter
calls, “post-Christendom.”
I think this is true. The western version of
Christianity, which has tried so hard to be relevant, no longer
is. People do not live under the moral standards people did just
a few decades ago. Christianity, obviously, does not have the
impact on culture it once did. In fact, it’s quite the
opposite. The
Church in America has been heavily influenced by the consumerism
within our culture. We have turned the Church into “religious
goods and services” - another Todd Hunter phrase.
This
isn’t all bad though. The fact is that with the death of the
Christian culture influence, people are growing increasingly
spiritually hungry. Things like eroding family structure, the
destruction of our environment, the failure of our economy, the
fact that we are not as secure as we were before September 11th,
all these things have left many people with a deep sense of
“there must be something bigger than all of this.” We have
an opportunity, as the Church, to bring faith, hope and love to
a crippled era. We just need to understand that it won’t
happen by being up-to-date with MTV news in your sermons, but by
bringing the Gospel into the context of people’s lives, where
they are at.
2.
I love the idea of being an "ever-expanding
community of churches" could you unpack that a bit and
share how it differs from the idea of a denomination?
Wow!
I hadn’t even thought of a possible similarity but that’s a
good thing to think through. Typically, a denomination is the
centralization of a group of churches. All finances, all power
flows through the denominational office.
You look at denominations and, in a creepy way, they
almost resemble the mob. “You give us your money, we’ll
watch your back.” I have a friend who isn’t a Christian and
I was trying to explain a denomination to him. He used to live
in New York and he would tell me stories of mob-run
neighborhoods and how he thought it sounded incredibly similar.
For
us, Matthew’s House is really a family of people who gather in
different locations as autonomous expressions of the Body. Our
connection is relational rather than organizational. When we
started Matthew’s House, it was just eight people in a family
room. When that grew to around 30 people, some people went and
started another gathering. Then another church was birthed out
of that. We all love each other and have developed relationships
together, so we get together on a regular basis to see what’s
going on with everyone else.
It’s
“ever-expanding” because we believe that in order to remain
healthy we must be continually touching culture and sharing the
truth of Jesus with others through how we live. When this
happens other people become a new extension of the Church and
the Church expands. We are a “community of churches” because
we live life together and take care of each other amongst the
individual churches. If someone from one gathering is need of
something, we put the word out and everybody pitches in what
they can. We all connect outside of our gatherings as well. We
eat meals at each other’s homes, go to birthday parties
together, go on vacations together, serve the needy together and
it really goes beyond the house churches that fall underneath
the Matthew’s House title. Our community is trying to be very
ecumenical and evangelical in this type of living. We’re in
community with other house church networks, with people from
other “traditional” churches, and unchurched people as well.
3.
Besides being a "house based" community, how
does Matthew’s House differ from other churches in the area?
I
think one of the major differences between us and other
communities of faith in our area is how we perceive the church
and it’s expressions. We don’t view church as a place, style
or events. We’re not even really “house-based,” we’re
people based. We see the church as God’s people. Therefore,
each of us is a part of what makes up the Body of Christ, the
Church.
This
applies to what I said before. We are trying to be intentional
in changing the way people think about the Church and
Christianity. The Church is the individual and the global all at
the same time and we often forget this.
We often rely on pastors and buildings to be the Church
but we are all called to be active parts of the Body.
On
the outside looking in, to other churches in the area, we
probably look a little lazy and weird because we don’t plan
much as far as events or programs and we usually “let”
things happen, rather than “make” things happen. To
unchurched people in the area, those that are our friends
don’t see us as much of a church from what they’ve known.
They just think we’re sober people who know how to party and
barbeque carne asada really well.
4.
How does Matthew’s House outreach to the
"non-churched" in the community?
By
living life with them. What’s the point of making up programs
and stuff if churched people don’t instinctively reach out to
the hurting unchurched people they know in their everyday lives?
It will still be fruitless because churched people will simply
bring other churched people that are disgruntled with their
current church situation.
We
feel that it is much more important that the churched re-learn
what it means to be “in the world,” with the un-churched
without being “of the world.”
Why don’t we hang out in bars with people who don’t
follow Jesus? Typical answer: “Because drinking is wrong and I
don’t want to be a bad witness…" Order water!
I guess Jesus was a bad witness then ‘cause he hung out
in all the wrong places with all the wrong people. So I guess
that’s what we’re doing. Trying to re-learn what it means to
love our neighbors – the people in our ordinary lives. This
means spending some lengthy time with them. We all have
neighbors, people we work with and go to school with. We try to
pray for those people and pray that they will see Jesus through
us. We also throw parties, go to concerts, whatever we would
normally do… just with people who don’t know or don’t like
Jesus.
5.
How does Matthew’s House keep all the house churches
connected to each other, and (besides "the
connection") is other gatherings encouraged?
We’re
currently trying to build some online tools to help with this,
but for the most part, we try to allow these relationships to
develop naturally. We
throw parties, sometimes we have workshops and worship
gatherings but mostly we try allowing people’s lives to
intersect in a normal fashion. We don’t want this to turn into
another Christian club or clique which often happens when you
over-organize people’s free time.
We’ve
been saying something lately, “one vision, and many voices.”
The house churches that are a part of our family are connected
in similar purpose and ideals, they all have started out of
another church that’s already a part of the network.
However, the word “network” doesn’t describe us
very well. It’s more of an extended family. Churches have
started as people grew spiritually to the point that they were
ready to start a church. I don’t see those people all the time
anymore. Just like when my parents sent me out on my own, I
stopped seeing them all the time. You don’t see your whole
family all the time. You see them at holidays, weddings,
dedications, funerals and reunions. That’s pretty much how we
function. I
hadn’t seen some people from some churches in months until
recently when I saw them at my brother’s wedding.
6.
How does Matthew’s House minister to the needs of the
people in the community?
Since
we don’t have any facilities or staff to pay for we have been
able to free up most of our contributions to go towards taking
care of people. People are finally starting to take care of each
other more naturally, since their finances aren’t tied up in
other things. Someone needs a car part fixed but can’t afford
it, that person’s house church will pitch in and take care of
it. Someone is short on money for a trip they have to make we
pay for the trip. Someone wants to study something deeper;
we’ll buy the books. Someone has a baby or gets sick and
people get together, take care of meals and mow the yard. A
couple of guys get up early on their days off every week and
take their extra money, go buy juice, donuts and muffins and
give them out to all the migrant workers looking for work. At
first, we put a lot of effort into trying to be this way, but
people are starting to do it more naturally.
People
are spreading the word about it too. Several people from another
local church came to us first rather than their church when they
heard about a single mother that had been kicked out of her
apartment and needed help.
I don’t want that to sound like it was about us though.
Like I said, people are just doing this stuff, it’s a move of
the Holy Spirit, not anything we’re doing right necessarily.
7.
What does it take to start a house church with
Matthew’s House, training, education and heart - what ever it
takes?
We
require a PhD in Epistemology and a working knowledge of Old
Testament Hebrew… just kidding. At first, we would just cut
anyone loose that was excited about doing this. But we think
many house churches crumbled fast because of that. What we have
learned is that anyone can do this, but it’s helpful to be
“sent out” by some elders that you are accountable to and it
is important to understand your own ability to lead and your
gifting. We also don’t let people do it alone. No lone
rangers.
Any
closing thoughts or suggestions for others?
Yeah,
if I was confusing in any of this or need to be told I’m crazy
or whatever you can check out my blog at http://myvalentine.blogspot.com
and get in touch with me through there. You can also visit the
Matthew’s House site at http://www.matthewshouse.com … Power to
the people! John is cool!
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