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UK is facing an organic revival! Check out (sorry!) tesco.com
and you can get organic everything from the standard organic
fruit and vegetables to organic baby food, organic wine and
even organic pet food. So maybe it is time for the Church to
go organic too, or maybe it was always meant to be an organic
community movement of the followers of Jesus Christ anyway?
Perhaps during the last two millennia the Church has been spoiled
by a multitude of additives and preservatives and now we just
can't tell the difference.
Once upon a time God spoke through a prophet
saying "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot
stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings,
I will not accept them. Though you bring me choice fellowship
offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise
of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a
never failing stream!"
Do you ever get fed up with the religiousness of communion?
When Jesus said "do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance
of me" (1 Cor. 11.25) he was not instituting a religious
ceremony but rather encouraging us to remember him every time
we eat and drink together. As the church goes organic we will
do a lot more eating and drinking with friends, neighbours
and strangers because that is where real community is built.
Do you ever get fed up with meetings? How
often do we hear it quoted from the Bible "do not give
up meeting together" as the reason for attending the
Sunday meeting every week or to coax you to join a small group
or attend the latest series of special meetings? Biblical
theology makes it very clear that it is impossible to 'go
to church' - when anyone aligns their life with Jesus Christ
they are initiated into his community: the church (1 Cor.12.13).
As the church goes organic people will stop 'going to church'
and start being the church 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Do you ever get fed up with paying your
church tax? Why should we be disempowered by centralised giving
mechanisms? As the church goes organic it will empower individuals
and households to do such things as: give to those in the
community in hardship, save up and buy a set of text books
for a local school, support facilitators of the Christian
community or put aside money in case of a natural disaster.
Do you ever get fed up with singing the
songs? Within the evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal
traditions of the church, which many of us have grown up in
and love - worship has been reduced to the singing of hymns
and songs. Our language of 'lets worship' gives us away -
if we don't mean it, then lets not say it. As the church goes
organic it will encounter God in the whole of life as we offer
ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Rom.12.1).
Perhaps you, like me, feel like this but you dare not say
anything because you know you might get branded as 'unsound'.
As the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke says 'lets cut
the crap and make it happen'! Everything you have called Church
call it congregation and everyone you have called a Church
leader call them a congregational leader. As an organic community
of the followers of Jesus Christ we are all the church and
leaders of it in every sector of society. Let's take the name
church upon ourselves because we are the church - it does
not exist outside of us. As a friend of mine says: 'whoever
gets the name church, wins'.
Let's put a stop to our pre-occupation with
meetings and lets rediscover organic community. Let's grow
a faith that is meaningful for life, for our workplace, for
our households and for our neighbourhoods. These are the places
where we spend our time. These are the arenas where our faith
needs to work rather than confining our faith to a few hours
a week in a meeting. Let's encourage our congregational leaders
to reinvent themselves to coach and facilitate an organic
grassroots movement of the followers of Jesus Christ.
We must expect that like every new church
movement in history this groundswell (which I do not want
to name) will not be recognised as a valid form of church
by the majority. However let's be different from every other
new church movement in history and say this is just another
way of being and doing church rather than 'the way' and thereby
condemning everyone else.
Let's stop taking the additives and preservatives
and let rot and die what is meant to rot and die and see something
organic begin.
Matt Bird is Director of Joshua Generation
a charity developing leaders to transform society, a strategic
management consultant, author Christian Book of the Year 2002
'Manifesto for life' and Councillor for the London Borough
of Merton.
email: mattbird@joshgen.org
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