Thursday is for Discipleship
I was going to save this for Monday’s post, but I had a great discussion with an American Missionary to Bolivia tonight in which it popped up as a discussion item and I decided I didn’t want to wait. Don’t think of this as a critique of the traditional church but as an analysis of what church is in its most basic form.
Question: How can we make small groups as simple as Simple-Church?
I agree with the three elements – LG, LO, MD, and like the order of them also. That is as simple as it gets. The individual to the most complex representation of church would be transformed and healthier if LG, LO, MD were its DNA.
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Love it. It catches all the essence and illustrates man’s insistence on attempting to improve on God’s plan for His Body.
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Kevin, John: thanks for throwing in your two cents.
Simple is good. Simple is reproducible. Simple is humble. Simple is … simple. But it’s not simplistic.
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This is quite well done. Bravo!
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Thank you for this excellent outline – very helpful tool. It also raises a question that I’ve been grappling with for a while. The four additional elements of the institutional church are buildings, staff, programs, and budget. I agree that these elements fundamentally complicate and have a way of distorting the primary purposes of the church. Can someone explain to me (particularly with regard to staff and budget/money) if it is really possible to TOTALLY abandon a certain amount of organization in these areas?
If we can TOTALLY abandon it…what do we replace it with? In addition to this question, what do the office gifts of pastor and evangelist look like and how are they cared for in a simple church format? If there is a book that deals specifically with these issues, I’d love to get my hands on it – thanks!
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