Skip to main content

Church Outside the Walls

I received an ebook copy of Church Outside the Walls by Raj Samuel. Raj is a house church planter who is committed to education and church unity.

Raj has written this short book, just over 100 pages, for the purpose of educating Christians back to their original purpose. But he begins his whole book with a quote by a Hindu. "Christianity has failed in the West. Christians should not try to promote their religion in other parts of the world when it has not worked here in the West."

There are so very many things wrong with thsi remark, none the least of which is the fact that Christianity did not originate in the West, so it is philosophically unsound to argue for it not to be spread farther from here. Since Christianity was begun in Jerusalem and the spread everywhere from there, we should not be so elitist in the West to assume that our successes or failures have any bearing on Christianity worldwide.

Leaving that thought for the moment, Raj spends the rest of his words taking us back to the origins of many Christian practices, including meeting in a building and using leaders to, well, lead. These, and many other practices of the American Church, are pagan in nature, according to Raj, something we've picked up from the Greeks and the Romans and John Maxwell, I would guess.

All of these take us away from a Church body that should be more effective than it is. While I agree that too many people are sitting passively on the sidelines while watching the 'pastor professionals' perform the show, I think Raj has swung the pendulum too far in the other direction.

All that being said, I think Raj provides us with some good food for thought. We should know our purposes. We should know our origins. To take some time and chew on these ideas with other believers is a great idea. Just be careful not to throw out the baby with any dirty bathwater you come across.Because Raj will have you believing that all churches that have any structure are working against the work of Christ, not for it.

I received this ebook for free from my friends at SpeakEasy. They give me books and I review them. Win-win!

You can check out the book for yourself here.
#SpeakEasyChurchOutside
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

But I Wanted It

As I've said before , I'm looking for a new place to do youth ministry. Job searching in itself can be a full time task. Unfortunately, no one is paying me to look for a job. And when you haven't had to find a job in 15 years, the whole experience can feel brand new. And nerve-wracking. And quiet. So very, very quiet. I may spend a few hours here and there sending out my resumes and writing cover letters. But the churches I'm sending my information to have their own timeline. And sometimes that timeline does not involve acknowledging my presence. Which is fine, especially if one of the churches I've applied to is reading this right now. I understand those looking for youth pastors will have their own agenda and their own timeline. But it leaves me sitting here with a deafening quiet around me. I am choosing to walk by faith through these days, picturing God working behind the scenes (always behind the scenes) and holding His voice very still, until He is re...
2 comments
Read more