I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately (well, kinda the last 28 years or so!) about that increasingly elusive word/concept/idea/thing – “Church”. It seems that whenever I’m in a conversation about the emerging church, youth ministry, or the like, we get to the point where we are trying to define “church”. There is even a website called “What is Church?”

I think there is a general agreement that church as it is presently done in the US/Western world is not working. However, we seem to be at a bit of an impasse as to what “church” really is. It is almost as if we assume that if we could just get a coherent, universal, agreed-upon definition of this weird thing called “church” then everything would be ok and we could fix what’s broken.

Here are a few thoughts:

1) The idea that we could conclusively define “church” (even if we base it on the NT, church history, cultural-context, or Spirit-inspiration) is considerably modernistic and, not to mention, impossible. So I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to “nail down” a definition that will last for all eternity. It’s good to debate and question, “What is church”, but we should be careful of universalizing our conclusions.

2) Without a doubt our ecclesiology is changing. We’ve moved away/out from Christendom and we shouldn’t try to return or function as if we were still there.

3) Because of this there are various new ecclesiologies that are being offered as the new way – Missional church (ala Lesslie Newbigin), Liquid Church (ala Pete Ward, Zygmunt Bauman), Emerging church (ala Dan Kimball), House/Organic/Simple church (ala Paul Kaak, Neil Cole), Seeker-sensitive church (Bill Hybels, Rick Warren), Ancient-Future church (ala Robert Webber). There are others and there is, of course, lots of overlap between these examples. I take all these experiments as good (even Seeker-sensitive – though it seems, to me, to have the most flaws) and helpful as we try to re-define “church” for the 21st century.

4) I hope we don’t codify any of these expressions as the God-ordained ONLY way to be church. Hopefully we can speak to one another across platforms and recognize benefits and correctives in each new expression of church.

5) I’m also interested in exploring/learning about Bonhoeffer’s idea of Religonless Christianity and the idea of Churchless Christianity. Is that where Liquid Church is coming from?

But at the same time, I must admit, I feel a bit like I’m swimming in a vast sea of uncertainty! I want a bit more cohesion in my own ecclesiology, not a fixed foundation (is that heretical!?), but a life-boat at least that I can rest in and move forward with. What am I trying to say – - I think we’re making some good strides to re-define church but there seems to be a lot of confusion around as well. Some of that confusion (maybe that’s really not the best word- I’m shooting for a muddy water idea) is because of clinging to the past, some from jumping on the latest bandwagon, and some from just a lack of creativity and Spirit-sensitivity. I’m concerned about efforts to narrowly define church as much as I am about defining it so broadly that it has no meaning. I’m glad God’s in control, cause we would just make a big mess of the whole deal!