Jesse A. Schroeder

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Just ran across this post from Frank Viola on the Out of Ur blog. I have not read any of Viola's books, but I know he is well-respected and a great scholar. I don't want to disagree too strongly, but I had several thoughts after reading some of his statements in this particular article.

Viola's description of a "postchurch" mentality is:

"The postchurch brand of Christianity is built on the premise that institutional forms of church are ineffective, unbiblical, unworkable, and in some cases, dangerous. Institutionalization is not compatible with ekklesia. So say postchurch advocates.

But the postchurch view goes further saying, “any semblance of organization whatsoever . . . any semblance of leadership … is wrong and oppressive. Church is simply when two or three believers gather together in any format. Whenever this happens, church occurs.”

In many ways I would agree with these statements. Institutionalization leads to religion, denominationalism, and seems to run contrary to what being the body of Christ is all about. Frank does a great job critiquing the use of the verse "wherever two or three are gathered" and I fully agree with him at that point. However, he concludes that "Because this is the primary passage the postchurch viewpoint is founded on, I’m of the opinion that the position cannot stand up against the light of the New Testament."

I'm not sure what he is basing his statement that "this is the primary passage" for the postchurch viewpoint. I would argue that a comprehensive understanding of the gospel and of the body of Christ would lead a person to see many problems with the American church in it's current form. I appreciate Jason Coker's explanation of "Why Church Doesn't Work". He offers five simple points:

We work to attract people to large gatherings.

We require very little for them to join us (often we expect nothing whatsoever).

We ask them to sit passively while we provide information and entertainment.

We do our best to cater to their needs.

We attempt to motivate them to change their lives based on the information.

I have found this same formula in dozens of churches in Tennessee and Michigan, and while I haven't studied church as much as Viola, I know he agrees that the body of Christ in the typical church building on Sunday morning is struggling. Viola himself states,

"...organic church life is the "experience" of the Body of Christ. In its purest form, it's the fellowship of the Triune God brought to earth and experienced by human beings...We can think of the difference between organic churches and institutional churches this way. When God's people assemble together on the basis of the organizational principles that run General Motors and Microsoft, we call it an institutional church. But when God's people assemble together on the basis of the life of God, we call it an organic church."

As I see it, when Viola talks about an organic church that is not an institutional church, he is describing something very different from the current dominant ecclessiological paradigm. I agree with his assessment of institutional churches as more damaging than helpful, and so I am looking for followers of Christ to go beyond church, to become "postchurch." In my experience, my weekly, and sometimes daily, meeting with friends (some Christians, some not), brings me into God's life, challenges me, encourages me, and gives me a greater experience of God's life here on earth.

I would consider this an experience of "church," and I like that it is not organized, because then it is alive, flexible, moving and always responding to the real life experiences of the people involved, not following a prescribed schedule and performing irrelevant religious exercises simply to appease a board or to do what has always been done.

For now, I'm not sure how much I agree or disagree with Viola's assessment of the postchurch viewpoint, and I have not read much that uses that particular language. There seems to be some distinction between "emergent" and "house churches" although it doesn't seem to be well-defined yet.

I would argue that a postchurch perspective is one that is encouraging followers of Jesus to move beyond and out of the typical church paradigms, to recognize that church is simply an expression of our faith, but not the totality or identifying factor. As a postchurch proponent (for now?), I don't believe that church is even necessary, and can perhaps be a hindrance to Christian discipleship. Church can draw all of our attention, efforts, energies and especially finances out of the world in which we are living, and into a synthetic and "pretend" sub-culture in which Christians work really hard to feel good about being Christians.

In contrast, a postchurch, contemplative, incarnational approach would be living life to full, in the world, in the culture, and finding God every moment of the day with other Christians and non-Christians.