What is a church

A good friend of mine will tell you that I am asking the wrong question. My buddy would suggest that “Who is a church?” is a better way to phrase that question. I like it, but find it awkward. I wouldn’t ask “Who is a family” or “Who is a country.” It should go without saying that a church is people. We know that, but tend to act as if a church is an organization.

In its simplest form, a church is two or three people who follow Jesus. North Americans have a hard time getting this concept, because we often look at the Bible through western, modern lenses. I was always taught that the church of Jesus began on the day of Pentecost. You know… when there was a large crowd gathered, a sermon preached and a public invitation given to follow Christ.

I have grown to understand that church began when Jesus said “Come follow me…” and a couple of guys did. Jesus modeled church with his first crop of disciples. His emphasis was on growing and multiplying disciples and not gathering crowds. Now don’t get me wrong, crowds gathered but He didn’t gather them. I’ll blog more about this later, but I have an agenda….

I want plug our conference called Simple Church Planting. On November 1st, a small group of revolutionary church planters will gather to discuss church planting principles gleaned from the New Testament. We'll meet for 5 hours at Camp Joy in Apopka, FL. This is a free event including lunch. We will interact with practitioners who are old school church planters – way old school. We will talk about how to plant churches without money, public facilities, advertising and pyrotechnics. We will discuss the issues I’ve raised in this blog and we will build lasting relationships as gospel partners. You can come to this event if you Register Online before space runs out. BTW, I have confirmation that Alex McManus will get us started in the morning session with his thoughts on effective evangelism.