I read Jeff’s review of “Organic Church” with interest. I had a question though Jeff - what do these “coffee shop” churches actually look like? I mean, are they just sitting at a table in Starbucks doing a Bible study together? Isn’t it a bit noisy and distracting?

Craig Schwarze - 10 March 2008 02:23 PM

I read Jeff’s review of “Organic Church” with interest. I had a question though Jeff - what do these “coffee shop” churches actually look like? I mean, are they just sitting at a table in Starbucks doing a Bible study together? Isn’t it a bit noisy and distracting?

Hey Craig,

What I gathered was that the coffee shop was where these churches were birthed, and that things like studying the bible together were not then necessarily done in the coffee shop, but back in people’s houses not unlike a normal bible study group. The members of the new church would continue to frequent the coffee shop in order to just drink coffee, hang out and meet more new people who would either join the exisiting group or form their own new ‘church’.

On the other hand, I am reading “They Like Jesus but not the Church” by Dan Kimball at the moment, and he describes how he, as a Pastor, went from doing all his weekly stuff in his churches office Mon to Fri, to spending a couple of days out in various coffee shops every week. He even did his sermon prep, complete with laptop and bible commentaries at the coffee shop. He says that by doing this the number of not-yet-saved friends he had skyrocketed.

Who knows? Some of us with a mobile work arrangement could do something similar. I have tried it occaisionally with my laptop and wireless card, but it needs to be pretty regular I think in order to meet the same people and start friendships.

Our church has a *lot* of meetings at the pub across the road.

Regarding the Organic Church - if they are actually meeting in someones house rather than in public, I wonder how the multiplication happens??

Here is an interesting article or two by Tim Keller on contextual ministry

‘Freedom’ vs ‘Forgiveness’ Gospel. The basic difference between people I meet today has to do with how and why they will see they need the gospel. People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to a) have a belief in God, and b) have a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be “good”. This may be a sense of obligation to their family, their people, a general moral ethic, a tradition, a religion (including Christianity), and so on. These folk respond well to a presentation that says, “Sin keeps you from ever being as good as you need to be, and it therefore separates you from God.” People with more secular and “post-modern” mindsets tend to a) have only a vague belief in the divine if at all and, b) have little sense of moral absolutes. Therefore, they feel the obligation to be free and true to their own selves and dreams. These folk respond well to a presentation that says, “Sin keeps you from being free as you need to be, and therefore it enslaves and de-humanizes you.”

What do you think of Kellers approach?

Craig Schwarze - 10 March 2008 08:45 PM

Our church has a *lot* of meetings at the pub across the road.

Regarding the Organic Church - if they are actually meeting in someones house rather than in public, I wonder how the multiplication happens??

I guess the answer to that is you don’t need to be part of/exposed to a church service/gathering in order to meet Jesus and be saved by Him.

This is sometimes an unspoken assumption behind Attractional strategies - the only way people will become Christians is if we “invite them to church” and they hear the word spoken by a professional preacher. I think we need ot give God more credit than this!

I mean, we all preach don’t we? With what we say, how we live. It’s not like the gospel is overly complicated. People suck, God is good, Jesus died for sin.

True enough Jeff - but then what value is the “small group” focus of the movement? Why not have people in traditional “big” churches who also meet up in the coffee house or pub every week? Wouldn’t that be just as effective?

Craig Schwarze - 11 March 2008 09:55 AM

True enough Jeff - but then what value is the “small group” focus of the movement? Why not have people in traditional “big” churches who also meet up in the coffee house or pub every week? Wouldn’t that be just as effective?

If you ask me, I would probably say yes.

Remember, I’m not anti big church. More anti pour-every-ounce-of-effort-and-resources-into-2-hours-on-a-sunday.

I agree Jeff
what I think tends to happen is that we see the real business end happen on sunday - and what happens the rest of the time becomes subsidary.

More and more energy gets poured into the buidlings programs and preachers who become the functional cetnre of our activity, and there is less time and energy avialble for the hard yards of meeting people in culture.

The longer you are a Christian, the more time you spend on parish councils, worling bees, runnning programs, fulfuilling rosters, financially supporting a burgeoning administration - and less time at the coal face. We become so busy running church and keeping it affloat that we wake up and realise we don’t have time for lost people, we;re burnt out ‘doing church’ and Jesus’ gospel has somehow become dependant on the machine of church, rather than unleashed in every christain serving and engaging as a missionary
That role has become some experts job whilst my role is to pay for it to happen and turn up when I am rostered.

whilst i find a number of irratiing things about organic church, the most singularly refreshing aspect is that Cole says, keep it simple, keep it Jesus and the bible, keep it all about discipling people where they are in culture, As cole states up front- its being church in the smoking section.

The theory all sounds good, but I’d want to see someone put it into practice locally, and successfully, before I paid too much more attention.

maybe pay some attention to the amount of plateauing attractional models that can’t out impress the place next door?!
or maybe pay some attention to the amount of pastors, leaders, parishioners and everyday punters who are no longer hooked in anywhere cause they are burnt out, bummed out or bumped out.
this malpractice aint theory brother. we are already practicing it ‘succesfully’.

My fear is that if we stick with what we think ‘ works’ and what we think is ‘successfui’ we may find ourselves trapped in a paradigm that blinds us to the reality that we are not really connecting with anybody other than ourselves. The NCLS stats are damning at this point.

I wonder why the Diocese of Sydney, which is a fundamentally a small church movement incesantly tries to move from its potential strength to its tried and tested weakness. We are not good at growing big churches.

Cole decribes the same battle he faced within his own denomination, that is it is hard to see beyond the dominant paradigms of sucess and pragmatism, and although I think Lenard Sweet makes an overstatement, he describes Coles model as the red pill. That is, until we redefine our models of sucess we will never get the shift that needs to take place.

I am not sure Organic Church is ‘the red pill’ but it give you an idea of what the rabbit warren might be like.

Shane, I’m saying I’m open-minded to the alternatives - but I want to see a “true believer” (like yourself or Jeff) put it into practice. And I don’t think you will ever convince the whole diocese just using argument and reasoning - most people will want to see that the new model actually works before putting a toe in the water.

Hey Craig...5000 posts - Congratulations!

I had the opportunity at our recent church weekend away to speak to everyone about what it means to be a missional church, not because I’m an expert per se, but that I have been thinking about it more than most.

My comment to people was not “hey let’s abandon this whole organised church thing and go Organic”. I’m a bit with you - it’s hard to imagine without seeing it in practice.

What I did encourage was some of the elements/practices of Organic church (and other approaches).

So for example I wanted people’s view/focus of the Sunday gathering (I think we should cease to call it church - that’s another debate), not because it’s not important - it is - but in order to significantly elevate the status of the other 166 hours of the week in relation to being the church, connecting with people, particularly our immediate neighbours and work/school mates, serving abd blessing the commununity etc.

We talked about small ways of connecting with people, particularly about really listening to people and understanding the mess in their lives. This then provides to opportuinities to pray for people. It is amazing how powerful an offer to pray for someone is. They usually have not had such an offer before and are almost always super appreciative. It shows you take prayer (and by implication) your faith seriously.

Hey Craig...5000 posts - Congratulations!

Oh, man...frightening… ;-)

I reckon you get all your content out here rather than on your blog dude!

I don’t think you will ever convince the whole diocese just using argument and reasoning

you are right but I wouldn’t describe my self as a true believer when it comes to organic church,

The biggest hurdle is the paradomg shift but I thnk that is beginning to happen.it is always going to be difficult to show someone something if they are looking for something else. Hence the need for these conversations and forums.

We have moved in a relatively short time from 2 sunday services to one main sunday meeting and many other small church meetings. Its more a hybrid model but significantly we see these meetings as more than bible studies. We are not calling them church plants because poeple have already made up in thier mind what that is and tts all too grandiose and triumphalistic.
I am just calling them little people gatherings. We have a new one starting in mid april (the lord willing). The goal is for this little poeple gatheing to start a new little people gathering within the year.

Tangent
A29 have an interesting goal in their philosophy which I thnk we have missed. Thier aim is to plant churches that will plant churches.

in the church planting thinking around our traps, I wonder how much multiplication factors into peoples thinking.  We tend to create new congregations but not go the next step of planting congregations out of them.

BTW the more infuriating thing about Organic church is that he nevers really states his ecclesiology positively, he just describes what it isn’t. 
This is the strength of total church

I reckion we should count words - not posts - but congrats on the milestone of 5002!

Jeff could point

Steve Timmis helpfully talks about church primarily as identity. This fits well with what you are suggesting. We are always church- in Christ by faith, in my neighbour by love, and we gathering togetjher and scatter together in different ways at different times and places. It has really helped me to see the difference.