The other day, somebody sent me a quote from Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the United States Senate. Initially, the church was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. This is entirely accurate. If you look at Acts Chapters 2 and 3, you see this: the burgeoning growth of the church and the start of the church is really where you see this centered on the living Christ, centered on this idea of what Christ tells Peter, I will build my church on this rock. This rock being that he is the Messiah, he is the living Christ. And that is what those early believers did for the church. We even see that in the book of Hebrews, pay attention to the gathering of each other.
It was all about coming together, worshiping, praying, and getting to know and better understand this entity that was the Living Christ they had lived with. Many of them had walked with Christ, so they had that first-hand account of Jesus.
The quote then says the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. The Greek philosophers were going to become much more mind-centric. They will look at things from a mental standpoint, and they start debating this idea of who God is. When you see Socrates and Plato, they're talking about man's existence with this universal being, which becomes this philosophy.
It moves away from this idea of a living Christ and becomes more of a picture of a philosophy, of a thinking view. There is pulling back from the idea of people being with Christ; instead, the church becomes an abstract concept.
Then it moves to Rome. The church went from meeting in the houses of the Living Christ in Greece to Rome, where it became an institution. This is where we see the rise of the Roman Catholic Church. It becomes a governmental body. It becomes an institution. It becomes this idea of mixing politics and religion, and we will move further away from the idea that it's a living Christ. We will move further away from the concept of a mental state of philosophy. Instead, we will incorporate an institutional quality to the church where the church and the government become intertwined.
Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. Now, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing if you want to talk about a church culture, and I don't believe that it's bad when you talk about a church culture unless it becomes a legalistic mindset culture, which I think is precisely what this chaplain Halverson might have been speaking of.
This is the Martin Luther. The breaking away from the Roman Catholic rituals, the breaking away from the idea that you have to do something for salvation, and instead, it gets back a little bit to the Scripture.
Finally, the church moved to America, where it became an enterprise. You see, the root start is in the late 1800s and early 1900s America when you visit the rise of the charismatic movement; Churches moved from worshipping the Living Christ to a business.
Don’t get me wrong, churches 100% require money to operate. And anyone who doesn't think that has not read their Bible closely. Jesus, at one point, tells his disciples not to take anything when they go out because he's expecting the support of the people they are going to. He says, if you do not get their help, wipe the dust off your feet of that town.
So churches have a business aspect to it. But when it becomes an enterprise, it becomes about the brand more than what is happening inside the building, which is what has happened in America; that is a big problem.
The church has become an enterprise in the United States. Look around your town. Why? Is it because it’s more about the brand than the message? And when we're talking about church being an enterprise, that's what we're talking about here. Is it more about the brand or the message of Jesus Christ as our Savior through his sacrifice? Because you can't have it be about both. If the emphasis is on the brand, if the focus is on the enterprise of the church, then guess what? You're going to sacrifice the repentance and sin side of it. Because it's more about the brand, it's more about them getting people through the door and selling their t-shirts and hats than about what's going on stage.
Do you agree with those five stages? Living Christ, Philosophy, Institution, Culture, Enterprise, the five growth stages of the church. Do you agree with them?
