Fifth Church: A Brief History

Here's the answer to someone asking about the Fifth Church concepts I'm knocking around:

I was a parish pastor for 12 years, then hopped in a borrowed Winnebago with my wife and babies and spoke in 75 cities back in 93-94, trying to figure the future of adolescent ministry, parents, and the church. At the end of that year I took another, and another, and another. A decade later I started pulling all the research, conversations and think tanks we scheduled together and

Fifth

Church

thinking began to take shape.

The concept is, in a nutshell, that the local congregation is not the first church in most people’s minds or priorities.

The heart is the first church. If you do not preach to the heart, reach to the heart, and bring hearts alive for God, nothing else will happen.

The home is the second church. Where ever two or three are gathered, there Christ is present. That sounds like the family to me. Before you spend a nickel creating artificial small group ministries at your church, take care of the small groups you already have. Homes!

The third church is an intentional extended family. Kids need multiple reinforcing voices echoing the message of the home. Elders need the young as much as the young need the elders. And parents need them both. Intergenerational small group family ministries can grow from this.

The fourth church is your friends. Small group ministries, breakfast groups, youth groups, servant groups, etc., can grow from these.

And the fifth church – the local congregation – exists to feed every church within it’s walls, and to use the strength generated within to reach outside to the sixth church – Christ in the world.

After looking at each layer of church inside the local church, the next step is to ask: “What’s the church here for?” If it is here for evangelism, then evangelism needs to be done at every level. How is your family bringing the Good News? How are you doing it with your friends.

If the church is here to serve the poor in Jesus’ name, show me on your calendar where you are doing this personally? As a family? With your adopted elders and friends?

If the church is here for education, are you taking personal devotional time every morning? Is your family setting aside a little time every night for scripture, prayer, blessing? How about with your friends?

You get the picture.

It’s a fractal. Whatever the church is here for, that function must exist at every level of the church for the church to be healthy. (The body can be no healthier than the cells.)

That’s it in a nutshell. I’m still working on the model, the systems to implement the model, and the directions it all will take.

You can read more on the Faith Inkubators website.    

 

Comments

[Richard]

Is there a 'sixth church'; when we see ourselves as part of the larger Body of Christ? What about a 'seventh'; when we see ourselves as connected to and continuing what started with Christ and the first Apostles?

I personally love the idea of the fifth church model and believe it will help christian leaders in more truly building the kingdom of God as apposed to their own ministries. Must have a closer look at it this weekend.

[Trogdor]

Dude, you nailed it.

I remember once hearing a preacher saying that we would know God better when we understood that the building is not thew church, that WE are the church.

And doesn't the Bible say that our bodies are a temple to the Holy Spirit?

Rock on man.