May 10,
2007
Start a church –
how Jesus would
A friend wants to start a church. Let’s help her do it.
First, the word “church.” Should she use it?
That wasn’t Jesus’ word. He envisioned “friends” going out to serve, not an institution drawing
members out of the world.
It was persecution that led Jesus’ followers to gather in safe places and to focus
inward. After the Christian movement got the upper hand, “church” came to mean institution, buildings, orthodoxy and
rule. Are such paradigms worth perpetuating?
Second, denomination, in her case United Methodist. She wants
denominational funding to get started, but does she need its overhead and brand image? The fastest-growing congregations are
so-called “community” churches that avoid denomination entirely. Even within denominations, many congregations are
dropping their brand name, rather than be dragged down by faded franchises and their recent history of arguing over trivialities.
Third, name. Should she give her dream a name? Or does
the act of naming begin to hem in the dream? Nowadays saints’ names are out of favor, and conceptual words like
“peace” and “family” are overused. That leaves location, like “Westside Community
Church,” or religious agenda, like “Bible Believers’ Church.”
It also leaves—dare we think it?—having no name at all.
Instead of focusing people’s attention on an external, suggesting permanence and structure, focus their attention on the fellowship
itself, on the relationship, on the bonds they form.
Fourth, space. Does a “church” need a
“home”? The so-called “emerging church” movement gets by with meeting each week in whatever space is
available and letting one another know by e-mail. The old rule for church start-ups was six acres and a down payment on a
building. Do land and mortgages actually nurture healthy faith communities?
If churchgoers weren’t managing space and raising funds to pay mortgages, what would
they be doing? Interesting question.
Finally, clergy. Does a faith community need an ordained pastor who serves
as designated liturgist, caregiver, volunteer recruiter and leader? I’m not trying to put my friend out of a
job. I’m just wondering about the traditional model. Maybe its time for self-organizing networks, rather
than centralized authority.
If my friend were to imagine an enterprise that avoided the loaded word
“church,” the brand problems of denomination, the dream-inhibiting impact of name, the cost and inflexibility of space, and the
vocational compromises inherent in ordination, what would she do?
I think she could do what Jesus did: teach a few people and draw them into a radically
inclusive circle of friendship. Meet on hillsides, in living rooms, over meals, and talk about the in-breaking kingdom of
God—intensely relevant, transformative, troubling and yet exhilarating, not requiring persecution to have urgency, but touched by
grace.
She would have to avoid the hyper-religious tone that Christianity often displays, the
holier-than-anyone attitude that supposedly feeds evangelism but actually celebrates self. As people gathered around her, she
would need to remember that it isn’t all about her, but about God. She would confront the tendency of community churches to
be like-minded.
Her denomination would resist, of course, but putting their institutional imperatives
alongside her actualized dream of Christians gathered would be good for them.
Fr. Tom Ehrich is an author, columnist,
church consultant and Episcopal priest who lives in Durham, NC
