A More Biblical Ecclesial Culture

In my last article, I introduced the idea of a functional ecclesiology, a plan to restore the ecclesia (aka “the church”) to its intended functionality. This sounds like a big job, and it is. Way too big for one person or even a thousand, but we have to start somewhere.

Note: I am using the term ecclesia instead of church for two reasons. First, it’s more accurate. At the time of the Apostles and for centuries before, ecclesia referred to a gathering of people, while the English word church originally referred to a physical structure, not to people, and it often carries that same connotation of a “church building” today. Second, church carries too much baggage. Not only is it associated with a building, but it’s also associated with a particular manner of religious organization and gathering. Ecclesia is singular, and I’ll use it most of the time. Ecclesiai is plural, and I’ll use it when it seems required by the context.

Over the last month, our local fellowship and others in the Central Texas area has been talking about the first century church and how it compares to God’s people in the Wilderness, the Promised Land, and in exile among the nations of the world then and now. At our Sukkot event, we set aside some time around the campfire to talk it over as a group. We talked about some of the problems we have seen in the churches we came from and that we were currently seeing in our own fellowships and the Torah movement as a whole. More importantly, we talked about how the Scriptures describe the organization, functioning, and activities of the first century ecclesia.

We have been grafted into Israel, so it makes sense to look to God’s original instructions for Israel as given through Moses and Joshua. Those instructions are of limited application, however, since we are in neither the wilderness camp nor the Promised Land. We also have the Apostolic record in the book of Acts, the Epistles, and the Seven Letters of Yeshua to the ecclesiai in Asia. These are much more directly relevant, but since culture, technology, and available data has changed so much over the last two millennia, we will still need to adapt those writings to our modern context.

Check out some excerpts of our discussions on Acts and 1 & 2 Timothy at Wild Branch Community here:

• Acts
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy

Two of the biggest problems we face are the entrenched church culture that we’re leaving and the madhouse of a mostly leaderless Torah movement. The only thing that can fix those once and for all is the return of Yeshua to establish his personal reign over the whole world from Jerusalem. Until then, though, he has delegated that mission to us, and we have a responsibility to preserve and multiply his ecclesia.

Church Culture

Christian churches (and even Jewish synagogues!) throughout the world are almost universally organized around a pastor. Some churches might have an assistant pastor, and large churches might have a team of them, but it almost always comes down to an interactive concert followed by one person lecturing (or shouting) to rows of people who check of that weekly obligation and go home. It’s an age-segregated entertainment venue where people go to get a religious buzz that makes them feel like they’re being spiritual without presenting too much of a personal challenge.

Within that framework, there are some churches doing a great job, but they are doing so against the pressure of the organizational structure and cultural expectations. Eventually the weight of the system drags them back down to the same old routine of congregants filing in to be blessed or cursed by the weekly sermon only to forget it all when they walk out the doors. The sermon is a product, and the people are consumers.

Torah Culture

The Torah Movement (including Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots, and others) has mostly been a spontaneous movement by the Holy Spirit across the whole world, awakening former Gentiles to their place in the Commonwealth of Israel alongside the native branches and drawing them back to God’s instructions. Unfortunately, we seemed to have stalled somewhere along the way. We started keeping the Sabbath and God’s other appointed times. We cleaned up our diets, tied on tzitziyot, and adopted some Hebrew terminology, all of which is great but also mostly self-focused.

It was entirely appropriate that we started with ourselves, but to a large degree we seem to have forgotten that the point of obedience isn’t “me”, but God and neighbor. All of God’s commandments are instruction in how to love others. As Moses and Yeshua said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This means we have to learn to love ourselves too, but the point of learning to love ourselves is becoming able to love others. Instead of loving each other, we’re drowning in pointless arguments over relatively trivial things like the proper spelling and pronunciation of words, how to wear fringes, and what shade of blue you’re allowed to use.

We have some great leaders who are trying to reintroduce some order and common sense and to direct their people to doing tangible good in the world, but they are mostly just single voices without any real authority outside of their own websites.

The Start of a Solution

We have already instituted some changes in our local fellowship to address some of these issues:

• We meet in a private home, not in church building, so we have no debt, and our expenses are minimal.
• We appointed elders to teach and keep order. We don’t dictate what everyone must believe, but we do have some “bottom line” doctrines as Yeshua and his Apostles instructed, and we take that responsibility seriously.
• Our gatherings are centered on fellowship and mutual edification, not on lecturing and entertaining. This means that we share a meal and that most of our time is spent in open discussion. We sit in a circle so that everyone faces each other, and everyone is free to speak and ask questions as long as order is maintained.
• In addition to the weekly Torah portion, we chose to focus on the Apostolic writings that are most relevant to the structure and health of a local fellowship. We started with Acts, then 1 Timothy, and now we’re in 2 Timothy.
• In our individual homes, we are all doing the same daily Bible study that follows the weekly Torah portion but also includes passages from the Writings, Prophets, and New Testament. We’re all using the same guide on the same schedule and sharing our thoughts in a chat group using the Signal app.
• We are actively looking for opportunities to help each other with real needs.

Here are some things that we are working on implementing now:

• We are helping some families in another town to start meeting in their homes. They visit us when they can, but it’s a long drive, and they have neighbors and family who are looking for fellowship. At least one of our elders will be there to facilitate the gathering and teach as required.
• We are putting together a plan for discipling everyone in our community, but with particular focus on those men who could take over as elders in their own neighborhood.
• We intend to stay connected across our local region, providing guidance and leadership as needed, and bringing everyone together for regular events to make sure that relationships keep building, especially among our children.

But there is still so much to do! This is necessarily a slow process–strong relationships and good leaders aren’t built in just a few months–but we’ve started and don’t intend to stop. I hope that every one of our home fellowships grows until they are too big for a single house and are forced to replicate (not split and not get a building!) over and over.

Nobody here is Paul, but God has given us a mission to do the best we can here in Central Texas.  If you’d like to help, I have three requests of you: First, please pray for us. Pray for wisdom, the guidance of God’s Spirit, and whatever resources it takes to make this happen. Second, if you know of any home fellowships in Texas, Louisiana, or Oklahoma, please let me know. I’d like to learn from their experience and maybe network with them. Third, if you know anybody between Houston and Austin who is looking for fellowship and is tired of the consumer Mary-go-round of church culture, send them my way. I’d love to talk to them.