Why We Love The Church (Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck)

I was very happy when at I found this book at the Christian bookstore. Having just finished Pagan Christianity and having many unanswered questions I flipped through this and knew I had to buy it. This was one of the most "readable" books I've read in a long time and it is very Scripturally sound.

Praise God for Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck!

We hope you will read this book with an open mind, considering what the Bible says about the importance of the church as organism AND organization, as a community AND an institution, as a living entity with relationships AND rules. (pg 16)

According to some disgruntled Christians, the church as we know it is an unbiblical, historical accident at best and a capitulation to paganism at worst. All that we think of as “church” – sermons, buildings, pastors, liturgy, offerings, choirs, and just about anything else you want to mention – are the result of the church falling from its pristine state in the first century into the syncretistic, over-institutionalized religion that now passes for Christianity.

I think he's referring to guys like Frank Viola and George Barna... don't you?

I don’t mean the “church” that consists of three guys drinking pumpkin spiced lattes at Starbucks talking about spirituality of the Violent Femmes and why Sex and the City is really profound. I mean the local church that meets – where you want it to meet – but exults in the cross of Christ; sings songs to a holy and loving God; has church officers, good preaching, celebrates the sacraments, exercises discipline; and takes an offering. This is the church that combines freedom and form in corporate worship, has old people and young, artsy types and NASCAR junkies, seekers and stalwarts, and probably has bulletins and by-laws. (pg 19)

When I read this last part I smiled. I was only 19 pages in but I was loving it! Then DeYoung and Kluck come out swinging with the book clearly in sight.

Pagan Christianity, like most restorationist literature, is full of historical hubris... Isn’t it a bit sweeping to declare that “everything that is done in our contemporary churches has no basis in the Bible”? (pg 117)

The arguments in Pagan Christianity are grossly overstated. On several occasions as I read Viola’s claims I thought, “You would be fine if you stopped right now and made the point that these things [pulpits, stained glass, robes, etc.] don’t have to be in the church, but then you go and try to prove that they can’t.” There may be Christians who think church can’t exist without pews. For them, Viola’s book may be a needed antidote. But just because pews come later in the church’s history, or even if pagans used them first, doesn’t make them unchristian. If you don’t like pews, fine. But they’re just benches. Can we not have hinges on our church doors if a nonChristian invented them? (pg 118)

It's a good point. Can we not have hinges on our church doors if a nonChristian invented them. :)

Viola makes some valid points. Christians can be obsessed with buildings, wasting lots of time and money on overexpanding facilities. We do sometimes equate a building with the church, when the people are what matter... I don’t think the ground is any holier inside the church than out. So I’m happy for Viola and others to correct mistaken notions some people may have about the importance of church buildings. BUT Viola overstates his case. He makes too much of the fact that early Christians met in homes... The Christians met in homes for 300 years because their faith was illegal. They didn’t have anywhere else to meet, which is why buildings starting popping up after Constantine decriminalized Christianity. A Roman house, especially with the courtyard, could be quite spacious, allowing for up to 100 people in attendance. So “house church” doesn’t necessarily mean small group Bible study. Moreover, the early Christians did not gather exclusively in homes. In Acts we see that they also met in Solomon’s Portico (Acts 5:12), still went to synagogues (Acts 3:1) and occasionally rented lecture halls, like the hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus (Acts 19:9).... Here’s the bottom line: The whole conversation about church buildings is much ado about nothing. You have to meet somewhere. (pg 121)

Viola is right to quote John Newton when he said “Let not him who worships under steeple condemn him who worships under a chimney”. But should not the reverse also be true? Let not him who worships on couches in the living room condemn him who worships with pews, pulpits, stained glass and a fellowship hall. (pg 122)

Next they tackle the topic of church membership and "churchless Christianity".

Without church membership there’s not place for the important role of church discipline. – pg 162

Churchless Christianity makes about as much sense as a Christless church, and has just as much biblical warrant. John Stott’s assessment of evangelism in the book of Acts is right: The Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save them without adding them to the church. Salvation and church membership went together; they still do.” – pg 164

And before closing the topic of leaders and sermons is addressed:

The Bible simply does not teach a leaderless church. Instead we see the apostles exercising great authority over the churches (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:1-4). We have pastors commanded to “exhort and rebuke with all authority” (Titus 2:15; see also 2 Tim. 4:2). We see elder rule (Acts 14:23; 15:2; 20:17; 1 Tim. 3:1-7; 5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 1:1; 5:1), accompanied by the office of deacon to care for the physical needs of the congregation (1 Tim. 3:8-13; Phil. 1:1; see also Acts 6:1-7). To be sure, elders are not to domineer over those in their charge, but they still must exercise oversight (1 Peter 5:2-3), and those in the congregation should “obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Heb. 13:17). - pg 168

Today’s sermon, according to Frank Viola, has “no root in Scripture,” was “borrowed from pagan culture”, and “detracts from the very purpose for which God designed the church gathering.”... [But] the sermon was not stolen from the pagans. It came from Judaism, which developed and refined the practice of exegesis and expositional preaching in the centuries leading up to Christ... The Levites were to teach Israel the law (Deut. 33:10). The true priest was not just a butcher but a teaching priest (2 Chron. 15:3). Ezra read the law to the returning exiles, “giving them the sense of it” (Neh 8:6-8). And we see the same development in the New Testament. We know John the Baptist preached and Jesus preached. We know Paul preached and instructed his apprentice Timothy, with the most solemn warning, to also preach (2 Tim. 4:1-2). Even Jesus Himself, we should remember was a trainer of preachers, sending His disciples out not just to facilitate group discussions but to preach (Mark 3:14). – pg 174

On the last page of the book they write something that was very encouraging to me and I hope it is to you.

Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me... So I guess this is my final advice: Find a good local church, get involved, become a member, stay there for the long haul. Put away thoughts of revolution for a while and join the plodding visionaries. Go to church this Sunday and worship there in spirit and truth, be patient with your leaders, rejoice when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, bear with those who hurt you, and give people the benefit of the doubt. While you are there, sing like you mean it, say hi to the teenager no one notices, welcome the blue hairs and the nose-ringed, volunteer for the nursery once in a while. And yes, bring your fried chicken to the potluck like everyone else, invite a friend to church, take the new couple out for coffee, give to the Christmas offering, be thankful someone vacuumed the carpet, enjoy the Sundays that click for you and pray extra hard on the Sundays that don’t. – pg 237