Quote from Forum Archives on February 21, 2004, 8:15 pm

Posted by: prophetic <prophetic@...>

NOTE: There is a full discussion of this 'Out-of-church'
phenomenon in the book "The Out-of-church Christians"
which is free to download at www.streetrevival.com
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From: "Weiler" <kweiler@telus.net>
Date sent: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:26:14 -0800

Response to "I'm Out-of-Church, But..."
-by Joel Weiler.

Trevor, what you have written about your concern for 'Out
of church Christians', including yourself, is not an unfounded
or uncommon concern. When my daughter wanted to court
a man recently, the first thing we wanted to know is - "is he
a Christian", and then "does he go to church?" Typically,
through most of our life experience, if a person proclaimed
faith in Christ, and they didn't go to church, this usually
ended up that they were off base in some significant way.
Yet here I am, also an 'out of church' Christian, based on
my own previous concepts, and someone I should
beware of!!

This is probably why Andrew decided your letter was a good
one to publish, as it addresses a major issue, because all
of a sudden there literally are thousands flooding out of the
institutional churches, and to most people's accounts, who
knows where they are all going?!

What becomes of 'out of church' Christians? Are they out
of God's will? Are they putting themselves directly in harms
way and soon to be readily devoured by the enemy? Are
they rebellious in nature against God & church (-notice we
assume the two synonymous). I would remind us all -
Martin Luther was 'out of church' once, as was John the
Baptist for a major part of his life, not to mention most of
the leaders of every major spiritual advance in church history.

The very statement 'Out of church' says a lot in itself
about our concepts. In your letter you said you were out
of church, yet had been part of some Christian fellowships
in smaller gatherings these past 15 months. Does the
size of the congregation determine a church? Or a
pulpit, sound system maybe, or even a professionally
paid Pastor, a row of pews for the audience, or some
church programs?

I would challenge you that perhaps you have been
experiencing a measure of 'church' with your comrades
as it is more biblically and historically defined, and not
fully appreciated for what it is - although perhaps it's in
a "grass roots" level of development, and still without
significant leadership. The early church found themselves
often in this predicament. Leadership must come forth
ultimately, or as you said, things can get weird, and often
wallow without any seeming sense of direction. One of
our problems however in modern 'church', is an excessive
'leading' where the leaders simply do almost everything
spiritually significant, and cue the rest of the people like
dummies. A lot of people coming out of such a setting
react to that excess with a well deserved mistrust of overt
leadership. 'Lord of the Rings' is an excellent allegory of
this. The wise and honorable feared even themselves to
carry the ring, for they had seen what was in almost every
man. Many leaving the institutionalized churches are
looking for a re-defined leadership, moved by a greater
fidelity and fear than the last. This is coming.

Obviously we all need a proper definition of Church, and
Leadership, Elders, Pastoring.

And then it would be helpful to know where all these
people leaving, are leaving to. Are they going somewhere -
or shall we assume that their Christian journey is over the
minute they leave our super visible institutions?

More intriguing yet is the question that will get us all, as
Andrew Strom himself has asked - Is God leading them,
could this possibly be a move of God? Or are they all just
reacting immaturely to abuses, as you mentioned, and just
unwilling to get back in there and have another go? I'm
sure there's a good mixture of all this. But when thousands
across the world, and often some of the most spiritually
dedicated and experienced believers, are heading out the
door, perhaps we'd better ask ourselves [-some deeper
questions than the shallow ones we often ask].
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