Frank Viola, Re-imagining Church, chapter 6

This Chapter was one where I had differing views from Viola. There is no doubt that if you have unity you have to have something very basic in common. Thus common unity, in other words “community.” This comminality for Viola is “If God has accepted you you belong to the Church”. (I think Viola has shown us his reformed spots here)

I would think there are two main points for Church unity.

That a members are on a Journey towards Jesus. That some would have crossed the line, that Jesus is there saviour and others not. What is important is the direction that members of the community are travelling. Towards Jesus? This comes from social set theory.

The sticking point for me is, does God desire a relationship with those outside the church as those within?  We end up with a type of dualism when God loves those inside the church more than those outside. 

The other aspect which is essential for church unity and Jesus spoke of it at the last supper a number of times is that his followers “love one another”. You will always find something which you will disagree with someone else. What is important is that  you can still love them despite differences.

I felt that the ‘Reformed’ angle, let this chapter down. The line  ”To receive unbelievers as family member is to turn the church into something earthy and human”. Viola used a number of scriptures to support this, which he never elaborated on, but I’ll do that now.

 1 Cor 5:6 : immorality of one who was in there group

Gal 2:4: Spies entered there group

2 Tim 3:6 non-Christians take advantage of Christian women

2 Peter 2:1 : false prophets

Jude 4, 12 : Infultators at the meeting. 

I’m not sure these were the best scriptures to make the above point. What I would say in regards to church unity with those scripture  examples are, the  characters are not heading towards Jesus, the characters are not loving one another.

I was surprised that “love” was not given a greater prominence within a chapter on “Unity”.

Frank Viola Re-imagining Church, Chapter 4

This chapter is basically about house Church. Anything other than a house church for the New Testament Christians ‘ would have been looked upon as being out of the ordinary.’ Viola supports this argument pretty well. I’m not sure that this could disputed biblically, other than to say that some evangelism, debate occurred in the Jewish synagogue. That certainly for the messianic Jews part of the culture of Judaism certainly involved regular attendance to the synagogue.

A point to consider which I don’t think Viola addressed is- Just because some modern Churches have turned something large 50+ into megadom does this make it wrong? I don’t think so, so long as the elements that you get in a ‘house church’ are addressed. I’ve had one discussion from a person who went to a ‘large church’ yet described his home group as ‘his church’ and the Sunday gather as an adjunct to that. I liked that.

Frank Viola, Re-imagining Church, chapter 3

I’ve been side tracked with other books, so this review has suffered….

The basic premise in this chapter is that the Lord’s supper was actually taken as a meal. That the church has in many ways has taken many of the meanings and metaphors away from the Lords supper when it is not been taken and eaten in a more literal sense.

I suppose what I reflected upon was that the meal was intimate between believers. Most churches which I have been involved with, there communion has been based around an intamicy between God and the participants, but not neccessarily with other communicants. In actually sharing a meal this has a greater scope for happening. Through sharing and dialogue, there is greater chance of understanding and interacting in the Lords supper.

The question then arises especially for larger church is it actually possible to have an intimate communion where in the process everyone is able to express some of the amazingness of the Lords supper and through this worship God? I think it probably could happen, but it would for many almost seem contrived. Thus I think for the larger church the dynamics which Viola talked about would probably work best in the ’small group’

Some good stuff for reflection in the chapter, I pretty much agreed with it.

Frank Viola, Re-Imagining Church chapter 1

This is a repost from the Ranges Blog, which I will be continuing here

So this book from what I’ve read is welcomed and more positive than Franks previous toxic book ‘Pagan Christianity’. I’ve tackled the first chapter and thought it was good, so I’m going to attempt to summaries each chapter….

Pursuing the dream of organic Christianity, Frank Viola

1) Reimagining the Church as an Organism

I was really pleased that the books main assumptions are based on the Trinity. That the Church is built in the image of the Triune God. That in that relationship is the dance between the Father Son and Holy Spirit. That relationship is one of the key elements for the Church. I was pretty impressed that Frank quoted Kevin Giles for a lot of this section. Kevin is an Australian theologian. (I think we have a book of his on subordination within the Trinity). Viola argues that the Spirit of mutual relationship within the Trinity has been usurped in the modern Church.

Command -style relationships, hierarchy, passives spectatorship, one upmanship, religious programs, etc were created by fallen humans. And they run contrary to the DNA of the triuene God as well as the DNA of the Church…’

Viola then looks at four Paradigms for Church restoration.

Biblical Blueprintism, Cultural Adaptability, Postchurch Christianity and then finally Organic Expression. The Last Organic Expression is what Viola hangs this book on.

Naked Pastor attends the Frank Viola conference

I was interested to read on Naked Pastor's blog, his thoughts on the Frank Viola conference which he attended. I was especially interested in his thoughts regarding the parallels to the Vineyard Movement.

Viola says that he has been outside of the institutional church for over 20 years. But the problems that he admits so beset the house-church movement sound remarkably similar to what, say, my denomination, the Vineyard movement, presently struggles with. The issues of theology, purity, passion, mission, power and authority, money, commitment, isolation versus networking and clustering, are identical. We are all talking about the same old solutions to the same old problems.

Im glad that the Vineyard movement has moved on from this stuff a bit. That for us in the Vineyard Catalyst network there is the ability to do House church stuff, that Frank Viola talks about.

I'll be continuing my look at Frank Viola's book Reimagining Church on this blog and I'll drag some of my previous posts of the ranges blog across as well.