The Church

Recently I was having a conversation with the college pastor I work for. He has a very northern, out-of-the-box mindset when it comes to church and Jesus, something I find refreshing at times. I was expressing my love for The Village Church and how it is a place I want to look into going. They have a rapid growing congregation and an excellent pastor, Matt Chandler. He, Vince, expressed some hesitation in my desire to go there. When I pressed him as to why he said, "I just think we really need to rethink church. He began to talk to me about the New Testament church, and the period of time between 100-200 AD and how it was the fastest growing time period for the church in all of history. They had no full bibles, no buildings, no lead pastors, no worship leaders, no programs and no heirarchy and when the church began to become insitutionalized, buildings were built (first around 250 AD) that rapdi growth was quenched. He asked, how much of the Village is unintentionally centered around Matt's ability to speak? How many of those members of the rapid growth are just people transfering from other local churches? What would happen if he were to leave? I was defensive at first and then he pointed me to this article and and a book he had read. I have not been able to stop thinking about this idea of church, what did Jesus establish it to be, what did that look like in the early church and how have we gotten it so far off track. I decided to do my systematic paper on the topic and I have been amazed at what I found. Here are some links and books if you are interested this is something very worth our time to research!
Leadership (Winter 2007)- We aren't about Weekends-http://www.ctlibrary.com/41509 (this is about a church 20 minutes from Forth Worth, I hope to visit it soon.
The Forgotten Ways- Alan Hirsch
From the Ground Up- Scott Horrell
The Problem with Wineskins of Today- Howard Snyder