When I began to meet with a house church in 2005, there were a few words that kept coming up in conversation that I just didn't know what people were talking about.
Missional
Ermergent
Organic community
It has taken a few years, but I think I am finally understanding what these words mean.
Now I'm not going to say "all churches should be this way", but I will say, "This is what I believe....." and you can form your own opinion.
I do want to say, that some church people have a bad habit of finding these great buzz words and using them without taking into account that there may be those around you who don't know what you are talking about.
No matter how many times I asked what these words meant, I just couldn't understand. I'm not sure the people who were using them knew what they were about.
But the last two days, I've been thinking a lot about the church being "organic". Alive....breathing.....
Now some people may think that the church is always "alive", but my experiences in the church over the past 54 years, has taught me that this isn't always the case.
I have found that, at times, the church can actually squelch something that God is trying to bring to life, because it doesn't fit the mold they are use to. But I don't want to talk about what the church has done, I want to talk about this Living, Breathing, Organic church.
Now remember, this is how I see it. If you don't see it the same, that's fine.
I see something that is organic as something that is born of the Holy Spirit. It is something "free forming" and it doesn't fit into a mold or a box. You cannot create a model of it. It usually doesn't follow three points. It just ......IS. It is something that happens, not because you PLANNED it to happen, but because God breathed LIFE into it.
So if a church or community of Believers is organic, is it something WE can create?
I think it is something we can desire. I think it is something we can pray for. I think we can pursue it with a passion. But I'm not sure WE can make it happen.
I think we can pursue relationships and something can happen and it is organic.
I think something that is organic is moved and created by the Holy Spirit like a set of chimes is moved and the music it makes is created by the wind.
Not only are the chimes I own beautiful sounding and the music they make is from the wind, but they were made out of recycled materials by my husband. But that is another blog post...maybe in about a week.
We live in a society, culture, country that wants to see progress and perfection AND we want to see it fast. But in the real world, that is a rare thing. Progress takes time and perfection is usually disappointing, because it's never really perfect, especially when it comes to human beings. I think that's why an organic church is so hard to see. We get tired of waiting for what we "think" it should look like and begin to try to create something on our own. We usually end up with something that is NOT organic. WHY? Because we didn't let the Spirit work, we did it ourselves.
Again, these are just MY thoughts.
Some examples of organic community that I have seen are anything but perfect. WHY? Because they involve less than perfect human brings. There's a men's group that meets at our local Inn called BOB (Band OF Brothers). I'm not sure when it began to meet, and I don't even really know the guys in it, but it is a good example of organic community. It has lasted a while. There are strong relationships where these brothers are accountable to one another without being oppressive. Some churches may look at them a bit sideways and wonder about them, some of them don't "look" like your normal church goer, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to them. And it certainly doesn't matter to God, because He knows better than anyone.....their hearts.
Organic may not look or feel nice, but I believe it is REAL. It is true. It is LIFE.
So these are my thoughts on organic community. I have a lot more, but I don't have a lot of time to just sit and write. I would love to hear YOUR thoughts on organic community. What do you think?
