If Ur Theology ______ You Might Be A __________

The Church is a hospital for sinners. That is true. The Church is the place where Word and Sacrament are preached and administered, and those are things that you need. Sadly, nowadays, especially in light of our egalitarian and postmodern society, there are some downright wrong ideas of the Church out there. At the very least, there are ideas that throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One such problem running rampant these days is a severe lack of a doctrine of the Office of the Ministry, which leads to a denial of any sort of structure within the Church and finally to self-sufficient worship where there are no means of grace present, no pastors, and no authority. I refer to modern House Church movements mainly.

It is true that local churches met in houses in the first century. However, what is also true is that those first century house churches were nothing like what people are trying to bring back today. They generally met in very large houses that accomodated many people. It wasn't four people sitting around whipping up an emotional atmosphere with an acoustic guitar. It wasn't unstructured anti-liturgical spontaneous combustion either.

The worst theological book I have ever read, Pagan Christianity by Viola and Barna, argued for these sorts of things. Their arguments were extremely faulty for the most part. In essence, some of their argumentation went sort of like this:

• The Early Church met in houses.
• We meet in buildings specifically for "church."
• Therefore, buildings for church are pagan because we're not meeting in houses.

No really, that's sort of how they argued in a roundabout way. Yet this is not the main point of this blog. Having a building for corporate worship is a blessing, not a sin. I'm pretty sure the first century Christians didn't have the resources to just up and build church buildings. So much for the Prosperity Gospel, eh?

The underlying problem with all of this is that this movement does not have any sort of doctrine of the Office of the Ministry. They use the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers quite incorrectly in order to do away with structure within the church and offices within the church. They generally think ordination is a scam as well.

But, this is precisely what Christ Himself instituted. He brought a Kingdom, of which He is the King. He also sent officers to do His work within that Kingdom. He sent Apostles first and then the Apostles sent more people. We have pastors, for instance. The Roman Catholic Church has priests. The bottom line is that the Church needs officers. The Church needs overseers. The Church needs pastors, elders, and deacons. Christ instituted offices. He did not institute a spontaneous free-for-all.

This is not about equality. We're all equal in Christ. It's about what Jesus Christ Himself gave us.

These officers are ordained and commissioned to do Christ's work, to deliver Christ to a sinful world via His Word, given to us in the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments.

Yes, the Greek word used for church in the New Testament (and the Septuagint) means an assembly, more or less. The House Church proponents once again abuse the meaning of this word to flaunt their self-sufficient agenda. In short, they use the definition of the Greek word for church and eliminate everything that comes with that term. It's just an assembly of believers, they say. And again, that's true. But within that assembly of believers, Christ gave us the Office of the Ministry.

Looks like fun, but this aint church.

So, if you are running away from the Church as Kingdom of believers that includes offices of leadership, you're running in the wrong direction. The Church is an assembly, but it's also an institution. Christ Himself gave us men to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. He didn't set up a House Church with no leadership and a heavy dose of spontaneity.

If you're running away from the Church as both assembly of saints and institution of grace with clear leadership and confessions - and running to a house church instead - you're actually running away from Christ and what He gave us.



You're not "doing church." Your version of church isn't more authentic or more real. It's actually false, prideful, and unbelieving. In reality, you're playing church much like little girls play tea parties with empty plastic cups. There is no substance. There is no leadership. You have no Sacrament. There is absolutely nothing except yourself to guard against heresy.

You got nothing, yo. It's nothing more than a version of me, myself, and I Christianity. They love Jesus, but they don't love what He gave us. They love their Father in heaven, but they despise their mother that Christ gave them here to give them grace and guide them to eternity.

Don't get me wrong here either. I am in no way against house worship and family worship. I'm not against small groups. I'm not against meeting together to pray and read the Scriptures as often as possible. But Max and his acoustic is not a means of grace, either.

Don't run from the Church, silly.

But those things are not the church catholic. You need to go to that place, usually held in a building, that delivers Word and Sacrament to you. Stop despising Christ's gifts to you just because you don't like corporate worship and think you can do it better yourself. You can't, and what you are doing is not church.

So yeah...If Ur Theology says you should run away from that mother the Church that Christ gave you, that hospital for sinners and that embassy of grace via Word and Sacrament through the Office of the Ministry, given for you to deliver the forgiveness of sins...

You might be a pagan yourself, because what you're passing off as church is a form of unbelief.

House Churches in the modern day form are nothing more than rebellions against what Christ Himself gave us, and Viola and Barna's book Pagan Christianity is the epitome of this rant against what Christ instituted. Don't be fooled by a couple guys with an agenda. Get to church.