Church Re-Structure

Here's an interesting article by Alan Hartung about the need for re-structuring the Church:

CHURCH RE-STRUCTURE

His idea is to re-structure the service so that more people can get involved in the congregation. I like his spirit, but I he gets caught up with the symptoms and misses the much deeper problem. The deeper problem is even that for much of Christianity, the worship service is the center of Christian life. It's no mistake, I think, that we get very few examples of how to put on a fantastic worship service in the Bible. We do, however, get plenty of examples on how to radically serve the community.

My own comment to Alan's article (number 12) can be viewed at the very very bottom. Or here :)

Unfortunately, Alan, in my humble opinion, the heart of the problem lies beyond church structure to the very way in which we look at the church and its purpose. The problem is that we spend way too much time focusing on the church and how to make it better. What we are really doing is focusing on ourselves. This self-love (or self-hatred) is at the very heart of the problem that you are writing about. Unfortunately, in a way, you are feeding the problem.

Who, in the Bible, spent the most time focusing on their own internal structure; who started their own sect because the one in power wasn't good enough, holy enough; who stoned the one's that broke the rules? The PHARISEES! Jesus, however, went into the community. He went to the poor. He went to the sick. He healed people on the street. He taught in the hills. The focus for Jesus was not the temple but the community.

For the Body of Christ, the Church--yes, that's right, the Church is Christ's body present in the world--the church service is like the cardio-respiratory system. It supplies blood and oxygen, life and vigor to the body parts. But if that's all the Church is then we have a dead Church. Where are the muscles? Where are the hands and feet at work in the community? THESE ARE WHAT PEOPLE CARE ABOUT? WHAT "SEEKERS" ARE LOOKING FOR? No one cares if someone has a really good heart and set of lungs if THEY ARE NOT USING THEM!

What I say is stop worrying about structure. Stop caring about the 80-20 rule. Instead let's get our hands and feet dirty in the community. Let's love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Listen to them. Pray for them. And lead them out to the streets and preach the good news with our hands and with our mouth. In my humble opinion, that's the Church!