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How Will the Church Operate?
At the 2009 GC Conference, this topic was presented for discussion and was met with much passionate response. In fact, there was so much participation that we decided to post it on the forum for continued discussion…and for those who were not able to be there to add their comments as well.
The topic centered upon how the church will operate without a permanent, central meeting place, or what we call our “church building”. Many concerns were expressed, and ideas exchanged about this. And…there have been happenings since the GC Conference to further promote the possibility of the following scenario actually occurring – in our day! Here (in quotation marks below) is what was presented as background for the much animated dialogue that followed:
“Let’s suppose that 10 years from now, we are living on the brink of total governance: that the economy has collapsed and is now being tightly controlled by the government; that most Americans are struggling financially just to survive; that speech is being tightly controlled; that all dissenting opinions are regarded as unpatriotic and subject to prosecution; that any public speech that seems to be critical of the new morality is regarded as hate speech and is subject to prosecution; that Christianity is looked upon as a renegade and unpatriotic religion; and that government is confiscating any church building they can on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Now let’s suppose that because of the new reality, most assemblies have no central meeting place and the impoverished flock is scattered over a large geographical area. The best most church members can do is assemble together in small groups in private homes.”
There are several areas of concern should the above state of affairs occur
1.How would the people of an assembly recognize the overseeing elders?
2.What would be the role of the heads of the homes where people are assembling?
3.What would be the role of elders in the home gatherings?
4.In what ways would those who are not elders participate?
5.Does each local assembly have enough elders in place now to do the work? If not, what is being done about it?
6.How would the saints be equipped for their works of ministry? What would they be equipped to do?
7.How would people operate without any elders present?
The real concern is: How will the church operate without a “church building”?
So, the question presented to start the discussion was something like this:
"How would the elders oversee the church, in any kind of meaningful way - without a church building?"
Any comments?
The topic centered upon how the church will operate without a permanent, central meeting place, or what we call our “church building”. Many concerns were expressed, and ideas exchanged about this. And…there have been happenings since the GC Conference to further promote the possibility of the following scenario actually occurring – in our day! Here (in quotation marks below) is what was presented as background for the much animated dialogue that followed:
“Let’s suppose that 10 years from now, we are living on the brink of total governance: that the economy has collapsed and is now being tightly controlled by the government; that most Americans are struggling financially just to survive; that speech is being tightly controlled; that all dissenting opinions are regarded as unpatriotic and subject to prosecution; that any public speech that seems to be critical of the new morality is regarded as hate speech and is subject to prosecution; that Christianity is looked upon as a renegade and unpatriotic religion; and that government is confiscating any church building they can on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Now let’s suppose that because of the new reality, most assemblies have no central meeting place and the impoverished flock is scattered over a large geographical area. The best most church members can do is assemble together in small groups in private homes.”
There are several areas of concern should the above state of affairs occur
1.How would the people of an assembly recognize the overseeing elders?
2.What would be the role of the heads of the homes where people are assembling?
3.What would be the role of elders in the home gatherings?
4.In what ways would those who are not elders participate?
5.Does each local assembly have enough elders in place now to do the work? If not, what is being done about it?
6.How would the saints be equipped for their works of ministry? What would they be equipped to do?
7.How would people operate without any elders present?
The real concern is: How will the church operate without a “church building”?
So, the question presented to start the discussion was something like this:
"How would the elders oversee the church, in any kind of meaningful way - without a church building?"
Any comments?
Views: 34
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Donnie Gillum on
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Looking forward to you sharing more!
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In our intial discussion at the GC Conference 2009, we use a time frame of "10 years from now". I wonder how our mindset is on the situation now. As for myself, I'm wondering if things have fast forwarded, or has 10 years already gone by. Does everyone feel safer now?
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