The New Church At-a-Glance

Currently, the new church is a "church of the mind;" meaning, there are no walls, no elders or members, no service times--pretty much nothing is in place right now that would qualify it as a "church" in the eyes of most people. But the church does exist--as a God-infused dream in the heart and mind of my wife and I. We are both working on the hard step of turning a dream into a reality by establishing the necessary foundations (walls, piles of paperwork, purpose statements, ministry teams, etc. x10).
Many times I am asked "What kind of a church are you starting?" Because the church is only in my mind at this stage, this question can be difficult to properly answer. To help myself and others, I want to share in this blog some of the key church characteristics that are on my heart, this is the church-at-a-glance.

Church Classification

Christian-Protestant-Evangelical-Bible as the authority.
We are also an independent/nondenominational church right now. This is not our first choice, but most church organizations do not want to invest in a new ministry for Oneonta NY, due to the town not growing and Oneonta already having a church represented from each organization.

Doctrine

1. Our distinctive, to not be distinctive: Many churches stand apart from each other by believing different interpretations of the same text and building a distinct identity around that particular interpretation. I would like a different, more unifying approach: to hold tight in one hand the essentials of Christianity (the Lordship and Divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, the Bible as the inspired Word of God, the necessity of repentance and a faith commitment to Jesus, and so on.) while the other hand, I want to hold loosely the things so many churches disagree about (end time events, the application of spiritual gifts, what individual holiness looks like, the particular definitions of communion and water baptism, and so on.) Think C.S. Lewis "Mere Christianity."
2. Gospel-Centered: I want the focus of preaching/teaching on the Good News of Jesus Christ. By keeping the Gospel message central, other pet issues that can easily distract a church will not make it through.
3. Expository Preaching: The Bible will be interpreted and taught using the authors original meaning for their audience (literally or metaphorically depending on the passage), and applied with the intention of guiding the church community and individual life.
4. Kingdom Minded Ministry: God's Kingdom is both here today while simultaneously on the way. This means we will participate in the Kingdom of God by bringing the beauty of the Kingdom to earth via the lives of those around us. This will translate into less of a focus on "the Heaven to come", and more emphasis on bringing about "Heaven on Earth."
5. Worth of Every Person: every person is valued and loved by God. We are to treat people accordingly.

Worship

1. Music: mainly modern, but I do not want to get stuck on any one genre or instrumentation, so I want to encourage a variety of music types, and instruments, and even different worship bands with different styles.
2. Beyond Music: I want to teach heavily that worship saturates all parts of our life, and not just a song service. Worship is everything we do as a church: communion, giving, meditating on the Bible, and everything you do with your life, even outside the walls of the church.
3. The Lord's Supper: I would like to take communion almost every time we meet, to help us keep our focus.
4. Water Baptism: I want to encourage all believers to take the plunge as a public expression of your new faith in Jesus Christ.

What will the church look like?

1. Casual: no need for suits and dresses, come as you are and even sip some coffee during the sermon. I would also like to "de-sacredtize" physical things that I believe churches get distracted with: for example, instead of "the sanctuary," it will be "the big room," no Sunday school, no altars, I would even like to find a better alternative to the American-Sunday-morning-church-service format, a "beyond Sunday morning" if you will.
2. Preaching: I am conversational in my preaching (not old school yelling), which means I preach as if I am talking normally with you. The preaching will be heavy on the teaching of the Bible, and light on personal stories. I also love to use teaching illustrations: physical props, videos, field trips, whatever God puts on my heart to bring the point home.
3. Experimental Church: the message will be the same, but the format of church services will be always changing in order to fit the current needs of the current group and avoid religious ruts.
4. Technology: I want to make use of all the different technologies that will be helpful to our purposes.
5. Simple Church: Flashy stage shows and T.B.N. golden/flowery sets will not be on the menu. Instead I desire a church that is is simple. I of course would like things to be neat and tidy, but not to the point where you intimidate people with the magnificence of the building. I would even like to go so far as to make church more of a participation/fellowship event, and less of a come-and-watch-our-fine-tuned-stage-performance event.

Values

Each value will manifest itself in the life of the church.
1. Relationships: lots of church activities geared towards making friends with each other. With the biggest relationship focus being your relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. Community: The church will strive to genuinely care for and love each other. This will mean making sacrifices for each other and truly being a "family of God," not just a social club that meets once a week.
3. Outreach: it is from your relationship with God that you find the strength to pour yourself out to help others. I would like the church to be a giving church, to each other, to complete strangers, and to the community of Oneonta. I would like to have small teams of people regularly going and doing acts of kindness, and the church hosting/participating in several community outreach events.
4. Seeker-sensitive: this term means that the way the church presents itself will be "sensitive" to people who are "seeking" truth (but not watering-down the message). People who are "seekers" may not be convinced of Christianity, and may not even know anything about it. This translates into a lot of explanation with preaching and church rituals, I cannot assume that everybody in the audience has heard this Bible story before and even understand why we sing in church. This should make it easier to invite people to church.
5. Church Unity: we will pray for and participate with other Christian churches in the community.
6. Community Involvement: we will pray for and participate with community groups that may not be Christian but are working toward the same goals.
7. Creativity: God who is the Creator, want us to be "co-creators" with Him, in the sense of us using our God-given talents and gifts for His glory, and help bring beauty and order to His creation.
8. Engaging Culture: instead of trying to create a Christian sub-culture and harp about how bad the world is, I would like to use our time and resources to engage the culture around us with the Gospel of Christ. The church will not be a safe fortress to hide from the scary world; but rather, the church will be a headquarters to coordinate operations of love to the culture around us.
9. Non-Political: Picking a political side will take away credibility when ministering to those who are have chosen a different side. I do not want involvement in politics to hamper the work of the church.

Church Government

1. Elder-Led, Member informed: We will have elders and deacons as prescribed by the New Testament. Not boards like corporate America. The members will be informed and have benefits, but it will not be an American democracy where you have to vote on everything. Basically our church government structure we will strive to be a New Testament church, and not run like an American business.

I will fine tune this blog entry as God's fine tunes this vision. I hope this will be helpful in communicating what kind of church we will be. Right now it is only, "a church of the mind," but I am super excited about making the dream a reality!