Organic Church Defined
I saw this simple definition at OrganicChurch. "Organic is love not legalism. Organic is faith without religion. Organic is spirituality without elitism. Organic is church without the artificial crap". The model we currently follow for conducting church is a protestant mock up of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther the founder of Protestantism was in fact a Catholic priest. Today instead of priests we have Pastors, Ministers or Reverends. It is important to know that when the Roman Emperor Constantine merged religion and politics he created a church that was unnatural. The Roman Christians / Catholics then began to steal pagan temples and turn them into churches. Before Constantine there were no church buildings the oldest ruins of a church building date back between 300 and 400AD. These so-called Christian leaders launched the crusades and even invented holidays like Christmas and Easter to compete against pagan holidays. Rome launched a campaign against the first original institutional church known today as the Eastern Orthodox Church. As politics and religion mixed the church became all the more structured and systematic in the way it conducted itself. The influence that Rome had upon the church basically turned the church into Jezebel the great whore spoken of in Revelations, even going to the extent of selling God's salvation to people called indulgences. The truth is you will not find a systematic model for conducting church in the Bible. Now we have to ask ourselves what is pure and untainted church?
Organic
Pure and Untainted Organic Church
In the Bible the church is referred to as a body with many different body parts. The Bible says specifically that the church is made out of people and not wood, steel or cinder block. It is not hard to see in the Bible from Acts through revelation a clear picture of organic church. The destruction of the original temple made of stone was prophesied by Christ Himself. On the day Christ gave up His spirit the veil of the temple representing the separation between man and God was split in two. As Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman He mentioned a period where Gods people would no longer be required to worship God in a specific place. The evidence of this was in the prophetic fulfillment of the temple being destroyed and not even one stone was left upon another. The Epistles speak of a tribulation period where labor pains would precede the birth of the church. Many Christians lost their lives as the enemy waged war against the birth of the true church of God. As Jesus promised the gates of hell would not prevail and the founding of the church was successfully implemented. The original church met inside homes. Communion was an actually meal shared in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice. In the first church the members actually participated in the meetings using their spiritual gifts to encourage the entire body of believers. The reimplementation of tithing / giving is revealed in the book of Acts when they gave to each other. If you study tithing you will learn that the people actually consumed the offerings. The true purpose of tithing was actually a way of giving back to God's people some of which were the poor, widows and orphans. The first church meetings were God's people coming together to love Him and execute tangible acts of loving and giving to encourage the other members of the body.
What has Today's Institutional Church become?
For the most part Today's Institutional Church has tried once again to confine God to a building and a system. We are guilty of rebuilding the temple that God destroyed in the form of our dead religion. Today's Institutional Church is for the most part playing the role of Jezebel the whore in selling salvation and tickling men's ears for profit. Today's Institutional Church places systems and structures over the needs of God's people by investing God's money into real estate, empty programs and payrolls. Today's Institutional Church fails to recognize the poor, the widows, and the orphans sitting in it's own pews. Even giving in Today's Institutional Church is done with the expectation that God will return the favor as if God's salvation isn't already enough. Today's Institutional Church is contaminated with marketing ploys, manipulation and the numbering of God's people. Today's Institutional Church re-crucifies our Lord by placing man and systems as a mediator between God and His own people. Today's Institutional Church is failing to develop leaders by monopolizing the power of the pulpit. Today's Institutional Church is guilty of keeping God's people as nursing babies drinking breast milk and never developing a desire for meat. Today's Institutional Church is more about an idolatrous image of power that yields no actual power behind it. Man has given into the temptation to execute power and control over the spiritual and in doing so has produce dead religion in the process. Next time you walk away from a church service you may even get a sense of what I mean by artificial and powerless religion.
In conclusion I want all who read this to become enlightened for the purpose of inner spiritual revival. I am not attempting to destroy, but rather build up and encourage God's people to take back the authority that God has given them. Christians do not have to live powerless and dependent upon dead religion. God welcomes each one of His redeemed people to boldly approach His thrown with their prayers. Through the power of Christ's cross we can obtain the strength to contribute our own spiritual gifts to impact our world. I am not attempting to stop people from attending the institutional church especially if they genuinely spiritual babies only able to digest milk. What I am saying is that in order to live a powerful and rewarding spiritual life we must learn to hunt on our own and mature to the ability to digest the meat of God's word. Meat is representative of something new from God we hunt verses milk easily obtained from the same cow. Meat is harder to chew, but far more satisfying and far more nourishing to our strength. Today's Christian tends to be dependent upon on the same cow and in drinking only milk never growing to full maturity. The Bible says that the church is capable of becoming malnourished and growth deficient. (1st Cor 3:2, 1st Cor 9:7, Heb 5:12 - 13, 1st Peter 2:2)
Ask yourself after reading this where do I stand in this equation?
What is a spiritual baby?
Where does a baby in infancy get food?
What would happen if you tried to give an infant meat?
Can a baby discern what should and should not be placed in its mouth?
Whose responsibility is it to look over a baby?
How do you treat a baby in comparison to an adult?
Do babies envy, fight and divide over foolish things?
How long will milk continue to satisfy a baby?
Do you feel spiritually dissatisfied and hungry?
Before there were grocery stores how did people obtain meat?
What do you think about when you consider the term Organic Church?
Organic Church Organic Spirituality
Author Joshua Guild
http://www.holytriage.info