Reality Church?

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Reality Church?

by philipedwards @ 12/03/2007 – 19:07:34

The First Stage: We begin going to a church, exciting, thrilling, love Jesus, the church is exciting, all things new.

Second Stage We begin getting involved, learn behind the scenes things, feel privileged to know the church staff and leaders more personally, we are totally excited.

Third Stage: We see things you start to question, the thrill of the big church meetings wanes, as it seems more and more predictable, the leaders seem more human now and not as special as first.

Fourth Stage: We start to get tired of serving in ministry. It seems routine now and we only see it as fueling the big meeting that we don't really like anymore. The leaders we once were in awe of now seem not only normal, but there is a suspicion of self-serving vs. serving the church in their motives. We lose excitement and wonder if church is even something we should be part of. We grow more disillusioned by the day. read the rest of the article here http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2005/08/reality_church.html

I don't accept this article as total reality, but I certainly have seen some people go through the stages the article mentions.
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- house church; stages of faith

3 Comments to Reality Church?

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- Tim Honan (Visitor)
- http://outofchurch.com
- 13/03/2007 @ 05:36:35
I have been following the posts here for some time now. I have enjoyed the even flavor of the disappointments and insights that philip has written. Being together at any level is tough. But it sounds like the home church has been abandoned as a central theme because of the disappointments in governance. As a side bar we had a dynamic group of home churchers that had left the religious institution as a group and met for almost 15 years. We ran into the same issues you mention here. At a point we felt we needed to shut down and and see what God had for us individually. That was 6 years ago. It has been a wilderness time. But very well worth it. I met with a group this weekend for the first time in those six years. What a difference! There is a place in us where we rationalize that if the thing we had doesn't work then we need to go back. But the home church thing is on the path.
But my take is that we shouldn't be afraid of the unknown
that beckons before us. God is in the desert for many of us.

Best Regards,

Tim
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- philipedwards
- 13/03/2007 @ 08:02:24
Hi Tim, I did not write the article, in fact I did'nt realise it was on my blog untill I got your comment! I thought I had saved it as a draft as I was not sure I agreed with it. I must have saved it to my blog instead of to drafts. I have referenced the article now.
I agree that House Church is a stage on the journey not the destination. So what happens next then?
- - tim honan (Visitor)
  - http://outofchurch.com/blog
  - 13/03/2007 @ 15:34:19
  Philip,
  Well that's a relief! The phrase "back to the future" came to mind reading the 10 points of reality. As far as the next stage goes, imo, I have stayed very connected with the folks that were in the home church with us, but we are trying to unravel the
  system that is within us with God's help. This takes a bit more room in terms of time and personal space. So on the outside it looks like we're disconnected but actually we're probably more connected spiritually than we have ever been. The context of how we see ourselves has changed, maturity is evident. When the group was together most of us had come directly from the church to the home group so we had a bunch of the system in us. It took some time to realize this but what do you do? Could we let a dynamic group of 30 to 50 people that had been together for almost 15 years fall apart because we saw something as abstract as "the system" in us?
  Well that's what happened. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Into the desert we went. To much to say really
  but I did take the time to write while in the bushes. Most of it is on the outofchurch.com site. But I was taken aback enough when I read that piece on reality to write to encourage you.....talk you off the ledge. But thankfully that is not the case.
  
  Best Regards,
  
  Tim
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