Today my heart and my prayers are with my friends as we launch our new organic church, Ordinary CC. (I am working as I do every Sunday.)

Odd choice of name, perhaps, but when we were trying to come up with a name that fit who we are and what we hoped to accomplish, we kept coming back to this word – ordinary.

We are ordinary people – just like the first disciples called to follow Jesus.

We long to return to what church is supposed to be about and who church is supposed to be for. We recognize that we have gotten sidetracked, and as one friend so succinctly put it at the beginning of the pandemic, “COVID is apocalyptic in that it brought to light the problems that were already there.”

We are ordinary people who have experienced church hurt and trauma, but who choose to be part of the solution rather than the problem. We are people who recognize that the problem stems not from God, but from ordinary men and women who simply lost sight of who they are in Christ.

We are ordinary people serving an extraordinary God.

Anyway, last week I shared my frustration about division in Christianity.

I would like to say that I have an obvious solution, but if it were so obvious, I would imagine it would have been accomplished by now. As I said, this is not a new problem.

I do, think, however, that we can change course for the better if we are, in fact, willing to put forth the effort.

It goes back to the issue of relationships and the fact that it is much more difficult to be critical of someone you actually know and talk with face-to-face.

I go back time and time again to my own failed marriage. I made the comment recently that I am resigned to the fact that I will most likely remain single for the rest of my life. I was given the customary reply about how it is often when we quit looking that love finds us.

I quickly retorted that, although true for some, not everyone finds happily-ever-after and there is nothing wrong with that. I am an oddity. Most people do not go as long as I have without dating regardless of their intent to never remarry.

I have been divorced since 2010 and have never gotten back into that dating pool (with one near exception) nor do I have any intention of so much as sticking a toe in the water. Some people are fine and dandy being and remaining single. I am one of those oddities.

Maybe that will change one day, but I am perfectly content if it never does. I have said many times that if God intends for me to marry again, He will have to drop that man into my lap because this girl is not out hunting.

There is a point. I promise!

As messed up and broken as Brad and I were, we did love each other. I often wonder what would have happened if the two of us had been able to look at each other, talk openly and honestly about our thoughts and feelings, and been capable of truly listening and hearing one another in a loving manner. Would he still be alive? Would our marriage have survived?

The man Brad was and the woman I was when we were together were absolutely incapable of such vulnerable communication. That is why it was so easy for us to unintentionally hurt one another.

It’s too late for us, but I have learned a lot since then – namely – how social media, texting, and email are poor substitutes for face-to-face dialogue.

So, what does this have to do with the church and Christianity?

When I was recently faced with a choice of which church to pledge my allegiance to, whether the church I had been attending for the past 1-2 years or the start-up I had been helping to launch, the ultimate decision came down to money – tithing. Although I participated with both churches and cared deeply for my friends in both places, I could not afford to tithe twice (which is something I attempted to do for a while).

The bottom line, I could not justify tithing to keep a building over keeping a kingdom afloat. An organic church does not have an established building which means no high overhead for things such as a mortgage, electricity, etc. This means more money is free to pour back into the community.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a building, per se. I mean, I look at places like CBC (Community Bible Church) who have a huge overhead, but still manage to give millions back to the community. But I’m talking small potatoes. I’m talking pennies. Think of the woman who gave out of her poverty – not the man who gave out of his wealth.

I’m talking seeing the bigger picture in my little bubble of the world – and my options.

For a while now, I have struggled with church as is – COVID and my studies surrounding the changing tide of worship – shifted my thinking. It was best described to me with what is called the centered and bounded church model.

In the bounded set, the church is the center of everything. Think “build it and they will come.” Everything revolves around the building.

In contrast, the centered model extends out. The center is not a building, but the mission – Jesus Christ.

In previous generations, a church was the center of the town. I often think of my grandparent’s house in Nebraska – small farming community – brick-paved streets – church steeple visible for miles. The church bells ringing every fifteen minutes with ear-splitting sirens announcing mealtime for the farmers in the field. I love that town, but that model no longer works for most of the world.

Today, especially in cities as big as San Antonio, the bounded set cannot work. The church will die if it does not extend beyond the brick and mortar.

Actually, the churches relying on the outdated bounded set are dying, even in rural Nebraskan towns. The Priest there now has to cover multiple parishes in multiple cities instead of devoting all of his time to one parish.

The new organic church I am affiliated with will eventually purchase a brick-and-mortar building if they continue to thrive. I would prefer, however, to do no such thing.

I would rather return to church as done in the beginning of Christianity. They owned no buildings – no towering cathedrals. They met in people’s homes.

What if we designed homes to accommodate larger gatherings like this? What if we brought back more home churches? We could pour more of our tithes of money and time into the community to serve others the way we were called to serve without worrying about keeping the lights on.

Now, I know that a lot of the successful big churches like CBC promote small groups. That is the whole concept. Again, I’m talking about my little bubble.

Whether small groups from big churches or small churches confined to meeting in homes – that, I believe, is the key to eliminating division.

How? You may ask?

Again, by taking our cues from the first Christian churches – before they were called Christian.

No labels – only one in Christ.

In those early churches, there were no social divisions. That was mind-blowing back then. Rich and poor – male and female – master and slave – Roman and peasant. Crazy! Unheard of! Behavior that could quite literally get you ostracized or killed.

The equivalent today would be gathering together for a shared meal and fellowship and worship of:

A conservative heterosexual white male

A transvestite

A Trump supporter who scaled the White House walls on January 6

A Bernie Sanders campaign manager

An abortion doctor

A Pro Life activist

A sex offender

and a rape survivor.

Get the picture?

Could you imagine these people in a room together? Sharing a meal? Laughing together? Singing? Praying? Worshipping? Loving together?

Could you imagine them building a community together?

But that is exactly what the early church did. They found forgiveness and healing and love in a single common denominator – Jesus Christ.

And that, my friends, is how the Christian church exploded.

And that, my friends, is the only way it will ever reignite.

But that kind of thing will not just happen. No spontaneous spiritual combustion.

Church like that takes intentionality.

Church like that takes a desire for something greater.

Church like that takes a willingness to walk away from the brick-and-mortar idea of what church looks like and what it’s supposed to be.

Structures like my grandparent’s church are gorgeous but they are not sustainable – not as a movement – not anymore.

That’s not to say that church cannot still happen here:

But what if church also happened here?

Or even here?

Or here?

Or here?

Can you imagine?

I can.

One day, I hope to do more than imagine.

One day, I hope all of us who claim to be Christian can do more than imagine.