A New Look and a Simple Church Video
orgive me for changing the look of this blog so soon into my new life here on this WordPress format. I hadn’t taken a huge amount of time to look through available themes (aka templates) before launching the new home for the blog, but now I’ve found some that I really like, and this is one of them! I’m exploring the option of letting you, the reader, switch between different templates so you can view this site in whichever template pleases you the most, but for now, I’m still holding the keys to the layout and design! 
I anticipate writing some of my own thoughts on the recent discussion about orthodoxy (aka “sound doctrine”) very shortly. Let me say that the discussion has been so wonderful, I’m almost giddy with excitement over this! It’s great to have several different viewpoints represented, and I hope that we’re all growing and thinking through this process. Thank you to all of you who have already contributed.
A tangential discussion to all of this is the concept of “simple church”. As most of you know, this blog deals with different theological discussions, but the emphasis is usually on something related to simple church. (If you’re not really familiar with some of my thoughts on simple church, read part 1 and part 2 of a short series I did called “What Is Simple Church?” in the middle of last year.)
Today, I saw a video on Jonathan Grubbs’ blog. The video is produced by House2House and Karis Publishing. The video, which is ten minutes long, is a compilation of soundbites from various church planters and simple church advocates. I would strongly encourage each of you to take ten minutes to go watch the video. Once you’ve seen it, I would like to get your thoughts on some of the things that are said in that video.
Until next time,
steve
September 24th, 2006 16:33
I like the new lookVery clean … with tabs no less … how original … but annoying to have to enter two different anti-spam words before I could Post - do you really get that mmuch spam?
September 24th, 2006 17:21
Kansas Bob, Thanks for the comment. I’m working on trying to figure out how to remove the anti-spam word from the first page. The reality is, this is two plugins competing with each other in WordPress!
You can actually skip the first anti-spam word, though, and just wait until you are ready to actually submit your comment (”post” instead of “preview”) to enter whatever anti-spam word is there.
I’ll hopefully have this resolved before too, too long. Thanks for reading.
steve
September 28th, 2006 00:14
Steve,
Thank you for the link to the “simple church” video. Since I do not know many of the people in the video (I have read Simson and have heard of the Dales), I was hoping you could answer a question for me. Please understand, I am not making a judgment, just asking a question based on an observation. Most of the people in the video are in favor of leaving the “institutional” church. Why do you think that they still associate themselves with “institutions”? (i.e. Almost all of the speakers in the videos were listed along with their “ministry.”)
Thanks,
Alan
September 28th, 2006 08:10
Alan, that’s a great question. I chuckled as I read it because many times I ask myself the same question! Like you, I was not familiar with many of the people in the video. I think Wolfgang Simson and Neil Cole were the only ones I was familiar with, and I had never even heard of some of these organizations. So I can’t speak for them, but I will give you my take on it based on my own thoughts.
“Institution”, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. I think that there are legitimate reasons for people to form an “institution” in order to facilitate a particular work. So, for example, the people in these videos are part of ministries that have boards of directors, corporate offices, constitutions and bylaws, etc. I don’t have a problem with that in and of itself.
However, when it comes to the actual outworking of the Body of Christ, I am of the opinion that the institution gets in the way. It creates barriers, artificial separations, false senses of security, etc. etc.
What are your thoughts, Alan? I know that you have explored many of the same thoughts on your blog, but are there areas of this that you could help me see another perspective? I so appreciate your blog and the biblical studies you have been doing (it’s very refreshing to see someone who is just coming out of seminary and yet already is asking some tough questions of the institutional church), and look forward to hearing more from you on these topics.
steve