Reimagining Church

I am reading a bunch of books right now.

One is Living Water by Brother Yun which is mentioned in other posts. Another is The Flaxen Femme Fatale by Zakour (title is much more lurid than the content). Still another is The Urban Homestead by Coyne and Knutzen (don't like the zoning laws against chickens in the city here in Kansas!).

But right now I am making the most progress through Reimagining Church by Frank Viola (not the Frankie Viola, pitcher for the Twins). The book is about home churches and how they function.

More than that there is the examination of a lot of the traditions and practices in organized religion. Things such as big buildings, non participatory worship, hierarchical church leadership, religious doctrine and the like.

And I keep coming across other things that point in the same direction such as the article today in Christianity Today on music and how so much of the music in church is performance based.

Going TO church is not the same as BEING the church and much of organized religion tends to suck the joy out of worship.

I have often heard the saying that religion is DO and Christianity is DONE. This means that religion requires us to do things to achieve salvation while Christ's death on the cross means that we don't have to do anything, salvation is accomplished.

Unfortunately, organized Christianity has turned Christ's death and resurrection into a religion.

I'll be honest, I am not sure how I am to deal with this...

More prayer... for a start.